by TM Frazier
“Finn?” she asked, glancing up at me.
“Didn’t you know? Finn here has read like every book ever,” Miller said, stabbing his fork into a cheese cube.
“At least he knows how to read,” Josh muttered.
“I know how to read,” Miller argued, pointing the cheese at Josh. “Maxim has more than just pictures, you know.”
“What else?” I prompted, curious as to what else she could possibly have on her list. What else I could give her.
How else I could make her smile.
“Well, now that I’ve tasted wine…” Sawyer chuckled, taking another sip and grimacing all over again.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Josh assured her.
She smiled and sucked in air through her teeth. “Everything. Everything is on my list. I want to taste and experience everything life has to offer. It’s too short to waste and I’ve spent twenty-one years wasting it.”
“So, you’re saying that you want to commit crimes and rob banks?” I teased.
“Sure, why not?” she answered back. Holding her wine glass without drinking from it.
“Nah, I don’t think you’ve got it in you,” Miller said, with his beer paused at his lips.
Sawyer’s smile was spreading, she set her wine glass down. “I did steal.”
“Really? Oh, this is going to be good. What did you steal?” Josh asked, pouring herself another glass.
Sawyer smirked, popping out the dimple on her cheek. “I stole money from my father. Technically it was the church’s money. I took it before I left.”
“So, what? You took like twenty-bucks from the collection plate?” Miller scoffed, belching loudly.
Josh kicked him under the table.
“Ouch, baby. Next time you’re going to hurt me make sure you do it when we’re naked.”
“Try nineteen thousand dollars from the weekly church donations,” Sawyer corrected, sitting straight in her chair.
I tightened my grip on the arm of my chair and almost spit out my beer.
The table was silent until Josh chimed in. “No way. You’re lying.”
“It’s true. He asked me to make the deposit. Instead, I took it when I left.”
“What did you do with the money?” Miller asked curiously, hanging on Sawyer’s every word.
“On the way here, to Outskirts, I stopped and donated half to a battered women and children’s center and the other half to a suicide prevention call center.” Sawyer started to giggle midway through her sentence, by the time she was done she was in a full-blown bit of laughter.
“Bad ass!” Miller exclaimed, raising his beer in salute before finishing it and slamming it back down on the table.
“What’s so funny?” I asked Sawyer. Laughing along with her although I didn’t know why except that Sawyer’s laugh was infectious.
“I made the donations in my father’s name.”
Then we were all laughing along with her. The sound of Sawyer’s laughter carried straight to my heart where nothing but joy and pride were causing it to beat erratically.
Noticeably absent, was my old friend guilt.
“Wow, that’s ballsy.” Josh gave Sawyer a fist bump, which she awkwardly returned.
Sawyer’s eye caught mine like she was waiting to hear my response to what she’d done. “I’m impressed,” I said.
She beamed.
And I was. My innocent girl had done something that took a hell of a lot of guts. Come to think of it, everything she did took a hell of a lot of guts.
I reached out and grabbed the arm of her chair, sliding it as close to me as possible. I planted a soft but firm kiss on her plump pink lips and looked her right in her eyes, cupping her cheek in my hand. “That’s my girl.”
A throat cleared. “Your girl, huh?” Miller asked, raising his eyebrows.
I answered without breaking eye contact with Sawyer who was still smiling up at me.
“Yeah. MY girl.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sawyer
My girl.
I was downright giddy when I excused myself to go inside to grab the pie I’d baked. When I came back out onto the deck the three old friends were laughing about some memory from their childhood and although I had no idea what they were talking about I smiled and laughed right along with them. I couldn’t remember ever having this much fun during a meal.
Miller was still talking as he put a pink pill on the table and started crushing it with the back of his spoon before using a rolled-up dollar bill to snort the powder up his nose.
Finn looked unaffected by his behavior, like he’d seen it a thousand times before, while the look on Josh’s face was that of disapproval and annoyance as she glared down at Miller who was snorting lines off the table.
“What?” Miller asked when he noticed Josh was watching him.
Finn chuckled and squeezed my knee.
She waved a hand over the powder on the table.
“Oh that?” Miller asked. “It’s just Ritalin. It’s for my ADHD,” he nodded at his own statement and snorted another line with his eyes defiantly glued to Josh’s.
Josh snatched the pill bottle from Miller’s pocket. She tapped a nail against the label. “Oh yeah, it says right here to crush three tablets twice a day and snort with food,” she said sarcastically. “Can you at least pretend you have respect for the fact that I’m a cop.”
“Yes, as soon as you can show some respect for my chosen profession,” Miller said, with his powder covered nose in the air.
“Your profession?” Josh questioned.
“Yes, well, one of them anyway.”
“Drug dealer?” Josh chimed in. “You mean that one?”
“I like to consider myself more of a sommelier of narcotics.” He sniffled. “I don’t see you giving Finn shit about smoking weed.”
“Because it’s WEED you moron. It’s legal in some states. And please. Remember one thing, I’m giving you SHIT about it. I’m not arresting you for it.”
“Well, that is a good thing because…” Miller started.
“YET,” she interrupted, pinning him to the back of his chair with her hardened glare.
“You wouldn’t,” Miller whispered dramatically, drawing out the words slowly as he leaned away from Josh.
“Try me.”
I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t laugh.
“If you arrest me I’ll take that to mean we aren’t getting married and having babies,” Miller said.
“You talk a big game, but you do realize you’ve never so much as asked me out,” Josh announced suddenly, stunning everyone at the table including Miller who looked downright offended.
“I have too!” Miller argued.
Josh rolled her eyes. “Oh please, inviting me for tacos, tequila, and anal isn’t asking me out.”
Miller’s jaw dropped. He held a hand over his chest. “I think it sounds like a perfectly romantic way to spend an evening. You’re just too picky.”
“Maybe I am,” she shrugged.
“Well then maybe you should just stick with pussy,” Miller groaned.
Josh stood from the chair and narrowed her gaze at him, holding her stare until he looked up and jumped when he found her standing directly above him. “What?” he asked, shifting in his chair.
“Maybe you should stop BEING a pussy,” Josh spat. And with that, she was gone, across the clearing, heading for Finn’s shack.
Miller looked back and forth between Finn and then me. “What the fuck just happened?” Miller asked.
“I think you just got rejected. AGAIN,” Finn said, cracking open a beer.
“Fuccckkkk…I already offered tacos, sushi, and anal. What else is there?” Miller asked dropping his head to his hands.
“No, that’s not it at all. She didn’t reject you,” I interjected.
“She didn’t?” both Miller and Finn asked at the same time.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Then…what DID happen?” Miller
asked. Both him and Finn leaned forward in their chairs.
I took a sip of my beer and smiled. “I think she just told you to bring your A game.”
Miller growled something inaudible and followed Josh over to Finn’s cabin.
“Thank you for all this,” I said, once we were alone. “You didn’t have to buy me a house just to get me to like you. I liked you right from the beginning, even when I thought I didn’t.”
“I didn’t do it to get you to like me. I did it because I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to make you feel good,” Finn said.
“Why?”
“Because,” he turned his chair toward mine so our knees were touching. “I’ve learned that when I make you feel good it makes me feel good too.”
I swallowed hard. “It does?”
“In fact, I’ll show you…”
He leaned in. Our lips were only a hair’s breadth apart when a bang broke through the space between us and echoed across the clearing.
“Was that…a gunshot?” I called out to Finn who was already racing across to the shack.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered as I followed him.
Finn cast me a worried side glance as we reached the porch of the shack. “I sure as hell hope not.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sawyer
“Ho-lee shit,” Finn said suddenly. Stopping so abruptly I ran right into his back as he gazed through the screen door without making a move to step inside.
“What?” I asked, curious as to what had gotten his attention. I stepped in front of him and the scene in the kitchen had me gasping. “Ho-lee shit,” I repeated Finn’s earlier sentiment in a whisper. He covered my mouth with his big palm although I think I could’ve shouted and the two people in the kitchen wouldn’t have heard me, their attentions fixated solely on one another.
Finn chuckled softly. “I knew it,” he muttered. He pulled me to the side of the house out of view. However, when I turned back around I could still see Miller and Josh clearly through a crack in the siding. They were stark naked. Josh’s back was against the kitchen counter, her head tilted back, her lips parted in excess. Miller stood between her spread thighs relentlessly pounding himself into her. His butt muscles clenched with each rhythmic thrust.
“We probably shouldn’t be watching this,” I whispered, unable to pull my eyes away. I took a step back directly into Finn’s hard chest.
Instead of stepping back and giving me room to flee Finn surprised me by placing his hands on my shoulders and walking me right up to the living room window where we now had front row seats to the sexiest show I’d ever seen.
I swallowed hard and gasped when Finn wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me back against him. “Do you like what you see?” he asked, his voice low and hoarse. His hands wrapped loosely around my throat.
“I…I’m not sure,” I answered breathlessly, confused by my reaction to both flee and watch. “I hate the fact that my first reaction to this was hearing my father’s voice in my head telling me that what they’re doing is shameful. That my body is shameful.”
Finn tensed. “Say, sex is not shameful. It’s two people wanting to make each other feel good. To give them pleasure. And I will tell you right fucking now that there isn’t a thing about YOU that is shameful. You’re beautiful, and feminine, and soft, and your body is something to be proud of, to enjoy.” He ran his hand down my side, heating my skin everywhere he touched.
I shivered.
“Sex, making love, fucking, whatever you want to call it. It’s normal. Natural.” Finn glanced back inside. “Well, other than it being Miller and Josh doing it. There is nothing normal when it comes to those two,” he joked, his breath hot against my ear.
Finn moved my hair off my shoulder and pressed his lips against my neck. He trailed his lips from the base of my neck right behind my ear and I felt myself pushing back against him. He bit down on my skin between my neck and shoulder. I moaned when the sensation sent a shot of pleasure between my legs. Finn responded by grasping me tighter against him.
“Don’t you dare allow your past, your father, to make you feel ashamed for something we all think of. Something we all want.” He sucked the tip of my ear into his mouth before trailing his tongue down the same path his lips had taken seconds before.
All the air left my lungs and I closed my eyes, the sensations too much to bear. My nipples pressed painfully against my dress. My thoughts swam around in my head with no purpose, drunk on Finn’s scent of rain and soap. I felt my stomach begin to flip the way it had during the storm.
I suddenly felt like we were intruding on a private moment. “If you’re curious and you want to watch, then watch,” Finn said, like he’d been reading my thoughts. He cupped my jaw and turned me to face the scene in the kitchen once again.
Josh rolled her hips as Miller continued to thrust hard inside of her. He was holding her long legs up, his biceps flexing every time he entered and withdrew from her body.
“Isn’t it wrong to watch?” I asked breathlessly, all too aware of the crackling tension in the air all around us.
Finn chuckled. “They’re in my kitchen with the front door open. I don’t think they’re trying to hide anything at this point.” He kept his lips against my neck and moved his hand to the front of my thigh. Ever so slowly he began to trail it up the sensitive flesh at the inside of my leg, teasing the skin under the hem of my dress. He nuzzled his nose into my hair and inhaled deeply.
“Do you ever think of… doing that to me?” I asked in a breathless whisper.
Finn stilled.
“Only every goddamn minute since the second I first saw you,” he groaned. He spun me around, pushed me up against the wall and covered my lips with his. Our tongues danced while his hands explored my body, pushing up my dress and squeezing my breasts. He swallowed my cry of surprise as white-hot pleasure washed over me when he lightly pinched my nipple.
“I think about being inside of you more than I think about anything else,” Finn confessed against my lips, then my neck.
He pulled back, the hot night air cooling where his kisses had just been. His chest heaved up and down and he looked me right in my eyes like he was about to devour me. “Do YOU think about it? Do you think about me making you come again?”
“Yes. I think…I think I want you to do that to me. US to do that. Together,” I confessed, unable to catch my breath.
Finn’s jaw dropped. He pushed his knee between my legs and stepped between them. “There isn’t an expiration on this,” he said, searching my eyes. “On US. I’ll wait for you. For when you’re ready. I need you to know that.”
“I do,” I gasped as he rocked against me harder. “But you know how I told you about everything I wanted to experience? When we were in the swamp? Well, I left one thing off.”
“And what would that be?” Finn asked. I blushed with embarrassment. “You have to say it, Say. It’s how this works. I can’t guess. Not when it comes to us. THIS. It’s too important to make assumptions. I’ve fucked up enough in my life and this is one thing I really don’t want to fuck up.”
I wanted to drop into a hole in the porch but Finn rocked against me, urging me on. “My first time. I wanted it to be you. With YOU,” I said. “I…I WANT you.” The words were barely out of my mouth when Finn’s lips covered mine again in a kiss so consuming it felt as if he was touching me everywhere.
“Fuck, you’re perfect,” Finn murmured against my lips. “Do you trust me?” Finn asked, his eyes dark. His breath ragged.
“Yes,” I answered because it was true.
I trusted him with my body.
And with my heart.
Finn gently pushed me back up against the wall so that my back was flush against the house. He reached down and unbuttoned his jeans, pushing them down to reveal his massive erection straining against the stretchy material of his tight black boxers.
My eyes widened at the sight. My core clenched. I didn’t know what his plan was bu
t I hoped whatever it was wouldn’t hurt, but I didn’t see how that would be possible.
Finn hiked my dress up to my waist and again fit himself between my legs, this time he lifted me so that the heat of my core was flush with his hardness with only the fabric of our undergarments separating us.
Finn’s eyes locked on mine. His breath was my breath. His need was my need as he began to rock against my sensitive nub, dragging himself against the heat of my folds. I felt him throb against the damp fabric separating us and I moaned, covering my mouth with my hand.
“They’re a little too busy to hear you, Say,” Finn chuckled. He looked me in the eyes as he lifted me up and dropped me down again and again until stars formed behind my eyelids and my vision blurred. I was awash in pleasure and my senses were on overload. All I could feel, smell, see, taste, was Finn.
My body ached. My heart was about to explode.
The way his body felt pressed against mine. The way he looked at me. If the world came crashing down around us we wouldn’t have noticed or cared because right then and there we were the only two people who mattered.
“Come, Say. You’re so fucking beautiful when you come for me.” The cords in his neck tightened and just as I was about to reach the edge he put his lips back over mine to swallow my cries of pleasure as I burst apart in his arms, clenching and contracting with only the tip of his manhood against me like it was inviting him inside my body. The thought sent an entirely new wave of pleasure over me and I shuddered, riding out every bit of what Finn had given me.
“That’s my girl,” Finn groaned. He tensed. His hardness throbbed and a flush of hot wetness exploded between us, soaking the already wet fabric separating us.
Finn held me against his chest and made no move to clean either of us up as we caught our breaths.
That is, until my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself needing to ask Finn something. “What would it feel like if I did that…”
“Come, I think the word you’re looking for is come,” Finn said, still breathless. He kissed the top of my head.