Let Me (O'Brien Family, #2)(33)

I don’t have to look at her to know she’s upset. I hear it in her voice. She wants and deserves an explanation. But I can’t explain what I don’t understand myself. I open my mouth to try―Christ above, I owe her that. Yet all I do is end up snapping my jaw shut.

“Finn . . . please talk to me,” she begs.

“Just go, all right?” I say, trying to keep my voice soft and doing a shitty job. “Call me when you get there so I know you’re safe.”

I expect her anger, or at the very least some serious name calling. But, this is Sol―the same woman who meets me with a wide smile and who fits too perfectly tucked against my shoulder. So instead of shouting, arguing, or demanding an explanation, things that would make me feel even shittier, she backs away in silence.

Which is way worse than anything she could have said or done.

I don’t watch her dress, don’t bother sneaking in one last look at her bare skin; don’t try to assure her that it’s me, not her. Hell, I don’t even bother to say goodbye. All I do is stare at the door long after she shuts it, knowing I’m more f*cked up than I ever could have imagined.

And I’m only getting worse.





CHAPTER 14


Finn



“How was your weekend?” Mason asks, exactly the way he does every time we meet.

My counselor―the one that court appointed therapist thought would be a great fit for me―sits across from me in tweed (I shit you not) pants. He has his legs crossed as always, causing the tassels on his shiny leather shoes to dangle to the side. The last person besides Mason I saw wearing tassels was a stripper, and hers didn’t exactly dangle from her feet.

“All right,” I answer, because it’s already ten minutes into our session and I haven’t said jack.

“Just all right?” he asks.

No. It sucked balls. Sol left, and she won’t talk to me. She didn’t even text me to say she arrived home safe. Instead I received a text from Sofia saying she’d driven my truck back to her and Kill’s place. No, that didn’t raise suspicion or anything. No, that didn’t cause Kill to rip into me. Oh, wait―it did.

“What happened?” Kill yelled. Wren gave me a lift to his house, and while she guessed something was up, she didn’t expect Kill to be so pissed, just like she didn’t expect to be shoving her way between us.

Kill doesn’t lose his temper often, but when he does he really loses it. “I asked you a God damn question,” he hollered when I didn’t respond. “What happened between you and Sol?”

“None of your f*cking business,” I fired back.

My comment only pissed him off further. “She’s my wife’s cousin, Finnie. Not someone you can whore around with.”

“I said, it’s none of your f*cking business,” I repeated, shoving my face an inch from his. Sofia’s cousin or not, what happened between me and Sol is private. No way am I disrespecting her.

Kill knows I’d never force a woman to do something she wasn’t ready for. But I’ll admit, it doesn’t look good on my end. Sol was upset when she left, Sofia probably saw as much. They don’t know what went on between us and I think it scares them, especially given how I’ve been lately. But no matter how tight me and Kill are, I couldn’t exactly tell him she left because I couldn’t have sex with her, even though that’s exactly what happened.

I couldn’t have sex with Sol, I repeat in my head, barely believing it myself. I couldn’t have sex with this hot woman who I can’t stop thinking about, who gets me so worked up, I want to tear her clothes off with my teeth. Christ, what’s wrong with me?

“You seem troubled,” Mason says, tilting his head to the side as he scrutinizes me. “If there’s something you want to discuss, I’d like to help if I can.”

“Would you?” I ask in a way that would make most men back away from me.

Mason smiles softly, like I’m not capable of bashing his face in . . . probably because it’s true. Despite that I’m royally pissed, like I said, I don’t hurt those who are weaker than me.

“I would,” he answers.

“I got some head over the weekend,” I tell him. There, he wants to know something about me, there it is.

If I’m expecting a big reaction―slacking jaw, widening eyes, even a gasp―it doesn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, my response gives him the barest pause, but not much more than that. If anything, he’s probably shocked I finally said something worth scribbling in his notes. “Did it feel good?” he asks.

“What?” I respond like a dumbass.

Okay, maybe I’m the one who ends up being shocked. It’s a simple question, one any guy should be able to answer without much thought, and a cocky smile. But it’s the way that he asks that throws me off―not like how guys in a locker room would ask―but in the same manner I’d ask if it’s going to snow.

“I asked you if it felt good,” he repeats. “You’ve mentioned there are times you feel numb, as if you’re disconnected from the world.”

I didn’t use those exact words, but it’s more or less the one thing I’ve managed to tell him during this whole time we’ve been meeting. “That’s right,” I say.

“So did it feel good?” he asks. “Were you able to derive pleasure from it?”