Old Enough To Know Better (15 page)

Now, here she was, the woman of his dreams, standing there naked from the waist down, bare red bottom pressed up against the cupboards, flour covered hands and arms outstretched so that they wouldn’t soil anything around her, essentially unable to touch anything or move anywhere. . . whatever was he going to do with her?

She got to Carol’s place much later than she had intended, although that still ended up being a lot earlier than any of the other girls would arrive, thankfully.  At least she wouldn’t have to worry they would see how flushed her face still was, or how gingerly she sat down.  Damn, Finn was insatiable!  Not that she was really complaining, but she wasn’t sure she could continue to keep up with him.  She was past her sexual peak – not that her body seemed to know that – and apparently no one had told him that he was supposed to have been, too!

He’d taken distinct advantage of the fact that she was hampered in a couple of different ways, trapped by her pants around her ankles and unable to touch anything.  It was kind of strange to be half naked in her kitchen, she had to admit, but he wasted no time in rectifying that situation and making her completely naked, tossing her T-shirt and bra onto the floor, then leaning down to – she thought – take the rest of her clothes away from her.  But he merely tightened them somehow around her feet.

“Move my jeans,” she pouted, trying to dance out of them with no success.

“I don’t think so,” he murmured against her mouth.  “I like you tethered right where you are for the time being.”

His hands roamed over her body at will, tweaking here, pinching there, cupping and claiming.  She couldn’t part her legs very well, but that was okay with him.  He slipped his middle finger into that warm ridge and found it even warmer than he’d imagined, slick with her honey, ready and waiting for him.

“I love the way a spanking always makes you wet, Catherine,” he whispered, biting her nipple as she arched into his mouth.

“Do not!”

Finn chuckled.  “You know better than to lie to me.”  He felt herself contract against his finger at those words, and knew he’d hit on something that was very powerful to her.  “I can feel the evidence every time, like right now.  You’re positively drenched, and there’s nothing you can do to control that.  It’s your body’s reaction to me disciplining you.”

Cat couldn’t say a word.  She wouldn’t have said anything even if she weren’t absolutely mindless from the way his finger was flicking incessantly over and over the most sensitive spot on her body.  She couldn’t possibly grace his suppositions with an answer.  He knew entirely too much already.

But he wouldn’t allow her to come to completion.  Not yet.  Instead, he teased and pulled and licked and twirled and pinched, driving her absolutely crazy, but with the strict rule that she was not to let herself go until she had his permission to do so, and he was withholding that permission, forever, it seemed to Cat.

But not forever, because, eventually, he leaned down and freed her feet, then took a step back from her and adjusted his own jeans.  He didn’t take them off, but only loosed himself, so that she was still entirely nude and slightly hampered, and he was fully dressed.

He gathered her legs up and over his arms and entered her all at once, then planted his hands on the counter next to her, saying gutterally, “Hold on tight.  You’re going to need to,” not caring that his shirt would wear her floury hand prints until the next time he washed it.

And she did.  It was a wild, uncontrolled ride that threw her into orgasm after orgasm, nonstop the entire time. 

It was no wonder she was still flushed and a little sweaty – even after their shower – when she arrived on Carol’s doorstep.  The kitchen door was always open – and if it wasn’t, she knew where the key was hidden – and she made it in, loaded down with bags and trays, in only one trip.

She was surprised to find Carol waiting for her at the small breakfast table.  Her husband had divorced her several years ago, and as her kids had grown, she had had less and less to do and more and more time to drink.  “You’re late,” she said, and Cat could tell she’d been drinking even before she saw the tumbler full of what she knew was whiskey, neat on the table in front of her, and the half gallon of JW, half empty, next to it.

Cat put her coat over the other chair and turned to her food. “I’m a little later than usual, but then, I do this on my own time, so there’s no real schedule.”

“Were you busy banging your new boyfriend?” Carol sneered.

So it was going to be that way, Cat thought.  She’d known things had gone a little too easy.  She took a deep breath and turned, facing her friend.  “As a matter of fact, yes, I was.”

“If I’da known that my friendsh kids were fair game, I’d’ve gone after him myshelf,” she slurred, hoisting her drink for another gulp.  Carol had never sipped a drink in her life.  She had no grasp of the concept whatsoever.

“Well, actually, Finn pursued me, not the other way around.  Not that that’s any of your business.”

Carol was not to be placated.  “That still doesn’t make it right, to just up and fuck the son of a woman who’s been your best friend all your life!  You watched him grow up, for God’s sake!  Do you realize that when we were in college, he was in grade school?   That’s just sick!”

Cat resolutely began to repack the things she’d just taken out, piling them neatly by the door so that she could make it back out to her car in one trip.

“Where’re you goin’?” Carol asked, draining her drink in one last, big gulp.  “Home to screw him again?”

Cat had had just about enough.  She walked towards Carol, who leaned back a little in her chair and tried to focus, without much success, apparently.  “People in glass bottles shouldn’t throw stones.”  Cat picked up the bottle of whiskey and emptied it into the waiting tumbler.  “Have another glass, Carol.  I’m going home to my drop dead gorgeous, thirty-five year old billionaire boyfriend who’s hung like a horse, fucks me satyr and he thinks the sun rises and sets on me.”  She pushed the full glass in front of her former friend.  “So, how’s Johnny Walker working out for you as a lover, hmmm?”

She turned and walked calmly out, loaded down like a pack mule and pissed as hell, and she jumped five miles into the air when she heard something glass hit the door behind her.  Carol had either thrown the glass or the bottle.  Cat was betting on the bottle, since that was the one that was empty.

She held it together until she got home, but her hands were shaking as she put her key into the lock.  She’d lied to Carol; Finn wasn’t home.  In fact, he’d left for Boston on business again, and wouldn’t be home for several days, so there was no one home to comfort her.  But old habits died hard, and before she could truly collapse, she put everything – and that meant everything, down to the last stick of butter – back in its rightful place.

The phone had rung several times while she busied herself not thinking about what had just happened, but she’d already turned off the answering machine first thing in the door.  She really didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even Finn. Hell, not even Clint, if he were here.  But then, if he was here, this situation would never have come about. 

When all of the stuff she’d carted over to Carol’s and back had been put away, she’d cleaned out the oven, then the fridge, and now she was washing down the cabinets.  When the neatniks get upset, they clean.  If she was really upset, she’d tackle the attic next.

It was nearly six, about the time when Jane, who was the next earliest, would have arrived at Carol’s to help Cat out with whatever she needed, and the phone began ringing incessantly, as if the caller was quite sure she was home, just not answering. She should have taken the phone off the hook, but the neurotic side of her just couldn’t.  She glanced at the caller ID, already knowing who it was, and that she was probably in big trouble.

“Hello.”  She couldn’t even work up a good cry.  He was going to think everything was hunky dory with her, and that she was playing some kind of game or something.

“I’m on my way home now.  The plane lands in Bangor in thirty minutes, and I’ll be home in an hour or so.  Are you all right?”

“Home?  But you have work . . .”

“Work can wait.  Don’t you know that you’re the most important thing on this Earth to me?”

That brought on the waterworks.  “But how did you know?”

“Mom went over to Carol’s not long ago and she confessed everything.  She was downright suicidal, so mom’s staying with her, or you know mom would be there with you in a heartbeat.  We’ve both been trying to get a hold of you for the past few hours, but someone hasn’t been answering her phone,” he said pointedly.  Which is a subject about which they would speak when he got home, but he didn’t want to upset her any further by saying that, so he kept it to himself.

She hiccoughed, “I’ve been c-cleaning.”

The soft, reassuring tone of his voice was almost worse than if he had sounded angry with her for being incommunicado.  “I figured as much.  I want you to answer the phone when it rings from now on, if you recognize the number and it’s mom or myself, Catherine.  Understand?  You don’t have to talk to anyone else right now but us, but you do have to talk to us.”

Cat was literally bawling.  “Y-yes.”

“Good girl.  Now go lie down, but keep the phone where you can get to it.  I bet mom’ll call you shortly, and she’s very worried about you.”

“I will.”

“Sleep if you can.  Everything will be fine, I promise, honey.”

“Okay.”

Finn’s heart clenched in his chest at how tiny and afraid she sounded.  Cat might have been physically small, but she rarely sounded it.  He knew he shouldn’t have let himself be talked into going on this stupid Boston trip.  Next time, he’d listen to his gut instinct.  It hadn’t led him wrong yet.  He could easily have foregone this trip, but he’d listened to someone who’d encouraged him to go to make contacts on the East coast.  He didn’t need contacts there.  He had more than enough money to support himself and Cat quite regularly for the rest of their lives.

He’d said he was going to retire once he came back to the Island, yet he kept letting his love of the business drag him away from the woman he loved.  Well, no more.  He was going to concentrate and dedicate his life to her.  Finn allowed himself a small smile.  He wasn’t quite sure whether Cat was going to be happy about that or not, considering that it was probably going to mean that her backside was going to be roasted a lot more frequently than it would if he continued to let himself be pulled in a thousand different directions.

But he also knew that she would benefit from such close attention, as would their relationship.  He opened his briefcase for a moment and looked at the velvet box hidden there.  Inside was a stunning five carat diamond ring, with which he intended to propose to Cat.  He knew it was still early, some might say too early, in their relationship.  But he took all of the lessons he’d learned from Clint to heart, most especially the last one – none of us knows how long we have on this planet. And he intended to spend as much of it as he could married, bound any and every possible way, to his Catherine.  If he thought he could get away with it, he’d chain her to him, although he realized the impracticalities of that arrangement.  Still, it had its advantages.

He’d thought about asking her to move into a new house with him and live with him for a while.  But he thought that that was really just a stopgap measure.  He wanted her to be his wife, not just his housemate and lover.  Finn knew that there were going to be issues around it for her – landmine issues about abandoning Clint and the house, and he’d do whatever he could to accommodate her.  They could keep the house and she could go to it anytime she wanted.  They’d keep it forever, if she wanted to. He would let her decide if and when she wanted to part with it.  It would be entirely her decision; he would not be jealous of a house when she was in his bed every night, and over his lap when he deemed necessary.

Once he landed and claimed his baggage and retrieved his car, he drove like a maniac over route 1A, pothole hell that it was in spring, praying there were no cops.  He knew the road so well from having driven it while he was growing up on the Island that he could pretty much do it on autopilot.

When he pulled up to her house, it was dark and quiet, although she’d left the light on for him.  He used the key she’d given him a few weeks ago, sick of having to get up to let him in when he arrived in the middle of the night.

As usual, as quiet as he tried to be, she awoke as soon as he entered the room, sitting up in the middle of the big bed.  “I’m sorry you had to come back, but I’m glad you did,” Cat held her arms out to him, and he dropped everything – suitcase, garment bag, computer bag, everything, right where he was and launched himself towards her, grabbing her up in a big bear hug and just rocking and holding her tight, stroking her hair and patting her back.

“I’m so sorry that you had to go through something like that, angel.”

Cat sniffed and clung to him like he was the only solid thing in the world, and Finn’s heart soared.  He adored it when she opened herself up to him enough to latch onto him like this.  “It’s okay.  Your mom was so okay with it, someone had to give me guff about it somewhere down the line.  And Carol I can handle.”

Finn took the opportunity to make them a little bit more comfortable, piling pillows against the headboard then gathering her back into his bear hug arms.  “I understand from mom that you gave her quite the dressing down, and that I have been elevated to the ranks of billionaire.”

Cat snorted and blushed beautifully, shrugging.  “I don’t know what your financial situation is, of course, and there’s no need to tell me, really, but judging by your car you aren’t doin’ too badly.  So I might have embellished a smidge, to make a point.”

“I don’t care whether or not you know about my finances, Cat.  I want you to know everything about me.  I’ve just been taking things slowly because I didn’t want to push you.  I know how much you loved Clint, and I wouldn’t want to do anything that would dishonor his memory in your eyes.”