Old Enough To Know Better (7 page)

“Am I forgiven?” he asked, leaning against the counter and crossing his ankles.

Cat swallowed hard.  He really wasn’t.  It wasn’t likely that she’d ever forgive him for what he’d done, frankly, and he might as well know that.  “No.  I can’t forgive you for spanking me.  Clint was and is the only man who spanks me.”

He levered himself away from the counter and came to stand in front of her.  “Oh, I wasn’t asking for forgiveness for spanking you.  I don’t want forgiveness for that.  It was the right thing to do.  You need to be spanked.  I want forgiveness for my . . . uh . . . bon– uh, erection.  That was uncalled for.”  Finn smiled in a rakish, entirely charming and disarming manner that she hated because it melted her heart, and was making it damned near impossible for her to continue to be as angry at him as she waned to be.  Not asking forgiveness for spanking her, but rather for his obvious sexual interest in her, what in the hell?  “I couldn’t help it, you see.  You’ve been doing that to me since –“ he stopped abruptly when he realized he should be calling as little attention to their age difference as possible at this point, and changed his wording, “well, forever.  And to finally have you in my arms . . . Clint was right.  There’s no feeling like it.”

“Clint was right?” she parroted back at him.

“Yeah.  You were the center of his universe, which is the way things ought to be in a marriage.  He talked to me about you and your relationship a lot.”

Cat swallowed hard.  Surely he hadn’t talked to him about everything.

“He was the perfect man for me to be around when I really needed a strong male influence in my life.  He helped me . . . understand some things I was confused about – about women.”  He shrugged.  “You know, guy stuff.”

She nodded. 

“He was a really special man.  I can see why you’re still mourning him.”  Before she knew it, he had her in a bear hug, and that was the perfect description for it.  He dwarfed her, yet she didn’t feel belittled or overwhelmed by his size.  Instead, she felt protected and surrounded in a wonderful, loving way as he hugged her with just the right non threatening, non bone crushing pressure, then let her go, pronouncing,  “but that can’t go on forever.”

Realizing that he’d just completely ignored her edict that he never touch her again, Cat moved to the microwave to rescue her breakfast, saying ruefully, “Oh, it can’t?”

“No, it’s time for you to rejoin the living, and I’m just the man to help you do that.”

Her raised eyebrow and smirk did nothing for his ego.

They sat across from each other at the breakfast bar again while Cat picked at her meal, and Finn began to realize just how much of a watchful eye she really needed.  She’d only taken about three bites before she put her spoon down and stopped eating.

He picked it right back up and started feeding her as he spoke, and she, startled, opened her mouth more out of surprise than anything else.  “I know you think that your life is over, and I understand that feeling.  But there are still tons of things you need to do.  Have you ever walked the Freedom Trail in Boston?  Or spent Christmas in Quebec?  Or spent some time in New York City?  Or Vegas?  Or seen the Grand Canyon or driven up the Pacific Coast Highway?”

She hadn’t done any of those things, besides the short jaunts one took when one was on a field trip in school, which she discounted completely because all she remembered was trying to sneak cigarettes and beer the entire time they were supposed to be seeing Boston on their senior trip.

Finn got up and went over to her freezer and opened it, taking out the ever present pint of Ben and Jerry’s, this time it was Strawberry Cheesecake, and came to waggle it under her nose.  “I happen to know that the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, Vermont gives tours and free samples!  I’m surprised you haven’t already made your pilgrimage.”

She couldn’t help it.  She smiled.  She didn’t want to, but she smiled.  But she also stopped eating, and there was still food on her plate.

It was Finn’s turn to raise an eyebrow as he held up a spoonful of food and her mouth remained stubbornly closed.  “I want you to finish this serving, Catherine.  I didn’t give you very much and you look like you haven’t had a good meal in days.  You’ve lost weight just since the last time I was here.”

He was right, damn him, but how did he know that?

“Because I notice you.”

Had she asked that question out loud?

Her mouth was still closed.

“You have a choice,” he said carefully.  “You can either sit there and eat the rest of what’s on your plate, or you can sit there with a sore bottom and eat the rest of what’s on your plate.”  Finn met her eyes calmly.  “Your choice.”

So much for not being able to be mad at him.  She stood, nearly knocking down the snack bar chair in the process.  “You cannot spank me.”

He stood, much more slowly and deliberately, saying, “I’m sorry, honey, but that ship sailed five or so days ago.”

Chapter
Five

Cat put her hands on the counter in front of her, leaning in towards him, not the least intimidated, which he loved.  “No, it did not.  You just spanked me.  I didn’t give you permission to do so.”

Finn assumed the same position, leaning towards her, and said, “You hadn’t given Clint permission the first time he spanked you, either.  And you slapped him across the face for it, too.  So I consider myself in very good company.”

Her jaw nearly hit the marble countertop between them, and just as quickly, her eyes filled with tears and she turned away from him, hiding her face with her hands.  “Go away.  Please, just go away.”

“No way in hell,” Finn growled low under his breath, reaching her in two long strides and taking her in his arms, folding her right into them until she was all but lost against the sheer bulk of him.

Dear God, it felt too good to be in his arms.  She didn’t want it to feel so good.  It was wrong to like it so much when it wasn’t Clint’s arms around her, which only made her cry that much harder.

She was breaking his heart.  It was pulling into several disjointed, disabled bits right there in front of her, and she didn’t even know it, nor did she much care, apparently.  He could only hold her tighter, but not too much so, just enough to let her know that he was there, and she was safe.

He wanted to take her into her bedroom and lay her down on the bed, to soothe her in the best way he knew how, with his body – his lips and tongue and cock.  But perhaps that was just the fact that his libido was incessantly piqued around her.  All he had to do was let a fleeting thought of her float through his mind and he was instantly and painfully erect.  It was embarrassing, because it never happened to him with anyone else, and, when he slept with other women, he was always thinking of her.  He’d even made the rookie mistake – once and only once, of course, never, ever again – of accidentally groaning her name aloud, when the girl he was with was named Linda.

Needless to say, he’d never seen her again.

And he hadn’t seen many women anyway.  That wasn’t his style.  Oh, he wasn’t a monk, especially when he was younger, but as he grew older, he’d poured himself into his work more so than anything else.  That alone – the monetary success he’d enjoyed in his line of work - had made him a target of the opposite sex, to say nothing of his size and good looks, but when he’d matured, and on the rare occasions that he surrendered to his body, he always made sure that the woman knew the score in no uncertain terms.  His heart had long since been spoken for, and there was nothing here for them on that account.

But now he was home and she was in his lap and his arms.  He could touch her, and had already spanked her, once, although it had been a somewhat dissatisfactory event, as far as he was concerned.  He wanted the whole package.  He wanted to be her husband, and everything that came with that.  When he was an adolescent and Clint had spoken to him of his love for his wife, and their special kind of relationship, he’d found himself both turned on and touched in a way he’d never expected to be.  Nothing he’d ever heard about or read had ever hit him in quite that same manner, and he knew that it was right for him.

And, as he matured, he came to recognize that it was more than that, that it was Catherine herself that was right for him, whether or not he ever got a chance with her in this lifetime.  He’d made up his mind, before he’d entered college, that he was going to do whatever it took to make himself enough money so that he could come home one day and be around her, even if he had to include Clint in that equation.  It would be enough just to be able to see her occasionally.

He’d heard of Clint’s illness through his mother, and had wanted to come home, but frankly, he was at a delicate spot in his business dealings, and he wasn’t sure that he could get away.  Besides, they were both very private people, and he knew that neither Cat nor Clint would have wanted anyone else hanging around them, and if they did, it wouldn’t have been him.

When Clint had passed, he’d sent Cat a small arrangement – deliberately not of lavender roses – expressing his sympathies, but he hadn’t been able to get away for the funeral, and, in a way, he was somewhat glad of that.  Finn wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to trust himself to give her the time she needed to come to grips with his death, so he forced himself to stay away almost longer than he had intended.

But he was back now, and he intended to claim her, in every way that was physically, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically possible, and Clint’s ghost was not going to get in his way.  In fact, he liked to think that Clint would be happy to turn the reins over to him, as he fully intended to love and honor – and guide her - as much and as capably as he had.

She sniffled and sobbed, and he leaned over and fed Kleenexes to her, which she accepted gratefully.  When the heartrending sobs had subsided a bit, she raised her head a little from his chest, her hair plastered against the side of it by her tears, and said in a watery voice, “You’re still here.”

Tears were still rolling down her cheeks, and it was all he could do not to cry himself at the sight, but he had to be strong for her.  Without loosening his hold on her one bit, Finn reached out and brushed a hunk of it out of her swollen eyes.  “Yeah, ain’t that just a bitch?”

There didn’t seem to be anything she could do to move this mountain of a man if he wouldn’t go on his own, and he was wonderfully warm and comforting, so she let herself just put her head back down on his chest and fall asleep.

It was very hard for Finn not to jump up and down at that small victory, but he tried to satisfy himself by merely kissing the top of her head.  To his delight, she fell asleep almost immediately, and he cursed very colorfully when, not five minutes later, the phone rang.

He took it upon himself to answer it, knowing it was his mother by the caller ID.

“Hi, mom.”

“Oh, you’re still there?”

“Yeah, I stayed and made sure she had something to eat.”

“Good boy!”

Finn rolled his eyes, trying to come to grips with the fact that he would never be much more than eight in his mother’s eyes.

“How is she?”

“Tired and depressed and she’s lost weight, so that’s why I made sure she ate some of the chicken you sent.  She’s sleeping now.  I was just about to leave.”  Her arm snaked around his waist to hold him when he said that, as if she didn’t want him to go, and his heart melted further.

“Man, I hope she isn’t slipping back into a depression like she got into just after Clint died.”

Finn’s interest was piqued.  “Oh yeah?”  He tried to play it off casually, but wanted to know more.

Luckily, it wasn’t hard to get his mother to talk.  “Yeah, we were really worried about her there for a while.  She didn’t much deal with his illness and the inevitability of his death, I don’t think, while he was sick, and once he died it all hit her really hard.  She nearly faded away to nothing right in front of our eyes.  We need to make sure she eats.”

Well, he had been planning on just tucking her into bed and leaving, but that settled that.  He was going to make sure that she ate something more – pretty much anything but junk food – before he left, and he was going to make sure that she ate regularly from now on, whether she liked it or not.

“Definitely.  Can’t have that,” he replied, hoping he sounded casual enough.

“Well, I’ll see you when you get back.  Don’t forget we’re going over to Meme’s.”

“I won’t.  Love you.”

“Love you too.  Drive carefully.”

“I will.”  As much as he would have loved to have let her sleep on him all afternoon – and even more so all night, he had other commitments today, and he wanted to make sure she got something more to eat before he left, and he had a feeling there might be a bit of an issue about that, knowing Cat.  He wanted to introduce the idea as soon as possible, so that if he needed to discipline her, they could get it done and over with and get her fed before he needed to leave.

He began to wake her, slowly and carefully, knowing how much she hated to wake up, especially abruptly.  All through those summers he’d spent with Clint, he’d carefully catalogued in his mind every tidbit he could about Catherine, and he remembered nearly everything – likes, dislikes, pet peeves, preferences and opinions.  Finn decided that the best way to wake her was with a soft, undemanding kiss.

She responded nicely, too, opening her mouth to the gentlest of pressures and making him moan at her warm, sleepy compliance.  His hand found her braless breast, slowly, giving her more than enough time to raise an objection, but she didn’t, as the edge of his thumb found an already pert nipple and she sighed slightly into his mouth. Her hands sought his hair, which he kept a little longer than Clint had, but as soon as those small hands found his broad shoulders and she woke up to exactly who it was that was kissing her, she jumped away from him like a scalded cat, standing well away from him.

“Don’t do that!” She rubbed the back of her hand over her lips, as if wiping his kiss away, but it was that her lips were tingling from the feel of him.  Her whole body was humming, and he’d barely touched her.  She was cold now, from the lack of his body heat, and furious that she’d noticed it.  What was he doing to her, damnit?