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Claire swallowed and tried to breathe through the feeling that she needed to cast up her accounts. She might not be used to scenes like this, but she could tolerate it for a moment. Claire stepped around the puddle and sank down on her haunches. She looked over the body, which seemed vaguely familiar. She tugged the mask from her face, and her heart jumped into her throat when she saw who it was. Colette lay there, her mouth slack and open, her skin pasty white. Her brown eyes were wide open, and she was, above all else, dead.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Claire jumped to her feet. She rushed across the room, slid behind the heavy curtains at the window, and stood completely still.
“Claire,” a voice hissed. The door cli
cked open and then closed. “Claire,” the voice whispered heavily.
Claire peeped out from behind the curtain. “Finn?”
“What am I going to do with you?” he ground out. He waved at her there in the dark. “Come on. Let’s go before you get caught.”
“The body. It’s Colette.”
Finn froze. “Colette,” he repeated. He didn’t look terribly surprised.
“Colette. She’s dead.”
***
Colette might have been dead, but Mrs. Abercrombie was the one who’d attended the party, and she was the one who lay in a puddle of blood on the floor. “Let’s discuss this in the coach,” Finn said. His voice was quick and brusque, and he didn’t sound nearly as charming as he normally was. He pulled her out into the corridor and began to rush her down the hall. But voices reached their ears. Two men, if he heard the voices correctly. Finn opened a random door in the corridor and dragged Claire into it.
But he didn’t stop there. He pushed her farther into the room and lifted her to perch on top of the desk in the corner. Then he pulled her skirts up, parted her thighs, stepped between them, and looked into her eyes. “Trust me,” he said.
She nodded as he quickly tousled her hair and pulled her bodice lower, until a pretty pink nipple popped free.
Claire reached to pull it back up, but he cupped her breast with his hand and she froze. He looked down at her, almost forgetting his purpose as he took her nipple into his mouth. He slid her bottom closer to the edge of the desk. The footsteps in the corridor were getting closer. Finn sucked on the nipple and she cried out. “Perfect, Claire. Do that again when the door opens.”
“I don’t understand,” she murmured, leaning back on her hands at his insistence. It raised her breast higher in the air, and he wanted to lavish it with all the attention it deserved. But there wasn’t time. He had to make whomever was about to walk in the room believe there was sexual congress going on.
As the door opened, Finn began to grunt loudly and thrust between her legs. He kept himself between her and whoever was coming in the room, yet he still didn’t want them to see any part of Claire’s body. So, he tugged her bodice up a little.
A pleasurable noise left Claire’s lips as she wrapped her legs around his waist and held him tightly. He continued to thrust between her legs. He was still firmly inside his trousers, though he wanted badly to be out of them. “Close the bloody door,” he grunted, just as Claire started to make little whimpery noises in her throat. God, she was good.
“You can’t be in here,” a voice called.
“Just a minute,” he grunted out. Damn but it was hard to feign the motions of sex with Claire wrapped around him, making those noises beneath him.
“Out!” the man bellowed.
Finn made a great show of pulling back from Claire, pulling her legs from about his waist, and righting her clothing. “Let’s go finish this elsewhere, love,” he said, his voice slow like that of a drunkard.
Claire made a twittering little laugh. “Yes, my lord,” she said.
Finn slid her bottom off the desk and helped her to stand. “Good job,” he whispered in her ear.
He could almost see her smile in the dark room.
“Out that way,” the man directed, and Finn stumbled trying to get out of the room.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Finn said, slurring his words on purpose.
Claire propped him on her shoulder, pretending to hold him up.
“Don’t leave the premises,” the man warned to their backs as they walked toward the front door.
“Yes, sir,” Claire called back, all sweetness and light. “We’ll be waiting outside.”
But as soon as they were out of eyesight, Finn led her out one of the back corridors and into the dark night.
