Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)(2)

I steady myself and when I turn to go wait for my coffee, Finn catches my eye and smiles. “Hey, Ginger Snap.”

Without turning to face him, I make a show of studying him over my shoulder. He hasn’t shaved this morning, and his dark stubble cuts a dangerous shadow on his jaw. His neck is deeply tanned from working on the wide-open ocean all summer. I let my eyes travel lower, because—let’s be real—I’d be a fool to not drink in the sight of this man before telling him to go f*ck himself.

Finn is built like one of Lola’s comic book superheroes—all broad chest and narrow waist, thick forearms, muscled legs. He gives off the appearance of impenetrability, as if that golden skin of his covers titanium. I mean, sweet Jesus, the man works with his hands, sweats when he works, f*cks like it’s his vocation, and was raised by a father who expects, above anything else, that his sons are capable fishermen. I can’t imagine any of the guys I know standing next to him and looking anything other than snack-sized.

His smile slowly straightens and he tilts his head a little. “Harlow?”

Although the shadow of his hat partially hides his eyes, I can tell they widen slightly when I lift my attention from his neck. And now I remember how his gaze feels like a hook. I close my eyes and shake my head once, trying to clear it. I don’t mind swooning if the situation calls for it, but I hate the feeling when it tries to shove aside my very well-deserved, righteous indignation.

“Hold. I’m contemplating my response.”

His brows pull together in confusion . . . at least I think it’s confusion. I suspect on Finn that emotion looks the same as impatience, frustration, and concentration. He’s not exactly an open book.

“Okay . . . ?”

Okay, here’s the problem: After our matrimonial adventures in Vegas, I flew up to see him. I showed up on Vancouver Island of all places, wearing nothing but a coat. Surprise! We had sex for nearly ten hours straight—rowdy sex, loud, on-every-flat-surface sex—and when I told him I had to head to the airport, he just smiled, leaned over to slide his phone off the nightstand, and called me a cab. He’d just come all over my tits, and he called a cab to drive me to the airport. In fact, it pulled up at the curb behind Finn’s brand-new, cherry-red Ford F-150.

I’d concluded, calmly, actually, that we weren’t a good fit, even for the occasional border-crossing booty call, and called it a day.

So why am I so angry he’s here?

The barista offers the same drink special to Finn, but he makes a mildly disgusted face before declining and ordering two large, black coffees.

This makes me even more irritated. His reasonable reaction should have been mine. “What the hell are you doing at my coffee shop?”

His eyes go wide, mouth forming a few different words before any actually come out. “You own this place?”

“Are you high, Finn? It’s a Starbucks. I just mean it’s my town.”

His eyes fall closed and he laughs, and the way the light catches the angle of his jaw, and the way I know exactly how that stubble would feel on my skin . . . argh.

I tilt my head, staring at him. “What’s funny?”

“It was a real possibility in my mind that you could own this Starbucks.”

With a little eye-roll, I reach for my drink and march out of the store.

Walking to my car, I stretch my neck, roll my shoulders. Why am I so annoyed?

It isn’t like I expected a carriage to be at my disposal when I showed up unannounced at his little seaside house. I’d already slept with him in Vegas, so I knew the no-strings-attached arrangement.

Clearly I was there because I wanted good sex. Actually, I wanted—no, I needed—confirmation that the sex was as good as I’d remembered.

It was so much better.

So obviously it’s the bad-Toby-Amsler-sex hangover that’s killing my calm. This chance meeting with Finn would have gone very differently if I hadn’t just left the bed of the first guy I slept with after him—the first guy I’d been with in two months—and if that experience hadn’t been so unsatisfying.

Footsteps slap the asphalt behind me and I start to turn just before a powerful hand curls around my bicep. Finn grabs me harder than I think he’s intended, and the result is that my pumpkin coffee monstrosity tilts and spills onto the ground, barely missing my shoes.

I give him an exasperated look and toss my empty cup into a trash can near the curb.

“Oh, come on,” he says with a little smile. He hands me the one cup he had balancing on top of the other. “It’s not as if you were going to drink that. You wouldn’t touch the instant vanilla spice stuff I had at my place.”

Taking the coffee he’s offering, I mumble my thanks and look to the side. I’m acting exactly like the kind of woman I never want to be: jilted, martyred, put out.

“Why are you pissed?” he asks quietly.

“I’m just preoccupied.”

Ignoring this, he says, “Is it because you came all the way up to Vancouver Island, showed up at my house wearing only a trench coat in the middle of July, and I banged you hoarse?” The smirk in his voice tells me he thinks I couldn’t possibly be pissed about that.

He’d be right.

I pause, looking up to study him for a beat. “You mean the day you couldn’t even be bothered to put on some clothes to take me to the airport?”