FINN

She was making me crazy. Or my cock was making me crazy because why else would I have been all over her in the backseat of my truck? But now my fingers were inside her, I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do than strip her bare. My blood was pounding louder in my ears than the bass in the park. She dragged her hands down my forearms, curling up to mold her lips to mine.

Could she feel my racing heartbeat? Could she sense how close to the edge I was? The world shrank to this space between her and me. I felt her velvet soft skin beneath my fingers and her plump mouth beneath my tongue.

She made me weak-kneed, like a boy touching a woman for the first time. I dragged my mouth away so I could finally taste her. Her panties were off and thrown aside. I took a moment, a long one, to admire her bare skin. "Have I told you I love this?" I said, hoping my voice conveyed the reverence I felt.

"Maybe once." I heard her smiling.

"Let me show you." I leaned forward and licked her from the bottom all the way to the top of the smooth, waxed skin and then back again. My little and big heads swelled at the gasping noise she made. I didn't just use my mouth. I ate at her with my tongue and teeth. I thrust two fingers inside her cunt while holding her hard against my assault with my other hand. She writhed beneath me, a completely wild thing.

As I sucked on her clit, I looked up and saw her hands braced against the door as she arched toward me. I wished there was more light so I could see every part of her, from her flushed skin to the glitter in her eyes. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her, so I closed my eyes to amplify her taste and smell, and the pure, unadulterated sex sounds we were both making.

There were my groans of satisfaction as she pulsed against me, and her rapid pants became louder moans as her climax overtook her. I drank it all down, licking and sucking to make sure every drop of her golden juice made it into my mouth. When she'd quieted, I gave her one last kiss before stepping back and swiping my forearm across my mouth. "Best meal I've ever had," I said cheekily.

She laughed weakly. "I'm officially dead." Her one arm looked completely boneless as it dangled over the edge of the seat. "I know this because I can feel the outside air blowing against my private parts, which means anyone could see me, yet I can't summon the energy to move. Thus, I must be dead."

I wasn't dead. Not by a long shot. My cock felt like an angry club inside my pants. The reasons for holding off were escaping me at the moment. But they must have been there. I picked up her panties from the floor and helped her into them. The jeans looked formidable. "Think you can keep me company in the front seat?"

"Yes, but can you drive in that condition?"

We both looked down at the obscene outline of my erection. I gave her a wry smile and a shrug. "I think so, but hold my hand in comfort."

She laughed and rose to her knees and hugged me, which did nothing to kill my arousal.

"I'm taking care of you when we get to your house," she said.

I felt my cock jerk at her words. "That's not helping."

She reached down and squeezed me. "It wasn't supposed to."

My eyebrows flew up at her naughty response. She colored but didn't back away. Dirty and sweet all in one small package. I had to kiss her again, but I multitasked by picking her up and opening the front door at the same time. Depositing her in the passenger side, I handed over her jeans and hurried, as best I could, to the driver's side.

She didn't put on her jeans. Instead, she folded them and placed them on the floor and curled her golden legs up underneath her. Her head was turned with her cheek resting against the upright portion of the passenger seat. I couldn't see her dark eyes, but I felt them roving over me. Made me harder, if that was even possible. "Want me to put your seat back?" I choked out. "Because if you don't stop looking at me, I'm going to embarrass myself."

"Learn some control because I'm going to stare at you the whole time," she teased.

I sighed and started the truck. "If we get pulled over because I'm driving erratically, I'm blaming you."

"Where are you taking me?" She yawned and tucked her hands between her legs.

"Home."

"And that is?"

I chewed on the thought for a minute. With four roommates, two girlfriends and assorted others, there was never any privacy at the house. Winter and I needed alone time. "Actually how about the farm?"

"Sure. I haven't been there in forever." Her voice was drowsy but happy. I reached across the console and rubbed a hand over her bare knee. It was a compulsion, this need to constantly be connected to her. She covered my hand with her small one. "You surprise me, you know."

"Because of the singing?"

"No. It's more than that. I never spent time with you when you were with your friends." She carefully left out mention of Ivy, which was difficult since our shared past was wrapped up in her sister. "It's a different side of you. And you're so openly affectionate. That seems weird to me in a really cool way though."

I thought back to high school and the thoughtless, immature kid I used to be. I hoped I was different—better. "Maybe you just know the wrong guys."

She absently tapped a finger against the top of my hand. "I dated this guy a couple of years ago, and I guess I was ready for something more serious—an actual boyfriend. I didn't have one in high school. I hung out with a lot of people but never had a boyfriend. I wanted one though. But…it never worked out. After high school, I got this job as a runner for a marketing firm downtown."

"That was your first mistake," I interrupted. "Those white collar types are total duds in the sack."

"Shush it," she tsked.

"I already know where this is going, and it will end up with me having to make up for my gender. Good thing I'm up for it." I lifted the arm that wasn't being held and kissed my biceps.

"Oh my God, Finn." She laughed. "Do you want me to tell this story or not?"

"Tell me."

In a way, I didn't want to hear about her past loves or her past boyfriends, but I wanted to know her and that included all the uncomfortable bits of her past. Besides, I was the one with the uncomfortable past. And I was the one driving her around wearing panties and a shirt. I could handle a few stories about her exes, emphasis on the ex part.

She squeezed my arm and then continued. "This one guy started flirting with me, and I was so into it. More the feeling than the person, you know?"

I nodded. I did know. It's how I’d ended up drifting into and then out of the relationships I'd had. It was easy and convenient. And I could have been with anyone and felt the same way, which was why they inevitably ended.

"I realized that at the end, but in the beginning I thought it was all Hugh."

"Hugh?" I coughed. A douchenozzle name if I ever heard one. "His name was Hugh?"

"I know." She laughed. "He was a new marketing hire and had just graduated from Central. He was very proper. Never used contractions and talked about existentialism for hours. 'I thought about life, and therefore I am existing,'" she intoned, mimicking a male's voice. "He didn't really want a girlfriend, but he thought of himself as a good guy so he couldn't admit all he was really after was a regular hookup. I was…overwhelming for him. He wouldn't acknowledge me at work because I was clerical staff, and he'd tell me not to text him so often or that we should only see each other on Saturday nights."

"Did he cheat on you?" I wondered if Hugh needed a visit.

"Not that I know of, but he made me very self-conscious of expressing any kind of strong feeling. He once said that for an Asian I had a lot of emotions."

"I hope you broke up with him soon after, or I will have lost all respect for you."

She laughed a little. "I wish. It ended because I was laid off and had to find a different job. When I started working at Atra that was the last straw for Hugh. Not only was I too clingy, but I was working at a tattoo parlor and a dingy one in a strip mall on the south side. Quelle horreur!"

"Sounds like you escaped a fate worse than death."

"It wasn't one of my better decisions."

"We all have past relationships we regret." It wasn't that I was unhappy that I’d dated Ivy, only that it bothered Winter. She didn't respond, so I figured I'd change the subject. If I was taking her home to the farm, she should have a little warning about what to expect from my mom.

"How many horses do you have these days?"

"Just four. We used to have more, but when I left for college, Mom started selling off stock because it was too much work for her. Dad never enjoyed riding. I guess that's probably why Mom kept them." That came out more bitter than I had intended.

"How is she?"

"Not great."

"Oh?" she asked, and when I didn't immediately volunteer an answer she added, "You don't have to talk about it."

"No, it's fine." I squeezed her knee reassuringly. "I was just trying to figure how much to lay on you." My family life gave Winter's a run for the money in the fucked-up category. "I know you met my dad a few times at the baseball games, and he came off as this awesome guy, right?" She nodded. “Every one of my friends had loved my dad. He came to every game and couldn't stop talking about me, no matter if all I'd done was make a routine out at first. He was the type of guy who remembered your name even if he'd only met you once two years ago. Winter Donovan, how are you, my lass? Looking more beautiful than two years ago. How's your mum and pop? Still working at the café? Best roast beef and mashed potatoes I've ever had."

She laughed. "Bet he was a good tipper."

"Shit, twenty percent at least, every time." I flipped my palm over, threaded my fingers through hers, and held on. "At the back of our property, there's a pond Dad had dredged deeper so Callum, my cousin, Adam, and our friends could do ridiculously dangerous dives and jumps off rope swings, zip lines, and a fake mountain of rock. He did everything he could to make my childhood awesome."

"I wish I'd known him better." Her fingers tightened around mine.

"Me, too. He taught me how to be a man. Taught me how to light a fire with rocks; how to tie a tie; how to shake someone's hand. He taught me to respect women, honor them, appreciate that they had strengths to bring to the table just like a dick—maybe better—because they weren't so interested in trying to prove its size."

"But he wasn't perfect," she guessed.

"No, he wasn't. I loved him and miss him so much, I feel like a limb has been torn off. But even he'd be the first one to tell you all he wanted for me was to be better than him."

"In what way?"

I looked down the dark country road we'd pulled on to. The farm wasn't much farther. "We went ice fishing in Alaska for New Year's. It was beyond cold, and my balls almost froze off. Polar bears and penguins were burrowing under snow caves while Dad and I and some other fools sat in wooden huts in the middle of the lake trying to catch fish that were half-frozen before we pulled them out of the water."

"Gives new meaning to the concept of flash frozen," she joked.

"No kidding. But there's something about being so close to the sky. The Northern Lights were insane. Every night I was half convinced a spaceship was going to descend out of the blaze of green and red and suck us up into the sky. And soon we were whispering like girls at a summer camp. He was saying how proud he was that I had made a success of flipping houses, and I was congratulating him on winning the bid for the Riverside project. Then he fell silent, and I thought he was asleep, but he wasn't. He was…choked up. He told me he was most proud of the fact I wasn't like him…that I'd been a good man to my girlfriends. He said he wanted me to be the man he wasn't and that he was sorry for breaking Mom's heart repeatedly."

"He said," I paused because my throat was thickening, and it was hard to speak. "He said I should find someone I could love with my whole heart and throw myself into that woman and cling to her. That if it was the right woman, she'd hold me tight, and we'd weather any storm that came our way. His mistake, he'd claimed, wasn't holding on to my mom tight enough, and the drift became so big between them that it seemed easier to get his fill other places. And then once the door was open, he found he couldn't say no to a pretty face or a sly invitation."

"Have you ever cheated?" she asked me softly after a mile of silence. I turned down the long lane leading up to the house. The row of white fencing and the allée of trees guided our way home.

"Never," I was glad to admit. "I didn't want to make any woman feel like my mom did. Mom has always been distant, and I saw her turn him away more than once. So I thought maybe she wanted to be left alone, and it was okay that he found relief somewhere else." I thought back to the times I'd seen her staring out the window watching for my dad's headlights and the tight smile she greeted him with whenever he came in late, saying that he had to deal with too much paperwork or that he'd taken a subcontracting crew out for drinks.

"But it wasn't."

"No, I guess not. She slept with his brother—my Uncle Pat. And you know, even that wouldn't have bothered me so much if Uncle Pat wasn't married to the nicest lady and had three kids, but now we've got two ruined families."

Her fingers curled tighter around mine, and from another person I might have viewed this as pity and jerked away, but Winter's life hadn't been easy.

"I'm sorry he had those clay feet," she said softly. "I know all about hating someone and loving them. Wanting them to be happy, but resenting the hell out of them too."

She understood then the confused emotions I had over my dad because I loved him while a small part of me despised him as well. I didn’t doubt that was what she felt toward Ivy—the only family she had left.

The conflicted feelings I had toward my dad were why I didn't go into business with him when I got out of college. I'd wanted to make my own way. But that night in Alaska stuck with me. Those were the last words of advice he'd given. And for all the mistakes he'd made, he’d wanted better for me, and I couldn't find any fault with that. I hoped she had gained the same perspective with Ivy, but that was her battle, and I couldn't force any conclusions on her.

"I've told you a completely depressing story and driven you out into the dark woods. This would be the time for you to jump out and run screaming down the lane."

"I thought it was into the house to face the masked man with the knife. After all, I'm dressed appropriately for it." She tugged on her top.

"Sit for a moment?" I hopped out of the truck and went to her side. "I'll carry you in. No point in putting your jeans on now when I'm going to strip you out of them first thing."