Curious (The Finn Factor 1)

“No, he doesn’t, and don’t you dare tell him, Jeremy Porter.” She fiddled with her strawberry blonde braid the way she always did when she was nervous or excited. “I’m twenty-four not twelve. I can do whatever I want. But if he happens to show up and give me grief? I’ll threaten to tell our feminist mother how he spends all his free time lately. That would be enough to scare anyone into silence.”

Just lately he spent it with me, he thought, lowering his head into his hand and sighing. He wondered how Ellen Finn would respond to that information.

Somehow he didn’t think they’d be any more pleased than they would be about Jen getting her kink on at Tasha’s club. Though his transgression would merit far worse than a lecture.

“I wish I didn’t know this,” he mumbled into his palm. “Why do I know this?”

Jen took his hand off his face and squeezed it. “Because I know you’ll understand and keep my secrets. You always have.”

He squeezed back. “And I always will, little Finn. Still, this is a bit more intense than the average bachelorette shindig. Why don’t you get a stripper and objectify him with your friends like a normal girl?”

“I just want to try it once. I’m going to marry Scott, and I know him well enough to realize he won’t be the kind of husband that wants to experiment with that sort of thing. If you want to know the truth, he likes to—”

“I don’t,” Jeremy interrupted rapidly. “I really don’t want to know the truth. At all.”

She giggled and he studied her through narrowed eyes. “All three of your brothers would take turns kicking my ass if they found out I knew about this and didn’t talk you out of it. They won’t hear it from me, but I have to tell you, I’m not liking the idea of you negotiating with one of Tasha’s friends.”

“You’re one of her friends.” She grinned. “Let’s negotiate. If you want to let that man pick you up while I watch, maybe even kiss him, I might get enough of a vicarious thrill to change my mind and cancel my date at the club.”

Jeremy shook his head and took a drink. “Tempting as that is, your brother’s going to be here any minute. How about I promise not to say a word if you stop trying to hook me up before he gets here?”

“Have it your way.” Someone called her name and she moved to the other end of the bar, leaving Jeremy staring into his glass mug.

That conversation had been disconcerting as hell. He needed to have a talk with Tasha. Was she trying to drive Owen crazy by leading his sister over to the dark side, or was it something else? Was she using a different method of persuasion to show Jennifer that she had more options than Scott? If so, it was already more successful than the Finn frontal assault her brothers Stephen and Seamus had attempted.

At least it had temporarily taken his mind off the reason he was here. The reason he couldn’t make himself get up and leave, even though that was exactly what he wanted to do.

Owen had ordered him to come.

Jeremy hadn’t seen him in the two days since his birthday. The last time, he’d been lying in bed, watching Owen dress so he could go home and change before work. He’d kept his hands laced under his pillow, his short nails digging painfully into his skin so he wouldn’t reach for him and try to convince him to stay.

When Owen sat down on the bed and kissed him, it hadn’t felt like a goodbye, and he’d let himself fantasize that it wasn’t. But his absence and the light of day had brought Jeremy’s doubts and fears to the surface, and reaffirmed his decision. There were so many reasons there couldn’t be a repeat performance. Good reasons why he couldn’t let things get sexual again. Their friendship, his close ties with the Finn family...

Those damn suspenders.

He’d never allowed himself to be restrained before. He’d told Owen he didn’t judge, but he couldn’t help wondering what it was that people enjoyed about being on the receiving end of that type of relationship. Being powerless.

Jeremy was always in control. He’d had to be. He’d never had the family life Owen enjoyed. His parents had always been too caught up in their own brawling to express anything but disappointment in their introvert son, who’d spent all his time drawing at the park or buried in a comic book. They’d finally found something they agreed on enough to stop fighting when they caught him in the bathroom with a magazine of male nudes. No son of ours… Insert cliché here.

At fourteen, he’d found himself kicked out of his own house—not that he’d ever felt like he belonged there. The heroes in his favorite stories were usually switched at birth or alien babies from another planet, and he’d spent a lot of time imagining he was too. In fact, the scenarios he dreamed up for his real family were the basis for those first amateurish comics he’d drawn after he moved in with his aunt, a woman who preferred cuddling a bottle to raising a fourteen-year-old boy with sexuality issues.