Deep Surrendering: Episode Four (8 page)

I wrinkled my nose at him.

“You can be selfish. It’s not a crime. God knows I’ve been. Every moment with you has been completely selfish. Asking you to keep this going is selfish,” he said. Not exactly. It wasn’t like I wasn’t getting anything out of it. This was working in both our favors.

“Fine. Then we can be selfish together. Apart. But together,” I said.

He took my hand and brushed a kiss across the back of my knuckles. “I promise you that I won’t be with anyone while I’m gone. I’ll wait for you.” God, I almost wished he hadn’t promised me. That was an awful lot to ask of him. “Will you promise me the same?”

“Of course,” I said without thinking. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. I didn’t want anyone else like this. Just him.

“I promise I won’t be with anyone but you.”

Promises made. It was the keeping them that would be the harder part. I had faith in him and I believed in us. In what we had and what we could build.

I yawned. Even with the nap, I was still exhausted from the vigorous sex.

“Go to sleep, Mari Cherry. You’ve earned it.”

I was about to close my eyes for the night when I remembered something. “Oh, there’s a stack of books next to the bed for you. There’s a variety, so you can pick and choose. Or you can take anything from my shelves.” I had a small bookshelf in my bedroom for my favorites, and a larger one out in the living room.

“You think of everything,” he said, picking the top book off the stack. When I said “variety,” I meant it. Everything from romance to sci-fi, to young adult contemporary. The one he picked up first was a heavy young adult about a girl who’d been raped. I figured he could skip it if it was too much for him to take, but he read the back and then opened to the first page.

“Don’t you want to change your clothes or something?” He always kept an overnight bag in his Town Car and he’d brought it up with him. “I mean, I kind of ruined your shirt.” I should probably offer to buy him a new one. You’d think that companies would test their fabrics against fingernails.

“I’m fine. Stop worrying about me. Go to sleep. I’ll manage.” I was fussing, but I wanted him to have everything he needed.

“Fine, fine. But don’t say I didn’t ask.” I closed my eyes, and he put his arm around me, The beat of his heart and the scrape of the pages turning lulled me to sleep.

Sore was an understatement for how I felt the next day. It was like I’d had an intense workout, which I guessed I had. Not to mention the bruises that greeted me when I opened my eyes. I slept naked, too tired to put my night things back on.

“Ow,” I said, sitting up. Fin was in the same position I’d left him in last night, just with a different book.

“Do you ever sleep?”

“I doze. I guess I’m just one of those people who can function on only a few hours.” And still look amazing. Whereas I knew my hair was all over the place and my mouth tasted like ass.

“I need a shower,” I said, trying to smooth my hair.

“Go ahead. I’ll grab one after you’re done.”

“No ambushing me this time?” I asked, half-joking and half-serious.

“Not this time. I wouldn’t do that again. Promise.” His eyes flicked up at me for a moment but went back to his book as I headed to the shower.

Either the sex really had been rough, or I bruised easily. In addition to the marks on my thighs from him thrusting into me, I had some marks on my arms from him holding me. If someone didn’t know better, they would think I’d been beat up.

Hopefully most of the marks would fade soon. At least they were in places I could cover with clothing.

I was seriously flirting with the idea of asking Fin if I could come to work with him and just hide under his desk if anyone came into the room. I was also plotting to find out his itinerary so I could surprise him at the airport. I couldn’t imagine not being there to say goodbye to him before he went through security. He could do what he wanted to try and stop me, but I was going to be there. If I had to put Carl in a headlock or pay him to get the information, I’d do it.

I got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my head and body, and went to check on Fin. He was still reading, lost to the world the author had created on the page. I watched him for a moment, leaning against the open door and letting the steam escape from the bathroom.

“I can feel you watching me,” he said, not lifting his eyes from the book. “It’s rude to stare.”

“Yeah, well, it’s rude to travel without telling the girl you’re sleeping with when you’re leaving so she can give you a proper goodbye.” I climbed onto the bed and crossed my arms.

He put his finger in the book to mark his place and looked at me. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you like that. We really shouldn’t say goodbye, you know. Because it’s not. I’ll see you on the internet.”

“It’s not the same.” I knew I was whining, and there were far worse things I could be going through. He could have wanted to end this altogether. That would be awful. I had to count my blessings here.

“I know. But I just … I just don’t want you there. I’m sorry.”

I wanted to respect that. I probably should. There was clearly a reason why he didn’t want me to go.

“Do you really not want me there?”

“It would be for the best, Marisol.”

“Okay, fine. I won’t go. It sucks, but if that’s what you want. But, that means you need to do something for me.” Maybe this could work out in my favor after all.

“Now I’m in trouble,” he said.

“Would you maybe consider playing hooky and spending the day with me? Or at least meeting me for lunch? And going out or spending the night with me?” The countdown had started and I wanted to see him as much as possible.

I had this irrational fear that he’d leave and I’d somehow forget him. Silly, considering I was going to see him on video. What if the chemistry went away with him? What if all this was a flash in the pan and it fizzled out?

“I can’t spend the day with you. I wish I could. I’d do everything in my power to make that happen, but it’s out of my hands. I can, however, have lunch with you, and tonight’s date is a given. There was never any question of that. I shall be exclusively yours as soon as I’m out of work.”

“Hm. What shall I do with you when you’re mine?” I tapped my chin and pretended to think deeply about it.

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” he said with a wink as he grabbed his overnight bag and headed to the bathroom.

“Have a good day at work, dear,” I said, giving him a peck on the cheek when Carl dropped him off at his office building. Fin had to be at work much earlier than I had to be in class, so I still had time to get some breakfast.

“I’ll see you at twelve-thirty?”

“On the dot.” He gave me one last hard kiss goodbye, and I almost didn’t let him go.

“Bye.”

“Bye, Mari Cherry.” He waved to the car as we pulled away.

“I’m going to miss him too, Miss Marisol,” Carl said, startling me. He was so quiet sometimes I forgot he was there.

“Oh, do you not travel with him?”

“No. I stay here and work for the elder Mr. Herald.” Boy, that must be a good time. I almost said something to that effect but kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want anything getting back to Fin’s dad.

Carl cleared his throat and asked me where I wanted to stop for breakfast. I directed him to the nearest little café that served really good scones. It was a scone kind of morning.

“Don’t worry, Miss Marisol. He’s not going to forget about you.” I looked up from my shirt, which I’d been wiping scone crumbs from, feeling bad that Carl was probably going to have to clean up after I left.

“I know.”

“I’ve known Fin for most of his life, and I have to say that I’ve never seen him this … settled. Calm. He has a tendency to be …”

“A psychotic control freak,” I supplied.

“I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but something along those lines. He seems balanced now. Even. I always wondered what it would take. Or who it would take.” I blushed under the praise.

“We’ve only known each other a short time, and who knows what’s going to happen? I wouldn’t start ringing wedding bells yet.” Something told me Fin wasn’t the marriage type anyway.

Carl just gave me one of those wise looks and started humming as I finished my scone.

I counted down the hours and then the minutes I had to wait until my lunch with Fin. I couldn’t get him out of my head, and the fact that my body still ached a little was a constant reminder of the night before.

My brain was so distracted that I got called out by one of my professors in front of the entire class and wanted to die on the spot. I was usually a model student, so I’d been able to avoid scrutiny for the most part.

I had Fin on the brain, but there was nothing I could do about it. I even tried to kill some of the time before our lunch date by getting started on some research in the library, but I found myself wanting to Google Fin. The idea had occurred to me before, but it felt like an invasion of privacy, and just an all-around creepy thing to do.

The cursor blinked in the search box and I typed the first three letters of his name before hitting the backspace button. No. I wouldn’t be that weird girl who Googled her man. He wasn’t even technically my man. Sure, he said he wouldn’t have sex with anyone else while he was gone, but that didn’t make him my boyfriend. We still hadn’t defined what we were doing. And until he came out and called himself my boyfriend, I didn’t have an actual claim on him.

No, I wasn’t going to get into that headspace. There was plenty of time to wallow in misery after he left.

So, eager to see him, I showed up for our date twenty minutes early and sat at the table playing with my napkin and drinking too much water.

Fin showed up right on time, and grinned wide when he spotted me.

I stood up to embrace him, and he presented me with another sprig of lilacs. I hugged him for a long time. I didn’t know how many hugs I had before he left, and I wanted to make each one count.

“I got here really early,” I said sheepishly, pointing to the empty pitcher of water next to my glass. I was going to have to pee like hell later.