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A breathy little sigh was all she could utter.
“Come for me, Claire. Come for me. You want to come. I know you do. Can you? Will you? Trust me, Claire. Let me pleasure you.”
She pushed toward that impossible cliff but couldn’t fall over.
“Claire, stop fighting it. It’s just me and you. We’re alone. Your breast in my hand. My fingers are sinking inside you. And you are going to find that sweet release.”
“Finn,” she whimpered.
“Now, Claire,” he grunted in her ear. And then she did more than topple. She was flung body and soul over the cliff of pleasure. And couldn’t keep from crying out her release. “Shhh…” he crooned in her ear. But he didn’t stop rubbing that spot that was full of concentrated longing. He replaced his finger with his thumb and slid one digit inside her.
She came. And came. And came. And he milked every last drop from her as she settled back to earth. Her body stilled, supple and pliant as he pulled his hand from beneath her skirt, covered her legs completely, and turned her so that she lay cuddled in his arms, her head on his shoulder.
He brushed a kiss across her forehead.
“Don’t worry. I still don’t love you,” she whispered.
“I don’t love you either,” he whispered back. Then he kissed her forehead again and let her go limp in his arms. She’d try to remember in a moment why this was a bad thing. But, in that moment, she didn’t care at all.
Fourteen
What rotten, dreadful, dog-tired luck he had. Finn was sitting with Claire tucked into his side in the carriage. She smelled good enough to eat, and after what they’d just done on the balcony, he wanted to nibble on her all over. His hands still smelled like her, for God’s sake. Just the thought of how responsive she was made him hard as stone.
But then he looked across the carriage and saw Katherine. His former mistress looked out the coach window, worrying her fingernails as her foot tapped against the floor. The situation was enough to drive a sane man mad.
“When did this start, Katherine?” Finn asked.
She startled. “Beg your pardon?”
He touched his fingertips to the space over his own eye, indicating her bruise. “When did he start hitting you?”
“Does it matter?” She glared at him from across the coach.
“It would help to know what kind of man I’m destined to deal with.”
“He won’t bother you,” she said. Then she went back to nibbling her fingernails.
Finn highly doubted that Mayden would not come for her. Finn would have to hide Katherine, and hide her well,
before the man came to call. “He’ll bother me like a fly bothers a horse.”
That wasn’t exactly true. Mayden was not the smartest man alive. And he was desperate. What he wanted more than anything was to own everything the Duke of Robinsworth had ever had his hands on, and that included Finn’s property.
It was rumored that Mayden had a hand in the Duke of Robinsworth’s wife’s murder, but no one had ever been able to prove it. She’d been tossed from the turrets of Robin’s own ancestral home, Finn’s current domicile, years ago, and the duke had been vilified for it. He had become a recluse because of all the talk.
That was, until he met Sophia Thorne, of course. Robin had followed her back to her homeland, which just happened to be a magical land. The same land from which the lady beside him hailed.
Mayden had a score to settle with Robinsworth, and therefore with every friend, family member, and acquaintance of his. And it was no wonder he’d chosen Katherine to twist the knife. If Katherine thought Mayden wouldn’t come for her, she was dead wrong.
Finn would have to find a safe place for her to stay until after the baby was born. God, what a muddle.
He spoke, more to himself than to the other occupants of the coach. “We need to get you up the stairs and to a bedchamber with no one noticing you.”
Claire opened her mouth to speak, but Katherine said, “Of course,” with an almost imperceptible nod.
“You think you’re going to bring her into the Hall like she’s a servant.”
Finn arched a brow at Claire. Katherine was a hired woman. Just not the kind that Claire was referring to.
