Finn squeezed back and kissed her again, unable to stop himself from nuzzling against her hair and temple under the fuzzy hat. “We’ll be there in about an hour. You can sleep if you want to.”
He wanted to. He wanted to curl up on the seat and wrap her up in blankets and hold her tight until the rest of the world faded away. Lauren hesitated, clearly thinking about it, then nodded again. Finn damn near jumped up in excitement, but slowly untangled himself to arrange some of the seats into a backward-facing arrangement that was basically a modified lounger-bed. Not super comfortable but better than the stretcher or tryingto cuddle sitting up. Lauren watched with her eyebrows drawn together and her forehead wrinkled, so damn adorable he had to stop what he was doing to kiss her again.
Her whole face reddened but he just went back to making her a nest with the blankets and the duffel bag of clothes as a pillow. Finn didn’t give a shit that periodically Kira glanced back from where she sat, grinning to herself, and that even Ethan snickered. He couldn’t care less. They’d all been idiots when they finally found their mates, and he was damn well going to enjoy every second of finally having Lauren somewhere safe.
He didn’t try to talk over the noise of the rotors, instead gesturing for Lauren to shift over to the wider part of where the seats and bench aligned. Once she’d sat down, he shoved them the rest of the way together, giving her more room, then wrapped her up in more of the blankets as well as another layer of sweats and a jacket, too. Finn didn’t breathe easily until he stretched out next to her on his side, facing her so his back protected them from view. His nosy fucking friends wouldn’t be deterred from giggling with each other over it, but he didn’t give a shit.
Finn nuzzled against Lauren’s cheek, breathing her in. “Are you okay? Doing okay?”
Her fingers curled inside his, holding on to him, and she nodded. Her eyes were closed, though her face remained more tense than he wanted.
“I love you,” he breathed, sharing a secret. He would shout it to the world the second he could, but he wanted her to be the first one to hear it. “I love you more than anything in the world.”
Another nod, another soft squeeze of his fingers.
Finn smiled, the morphine starting to take over a little more when he finally stopped moving around and the rest of him relaxed. “Marry me, Lauren. Be my wife. Be mine forever.”
Silence. Stillness. So long he almost woke up all the way, then…a gentle tightening around his hand. A slight nod, her face turned toward his until her forehead tucked against his neck and her breath hushed on his skin. Finn smiled, the bear finally content, and slipped into dreams. Fucking finally.
LAUREN
Lauren still wasn’t sure what she’d heard Finn say, other than his tone meant love and caring and that was fine with her. Whatever he wanted would be better than anything she came up with on her own. Especially when he realized how tired she was, just flat-out exhausted, and somehow managed to make the helicopter bend to his will and produce a reasonable bed. She never would have imagined using the seats to make a place to lay down, but it was Finn. She should have expected him to just make things happen.
Being cuddled up against his chest was almost enough for her to forget they were on a helicopter flying to somewhere unknown, and that Finn had been shot, and a bunch of semi-innocent criminals had died, and the guy Shotgun could possibly be making things worse for her or sending marshals to find her wherever Finn lived. Some of that chaos splintered and marched around in her brain, but the concerns diminished since Finn was there and he would know how to fix everything.
She passed out finally, then sort of woke up as the world bumped and moved and got cold again. Lauren tried to get up but found herself being carried, and Finn murmured, “Go back to sleep, we’re home.”
She should have questioned any number of things, not least of which was how the hell he carried her so soon after being shot and also what the hell didhomemean, but instead she just nodded and blacked out again. It had beenso longsince she could relax, could trust that nothing horrible would happen while she slept. Even before being on the run, she hadn’t trusted where she slept for so long Lauren always woke up a lot to make sure no one surprised her.
Lauren woke up again when clouds surrounded her in fluffy warmth and perfection, and then Finn was there too and he sighed. And they both slept, and for once, she didn’t dream.
She woke up feeling drunk. Literally drunk from being well-rested and comfortable and just…content. Whatever waited outside didn’t matter. What mattered was Finn, still passed out in a huge bed next to her. And the bathroom. She really needed the bathroom.
Lauren only kept one eye open so she could maybe have a chance of falling back asleep after taking care of business, and slowly untangled herself from Finn and the sheets. It was slow going, and he woke up with a snort before she’d even gotten off the mattress. Lauren patted his head, still focused on the increasing emergency in her bladder. “Bathroom.”
He grumbled and got up a lot quicker and more gracefully than she’d managed, and padded across the room to open one of half a dozen doors and flicked on a light. “You hungry?”
She shook her head, focused only on the bathroom, but a stray thought jumped to the front of her brain when she saw inside the swanky bathroom. “Shower.”
“Perfect.” He patted her butt as she walked past, then stood back as she closed the door.
Lauren smiled to herself as she surrendered to the dreamy, half-awake and monosyllabic relationship. It was more comfortable grunting and pointing with Finn than any of theflowery conversations she’d been love-bombed with in the past. When she was done and trying to figure out how to turn on the shower, she opened the door to ask for help and found Finn standing there, completely naked.
She laughed, cheeks heating, and didn’t look away to take him in from head to toe. The wounds from earlier were somehow just angry pink and red marks, no longer actual wounds but new scars, and the rest of him was buff and hairy and perfect. An antsy energy built up at the thought that he was all hers. Every inch of him. It didn’t matter for how long she got him, but at least he meant what he said about staying with her. He’d whispered something about forever in the helicopter, and that was good enough for her.
Finn stalked toward her, carrying big fluffy towels, and paused only to kiss her, hard enough to make her toes curl, and growled against her mouth. “How come I’m the only one naked?”
“How are you so optimistic?” she whispered, laughing more. “Who said you were invited?”
He snorted and smacked her butt again, hanging the towels up on a fancy metal rack before he leaned into the large shower and somehow turned on half a dozen jets from every level and angle, including a massive rainfall kinda thing in the ceiling. “I figured you wanted me to do the work.”
Lauren shivered at his words even with the increasing heat and steam in the bathroom. It had been literally two months, maybe more, since she’d had a hot shower. And she’d never ever seen a shower that nice in real life, only in magazines and in brag rolls on social media. She shimmied out of her clothes, ready to never see the tattered and stained garments again, as she focused on the streams of hot water. No more bucket baths for her, not for a long time.
She wouldn’t stop and question why Finn liked her like he did. She wasn’t going to invite that doubt into the room or the bedroom or the space between them, not yet. Maybe later, once the newness wore off and he got annoyed with how much she talked, but for that moment…she could just enjoy him.
It helped he started growling in a purely animalistic way the second she started undressing, and by the time she was naked, he sounded like a Harley in every breath. Her stomach squirmed as she had to step past him to get into the shower, and she made sure to let her breasts brush against his chest, and every inch of her lit on fire from the barest contact.
Finn squeezed her ass and pretended to help shoo her under the steamy water, but pure need thrilled through her as his strong hands moved to her waist. There was suddenly an overwhelming number of sensations—the water splashing her skin and head, the hissing sound, his breathing and touching and her own body telling her…everything…
