by Cherry Adair
She did mad like a volcano, a quick blow up, over quickly. Finn’s mad was simmering water. It bubbled under the surface, and she didn’t know him well enough to determine if or when it was in danger of boiling over.
Slanting a glance up at him, the grim set of his jaw and glittering eyes didn’t bode well. She guessed she was about to discover his flashpoint.
“That was pretty abrupt." She tried uncoupling her fingers from his. "I don’t think they finished their coffee.”
Giving her a hard look, he tightened his fingers around hers. "Don't," he warned, urging her forward.
"Don't what? Escape? Make a run for it?"
"Push me."
“What thing?” She repeated the question she'd asked moments ago.
He maneuvered her up curved, beautifully polished stairs, his large hand engulfing hers. “You really need to ask?”
“I don’t want to presume,” she said with false meekness.
His lips twitched. “Jesus, you’re a piece of work.”
“Thank you.”
He shook his head. “Hold your thoughts until we get to my cabin. Can you do that?”
Peri saluted.
The owner’s cabin was one flight up, which took no time at the fast clip they were going. “Do we really need to travel at warp speed?” Her heart pounded as hard as if she’d just run a marathon.
“If I could perfect teleporting, we’d be there already.”
“Perfect? You mean you-”
He used his thumbprint to open the door. “Inside,” he bit off.
She went ahead of him into the sun-flooded cabin. He shut the door behind her with a portentous thud. Peri got a quick impression of blinding white before he swung her around to face him.
With a slitty-eyed look, she shook his hand free from her upper arm. The attitude was all for show. “We really need to have a serious conversation about your grabby han—” Her eyes went wide when she saw his taut expression and the tightness of his jaw.
When he raised his hand, Peri flinched, and shied away. “Hit me, and you’ll have no balls. And just an FYI? I'm not having sex with you if you're angry about something. And especially if, for some reason, you're pissed off at me about something. Because your temper was crawling up to the red zone in there, and I want to know why.”
“What?!” he looked appalled, which saved his future progeny. "I'm not pissed at you. I was digesting what the Italian was trying to sell." Taking a deep controlling breath, he ground out, “But for the moment, forget all that bullshit. I’m about to kiss you until neither of us can think straight, macushla.”
She presumed that meant something like, sweetheart. Or possibly pain in the ass.
With one large hand cupping the back of her head, the other cupping her butt, he pulled her into a tight embrace, lifting her onto her toes. Their hips were in perfect alignment.
He had a hard-on. A hard, hard-on.
How could he be so hard all over and kiss her so softly? The temperature in the room spiked as Peri’s body reacted instantly. Nipples tingling, she was already wet and ready for him. She was in a constant state of semi-arousal when he was near her.
The tension left her body, and she melted into him. Curling her arms around his neck, she was surrounded by his heat and the strength of his arms. Parting her lips, she kissed him with everything she had. Teeth, tongue, heat and heart. She didn’t care about anything but the taste, the feel, the hot smell of his skin.
Hard hands gripped her butt, urging her impossibly closer.
The barest touch, a heated look, and she was turned on. Wet for him. She'd been aroused for hours.
He smelled of ocean breezes and sultry male and her broken heart. Illogically, he also smelled of hope and salvation. Maybe that was because she was desperate for a life-raft at this point.
Torn, she debated telling him everything now. To get it over with and take whatever happened next. But she reminded herself this man could crush her with a few simple words to the right people. Or a few simple words to the wrong people.
She was at the top of the highest diving board, and it was a long way down. Burying her face in his neck, she inhaled the unique scent of his skin. Memorized it.
He'd hear what she had to say when she told the Cutters. By then she'd be ready to leave anyway.
Liar. Angling his head, he took her mouth in another kiss that sucked every thought from Peri’s brain. She was all shimmering sunlight through her lids, Finn’s hot avid mouth, and his marauding tongue. His hands were all over her, stripping her out of her shorts-
“Bloody hell. You sat there that entire time with no goddamn underwear on?” The glitter in his eyes promised delicious retribution.
“I was in a hur-Oh!” She landed on her back, Finn between her legs. Warm sunlight bounced off the white comforter and made his tanned skin look lickable. He still wore his jeans, but his chest was bare. She looked up at him, committing his face to memory—the way his jaw clenched and his eyes turned pure silver when he was turned on. Peri curled her fingers around his biceps, with no idea when he’d stripped off his shirt. She was grateful she didn’t have to rip it off with her teeth, because her mouth was otherwise engaged.
She stuck out her tongue to taste his shoulder. Ocean. Taking a little nip, she ran her hand up his chest, rough hair, smooth skin. Scoring his pecs lightly with her nails, she painted a path across his collarbone with her tongue. Her free hand was busily trying to pull down a zipper impeded by his erection and the fact that said erection was deliciously pressed between them. “A little help here.”
With his hands on her hips, he rolled her over until she lay on top of him. Nothing soft about him. As a bed, he was the equivalent of sleeping on a cement floor. “That doesn’t solve the problem-”
He lifted her over him with both hands, fingers digging into her waist. “Straddle me on your knees. Yeah, like that. Now lift up.”
Bridging his body on her spread knees, Peri was very conscious that she still wore her t-shirt and bra, and that her lower half was bare and open to his gaze.
Sliding his hands up her sides, Finn eased her t-shirt up and over her head. It landed somewhere on the floor.
“Later, I’m going to spend time exploring every freckle,” he murmured, his voice husky as he ran a finger up and over the swells of both breasts.
Reaching behind her with both hands, Peri slowly undid the clasp of her sheer, white El Beso bra. The gleam of appreciation in Finn’s eyes made what she’d paid for the barely there scrap of silk and lace worth every penny.
Tossing the bra aside, Peri arched her back as he cupped both breasts. “Beautiful.” Finn traced his finger-tips down the slope of each breast, then ran his thumbs over her aching nipples. She loved the feel of his big hands on her. Loved that he took his time to learn her.
“I love how your skin looks as if you’ve been dusted with cinnamon. An infinite cinnamon Galaxy worth deep, and lengthy exploration.”
“Poetic.” It was. She smiled. “But I’m naked.”
“Something I’m incredibly grateful for. I'll remedy my being overdressed right now.”
Bracing both hands on his taut abs, she admired the view as he shoved his jeans and underwear down. His penis sprang up.
Reaching between them, she wrapped her fingers around the thick length, using her thumb to spread the silky drop of liquid around the head.
A slow smile lit his features. Damn it, he had the best smile. And the best body. And the best- Everything. “Now who’s being grabby?” he said, voice thick.
“I don’t like leaving a job unfinished,” she told him with gravity. “But I‘ll stop if you insist.”
With a devilish gleam in his eyes, Finn stacked his hands under his head. “Have at it, or—-?”
He moved faster than she could blink twice, and finished shoving his jeans all the way off, shifting in her hand.
Their faces were inches apart. His eyes glittered with lust as he reached up to weave his fingers in
her hair, allowing it to spill over his naked chest.
She asked, “Or?”
“Or now. Either, later.” Sunlight flooding the room through the large windows turned her hair to liquid fire as it pooled across his belly. Wrapping his hand in the long strands, he pulled her down for a kiss that melted her from the inside out. When he lifted his head, Peri’s unfocused eyes couldn’t quite read his expression.
“Now.” Barely able to breathe, she clenched his hair in her fist, pulling his head down so she could kiss him with everything in her. I love you I love you I love you.
“I’ve waited for this for what seems a lifetime. You, a bed, time. Guide me home, darling.” She positioned his penis at her damp entrance and he said, teeth clenched, “I can’t get enough of you, Persephone.”
His abs contracted as he pushed inside her, thick and hard. A moan tore from her throat as the walls of her vagina clenched around him. Their combined heartbeats throbbed deep inside her, as waves of intense pleasure flooded through every cell in her body. Arching, she surged and took him deeper.
Their hips moved in counterpoint. Digging her nails into his shoulders, she luxuriated in the power of every thrust. His arms tightened around her when she curled her legs around his hips and held on for a wild ride.
Tightening and flexing internal muscles she massaged him, pulled him deeper, made him groan against the side of her sweaty neck.
Heat shot through her, as he used his teeth to score the tender skin of her throat. Dear God, he was part of every nerve ending, every beat of her heart, the essential core that gave her life. The thick length of him penetrating to her very heart. Peri felt sharp, sweet pleasure that gripped her, quivering, on the edge. She held momentarily still and was rewarded with his shudders as he strained to hold back before pulling out slightly. Waiting for her?
Peri gave a little arch of her hips, and he resumed pumping into her.
Lifting his head to look down at their joined bodies, he murmured with pleasure. "You fulfil every one of my fantasies, Persephone."
"If. . .you. . . can talk. . .we're not doing this. . .right."
The warmth of his chuckle deep inside her body was pure sunlight.
The sound of their sweaty skin sticking and releasing, as their hips slapped, accompanied their muffled pants and groans in the quiet room.
This was everything.
He was everything.
She loved the feel of him inside her, hard and full, pulsing and alive as they strained together.
She wanted to store away the memory of each stroke, every touch, every look from his silvery eyes. But she was too caught up in the immediacy.
Their climax came in a series of never-ending tsunamis that left her shuddering, limp, and breathing heavily.
It was at least fifteen minutes before she was able to move. Finn’s body wasn’t that uncomfortable, after all. And what she thought had been a climax for him wasn’t necessarily the end of this interlude. Not from the feel of him, deep inside. Hardening. Lengthening.
“I’m glued to you by my hair.” Sweat stuck the strands to their skin, binding them together.
“Don’t move,” he murmured against her temple. “I like us just the way we are.
“So do I,” she whispered.
“Tied together. Me. Inside of you. I could die like this. And die happy.”
She smiled. “My thought. Exactly.”
Hands on her hips, he started moving again, gently sliding in and out. He pushed a damp swath of hair off her face and gently kissed her swollen mouth, then began moving inside of her again. Each stroke heightened the already sensitive tissue. Peri tightened her crossed ankles in the small of his back. The slow, measured strokes were deceptive—their shared climax unraveled with the intensity of a tightly wound clock.
Gasping, shaking, sweaty and exhausted they lay together in the bright sunlight on his big white bed in a tangle of arms and legs. Finn was still semi-aroused inside her. He was a big man, and she should feel uncomfortable, but she liked the feel of him filling her.
He stroked her hip, a long, slow glide with his palm. “That should last us half an hour or so.”
Peri smiled. “That long? Didn’t take your vitamins this morning?”
“I just did, darling.” He pulled her tighter against him. “You’re all the vitamins I need.” He sucked on her bottom lip and hummed his satisfaction, closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the side of her cheek.
For several minutes, they lay there, not moving in the dreamy world of contentment. Not talking. Their breath syncopated as precisely as their heartbeats and, their thoughts. He was right- they could die like this... happy. She sighed, feeling sappy and perfectly content. She was not going to ruin this moment by spilling her guts.
“Now, tell me if you have anything to do with the tavoletta d'oro Merrezo, Signore Vadini and the Cutters and the bullshit story they're spinning?”
“Fuck you.” Weren’t the words she'd thought she'd say after making love.
THIRTEEN
Peri sat up, curling her legs beneath her butt, her hair covering her nakedness. “I have zero to do with either, and I freaking resent you making yet another unsubstantiated accusation." It hurt that he didn't know her by now. Then she realized how ridiculous that assumption was. He knew her body. Why couldn't that be enough?
"Why do you think the Cutters and Vadini are in cahoots and doing something nefarious? Is suspicion your default? It must be exhausting."
Finn reached over to arrange her hair to his liking. His liking had her nipples poking through the tangled strands. “You have no idea why Vadini is claiming that this seer had the same name as my business?”
He wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable sitting there stark naked with the streaming sun burnishing his body. There was not a single damned freckle on all that toned, tanned, lickable skin. There was absolutely no point angsting over things she couldn't change, and she refused to spoil this time together by being hurt that he didn't trust her. He had every right to feel the way he felt. She was the freaking last person to try to convince him that not everyone had an ulterior motive.
“No. But it was weird and off the wall.”
“More than.” He played with her hair, running it over and around his hand, as if the strands were a string of worry beads.
Peri was fine with his seeming obsession with her hair. Any way he touched her was perfect. She'd happily have his hands on her 24/7.
“Can you look me in the eye and swear you’re not in collusion with Vadini and the Cutters?” He gave her a piercing look, clearly gauging her sincerity.
"Geez, give it up already, Finn! I have nothing to hide." In that regard. But, her heart did a little flippy thing that reminded her there were other things she was hiding from the others, and by necessity, Finn too. She recognized her physical response was because she was growing more and more uncomfortable with keeping secrets from him – not so much the Cutters-although that was changing.
Damn it. She respected Finn. She trusted him. A lot. She liked him. A lot. Self-preservation had her falling back on what she’d always done – kept her own counsel. “I told you no, don't ask me again. Do you think that sweet little man and the Cutters are trying to con you?”
“Not sure.” He’d find out, Peri knew, unnerved now that the time of reckoning had reached defcon two and a half for her situation. Finn suspecting the Cutters were also up to something nefarious was almost a relief. She felt crappy liking them. Now she could go back to hating them, because as sure as God made little fishes they were going to hate her.
And sue her ass, and probably make her walk the metaphorical freaking plank.
She shivered.
"Cold?"
She slid her palm up his thigh. "Hot."
"Are you now?" Finn’s tone reflected the confidence that came with being a male who was dominant in all he surveyed and confident in his place in the world. He shoved her pillow under his back, then pulled her down, and a
gainst his side. His skin was warm. The strength of his arms alone was seductive. Peri buried her nose against his chest, inhaling the scent she was becoming addicted to. Storing it up for later.
"I'll get to the bottom of it." He picked up her hand and moved it to his chest. "Talk to me," he murmured against the top of her head. "Tell me what thirteen-year-old Ariel was like."
Thirteen-year-old Ariel had never existed. "Angry," she admitted, combing her fingers through the damp, wiry hair on his chest. "Lonely. But mostly angry."
"At your father?" Finn brushed his lips over her temple.
"Most definitely him. My mother. My middle brother for being sick, and for sucking up all the attention, which in turn made me feel like shit for being that selfish. My oldest brother because he was always preoccupied with money, and he travelled a lot. My friend from next door because she was sweet and even-tempered, and everyone loved her. I was angry at everyone around me. I had a hell of a temper, and unleashed it at the drop of a hat."
"What a surprise," he said dryly.
She pulled his hair. "I eventually learned to control it- somewhat. After my middle brother died, I really lost it. My oldest brother forced me into counseling for a while. It helped. Staying away from people who annoy me helps, too.
Finn laughed. "I'll take that under advisement."
"Salvaging turned out to be my salvation. I love it, and I was good at it, and I made a lot of money doing it. I was independent and self-sufficient."
"And no one can bug you underwater."
She smiled. "That too. Did working on computers have something to do with all the things you've invested in over the years?"
"Probably. But I always wanted to know how things worked, so I was forever taking something apart. Strangely enough," his lips tilted, “people didn't particularly like their televisions dismantled, or their refrigerator in pieces because I needed the cooling element for some invention I was working on. At least fixing computers kept me focused and productive. I was much of a handful. To say that I was hyperactive was an understatement. And I was a bit of a smartass. Couldn’t comprehend why people didn't understand me.” He paused, then said quietly, "And it was because I knew people didn't give a damn to look, other than surface deep, I learned to control how my emotions appeared to other people."
