Realizing what I want, Finn takes over, his strong fingers finding and stroking my clit as I clench down on him with my inner muscles.
Curses and praises spill from his mouth, but his touch doesn’t let up, and soon, I’m curling into him, my body shivering with a release even better than the ones he helped me with last night. Because this time, the wordlovefloats in the air around us.
“Isla,” he moans my name, his voice torn with it.
I plan to hear myself referred to in this manner many more times over the course of my life.
We have years to make up for, the ones when I naively believed I knew the will of the gods.
My mate and I sit, curled around each other, bodies heaving with gulping breaths that soon turn into giddy laughs.
“Your knees are going to give us away.” Finn points out as he glances down to where I brace them in the dead leaves, no doubt smashing dirt into my skin even now.
“My skirt is long enough to hide them. But you’ll have to hide your butt. Your shorts are a mess. I rode you hard.”
He skips a breath at that and then smashes his mouth into mine, plundering a deep kiss I’m happy to have stolen.
Eventually, we convince each other that this is not the last, but instead a continuation of many intimate times together. Only then do we rise off the ground, doing our best to wipe away debris before walking hand in hand back to the house.
Where we discover an interesting scene.
“I need one that is mostly gray with just a small bit of blue in the corner,” my mother announces.
“Here. Try this one.” Mr. Hammond passes a puzzle piece across the table, where a partly finished picture of the Hoover Dam is spread.
“Mimosas are ready!” Finn’s grandmother strolls in from the kitchen, a pitcher in her hands.
“Fantastic.” My father stands from his chair, accepting a glass from her and holding it steady as she pours. “I’ve never had a morning cocktail, come to think of it. But I do like orange juice. And champagne.” He takes a deep sip and then catches sight of us. “Isla and Finn are back. Did you two have a productive talk?”
Words remain just out of my reach as I attempt to understand the sight before me, where my parents are easily mingling with humans. This is what I wanted, but I half-expected to return and find they’d retreated to my car and locked the doors to maintain a safe barrier.
“We did.” Finn raises my hand to his mouth to press a kiss to my knuckles.
“Oh good. It seems I was right.” My mother nods to herself, attention still on the Hoover Dam.
That truly throws me off-balance. “What do you mean byyou were right? It’s not as if you knew I’d been in love with Finn for years. I barely ever admitted it to myself.” In fact, I’m perturbed at her tone after tying myself in knots about how to convey this to them.
“You drew a heart around his picture in your yearbook. All four years.” My mother could not sound less surprised with this situation as she examines pieces of the puzzle.
“You did?” Finn gives me a smirky grin I will likely have to kiss off his face.
“That’s not proof of anything. I also circled Owen’s picture.”
“Only in the last two yearbooks,” my father offers after another sip of his drink. “And you drew a square around him. In black marker.”
“We thought you might be intending to harm him in some way. A blacklist maybe,” Mama adds.
I find myself extremely miffed with this turn of events. “I did that because I thought Owen and I were meant to be together,” I growl, knowing this is not a battle I have any reason to be fighting. “And because ourfamiliesare similar,” I say carefully, aware that Finn’s grandparents are still in the dark about the magical creatures that live in Folk Haven.
Both my parents glance at me then, matching scowls on their faces.
“You and Owen MacNamara? Oh no. That would never do,” my mother chides.
“He’s too wild. Only follows the rules he likes. No. We prefer Finn.” My dad raises his glass to my human, who seems to be fighting off a terrible coughing fit.
But then I see the grin grow wider and realize Finn is struggling not to laugh.
“Since when?” I press, unable to move past my parents’ sudden acceptance of humans.
