Page 181 of Chaos

I snort. “Does that line ever work for you?”

“Don’t usually need a line.”

Hm. Just blinks those pretty green eyes and the girls come running, I bet.

He does just that, and I don’t move. Nor do I when that olive gaze flicks elsewhere—not to the body that suddenly comes up behind mine, not to the face that presses to the top of my head, but to the hand that curls around my belt buckle.

The long, possessive fingers that hook around the cool metal and push until my hips settle in the cradle of another’s.

“Ah,” Everett says again, but my attention is no longer his.

Now, it belongs to the man looming over me, the man I can’t help but smirk at, the man with not one, but two claiming grips on my body—the other in the form of a forearm flat across my collarbones. “Something wrong, baby?”

Finn’s jaw ticks. “Show’s starting.”

“Right.” I drop my gaze again, quickly finding a wry Everett.

“That’s my cue.” Tipping his hat, he starts a lazy backwards retreat. “Nice to meet you, Lottie Jackson.”

Everett winks.

Finn grunts.

I grin and I snicker and I fall a little deeper into the warm pit I’ve yet to grow enough balls to put a name to. I try to wave goodbye to the bull rider, but Finn snatches my hand from the air, interlocking our fingers and holding them just a little to the left of my sternum.

Barking a laugh, Everett turns around. And just before he rounds the corner, just before all that tan, supple skin disappears from view, I frown at the oddly familiar birthmark on his shoulder.

“See something you like?”

I tilt my head back again, finding Finn’s glower,lovingit. “God, yes.”

Finn grunts again. Something lands on my head, warm and soft—a hat,hishat. “Be good,” he murmurs against my ear, “and I’ll come and collect later.”

I shiver. Swallow. Take a long moment to compose myself before twisting to look up at him properly, my face the perfect picture of confused innocence. “Huh? I just heardcome.”

Groaning, Finn digs his fingers into my waist, his other hand dragging down his face as he hastily glances around the fairground. I’m half-convinced he’s about to whisk me away somewhere more private—or just take me right here and now—and God, am I hoping for either option, when someone calls our names.

Kissing my teeth in disappointment, I lift a hand to acknowledge the group waving at us from the bleacher seats they snagged.Fucking cockblocks.

A hand claps against my ass, urging me in their direction. “Let’s go, trouble.”

“Trouble.” I scoff, backhanding a firm bicep. “You bring a kid to a candy store and then you get mad when she looks at the treats. How is that—”

Fair, I mean to finish.

Squealis what I do instead.

Because hands clamp around my waist and hoist me into the air and carry me like a damn ragdoll, audience be damned, to the bleachers.

“Finn,” I shriek, I squeal some more, I cackle so hard, my stomach hurts.

My fuckingasshurts because he slaps it again before dropping me on it.

I land beside a laughing Yasmin. Everyone’s laughing. I’m laughing, and I’m trying to remember if I’ve eversquealedbefore in my life, I’m trying to figure out how my mood shifted so damn quickly, I’m gazing at Finn with fucking hearts in my eyes as he laughs too, and I’m sobering a little as it suddenly dawns on me thatlikeis not the emotion making me feel all warm and fuzzy.

I abruptly look away.

And then, I don’t feel warm and fuzzy at all.

---