Eternal Longing ✓

40. Date Night Revelations

JAYA

The dress might be a smidge too tight around my waist, and maybe a bit too low cut in the chest area, but Fin's reaction when I emerge from the room is enough to erase all my reservations with wearing the daring dress.

"Holy fuck, Jaya." Eyes wide and mouth agape, my date for tonight is clearly impressed with my dress. "Are you trying to fucking kill me?" The way his eyes rove over my body, it looks like he isn't sure where to settle his eyes.

"You like?" I twirl around teasingly, but before I can make a full turn and enjoy the sight of his jaw on the floor, he's descending upon me.

"Do I like?" His words are growled against the bare flesh of my neck and I shiver. "Is that the question you're asking me?"

I giggle and squirm against his hold, loving the feeling of his solid body against my softer one. "Yes." I manage a nod at his question.

"Fuck, if only you knew how much I like it." His breath against my neck is not the reason why I shiver. No, that's all due to the meaning underneath his words. "If only you knew, Jaya. You'd run as far as you can from me."

This is way more than just sex. I've known that for a while, I think. But the way he's holding me, the way he's breathing me in as if he needs my scent to make it to the next breath, and the slight tremor of his hands make everything clearer.

He's in this, too.

The part of myself that wants to stay safe and comfortable is begging me to retreat and run the other way because it's clear as day that Fin is hiding something. There are important things that I still don't know about him that he refuses to reveal.

Big things such as the reason for his nightmares, which have reduced in frequency but still plague his sleep from time to time, and smaller things such as the tattoo on the back of his arm. A tattoo that was not there the last time I saw him a year ago.

"Can I see your tattoo?" The question comes out of nowhere, but to his credit, he doesn't seem too confused with my request. "I just remembered I caught a glimpse of it that night at Starlight. Can I see it?"

He stares at me for a second, blue eyes searching mine as if he's trying to calculate what the hell I'm getting to. I can tell he's on the verge of denying my request, that the words are on the tip of his tongue, so before he can do that, I give him a pleading look that I don't think he can deny.

He reluctantly steps back from me and untwists the button on his right wrist, eyes hard on me. He pushes the sleeve of his fancy dress shirt up his arm until the material is bunched up around his upper arm.

Without another word, he clenches his jaw and stiffly turns around so my eyes can land on the area of his triceps that is usually hidden by the sleeves of his clothes. I don't know what I expect to see there, but it certainly is not that.

Trees are common.

I hold my breath at the sight of a curvy script on his flesh. A curvy, scrawly script that looks exactly like my curvy, scrawly handwriting. No. It doesn't just look like it. It's exactly my handwriting because I wrote that.

"I kept the sticky note." In the silence of the living room, the gruffness of his voice hits me straight in the chest.

"Why?" My fingers graze the words on his skin, still disbelieving that he would brand himself with my writing.

"You left it in the classroom that day." He trembles as I trace the loopy shape of my e. "I wanted the painting you'd done. I didn't know what I was going to do with a painting of so many trees, but I wanted it so much."