Let Me: An O'Brien Family Novel (The O'Brien Family Book 2) (30 page)

Sol leans heavily against me as we make our way to the rear of the house. I’m beat up, and pretty damn bloody. She knows as much so we keep straight, passing my bedroom and heading straight to the bathroom.

I kick the door shut and strip out of my clothes when she starts the water in the shower. Maybe it’s too much too soon―standing there naked in front of her―especially after all our time apart. But there’s nothing there she hasn’t seen, touched, or tasted. I drag my hand through my hair when that familiar twinge warns me I’m seconds from getting hard.

I pull back the clear curtain and step into the claw foot tub, letting the warm stream hit my face. Swirls of pink flow down the drain as the blood coating my body dissolves and washes away. But as I look up and turn so that the water can hit my back, I freeze.

Through the clear curtain, my eyes latch onto Sol’s almost naked body. Her jeans, top, boots, and socks are gone, and as I watch, her bra falls to the floor. I’m already stiff when she tugs off her panties, but when she parts the curtain and steps inside, my erection lifts parallel to my stomach.

She bites down on her bottom lip when she notices, her eyes returning to mine and pegging me with a gaze I’ve seriously missed and have only recently seen in my fantasies. “I’m going to wash your hair, okay?” she says.

I nod, guessing she wants to take care of me and edging closer when she pours shampoo into her palm. She shudders when my thick length pokes against her belly. But I don’t touch her, not yet. Instead I bend forward, allowing her to wash my hair.

As she rinses my hair, I lean in closer and tilt my chin. I don’t know if I kiss her first, or if she meets me somewhere in between. But her fingers leave my hair to thread around my shoulders, pulling me tighter.

Our kiss is slow at first, playful, like it’s our first time kissing. But as it deepens, I’m reminded that this isn’t our first time doing what we’re about to do. I don’t ask her if she’s still on the pill, or question if we should use something. I just lift her onto my hips, and ease my way inside. Her head falls back against the tile wall when I’m all the way in, exposing a throat I can’t wait to nibble.

My tongue flicks the drops of water speckling her skin as my hands adjust her legs against my waist. She releases a groan, encouraging me to withdraw slowly. I want to start thrusting, my body crazy with need. But I wait for her head to loll forward, for her eyes so heavy with lust to fix on mine before I start. Our foreheads meet, her heady stare intensifying with the steady pound of my hips and her ankles fastening securely around my back, driving me into her deeper and faster.

Giving how much my body has missed hers, and how tight she feels, I don’t expect to last. But I do, sucking on her erect nipples as she repeatedly comes. When I finally release, it hits me harder than I ever felt, tensing every muscle in my body. But as my hips slow and I fill her, that’s when I feel the full impact of her with me.

Sol is here. Her slick body pressed against mine. Her sweet face staring back at me, and her embrace begging me never to let her go.

I shut off the water and lift us out, stopping to kiss her when my feet hit the bath mat.

“Are we back?” I ask her, trailing a strand of wet hair away from her face. I’m hoping like hell we are because I’ve never needed anyone like I need Sol.

She smiles softly, causing the drops of water to slide against her cheeks. Even though it appears like she’s crying, I swear to Christ, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more beautiful.

She shifts her hands behind me, adjusting her hold around my neck. “We’re back,” she whispers.

I kiss her again like I need to, smiling against her mouth when I pull away. “Let’s get dry,” she says, taking my bottom lip with her teeth and giving it a pull. “And then let’s get to bed.”

She turns, snagging a towel from the rack. We both laugh as she does her best to dry us off. Still, I don’t let her go, and she doesn’t try to get down.

I keep her with me, carrying her naked down the hall and to my room. We flop on the bed, and spend the rest of the night making up for lost time.

“I love you,” she tells me sometime around dawn.

My fingers smooth against her cheek, trailing down her throat and to that spot between her breasts where I press a kiss. I adjust my position against her. “I love you, too,” I say, my eyes searching her face. “And I swear to God, if you let me, I promise to love you forever . . .”

A knock on the door wakes me a few hours later. I pull the sheet at our waists up, draping it around Sol. I don’t expect someone to barge in, that doesn’t mean I’m taking a chance on anyone seeing my girl naked. “Yeah?” I ask, once she’s covered.

“Do you want lunch?” Wren calls from behind the door.

“You’re cooking?” I ask. Shit, I must be worse off than I thought.

“No, dumbass. I’m ordering from Angelo’s,” she fires back. “You want something or not?”

It’s not until Sol laughs against me that I realize she’s awake. “You hungry?” I ask her.

“Starved,” she says, groaning a little. “Thirsty, too, but I’ll just have water from the fridge.”

“Four steaks, some cheese fries, and a calzone,” I yell toward the door. “Sound good?” I ask Sol, lowering my voice.

“Mmm. Real good,” she answers, snuggling against me.

“There’re a few bills in the kitchen drawer―”

“It’s okay, Finnie. I got you,” Wren interrupts.

I don’t miss the relief in her voice. She knows I’m okay. At least for the moment. I can’t deny last night was messed up. 

I didn’t have a drink. I didn’t take any shit I shouldn’t have. What I had was an emotional breakdown, one that was probably years in the making. It messed me up, clouded my judgment, and made me take out my pain on those who didn’t deserve it. I’m sorry for everything I did.

Those things I remember, anyway.

The night is still fuzzy. That numbness that had become more friend than opponent latched onto my throat like a whip the minute I saw old man Kessler. It choked me to the point that I swear I couldn’t breathe, or think. And when it snapped, it released all my rage and misery, blinding me with flashbacks.

Did Sol’s absence contribute to my downward spiral? And did her mother’s suicide attempt trigger a lot of shit I’d buried deep? Yes, on all counts. But I don’t blame her, or her mother. I don’t even blame old man Kessler― despite that he gave life to a fucking monster. I’ll admit, his presence did a real number on me. But even if he hadn’t shown, eventually something, or someone else, would have pushed me over the edge.

I know that now.

Sol shifts her body, resting her head against her palm. “What are you thinking?” she asks.

I knead her hip, welcoming the feel of her skin against mine. “That I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” she says, playing with the stubble along my jaw. “But what are you really thinking?”

Yeah, my girl knows me. “That I’m really messed up, and that I have a lot of shit to work through.”

Her eyes grow sad. “I know,” she agrees. “Me, too.”

“So let’s be messed up together, and maybe help each other through it.”

“It won’t be easy,” she says quietly. “For either of us.”

“No,” I agree. “But it’ll be impossible alone.”

Her eyes brim with tears, but she manages to smile. “You’re right. I can’t do this without you.” She pauses and sniffs, her eyes travelling over my face. “I really need you, Finn.”

I know what she means. Seeing how I need her, too.

CHAPTER 31

Finn

The next UFC match is huge. I can’t skip the first press conference of the promotional launch, despite that it’s only been a week since I completely lost my shit. I take my seat between the other two challengers, at the opposite end of the long table, and away from the three champs on the other side.

This line up will break records, sell-out more seats than any of the previous, and have sponsors nut-punching each other so their ads run in the right places, and at the right times. Already hotels are selling out around the arena. Sydney, Australia. That’s where it’s at. So who gets the first question from the sea of reporters taking up every square inch of space? Not the president. Not any of the current champs. Not when scandal sells seats and I’m currently the reigning king.

Cameras click and flash as the first reporter flings his question my way. “Hey, Fury. Is it true you suffered an emotional collapse following your fight with Lopez?”

“Yup,” I answer.

There’s a brief pause when the reporter just looks at me. He’s probably shocked I answered him point blank. But he’s also expecting me to say more. I don’t, prompting the president to motion to a reporter with red hair. “Next question,” he says.

“Fury,” the reporter calls out, not that it shocks me. “Was the pressure to win a shot at the title too much for you?”

“No,” I respond.

She waits for more. But when I don’t respond, she quickly asks her next question before she’s cut off. “I find that hard to believe, seeing how your head seemed elsewhere during the fight.”

“That’s because Lopez was trying to knock it from my shoulders,” I offer, earning me a few laughs.

She frowns. She doesn’t want to let it go. And neither does the next reporter who follows. “Then what was the cause of your meltdown?” he challenges. “Tough guys don’t easily break down, but you did that night.”

He didn’t flat-out call me a pussy, but eluded enough that I can’t let his comment slide, even when the president prompts another reporter. I speak over him, answering the idiot who claims I’m not as tough as I appear. “I’ve been dealing with a lot lately. And it all came crashing down the other night.”

“What sort of things have you been dealing with?” some other guy questions at the same time someone else asks, “How do you expect to win your title match if you’re this emotionally unstable?”

The Philly boy in me wants to respond with a, “Fuck you and your mother.”

The fighter in me wants to come out swinging.

Yet it’s the man in me―the one who’s tired of hiding, of slapping on a grin and acting like it’s all good―who’s tired of pretending that he wasn’t lured into a house as a little kid and assaulted―who looks out into the audience where his family and his woman are watching.

I have to make a choice. This isn’t the best arena. I know it’s not. But from deep in my gut I know I
have
to make this choice: Keep acting, pretending, and hiding, or move forward and be who I’m going to be, damaged but living and maybe finally happy.

My family . . . my woman. Hell, all of them could have walked away and not looked back. They could have screamed and hollered, and sometimes they did―sometimes they were the ones who came out swinging. But no matter how angry they sometimes got, how many times they couldn’t find the right words, how many nights I kept them up, they hung in there. If that’s not love, I swear to Christ I’ll never know what love is.

My stare falls on Killian, the one who first knew, and to his woman Sofia, who’s known her own share of pain. It then travels down the row to each of my brothers, and Wren, too, before it stops on Sol. I don’t meet their eyes for long, but it’s long enough that they realize what I’m about to do.

Like I mentioned, I don’t blame old man Kessler. But as I shift in my seat in front of the press, between Amarato who’s next in line for the super heavy weight belt, and Griffith who’s going to come out swinging for the welter-weight title, I own what I did, and finally put the blame where it belongs.

“I was assaulted as a kid,” I say. I shrug like I’m past it even though the silence overtaking the room affirms that everyone here knows what I know: that I’m not past it, and that the memory still eats me alive.

I’m greeted with dead silence. At first. Then the murmurs begin, slowly building until it seems everyone with a mic is asking questions at the same time. I respond to the heavyset reporter closest to me, the loudest guy there who asks, “When you say you were assaulted, do you mean sexually?”

I wait then answer, “Yes.”

More lights flashing, more cameramen pushing their way forward, and yeah, a lot more questions. “It was a neighbor, someone who lived near me who I mistakenly trusted,” I explain to the reporter who asked me who it was.

“How old were you?” a female reporter yells.

“Was the pedophile a man or a woman?” the guy in the back shouts.

I start speaking, but it isn’t to anyone in particular, not anymore. I’m telling myself, staring out to the screen on the opposite side of the room where my face is being broadcast bigger than life. If I’d been given the choice, or maybe thought about it ahead of time, I wouldn’t want to look at me then. But right now, I see it as blessing despite all the sins from my past. That image shows me that I’m still me, despite the words I say next. “I was ten, and he was a man.” The clicks lessen with everyone’s growing shock, so do the murmurs making their way along the crowd.

Again, the silence returns, swallowing the room whole and cementing everyone in place. Including me.

“What do you want people to take away from your experience?” a deep voice asks me.

The voice is so loud, and appears so suddenly, it cuts through the quiet like the voice of God talking down to me. But it’s not God. Not even close. It’s the president of the UFC, standing at the podium waiting for an answer.

He smiles like I’ve seen him do when a fighter makes him proud. He’s known me for a while because of Killian, and we’ve spoken a few times following some highly publicized matches and at parties. But I never expected him to look at me with this level of respect. I hoped it would eventually come with a belt win, but not for something like this.

“What?” I ask. I heard his question, but there’s more to what he’s asking.

He realizes as much and rephrases his statement. “There are millions of people watching you right now, Finn,” he says. “Lots of them are kids who have probably been through what you’ve been through. What would you like them to know?”