“Hey, wake up,” Finn said, lightly shaking me into consciousness. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

Finn grabbed my hand and yanked me off the bed. “Come on. I want to show you something.” He tugged me through the front door. I squinted under the glow of the sun appearing over the trees.

“I have to get dressed,” I said, sleepily.

“What you have on is fine. Just throw on some boots.”

I brushed my teeth and threw on my boots. I also took a second to pull my crazy bed-hair into a messy bun on the top of my head.

The second I opened the front door, Finn stepped up to meet me on top of the deck and bent down, scooping me over his shoulders and carrying me over to his Bronco.

Finn looked up to the early morning sky. “Storm is coming.”

“You may not want to pursue a career as a weatherman,” I mumbled looking up at the same sky only to see clear blue and cloud free.

“Well.” Finn hoisted me up into the Bronco like I weighed nothing. I held my breath so I wouldn’t moan at the feel of his fingers digging into my skin. “The breeze is picking up, plus, I have this filling in the back of my mouth that aches when bad weather is about to come through.” He opened his mouth and pointed to something in the back I couldn’t see.

“Really?”

Maybe Finn was more off his marbles than I’d originally thought.

“No not really, but there is this one other way I know, but it’s a secret, you can’t tell anyone,” he whispered, looking around to see if anyone was around to hear him.

“What’s that?” I whispered back.

He crooked his finger and I leaned over the center console and he reached out and turned my head forward so he could whisper in my ear. Only he didn’t just whisper in my ear, he brushed his lips against the edge of it, his voice vibrated down my neck, straight through to my nipples, and ended in a throb between my thighs that had me shifting and crossing my legs before he’d even finished his sentence. “The secret is…” his tongue grazed my earlobe and I was glad I was facing forward so he wouldn’t see my eyes roll back in my head. Suddenly he was gone and his phone was in my lap. He started the car. “This,” he pointed down to his phone which had tonight’s Outskirts forecast mapped out by the hour on the screen.

“Your secret is that your phone tells you?” I questioned, holding it up.

“Yeah, don’t tell anyone. I’d rather people from up north, like you, think it’s just good ‘ole southern boy magic.”

“I’m not from up north. I’m from North Carolina,” I argued. I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest.

His eyes dropped down and he didn’t even try and hide where he was looking. I squirmed in my seat and yanked down my t-shirt, which didn’t help because the stretchy material only rode up further on my thighs.

“’Round here that makes you practically a Yankee,” he teased, leaning over and squeezing my knee, which caused my core to squeeze too. He quickly withdrew his hand and I looked out the window and pretended to watch the passing scenery so I could have a second to collect myself and hide my face which I’m pretty sure was heated with varying shades of splotchy pink and red.

“Around here, everything is a little different than most places,” I finally managed to say over my rapidly beating heart.

“Good different or bad different?” Finn asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

I thought for a moment while a montage played in my head of everyone I’d met since I’d arrived in Outskirts. Josh, Critter, Miller, and then finally, Finn. My stomach fluttered and my heart raced. I bit my lower lip. “Definitely a good kind of different.”

Finn winked at me and when we reached the highway he pulled off into the median not far from where he’d almost plowed into me the first night.

“Planning to run me over and finish what you started?” I teased.

“Not tonight anyway. I want to show you something, though.” He leapt out and came over to my side to lift me out of the truck, carrying me to the front and setting me on the hood.

“If we are here to watch cars pass, you couldn’t have picked a worse road,” I pointed out.

Finn laughed and I loved the sound and how it twisted my insides in a way that made everything feel good again. He held out his hand and lifted me so I could sit next to him. The bare skin of his bicep against mine. The heat from his jean-clad thigh pressed up against my uncovered leg.

I took a deep breath through my nose to calm my racing pulse. “Why exactly are we here?”

“This highway is the highest point in the county. They built it up so all the water would run off into the ditches on the side of the road. And since this is the flattest land without trees up ahead, it’s the perfect spot to watch the storm come in.” Finn pointed up ahead.

I looked up slowly only to be faced with a huge black cloud moving our way. The rising sun cast shades of angry red and orange around it. Gray wispy clouds dangled underneath it like tentacles. I froze. “I don’t think I want to be here,” I said, hopping down from the hood.

Finn followed and stopped me by wrapping his arms around my waist and turning me back to face the incoming storm. He marched me back in front of the Bronco. I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head.

“For a girl who’s so fearless at times, you sure are a bit of a chicken shit when it comes to storms. I aim to help you fix that. Let me help you fix that.” His words caressed my skin, soothing my fears and igniting a fire in my body.

“For a guy who’s been a hermit for over two years, you sure are quick to judge,” I responded.

“Ouch, that hurts. Right here.” He patted my chest, right above my heart.

“And what makes you think I’m fearless?” I asked with my eyes still shut, trying not to sound as shaky as I felt.

He hesitated for a moment. “Because you’re here with me right now, aren’t you?” Finn pressed his lips to the side of my neck. “Now open your eyes.”

“I’m not going to get over my fear by standing here and watching the Infinite Doom head my way,” I said.

“Infinite Doom?”

“I gave it an alien vessel name,” I explained.

I opened my eyes briefly to have Finn looking down at me with a sideways expression. “At Critter’s, when the games are over, Star Trek reruns play in the late afternoons,” I clarified, closing my eyes once again.

Finn chuckled. “That explains that. Infinite Doom, I like it. But come on, Say. I’ll be with you the entire time. I’ll protect you,” he said, brushing his fingertips against my arms, sending a shiver through my body.

“What if there are…tornados?” I asked, whispering the word tornado like a potential funnel cloud was going to hear me and come running from the bushes with an axe at the mention of its name. “Like last time.”

“I’ll make you a deal. I promise that if a tornado comes then I’ll throw myself in front of it and fight it ‘till the death while you make your get away.”

“You’d fight a tornado for me?” I asked, with a ton of mock sincerity. “And they say chivalry is dead.”

Making a joke was a big mistake. He chuckled against my skin between my neck and shoulder I couldn’t help the full body shudder that erupted where his lips touched and ended somewhere else I’ve never imagined his lips touching…until right then.

“Do you trust me?” Finn whispered.

“Not even a little,” I lied.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you open your eyes.” This time both of his hands dropped from my waist, slowly slid down the outside of my legs to the hem of my t-shirt.

“I can’t.” I bit my lip and tried not to groan as Finn heated my skin like his fingertips were made of flames.

“Open your eyes, Say,” he said again, pushing both hands across to the inside of my legs where he gave the delicate flesh on the very inside of my thighs a light squeeze.

That did the trick.

My eyes sprang open and once again I was faced with the darkness of the Infinite Doom and its earth killing tentacles that were heading directly for us.

“What is it that you’re trying to do?” I asked as one of his hands pressed against my thigh, tethering me in place, and the other skated up my shirt, fingering the delicate edge of my panties.

“I want you to see the storm for what it really is,” Finn said, his voice deep and raspy.

“What would that be?” Keeping my eyes on the storm. My heart raced as it grew closer and closer. The fear coursing through my blood, setting alarms off in my brain.

“It might be mysterious and seem threatening at first, but really it’s beautiful and it’s only coming through to water and give life to everything below it,” Finn explained in a calm but firm tone. “Look at it with new eyes. Look at it as something that heals. Not harms.”

I leaned back, pressing my body into Finn’s as his fingers found their way into my panties and brushed over the most sensitive spot on my body. A mere whisper of his touch over my delicate bundle of nerve endings.

I instinctually pressed my thighs together, trapping his hand in between.

“Now what fun is that?” Finn asked, trailing his tongue along the back of my neck and pushing my thighs apart with his hand once again.

He leaned back against his Bronco and took me with him so my body was tilted slightly toward the sky. I could watch the incoming storm as well as feel his throbbing hardness underneath me. My entire body heated. Tingles erupted from places I’d never felt them before.

Finn began to stroke me gently but firmly in a circular pattern. Each time he completed the circle and started over again it sent a jolt of pleasure between my legs. I felt myself growing wetter and wetter. He groaned in my ear and set off a new spark inside of me that begged to be released.

“You see,” Finn started, his voice a deep rasp. “At first you think it’s just this dark thing coming to take over your life or at the very least annoy the shit out of you for a while.”

I would have laughed, but my laugh died before I could get the sound out of my mouth because his fingers picked up speed. I groaned and Finn responded by pulling me tighter against him.

“But then you realize, that it’s only here to help. The rain feeds the world, giving us what we need to live. The lightning starts natural fires that burn off natural waste. The thunder is nature’s gong, reminding us that we’re alive. It’s like you.”

“How?” I asked, my brain muddied by the sensations washing over me. By the need building painfully in my lower stomach.

Finn smiled against my skin. “I just told you. You remind me I’m alive.”

With those words, he toyed with the outer lips of my sex, strumming them like guitar strings, just as a wall of rain appeared in the near distance. I wriggled in his grasp unsure of where to go or what to do as it grew closer and closer.

“Look at it, Say,” Finn demanded, turning my chin toward the incoming rain as he rotated his fingers in varying stages of slow and fast with no discernable rhythm leaving me wanting for more and wondering what was coming next.

I did what Finn said. I looked at it with new eyes. As something wondrous instead of something evil. Something here to help, not hurt. As the wall of water approached I found myself almost in awe of it. “It’s beautiful.”

“It really is,” Finn said, pulling his fingers from my panties abruptly, turning me around to face him.

“The most beautiful,” he said, looking into my eyes and licking my wetness off his fingers. He lowered his lips to mine and once again, his hand found its way up my shirt and into my panties.

As the first drops of rain fell, the tension and fear about the storm melted away and the tension of passion and desire grew and grew until I didn’t think I could take anymore.

“You’re close. I can feel it,” Finn growled. “Face it. Face the storm when you come.” He spun me around again and resumed stroking me. Faster and faster. “Tell it you’re not afraid of it,” he demanded.

“No, I can’t.” And I didn’t know if it was because of what he was doing to me or because although I could find the water beautiful, I couldn’t quite let go of the fear.

“Come on, I thought you were fearless,” Finn prodded.

“I never said that. Actually, I’ve said the opposite. Pretty much everything scares me,” I responded, tossing my head back as he increased the pressure between my legs.

“Finn, I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know…”

“You don’t have to know what I’m doing,” Finn said, “because I do.”

Finn pressed the heel of his hand against my clit, sending a jolt of pleasure through me.

When my body tensed and I felt like something was about to happen he eased up, leaving me wanting and gasping.

“All you have to do is tell the storm you’re not afraid,” he nipped the edge of my ear, “and I’ll give you what you want.”

I couldn’t even pretend to be unaffected by him. His touch, his words. His insistence in trying to cure me of one of my biggest fears.

I rocked back against his hand. “I’m not afraid of you,” I said, although as the darkest part of the clouds grew closer I did feel my pulse start to quicken and my body stiffen. “There, I did it.”

Finn paused his movement all together and I almost growled out of frustration. “Louder, much louder,” Finn said, starting his torturous stroke over my sex once again.

“I am NOT afraid of you!” I yelled. The intensity of the buildup was almost too much to bear. I needed a release. I needed Finn.

“Louder!” Finn yelled. He picked up the pace and pressed his erection firmly against the crack between my butt cheeks.

“I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOUUUUUUU!!!!!” I yelled with all my might, bucking back against him.

I expected Finn to comment, or at least laugh at how loud I was, but he again paused his fingers but didn’t withdraw. I glanced over my shoulder to find him watching me with his eyes hooded and his pupils large and dark.

“Are you afraid of ME?” Finn asked softly, rocking his hips against me. The rain came in, washing out everything around us, there was no more road. No more trees. Just me and him and this fire blazing between us that not even the rain couldn’t put out.

I could only manage to shake my head.

“Really?” Finn leaned over me, rocking against me. “Because you scare the shit out of me.”

Lightning lit up the early morning sky and thunder bellowed and shook the gravel under my feet.

And for once…I wasn’t afraid.

Finn pressed the pad of his thumb down hard on the very spot that was throbbing for him. As the next roll of thunder roared through the air so did I.

My body released what it had been holding on to in a flush of pleasure that came in spurts, one more blissful than the next. The scream that tore from my mouth rivaled the thunder itself.

I was no longer skin and flesh and bones. I was only feeling and sensation and pleasure coursing through my body over and over again, wringing every last muscle of its power until I collapsed against Finn who held me up so I wouldn’t fall.

But it was too late.

I’d already fallen.