Page 41 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

Nicola tried to hide herself in a narrow broom closet and found she didn’t fit in alongside the linens, and then she threw herself against the door to the wine cellar only to find that Eileen had locked it.

Nicola had no idea how many seconds had passed, five or fifteen, when she stumbled into the dining room.

She was starting to panic now, the ticking clock making her reckless.

The tablecloth didn’t reach the ground, but it was long enough to hide her in shadow if Finley didn’t look very hard.

Right now, it was her only option, and so Nicola surrendered herself to it, crawling beneath the table and hiding like a child.

She did her best to calm her ragged breathing as she waited for the sound of Finley running after her, or perhaps the sound of him calling her name through the house and making cocky promises about what would happen when he found her.

But that wasn’t what she heard. What she heard was a series of quick, light steps as Finley began to traverse the house with perfect calm, examining every room with clinical efficiency.

There was something genuinely terrifying about Finley taking his time in rooting her out, and that terror made her more wet than she had been in a very long time.

Nicola pressed her hand over her mouth to keep her breathing from giving her away as Finley got closer, pausing only momentarily in the hall to check the closet before stepping into the dining room.

She could see his socked feet and jean-clad ankles circling the table, as leisurely as though he were browsing for new packets of seeds at the store.

Nicola squeezed her eyes shut, not sure if she was praying for him to find her or for him to pass her by.

A strong hand thrust beneath the tablecloth and wrapped around her ankle, yanking her out from under the table. Nicola yelped in protest, but Finley was stronger than he looked when he really wanted to handle her with force, and she was soon lying on her back with Finley standing over her.

Nicola froze, really froze, like a rabbit holding still for the sake of its life. Her knees were frozen askew to reveal the underwear beneath her skirt.

Finley took a long look at her, like she was his to devour in tiny bites. Like he might be memorizing the sight of her blushing and frightened to replay in his mind later.

“Boo,” he said, and then fell on her mercilessly.

Finley did his damndest to pin her to the ground, locking his hands around her wrists as he tried to shove them down above her head. Nicola thrashed and writhed, valiantly attempting to fight him off. Finley was bigger than her, but she was wily, and she wasn’t afraid to fight dirty.

“Get off me,” she snapped, twisting out from under him before he wrestled back on top of her again. “I’ll scream!”

Finley covered her mouth with a broad hand. She bit at him, all delirious instinct, and he swore when her teeth nipped his palm.

“Christ.”

Now that sounded real, like he was really mad at her, like he might want to take that anger out on her, and Nicola let out a whimper.

Finley went after her with renewed vigor, and it was only then that she realized he had been holding back before. There was no play in this now, no levity in the way his fingers bruised her wrists and the way his knee jutted beneath her thighs to open her up and keep her where he wanted her.

“You can fight me all you want,” he panted. “It’s only going to get me harder.”

Nicola saw through the part he was playing to his tacit assent, his permission to keep going, even though she had scratched so hard down his arms she had left raised red marks behind. And he was hard, his length pressing into her thigh.

She could let him take her like this and probably have a very good time, but she was having too much fun to give up the game now. More importantly, she didn’t want to go down without a proper fight.

Nicola brought her knee up and jutted it into Finley’s stomach.

He avoided having the wind knocked out of him only by sacrificing his balance.

Nicola was able to scramble away and rush out of the room in a string of breathless giggles.

Finley gasped in surprise, then laughed himself as he hauled himself to his feet.

So much for keeping in character.

Finley chased her through the house, nearly catching her once and then twice, but she always wiggled away at the last second.

By the third attempt, his palms and her arms were slick with sweat, and she slipped off his hook like a wily little fish.

They were both panting now, from fear or exertion or desire or some heady mix of all three.

Nicola nearly lost the game by slipping on the hardwood in her stocking feet, but she recovered quickly and dashed towards the stairs.

If she could make it to the second floor, she might be able to hide in one of the spare bedrooms until Finley found her and made good use of the bed.

They never got that far. Finley caught her on the stairs, looping an arm around her waist and bringing her down onto the carpeted runner.

Nicola managed to crawl up the final few steps to the landing, until Finley finally climbed atop her for good, pressing her down on her stomach with a firm hand between her shoulders.

Nicola shrieked in genuine frustration, pounding her fists against the floor.

She had no purchase in this position, no leverage to use against him. She was utterly at his mercy.

She snarled at him, but that sound soon turned into a moan as Finley thrust his hand under skirt and palmed her ass. He shoved his hand between her thighs, cupping her sex from behind as though it belonged to him.

“I can see everything through your tights,” he said, mouth close to her ear as he pressed down harder on top of her.

She felt like she was being smothered by him, suffocated by his weight and scent and hot breath.

“It’s like they’re barely there. Like you want everyone to see what you’ve got under your skirt. ”

Finley hooked his fingers into the inseam and yanked, and Nicola heard the fabric rend in two.

The cool air of Craigmar hit her overheated skin as Finley yanked the hole open wider.

He kept tearing until they were totally beyond salvaging, until she was presented to him like a Christmas present torn open.

Nicola tried to wiggle away, but Finley held her fast, digging his knees in on either side of her.

“Soaking wet,” Finley murmured, rubbing circles through her lace panties until she was squirming. “I think you like being hunted.”

“Finley,” she gasped. Then, because they were still playing the game, she added. “Please don’t—”

Gloriously, Finley ignored her protests. He yanked her panties aside and shoved two fingers deep inside her. He probably could have given her three without hurting her at all, that was how ready her body was for him.

She was so exposed on the stair landing, right out in the open in a beam of light streaming in from the window.

She must look debased like this, being held down and fingered by the groundskeeper.

Adam or Eileen could walk in on them at any moment, they could watch Finley do whatever he wanted with her and tell her how dirty she was for asking for this, but that just made it better.

Maybe I really am depraved, she thought distantly, and then all coherent thought left her head as she heard Finley unzip his jeans.

He grunted and maneuvered her a little more, keeping her shoulders pinned down as he guided her ass up higher to meet him.

The landing rug was scratchy against her cheek, her curls spilling across her face.

“Needy little thing,” Finley went on, rubbing the head of his bare cock against her swollen lips.

He sounded half drunk, like he had completely unraveled somewhere between the library and the stairs.

This is what Nicola had wanted from him all along.

To see a good man lay the cruelest parts of himself down at her feet as an offering.

To be the tormenting beauty that made someone so self-controlled go to pieces. “I’ve got something for you.”

“Let me go,” Nicola protested, but it came out in a breathy moan.

Without another word, Finley thrust inside her. Nicola gasped as he filled her up, taking her without restraint or remorse.

Finley hooked an arm around her soft middle and pulled her in tight against him, holding her right there on her knees for a long moment. Like he wanted her to feel every inch of him. Like he wanted to memorize what she felt like wrapped around his cock.

It felt so good she forgot to fight him. It felt so good she wanted to cry, wanted to melt right there in his grasp and drip all over Eileen’s antique rug.

“You look like an angel,” he said, voice rough with want as he pushed her back down.

He ran his hand along her arched back as he stroked in and out of her.

She didn’t think he was pretending any more, either.

She thought he was being honest, the kind of bone-deep honesty that some people could only express during sex, right on the edge of oblivion.

“You’re so fucking soft and sweet and tight.

You’re going to ruin me; ruin me, Nicola. ”

Finley fucked her faster, taking what he wanted at the speed he needed, which was all Nicola wanted as well.

It felt so good, to be plucked like a piece of ripe fruit and devoured until there was almost nothing left of her conscious mind, of her anxieties and hang-ups and fears about the future.

There was only Finley and the pleasure building inside her core.

She wasn’t even touching herself, and she was close to the edge.

She always came quickly when she fantasized about playing this game with someone, but actually being in her body for the real thing was almost too much to bear.

He beat her to the finish line, spilling deep inside her with a groan.

Nicola whimpered, riding the high of his ecstasy but not yet satisfied herself.

She would finish herself off later, in her room.

This was better than anything she could have ever hoped for and she had already asked for so much from him, she didn’t want to be greedy and—

“Did you come?” Finley asked, still holding her tight like she was his captive. Maybe he wasn’t quite done with her yet.

“Oh, uh,” she babbled, embarrassment rushing in. Would he be mad at her for not finishing? Would he be insulted he hadn’t gotten her there, or irritated at how much time she took? “Not really but I—”

“Roll over,” Finley commanded, a little out of breath. “Show me.”

Nicola did as she was told and rolled onto her back. She lifted the hem of her skirt so he could see the mess he had made of her cunt, the shredded remains of her tights and panties.

He looked at her like she was a holy idol dipped in gold, like she existed to be not only revered but worshipped.

“Please let me,” he said, voice almost broken by the force of his desire.

Nicola recognized herself in him in that moment, in the anguished, bottomless want in his eyes.

Finley could probably have her in every way, in every room of this house, over and over again until eternity and never be completely satisfied.

He could probably want her to the point of sacrilege and still want Eileen, still want Adam or anyone else, still want the sort of consummation that could only be found in the twilight between pleasure and pain.

He was like her: needy, greedy, desperate.

Always trying to fill a well of intimacy that could never be filled because it was bottomless, because it had no beginning and no end, because it couldn’t be drained even if the fate of the world depended on it.

She felt a terrifyingly deep affection for him then, a tenderness rooted so deeply in her soul she wasn’t sure she was ever going to be able to dig it out.

“Yes”, she said, and hooked one of her legs over his shoulders as he lowered his mouth between her legs.

Finley applied himself to Nicola’s pleasure with a servant’s attentive focus, making her gasp with a long stroke of his tongue through the come dripping out of her and up to the apex of her sex.

When he lapped and sucked at her clit, Nicola fisted her hand into his hair and pulled hard, grinding against his mouth with a selfish abandon she had never completely allowed herself with anyone else.

Finley let out a whimper of pleasure as she used him to her satisfaction, and something about that noise, so small and willing, was what sent her over the edge.

It took everything inside Nicola not to scream as she came with devastating and eye-watering finality.

She didn’t realize she was crying until the waves of sensation had crested and then abated, until Finley was leaning over her and wiping the tears from her face.

She was shaking slightly, from the adrenaline drop or from the intensity of her orgasm, or perhaps from the knot of emotion forming in her throat.

She had never been so totally seen by anyone, in bed or out of it, and now that Finley had looked right into the dark heart of her, she was terrified he would lose interest in her and leave.

Instead of leaving, Finley kissed her with such tenderness she thought she might start crying all over again.

He smoothed her hair away from her face and tugged her skirt back down over her thighs, then pulled her into a crushing embrace.

It wasn’t the drowsy cuddly post-coital embrace she was used to.

It was a tight hug, like they had been separated for a long time and had just been reunited.

“Thank you,” she whispered, voice wavering with emotion. God, she needed to stop crying. He was going to think there was something wrong with her if she didn’t stop.

Finley chuckled, the sound rumbling through her chest like thunder. Something about the sound of human laughter put her body a little more at ease, helped her relax into his embrace.

“Thank you for inviting me to play that game with you. I think you’re some kind of miracle, Nicola.”

Nicola clutched him tighter, letting out a hum of animal contentment. They held each other for a long time, breathing in sync as they came down from the ecstatic frenzy they had worked each other into.

“Can I fix you some tea and biscuits?” Finley asked. “Maybe we can just sit together for a little while and have a snack? Selfishly, I think that would be good for me, if that sounds good for you too?”

“That sounds good for me,” she said, beaming.

What she didn’t say aloud but whispered in her heart was: that sounds like it could be good for me for the rest of my life.