Vacation (48 page)

I'd been looking for someone to support my
dreams, but now, they didn't seem so important anymore. Maybe that was where I
gathered my warmth – from the promise of the future. With Finn wrapped around
me, I didn't need promises anymore. I had him.

Chapter 22

Finn

I woke before Chloe did the next morning.
She was on her back with her hair slung across her face and the top half of her
uncovered. The need to reach out and touch her struck me hard, but I kept my
hands tucked under my face as I laid on my side, watching her. I hated when
people did that shit to me, but I could see where they were coming from now. I
couldn't help myself. So many things about her left me intrigued, and I'd only
scratched the surface.

We made love again before going to sleep
wrapped around each other, the second time far slower. I'd never made love to a
woman like that, but after doing it, I could see why. It was like I lost a
piece of myself with every thrust, every moan,
every
whimper she let out. She was impossibly beautiful, a treasure that I wanted to
hide away from the world.

Realization dawned on me and hard emotion
slammed into my chest. I rolled over and carefully got out of the bed as tears
burned my eyes. My father loved my mother with a passion that made no sense to
me. He'd been single for ten years out of the longing that he had for only her.

I couldn't imagine loving Chloe for the
next ten years and then having to say goodbye.

Walking to the shower, I pressed my
fingers to my eyes and growled. "Stop it. Idiot."

The water was hot, and felt good against
my skin as I let my worries bleed out. I tucked the situation with my mom and dad
somewhere back into a corner of my heart and figured I'd get Chloe to help me
with how to talk the old fart into giving Milly a try. She was the next best
thing to my mom, but convincing Dad of that would be hard. We'd have to get
manipulative, but Chloe was a woman...she could figure it out for me.

I smiled and turned the shower off,
knowing she would give me lip for calling her manipulative by nature.

"Finn?" her voice called out
from the bedroom.

"I'm in here, baby. Just needed to
get moving." I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked back into the
bedroom to see her curled up on her side, clutching the covers around her
chest.

"You have to work today?" She
sat up and ran her fingers through her hair as she kept the blanket up against
her.

I leaned over and pinched the bottom of
it, pulling hard as she yelped. "I
wanna
see
you."

"Then, get back in this bed. It's
fucking cold." She pulled the covers back up and rolled around in the bed
until she was properly wrapped up.

I crawled over her and straddled her side
with my full body as I kissed at the side of her face.

"My dad's already grumpy about me
calling in sick the other day. The cute girl I was going to spend the day with
told on me." I huffed. "Around the shop, we like to say that snitches
get stitches."

She turned and lifted her eyebrow at me.
"Oh yeah? Is that what you guys say?"

She jerked back, and I fell onto the bed, only
to have her crawl on top of me and run her fingers along my sides, tickling me.

I trapped her hands and rolled us back
over, snuggling in between her thighs and cursing my towel and her blanket.
"I'm
gonna
get you for that."

She pressed her chin to the ceiling and
let out a sexy moan before rubbing herself against my stomach.

"Please get me. Get me like you got
me last night."

I nipped at her breasts as they jutted out
and ran my hands up her arms as my cock hardened.

"You're going to get me fired or
disowned." I brushed my face down her stomach and pressed my teeth against
the swell of her sex.

Her fingers slid into my hair, and she
pulled me up using a handful of it. "Get out of here before I decided to
play your games and submit to your research."

I got up and tugged my towel off, more
than happy to prance around naked and fully erect in front of her. "What
research?"

She turned on her side and reached for me
as I pulled away and found a pair of clean jeans.

"How to make women have longer
orgasms? We should work on that."

"If I recall, you had a six hour one
last night." I chuckled as she threw a pillow at me.

"You were incredibly amazing."
She turned on her back and pulled a pillow onto her face, screaming like a
silly girl into it. She looked out from the side with a huge smile on her
beautiful face. "Amazing. The best lover in the world."

I leaned over and pressed my chest to the
bed before reaching out and touching her face. "Only for you."

"I'm going to hold you to that."
She turned to kiss my hand.

"If I get to take you to bed at night
and wake up with you in the morning, you can hold me to anything you want
to." I moved more onto the bed and kissed her. "I
gotta
go. Want me to cook you something before I do?"

"No. Give me a minute and I'll get
dressed. I don't have a key." She started to get up, but I gently pressed
her back down.

"There's an extra one hanging on the
rack by the door. Take it with you, and be careful going home. Another thick
snowstorm blew in last night."

"That's great for business, but
shitty for people like me who can't drive in the snow." She let out a
content sigh. "I don't want you to go."

"Is my independent woman getting
needy?" I chuckled at the warning look I'd gotten.

"Never. Be safe and call me..."
she paused, and I smiled, "you know, whenever."

She rolled away from me playfully, and I
popped the curve of her butt in the sheets. "I'll call you when I get off.
Bad girl."

"Your bad girl." She glanced
over her shoulder, and gave me a hot look that had me considering telling the
world to go to hell.

"I
gotta
go
before I decide not to." I grabbed my t-shirt, walked to the front door,
and worked quickly to get my jacket, boots, hat and gloves on.

"See you later, Finn." Her voice
was sultry, and I knew better than to turn around, but dammit if I couldn't
help myself.

The sexy little minx was completely naked,
leaning against the doorframe to my bedroom. She twirled her fingers around a
section of her hair and bit at her lip in a way that had my body reacting
violently.

I turned and charged her, loving the
squeal she gave as she ran for the bed. She'd have died if she knew how much I
enjoyed watching her perfect ass jiggle as she hauled it back to the bed.

I stopped at the door to the bedroom and
smiled. "You're lucky I have shit to do or you'd get a spanking for
teasing me."

Somehow, I knew before she did it, that my
own words were going to come back to bite me. She rolled over and presented me
with the prettiest ass I'd ever seen. "Come spank it?"

"Damn, woman." I turned and
walked to the door as I ran my hand down my face. "Behave."

I walked out into the snowy weather and
stopped, breathing in deeply and letting the cold seal my good mood in tightly.
There was nothing that could ruin the incredible feeling that filled me up.
Chloe was mine, and after spending the night in her arms, I knew without a
doubt that I would be hers for however long she would have me.

* * * *

"So what happened?" Brian sat on
the extra snowplow I'd brought with me to the job site. He was on a late lunch
break, and I was finishing a large job by hand to make sure it looked nice for
our client.

"She took a few days to think things
through and I guess since it was just a big misunderstanding, she's willing to
give us a try." I reached up and readjusted my hat.

"So, no boyfriend?"

"Nope. They broke up before she came
here for the holidays." I shrugged and went back to shoveling. My back and
legs were burning like crazy, but I figured it had more to do with making love
to Chloe half the night and little to do with my everyday movements.

"So, where are you guys going from
here?" Brian took a bite of the burger in his hands and leaned back in the
plow's captain chair.

"No clue." I stopped and sat the
shovel down. "Give me the burger you brought me."

He tossed it to me and wiped his mouth
before responding. "Don't you think you should have a clue? This doesn't
feel like anything you've been involved in before. I mean, we're talking like
second or third date at this point. This could be serious, Finn."

The look on his face caused me to laugh.
We'd been friends since we were kids, and he was always worried about me,
always looking out for me.

"It is serious, buddy." I took a
bite of the burger and looked around. "She and I will figure things out.
It's only the fifteenth. I still have ten more days or so with her."

"Ten days with someone you're
obviously falling in love with? Why am I the only one panicking here? It would
be good for you to panic with me." Brian sat his burger down, and shook
his head. "I'm scared and this shit isn't even mine to deal with."

"It's all good. When you fall in
love, I think part of what keeps you sane is believing that all things will
work out for good." I took another bite of my burger, not really feeling
the insane worry that Brian seemed to be experiencing.

"So, that's it? Just let the shit
fall where it may?"

"What else is there to do besides
have fun with her, make memories, and then hope they're enough to keep her
here?" I finished the meal in three bites and chucked him the balled up
wrapper.

"I guess you’re right." He
shrugged and went back to eating.

"The only real issue I see is her
father." I checked my work, finding it just the way my father would want.
"I need to have a real sit down with my dad and see what the fuck happened
between him and Chloe's dad."

"Any clue what it could be?"
Brian hopped down and pulled out his keys.

"Nope. I just know there is some bad
blood there. With me and Chloe finally getting over all these silly little
things, I don't want anything big to pop up in our way."

"Would she choose her dad over you if
he put his foot down?" Brian wiped his mouth once more and balled up the
bag he was holding.

"No clue. She's known me for two
weeks and him for her whole life. I would assume she would choose him, but I'm
not willing to consider that he'll give her an ultimatum."

Brian pinned me with a stare that said I
was a dumb ass dreamer. "He would."

"So, I'll take care of it. If I can
figure out what happened between our dads, then maybe there is a way to clean
it up and not have it become my and Chloe's problem." I tucked my shovels
on the back of the plow and climbed up.

"Just be careful. You and Chloe’s dad
are more alike than you realize." Brian slipped his hands into his pockets
and began to shiver.

"Because he sleeps around? My dad
said he was a bit of a man whore, but my days of that are over. I'm tired of
finding my worth in fleeting moments." I took a drink of the soda Brian had
brought me.

"Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. It's
cool from the outside looking in, but you don't want everyone thinking poorly
of you, like you can't commit to anything. The guys at the office made fun of
Mr. Burke when he left because he has a different date daily while he's here. I
think he's boned most of the women in our office."

"I'd have thought that was awesome a
month ago, but now...not so much."

"Same. Just tread carefully, Finn.
She's planning to leave soon and I-"

I lifted my hand to stop him. "It's
all good. Grown-ass man, remember?"

"Yeah. Sorry. Call me later."

"Will do. Thanks for lunch."

"Anytime." Brian watched me for
a minute more, but I ignored him.

I swear he was born to be the sister I
never had instead of a best friend.

* * * *

I wrapped up and headed back to the shop. There
was no one there, including Milly, which was odd.

After hanging up my shovels and refueling
the plow, I decided to ride over to Chloe's to see if she wanted to go out for
pizza or something. If her dad was there, it probably wouldn't be pretty, but I
needed to talk with him. Talking to my dad was most likely the smarter bet
first, but after searching the shop and finding no one, I gave up and headed to
the Burke residence.

The drive over was quick, and I decided to
use the front door to show respect should her father or brother answer the
door. I slipped my hands in my pockets while I waited for someone to answer and
cursed myself for not checking to see if her SUV was in the garage.

A good-looking older guy in his early
fifties opened the door, and gave me a scowl. "I didn't order a service
today. Tell your dad that this strike two."

He started to shut the door, but I stuck
out my hand and stopped him. "I'm not here to clear your driveway,
Sir."