Hot as Heller (Aster Valley 3)

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” I stood up and grabbed my almost empty dish, quickly taking it to the kitchen sink and rinsing it off before trying to remember where I’d set down my keys. I needed to get out of here. The man had just tripped my creep-o meter in a big way.

Before I could turn away from the sink, the sheriff’s big body boxed me in from behind. “Slow down,” he said with that infuriatingly calm tone. “Let me explain why I was asking before you go off half-cocked.”

I shrugged out of his hold. “Get off me.”

He stepped back and held up his hands. I made my way over to where I’d kicked off my shoes. There was a bench by the door. I quickly sat down and shoved my foot in the first shoe.

“I was getting around to asking you why you do it. If it’s not for money, which I have to think at this point it’s probably not, then why do you keep doing something you hate?”

I froze. My heart pounded in my chest like cops were banging on the door of a drug bust. Police, open up. I glanced at Declan.

“I don’t hate it,” I said automatically.

His face stiffened into a resigned disappointment. “Okay. Then please accept my apology for implying otherwise. Would you like a piece of pie?”

He sounded so distant all of a sudden that I wanted to scream and possibly cry. Open back up, dammit.

“I don’t,” I called at his back as he moved toward the kitchen.

“I heard you the first time,” he said casually, like it was no big deal. Like it was something other than the live grenade he’d left me holding with the pin pulled.

I wanted him to put the pin back in my grenade. I wanted it so badly. I’d been carrying this pocket-sized bomb for such a long time. I’d gotten so used to carrying it, I’d forgotten all it would take was one person curious enough to pull on the metal loop.

“I don’t want to talk about my fucking feelings,” I called out. “Or… or work. Or… childhood fucking dogs, dammit! I don’t want to make small talk with you. I…” My breathing came faster. Need crawled under my skin, but I wasn’t clear on what exactly I needed. “Can’t we just fuck? Can’t I come here, eat a nice meal, and just… get naked with you? I’d rather have your dick than your psychoanalysis.”

I sounded like a brat. Ungrateful and rude. I knew that. But he was holding my pin, and if I didn’t do something to distract myself from the grenade I was holding, I was going to drop it and destroy everything.

Declan appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and front room. He looked as calm as ever. Like my angry words hadn’t affected him at all.

“Go upstairs to the bedroom on the right and strip down to your underwear. Lie down on my bed and think about a white piece of paper. That’s it. Just a white piece of paper. Nothing else.” With that, he turned around and returned to the kitchen like he’d just instructed me on how to take the trash out.

I left a Finn-shaped cloud of dust behind me as I raced toward the stairs. Finally, we could stop talking and simply fuck.

15

Declan

I took my time cleaning up the dinner dishes and putting the leftovers away. The puzzle pieces of Finn were starting to snap together one after the other, and I finally felt like I could see glimpses of the person he was underneath all the pretense.

He was terrified and lonely. Exhausted and unsure. He’d been trying to navigate this life as a grown adult since the age of ten, if not younger. He’d been the primary breadwinner in his family at an age most kids were learning how to throw a baseball or ride a bike. Thanks to his young mother, he’d been the man of the family long before he’d been a man at all.

Finn Heller needed to let go. He was holding this crazy life together with paper clips and string, and it was wearing him down to the bone. Something had to give, or there wasn’t going to be a Finn Heller left underneath the Hollywood celebrity profile much longer.

He was begging for help, only… he didn’t realize it. Everything he did seemed to be for other people’s happiness. What did he do for his own? And how could I help him see he deserved to start living his life and making his choices for his own happiness instead of everyone else’s?

When I finally made my way upstairs to my room, I found him dead asleep as I’d suspected, sprawled out like a sexy half-naked starfish on my bed. I loved seeing him there among my things. His body was the hottest thing I’d ever seen, but his face in sleep was… breathtaking. The freckles scattered across his nose. The sooty eyelashes brushing his cheeks. The full lips completely relaxed instead of pursing in concentration. I wanted to kiss him and hold him, protect him from the harsh, judgmental world he lived in.