Page 22 of Unrequited (Woodlands 4)

"Sweaty?" That didn't sound much better than broccoli.

"Once you have sweaty cop in your bed, you'll know what I'm talking about." He waggled his eyebrows at me.

"Voice of experience?" I laughed.

"You know it."

The rest of the day sped by quickly. When I arrived home, Ivy was gone. I didn't call sweaty Hot Cop after he left, but I didn't throw the number away either. The guilt I felt about having slept with Finn made me reluctant to see him again. I had no defenses, and I knew if we were alone I would more than likely be stripping his clothes off. Even though Ivy had given me her blessing, I hadn't been forthcoming. I hadn't told her I’d slept with him and that I wanted to again. Maybe hot cop was exactly the remedy I needed to help me put my Finn crush away forever.

Until I had seen Finn two months ago, I actually thought my crush was a distant childhood memory. I was completely unprepared for the wave of emotion and the hot pulse of desire that pounded in my ears when he turned that heated blue stare toward me. Even worse was the way I felt after. For days after we'd had sex, I could still feel the imprint of his fingers digging into my hips, the rough scratch of his late night beard growth against my sen

sitive skin, and the wet drag of his tongue across what seemed like every inch of my body. I was sore in places I didn't realize had muscles and ached in places that had never ached before.

I could see myself becoming addicted to him and how he made me felt, and that…terrified me. Enough so, even though Hot Cop wasn't really my thing, I wondered if I should make him my thing. He certainly wasn't hard to look at.

I had my phone in my hand when the doorbell rang. I set my phone down and went to the door. "Who is it?" I asked and looked through the peephole.

Finn O'Malley waved his hand at me.

I wrenched open the door, looked down the hallway and then yanked him inside. "What are you doing here?"

"Picking you up for our date."

"I never agreed to this," I exclaimed. I had no idea where Ivy was.

"You didn't say no."

"What if Ivy were here?"

"So what if she was?" He shouldered past me and walked farther into the apartment, taking in the shabby surroundings. We had a few nice pieces of furniture I salvaged from our parents’ home, but the apartment complex itself was run down. Paint peeled off the walls, and the kitchen appliances looked like they were installed in the 80s.

A panicked urge to get him out of the apartment before my sister came home had me scurrying to gather my purse, wallet, and phone. I had everything packed and ready to go in less than a minute.

"Let's go. Where are you taking me?" I still had on my jeans and low V-neck Atra work top. Because I had the tiniest boobs known to western womankind, I could wear things split to my belly button and still not be obscene, so I tended to buy T-shirts that had very low necklines. I couldn't worry about that now, though, because I wanted Finn out of the apartment.

I pushed him out the door, and he let me. I thought of it as let because Finn was a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. That worked great when he was lifting you around but not so great when you wanted him to move.

"I should feel bad that you're treating me like a dirty secret, but since it's getting you out of the house with me, I'll let it go this time," he called over his shoulder. His words were a joke, but his meaning was not. He didn't like the idea I wanted him out of the apartment before Ivy came home, but I was barely prepared to see him, let alone see the both of them together.

He shut the door behind me and waited while I locked it. And then surprisingly, he took my hand and led me downstairs to his truck.

"Where are you taking me?" I repeated.

"Thought we'd go hit some baseballs."

"Baseball?" Finn had played wide receiver and first base in high school. I'd gone to many a game with Ivy.

"You once said you wished you could learn how to hit a fastball. I'm going to teach you tonight."

The last sentence was not meant to be sexual, but it came off that way, and I squirmed in my seat. He tilted his head to look at me and then smiled knowingly. Maybe the last sentence was supposed to be an innuendo. Or maybe I was just gooey mush inside because he'd remembered some comment I'd made years ago.

Sports West was a complex on the northwest side of town that housed an indoor soccer arena as well as indoor and outdoor batting and pitching cages. After Finn parked and opened the door for me, he pulled two wooden bats out of the bed of his truck.

I raised my eyebrows. “You bring your own bats?"

He hefted a bat in his hand and then flicked it into the air, catching it easily by the handle after a full rotation. "You want to learn how to hit with a real bat or a shitty one that's been abused by hundreds of people?"

"Why is it when comparisons are offered, it's never two good choices, but one good choice and one terrible choice?"

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