Page 7 of This Haunted Heart

Lochlan Finley

I spun about, scanning distant tree lines and the spaces between the cabins for her familiar form, her charcoal dress and the raven scarf in her hair. It was so close to nightfall. Surely, she wouldn’t dare—

“Your wife went inside some time ago,” Eva said gently, her cheeks turning pink. “Probably to check on your room. It should be ready for you. Upstairs, third door on the right.”

I stuffed a hand in my pocket and groaned. My folding knife was missing. The little vixen had picked it right off me, and I hadn’t even felt it.

Boots sloshing in the damp grass, I marched for the front door and nearly barreled into the husband in the entryway. He made polite apologies. I ignored him, shouldering by.

“Something the matter?” he called to his wife.

“They’re newly married, I think,” Eva replied, chortling knowingly. The rest of their conversation continued in Dutch.

The cottage was a maze of small rooms. I wound up in the dining area before I finally found the stairs. I took them two at a time, hustling for our bedroom. The door was unlocked. I threw it open with enough force it clattered against the opposing wall.

Rynn sat on the edge of a wooden chair, waiting for me, flanked in bright lantern lights. Twinkling stars and fireflies lit the night sky through the window at her back. My traveling trunk was open, the lock scratched up like a bobcat had taken offense to it before setting dynamite off inside it. Clothing was everywhere.

She’d undressed down to the chemise I enjoyed, boots off and jet hair curling around her shoulders. Her black silk stockings were embroidered in an open design that revealed patterned segments of her fawn skin from ankle to . . . I didn’t know how far up the design went, but my mind enjoyed imagining the possibilities. It was an even more alluring sight than when her legs had been completely bare that morning.

She twirled my knife between her fingers.

“You stole from me.” Again , I resisted adding.

“Ha. If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.” She tossed the folding blade onto the bed. It disappeared amongst the billowy blankets. “You can have it back. Where’s my money?”

I closed the door behind me and locked it. “Not in my trunk.”

“Obviously,” she snarled.

I threw my hat onto the bed beside my knife, removed my coat, then worked off the buttons of my waistcoat and the fastenings of my suspenders. I felt her eyes on me as I undressed, but I ignored her, eager to get free of my layers to wash the hours of travel from my body .

I trod over my favorite morning coat. Lifting it between my fingers, I inspected the ripped seams and destroyed pockets. “Was this really necessary?”

“Yes,” she said. “I had to make sure you hadn’t hidden my cash in the lining, didn’t I?”

I held up a pair of shredded drawers next, brows raised.

“That was just spite,” she admitted, her smile smug.

“You’re a menace,” I told her.

“I am. You should give me back what’s mine now and send me on my way before I do worse.”

“Not a chance, hellcat.” Knowing she would enjoy any display of irritation from me, I deprived her of one. Calmly, I ambled over to the pitcher and basin in the corner of the room, stepping over more of my destroyed clothing. I removed my collar and cuffs and rolled my sleeves to the elbows.

She watched me wash my neck and face intently. As I finished rinsing my hair, the water in the basin turned filthy with the dirt of travel.

“It’s easier to do that with your underthings off, you know,” she said.

“If you were hoping for a show, then get used to disappointment,” I told her.

Her returning smile was perfectly villainous. “I see no reason why you’re behaving with decorum now. Not after you’ve been such a pirate. This sudden shyness from you has made me curious, is all.”

Decorum had nothing to do with it. I didn’t take off my shirt because there were scars on my back she’d likely recognize since she’d been the one to dress my wounds, just like I’d been the ones to treat hers. I knew the marks on her body even better than my own .

“I wouldn’t dare let my guard down completely around you,” I said because that was true, too.

When I finished, she brought me a towel to dry with. I eyed it suspiciously.

“It’s not going to bite you,” she said, laughter in her voice. This sudden playful mood from her put me instantly on my guard. Whatever mischief she was up to, I was determined not to get sucked in.

When I didn’t take the terrycloth from her, she dried my face and neck for me, blotting the moisture, bringing her tempting body closer. Her position gave me a perfect view down the front of her chemise—a dangerous view. My eyes lifted from the curves of her ripe breasts to her dark gaze. Hers smoldered with some unknown emotion I couldn’t place.

“I would like to offer you a trade,” she whispered.

“I’m not interested in trading with you. If I want something, I’ll just take it like I did with your money.”

“Debauchery for information,” she said plainly, surprising me.

I squinted at her as she worked the terrycloth behind my ears and through my hair, drying the rest of me. “You’re hoping I’ll tell you where your money is,” I guessed.

“That’s right. You get a release. I get the answer I want.”

I scoffed. “Even if I told you where the cash was, I wouldn’t give it to you.”

She gestured broadly at the mess she’d made. “As it turns out, the information would be very useful anyway, even if you didn’t hand it over.”

My fingers flexed into fists at my sides, and my nostrils flared.

Rynn stepped back from me, wary. “You seem angry. ”

I was angry. Furious. I sensed she was trying to trick me again. “I want to make sure I understand the rules of the game you’ve proposed,” I said, words clipped.

She took another step back and I followed her, closing the distance she’d created with one of my longer strides. She swallowed, and her smoldering eyes went dreamy and heavy-lidded. Her pupils dilated, and her nipples hardened, pressing against the fabric of her chemise. I recalled her earlier confession: she had a complicated relationship with fear.

“It’s a simple enough transaction,” she rasped. “Pleasure for information.”

“A release for one answer?” I confirmed.

“That’s right,” she said, “only it doesn’t look like you like this game. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all.”

In reply, I scooped her up and tossed her onto the bed. She let out a chirp of surprise. Sprawled there, her back against the cushions, her chemise tangled between her lush thighs.

“It’s not your game I object to,” I said, dragging my eyes up her legs to where the open embroidery disappeared beneath her hem. “You think you can manipulate me with your beautiful body like I’m some animal incapable of controlling myself. I take offense to that.”

She started to sit up. I pushed her shoulder down, forcing her to lounge against the pillows.

“You’re an animal because you snuck into my room, broke into my safe, and forced me to go somewhere I had no plans to.” She added more gently, “But you’re not an animal just because you like what you see when you look at me.”

Either she’d made a very good point, or I was too far gone and too easy to coerce. Either way, it was impossible not to stare at her. “I do like what I see . . . Still seems like a terrible idea to make a trade with you.”

“It’s a dreadful idea for both of us. But we should definitely do it anyway.” Her voice had gone breathy.

The nagging feeling of walking into a trap only intensified, which is why I astounded myself when my mouth opened and “Yes,” popped right out of it.

“You agree to my terms? Information for a release?” An attractive blush stained her cheeks and throat.

“I agree,” I said. “Pull up your dress.”

Gripping the hem, she tugged it higher, revealing more of the embroidery I so admired. It stopped midthigh. I trailed my fingers up the design and watched, entranced, as her lips parted around her next slow exhale. My touch was gentle and thorough as it investigated the pattern down her knee, around her shapely calf, then along the bone of her shin. She shivered.

When her chemise was rucked up around her waist, Rynn reached for the fastenings of her garter belt.

I trapped her hand in mine. “Don’t do that.”

Her throat bobbed delicately. “All right.”

“Does your arm still hurt?”

She shook her head, and her glossy curls bounced. “Hardly. It’s a stiffness from having it in the sling so long. You don’t need to keep worrying after it.”

I didn’t believe her. By her own admission, she told men like me only what they wanted to hear. I snatched one of the pillows and tucked it up against her side, then I laid her arm across it. “This stays right here for now.”

“If that’s what you want,” she said, voice wobbling.

“That’s what I want.”

While I was distracted with the cushion, she grabbed the front of my shirt and jerked me forward. With one kiss, all the breath in my lungs came out of me in a mad rush. My eyes slid shut.

She tasted summer sweet. I could still smell the sunlight and spring rain on her skin and in her hair. Hints of citrus and wine clung to her like she’d rolled in crimson rose petals just moments ago. I wanted to take back control, but when I planted a hand beside her to push away, my body disobeyed me. My fingers fisted into her springy curls. My other hand cupped her hip where it flared and dug in tight. Lost, I pulled her closer.

This was the kiss I had dreamed about for two decades. This was the kiss that had haunted my soul, teased my thoughts, consumed my mind, and driven me to madness. I hated that I wanted her—hated that my heart refused to reject the one who’d poisoned it.

I’d walked knowingly right into her snare, but oh God, what a delicious trap it was. I didn’t want to escape it.

The satiny pillows of her lips were plush and inviting and so unexpectedly warm. Her tongue too—it was curious and light as it licked into my mouth, and I was overcome. My lips surrendered to hers immediately. Conquered without a fight. She nibbled and suckled and teased my tongue like she was just as ravenous for me as I was for her.

But I knew this to be a fiction. This was a game to her, and that thought alone cooled me.

She’d undone the buttons down the seam of my trousers, and I hadn’t even felt her nimble hand at work. Furies spare me! My waistband loosened around my hips. She tried to cup my growing erection with those same talented fingers, but I captured her wrist and lowered her back onto the bed.

Her lips were swollen, gently ravaged. A positively breathtaking sight.

“I’d like to kiss you elsewhere,” she explained, trying again to reach for the opening she’d made in my trousers, but I held her fast.

The mental image of those beautiful, battered lips around my cock made me so hard, my length stretched achingly against the linen of my drawers. I was so sensitive, the pull of the fabric was like sandpaper. I wanted to sink into the silky sweetness of her mouth. It was the only cure for me, but I knew better and wouldn’t dare.

This was a game. A manipulation.

A game I would win.

“Oh dear,” she said, surprised. “You look even angrier now than when we started. How did a kiss cause that?”

I didn’t feel angry anymore. Just overcome. I pushed her legs up until her knees bent and her feet rested flat beneath her. Then I sat just below them.

“Open for me,” I rasped.

She did, slowly parting her thighs, revealing the split in her drawers, intimate dark curls, and a pink pussy begging to be touched. I found the furrow between her thighs with the pad of my fingers, and I pressed and stroked sweetly sensitive flesh until her lungs hitched.

I knew this body. Knew this pussy. Knew how to please and tease and pleasure it. Knew how to make her pant and beg and scream and come.

This nightingale was mine, and I knew how to make her sing for me.

I spread her open for my inspection, then I rubbed her tenderly, until this most delicate part of her swelled and went taut. Her pupils widened, swallowing up the rich hickory color. Now she was the one conquered. Nothing but a desperate hunger remained. Her desire coated my fingers, and I quickened my pace and the pressure.

I slid a finger inside her. Eyes wide, she strangled a whimper.

“None of that now,” I told her. “I want you to moan for me.”

“We aren’t alone in this house, and this isn’t a brothel,” she whispered.

“It would be a travesty if you kept quiet. An absolute and utter tragedy. Be a very good girl now and moan for me. Be wanton for me, Rynn. Let me see you undone.”

Biting that plump lower lip, she gripped her knee with her right arm, holding herself open to me, and her eyes squeezed shut. I sunk two fingers into her soft heat, making it even more difficult for her to hold back the little hum building in her throat.

My speed increased, pressing inside her deep, then retreating slightly to tease her with my thumb, over and over again. Her breath left her in shallow pants. The vixen tried again to touch my hardened cock. I trapped her hand against the mattress near her hip. Her fingers flexed, still reaching despite their cage.

“I want to touch you.” She spoke so earnestly I almost believed her.

The desperation in her expression, the passionate desire, was so profoundly invigorating, my cock wept in my drawers. Her hips rocked, first gently, then frantically.

“Oh,” she groaned. “Yes! Yes, like that. I need more . . . I want more of you . . .” She gulped at the air, chest heaving.

I leaned down and sucked one pert nipple into my mouth, through her chemise. Sucked hard enough to hurt. Sucked until I dampened the linen, turning it sheer, and her body quivered beneath me.

“I need . . .” she cried.

“I know what you need,” I told her, stroking inside her and rubbing deep circles right where she craved me most. She came around my fingers with a low moan, her body squeezing me tight.

Rynn worked her throat as she fell from her peak, her cheeks flushed. Her lashes fluttered, and muscles flexed in her legs. Her toes curled and uncurled into the blankets.

“You’ve entirely missed the point of this transaction,” she told me languidly. “I can’t make sense of you. If you don’t want to play this game correctly, then why the hell are we playing at all?”

I watched her pleasure drip down my palm, entranced. “The game is growing on me,” I said, voice gone to gravel. Then my gaze lifted to hers. “You owe me an answer.”

She scoffed. “That wasn’t the point of the trade.”

“Matters not. Those were the rules.”

She tried to shift onto her side so she could close her legs, but I kept her open to me.

Rynn rolled her eyes. “What’s your question?”

“Have you ever been in love with someone? Truly in love. Not lust. Not a trade or transaction. The real thing that hurts and haunts you. The kind that aches when they’re away and aches again when they’re near but in an entirely different way.”

She swallowed, and her lashes lowered. “I know what you mean. You need not carry on poetically.”

“Then answer the question.” I waited for her words, air trapped in my lungs.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I’ve loved a man like that. We grew up together. I loved him truly. He was my first and only. ”

Her words tore through my shriveled heart like shrapnel.

She reached for me, cupping my face, her doe eyes widening. “God above, you’ve never looked so sad.”

I leaned into the comfort she offered, unable to pull myself away from her. My next breath shuddered out of me.

“Why don’t you let me take some of that sad away for a little while,” she said softly, her fingers tracing the scar that cut through my brow. “I could make you feel better. I want to. I have since the very first time I laid eyes on you. Don’t you remember?”

Her honeyed words were temptation itself, the devil in the desert with the only bread and water around.

“If you loved this man so, then why aren’t you still with him?” I kept my tone light, hoping the shadows hid at least some of the telling agony on my face.

Her chin fell. I wanted to make her look at me. I wanted to shake her and shout at her. Rip my shirt off and make her see all the wounds she’d caused, make her sorry . . . I wanted . . . wanted to hurt just a little bit less.

“I answered your question,” she said somberly. “Let me give you the release you so clearly need. Then I can have the information I want.”

“No.”

“No? You misunderstand the whole purpose of this trade. I meet your needs. Then you—”

I laid my body over hers, pinning her to the bed. “No.” I kissed her lips, quick and brisk. “That’s not what I agreed to.” I pressed my lips to her throat. “I agreed to a release for information. That’s the trade.”

She bucked her body under mine, rubbing her heat against my hard length. “Finley— ”

Kissing her breasts, I pushed up her chemise until they spilled free of the satin. I filled my palms with them. She tried again to rub herself against the part of me that ached for her the most, but I shifted my weight so that her heat ground against my thigh instead.

“There it is,” she said softly, studying my face.

“What’s that?” Watching her unravel herself, I longed to know what she saw in me.

“Lust,” she whispered. “Why not just take what you crave, Finley? Clearly you don’t want to want me, but you do, so here we are. Why fight it? You’ve proven your point now. You didn’t care to be manipulated by the wicked harlot, so you manipulated me back. Well done, you. Come and claim your prize.”

I was too busy with her breasts to respond.

“Take what you want,” she groaned.

“You mean, give you what you want,” I corrected her.

“Yes! Goddamn you, yes! What we both want!” Her hips rocked with even more urgency. “Let me touch you. Bury that poor neglected cock deep inside me. Press it between my lips, I beg you. Let me suck you. I want to be full of you. I want—”

Sinking down between her legs, I buried my tongue inside her instead.

Her grunt of frustration and desire was music to my ears. “This isn’t going to work!” she growled. “I can’t come so easily a second time.”

“I’m in no hurry,” I said. Then I sucked on her skin.

“This isn’t the game!” she whimpered. “You aren’t playing it correctly.”

Rynn pulled my hair and tried to buck me off. I held her legs open, tickling the skin of her thighs with my short beard before returning my full attention to her pussy. She tried again to push me away. I bit her thigh playfully, then gave her sensitive flesh one long appreciative lick.

“Hurts,” she whispered.

I lifted my head, resting my chin on her stomach, holding her down while giving her a short reprieve I wasn’t convinced she deserved. “You’re extra sensitive now after your climax.”

She nodded, eyes heavy. “Hurts so fucking good.”

“Attagirl,” I purred, returning eagerly to her quivering sex.

She pulled my hair, but this time it wasn’t to make me stop. Her fingers raked across my scalp. Her back bowed. She worked herself hard against my mouth until every lovely inch of her body gleamed with perspiration.

Rynn forgot herself and tried to cup her breasts with her injured arm.

She winced. I took her hand by the wrist and placed it back on its pillow where it belonged. I squeezed her breasts for her, thumbing the nipples the way she liked. I rolled them and pinched them. I made her hum and moan and beg.

I hurt her.

When she asked me to, I hurt her a little more, nipping at her pussy, then suckling hard, pushing her breasts together.

Hurting her was new. We’d been tender with each other before, but she begged for my worst now, begged for me to treat her roughly.

My worst turned her feral. She tasted tart and salty sweet on my lips. I fucked her with my fingers and my tongue. Each time she bucked her hips, my cock wept a little more, dampening the front of my drawers.

When she came again, she was not quiet, squeezing her thighs around my head .

She was a vision. Watching her rise then break apart, I felt like I’d touched a bit of heaven with her. Afterward, I laid my cheek against her soft stomach, trapping her legs beneath me, not ready to let her up yet. My cock was so firm I could have punctured the mattress with it.

“Well,” she said mischievously, fingers playing in my hair, “I suppose this place is a brothel now.”

I laughed against her belly.