Page 21 of Finn

I took her to the lake shoreline.

It was the place I'd gone the morning after my father died, when the grief was so heavy I couldn't breathe. The place I'd gone after Pops told me to channel my rage, when I'd sat onthe rocks and screamed at the water until my throat was raw. The place I'd gone three weeks ago, the morning after Chloe first warned me about the task force, watching the sunrise and wondering what the hell I was going to do.

It was my place. My sanctuary. And I wanted to share it with her.

We parked at the edge of the overlook, where the scrubby desert gave way to a stretch of sandy beach and the water reflected the fading sky like a mirror. The sun was just starting to dip below the horizon, painting everything in shades of gold and pink and deep, bruising purple.

Chloe pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair, looking around with wonder in her eyes.

"I didn't know this was here," she said softly. "It's beautiful."

"Not many people do. That's the point." I swung off the bike and offered her my hand. She took it, letting me help her down, and didn't let go once her feet hit the ground.

We walked to the edge of the overlook and sat on a wide, flat rock still warm from the day's sun. The water lapped gently at the shore below. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called out—lonely, searching.

"I've been thinking," I said after a while.

Chloe bumped her shoulder against mine. "Dangerous habit."

I smiled, but my heart was pounding. I'd faced down rival gangs. I'd stared into the barrel of a gun. I'd held my father's hand while he took his last breath. None of it had scared me like this moment.

"About us," I continued. "About what you did. What you risked."

She went still beside me. I could feel her waiting, barely breathing.

"No one's ever done something like that for me." I kept my eyes on the water, because if I looked at her I might lose my nerve. "Not outside the club. And even then—this was different. You put everything on the line. Your job. Your freedom. Your whole life."

"Finn—"

"Let me finish." I turned to face her then, taking both her hands in mine. Her eyes were wide, luminous in the fading light. "I've spent my whole life protecting people. That's what I do. That's who I am. Protect the club. Protect my brothers. Protect thine own."

I squeezed her fingers.

"But you—you protected me. When you didn't have to. When it could have cost you everything. And I've been trying to figure out what to say, how to tell you what that means to me, and I keep coming back to the same thing."

I took a breath. The deepest breath of my life.

"I love you, Chloe."

The words hung in the air between us, raw and real and terrifying. I watched her face, searching for a reaction, bracing myself for—I don't know what. Laughter. Rejection. A gentle letdown.

Instead, her eyes filled with tears.

"You idiot," she whispered. And then she was laughing and crying at the same time, her hands coming up to cup my face, her thumbs brushing across my cheekbones. "I was going to say it first. I practiced the whole drive over here. I had a whole speech planned."

"You—" I blinked at her, thrown completely off balance. "What?"

"I love you too." She was grinning through her tears, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. "I've been in love with you since you winked at me through those holding cell bars. Maybebefore that. Maybe since high school, when you were the bad boy everyone wanted and I was too scared to talk to."

"You talked to me through those bars plenty."

"That's because I finally grew a spine." She laughed again, a watery, joyful sound that did something complicated to my heart. "That, and you looked really good in handcuffs."

I kissed her then, because I couldn't not kiss her. I pulled her against me and claimed her mouth like I'd been starving for it, which maybe I had been. She tasted like chapstick and coffee and home. Her fingers tangled in my hair. My hands spread across her back, holding her close, closer, never close enough.

When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, the sun had slipped below the horizon and the first stars were starting to prick through the darkening sky.

"There's something else," I said.