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Finn snickers as he grabs Gaia, who looks about as happy about her rider’s philandering as I am. “I think I still smell like you.”

“Which part of you, exactly, was he smelling?”

“God, you’re so hot when you’re jealous.”

I roll my eyes as I swallow a laugh. Dragging a hand along the ridge of Ruin’s back, I give him a hard pat before twisting my fingers around his mane.

But as I prepare to hoist myself up, more than a few well-used muscles pinch uncomfortably.

I suck in a sharp breath, snorting an irritated one as I palm my achy lower stomach.

“You okay to ride?”

“ Yes .” I shoot Finn a scowl. Asshole. Asking me that like I have a choice—like I could’ve blown my brother off when he called. Sorry, Jackson. Can’t fix fences today. Fucked my boyfriend into oblivion last night. Whoops. “Of course I am.”

“You sure?”

In lieu of a verbal response, I flick up my middle finger.

Shaking his head with a laugh, Finn strides my way.

With deft, mechanical movements, those big hands swallow my waist and lift me onto Ruin, one of them straying to guide one of my legs over his back, the other squeezing my thigh.

“Maybe you should take a different horse,” he suggests carefully, mouth quirking when Ruin huffs like he understood the suggestion. “One you can saddle.”

I parrot the noise my horse makes. “Can we go already?”

With another shake of his head, Finn drops a kiss to the bare skin of my waist revealed by my tank top riding up before tugging the fabric down, rearranging my flannel too so it offers more protection from the winter chill. “Yes ma’am.

And even though the wide spread of my thighs and the unforgiving press of Ruin beneath me and the strain in my core are all pretty damn unpleasant in my current state, a spark of that pleasure I genuinely thought I’d used up ignites within me as I watch Finn mount Gaia.

At the sure way he fists the reins, the commanding cluck of his tongue, at his elegant, strong posture—God, wasn’t it only a couple of months ago that I was making fun of him for that same compliment?

Jesus. I’m losing it. Sexed-up and delirious.

In love , some wicked, meddling voice in the back of my head croons.

I squash it with a metaphorical fist.

Lie . I don’t. I cradle those unfathomable words in my palm and whisper, not now.

I have work to do now. A horse to not fall off of. Fences to mend. Get the job done first—then ponder the petrifying notion of love.

Unfortunately, Finn has the same idea. And he gets to the punchline a hell of a lot quicker.

He follows my deadline. He waits until the fences are fixed.

He waits until we’re meandering home to steer Gaia to walk a little closer alongside me, and even before he opens his mouth, the air shifts around us.

I hear words before he even says them—I fill with premature dread that only gets worse when he does actually speak. “Are we gonna talk about it?”

The fences are fixed and my own deadline has come and I know we need to talk yet still, I play dumb. “About what?”

Silent, Finn only looks at me, and it’s that look again, the same one he graced me with last night and this morning and so many other times that I didn’t recognize or I didn’t want to recognize, but either way they never registered as potently as they do now.

I avert my gaze. Stare at the sun where it kisses the horizon, leaving an ever-settling darkness in its wake. Sigh the name of the man who wants so badly to tell me that he loves me.

He sighs mine right back.

Reaching over, he pulls on Ruin’s reins gingerly, drawing him to a stop. He stills Gaia too before slipping off her back, not asking for permission before hauling me into his arms, holding me suspended for the handful of long strides he takes away from our horses before putting me down.

He releases me and backs up a couple of steps, giving me physical space, but no mental space at all, clawing his way between the folds of my brain with warm, demanding eyes and careful, frustrated words. “Do you not believe me?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

I keep my mouth shut. Think. Take too long, evidently, because Finn opens his again.

“Do you not… Do you not feel the same way?”

My bottom lip rolls between my teeth. Muffles a terrifying, quiet admission. “It’s not that either.”

A weary, exasperated sigh stutters out of Finn.

And hits just the wrong fragile, reactive part of me.

Has me spitting, “I loved my mom, okay? I believed her when she said she loved me, I really think she did, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough for my mother , she still left me , so for-fucking-give me for being a little damn hesitant here.”

“Have I ever made you feel like you’re not enough for me?”

“That’s not the point, Finn.”

“It’s exactly the point.” Full lips set in a grim, straight line, so at odds with how gruffly he claims, “I love you.”

Genuine, indescribable panic socks me in the chest. “Don’t.”

“I love you, Charlotte.”

“ Shut up. ”

Finn flinches. His features shutter, morphing into pure fucking hurt, too kicked-puppy for me to stand so I look away.

And so abruptly, I forget the conversation that just happened.

Stare, wide-eyed and struck with a different kind of fear, at the plume of smoke rising in the distance.

Right where the main house should be.