I open my eyes to Finn Greer’s stupidly handsome, very concerned face hovering over me.
“Fuck, you okay?” His eyes are wide, his hair a mess beneath his backward cap, and he’s looking at me like he’s half-expecting me to start crying or some shit, which is exactly why I start laughing. Loudly.
Finn lets out a breath and shakes his head with a snicker, like I’m the most exhausting person he’s ever met. “Jesus, Al. Maybe you should wear a helmet after all.” Then he yells over his shoulder, “She’s fine, Dane!”
From somewhere behind him, my brother’s voice carries across the track. “Told you that BMX is stupid, Speedbump.”
Finn rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you and your downhillsuperiority complex.” He reaches down, offering his hand, and I grab it.
Big mistake.
Because in the next second, he’s yanking me up way too easily, and suddenly I’m flush against him. His arm is steady around me, holding me upright like I might topple over again, and I swear my brain short-circuits.
Holy shit.
It’s the closest I’ve ever been to him, and he smells like sweat, chain grease, and maple-scented bad decisions, but before I can embarrass myself, he starts brushing the dirt off my back, reminding me I’m nothing but Dane’s dumb little sister who fell on her ass, again.
“Give the damn bike back before you end the season early for yourself,” Dane yells, but he’s focused on his phone.
“Don’t listen to him.” Finn is completely unfazed, his big, rough hands casually dusting me off.“Do you wanna go again, baby girl?”
There it is. The nickname. The one that always makes my heart do dumb, unnecessary things, and I know exactly how he means it. Baby. As inchild. As in Dane’s kid sister who isn’t a real person in his eyes. Nothisbaby.
I ignore the little pang in my chest and grin up at him. “Hell yeah.”
Finn smirks. “Attagirl.”
God, just bury me now.
The second round is fun, and I’m going at it fast and recklessly, just how I like it, but it’s still not downhill mountain biking. The bike is too small, too twitchy, too not right. Still, it’s Finn’s bike, and the fact that he let me ride it? That alone is a win.
When I roll up to where the guys are sitting, Sum 41’s “Pieces” blasts from a speaker box. Definitely Finn’s music. He’s into the early 2000s punk rock stuff, or anything withloud guitars and attitude.I may or may not have started listening to them as well.
Finn leans back on his elbows, laughing at something Dane said, looking way too attractive for someone who just exists, but then I hear what he’s talking about.
“ I swear, I barely had a hand on her, and she was already…”
Dane groans. “God, stop. I do not need to hear about you getting dry humped against a door.”
Finn snickers. “First of all, I wouldn’t call it dry. Second, she was impatient and didn’t even let me get my damn belt off before she had her hand down my…”
Oh-my-fucking-God.
I make a strangled gagging noise, drop his BMX carefully next to him, and plop down onto the dirt before my brain can fully process what he just said.
“You guys are gross.”
“What?” Finn grins, utterly unbothered. “You’ve never had someone so desperate for you they couldn’t wait? So hot for you, their brain justshorts outthe second you’re near?”
Heat zips down my spine. My stomach flips, and I drop my gaze to the dirt, hoping the ground will swallow me whole before he sees what that just did to me.
Because no, Iabsolutelyhave not had that.
But I’ve thought about it and him way too much. About how it would feel to have Finn lose control over me, to see him let go of all the reasons why this can’t happen and just take me.
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
