Page 64 of Broken Breath (Rogue Riders Duet #1)

My finger slips deeper, working slowly, and when my thumb rubs over her clit again with a little more pressure, her entire body arches, mouth open in a silent cry like I just yanked the breath right out of her lungs, and fuck, my hips jerk up beneath her without meaning to.

Then I slide in a second finger, and she goes rigid.

Something’s changed.

“You’re okay.” I press a kiss to her throat, then a little higher.

“You feel so good. So damn perfect.” She exhales a long, shaky breath against my shoulder, and I keep my fingers still as I trail kisses up her neck, whispering more truths against her skin.

“You make me crazy, you know that?” She lets out a small whimper, lips hot on my jaw.

“I didn’t sleep for days. I couldn’t eat.

Couldn’t breathe. You’re always on my mind, baby girl. Every second. Every breath.”

I kiss her hungrily again, and her lips part beneath mine like she’s starved, too, but when I pull back, something flickers across her face when she shifts her hips again, pained.

Shit. Her hip.

I slowly withdraw my fingers, gripping her waist carefully. “Hey,” I say softly, guiding her to stand, my hands braced on her hips. “You okay?”

She nods quickly, eyes wide and luminous, cheeks flushed with desire. She looks achingly and devastatingly beautiful.

I press my forehead to her collarbone, my heart pounding against my ribs like it wants out. “We can stop,” I say quietly. “We should stop.”

But even as I speak the words, my hands remain rooted on her hips, unwilling to let go. She’s still standing between my knees, breathing heavily.

And fuck, I’m still painfully hard.

When I look up to find her eyes, Alaina leans forward, brushing a soft, pleading kiss against my lips. “I’m good, Finn. Please don’t stop now.”

Fuck.

I gesture toward the fogged-up glass, my voice raw with need. “Hands on the window.”

She obeys without a word, placing her palms flat against the panes, looking at me over her shoulder. Rain drums on the outside, a chaotic rhythm that can’t quite match the frantic beating of my heart, as I see that one of her hands still holds the blue cornflower.

It’s crushed now.

Just like every remaining shred of my self-control.

I rise slowly, stepping close behind her. My fingers hook into her waistband, easing her pants down to her thighs with care, and her hips instinctively push back, spine arching gracefully, offering herself like she knows exactly how badly I need this .

How badly we both need this.

Fuck, she’s goddamn beautiful, pink, and glistening for me.

She isn’t just inviting me. She’s daring me, challenging me, and I’m done resisting. She’s my lifeline, the only salvation left for me, and I’m going to claim her as though I deserve every precious second.

“Please, Finn…”

My hands shake as I fumble with my gear, unbearable pressure building in every part of me. The second I’m free, I line myself up, guided more by instinct than thought. Then, with one hard thrust, I bury myself inside her.

Her gasp pierces the air as she stiffens beneath me, hands flattening harder against the rain-slicked glass like she’s bracing for impact.

And fuck is it a goddamn impact.

She grips me impossibly tight, as if her body resists but simultaneously begs me to stay. It’s overwhelming, dizzying, consuming.

My lips find her temple, breathing roughly into her hair. “Shit, you’re so fucking tight. You feel so… so good. ”

A soft, broken sound escapes her. It’s part whimper, part exhale, and her forehead is pressed to the fogged glass. I slide my hand up slowly, fingers curling around her throat with gentle pressure, and I pull her back, flush to my chest.

Her breath stutters.

“You okay?” I ask again, my voice low against her ear, while I’m trying hard to keep still.

“Yes,” she says on a breath, her voice trembling but sure. “Keep going.”

“You sure?” I murmur, lips grazing her earlobe. I nibble at it, and Jesus, it’s all I can do not to lose my mind. She’s gripping me like a vice, and it’s the best fucking feeling I’ve ever had .

But if she told me to stop, I would. I’d stop everything. For her.

“Please,” she whispers.

That’s all I need.

I slide my hand down again, fingertips seeking out her clit with newfound certainty, stroking gently at first, then quickening the pace, matching perfectly with the rhythm of my thrusts. Her body jerks under my touch, a loud moan escaping her throat.

She moves with urgency, pressing herself back into each thrust, chasing the friction and intensity, and fuck, I’m ready to give her everything she asks for, everything she needs.

“It’s too good,” I grit out harshly, barely clinging to control, and fighting desperately not to lose myself too soon. “But the ride won’t last forever, baby girl. We need to finish this now.”

Another intentional, deep stroke of my fingers has her crying out, and that sound is absolute heaven.

“Does that feel good?” I ask, breath ghosting against her ear.

“Y-yes,” she chokes out, her body quivering beneath my touch.

“Attagirl,” I murmur, lips grazing the damp curve of her neck. “Then come for me.”

I maintain a fast rhythm, my fingers circling her clit, my hips driving deep and hard. Her body arches beneath me, and she shakes uncontrollably, muscles tightening around me, gripping fiercely as though she wants to pull me in even deeper.

Then she comes, and I feel every second of it—her pulse, her cry, the way her body seizes and melts against me all at once. She’s soaking wet and gripping me so hard I swear she almost breaks my dick .

It’s more than I can handle. My spine arches, hips locking tight as heat coils and explodes low in my gut. My balls draw up hard, a rush of fire rips through my core, and I groan right into her ear as I spill myself inside her.

The sound she makes in response nearly undoes me again. My fingers dig into her hips, anchoring us both as wave after wave crashes through me, stealing the air from my lungs.

My world constricts to only her. Her breath, her sounds, the way she holds me perfectly inside her like I belong there, and I’m meant to be hers. My vision whites out for a beat, muscles trembling, jaw slack as the last shudders wrack through my body.

And when it passes, when the air finally comes back, all I can do is hold her tighter, whisper her name like a prayer, and hope she knows that this wasn’t just release.

This was surrender.

I gently press my lips against her temple, lingering, once, twice, then a third time, savoring the small hitch in her breathing each kiss elicits.

She lets out a tiny, breathless laugh, and I’m not sure whether it heals something fractured within me or deepens the wound.

I turn her face to mine and kiss her deeply, not ready to leave her body, needing to hold onto this for just one second longer, but then the gondola top station emerges through the mist, looming out of the fog, and it’s a slap to the face.

A bird’s-eye view of everything I just forgot about.

“Shit,” I mutter, the word barely audible over the blood still pounding in my ears. I pull out too fast, everything about it awkward, cold, and wrong.

Alaina hikes her pants back up just as fast, just as clumsily, fingers fumbling with the waistband.

She winces with every motion, but I’m distracted from it as I tuck myself back into my pants and feel the wetness on my hand.

I look down, and my body goes ice cold.

My hand is red.

Red with blood.

My eyes drift down, and fuck. It’s there, too, smeared across my dick. As if my body is moving in slow motion, I glance up at her.

She’s still flushed, lips parted from everything we just did, but her eyes are different now as they’re locked in on my hands, too wide, glassy. Afraid.

What the fuck?

My brain grasps for the easy explanation. “Are you still bleeding? Don’t worry, I don’t care if you’re on your period.”

She just stares at me, cheeks darkening, that damn flower peeking out between the fingers of her clenched fist, a couple of petals falling to the floor as she starts to tremble.

My stomach clenches, and a cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.

No.

“You’re…” My throat closes around the word. “You’re a virgin ?”

Her silence says everything.

Fuck. What the fuck did I just do?

I didn’t ask. I didn’t check. For all those words I spewed, I didn’t ask the important thing, and now I’ve taken something from her, something she’ll never get back, while standing in a goddamn gondola with a clock hanging over us.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Alaina…” It’s all I can manage.

Because fuck , this wasn’t what she deserved, not what she would’ve ever dreamed about.

She trusted me with something that mattered , and I treated it like it didn’t. I just took what she gave me and ran with it like some starving idiot with no sense of what it meant.

No prep, no softness, and no idea what this moment was for her.

Another goddamn point for the scoreboard.

Finn Greer: Wrecking shit since 2009.

Jesus-fucking-Christ.

“Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that.”

The words come out flat, too small for what I mean.

I open my eyes to face what I’ve done, only to find her gaze already on me, and it bleeds with hurt. A hurt so visceral it hits me straight in the chest.

My gut twists so violently I almost stagger back, and that’s when the gondola jerks against the dock. The world hasn’t stopped, even if everything inside me has.

Alaina grabs her helmet with jerky, shaky movements, then pauses, eyes fixed on the crushed cornflower. She stares at it for a heartbeat longer, then looks up at me, eyes glassy and shining with unshed tears.

She throws it at me, and it hits me square in the chest, broken petals sticking to my jersey like an accusation I can’t outrun.

One I don’t deserve to outrun.

“Fuck… no! ” I breathe, everything slamming into place at once.

What I said.

What she thinks I meant.

“I didn’t mean…”

But she’s already out of the gondola and hauling her bike from the rack.

“Alai…” I start, panic climbing up my throat, but I manage to cut myself off just in time, following after her. “Al!”

I jump out of the gondola station, and the rain slams into me, but I barely feel it.

An official runs up to Alaina ahead of me, waving frantically. “Come on! You have one minute!”

She nods, mounting her bike in one fluid motion, riding off toward the gate without a backward glance. Wheels slicing through the mud, she has barely made it to the starting gate when the timer begins to count down, giving her no time to prepare or get her head in it.

A screen is mounted under the race tent near me with a few officials crowded around it. I approach it quietly, and we all watch as the last beep rings out and Alaina barrels out of the start gate like a bullet.

Too fast, baby girl.

Way too fast for these conditions.

Mud flies from her tires in bursts as rain slices sideways across the camera’s lens. She’s attacking the course, not riding it, not dancing with it the way she usually does. She’s way out of rhythm, and it’s my fault.

The first split time flashes on screen.

Green.

She’s ahead.

Of course, she is, even in pain.

Then the camera feed switches, repositioned to catch her when she rounds the next corner. Any second, she’ll be leaning into the berm, carving time out of the clock like she always does. I hold my breath for it, but she doesn’t come. The seconds tick by, five, ten, fifteen…

The trail remains hauntingly empty.

The tension in the tent spikes until someone near me curses under their breath. The feed shifts to drone footage, scanning the narrow section of track carved out of the hillside before the corner. Mud is churned deep, the roots look like veins under the earth .

And then I see it. Her bike.

Alaina’s blue frame is just lying there in the mud, halfway toward the edge of a steep drop-off. The front wheel is still spinning slightly, like it hasn’t realized she’s no longer on it.

My blood goes cold.

“Shit,” someone says behind me, but the sound barely even reaches my ears.

No.

I’m moving before my mind can catch up, boots skidding in the sludge and branches slapping my arms and face as I run as fast as I can, veering off the trail and down the mountain. Course tape rips across my chest, and someone yells behind me, but I’m not listening. I can’t.

My fault, my fault, my brain chants as I replay her riding too fast.

I pushed her. I touched her. I…

“Al!” I shout into the storm, my voice raw as I tear down the course. My legs threaten to give, but I don’t allow it. I can’t .

I have to get to her.

Please, baby girl, be okay.

Give me the chance to make this right.