Her Best Mistake (Novella) (6 page)

The brutal truth from a brutally honest man, Lisa thought, not completely sure how she felt about Eric having booty call women in the first place. Why the hell had he been dating her then? She turned her face away, unable to look directly at Finn anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Finn said. As Lisa’s silence stretched on, he squirmed a little under her in the chair. At least she wasn’t bolting for the door. Not that he’d let her leave, but he took her silence as a good sign. It meant she was still thinking about what he had said.

“Look,” Finn said finally, “I’m telling you the truth because I want you to believe that I didn’t intend anything to happen. When you touched me, I acted because in that moment I wanted you badly. Even today, after knowing what I know, I still want you. Being sorry would mean having to forget it happened, and I don’t want to go back to being dead.”

“So, let me get this straight . . . you only slept with me because you thought I was a booty call?” Lisa asked, licking her dry lips.

Finn looked like he wanted to die rather than answer her question, but he held her gaze and nodded his head yes. Tomorrow she might be outraged at the idea that he had just this once—even if unknowingly—given in to the temptation to take advantage of a booty call. At the moment, she was just disgusted that Eric would arrange such a deceitful liaison, and the action only validated the instinct that had made her so careful with him.

It was just hard to be sincerely outraged about Eric’s behavior or Finn’s confession when the heat of her was pressing down on evidence of Finn’s continued interest in her. God, the man beneath her was real, Lisa thought, suddenly thinking he might just be the best mistake she had ever made.

“
Now
do you want me to apologize?” Finn asked again.

Instead of answering right away, Lisa turned her face back to his and just looked at him.

She looked in his eyes. She tried to see Eric there, but couldn’t. There was just Finn.

And she was interested.

“Do you mean apologize for the booty call thing? Or sleeping with your brother’s girlfriend?” she demanded, suddenly willing to risk teasing him again.

“We’ve already decided I’m not sorry for sleeping with the girlfriend who’s not really a girlfriend. I applied cold logic to make that decision. You don’t like him. Ergo, it’s not my fault Eric didn’t score with you,” Finn informed her, keeping his tone as firm as the rest of him.

Lisa couldn’t help laughing at Finn’s so-called logic. It had her shifting closer and bearing down on him more. He pushed himself up a little to better fit himself between her thighs. To her, Finn looked completely unrepentant, totally male, and totally irresistible. He tightened his hold on her hips as she stared at him, and it seemed like he was waiting for something to show him the next step. She was right there with him, searching for it too. It was impossible not to like the man.

“You don’t strike me as being the kind of guy who’s as calm about all this as you’re pretending to be,” she said dryly.

“Oh, I’m not. Having been married, I have the good sense to realize the booty call thing may be more offensive under the circumstances,” Finn explained.

Wanting to comfort her, maybe even reassure her, Finn ran his hands up Lisa’s arms and back down her sides before letting them rest at her waist. She sighed and relaxed under his strokes, making him want to hug her.

“I swear on a stack of bibles that you weren’t just a convenient warm body. I’ve had plenty of opportunities for those and said no. I said yes to you because you made me want you so badly that saying no wasn’t a possibility,” Finn said.

“So now I guess you want me to thank you for telling me the truth?” Lisa demanded, her laughing eyes softening her sarcastic tone.

Finn smiled, his lids lowering as he pushed himself against her weight. He lifted her from his lap with each upwards thrust until she moaned and pushed down on his shoulders to hold him still.

“Okay. I admit that not many men would have said anything. Personally, I don’t think I would have said anything myself if our positions were reversed. So I guess I don’t think you’re a bad guy, maybe just a pent-up desperate one . . . which makes me feel better in some sick, twisted way,” Lisa told him.

Finn laughed, letting his body relax under hers, or as much as it was able to in his current condition. “Okay. I’m not bad and you’re not bad. So what do you want me to do now? I could let you go and swear never to say a word to Eric, but I’ll be damned if I come to the wedding.”

“As I’ve said several times, it was just one date with your brother. I hardly think Eric has marriage in mind. Our sleeping together can’t have a negative impact on a relationship that wasn’t really happening in the first place,” Lisa said.

A lot she knows
, Finn thought, smiling at Lisa’s earnestness. Roberts men set their minds on something and that pretty much was it. Eric had that more than he did—or so he had thought before Lisa Dennison had crawled into bed with him.

Closing his eyes, Finn raised his hips under hers, seeking Lisa’s heated response again, raising her up in the chair and inviting her to ride the next wave of arousal with him. When she did just that, he groaned beneath her.

Giving in to her instincts, Lisa moved her hand down to the waist of Finn’s jeans. She had popped the snap before shifting her shocked gaze to Finn’s as he opened his eyes in surprise. She saw a mirror of her desire in his serious, gray-blue gaze.

“Tell me what you want,” Finn invited, wanting to hear her say it was to be with him. He needed to hear her admit she wanted him again now that she knew who he was.

Lisa toyed with the button on his jeans. Finally, she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I want to meet your beast, Dr. Roberts.”

That is admission enough for me
, Finn decided. He stood with Lisa wrapped around him and starting walking with her while she tightened her hold.

By the time they got to the bed, he almost had her naked from the waist up. He fell on the bed with her, making her absorb his weight. He kissed her everywhere he could, while pushing her into the mattress and holding her there. If he was hurting her with his aggressiveness, Lisa made no protest.

He yanked her slacks down as far as he could before invading her, pushing two eager fingers into the source of her heat. It told him everything he needed to know at the moment.

“
Finn
,” she called out his name roughly, arching against his hand. Eyes clearing after the first peak, she looked at him with surprise. “Please . . .”

A few strokes later and Finn watched her face as she cried out in full release. His control snapped. All he wanted was to make her do it again and again. Pulling his fingers out, he licked her eager wetness from them as she calmed. She shivered watching him, the first flickers of fear in her face warring with the desire still in her gaze.

Finn’s last rational thought was wondering how the woman had managed to stay so inexperienced. Then he realized that she wouldn’t be after tonight. He rose over her, let out a large sigh, and stared hard at the woman he wanted to make his.

“What are you planning to do?” Lisa asked, incredibly aroused but still a little afraid about what his possessive gaze meant.

His voice was dark and husky as he threw her words back at her. “This is the last chance you have to change your mind about being with a pent-up, desperate man like me. I’m about three seconds away from it being too late already.”

But even as he said the words, Finn knew it was just word play. Now that he knew Lisa wanted him, he had no intention of letting her walk out of his life yet. Maybe he wasn’t as nice as he told her he was because she was going to remember tonight for the rest of her life.

He rose off her and grabbed a condom from the nightstand where she’d tossed the remaining two last night. He unceremoniously yanked off the rest of her clothing and all of his, not caring where it went so long as it was out of the way.

“Come over here to the edge of the bed,” he ordered.

Lisa just looked at him, not sure what to do. No man had ever looked at her like Finn was looking at her now. She was still aroused, still waiting for him to join their bodies and fill the emptiness.

“Now,” he said harshly. He dropped to his knees and dragged her hips to the edge of the bed, spreading her thighs urgently with his hands. Then he pushed his tongue as far as he could inside her while she screamed his name over and over.

“
Finn. Stop, Finn. Wait . . . please . . .”
Lisa begged. She was shocked to be all but sobbing as he used his tongue and fingers, driving her up and over again to another violent climax.

Damn right, it’s Finn,
he thought, maddened now by the taste of her release—twice. He held her at the edge of the bed, his body bent to his task of making love to her with his tongue, laughing wickedly as she throbbed and throbbed against his mouth.

Finn replaced his tongue with two fingers as he sucked her center until he felt her legs shaking. He craved her release again, and was really close to climax himself from just watching her. He loved listening to her beg him to stop and then to not stop.

Too bad for you, Eric,
Finn thought, everything in him bent on claiming possession.
You may have found her first, bro, but this one is mine
.

Just before she shattered a third time, Finn pulled her the rest of way off the bed and impaled her trembling body on his aching erection. He forced her hips around his as he knelt there with her wrapped around him. She screamed his name as she rode the waves of another quaking climax, gripping his shoulders to hold her body in place on him.

“
Lisa!”
He yelled her name as he finally exploded inside her, one hand holding her hips while the other was tangled in her hair.

He heard her sobbing with her final release and felt tears streaming down her face while she kissed his chin, his neck, and pressed her pounding heart against his heaving chest. He soothed her with his hands, kissing her face, murmuring praises and compliments. He held her close as he lowered them both to the floor, already regretting the harshness of his actions.

Too soon
, Finn thought, filled with regret.
Way
too soon for this kind of possession.

Finn held Lisa without speaking, then finally closed his eyes, wishing he had been more gentle with her this second time. But it was too late to wish.

***

For an hour Lisa watched Finn sleep, all the while letting herself imagine how it would be to wake him again. Would he be an animal like before? Or had what they had done soothed the beast in him? The pent-up, desperate statement had been another brutal truth evidently.

She waited until Finn’s breathing became slow and deep, until she felt she could untangle herself without disturbing him. They had ended up on the floor among the remnants of their clothes and fallen asleep wrapped around each other.

Wow,
Lisa thought
.
She stood on wobbly legs and stared down at her weakened limbs. She would no doubt have some bruises tomorrow. Finn hadn’t stopped or even slowed down no matter what she had said. Thank God, but still . . . she wasn’t even sure he had even heard her talking to him.

And how many climaxes had she had before he finished with her? She was pretty sure it had been three big ones, but two was more than she had ever known before. Finn had unleashed the beast in both of them, Lisa decided. She shivered at the thought of being wanted that way again, being taken that way over and over.

She was inundated with his sandy beaches smell, his smooth feel, his unique taste, and the taste of her own pleasure on his lips.

Wow, Finn
, Lisa thought, her heart tight in her chest as she looked down at him.

Years of nothing and now all this passion when she hadn’t even been looking for it.

Feeling guilty, but also feeling the need for some privacy to think about things, Lisa sighed and dressed quietly like before.

And then, just as quietly, she let herself out of the suite again.

***

After Lisa had gone, Finn finally opened his eyes and dared to look around. She had gotten really emotional during the last climax, but had never cried a tear during the long minutes he’d held her afterwards. Nor had she spoken a single word of complaint.

But regret had owned him for a response that had been more competitive with his brother than it had been loving, so he had intentionally taken the coward’s path and faked sleep. He hadn’t wanted to risk making Lisa more upset than she might already be with him.

Finn had shocked himself with the level of possessiveness he felt, and now didn’t know what to do about it. He had never been that rough with a woman, not even his ex-wife while they were married. But then he’d never been so mindless to have the total attention of one the way he wanted to with Lisa Dennison. He felt the need to banish even thoughts of other men from her,
especially thoughts of his brother.

But where had any of that come from? That dark feeling of feeling possessive about a woman who was never meant to be his anyway?

Damn it.

He already wanted her again, wanted to pretend the last hour had never happened. If he ever got another chance, he would linger over every touch, every curve, and discover every possible way Lisa could achieve release. Crazy to make her his, he’d gone over the careful line of new lovers, which was probably worse than telling her about the damn booty call.

Would she now hate all men because of him? Never be able to trust another one to touch her? The idea pleased him so much Finn was disgusted with himself again. He was scum and worse than Eric, especially where Lisa was concerned.

Shit
, Finn thought. Years of no women at all and now he was completely obsessed with one.

Chapter 5

The next day at work Lisa moved slowly, walking and sitting carefully. She saw the moment her assistant Martha noticed and winced at the worry in the older woman’s expression.