Page 34 of One Vow

“I’ll be here when you need me.” He walked to the door and held it open. My invitation to exit. “Right now, you don’t.”

I walked out. What the hell just happened? I’d gone there to defend my husband with the Chancellor of students and ended up being shown out by my dad. “Fuck.”

Well, wasn’t this just quite the day?

11

Finn

I waited an hour before I started to freak out. Another 20 minutes before it occurred to me that she’d left without her purse or her phone or her keys. Ten more before it occurred to me that I could use her phone to call Sofia.

She answered and music blared in the background. “Hey, Flissy’s phone. Which must mean this is the future Mr. Beth Cooper.” She laughed at her own joke. “Because Flissy is with me, and we are getting our drink on because, whoo, she is pissed at you.”

“I’m not pissed at anyone and it’s Mr. Dr. Beth Cooper or Dr. Mr. Beth Cooper. Ask him which one it is. I tried to figure it out when I looked him up online, but couldn’t figure it all out,” Felicity’s words slurred in the background. And then her voice was in my ear. “Hey, you can go to bed because I’m not coming home tonight. I’m going to find someone who doesn’t require batteries or permission to rock my world. And by rock my world, I mean screw me cross-eyed and immobile. I want to see heaven by morning.”

“Oh, yeah?” No. I couldn’t go find her and offer my services in that respect. It would be wrong.

“You bet your ass I am.” She scoffed into the phone. “Because you want Beth Cooper. Fine. But I’m not going to sit around and wait for you anymore. I’m sorry. But I need action in my business…areas.”

Oh shit. “Okay.”

But if she asked me, no way would I be able to turn her down.

“Finn?” Her voice was soft, a breath, the most erotic sound I’ve ever heard.

“Yeah?”

“Is it okay if I think about you while…”

Fuck! “Where are you at?”

I’d drive across the country for this.

“I’m not telling you so you can come here, and cock block me.” Her voice broke. “I need this, Finn. I need someone to touch me and to want me. Please just let me have it.”

I wasn’t sure what she was asking me, but the answer was yes. Hell yes. This time when I asked, I didn’t leave room for argument. “Tell me where you are, Lis.”

She gave me the name of the bar and was still sitting at the counter when I walked in and stood behind her to lean in and whisper in her ear. “You’re beautiful, and I want you.”

To hell with being the guy who deserved her, to being the guy who couldn’t sleep with the wife I loved because I owed the fiancée blackmailing me into marriage some weird loyalty.

She turned her stool to face me. “Kiss me.”

It wasn’t a dare or a challenge. It was Felicity asking for what she wanted. For what I told her I would give her.

I took her face in my hands, stroked her cheeks with my thumbs until her eyelids fluttered, memorized her face again then lowered my head. I wanted soft and sweet, a prelude to how I planned to love her as soon as I got her home, but she curled her fingers into my shirt and pulled me in then held me there.

When she pulled back, she chewed her lower lip. “I don’t want to have sex.”

Parts of me were going to be unforgivably blue since I’d done nothing but think about sex with her since I called her on Sofia’s phone. “Okay.”

“I mean, I do. Just not tonight because I want to remember it and I want to be good, and I’m too drunk for either of those things.” I almost offered to remember it enough for both of us, but she chuckled. “I guess we could capture it all on video.”

She threw her head back and laughed while I watched. After a minute, a full, loud minute, she sobered and fought for control with twitching lips and an inability to meet my gaze. “Too soon? It’s been ten years.”

“Lis…” If only she knew. And tomorrow, before we did anything else, I would tell her the price we’d pay together if I broke my engagement with Beth, and I couldn’t sleep with Felicity if I didn’t.

“Take her home, Finn.” Sofia’s voice came from behind me. “She’s taking up valuable real estate next to me.”