Page 38 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Adam

Adam was a half-mile from the house when he caught up with Eileen.

She had opted to forgo the mellow path through the grazing green and had taken a path that led straight up into the woods.

Adam followed, appreciating the burn in his calves and the stretch in his lungs as he hiked up the rocky terrain.

He had been a swimmer all through high school and college, and it was still his preferred form of exercise.

He longed for the resistance of the water, the rhythmic crash of waves over his head.

But the hike was challenging enough, and it gave him the time and space he needed to think.

Adam’s thoughts drifted to the game of Confession.

As good and right as kissing Nicola had felt, he still couldn’t forget the way Eileen’s eyes blazed a challenge as he slipped a hand under her panties, the way she had said his name like an oath as he brought her close to the edge.

Most of all, he couldn’t stop thinking about that high color in her cheeks when he gave into his meaner instincts and held her down.

He had never enjoyed overpowering someone like that before.

But there was an animal satisfaction in overcoming Eileen Kirkfoyle, one that probably should have alarmed him.

What else did Eileen enjoy, besides being held down?

What else might she let him do, if he asked?

Adam’s mind wandered again, settling for a moment on the tousle of Finley’s curls against the floor, the way he had looked up at Nicola like she was God incarnate while she straddled his hips.

Adam had wanted to chalk his arousal up to the general aura of sex hanging in the air, but when he traipsed downstairs the next morning and found Finley brewing coffee, jaw stubbled from sleep and pillow lines pressed into his cheeks, all that wanting had rushed right back in.

It was inappropriate to dwell on, surely, no matter how good Finley looked fresh from bed.

But Adam was dwelling, and all this reminiscing had him half-hard in his sweats.

And then, of course, there was Nicola. Mercurial and irresistible, all honey and light one moment and bared teeth the next.

He couldn’t stop looking at her, even when he had two fingers inside Eileen, and something about Nicola watching him watching her while Eileen watched Nicola grind against Finley had tied Adam into such a tight, inextricable knot of emotion that he hardly knew what to do with himself.

Everything had changed between them, and yet nothing had.

Adam summited a small hill to find the lord of the manor crouched down in the mud, examining a ghostly white mushroom with a scholar’s interest.

“Eileen!” Adam called, and began to close the distance between them.

She rose to her feet with unhurried languor, regarding him curiously.

She was wearing a long russet-colored coat over a plum dress that skimmed her bare knees, and her hair was coming loose from its updo.

As Adam approached, he noted the sweat on her brow despite the chill of the morning, the way her cheeks were pinpricked with red.

The coat was barely fit for early autumn, let alone a spring still touched by morning frost.

“I’ve been trying to catch you,” Adam said, only slightly out of breath. “Finley wanted me to make sure you were all right.”

“I slipped out because I wanted privacy,” Eileen responded. She was still staring at the mushrooms, deep in thought. “I don’t always tell my old man where I’m going.”

My old man. Adam wondered for the hundredth time about the nature of what lay between Finley and Eileen, a devotion so honed it was almost painful to witness, yet one that allowed them to pursue other people. It was like nothing he had ever heard of, much less seen in real life.

“You should be careful in the grounds,” she said. “Many parts of Craigmar are still wild and uncultivated. I would hate to see the woods eat you alive.”

“You seem fine.”

“I grew up here. Craigmar is a part of me. It doesn’t know you yet. You’re still wearing the ring I gave you, aren’t you?”

She was being cryptic again, like she had donned her lord-of-the-manor mask in order to keep him at a distance. Compared to last night’s gleeful indiscretions, it was a little jarring. Adam showed her his hand, his ring finger bound in iron. Eileen just nodded, harrumphing in her throat.

“What kind of mushroom is that?” Adam asked. He knew it sounded stupid, but wanted to do anything to keep the conversation going.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” Eileen replied, pressing her lips together tightly as though the mushroom offended her. “They just sprang up overnight.”

Adam took a better look at the mushroom, pale and mottled, and realized it was merely one of dozens, sprouting in a perfect circle on the hillside.

“That’s a strange formation,” Adam said, taking another step towards the fungal ring.

Eileen’s hand shot out to grasp his wrist, almost hard enough to bruise.

“Children know their stories well enough not to play in mushroom rings. Place one foot inside that ring, and you might slip right out of time, disappear away to a world where years pass like hours. You could walk out again a decrepit old man.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Nicola,” Adam said with a laugh. But Eileen was still holding him tightly, her skin clammy against his own.

“It isn’t a joke, Adam. You should listen more when Nicola talks. You aren’t in Kansas any more.”

“I’m from Michigan,” Adam quipped, but he took a step back all the same. He looked down at Eileen’s hand, frail in the thin morning light, but she didn’t let him go. She just stood there with a miserable expression on her face, holding him stiffly, as though waiting for him to do something.

Adam took a wild guess and latticed their fingers together. Eileen relaxed, but only slightly.

“You don’t look very good,” he said gently. He didn’t want to offend her and rouse her ire, but more importantly, he was concerned about her. “Are you sure you’re feeling well?”

“I’m never feeling well,” Eileen said, sullen. “Apparently my ultimate destiny is only to feel worse and worse until I die.”

“That’s not going to be anytime soon,” Adam said firmly.

“Perhaps,” Eileen said, toneless and unconvinced. “Perhaps not.”

“Is there some diagnosis here I don’t know about?”

“Not particularly. It’s just a family trait. We can sense our own ends, sometimes far in advance, sometimes only days. Maybe you’ll sense yours too, when the time comes.”

Adam didn’t like the sound of that at all. He had to steer her out of these bleak, chilly waters towards something warmer, something that might get her back in touch with her will to live.

“Did you have a good time last night?” he asked hopefully.

“I did,” Eileen said with a lupine smile. That was better. That was more like the Eileen he knew. “With you, and with Finley. He and I talked things through. We see no point in any of us denying ourselves, so long as we can all remain civil.”

“Then will you let me kiss you?” Adam asked, glancing down at her mouth, which was reddened from the cold. She had such a lovely, severe mouth. He wondered if she kissed the way she spoke, like she was trying to get one over on him, or if her rough edges would melt away under his lips.

“And what if you regret it?” Eileen said, that taunting smile still fixed firmly in place despite the flash of sadness in her eyes.

“I won’t.”

“And how do you know that, Adam Kirkfoyle?”

She neither pulled away nor drew closer, just leveled her gaze at him in challenge.

Adam didn’t want to push her too much, but he knew an invitation when he saw one, and he was emboldened by the sound of his name and hers mingling in her mouth.

With his heart hammering in his chest, he dipped his head and kissed her.

It was tentative, little more than the brush of his lips against her own. She tilted her chin up and let him lavish her with soft, exploratory kisses that warmed her cold skin and made Adam’s chest tighten. He could kiss her for a year and a day and never get tired of it.

Eileen slid her arm around his waist, deepening the kiss, and Adam ran his tongue along the curve of her lower lip. She tasted like a cold north wind and morning dew.

Then, a biochemical warning siren cut through the rosy haze of the kiss.

A strange sensation prickled down Adam’s spine, the sudden intuition of danger, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Watched. They were being watched.

Adam released Eileen and threw a glance over his shoulder. They were entirely alone out here, a mile from the house. Who could possibly find them this far into the wilderness, let alone spy on them?

“Getting shy on me?” Eileen said with a crooked smile. “It’s all right if you aren’t up for anything more than kissing. But I had hoped…”

Adam’s attention snapped from the vaguely menacing aura of the woods just beyond the mushroom ring back to Eileen. She was looking at him hungrily, like she was starving, like she might want to devour him and leave nothing left.

A shudder of arousal went down Adam’s spine, tingling in anticipation in the small of his back.

“You hoped for what?” he pressed. She had set him up for that, but he couldn’t help but ask. Even when the outline of her snare on the ground was so glaringly obvious, Adam couldn’t help but step into it.

“I had hoped you had more on your mind when you found me out here than talk of mycology.”

“One minute ago you were acting like you didn’t even want me to kiss you,” Adam scoffed, but he was taking slow steps towards her, as though drawn forward by her rope around his waist.

“Maybe I like making men work for it,” she said, with that heartless haughtiness that made him want to dig his teeth into her skin, just to get a red-blooded rise out of her. “Maybe it excites me. What excites you, Adam Lancaster?”