Page 26 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2

FINN

Why was I nervous? It was just dinner. And sex.

Please baby Jesus, let there be sex, and lots of it.

I reached out to ring the doorbell and tried not to notice my hand shaking. Great. I was going to look like the young kid he already thought I was.

But when he came to the door, Declan made me feel the opposite of childlike.

“Fucking Christ, I want to strip you naked and tackle you to the ground right here.” His voice was low, so I was the only one who could hear it, but the look in his eyes broadcast the sentiment to anyone looking.

I gulped.

“You look amazing, Finn,” he continued. “Thank you for coming. I swore to myself not to treat you like a piece of meat, and now here I am with my steak sauce out and my knife sharpened.”

“Yes, please,” I managed to get out before he grabbed the front of my shirt and hauled me in for a kiss.

I almost lost my footing, but Declan’s other arm wrapped tightly around my waist to hold me firmly against him.

I made a sound of desperate appreciation into his mouth and surrendered to the power of his possessive mouth.

I loved this side of him. I wanted more of it.

“Let the poor man breathe, Declan,” a woman’s voice called from inside the house. “I want to meet him before you suck all the brain cells out of him.”

Declan let me go, but before I could wobble away, he grabbed the sides of my face in his large hands and kissed me again.

Then again. “I missed you,” he said gruffly before finally letting me go.

My heart skipped at his words. I wanted to remind him he’d been the one to leave, but since he’d given me such a warm welcome, I wondered if the point was moot.

My head spun with excitement and a fair amount of confusion, but I definitely knew I wanted to meet the friend of his who’d come to stay with him.

I took a minute to catch my breath and will my dick to deflate before stepping around Declan and introducing myself to the couple in the living room. A timer went off in the kitchen, and Declan muttered a quick apology before rushing after it.

The woman was beautiful, but in a natural kind of girl-next-door way. She had her blonde hair back in a ponytail, and her face was bare of any makeup. Her blue eyes watched me intently as I came closer.

“I’ve heard so much about you, Finn,” she began with a genuine smile. “I’m Declan’s friend Tessa.”

I was almost positive she’d dropped the f-word in there to send me a message that she was no threat to whatever designs I had on the handsome sheriff.

While I appreciated it, I also felt deep in my bones Declan’s own sense of honor would keep him from ever being unfaithful to anyone he was with.

Assuming, of course, he was with someone. Which of course he wasn’t.

“Nice to meet you.” I glanced at the deputy I’d already met. “Deputy Graham. Nice to see you again.”

He reached out a hand to shake. “Call me Shawn, please. It’s nice to see you, too. Glad you’re doing okay.”

“I should say the same to you since you’re the one who was injured that night at the Stanners’ place.”

Shawn’s hand came up to feel for the cut that was already healing.

“No big deal. Tess fixed me right up.” He shot a smile at Tessa that suddenly clued me in to the situation at hand.

These two were interested in each other.

I wondered how that would play out when Declan’s friend was at least eight months pregnant with another man’s baby. Hopefully Shawn wasn’t an asshole.

Tess glanced at the deputy. “Would you mind grabbing the bag I packed? It’s on my bed.”

He jogged off immediately to do her bidding, and she looked after him for a beat with a goofy look on her face before turning to me. “I won’t be back until late tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, ask Declan about mountain biking and magic tricks.”

I opened my mouth to ask her what she meant, but Declan came in, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. “Sorry about that. I forgot I’d left the oil heating in the pan. Would you like some wine?”

Suddenly, I was nervous again. “What are you having?”

Tessa clasped her hands together in front of her chest and made a little sound of contentment. “Have so much fun. I’ll get out of your hair. Call me if you accidentally set the house on fire. Shawn can probably hook us up with some hot firefighters.”

Shawn entered the room with a bag over his shoulder. “Hey. No need for all that. I’ll fight your fire.”

Tess and Declan exchanged an eye roll before Tess leaned up to peck Dec’s cheek. “Night.”

She gave me a quick hug before following Shawn out the door. When they were gone, I followed Declan into the kitchen. It was cozy and clean, modern and updated but not too fancy. Something about it put me at ease. I took a seat on one of the stools at the kitchen island. “She seems great,” I began.

Declan opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses before sliding one over to me. “Yeah. She is. I’ve known her since we were five. We went to school together the whole way through, then she lived in the apartment next door to me the last few years in LA. That’s how she met Nick.”

I sensed a story there, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk about his ex-partner right now. “What’s with her and the cute deputy?”

“You think he’s cute?” Declan didn’t look at me when he asked the question, but I could tell he cared about the answer.

“I meant cute as in puppy dog cute. He’s goofy for her. And just so we’re clear, earnest young do-gooder isn’t my type.”

He finally met my eyes. “Then what is?”

Part of me wondered if my answer would change the direction of our evening from one path to another. I chose my words carefully.

“Calm, mature do-gooder with a tendency to get bossy in the bedroom.”

Heavy heat filled the air between us like a muggy summer evening on a bayou. It was hard to take in a full breath, and the air felt both alive and oppressive.

“Noted,” he finally said with that familiar deep voice that seemed like it was in absolutely no hurry.

He went back to fixing dinner, leaving me shallow-breathed and restless.

I watched the planes of his back move. Unfortunately, the shirt he wore covered his ass, so I couldn’t stare at that, too.

When he turned, I was able to catch a glimpse of his tanned, muscular forearms. I’d never felt quite so light-headed from lusting after a man.

What was it about him that turned me into a hormonal lust bucket?

Maybe I needed to steer my thoughts away from sex.

“Tessa said to ask you about mountain biking,” I began. “Is there a story there?”

Declan turned to smile at me. “Nah. It’s just a hobby of mine. One of the reasons I picked Colorado instead of another big city. There are some great trails around here.”

“How did you get into it if you’re from LA?”

He turned his back to me before answering. “I grew up in Encino. Topanga State Park was practically in my backyard.”

Encino. How the hell did he wind up as a cop if he’d grown up with that kind of money?

“Oh,” I said stupidly. The old feelings of being the poor kid came rushing back.

It had been a long time since I’d been that insecure schoolboy in thrift store clothes and the church charity backpack.

Free lunch at my school was a choice between a peanut butter sandwich or a bologna one.

I never wanted to see either kind again as long as I lived.

“What area did you grow up in?” he asked. It was the natural progression of this kind of conversation.

I considered lying. But I was a grown adult who’d made good.

And my mother’s situation back then had been a result of her own desperation to leave her borderline abusive parents.

Those years of free lunch had also brought our freedom from them.

And I’d worked my ass off to make sure I’d never had another free lunch again.

“Watts.”

I watched carefully for his reaction. The muscles of his back stiffened, but he continued stirring the food in the pan. It smelled like a delicious veggie stir-fry, and the scent of it suddenly made me realize how hungry I was.

Declan didn’t say anything until he was finished with the dish and had plated two deep pasta bowls with rice and the stir fry. After setting the dishes on the kitchen table where he’d already set two place settings, he reached for my hand as if to lead me from the kitchen island to the table.

Only, instead of leading me, he pulled me into a tight hug. His voice was gruff when he finally spoke. “Fuck. How the fuck did you get out of Watts?”

I was beginning to notice his language deteriorated when he was experiencing strong feelings. Knowing he felt that way, that he was worried about me in a way instead of judging me, made my shoulders fall and my breathing steady. I held him just as tightly.

“My mom. She busted her ass to get us out of there.”

He pulled back and met my eyes. “It wasn’t the show, the acting job?”

I sighed. “Yeah. It was. But I never would have gotten that opportunity without her taking me to as many casting calls as she could find.”

Declan’s jaw tightened around words he wanted to say but didn’t.

I could probably have guessed them, so I was relieved he held them back.

I didn’t want to hear about how horrible my mom was for using her child that way.

I’d heard it a million times before. Hell, I’d thought it a million times before.

But it was an easy criticism to have now that I was richer than god and could barely remember the disgusting smell of that shared bedroom in the house in Watts.

“That explains some things,” he said at last, letting me go so we could begin eating.

His words got my hackles up. “Like what?”

Declan shrugged, reaching for the open wine bottle to refill our glasses. “Your loyalty to your mom. Your commitment to acting.”

I could tell there were more things he would have added had he not been parsing his words. I wondered at them.

“I owe her everything,” I said.