Page 46 of Wood Riddance
He nodded and took a step closer. “Great idea. If I win, you let me take you out.”
The embers still heating my belly caught fire, and the heat rose up my chest and into my cheeks.
I could not let that happen. But I couldn’t deny a teeny, tiny frisson of excitement coursed through me at the thought that he wanted to take me out. Clearly, I was in dire emotional straits if the interest of this miscreant was making me feel good.
I had to extinguish this.
“When I win,” I replied, “you will never ask me out again. You’ll refrain from all flirting, and never,evermentionthatnight.”
His grin almost split his face in half. “You mean the night I kissed the shit out of you in my truck?”
His cocky expression made me want to throat punch him.
“Do not speak of that.”
“Why not? It was amazing,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling.
It was moments like this that I wished I had actual superpowers. What I wouldn’t have given to shoot lasers at him.
“Amazing?” I giggled. “It was fine.”
In an instant, all the cocky arrogance drained from his face. “Fine?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged, picking up an axe. “Like five out of ten.”
He coughed, as if the thought of being average had made the air evacuate his lungs. I was enjoying this. Maybe a little too much.
I thought he’d retreat with his tail between his legs, but clearly, I underestimated Finn Hebert. “Let’s do this,” he said, picking up his own axe. “Now I’m definitely going to win. I will not accept five out of ten. I’m earning my second chance.”
“You have no chance. I’m going to embarrass you, and then you’ll be forced to leave me alone, do your job, and stop being a pain in my ass.”
He tossed the axe in the air. It made one perfect rotation before he caught the handle cleanly.
“Sure thing, She-Ra. Ladies first.” He gestured for me to step up to the line but didn’t back away.
Not one to be intimidated, I stepped right up and lined up my shot.
“You know what?” he said, crowding me in a way that made me want to bury this axe in his head. “We should really make things fun. How about for every bull’s-eye I hit, you remove one item of clothing?”
My stomach dropped, and all logical thought left me. I didn’t dare turn and look at him. He still hovered, and if our faces were too close, there was no way I could control my reaction. I would punch him, or worse, kiss him again.
“Whatever,” I said, keeping my focus set on the target while I willed my heart to stop racing. “If you want to strip naked, I don’t care.”
I stepped forward and let the axe fly. Immediately, I knew I’d released it too early. It landed high, in the three-point ring. I cursed myself for allowing him to get to me. I was good at this. I had won competitions, for fuck’s sake. And I’d let Finn get in my head. There was no way in hell I was losing.
“My turn.” He stepped forward and gripped the axe properly, like he knew what he was doing.
And then he hit the bull’s-eye.
His smile could have lit up Times Square. And damn did it make the bastard look even more handsome.
He scratched his beard, unable to contain his glee at besting me, before grabbing the dry erase marker from the tray below the whiteboard I’d mounted on the wall opposite of the rack of axes.
On one side, he wroteShe-Ra. On the other,Stretch. Then he gave me three points and himself six.
Eyes on me, he capped the marker and set it down. “Now,” he said. “Lose the shirt.”
I tucked my chin and took in my black tank. “I didn’t agree to these terms.”
