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Finn & Winter in the newest addition to the Woodlands Series!
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Blurb
Winter
Donovan loves two things: her sister and her sister's ex boyfriend.
She's spent her whole life doing the right thing except that one
time, that night when Finn O'Malley looked hollowed out by his
father's death. Then she did something very wrong that felt terribly
right.
Finn
can't stop thinking about Winter and the night and he'll do anything
to make her a permanent part of his life, even if it means separating
Winter from the only family she has.
Their
love was supposed to be unrequited but one grief stricken guy and one
girl with too big of a heart results in disastrous consequences.
CHAPTER
ONE
March
WINTER
I
didn't know which one of us looked more surprised when Finn O’Malley
walked into the Riverside Café at about ten minutes before midnight.
The café was experiencing a lull in the post-late night, pre-bar
closings time period, and there were only two customers: myself and a
man in his fifties over by the counter.
And
now Finn.
“Winter,”
he said, his tone a cross between disappointment and disbelief which
I understood immediately. He’d come to this run down café—far
from where he lived and worked—to…well, I wasn’t sure what he’d
want other than get away from anyone who might know him.
And
there I sat. The girl who’d had an enormous, unrequited crush on
her older sister’s high school boyfriend. And said older sister
might have been the worst girlfriend he’d ever had. If my speeding
heart was any indication, my crush was far from dead.
“Finn.
Good to see you.” He looked terrible—or as terrible as Finn could
ever look. Tall with dark hair set against ivory skin and the lean,
muscular build of someone who did manual labor for a living. Finn
would never look bad.
But
grief had hollowed out his cheeks, and his shocking blue eyes were
bloodshot. His inky black hair stood in clumps around his head as if
he’d run his fingers through it multiple times. He wore a gray
T-shirt that hugged his strong frame but had dirt smudges all over
it. His worn jeans displayed dust and grime.
He
worked in construction—or more accurately, he flipped houses, the
last I’d heard. Not that I kept up on the doings of Finn O’Malley
that
much.
His
eyes shifted around the restaurant, as he probably wondered how he
could take a seat away from me and not appear too rude. I solved his
dilemma by grabbing my purse and library book and sliding out of the
booth.
“I
was just going,” I said.
He
licked his upper lip and I about died on the spot. But I was an adult
now. All of twenty-two years. Crushes might have made my heart
squeeze and my knees shake, but they didn’t paralyze me. Giving him
a tight smile, I walked toward the door. He didn’t move, and unless
I was going to walk around a table or two, I’d have to brush by
him.
So
I did.
And
smelled him.
And
suddenly I couldn’t leave.
The
sour, sweet stench of alcohol was so strong I wondered if he’d
poured a bottle of vodka over his head. It was a familiar fragrance
because my sister had been wearing it regularly for the past ten
years. Her alcohol addiction, among other things, was a reason Finn
and she were exes when many people had thought they’d get married
out of high school.
I
backed up. “Did you drive here?”
The
side of his mouth quirked up—not quite a smile, more of a wry
acknowledgment of my thought process. “I’m not drunk,” he said.
“I…it’s a long story.”
“I’ve
got time.” I started back toward the booth. “Come sit with me. My
book was boring anyway.”
Good
manners drove him to follow even if he didn’t want to. He dropped
into the opposite bench, and I pushed my water glass toward him.
“Thanks.”
He drained it in three gulps. I was way too fascinated with the
motion of his throat and the way that his Adam’s apple signaled
every gulp. He set the glass down carefully as if almost surprised by
his own sudden thirstiness.
Due
to his long arms, his folded hands reached halfway across the table.
I kept my arms locked by my side so I wouldn’t accidentally on
purpose touch him.
My
role was friend, not girlfriend, no matter how many inappropriate
fantasies I’d dreamed up when I was a girl.
The
waitress came out and delivered another glass of water and refilled
my now empty one.
“I’ll
have a burger. Plain. Order of fries,” Finn rattled off without
looking at the menu. He pointed at me. “You want anything?”
I
shook my head. “I’m good.”
The
waitress left, and Finn stretched his long legs out and leaned back
into the booth, looking completely wiped. If I moved my legs, even a
little, I’d brush against him. I stayed still because I wasn’t
sure what I would do if I touched him. Something embarrassing, no
doubt.
“What
are you doing here?”
Clearing
my throat, I managed to form a coherent answer. “I just got off
work. Closed tonight.”
Surprised,
his eyebrows shot into his forehead. “What are you doing that has
you working until midnight?”
“I
work at Atra, the ink shop two doors down.”
“Oh,”
he started and then stopped. “I thought you were working at a
marketing firm.”
A
tendril of pleasure sprang to life at the idea of Finn keeping track
of me. We may have been friends once, but my sister was the
connecting thread. And when she’d snapped their tie, Finn and I had
drifted apart like florets from a blown dandelion.
He’d
floated one way and I’d floated another. We’d lived in the same
city going on three years now—since he got back from attending an
out of town university—but the first time I’d seen him since he
and Ivy had broken up had been at his father’s funeral a month ago.
“No,
I was downsized but I still do freelance design work for them and a
couple other companies, but my primary job is commissioned artwork at
Atra. I also help around the shop, doing bookings and stuff. Tonight
I had a late consultation with a friend of Tucker’s. He owns the
shop,” I explained and then shut up, not wanting to ramble.
Finn
nodded as if he found this interesting. “Sounds like you are
putting your talent to good use. I always thought your work was
tremendous.”
“Thanks.
So what brings you here?”
He
looked around. The man hunched over his coffee at the counter hadn’t
moved. “I just got off work too.”
“I
thought you were flipping houses?”
“Like
you, I had a change in jobs.” His voice was grim. It didn’t take
a genius to guess the change wasn’t a good one like mine was. Or
maybe he was just angry about life right now, which he had every
right to be.
“I
know this sounds like a stupid Hallmark card, but it does get
better.” I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I placed my hand
over his folded ones. “I promise.”
He
tilted his head back, and his eyes fluttered closed, his ridiculously
long lashes feathering across the top of his cheeks. Was he shutting
out the pain or me? Or everything?
After
long moments of silence, so long and so quiet that I could hear the
hum of the refrigeration unit that held bottles of soda and beer
behind the cash register, he spoke. “When I was thirteen, my dog
Hunter died. Dad and I had bought him when I was four. He’d
developed some kind of doggy liver disease, and we had to put him
down. That was the worst kind of pain, I thought. But that was like a
pin prick, while Dad’s death is like a dull knife dragging itself
across my body one painful inch at a time.”
I
bit down on my lip so I didn’t cry in front of him. I remembered
that pain, and hated that someone I cared about had to suffer it too.
“I’m not going to say it’s easy to get over a loss like that;
only that it does happen—eventually.”
He
snorted, a rough and unhappy sound. “I have been drinking. Not
going to lie about that.” His eyes opened halfway, which was
probably for the best. The piercing blue came off as too beautiful to
be real and too mesmerizing to look away. “But not tonight. Tonight
I decided to throw my bottles against the wall instead of drinking
them, and because I’m a stupid fuck, I failed to realize I was
standing in the splash zone.”
The
food arrived before I could respond. He pulled a napkin from the
tabletop dispenser and shoved half his fries onto it. “Eat or I
won’t be able to.”
Obediently
I put a fry into my mouth and watched him dig in. Grief or no grief,
he was still eating, which was a good sign. And he didn’t seem
drunk. No slurred words, no inappropriate comments.
“Sorry
I jumped to conclusions,” I said after polishing off another fry.
“Don’t
be. With your past, I can see why you’d be concerned,” he said
between bites. My
past.
He was referring to dealing with my sister’s addictions, which had
spiraled out of control after our parents died when she was nineteen.
“She’s
better now,” I said. “If you were wondering.”
“Really?”
Disbelief was clear in every long drawn-out letter.
“Really.
She hit a bad place shortly after her release, but she’s been clean
for…” I counted in my head, “almost thirty days.”
“That’s
good. Good for her and for you.” He popped the rest of the burger
into his mouth and washed it down with the entire glass of water.
“Did
you chew that or inhale it?” I laughed, remembering the days he’d
linger in our kitchen eating anything and everything Mom would cook.
“I
haven’t eaten since noon so if I could have just pressed it into my
face and absorbed it via osmosis, I would have.” We shared a laugh,
just a small one, but I was breathless by the end. His smile was too
much for me, and it was the first one I’d seen from him for so
long. It lit up his eyes and revealed the deep creases on the corners
of his mouth and his even, perfect white teeth.
“No
burgers on the west side of the city?” I joked to disguise my
growing and uncomfortable desire for him. Now was not the time nor
the place. He was not ever to be mine.
His
grin grew wider. “Why do you think I’m here? Trying to avoid
being seen by my roommates. I don’t know if you met them at the
funeral?” I shook my head. I’d only had eyes for Finn. “I live
with four of them. Adam Rees is one.” Adam was a friend of Finn’s
from high school. He had a famous father. That was about all I
remembered, but I nodded anyway, and he continued. “Their idea of
helping me cope is to get me involved in increasingly dangerous
activities.”
“What
have your roommates made you do?”
“What
haven't they made me do is the question. I've been to strip clubs,
paintballing, ATVing, a firing range, rock climbing, fishing."
Finn tapped a finger on the table to punctuate each activity. “I've
got two former Marines living with me, and I think they’re planning
to push me out of an airplane. So I can't go home."
“You
can stay with me,” I said with a nonchalant shrug.
His
eyes drifted around my face, lingering on my lips and then dropping
lower. I could feel my unbound breasts tighten under the cotton of my
T-shirt. I hated bras and was small and perky enough I could get away
without wearing them. The only problem was I had fat, eraser-sized
nipples, and right now they were pointing directly at Finn. He stared
at them for what seemed like an eternity.
“Is
that right?” His voice was husky.
The
air in the room disappeared, and I barely had enough breath to croak
out, “No, Ivy’s there. She and I live together now. Have for—”
I paused, not wanting to bring up her recent incarceration, “—for
a couple of months,” I finished awkwardly.
He
made a noise in the back of his throat, one I couldn’t decipher.
“So have you been seeing anyone?”
I
didn’t know what to make of that. Why was he at all remotely
interested in my love life?
“No,
not recently. Not since—”—” I broke off again.
“Not
since Ivy got out of prison,” he said dryly.
“You
heard?”
“I
heard.” He was done with the subject of Ivy and that was okay with
me. It made me uncomfortable to talk about her while I was perving on
her ex-boyfriend.
Anxious
to change the subject, I asked, “What about you?”
“I
don’t think what I’ve been doing constitutes as seeing
anyone. Not since my dad died. Not feeling it.” His blue gaze
pinned me against the booth. I heard what he wasn’t saying out
loud. He had been sleeping around and from the interested way he was
eyeing me, the suggestion was I could be next. “I’ve been trying
not to feel for a while but tonight? Maybe tonight should be
different.”
It
wasn’t a question; it was an invitation. And all the teenage
feelings of longing and lust rushed over me until I was dry mouthed
and full of want.
He
looked out the window, considering something, and then back toward
me. “You had a crush on me for a long time. Am I taking advantage
of you?”
I
didn’t pretend I was confused about what he was asking, even though
it was a bit mortifying to be confronted by my unreciprocated
feelings. I shook my head. “No. I think it’s the other way
around.”
“It’s
not. Why don’t we get out of this place?” He stood and threw two
twenties on the table and waited for me to lead the way out.
I
was acutely aware of his large frame behind me as I walked carefully
across the tiled floor to the entrance. The heat of his body nearly
burned me as he pressed against my back to reach around me with a
large, work-roughened hand to push the glass door open.
He
placed a hand on my lower back and guided me to his truck. It was a
monster of a thing with big black tires and a menacing silver grill.
“You
really expect me to climb into this thing?”
He
opened the door and in one swift motion lifted me onto the seat. “I
forgot what a bitty thing you are.”
“I’m
not small. You’re just very tall. With a very large truck.”
His
hands didn’t release my waist; instead, he moved closer. I opened
my legs to make space for him.
“Don’t
worry, Winter. Everything’s going to fit fine.” With a firm hand
on my neck, he drew my face down to his. I heard his lips part before
I felt them press against mine.
A
thousand thoughts tumbled in my head. Would Ivy be okay with this?
Should I really be taking advantage of a grief-stricken man? How were
his lips soft and firm at the same time? Could I have an orgasm from
just kissing? Was this what love
felt like?
His
mouth took mine in a firm possession—no hesitation. He wanted this
if not me.
And I took what he gave me because when did a girl ever get to kiss
the boy she’d crushed over for years? Hardly ever.
Only
in the movies.
I
wrapped my arms around his shoulders and dug my hands into his hair,
giving into every desperate desire I’d always tried to stomp down.
He
groaned and pulled me tighter to him, the seat somehow perfectly
situated at groin level so I felt the strong, heated evidence of his
desire through our jeans. He rubbed his tongue along the edges of
mine. He outlined my lips and then stroked the flat of his tongue
against the roof of my mouth.
Even
if I hadn’t had a crush on him, I would have been weak-kneed. Finn
O’Malley knew how to kiss. He wasn’t just thrusting his tongue
into me, he was exploring me, learning me, tasting me.
A
large hand cupped one breast and squeezed it tightly. I cried out,
part in pleasure and part in surprise at how the slight pain felt so
good.
“Too
rough?” he asked, pulling away.
I
shook my head. He gave a half smile and yanked down the vee of my
T-shirt until my bare breast popped out. The overhead light had gone
off in the truck, but there was enough moonlight that anyone coming
out of the café could probably see what we were doing.
But
any concern I had ended when he placed his mouth over my ripe nipple.
With the same lavish care he took kissing me, he explored every inch
of my breast. The top received a dozen wet kisses and tiny nips. The
areola he licked thoroughly, and the nipple was sucked on so hard and
with such long draws that I felt as if a string connected my nipples
to my pussy. A string I hadn’t known existed.
While
he sucked, he made low growls of delight that fueled my lust. I
squeezed my legs around his hips, drawing him closer, drawing him
inside where only he could relieve the painful ache between my legs.
“Fuck,”
he rasped, breaking our connection and backing away. The cool spring
air made my taut nipple tighten even more. “Not here.” He gently
straightened my T-shirt and then tucked me inside the truck.
We
drove a short distance to a chain link fence that opened upon a press
of a remote.
“What
is this place?” I tried to catch my breath. Peering out the window
into the dimly lit night, there appeared to be nothing but bare land
filled with machinery and surrounded by fences. Beyond it was the
river.
“My
new job. Left to me courtesy of Mr. Sean O’Malley.” There was a
faint twinge of bitterness. “Dad wanted to stamp his signature on
the city and chose this downtown revitalization project. But then he
died and left it to me, so I don’t know whether to love or hate
him.”
“It’s
okay to feel both. Love and hate,” I clarified unnecessarily.
“I
suppose you’re right.” He stopped the truck in front of a
trailer.
“You
can cry you know. I did a lot of that.”
“I
like to have my emotional release come a different way.”
“Like
what?”
He
shifted in the truck seat to look at me. His hand reached out to cup
my face. “You’ve grown into a very beautiful woman. I’d very
much like to take you inside the trailer and fuck you against the
wall.”
“That’s
kind of a coarse invitation.”
His
thumb ran over my lower lip, using some of the moisture of my mouth
to wet my lip. I shivered, and a grim but knowing smile spread across
his face.
“It’s
the only kind I’ve got in me. All the tender emotion has been eaten
up by my dad’s death. I want to lose myself in you, Winter.”
He
got out of the truck and opened my door, giving me an expectant look.
Was I in or out?
I
knew what he was saying. It wasn’t that he loved me, wanted to date
me, or wanted me to be his girlfriend. He’d probably be
disappointed if he saw me next to him tomorrow morning. He’d lie
awake wondering if he had to chew off his own arm to escape. He was
offering a hard fuck in his trailer, not lovemaking in his bed.
I
knew all of this and still wanted him.
Maybe
the sex would burn away his mystery, and I wouldn't internally sigh
when I heard his name. Maybe it wouldn't. But it was a risk worth
taking, and I planned to get my money's worth.
“How
many condoms do you have?” I answered boldly.
His
eyes glittered in the moonlight. “How many do I need?”
“Depends
on your stamina and recovery time.”
“Honey,
you're going to have a hard time walking out of the trailer when
we're done.”
My
heart ached at his words, but I took his hand and followed him
inside.
Woodland
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About
the Author:
Jen
Frederick lives with her husband, child, and one rambunctious dog.
She's been reading stories all her life but never imagined writing
one of her own. Jen loves to hear from readers so drop her a line at
jensfrederick@gmail.com.
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