“No it won’t! But why do we care what people think?”

“Because it will be true! Don’t you see? Right now . . . right now I’m your . . . your friend.” Her eyes shot to his in disbelief, and he almost flushed thinking about the way he wanted her, the way he’d kissed her. Several times now. Friends didn’t kiss like that. He ignored the qualm. That was all before he saw the news report. It changed things, and he had to make her understand.

“I’ve done right by you, Bonnie. I have. I’ve taken care of you. And I’ve watched out for you. And I can feel good about that. I haven’t taken anything from you that I didn’t earn or that wasn’t fair. But I haven’t earned this, Bonnie. I haven’t earned you. And if I take you, all that stuff people are saying will be true.”

Bonnie stepped toward him, raised herself up on her toes, and pressed her lips against his, halting his words with her mouth. Finn needed her to cooperate if he was going to be able to stay away from her. But when had she ever done a damn thing he’d asked her to? Her kiss was so sweet, so honest, and so Bonnie Rae. And then she sighed against his lips as if she was exactly where she wanted to be, in spite of everything he’d said.

And Finn couldn’t help himself.

His convictions were immediately reduced to eggshells. Call it weakness. Call it lack of conviction. Call it love. But he just couldn’t help himself. His hands were on her hips, in her hair, sliding down her arms, around her waist, and then back up to cup her face, trying to be everywhere at once and not knowing where to start. Their breathing grew ragged, and together they sank to the bed, Bonnie pulling his body back onto hers as he willed himself to slow down.

“I don’t know what the hell is happening between us,” he whispered, hovering above her mouth, his voice tickling her lips. “I feel like I’m free falling, and any minute I’m going to touch down, and this is all going to be over, or worse, just a dream.” His voice was so low that he wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or talking to himself, but either way, he needed her to hear him. He kissed her again, anxiously, but then pressed his forehead into hers, pulling away as if their mouths were magnetized and it required conscious effort to suspend the kiss, needing to speak but unwilling to entirely disengage.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Bonnie. Not you and me exactly. But this, the media frenzy, the fact that everyone seems to know who I am. This is going to end badly. I can feel it, the way I felt it the night Fish robbed that store. He lost his life, but I lost mine too, just in a different way. I don’t want you to lose your life because of me, Bonnie. Mine’s not worth a whole hell of a lot, but it’s all I’ve got, and you . . . you can do anything, go anywhere, be anything. This isn’t going to end well, Bonnie.”

She shook her head adamantly, her forehead rocking from side to side against his, her eyes squeezed shut, her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Please. Please don’t say that. I believe in Bonnie and Clyde! Why does it have to end at all?”

There were tears in her voice, but she didn’t let them fall, and she raised her hands to his face and pushed him away just enough to find his eyes. She held his gaze until she seemed satisfied that there would be no more talk of endings. Then her lips found his again, briefly, before she let her hands slide from his face and down his neck until they rested against his pounding heart. Then she rose up and kissed his chest. Sweetly, softly, entreating him without words.

Finn braced himself above her and watched her hands and her lips, as they soothed and smoothed, bestowing small caresses and velvet kisses against his throat and arms, against the marks that brought him shame. And in her reverence of his skin, he felt that shame wither and curl, like paper on a flame, and float upward, disintegrating into nothing more substantial than ash, and with her breath, she blew it all away. I believe in Bonnie and Clyde.

Finn’s eyes stung and his throat grew tight as she drew him close and cradled his face in the slope of her neck, as if she knew he had let something go. The words Finn had pressed upon her with such urgency slipped away from his head like the silky camisole she wore that allowed his hands to slide from her waist to her br**sts without resistance. He lifted his hand and pulled one little strap from her shoulders so he could press his lips to her skin, unimpeded. And then his hands framed her face, and he felt the whisper of her sigh as she pressed her lips into his palm.

He wanted to close his fingers over that kiss, to grip it tightly, to crush it into his skin so it couldn’t fly away. But the swell of her lips and the curve of her jaw demanded a gentler touch, a touch he felt incapable of delivering when the intensity of his response pounded in his veins. So he slid his hands into her hair, curling his fingers desperately into the short strands, and pulled her mouth back to his. And this time, instead of words, he used his kiss to impart his trepidation into soft lips that he feared would one day wish him gone.

Flashing red and blue lights filled the room through the uncovered window, circling the walls, one color chasing the next, and Finn and Bonnie froze, their breath and lips halting, even as their bodies demanded they continue. Finn shot up and off the bed, and Bonnie followed, reaching for her jeans and pulling them on without a word, shoving her feet into her boots without bothering with socks. Finn stood to one side of the window, watching the slow-moving cruiser glide past the short row of cabins. Finn was yanking off his shorts and pulling on his jeans as he watched, and he saw Bonnie pause, taking in the expanse of long, smooth, uninterrupted skin before he clipped out her name in warning.