Wild About You

Chapter Sixteen

Moments later, I’m watching Finn’s especially fine backside stretch out its tight khaki confines as he hauls himself over a mini golf course fence. In way less time than I would’ve expected, his fingertips leave the top railing and he drops out of sight, the thud of his feet hitting the ground—at least I hope that’s what it is—the only sound I hear.

“Piece of cake,” he whispers a moment later from the other side.

My journey is not so simple. Granted, I’m lacking pants, Finn’s height, and his weirdly high enthusiasm for doing crime. But I’m certain I look ridiculous as I scrabble for purchase against the fence posts.

“Do you have Spider-Man’s sticky hands or something? How did you do this?” I grumble. My head is the only part of me on the other side, and I’m not sure the rest is gonna get there at this rate.

“Do you want my help?” he asks with obvious eagerness, his hands already reaching toward me.

“Obviously!”

“Give me your arm—no, like, reach all the way—there you go…”

Thus ensues the most awkward, fumbling sequence of grabbing, pulling, stretching, and ultimately falling the rest of the way over and completely on top of Finn. He lets out an oof on impact but fortunately, it isn’t followed by his skull connecting to the ground. His hands are gripping my waist as I lay splattered over most of his body, my skirt definitely tossed up enough to reveal my entire ass, but he won’t be able to see that from the tangle of my hair covering his face.

I reach back to pull my skirt down on instinct, then toss my hair over my shoulder and out of his rapidly blinking eyes. They connect with mine, and for a second, we’re in an absurd freeze-frame. Everything goes still, and it’s just our faces a breath apart, our hearts beating in matching staccato rhythm, the warmth caught between every inch of skin we have pressed together. It’s the creek swimming all over again but horizontal, and while we’re definitely more clothed, I feel much more exposed.

It’s the things he knows about me now, let alone the things he doesn’t—how aware I am of him, body and heart and soul, and how much I’ve grown to want it all. I think for a moment about kissing him, pressing my hands to his chest and scooting just a touch farther up so my lips could meet his. I wonder if he’s thinking the same.

Then the shoe drops. Literally, one of my new, thick-soled wedges chooses that moment to fall from my foot that has apparently been hovering over Finn’s shin, because when it lands, he sucks in a pained breath. That gets me moving, and not in the climbing-up-Finn’s-body direction.

“I would say I’m sorry,” I say, a little breathless as I try to stand without doing further damage, “but this was your idea, so.”

Finn sounds more winded than he ever has on the trail. “I accept your lack of apology.” I watch him stand and assess his injuries, then he flashes a crooked smile my way. “The mini show must go on now, right?”

My heart resumes its own fall over a metaphorical fence, at hyperspeed with no ground in sight.

Once inside the forbidden mini golf land’s borders, it seems everything else is ours for the taking. The small shed where we would check in and pick up balls, putters, and scorecards is unlocked and we have our pick of the loot. I take a glittery pink ball while Finn takes the rainbow polka dots, then we both grab clubs and are on our way.

The course is threaded through trees and shrubs that make it feel like we’re in our own little forested world far away from the hotel, but there are enough floodlights scattered about that we can still see clearly. We’re both comfortable enough with the seclusion to stop whispering, and I find my prior nerves about getting caught melt into excitement. Mini golf! With Finn!

“Break a leg,” he says as I line up my shot at hole one. “That’s theater speak for good luck.”

I look back at him with a warning in my eyes. “Let’s not push our luck on the breaking limbs thing tonight.”

I put an extra unnecessary wiggle into my hips as I take my putting stance, all too aware of his gaze behind me. I pull the club back, bring it softly but swiftly forward, and connect with the ball…sending it in a quick, straight line into the hole.

“Hole in one!” I whoop, then put a hand over my mouth as if I can retroactively shush myself.

“Yeah, yeah. ‘One weekend a year doesn’t make you good,’ my ass,” he grumbles as he sets up his ball. Feeling smug, I let him take his shot in silence, and another, and another, giving him a score of three as we move to the next hole.

“Yeah, so I also dated a golfer,” I reveal casually as I prepare my putt at hole two. “He worked at a golf course and would sneak me out on a cart after closing to make out under the guise of ‘giving me lessons.’ Terrible kisser, but actually a pretty good teacher. Especially with putting, because he could do the whole ‘Here, like this’ schtick and wrap his arms around me.”

Finn’s grunt—a surprisingly displeased sound—comes right as I swing, and my aim goes wild, sending my ball ping-ponging between the barriers on either side of the long, straight path to the hole. It rolls to a stop, not at all where I intended for it to go. I frown as I walk toward it and plan my next move.

“How long did that last?” Finn’s question is infused with an innocence so over-the-top, it has to be fake. Veeery interesting.

“Oh, probably no more than a month or two. The kissing didn’t improve as much as my golf swing, which was a deal-breaker.”

With my attention more focused, I make my next putt, sending the ball on a slow roll right into the hole. “Two!” I cheer with a celebratory spin, my skirt flaring out around me.

“Glad it taught you something,” Finn grumbles.

I think the subject has been dropped as we wander through the shadowy maze of shrub-lined walkways to the next couple holes side by side, stopping to play each one, continuing to mess with each other—me teasing Finn for his weird putting posture, Finn bemoaning the several lucky shots I get despite taking wilder swings than I normally would, all due to him flustering me and throwing off my game. But I’m surprised when he brings up my long-forgotten sophomore summer boyfriend again as I’m taking a crack at getting my ball through the blades of a windmill on hole six.

“So, have you, uh, dated anyone since golfer guy?”

I dart a look his way and find him staring off at the lagoon sparkling under the moonlight in the center of the course, seemingly nonchalant, but the pink tips of his ears give him away. I bite down on a smirk and refocus on the putter.

“Oh, plenty.” Swing aaand—crack. My ball hits the windmill and bounces back, rolling almost all the way to me. I reposition it and get ready to try again. “I dated a lot in high school. Wanted to see what all was out there, I guess.”

The noise Finn makes is a more thoughtful, less grunt-y grunt. After a couple more tries, my ball finally makes it through, leaving me with a score of six for the hole. Finn takes his turn and it’s his luckiest yet as, even with tensed up shoulders and overly wiggly arms, he sinks it in two.

“Was out there?” he asks as we take an arched stone bridge over a gently flowing stream toward hole seven. “So you haven’t dated in college?”

Our eyes meet when he lets me pass him walking over some paving stones meant to look like lily pads at the stream’s bank, and he briefly rests a hand on my back, a touch so fleeting I could believe it was the wind as much as a person.

At the green, I crouch to eye the meandering tunnel our balls will have to travel through on the way to a big, pastel painted castle at the other end. “Haven’t had time or inclination,” I answer as I rise. I hit my ball, hearing it bounce and reverberate in the tunnel, an echoing boiiing. “Ugh, are you kidding?”

I circle the structure for a moment, then, deciding there’s no other way, lie down on my stomach and start to push my club through the opening in an effort to nudge my ball out the other side. I quickly find this is an awful lot like trying to use my club to nudge a needle out of a haystack. Continuing to jab at it does me no good, as the ball is past a curve in the tunnel that my putter can’t angle around.

“Why’s that?” Finn’s voice is closer than I expect when it reaches me. I sigh, dropping my club and retracting my arm before rolling onto my back. He’s kneeling at my side, expression open and watchful. His shirt has gotten more rumpled with the night’s adventures, a few buttons undone. It’s all really working for me.

He’s the box of brownie mix that catches your eye when you’re up for a midnight snack—it’s been there all along, but suddenly looks more delicious than ever before, and you can’t remember why you didn’t indulge earlier.

You also might regret it in the morning.

“Why so curious all of a sudden?” I ask, trying to push brownies and other temptations far from my mind.

Finn lifts a shoulder at the same time as he turns his kneel to a sit, then lies down beside me on the squishy artificial turf. “I guess it’s like…like the dam is broken.” His voice is soft but carries to me easily. “The more I learn about you, the more I find myself wanting to know everything.”

Something in my chest tightens then releases on a rush of fizzy, shimmery feelings. I look up at the stars overhead, less visible with the floodlights nearby and the glow from hotel windows beyond them, but still there. Still the same stars we gazed at from the top of a cliff last night. “Everything, huh?”

In my periphery, Finn shifts, and there’s a sudden but subtle heat at my side. Has he moved closer?

“Mm-hmm.” He’s definitely closer. “You’re kind of hard to pin down, you know? I thought you were one thing when I met you, and not all of that was wrong—you’re fun and funny, loud and unfiltered, bold and outgoing. But you’re also so much more under the surface, and you keep a lot inside. Even more than you’ve let on to me, or maybe to anyone.”

That is certainly not where I expected him to go. The buzzing beneath my skin kicks in, my heart beats faster, urging me to move, evade, run. But there’s something different about the buzz right now too, something unexpectedly like excitement. Like I’ve been waiting for this. For someone to wonder the very things he’s wondering. For someone to see all of this in me.

I’ve gotta say something before I chicken out or reason myself into shutting up. So of course the first words to come out are a clumsy, impulsive, “My insides are really not as cute as my outsides.”

Instantly I cringe at how I’ve managed to sound so conceited-yet-fucked-up in so few words. My mouth opens and closes, but Finn speaks first.

“I don’t believe that. And if your insides are even half as beautiful as your outsides—like everything I’ve seen so far—I’m already in so much trouble.”

My soft gasp hangs in the air between us. “Wh-what does that mean?”

“It means…” He pauses, a few seconds that feel like hours. “It means my teammate is strong, brilliant, big-hearted, and…and beautiful from the inside out.” He sucks in a deep breath and sounds like he’s holding it when he continues. “And I really, really want to kiss her.”

A flicker of feeling ignites in my tender heart, equal parts warm comfort and hot desire spreading into all my buzzing limbs and extremities. I know I’m not having a panic attack, but I also can’t quite breathe.

Still, I somehow manage to turn my head to face Finn and gasp out the words, “That’s…troublesome?”

My smile threatens to take over my entire face, but I hold it back, not quite ready to believe in what’s happening.

He props up on an elbow, his big brown eyes, dark as the night sky, now boring into me. “I’ve been telling myself it is, though I can’t quite remember why at the moment.”

His breath teases my lips as he speaks, we’re so close. It’s a whisper of a suggestion at what could be. His scent wraps around me, the hotel’s eucalyptus soap mixed with a lingering note of campfire smoke.

“How long have you and yourself been discussing the matter?”

He swallows heavily. “A while.”

I bring my hand up and bite down on my thumbnail as I consider him. I’d be huffing the hell out of a lavender rollerball if I had one right now. But I don’t, which is probably why I just keep blurting things out.

“Me and myself have had similar talks.”

Finn’s nostrils flare, eyes brightening ever so slightly. “Have you?”

“Mm-hmm.” I watch his gaze drop to my bottom lip where my thumb presses against it. “Consensus is I’ve been wanting to kiss my teammate too, whether it’s in our best interest or not.”

“It feels like my best interest tonight. Maybe the best interest of all time.” There’s a hint of teasing in his voice, but his quickening breaths tell me he’s plenty serious, too. He reaches up and takes my hand from my face to wrap it in his hand, his thumb pressing into my palm and stroking back and forth.

My reply is more exhaled than spoken. “Can’t say I disagree.”

Finn’s response is to lean forward as I tilt my face up, inching closer so slowly I could scream, before he finally takes my lips with his. Though I knew it was coming, the kiss surprises me. It isn’t awkward or tentative, like first kisses with a new person so often are. It feels at once wildly exciting and perfectly familiar as our lips connect in a firm, lingering press.

When he starts to pull back I find myself trying to follow, but quickly see he wasn’t really going anywhere. His mouth returns to play over mine, lips slightly parted, and I welcome the change. Both my hands reach up almost of their own accord to cup his jaw and pull him closer so he leans more of his chest onto mine. I want it all, as much of him pressed to me as I can get. He lets me position his face just how I like, in the perfect spot for me to deepen the kiss.

It’s fiery, exploratory, and achingly gentle in different turns. One of Finn’s hands comes to my hair, sifting through before sliding down to grip the back of my neck. His other leaves a path of sparks in its wake as it runs down my side, across my stomach, to my hip and back again, seemingly unable to land on just one place to grab, wanting to claim it all. And god, do I want that, too.

I slide one foot up closer, bending my leg at the knee to rest against Finn’s hip, caging him in, and it has the unintended effect of sending the skirt of my dress to pool around the very tops of my thighs. Finn isn’t expecting this when he coasts his hand down without looking, and I feel the surprised grunt from the back of his throat when he connects with bare skin. I’ve been wanting to taste his grumbly sounds nearly as long as I’ve known him, and they’re every bit as delicious as I’d hoped, causing me to tighten my grip in his hair.

Still, he’s able to pull his head back for real this time, breaking our connection to let his gaze travel down my body. My ensemble is starting to look as disheveled as his, but still not nearly as wrecked as I feel.

“Natalie…” My name scrapes out of him in a hoarse voice, and I feel a flush of pride that I’ve gotten him just as undone.

“Yes?” My chest rises and falls rapidly.

He squeezes his eyes shut and gives his head a brisk shake before looking back up at my face. Both his hands on me give a single matching squeeze before landing flat on the ground on either side of my head.

“That was…This is…” I watch him give up on searching for words. “Wow.”

My answering giggle is cartoonishly high-pitched and breathy, but I can’t find any shame. There’s no room for anything but good vibes inside me, a witch’s brew of happiness, desire, attraction, relief, all bubbling together.

This is happening, and it is wow. Who the hell would’ve thought?

“Right back at ya, stud.” I reach up to give his chest a pat, then leave my hand there, wondering why I didn’t explore more of this territory as we kissed. Something to remedy next time.

Finn’s brows shoot up, cheeks going adorably even redder than they already were. “Stud?”

His voice cracks on the word, which I only find more endearing. I’m a goner.

“You heard me. Who knew you had”—I dart a look up and down his body, meaning to encompass his entire sexy essence right now—“all of this in you?”

Finn lets his chin drop, shoulders trembling with laughter as he shakes his head again. When he looks back up, he groans softly.

“See?” He nods toward me. “So much trouble.”

“Yeah, right back at you, mister.”

He sits back and climbs to his feet, brushing his hands against his pants as if they’ve collected any actual grass from their spot on the green. I pout like a petulant child, still flat on my back down here, trying not to be too dazzled by the way he’s now positioned so the lights—from the hotel, the stars, and the moon—form a perfectly angelic glow around his perfectly gorgeous head. So much trouble.

“So yeah, this has been fun and all,” he teases, trying hard to look sincere, but even he can’t completely hide his smile tonight. “But I kind of have a mini golf game to win.”

I make a huffy, offended sound and would like to keep throwing a fit down here until he shuts me up with his lips. But I know it’s probably ill-advised to continue this where we are, so I take the hand he offers and allow him to help me up. When I’m standing, he crouches again, deftly knocking my ball out of the tunnel using his own and allowing the game to resume.

With some modifications. The winner of each hole now gets a kiss from the loser—which really means we both stay winning. When Finn loses the first couple times, he tries to keep me in check, giving brief, relatively chaste pecks.

So obviously, I start throwing the game. I take one wild swing after another, dragging it out to six to eight shots before getting the ball in at every hole. Finn knows exactly what I’m up to, but doesn’t change up his play to match my absurdity. Nor does he stop me from giving him his winner’s spoils however I please—pushing him up against the sparkly, fairy-tale-esque cottage to kiss him slow and deep after hole twelve, making him sit on a bench shaped like a giant butterfly so I can straddle his lap for our kiss after hole fourteen.

No, he takes everything I throw at him, even as it’s plain to see his composure fraying by the minute. When we’ve finally finished hole eighteen, I’m barely able to brush my lips to his before he’s pulling me toward the entrance, stopping only to drop our clubs and balls in their home before we’re back at the fence and he’s boosting me up with his hands on my hips.

As I’m about to cross over the top, giving Finn the closest close-up of my backside yet, I hear him say on a happy sigh, “God, I love mini golf.”