The Outskirts

  pants. I felt dizzy. Stars danced in front of my eyes. A strong clap of thunder rolled through, slowly at first, shaking the ground like a warning of things to come. A roar of wind slammed into the camper so hard I felt like I was turning.

  It wasn’t just me.

  It was the entire camper turning.

  Slowly at first and then faster.

  My heart raced faster and faster under the sound of crunching metal.

  I held onto the wall and screamed just as the wall fell and met the ground.

  Then everything went black.

  Finn

  I used to find the rain comforting.

  What wasn’t comforting was watching Sawyer run through it as it started to pour down from the sky.

  Not just because she looked like she was about to melt as the first drop hit her head or because she was running like she was escaping a pack of zombies, but because she’d left dressed in an uglier than hell long skirt and straight plain shirt and came back wearing something completely different.

  Something that showed off every single bit of what she’d been hiding under all that fabric. A tight black wife-beater style tank top showed off her spectacular perky and rounded tits—the ones that I’d been shocked to see were bigger than I’d guessed when I saw her in the shower—bouncing with each of her hurried steps. Short dark denim shorts revealed surprisingly toned calves and strong thighs leading up to a high and round ass that most women would get on their knees and pray every night to possess. To top it all off?

  Sexy as sin boots to the middle of her calf.

  Yeah, I was uncomfortable all right. Probably because I kept imagining those boots around my shoulders while I worshipped her pussy with my tongue and fingers.

  Fuck. I needed a damned drink.

  I’d just grabbed the neck of the bottle when I heard a noise in the distance.

  I thought I was imagining things or that it was the wind howling. I stilled my own breathing long enough so I could hear it again.

  There it was again and this time there was no mistaking it for the screaming wind.

  It was an actual scream.

  I ran to the door and ripped it open. A bolt of lightning hit a palm tree nearby, splitting the top of it down the middle like a broccoli spear. A gust of wind lifted the camper a few inches from the ground and tossed it onto its side.

  The screaming stopped.

  I pushed my way through the wall of pounding rain and wind, ducking under flying mud and debris. The window of the camper was underneath it now and the door on top. I climbed up using the water tank as footing. “Sawyer!” I yelled.

  No answer.

  “Fuck,” I cursed at the locked door.

  I shuffled back a little and with one forceful kick, I managed to break the window of the door free from its frame. I made myself as small as I could and lowered myself down inside. Sawyer was nowhere to be seen. Debris was tossed all around the inside since the floor was now a wall. The mattress from the bed was leaning against the wall.

  I stepped over the cabinets and flipped the mattress up. Sure enough, there she was, unconscious. A trickle of blood staining her hairline on the right side of her forehead. I knew I shouldn’t move her but if another gust of wind came through she could be tossed around again and risk even further injury. The only problem was I couldn’t lift her out of the camper. The window was too small for us to both fit through at the same time. The wind whistled outside and reminded me that I had to try.

  I bent over and lifted her as gently as I could. Her limbs were limp, flapping over my arms. I did my best to support her neck as I climbed over the cabinets, adjusting her so I could unlock and push open the camper door above us. The rain soaked us through in seconds. I climbed out on my ass and swung my legs over to the side, dropping us down. I fell to my knees in order to take the severity of the impact, suddenly grateful for the soft wet mud.

  It felt like a fucking eternity to get her into the house but once inside I jogged to my bedroom and set her down on my bed as gingerly as I could. “Sawyer,” I said roughly, leaning above her. “Sawyer!”

  Sawyer moaned softly and stirred, but didn’t regain consciousness. Streams of pink tinted water dripped down her face. “Shit,” I cursed, trying to remember where the fuck I’d put my phone. I ran to the kitchen and opened drawer after drawer, emptying them of the contents and tossing them to the floor until I found my phone in the very last one. I powered it on and thankfully the screen came to life.

  I pushed the emergency button and within seconds a familiar voice answered the phone. “Outskirts 911,” Miller said. “What’s your emergency.”

  “Miller, it’s Finn.” I could feel his surprise on the other end of the line.

  “Finn, what are you…what the fuck is going on?”

  I walked back over to Sawyer who hadn’t so much as budged. I knelt down next to her and had no choice but to say my least favorite words in the English language. I tugged at my hair and lowered my voice. “I need your help.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sawyer

  The line between consciousness and unconsciousness was still a blur when I heard voices floating around above me.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Finn asked.

  “The roads are flooded in and out of town. I’ve got to set up some barricades,” Josh answered.

  Josh is in Finn’s house?

  “What do I do?” Finn sounded frantic. Panicked even.

  “Just get her out of those wet clothes and keep her awake until Miller gets here.”

  Everything was still fuzzy around the edges until a hand grabbed me by my ankle. My eyes shot open to find Finn crouched beside me. His hair was wet, some of it had fallen forward and was matted against his temple and cheek.

  “I have to get you out of these wet clothes,” he said, reaching for the waistband of my shorts.

  “No!” I shouted, scrambling up the bed but not getting far.

  Finn climbed over my lap and caged me in with his muscular thighs. He stretched his arms, resting his hands on the wall above the headboard.

  “You don’t have a choice. You hit your head. Your clothes are soaked. They’re coming off.” Finn pinned me to the mattress with his determined glare.

  “No,” I repeated, trying to wiggle out from his grip. All I managed to do was sway an inch or two from side to side. The motion made my head swim. I closed my eyes tightly and suddenly felt the need to sleep.

  “Hey,” Finn shouted, snapping me back to the present. “You need to stay awake.”

  “I can do that,” I started. “I can also take my own clothes off,” I said.

  Finn considered me for a moment before easing up off me, giving me room to sit up slowly.

  “You have to leave the room,” I said, reaching for the hem of my shirt. The room started to spin around me, faster and faster until Finn’s arms were around me, holding me upright.

  “Not a chance,” he growled.

  He sat me up and reached for the hem of my shirt.

  “Don’t look,” I managed to say. The cold material of my shirt clung to my skin, my teeth chattered as I spoke. Finn was right. My clothes needed to come off.

  “I can’t promise you that,” Finn said, slowly lifting my shirt to my shoulders. He pulled my elbows through the sleeves once it was around my neck. “I wish I could promise you that, but I can’t.” He lifted it over my head and it landed with a smack against the floor.

  He’d seen me naked before, but somehow standing in a shower and lying in a bed might as well have been two different planets because the embarrassment and uncertainty and rush of dizziness I was feeling couldn’t all have been from hitting my head.

  I covered my breasts with my arms and shut my eyes tightly as if I couldn’t see him looking at my naked body then it wasn’t happening.

  “Are you covering up because you’re embarrassed or because you don’t think I’ll like what I see?” Finn asked. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t mocking. And
when I opened my eyes to meet his, all I saw was sincerity and concern etched on his face.

  “Both,” I admitted, feeling my entire body turn red.

  Finn gently pushed against my shoulders so I’d lay back down against the pillow. It smelled like him. Clean and woodsy.

  He unbuttoned my shorts and hooked his fingers in the elastic of my panties. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said, which had the opposite effect, making me squirm inside my skin. “Because you’re beautiful.” He wriggled the material over my hips and butt and tossed the wet garments on top of my shirt. “All of you is beautiful.” I glanced up at him to find Finn’s gaze was between my legs. “And I can assure you that I like what I see. Very much.” He cleared his throat. “Too much.”

  Finn’s words seemed to help me feel slightly more at ease. Well, his words and the blanket he covered me with. I turned to my side and he was quiet. So quiet I’d thought he’d left the room until the mattress dipped and cool air hit my backside from the blanket being lifted.

  “What are you doing?” I croaked, feeling panicked yet again. I glanced over to find Finn tossing his wet shorts to the floor.

  “Making sure you don’t fall asleep.”

  “You can’t do that from the other side of the room?” I asked, scooting as far over to the edge of the bed as I could. “With clothes on?”

  “Of course, I can,” Finn said; reaching out and grabbing me by the waist he dragged me backward across the bed until I was flush against his hard body. I don’t know if it was because it felt so good and I’d been so cold, or because of my head injury, but I found myself closing my eyes and momentarily enjoying the feeling of his warm skin. “But isn’t this better?”

  His hard body against my softer one.

  Yes, yes it was.

  Finn snaked his hand around my hips, resting it on my lower stomach. A thought flashed through my muddled brain. My eyes sprang open.

  “You’re not…” I started.

  “Calm yourself. Unwilling girls aren’t really my thing,” Finn said, sounding offended.

  “It’s not like I would know that you weren’t trying to…” I stopped, not sure which word to use or even if I wanted to use one at all.

  “FUCK you,” he finished for me. “It’s not like you would know that I wasn’t trying to FUCK you.”

  “Yes. THAT.”

  “You wouldn’t have a single doubt in your mind if I really was trying to fuck you tonight.”

  “Oh,” I said, both relieved and disappointed. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” Finn said, his breath warm against my neck.

  My nipples were hardened due to the curious sensations coursing through my body.

  “Is there a difference between beautiful and attractive?”

  Finn didn’t answer at first. I’d finally resolved that he’d decided to stop talking to me when he spoke. “Yes. But it can also be the same.”

  “How is that?” I asked, feeling his heartbeat speed up against my back.

  “There are two kinds of beauty. At least to me there are. The other day I saw an old woman on the side of the road selling mangos. She had silver hair and no teeth, but the biggest smile on her face. Her eyes were bright blue and lit up any time a customer stopped to buy a mango. I thought she was beautiful.”

  He traced slow lazy circles on my lower stomach and I shivered.

  Fin pulled the blanket up higher. “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied, although my shiver wasn’t from being cold.

  “So what’s the second kind of beauty?”

  “The kind you can’t stop looking at no matter how hard you try.” Finn lowered his mouth so his lips moved against the tip of my ear when he spoke. “The kind you want to fuck.”

  I swallowed. “What does that kind of beauty look like?” I asked, breathlessly.

  Finn’s hand rose on my stomach until his fingers lightly grazed the underside of one of my breasts. “Right now it looks like freckled skin and gold flecked eyes.”

  I gasped.

  “Now it’s my turn to ask you a question,” Finn started. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “Where did you…”

  A bolt of lightning chose that moment to light up the window followed by thunder so loud it might as well have come from inside. I flinched and started to shake all over again.

  “I’m…I’m afraid of storms,” I admitted. “I guess after what happened tonight I should be.”

  Finn held me tighter. “It’s called Astraphobia,” he said, out of nowhere.

  “Wha…what?” I asked, opening my eyes and blinking rapidly when I realized he was shaking me. I must have drifted off.

  “Stay with me,” Finn said, his voice smoothing over my body like a healing salve. “Astraphobia is the fear of thunder and lightning. That’s what it’s called.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Someone I used to know had it pretty bad,” Finn’s breath tickled my neck. “I used to tease her about it relentlessly, thinking she was just being a baby until I looked it up at the library and realized it was a real thing.”

  Another particularly brutal series of lightning strikes flashed like machine gun fire. Possessed by fear, I tried to leap from the bed, but Finn pulled me down and pinned me to the mattress.

  With a grunt, Finn flipped me around so I was facing him, and when I tried to pull away again he did the last thing I ever expected him to do.

  He kissed me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Finn

  I am so fucked.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sawyer