SHE WAS GONE. Fine by him. He’d known as soon as he’d heard the lock being engaged last night that he’d scared her off. Good. It was better that way. He’d knocked on her door this morning just to make sure. He’d called her name and even waited around until the maid had entered her room to clean it, just to make sure she wasn’t still in there, fast asleep, or worse. With Bonnie, he didn’t know. She hadn’t seemed suicidal. But she had been less than forty-eight hours before. But the maid bustled in and out, and obviously there was no sleeping guest or dead body in room 241.
He had lost over an hour waiting for the confirmation. He grabbed up his bags, angry at himself and at her, and left his own room, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and headed for the parking lot. Snow had fallen overnight, and a sloppy, wet mess met him as he shot through the exit and out into the parking lot, hoisting his bags over his shoulder. His eyes shot to the gunmetal grey sky, trying to gauge what was coming. Winter weather wasn’t fun to drive in, but winter weather was February’s best girl, and unless he wanted to wait until April to head to Vegas, he was stuck with her.
Finn’s eyes swung back down and settled on his rusted Blazer. Speaking of getting stuck with a girl, the parking lot had cleared out while he’d waited upstairs. The clientele of the Motel 6 were travelers, and no one hung around for the in-room movies or the accommodations. Only two cars remained in the entire lot, and sitting next to the Blazer, perched on a plastic bag spread over the curb, ostensibly to keep her butt from getting wet, was his own little pain in the ass. She wore the puffy, pink coat and the stocking cap she’d purchased from Walmart the day before. The hood was pulled up over her cap, and her hands were pressed between her knees. Her nose was as red as her boots, and she looked miserable. She’d seen him before he’d seen her, and her eyes were locked on his face. She didn’t smile, didn’t greet him, didn’t try to explain herself. She just watched him walk toward her.
He bit back a curse and strode to the driver’s side. Unlocking the door, he tossed his bags in the back, climbed in, and slammed the door. He turned the key and backed out resolutely, trying to ignore that she had risen, her hands on her bags, and that her hood had slipped from her head. She didn’t move forward, didn’t call out to him to wait. She just stood there, watching him go. He shifted into drive and made it a hundred feet before he let his eyes find her figure in the rearview mirror.
“Unbelievable,” Finn ground out, and slammed the wheel with the palm of his hand. He slowed to a stop. “UNBELIEVABLE!” He reprimanded himself even as he engaged the brake, pushed the door open, and lurched out of the idling vehicle. Bonnie still stood with her two duffle bags in her hands, but now her lips were slightly parted, clearly stunned that he’d stopped.
And she wasn’t the only one. Finn felt like he was split right down the middle. The rational part of his brain, the side that ensured his survival and his sanity, was outraged, demanding that he keep driving, while the side of his brain that was connected to his heart and his nether regions was breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn’t let her get away.
She didn’t move, as if she were sure that the moment she did he would change his mind, climb back inside the Blazer, and drive away. So he walked back to her, battling with himself every step of the way. He walked until they were practically toe to toe, her dark eyes wide and lifted to his, his hands shoved into his pockets so he wouldn’t strangle her. But his pockets felt like manacles around his wrists, and he yanked them free, fisting them in the front of Bonnie’s puffy, pink coat and raising her up on her tip toes and into him until they weren’t toe to toe any longer but nose to nose. His emotions were a big, tangled ball of anger, longing, and injustice all wrapped up in impatient outrage, and Finn couldn’t separate one feeling from another. So he did the only thing he could do. He kissed her.
It wasn’t a soft kiss or a sweet kiss. It was a “you-scared-me-and-messed-with-me-and-I’m-mad-and-relieved-and-frustrated-as-hell” kind of kiss. It was teeth and lips and nipping and bruising, and Finn couldn’t make himself stop, even when Bonnie’s teeth tugged at his lower lip, and her hands pulled at his hair. Especially then. And when she wrapped her arms around his neck and stepped up onto his toes so that she could press herself flush against him, he decided revenge really was sweet, and enjoyed the feel of her face against his, the wet heat of her mouth making him forget he was standing in the middle of a Motel 6 parking lot with his car rumbling behind him, the driver side door still hanging wide open. The rational part of his brain was stunned into peaceful silence . . . for all of ten seconds.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Bonnie Rae,” he gasped, pulling away abruptly. He took a deep breath and pushed her gently back, releasing his toes from beneath her boots and his clenched hands from her coat. The thin nylon stayed wadded and crinkled in two big circles above her br**sts. Her hands fell from his shoulders to her heaving chest to smooth the wrinkles, and he looked away to give them both a moment.
He was still pissed but he held it in check, keeping his voice low and firm when he continued speaking. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know what the hell you’re doing either. But don’t get back in my ride if you’re going to play games. Don’t do it. Hide and seek is only fun if you’re ten, and everybody knows the rules. Just call your posse, turn yourself back over to your keepers, and leave me the hell alone.”