From Winter's Ashes: Girl Next Door Crime Romance Series - Book Two (21 page)

“No, please. Stop.
” Bathed in moonlight, her slim form thrashed beneath the covers. “
Don’t
.” Having released him from his own sleeping torment, the whimpering cry had propelled him to action. Many who suffered night terrors woke with no recollection of the nightmare. Finn knew that wasn’t the case for either of them.

He knelt on the empty side of the bed. With a hand that still trembled from visions of fire and agony, he rubbed her arm. “Joselyn.”

“
No
!” Her panic spiked.

“Joss, it’s Finn. Wake up.” With a bit more force, he shook her.

Without warning, she jolted up, her arms flailing, her breaths racing near hysteria. She lunged at him. It was too dark to fully prepare himself—and the last thing he wanted to do was scare or hurt her—but her arms swung frantically in the shadows until the flat of her palm connected with his cheek. Then fingernails raked over his neck. A hank of hair was ripped from the root. Swipes of her fists became glancing blows he struggled to restrain.

Though he had stars in his eyes—and not the good kind—he managed to pin her arms down and shake her one last time. “Joselyn, wake up!”

Chapter 27

Joselyn Whyte

“Finn?” Joselyn ripped her arms loose from his biting grip and flipped on the bedside lamp. The scarce illumination wasn’t much more than a night light, but it brought everything into focus—her nightmare, her tingling palm, her safety. She exhaled the panic screaming in her lungs.

And when she saw his face, so sweet and caring—despite her crazed and misplaced abuse—and disarmingly handsome with the soft pour of moonlight draping over him from the window, she had no choice. Okay, maybe she had a choice. What she lacked in this instance was control.

She launched into his arms. Again. This time for entirely different reasons. He adjusted against the impact to keep them from toppling over, and she burrowed her face into the warm pocket of his neck, breathed in soap and spice and comfort. Helpless to the need that was all-consuming, she parted her lips to taste him.

With a catch of his breath, he nudged her with his chin and then let his lips do the talking. Slow, hungry wordlessness from behind her ear, over her jaw, across her cheek …

He pulled her onto his lap, and she wrapped her legs around him, turning his lips to align like the stars that must be shining down on this bit of madness as he kissed the living daylights out of her.

Sinking one hand into her hair, and the other at the base of her spine, he used the strength of his arms to stitch them together in a seamless fit. His wild and sure ministrations scattered the last bit of sense in her head. It was too much. And not nearly enough. So she dove in, abandoning herself in the kiss that filled her love-starved heart to overflowing.
Finn
.

She must have moaned his name into the kiss because he returned the sentiment, revving her to the redline. Her heart took off, a frenzy of tangled emotions shook and trembled from within like a dismantling rocket fighting for orbit. She changed the angle to further deepen the kiss, a searing frisson of electric heat setting her blood on fire at his eager response. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Was she frightened or elated, she didn’t know? Driven by a mindless instinct, she could do nothing but rub shamelessly against him, practically begging to drown in his bewitching kiss.

He didn’t disappoint. His warmth seeped into every pore on her skin, freeing her from her frozen wasteland. Nothing had ever felt like this. Nothing.

The truth of that fact was so dizzying her head started to spin, and she felt the room tilt around them. Some sort of logic suggested that the earth-moving kiss might not be solely responsible for the vertigo. But she didn’t want to stop. Didn’t care to breathe anything but the air she drew from his lungs. This was happening. After all this time. And she couldn’t … she couldn’t …

She pried her lips away, surrendering to the nauseating effects of the concussion. An excuse. A safe one. And though she was now sitting on the bed next to him, she could still feel his body heat lingering on every inch of her skin beneath her pajamas.

She was still breathless when she spoke. “You
really
have to stop rescuing me.”

His chest heaved in sync with hers, and the dazed look on his face melted into a wicked grin. “I’m finding I have new motivation.”

“I’m serious.” She couldn’t help but smile, contradicting her words.

“Well somebody’s gotta do it. And if this is the reward, it better not be anyone but me.”

Without thinking, she reached out and touched his cheek. “I’m sorry I hit you again. You’re always sneaking up on me.”
Drat, must stop touching him!

She tried to draw back, but he caught her hand and pressed each of her fingertips to his lips.

Oh my.
“W-Why are you in my be—my room?”

“Doctor’s orders. I need to rouse you to consciousness every couple of hours.”

“Hmm, you just prescribed yourself into my bed. Pretty crafty, Carson. Unfortunately, I think your medication gave me a fever.”

Still in possession of her hand, he tugged her forward, his eyes smoldering. “I can help you with that.”

She managed to pull her hand back and stay several inches away—baffled by how it was both too close and too far at the same time. “How, by setting the sheets on fire?”

He wagged his eyebrows in response. And while the thought of “burning up the sheets” should have given her a hellish flashback to her burning bedroom, she instead flashed forward to a different kind of burn entirely. A heat she knew she couldn’t stand. For several reasons.

She delicately cleared her throat and went for a diversion. “But really, you need to stop taking care of me. A girl could get used to this, and then what?”

“I’d think you’d be plenty used to being waited on by now.”

Burn
. And there it was—his opinion of her. It still hadn’t changed. “You don’t know me as well as you think.” She crossed her arms.

“I know your daddy already sent over a shiny new Mercedes Benz G-Class SUV. Keys were on the counter, and the in-your-face pretentious tank was on display outside when I got here last night. Couldn’t be all that tough having everything handed over on a silver platter.”

After the smack had landed, his face went slack, like he couldn’t believe his mouth had dumped out his thoughtless words without permission.

But that didn’t ease the sting, much. And she was tempted to slap him all over again and return the favor.

Finn was a jerk. And a player. How could she keep forgetting? A heated look from those drowning eyes, a hard physique, a skilled tongue, and a morsel of attention, and she’d fallen like every other vapid little hose hussy. Or was it badge bunny?
Gah!
Either way, she was disgusted with herself.

“I couldn’t care less about the stupid car—you know what? Forget it. I refuse to sit here and justify myself to you when you certainly never did that for me. I don’t know what I was thinking. Temporary insanity. But your mind is obviously made up, so go ahead and show yourself out.” She flung her hand toward the door, but he caught it again and firmly cradled it in both of his.

“Prove me wrong.” His eyes pleaded—daring her to spill it all. As if he concocted this whole ruse in her moment of weakness to wheedle out the missing pieces of the puzzle.

Fury boiled below the surface, ready to erupt and leave him a pile of ashes. Tugging at her captive hand, she attempted to clear the mess he seemed to make of her senses with a simple touch.

But he was way ahead of her. Keeping a stern grip with one hand, he used the other to tuck away a rebellious clump of hair behind her ear. Trapping her face with his palm, holding her gaze hostage, the rough pad of his thumb skimming her cheek, tracing tantalizing circles of unwelcome desire on her skin.

Shuddering from his touch, her anger simmered. And then feeling easily manipulated, it fired back up again and she jerked back.

She thought better of defending herself and giving him exactly what he wanted, but before she could boot him from her room, her lips started unloading against her will.

“You wanna know about my life, Mr. Perfect? Fine. Yia-Yia raised me. I grew up in that house that burned to the ground. My father decided he wanted nothing to do with me after we both watched my mother die. I saw him maybe once a year around Christmastime.

“And when I was about twelve, Yia-Yia started forgetting things. How to work the stove. Where she’d parked at the mall. She’d walk down the street and forget her way home. So I’d spend hours searching the dark streets by myself to find her sitting by the tracks, watching the trains roll through the station. That’s when my childhood ended and I started taking care of her full time, which was better than any alterative.

“I was in high school by the time my father finally caught on to my living situation. He tore me away from the only home I’d ever known and locked me up in his cold, isolated castle. Now that I’m older and less of a burden he
uses
me as political ammunition in whatever ‘happy family’ farce he’s cooked up for the media. I’m a trophy daughter. The extent of his ‘generosity’ with these over-the-top cars and gifts I couldn’t care less about is more about power than about affection of any kind. And there isn’t a luxury in the world he could buy with his billions that he could barter for pain of his abandonment.”

Fueled by the angry rush, she jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “So you think my life is easy because my father has a bunch of money in a trust for me somewhere. I don’t care. I don’t want it. It feels like blood money, for all it cost me. I make my own living—made plenty of money all on my own. Bought Yia-Yia’s house and have been working ever since to get her the help she needs.

“The only money I have touched from my inheritance was used to fund the rest of the nursing home she lives in that I couldn’t afford on my own. So get over yourself.
You
are the spoiled brat as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never had a family, or a childhood, or anything that really matters. And the last thing I need is a lecture from some arrogant playboy who gets everything he wants and has never known my kind of loss.”

Tears burned her eyes, and she wished she could pull back every one of those words when she saw shock and pity in the eyes of the man she loved.

Yes, she loved him.

She supposed she always had—from that very first moment. But that was her problem—on top of everything else—she was stupid. An idiot, really. To let herself love someone she could never have. Their past was too tainted to overcome, and yet here she was—a fool—kissing and falling back in love with her enemy.

Good grief, Joselyn, will you ever learn?

The emotion swimming in Finn’s eyes was too confusing. Everything about him was confusing.

Loving him at the top of that list.

So she resorted to staying angry. It was her only hope for getting out of this alive.

“There you have it, hotshot. I even left out some of the more gory details for your peace of mind. Now leave me alone.” The last word caught on a poorly stifled sob. Oh, if only the earth would open and swallow her whole. She was so weak. She’d let him past the barricade of her heart, past the emotionless mask and the placating niceties.

Tears, so many stupid tears escaped from the purge of her
stupid
confession, so she shoved him. She was already stupid, might as well tack on irrational and impulsive to make a miserable trifecta. It was sheer torture being all exposed—letting him view the tragic wreckage of her life like some drive-by gawker.

Even more painful was seeing him so distraught that he couldn’t even speak. It made her long to comfort
him.
Crawl back onto his lap and kiss away
his
sorrows.

And that’s when she knew it was official. She was the biggest idiot on the planet.

Couldn’t he yell at her and storm off? Call her Snow Whyte or a spoiled brat? That would be easier to deal with than his renegade tear and his heartbreaking helpless paralysis.

“Please go.” The words sounded flimsy and pathetic through her stupid tears.
Stupid!

“No,” he said, quiet, but firm. He slipped his arms around her back and pulled her into him, leaning back so she was snuggled against his iron chest.

She tried to resist, but he held tight, combating her best efforts until she relaxed into him. The steady drum of his heart beneath her ear and the masculine musk of his skin drawing in with each breath lulled her into complete compliance and contentment—so much so she was really starting to hate herself.

“Joss.” He breathed her name like a solemn vow and then made a promise she knew would shatter her heart. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Winter white sunshine billowed into the room like a fog of heaven. Joselyn’s eyes were heavy, but the warmth of the light pressed all around her. She felt rested and peaceful, the air drawn into her lungs was laced with something tantalizing. And though she was still trapped in some sort of sleepy haze, it felt like a waking dream. Warm and cozy and perfect.

Blinking away the last of the euphoric smog, she discovered the reality of that dream still in play when she eased her head away from a well-muscled chest and found she’d fallen asleep in Finn’s arms.

It would seem she’d gone fetal at some point, curled against him like a baby, and maybe even cried herself to sleep.

Still leaning against a slant of pillows propped up at the headboard, Finn was asleep. That’s when it hit her. She’d slept with Finn! No, not with. Near. Against maybe. Because for as much as the man liked to push the limits with his hands-on liberties, he hadn’t made a move on her all night.

Every shiver and knot of stress had left her body while she watched him sleep. And really, since she was pinned in place by his strong arms, she had few options.
Darn.
So she stayed, and it was no hardship.

As if drawn by a magnet, her hand skimmed up his shirt and faintly touched his cheek. The feel of the coarse, shimmering stubble beneath her fingertips was more satisfying than any consumed amount of peanut butter M&M’s.

Amazing how she hadn’t needed any since that first kiss. And all those kisses since had started filling the emptiness of a life devoid of affection. Chocolate was a poor substitute, and the awakening of her need for touch—even the simple comfort of a friendly embrace—made her realize all she’d missed out on in her life.

Yia-Yia was never much into hugs. Her alcoholic husband hadn’t been an affectionate man—or so Joselyn had been told. He’d left Yia-Yia and Joselyn’s mother, Charisma, when Charisma was five years old, broke poor Helena Verraros’s heart, and left her bitter and sworn off of men for life.