“Lennon?”
Finn’s hand touches my shoulder, and I jump.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“Where were you just now? I said your name four times.”
I clear my throat and push aside some shirts. “Daydreaming.”
“Oh yeah? What were you daydreaming about?” He’s still standing close behind me, and my whole body knows it.
“Nothing.”
Finn snorts disbelievingly. “Were you dreaming about meeting a hunky Trinity boy tonight? Maybe he’ll sweep you off your feet, and drive you off into the sunset.”
Now it’s my turn to snort. “Hardly.”
“Good,” Finn says, setting his chin on my shoulder and winding his arms around my waist. “Because you’re mine.”
I roll my eyes. “Finn, stop.”
“You are,” he insists, and his voice takes on a possessive quality. It would be a lie to say I didn’t like it. Belonging to someone? It felt nice. Physically, I’ve always been with my mother. But in my heart? I was alone. Until Finn and Brady.
I step out of his embrace and face him, my arms crossed. “If I’m yours, why did you take Ava Stansbury to the football game last Friday night?”
Finn purses his lips and looks at the ceiling, as if the answer can be found there. “That,” he says, dropping his gaze back down to me, “is a very good question.”
I smile and shake my head. “Finn, you are impossible.”
His eyebrows raise. “Impossible not to love?”
I smile again and feel my whole body soften. “Yes, Finn. You are impossible not to love.”
He needs to hear this, my broken, sad best friend whose belief in his own self-worth sometimes manages to be lower than my own.
Finn grabs my waist, eliciting a surprised gasp from me.
“What are you doing?” My voice is breathy.
“Love me. Right now.” Finn’s dark eyes gaze intensely into my own.
My eyebrows pull together in confusion. “I do love you right now. I love you all the time. Even when you’re being an ass.” I’m hoping the joke, and the grin on my face, will take us back to playful flirting. Because this is precarious.
It does nothing. Finn tightens his hold on me, his fingers digging into the flesh at the small of my back. “Let me show you love, Lennon.” Finn’s gaze moves across the room, my eyes following. I see him looking at my bed, and then I understand what he’s really saying.
All my muscles tense.
“Finn—” I begin to protest, but Finn speaks at the same time.
“I know you’re a virgin.”
“So?” Instantly I feel angry and embarrassed. I’m almost eighteen. Everyone I know is having sex except me. I don’t talk about it with Brady and Finn, but I can only assume they are too.
Just the thought of it makes my blood boil, filling me with the deep unruly possessiveness of my guys. The thought of them holding another girl close, of her holdingtheminsideher, makes me angry.
“You have to lose it sometime, Lennon.” He drags his lips across my forehead, and blood rushesdown there, to a place where nobody, not even me, has gone before. His kiss on my temple is soft, and I feel his lips moving on my skin as he says, “I can’t stand the thought of it being with anybody else.”
I pull back to look at him. His words are ridiculous, but his expression is earnest, his eyes hopeful.
