‘Who cares about etiquette?’ he challenged, sizzling her with a provocative blue stare.
At which point she felt consumed by a feeling of desire so strong that it made her throat constrict with fear and guilt.
Surely it must be more than Finn himself that was having this effect on her? She’d met handsome, charming and successful men before—lots of them—but she couldn’t remember ever being enticed quite so effectively.
And what about Peter? taunted the suddenly confused voice in her head. Peter. The man you expected to spend the rest of your life with.
Was the vulnerability which followed a break-up making her more susceptible than usual? Catherine squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, but Finn didn’t appear to have noticed her self-consciousness.
Thank God.
Because he was looking at some squashy chocolate cake with a gleam of unfettered delight in the blue eyes.
‘Wouldn’t you just think that chocolate should carry a health warning?’ he sighed.
‘I thought it did—certainly if you eat too much of it!’ She averted her eyes from the washboard-flat stomach.
He licked a melting spoonful with an instinctive sensuality which was making Catherine’s stomach turn to mush.
‘So everything in moderation, then? Is that right?’ he observed softly, but the blue eyes were sparking with what looked like simple mischief.
‘That wasn’t what I said at all,’ remarked Catherine tartly—but even so she could barely get her fork through her summer pudding.
Some men made deliberate remarks which were overtly sexual and which somehow made you end up being completely turned off by them. Whereas Finn made remarks which seemed to all intents and pur poses completely innocent. So how come she didn’t believe a word of the moderation bit? She’d bet that in the bedroom he was the least moderate person on the planet.
And Peter seemed a very long way away. In fact, the world seemed to have telescoped down into one place—and that was this place, with this man, eating a delicious dinner which was completely wasted on her…
The road to Glendalough passed through some of the most spectacular countryside that Catherine had ever seen.
‘Oh, but this is glorious,’ she sighed.
He shot her a faintly reproving glance. ‘You sound surprised, but you shouldn’t be. The beauty of Ireland is one of the best-kept secrets in the world. Didn’t you know that, Catherine?’
And so were Ireland’s men, if this one was anything to go by. ‘I live to learn,’ she said lightly.
And how he enjoyed teaching her, he thought, desire knifing through him in a way which made him put his foot down very hard on the accelerator.
She intrigued him, and he couldn’t for the life of him work out why. Surely it couldn’t just be a passing resemblance to a woman he had known so long ago that it now seemed like another lifetime. Or her cool, unflappable manner, or the way she parried his remarks with witty little retorts of her own, the way women so rarely did. But then, she did not know him, did she? Finn’s reputation went before him in the land of his birth, and he was used to women—even intelligent ones—being slightly intimidated by that.
‘Are you English?’ he asked suddenly, as he slowed the car to a halt in Glendalough.
She turned to look at him. ‘What an extraordinary question! You know I am!’
‘It’s that combination of jet hair and green eyes and pale skin,’ he observed slowly. ‘It isn’t a typically English combination, is it?’
Catherine reached for her handbag, the movement hiding her face. Any minute and he would start asking her about her parentage, and she couldn’t bear that. Not that she was ashamed—she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. But the moment you told someone that you might be descended from almost anyone but that you would never know—well, their attitude towards you changed. Inevitably. They pitied you, or looked at you with some kind of amazed horror, as if you were invariably going to be damaged by the circumstances of your upbringing.
‘Oh, I’m a hybrid,’ she said lightly. ‘They always make for the most interesting specimens.’ Her eyes met his in question. ‘What about you, Finn?’
‘Irish, true and true,’ he murmured.
The expression in his eyes was making her feel rather dizzy, and her throat felt so dry that she had to force her words out. ‘So when is my guided tour going to begin?’
‘Right now.’ He held the door of the car open, his hand briefly brushing against her bare forearm as he helped her out, feeling the shivering tension in response to the brief contact. Instinctive, he thought, and found his mind playing out wicked and tantalising scenes, wondering if she was an instinctive lover, if she gave and received pleasure in equal measure.
Through the backdrop of mountains she saw low streams with stepping-stone rocks, and Celtic crosses which were really burial stones. She stared hard at the primitive carvings.
‘You don’t like graves?’ he quizzed, watching her reaction.
‘Who does?’ But the question still lay glinting in the depths of his blue eyes and she answered truthfully, even though it sounded a little fanciful. ‘I guess that looking at them makes you realise just how short life is.’
‘Yes. Very short.’ And if his life were to end in the next ten minutes, how would he like to spend it? He stared at the lush folds of her lips and longed to feel them tremble beneath the hard, seeking outline of his. ‘Let’s walk for a while,’ he said abruptly.
They walked until Catherine’s legs ached, and she thought what a wimp living in a city had made her. Which just went to show that the machines at the gym were no substitute for honest-to-goodness exercise! ‘Can we stop for a moment?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Sure.’
They sat side by side on a large black rock in companionable silence and then he took her to a simple greystone building where refectory tables were laid out and lots of students sat drinking tea and eating big, buttered slices of what looked like fruitcake. It wasn’t what she had been expecting.
‘Ever eaten Champ?’ he enquired, as they sat down.
She shook her head. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Potato.’
‘Just potato?’ She threw her head back and laughed. So much for eating out with a millionaire! ‘You’re giving me potato?’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Well, no—there’s chopped shallots added, and it’s served in a mound, and you melt a great big lump of butter in the centre. Try some.’
It was pure nursery food—warm and comforting, with a golden puddle of butter seeping into the creamy mashed potato.
‘It’s good,’ said Catherine, as she dipped her fork into it.
‘Isn’t it?’ Their eyes met in a long, unspoken moment. ‘Where would the Irish be without the humble potato?’
‘Where indeed?’ she echoed, thinking how uncomplicated life felt, sitting here with him. For a moment all the stresses of Catherine’s London life seemed like a half-remembered dream. There was a sense of timelessness in this place which seemed to give her a sense of being of this world and yet not of it.
And Finn seemed timeless, too—his clever eyes watching her, the tension in his body hinting at things she would prefer not to think about. Their mouths were making words which passed for conversation, but seemed so at odds with the unspoken interaction which was taking place between them.
After she had drunk a cup of tea as black as tar itself he leaned across the table towards her, smelling not of fancy aftershave but of soap and the undeniable scent of virile male.
‘Would you like to see the Wicklow Bay?’ he asked softly.
If he’d promised to show her the end of the rainbow she would have agreed to it at that precise moment. ‘Yes, please.’
They drove through countryside as green as all the songs said it was, until Finn drew to a halt next to a spectacular seascape and switched the engine off. ‘Let’s get out. You can’t appreciate it properly from here.’
They stood in silence
for a moment, watching and listening as the waves crashed down onto the beach.
‘There,’ he murmured. ‘What do you think to that?’
She thought of the view from her bedroom window back in Clerkenwell and how this paled in comparison. ‘Oh, it’s stunning!’
‘But not a patch on Greece?’
She shook her head. ‘On the contrary—it’s just as beautiful. But wilder. More elemental.’ Just like him, she thought, stealing a glance at him.
He stood like an immovable figurehead as he gazed out to sea, the wind whipping his black hair into dark little tendrils. He turned to look at her and something in the uninhibited pleasure in her eyes quite took his breath away.
‘So, do you have a sense of adventure, Catherine?’ he murmured.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’ll guess you haven’t been in the sea since your holiday?’
‘Well, no. There isn’t a lot of it in London!’
‘And you know what they say about getting straight back on a horse after it’s thrown you?’
‘Just what are you suggesting, Finn?’
His eyes burned into her.
‘Shall we let the waves catch us between the toes as we sink into the sand?’ he asked, in a lilting voice. ‘Take our shoes off and walk on the edge?’
It sounded unspeakably sensual, and unbelievably echoed the way she was feeling right then. On the edge. Yes. But the edge of what she didn’t know.
‘And you call that being adventurous?’ she teased, because at least that way she could disguise the sudden helplessness she was experiencing. ‘What a boring life you must have led!’
And she kicked off her sandals and took them in her hand, leaving her legs bare and brown as she looked at him with a touch of defiance. ‘Come on, then! What are you waiting for?’
He was waiting for the ache in his groin to subside, but he gave a wry smile as he bent to roll his jeans up, wondering how she would react if he said what was really on his mind. That she might like to slip that dress right off, and her bra and panties, too, and go skinny-dipping with him and let him make love to her in the icy water? God, yes! Now that really would be adventurous!
Then he drew himself up, appalled. He didn’t have sex in public with women he barely knew!
She ran ahead of him, wanting to break the sudden tight tension, and the sea was icy enough to achieve that. ‘Yeow!’ she squealed, as frothy white waves sucked up between her toes and rocked her. ‘I’m going back!’
‘Now who’s the unadventurous one?’ He held out his hand to her. ‘Here.’
Feeling suddenly shy, she took it as trustingly as a child would, safe and secure in that strong, warm grasp. But a child would not have had a skittering heart and a dry mouth and a fizzing, almost unbearable excitement churning away inside her, surely?
‘Blowing the cobwebs away?’ he asked, as they retraced their steps.
‘Blown away,’ she answered. And so was she. Completely.
Her hand was still in his, and he guessed that to the eyes of an outsider they would look like a pair of lovers, killing time beautifully before bed.
He moved fractionally closer and whispered into her ear, as if afraid that the words might be lost on the wind. His whole world seemed to hinge on his next question and what her response to it would be. ‘Would you like to see where I live, Catherine?’
She jerked her head back, startled. ‘What. Now?’
He had not planned to say it. He kept his home territory notoriously private, like a jungle cat protecting its lair. In fact, he had thought no further than a scenic trip to Glendalough. But something about her had got beneath his skin.
He raised his eyebrows at her questioningly. ‘Why not?’ He looked at the goosebumps on her bare legs and arms and suppressed a small shiver as the tension began to build and mount in his body. ‘You’re cold. You look like you could do with some warming up.’
Catherine supposed that the drawled suggestion could have sounded like a variation on Come up and see my etchings, but somehow the rich, Irish brogue made it sound like the most wonderful invitation she’d ever heard.
He was right—she was cold. And something else, too. She was slowly fizzing with a sense of expectation and excitement—her nerve-endings raw and on fire with it.
Not the way that Catherine Walker normally behaved, but—so what? Surely it was just natural and acceptable curiosity to want to see his home? At least, that was what she told herself as she heard herself replying, ‘Yes, I’d like that, Finn. I’d like that very much.’
Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
‘SO THIS is where you live, is it?’ asked Catherine, rather stupidly stating the obvious and wondering if she sounded as nervous as she suddenly felt.
What was she doing here, alone in a strange flat with this gorgeous black-haired and blue-eyed Irishman? Setting herself up for some kind of seduction scene? Waiting for Finn to put his arms around her and kiss her? To discover whether that kiss would really be as wonderful as she’d spent far too much time imagining?
And isn’t that what you really want? questioned a rogue voice inside her head. Isn’t that why your heart is pumping in your chest and your cheeks are on fire, even though you’re supposedly cold?
Finn smiled. ‘I bought it for the view.’ But he wasn’t looking out of the window.
‘I can see why.’ She swallowed, tearing her eyes away from that piercing sapphire gaze with difficulty.
The lit-up Georgian buildings in the square outside predominated, but she could see the sparkle of the Liffey, too, reflecting the darkening sky and the first faint gleam of the moon.
‘Shall I make you something warm to drink?’ he questioned softly.
She smiled. ‘The cold’s all gone.’
The walls of his huge flat seemed to be closing in on him, and he knew that if he didn’t move he might do something both of them would regret. ‘Then come outside, onto the terrace—you can see for miles.’ He unlocked a door which led out onto a plant-filled balcony. ‘The moon is huge tonight. Big as a golden dinner-plate and fit for a king.’
She thought how Irishmen had the ability to speak romantically without it detracting one iota from their masculinity. And he hadn’t lied about the moon. It dazzled down on them. ‘It looks close enough to touch,’ whispered Catherine.
‘Yes.’ And so did she.
She forced herself to look at the pinpricks of silver stars, to listen to the muted sound of the city, knowing all the while that his eyes were on her, and eventually she turned to face the silent, brooding figure.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said lamely.
‘Yes.’ He narrowed his eyes as he saw her shiver. ‘You’re cold again?’
‘Yes. No. Not really.’
‘Coffee,’ he said emphatically. But he could see the tremble of her lips, and the tension which had slowly been building up inside him suddenly spilt over into the realisation that he could no more walk out into his kitchen and make her some coffee than he could resist what he was about to do next. ‘But it’s not coffee you want, is it, Catherine?’ he questioned, and pulled her gently into his arms. ‘Is it?’
Her world spun out of focus and then clicked back into perfection. ‘Finn!’ she said breathlessly. ‘Wh-what do you think you’re doing?’
He laughed softly at the predictable question, noting in a last moment of sanity that there was no reproach in it. ‘Just this. What you want me to do. What those big green eyes of yours have been asking me to do from the moment I met you.’ And he lowered his mouth, brushing his lips against the sudden wild tremble of hers.
She swayed against him, opening her mouth to his and feeling as though she had been born for this kiss, thinking that nothing had ever felt quite like this—not even with Peter.
Is this what all the books and magazines write about? she wondered dazedly. Is this why Pizazz! has such a massive and growing readership?
‘Oh, Finn. Finn Delaney,’ she breathed aga
inst the warmth of his breath, and the kiss went on and on and on.
He lifted his mouth away by a fraction, seeing the look on her face and feeling pretty dazed himself. As though he had drunk a glass of champagne very quickly, and yet he had drunk nothing stronger than tea. ‘You were born to be kissed, Catherine,’ he observed unsteadily.
‘Was I?’ she questioned, with equally unsteady delight.
‘Mmm.’ He pulled a pin from her hair so that it tumbled free, black as the sky above them. ‘To be made love to beneath the stars, with the light of the moon gilding your skin to pure gold.’
‘I’ve never been made love to beneath the stars,’ she admitted, without shyness.
He smiled as he took her hand, raised it to his lips, his eyes unreadable. ‘It’s too cold out here, but you can see them from my bedroom.’
She didn’t remember making any assent, only that her hand was moved from his mouth to his hand and that he was leading her through the splendour of his Georgian flat into his bedroom.
‘See,’ he said softly, and pointed to the huge windows where outside the night sky dazzled.
‘It’s like the London Planetarium!’ she said. ‘You’re very lucky.’
‘Very,’ he agreed, but both of them knew he wasn’t talking about the stars. ‘You’re a long way away, Catherine.’
‘A-am I?’
‘Yes, indeed. Come here.’
She knew a moment’s apprehension as she walked straight into his arms. And now she could see his eyes, and read the hectic glitter in their velvet blue. What in the world was she doing?
But by then he was sliding the zip of her dress down in one fluid movement, as if he had done such a thing many, many times before. And Catherine supposed that he had.
‘I should feel shy,’ she murmured.
‘But you don’t?’
‘You’ve seen me with less on than this.’
But underwear was always a million times more decadent than a bikini, however brief. ‘So I have,’ he agreed thickly, as he surveyed her lace-clad body. ‘Only this looks a whole lot better.’
He bent his head to touch his lips against the tip of one breast which strained impatiently against the flimsy lace of her brassière.
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