“No,” we said at the same time, and his hand covered mine on the stone parapet of the bridge.
“We need to stop her from doing anything irrevocable, Finn.” Real life wasn’t a movie—in the real world there were consequences for revenge. Consequences like prison, and Eve might have endured Siegburg as a girl, but I didn’t think she’d survive now if she went to prison for assault or whatever they called it in France. “I’m not letting her burn up the rest of her life just to take that old bastard out.”
“But it’s her life, isn’t it?” Finn’s fingers slid inside mine, so our hands slowly interlaced. “I’ve been with Gardiner awhile now. I can understand her wanting to risk it all to make something right.”
“Killing an old man is making things right? I can’t be a party to that, even if he is a back-shooting murderer.” I shivered, partly from the terrible thought and partly because Finn’s thumb was passing back and forth along the back of my hand, leaving tingles. “We’ll have to make sure she doesn’t go off the rails.” Wasn’t that going to be a job.
“A job for tomorrow.” Finn tugged me away from the balustrade. “Promise me something, Charlie?”
“What?”
“Don’t look at that photograph tomorrow. Just enjoy the drive.”
We meandered back to the hotel hand in hand, largely silent. Finn opened the door to guide me through, fingertips resting on my bare back above the black dress’s low V slash, and my skin rippled. He walked me down the corridor to my room, formally, as if I had a father who cared about my curfew glaring at the clock.
“I had a lovely time,” he said, very solemn. “I’ll ring you tomorrow.”
“Boys never call.”
“Men call.”
We lingered inside our fragile bubble of happiness, the kind of happiness that sits on top of melancholy as easily as icing on a cake. I didn’t want to leave it. “I’m no good at this, Finn,” I said at last. A Yank in a black dress plus a Scotsman in a jacket, multiplied by a summer night and a packet of sandwiches, divided by an awkward silence and the fact that the Yank had a pregnant belly—I didn’t know how that equation came out, what it equaled. “What happens now?”
He sounded hoarse. “What happens now is entirely up to you.”
“Oh.” I stood a moment, looking at him, and then I went up on tiptoe. Our lips met, soft as drifting feathers, and I melted into him as his arms circled my waist. We kissed, slow and endless, Finn pressing me soft and yielding between the hard door and his hard chest, and I fumbled blindly behind me for the handle. The door burst open and we spilled through it, kissing and stumbling, my shoes landing on top of his discarded jacket. Finn got a hand loose from my hair and batted the door shut. He picked me up then, holding me in the air for another kiss, and then he made me shriek as he dropped me on the bed from what seemed like a very long height. He stood for a moment looking down at me, and I couldn’t believe I was this nervous. We’d already done this, but not in a bed, not with lights on . . .
He dropped down with a groan, stretching himself, long and luxuriant, over me. “Beds,” he said, dropping slow kisses along my neck, the Scots burr coming thicker, “are a verra big improvement on backseats.”
“I fit just fine in both—” as I tugged at his shirt.
“Because you’re a midget.” He submitted to my tugging, letting me pull his shirt over his head, then flipped me back down, grinning. “Quit rushing! It’s not supposed to be a sprint—”
“Thought you liked fast,” I managed to say. In the light he was lean and brown and beautiful. “You and your five-speed gearboxes . . .”
“Cars should be fast. Beds should be slow.”
I tangled my hands in his hair, feeling my back arch as he dragged the zipper of my dress down inch by inch. “How slow?”
“Verra . . . verra . . . slow . . . ,” he murmured against my lips. “Takes all night, where we’re going.”
“All night?” I hooked my legs around him, looked at the dark eyes so close to mine our lashes brushed. I am falling for you, I thought bemusedly, I am