So, it was time. She was fifteen. Her Dad was seeing his aunt. She was giving him the signals.

It was time.

“Yeah, go out on a date.”

She retreated physically, shifting back a few inches and other ways too, he saw it in her face.

Shit, had he not read it right?

“Dad says I can’t date until I’m sixteen,” she whispered and he could hear it, disappointment was in her voice.

He was disappointed too but not surprised. Fuck, Mr. Haines was with Aunt Dusty for about ten minutes before he was all over the gig with Aunt Debbie. If he stepped up to protect Aunt Dusty like that, he’d totally be all over protecting his daughter. Rees was the only girl he knew who had to wait until she was sixteen to date. And that was another whole freaking year.

“Maybe I can talk to Dusty about talking to him,” she suggested.

She suggested.

Rees.

Fin grinned at her.

That would totally work. Mr. Haines was into his aunt and him stepping up with the Aunt Debbie thing wasn’t the only way he knew that. There were a lot of other signs. A f**kuva lot.

“You good to talk with her?” Fin asked.

She nodded.

“Awesome,” he murmured.

She grinned then looked at the dark yard.

Then to the yard she called, “Fin?”

“Yeah, babe.”

He could swear he heard a little sigh.

Then she said, “I…” and she trailed off.

He grabbed her hand and held it between them on the deck chairs. “What, Reesee?”

Did he hear another little sigh?

Then, “It was really…” she paused, “nice bein’ on Dusty’s horse with you.”

Fuck yeah, it was.

“Yeah,” he muttered, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Do you think Dusty would let us do it again?”

“Absolutely.”

“Cool,” she whispered, giving his hand a squeeze.

She fell into silence and Fin fell into it with her.

Then it hit him he was sitting out on a deck in a development doing nothing but holding hands with a girl, a freshman no less, while her Dad was maybe twenty-five feet away.

And it felt nice.

Jesus.

Rees broke the silence, whispering, “My Dad got back really late the other night.”

“Yeah,” Fin said through a smile, “I noticed.”

“He was really happy the next day.”

“Yeah,” Fin said through soft laughter. “Aunt Dusty was too.”

Rees giggled.

Fin squeezed her hand again.

“We’re like…fairy godmothers or something,” she remarked and Fin burst out laughing.

He heard Ress laugh with him.

That felt nice too.

Then he said, “Don’t tell any of my boys I’m a fairy godmother.”

“My lips are sealed.”

Fin laughed softly again and he stared into the dark yard, sitting on a deck in a development on a cold night holding a girl’s hand with her Dad twenty-five feet away and he did it thinking he wished his Dad had the chance to get to know Clarisse Haines. Being friends with Mr. Haines, his Dad knew her but he didn’t know her.

And Fin reckoned if he’d known her, he’d have liked her.

And then he thought, maybe she should know that. Not, like, straight out or anything.

But she should know it.

So holding Clarisse Haines’s hand out in the cold, Finley Holliday did something he hadn’t done in weeks. Not since that day out in the snow with his Ma being his Ma and Mr. Haines on his knees in the snow working hard to jumpstart his Dad.

Fin talked about Darrin Holliday.

And, her hand getting tighter and tighter in his as he spoke, he knew Reesee was listening to every word.

Chapter Ten

Dirty

I grunted, put all I had into it and got Mike to his back in his bed.

“Ha!” I laughed in his face.

A nanosecond later, I was on my back with all Mike’s weight on me.

“You were saying?” he asked, grinning.

“Ugh!” I groaned and bucked up my h*ps as hard as I could.

Mike went with them. I quickly turned under him and started to scramble away.

Mike’s arm sliced around my middle, pulled me down and his front pinned me, belly down to the bed.

“Say it,” he ordered in my ear. “Your boot camps are shit.”

“I’m not done kicking your ass,” I replied and, considering my position and the last fifteen minutes we’d been wrestling on his bed with me seriously losing, my words were both stubborn and ridiculous.

He knew it, I felt and heard him chuckle and his arm gave me a squeeze.

“Say it,” he repeated.

“No way!” I snapped, trying to lift him off me by shoving up my hips.

This was a tactical error seeing as this opened space for his hand to slide down and cup me between my legs.

I stilled.

“Say it,” he whispered in my ear and I shivered.

I liked this new game.

“No,” I whispered back.

His hand shifted up and his fingers started working my belt.

“Say it.”

“No.”

His fingers undid the button on my jeans then the zip went down.

“Say it, Angel.”

“Not on your life, babe.”

His hand went in my jeans and my panties, his finger hitting the spot.

I gasped.

“You lose,” he murmured in my ear, “admit it.”

This didn’t feel like losing. Nothing like it.

I didn’t reply.

His finger twitched and I replied to that but involuntarily when the mew slid out of my throat.

His lips went to the skin below my ear and he whispered, “Give it to me.”

I had no idea what he was referring to, my admission that he was stronger than me (which, seriously, was obvious before we even started) or something else.

I gave him the something else.

I lifted my ass, pressing it into his groin.

His teeth nipped the skin under my ear.

Fire shot through me.

Thus commenced me learning something new about my childhood crush, good guy, excellent father, responsible citizen, courageous cop Mike Haines.

He could get dirty.

I knew this not because he ground his crotch into my ass as I pressed my ass into his groin. I knew this not because he did all this with his finger making magic between my legs at the same time his mouth and tongue were doing wild and wonderful things at the skin of my neck.

I knew this when I got seriously hot and bothered and his hand disappeared from between my legs. I made a noise of protest, twisted my neck to look at him to see his eyes sexy dark, staring down at me and to feel him plant a hand in my back.