“That’s hot,” Kyle announced. Ryan didn’t like the way he was looking at Fin like she was naked. “Show us.”
“You’re not getting your eyes on it,” Ryan told him.
Kyle smirked at Ryan. “You’ll show me, won’t you, Fin?”
“I will,” she replied, and Ryan’s entire body tightened, “if Ryan says it’s okay.”
“No,” Ryan replied without hesitation.
Kyle grinned at him. “Sharing is caring.”
Wine in hand, Jess sat down in a cross-legged position on the fluffy, cream rug. Tiny with black hair and blue eyes, Ryan remembered her from Fin’s party. She was an accountant and had been commiserating with Rachael about the lack of male eye candy in the office.
He’d mentioned that the Army recruited accountants and maybe they should try their luck there, laughing when both their mouths fell open.
“Really?” Jess had asked, her eyes narrowing as she searched for Fin through the crowd of people. “How come Fin never told us this?”
“Maybe because you’d have to move across the other side of the country,” he pointed out.
Jess excused herself at that point when someone called her name. “I’ll be back in a minute. Hold that conversation.”
“Not keen on getting off your ass and joining the Army, Rachael?” he teased as they watched Jess disappear into the crowd.
“And break a nail?”
He raised a brow sardonically. “That’s your priority?”
“No,” she’d said softly, her eyes on Fin. “My friends and family are.” Rachael turned and ran her eyes over him in his military uniform. “What’s your priority, Ryan?”
His eyes had immediately fallen to Fin, his stomach in knots at the thought of her leaving for Antarctica the next morning.
“Someone better get the barbecue started before I chew a hole in the couch,” Jess shouted over the conversation.
He was thankful they hadn’t gone anywhere. In the next few weeks, he was going to need Fin to be their priority when he left.
Ryan stood up, setting Fin on her feet. “I’ll do it.”
“No, it’s okay, Ryan. I organised the party.”
He pushed her towards the seat he just vacated. “No. Sit down, spend some time with your friends.”
As the guys vacated the room with him, he heard Laura say, “Well that got them out of the room, Jess. You can show us your tattoo now, Fin.”
Kyle spun around and Ryan reached behind him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “You go outside and start the barbecue,” he ordered, shoving him towards the direction of the back deck while he headed into the kitchen.
The four girls were laughing loud at something when he peered at them over the fridge door. “What am I cooking, baby?”
She looked up at him. “There should be some chicken and veggie kebabs in there on a platter and some steak I marinated this morning.”
He inspected the contents of the fridge, not seeing anything that resembled what she just said.
“It’s probably hidden behind all the beer,” she called out.
Crouching down, he shuffled a few bottles around. “Got it!” His hands full, he joined the guys on the back deck as Kyle lit the barbecue. Setting everything down on the nearby table, he took the beer that Monty held out. Twisting the cap off, he joined the circle as they saluted him with their bottles and wished him a happy birthday.
Ryan nodded as he stared at the ground. He didn’t want them to see his eyes burning because his best friend wasn’t there. It felt wrong getting older without Jake aging alongside him. Jake would never grow old, he would never have another birthday, he would simply stay twenty-seven forever. It made his stomach churn. Would the ache ever get easier to live with?
“Jesus,” Kyle breathed.
His head snapped up and followed Kyle’s line of sight to the group of girls inside. Fin’s dress was hiked up, her panties pushed down the side of her hip slightly as the girls crowded around for a closer look at the tattoo.
“Fuck me,” he heard Monty breathe beside him.
Ryan rapped on the glass French doors with his bottle of beer, and they all looked up.
Kyle cleared his throat. “Well. That’s one hell of a birthday present, Kendall,” he said, the girls laughing while Fin snapped her clothes back into place.
Ryan raised a brow. “And that’s as close as you’ll ever get to it, yeah?”
“Stand down, Kendall,” he replied with a grin. “I love you both like family.”
“Shut up, asshole, and check if the grill is hot enough yet.”
Kyle returned to the barbecue. With his beer in one hand, he used the other to scrape the stainless steel spatula over the hotplate.
“Have you told Fin yet?” Monty asked.
His chest tightened. “Not yet.”
Kyle looked over his shoulder at him, grief flashing briefly across his face. “You better do it soon. The next four weeks are gonna fly.”
Ryan looked through the doors again at Fin. He hadn’t seen her this happy since … he couldn’t remember. “Soon,” he muttered.
“I need to ice this cake, girls,” he heard her call out as she stood. He frowned when she paused, her eyes going vacant for a moment.
“Fin?” Rachael called out.
She turned to look at Rachael, a distant smile on her face as she said something and waved her hand in casual dismissal.
Had she eaten anything at all today? Was not eating her way of controlling her grief? Maybe he needed to ask someone.
“Back in a minute,” he said and walked inside to where she was now standing in the kitchen, bowl in hand.
“Have you got some sort of inbuilt frosting beacon?” she teased.
His brows drew together. “You okay?”
Fin paused, the spatula hovering over the cake. “Of course.” She looked at him, her eyes wide. “Why?”
Ryan took a deep breath. “No reason.”
She dipped her finger into the frosting and held it out to him, her eyes closing when he leaned forward and licked it off.
He swallowed the sticky, sweet sugar, getting hard as he imagined licking it off her entire body. “Can we send everyone home yet?”
Fin laughed, the sound husky on her lips, and he grabbed her hips, yanking her towards him. “Soon.”
“Good,” he breathed against her mouth before he kissed her long and slow.
Fin turned the key in the ignition and Ryan’s car came to life with a deep, throaty growl. Pleasure shot through her body, fizzing her blood with excitement at the sound. Putting her hands on the steering wheel, she looked at Ryan, grinning as he opened the passenger door.
Ducking his head, he met her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this.”
“It’s only a fifteen minute drive to Mum and Dad’s place,” Fin pointed out.
There was no way he was getting out of letting her drive this car. For a brief moment of joy, she was going to ignore the gas guzzling pollution and feel the brute force of Ryan’s car move beneath her touch. She rolled down the window, knowing the feel of the wind blowing carelessly through her hair would only heighten the experience. Fin returned her hands to their tight grip on the steering wheel and a light sweat of anticipation broke over her palms.
“You’re sure about me driving your car, right?” She didn’t know why she asked that. It didn’t matter because she was driving this car whether he was sure or not.
Ryan shook his head as he slid inside the car. “No. I’m not sure at all. I’m only letting you drive it on one condition.”
Her fingers tapped impatiently as she watched him shut his door. “This is the first time I’ve heard anything about a condition being attached. What is it?”
He grinned at her. “I’m not saying what it is. You just have to agree to it, and when I do eventually tell you, you’re not allowed to say no.”
“Alright,” she replied, knowing she’d agree to almost anything in that moment just to driv
e his car.
Ryan put his seatbelt on, her first attempt at an apple pie wobbling on his lap as he clicked it into place. Finished, he looked at her. “Remember when you first learned how to drive?”
Laughter bubbled out of her at the memory. Fin’s dad had sat in the passenger seat. His voice had taken on that scarily patient tone—the one where you just knew he was holding it together by the skin of his teeth. She would’ve preferred the shouting because the alternative made her more nervous. What made it worse was that Jake and Ryan were sitting in the back seat, Jake having insisted on getting front row tickets to her misery. Ryan had sat there, his lips suppressing a smile. Jake wasn’t so polite—he was already laughing before she even backed the car out of the driveway. How was she to know that the balance of the clutch and the acceleration pedal was an exact science? Dad and Jake, and even Ryan for that matter, made it look so effortless.
After Fin stalled her way across town, she made sure to do a lap around the car park at the beach where Jake and Ryan’s friends hung out. It had been a beautiful day—there were no clouds lining the sky and the heat of the sun burned hot and bright, making the beach a busy place that particular morning. She’d giggled as the car bunny hopped wildly around the entire length with Jake hunched over in the back, hiding as he begged Dad to make her stop.
“I’m not sure you’ve improved,” Ryan told her.
Fin arched her brow at the seriousness of his tone. “You’re not nervous are you?” she teased as he ran his fingers through his silky hair.
Ryan turned to look at her. The heated pink of the sunset reflected brightly in his dark eyes, and her breath caught at their beauty. “It’s not your driving I’m nervous about, baby.”
He was worried about seeing her parents, but he didn’t need to be. They didn’t deal with their own heartache by taking it out on others—not like his father. He was solely to blame for the tension making Ryan’s shoulders tight. “Ryan … I don’t know your dad, but I do know it’s possible to hate someone you’ve never met.”
“Don’t, Fin.” He reached out and grabbed her hand. Rather than the usual warmth, his touch was cold and damp. “Don’t hate. I don’t want that inside you.”
“It’s too late for that,” she told him.
The anger had taken hold of her the moment she saw the bruises marking his body when he was young. How could someone hurt the very person they were supposed to protect?
“It’s all in the past, Fin.”
“It’s not. It doesn’t matter what you’ve seen and done in your life, Ryan, because everywhere you’ve gone, your past has followed you. You haven’t let it go because it’s still here, wedged between us. You’re still trying to escape it, and I hate that after everything you’re still letting it hurt you.”
Ryan squeezed her hand in his. “Remember the night not long after you turned sixteen and your father said you couldn’t date?”
Fin nodded, remembering the feeling of calm that settled over her when her dad laid down the law. She’d only wanted Ryan and it had been the perfect excuse to use every time a boy asked her out.
“I was so relieved. I didn’t want anyone to have you. Even before then I thought of you as mine. It was that night, when I followed you outside, that I realised you knew about my father. I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to see me that way—as someone weak and helpless, someone to be pitied.”
“Ryan.” She frowned. “I would never think—”
“Who was it that told you? Was it Jake or was it Mike and Julie?”
Her mouth fell open. “Mum and Dad knew?” Fury rose swiftly inside her, warring with the confusion. “Why didn’t they do anything?” she cried out.
“Don’t be angry with them. They tried, believe me, they really did, but …” he trailed off, his brows drawn.
“But what?”
Ryan sighed deeply. “We argued. It ended with me telling them I’d run away if they said anything. I was young and desperate, and they were scared of what would happen to me if I ended up on the streets. At least this way they could make sure I was okay—that they were there if I needed them.”
Fin shook her head. “Why would you do that—not let them help you? I don’t understand.”
Ryan rubbed a hand over his jaw. “You don’t need to understand, Fin.”
“Why can’t you tell me why you put yourself through it? You could have had a better life somewhere else, you …”
Oh God. Somewhere else. Away from her. If he went into the system it was possible she might never have seen him again. Her chest started rising and falling a little harder.
“Look at me, Ryan.” Ryan looked up and the pleading she saw in his eyes had her heart pounding so hard she thought she was going to be sick.
“Oh no,” she whispered, denial flooding her hard. “No, no, no. No!” she shrieked, scrambling for the door handle, desperate to escape what she saw in his eyes. He stayed for her.
“Fin!”
He made a grab for her, but the car door was open and she was already running. Her feet pounded hard and fast along the road, panic careening wildly through her system as the night air washed over her face.
“Fin!” Ryan yelled.
Fin ignored him, focusing on outrunning the pain that was weighing heavily in her gut. Her arm was seized in an unbreakable grip, Ryan yanking at her bicep until she was forced to a stop. “Let me go!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, breathless. He wrapped his arms around her, and when her legs gave out, they sank to the ground on the side of the road.
Fin buried her face in his chest, her fingers curling into his shirt. “Why would you do that?”
“I couldn’t leave you. Not then. If Mike and Julie spoke up, I’d have lost you, and you were the only thing in my life that kept me going.” He rubbed her back as she cried, the tears tasting salty and bitter on her lips. “Breathe, baby.”
She inhaled his warm, male scent deep into her lungs. “Every time he hit you, every time he made you bleed, you let him because of me.”
“Oh God,” he moaned into her hair. “Don’t. You don’t understand. I told Kassidy to kick that ball. I was the one that was supposed to be looking out for her. I let him hurt me because that was my punishment for her dying. I was supposed to be her brother, and I let her down. Then you were there, so bright and happy just like she was, and I couldn’t let you go.”
“But you did. Eventually you let me go and you didn’t look back.”
His arms tightened around her. “Because I grew up and realised that someone as smart as you, with a heart as deep and as wide as the ocean, deserved someone who wasn’t broken to love you. I’m still broken, Fin, and I don’t know if that will ever change.”
Why couldn’t he see how worthy he was? Fin pulled away and looked at him. His eyes were dull and tired, filled with so much regret. I wasn’t enough for him. She shuddered as a chill swept through her veins. “I love you, Ryan,” she whispered, desperation edging her voice.
“I love you too,” he replied hoarsely.
Ryan kissed her. His lips were warm, his mouth hot. She could feel his heart hammering in his chest as she pressed against him. When headlights from a car flashed in the distance, she realised it was dark, and they were sitting in the gutter.
Ryan stood, bringing her with him. He brushed his hand down her dress, removing bits of dirt and grass that clung to her clothes. Even now, after everything he’d been through, he was still taking care of her, putting her above everything else—even himself. “Stop.”
Ryan stopped. “Are you okay?”
No. Her hands trembled. How could she ever be okay as long as Ryan wasn’t? He was standing there, patiently waiting for her to answer, his concern palpable.
Fin nodded, knowing that was what he needed to see.
Ryan trailed his thumb along her bottom lip, heat following its path. “We should go,” he told her, his eyes on her lips.
“We should,” she murmured, but Fin didn’t
want to go to dinner now. She wanted to stay home. She wanted to feel Ryan hard and aching, feel his heart—his blood—pulsing deeply inside her.
“If you keep looking at me like that, we won’t be going anywhere except inside where I can fuck you hard enough to block out the entire world.”
Fin’s mouth went dry. The soft streetlight cast Ryan half in shadow, adding a dark intensity to the hard planes of his face. His wide shoulders and the tanned muscles roping his arms and chest were illuminated flawlessly. Her eyes fell to the waistband of his jeans, and her hands, now on his hips, eased the hem up slightly on his fitted shirt, baring a small sliver of skin. She skimmed her hand across his warm, taut stomach, letting her hand slide around his torso and glide up and over his back.
Fin looked up at him from beneath her lashes as Ryan shuddered beneath her touch. “I want you.”
He exhaled audibly, dipping his head and sweeping her lips up in his, their pressure hard and wild as her heart thumped madly. She dug her fingers into his bare skin and he groaned. “I want you too. All the damn time.”
Ryan grabbed her hand and dragged her back towards the car. Fin scrambled to keep up with his rapid pace. The driver’s door was still wide open, the interior light shining brightly in the dark. Without missing a beat, he slammed the door shut and continued around the hood of the car. His free hand dug into the pocket of his jeans as he strode purposefully towards the front door. Pulling out a set of keys, he twisted and tossed them towards her. She caught them by sheer luck.
“Open the door,” he ordered, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
With shaky hands, Fin turned towards the door. Standing behind her, Ryan bunched up the hem of her dress, his warm, calloused palms scraping along her thighs. She fumbled the keys as he settled his hands on her hips, pressing his hard length against her ass. Heat flushed her body when he leaned in and bit her earlobe. “Hurry up,” he breathed.
How was she supposed to hurry when she could barely stand? Finally getting the key to slide into the lock, she turned it, hearing the bolt slide free with relief. Ryan reached around her and shoved the door open, pushing her inside as he followed close behind.