The room was chilled, murky, no fire in the hearth, no glow from the gas sconces. The ideal setting for a brooding bastard who was not a bastard after all. Her gaze fixed on the door to his bedchamber as a sizzling spiral lit her up from the inside out. Jealousy and longing claimed her, and that kiss behind the fountain, oh, she could almost feel Finn’s teeth nipping her skin. If he somehow guessed the strength of her attraction, she would leap from the window to the bustling street below without a care.
She nodded to the bedchamber. “Any scantily clothed friend in there this time?”
“You’re my only friend,” he whispered from his vigil by the window, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched as if he stood in a raging storm. His coat and waistcoat were tossed over his desk, his pale shirtsleeves glowing in the slice of light oozing through the grimy panes. His quietness frightened her, his calm before an emotional storm.
“Then talk to me,” she said, knowing she’d come for his body. But she’d also come for his mind. Better to admit, if only to herself, that she’d come for everything. “Unless you want me to leave.” Added because his exacting stillness was sending her courage in the wrong direction.
“That’s the problem.” Ripping his neckpiece off, he let it flutter to the carpet. “I don’t want you to leave, but I can’t talk. Not yet. Not when my heart is this bruised. I’m sorry to say, I need a moment. I need you, but maybe not in the way you’re offering.”
She propped her elbows on the back of the sofa and leaned out enough to catch the scent of his him, brandy, smoke, and bergamot. Close enough to see the stubble shadowing his chiseled jaw. Her breasts pressed into the tufted leather, nipples pebbling, more sensitive than they had any right to be. “Careless liaisons are your preference. Mine, too. I can see why. Talking is a tricky business.”
He turned, wedging his shoulder against the window ledge, letting her see his bleak, hunted expression. Letting her know more about him. His collar was open, exposing golden skin and a dusting of hair and the angry scar she wanted to press her lips against. She took him in, a gradual perusal from his bare feet to the disheveled strands sweeping his brow. Helplessly, she paused mid-review. His form-fitting trousers did little to hide his reaction to her invading his space. “If you want to arrive at your marital bed untouched, you’d better leave now,” he said roughly, and she realized he was as provoked as she was. “It’s your choice, it always has been, but friend or foe, if you stay, I mean to have you. I’m being as honest as I’ve ever been with anyone. I’m tangled up inside, Tori, more than you likely want to witness. I’m not going to make a judicious decision right now. I’m just going to take what I want. What I think might ease my heartache. Or, hell, perhaps it will only make it worse.”
She felt an easy smile tilt her lips. Want. Yes, that about covered it.
He took a fast step forward, jerking his hands from his pockets. “Don’t you dare smile. This, everything between us, is an utter disaster. It’s going to destroy us.”
She started unlacing her bodice, one eyelet, two, three before she looked back at him. He hadn’t moved, not one inch, but his gaze was riveted, air shooting from his lips, the hands at his side closing into trembling fists.
She crooked a finger, her smile growing. “Come ruin me, Blue.”
Shoving off the ledge, he crossed the short distance, grabbed her hand, and drew her from the sofa. Wordlessly out of the room and down the hallway, his stride urgent, his grasp firm. Faintly, she could hear the clamor from the gaming hell, a muffled shout, the clack of dice, loud laughter. Up another flight of stairs until the sounds trickled away. Everything trickled away but the muted rasp of their breaths and their soft footfalls. Halting before a paneled walnut door, Finn tugged a key from his trouser pocket.
“This,” she breathed—a space she recognized as his upon entry. Stacks of books, modest furnishings, subdued colors. An unassuming iron bedstead covered in twisted sheets, battered chest of drawers, escritoire desk. Simple, well-ordered, unadorned.
The room below was where he pretended.
This was where he was.
She opened her mouth to ask him why he was showing her this when he cradled her jaw with his long fingers and captured her lips with his.
And her world compressed to nothing but their kiss.
Chapter 14
Finn kissed her to shut her up.
To keep her from probing him like a fresh wound, making him bleed more of his life out for her. He’d never brought anyone to this chamber, never even considered it. This space was personal, dreary, but snug, precisely what he needed when other’s thoughts were creating a painful drumbeat in his head and behind his eyes. He was often dreary; only no one knew it. Except, maybe she did.
Victoria was already so firmly embedded he didn’t know how to get her out. Or even what parts of him she hadn’t seen yet.
Extreme confusion on top of raging lust made for an inelegant partnership, he decided.
He also kissed her to assuage his feral compulsion. To touch, to savor, to possess. His longing had teeth when it usually contained as many sharp edges as a cake of soap.
Victoria bounced up on her toes to deepen the kiss when he set her back. Her eyes met his, dazed amber in the silvery light reaching them from the lone window. Her lips were moist, plump, inviting. Before she could argue, which she looked set to, he brushed his thumb across the bottom one and let his hand fall to the eyelets of her bodice. “Easy,” he murmured, “I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you.”
He’d once been very good with his hands, nothing like Simon, but a rather proficient cutpurse, and he made quick work of her clothing, trying to ignore the enthusiastic effect exposing her body to his hungry gaze was having on him. Laces, ties, hooks. Fewer layers than he’d expected, and he raised a brow when, except for her chemise and gloves, her clothing lay in a neat puddle of silk, linen, and lawn at their feet. A smaller puddle than it should have been. Not a silk stocking to be had.
Her cheeks tinted, the first blush he’d ever seen on her. “I took the liberty of leaving some pieces behind.”
Of course.
So, she wanted to seduce him.
He was charmed, troubled, reluctantly agreeable. He lowered his lips to her shoulder, creating a decadently moist abrasion through the thin cotton. Her breasts were straining against the material of her chemise, and he brushed the back on his knuckles across them. She smelled of hyacinth and nutmeg this time, sweet and spicy. His cock was hard, his body hot, his intellect aroused, his resolve weak. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen standing there in light that lit her up and hid her all at once. And he couldn’t read her mind, not one thought, not even a glimmer. This level of intimacy was unfamiliar, completely foreign. Joyful and erotic.
He’d never touched a woman without thoughts tainting the experience.
My God, he marveled and skimmed his mouth along the nape of her neck to her jaw, this is how it feels to truly love someone.
He made to remove her chemise, but she halted him with a low hum, knocking his hand aside and beginning work on the buttons of his shirt. When she fully exposed his scar, she pressed her lips to the mottled ridge, bottoming his heart out where he stood. “I’m going to ask about this,” she whispered, watching his shirt flutter to the floor, “but not now.”