Shivering? She felt in a fever of need, was glad to slip beneath the duvet—glad for its protection and for the opportunity to watch him throw his clothes carelessly to the floor, until he was completely and powerfully naked. All golden skin and dark shadows and hewn, strong limbs.
‘Move over,’ he whispered as he climbed in beside her, encountering the soft folds of her flesh, and he moved to lie over her. ‘No, on second thoughts,’ he drawled as the warmth of her body met his, ‘stay exactly where you are.’
‘Are you asleep?’
Finn opened his eyes. No, he hadn’t been asleep. He had been lying there, alternating between revelling in the sated exhaustion of his flesh and wondering what the hell he had done. ‘Not any more.’ He yawned.
‘Did I wake you?’ She wondered if that sounded defensive, and then swiftly made up her mind that she was not going to lie around analysing what had happened. He had made love to her and she had enjoyed it. More than enjoyed it. End of story in this modern age. Not well-thought-out, not necessarily wise, but it had happened, and there was no point in trying to turn the clock back and regret it.
Finn smiled, his reservations banished by the sight of her wide green eyes and the dark, dark hair which tumbled down in disarray over her lush, rose-tipped breasts. He gave a rueful glance down at his already stirring body. ‘Kind of.’
Catherine swallowed as she saw the involuntary movement beneath the thin sheet and felt an answering rush of a warmth. Oh, God! How did he make her feel the way he did? And then she looked at him, every glorious pore of him, and the answer was there, before her eyes.
To her horror she found herself asking the worst question since the beginning of time. ‘So how come you’ve never married, Finn?’
He repressed a sigh. Silent acquiescence was what his chauvinistic heart most longed for. He reached and pulled her down against his bare chest. ‘Is that a proposal?’ he teased. ‘Because surely it’s a little early for that kind of thing?’
She felt her breasts pressing against him, but suddenly she wanted more than this. She had spent the night making love to him. She knew his body. But what did she know of the man himself? He might have made her cry out his name time and time again, but a girl had her pride.
‘Are you always so evasive?’ she teased.
‘I am when my mind is on other things. Like now.’
‘Finn!’
‘Mmm?’
He was stroking her bottom now, running the flat of his hand over it with the appreciation that a horse-lover might give to a particularly prize filly. And though her mind began to form a protest it was too late, because he had slid his fingers right inside her still-sticky warmth.
Her eyes opened very wide. ‘Finn!’ she said again, only she could hear the helpless pleasure in her own voice.
‘What?’
‘Stop it.’
‘You don’t want me to stop it.’
‘Yes, I do!’
‘Then why are you moving your hips like that?’ he purred suggestively as his fingers continued to stroke and play with her.
‘You know damned well why!’ she moaned, feeling the sweet tension building, building.
‘Still want me to stop?’ He stilled his hand and looked at her half-closed eyes and parted lips.
She shook her head wildly. ‘No!’ she whimpered, and just the renewed touch of him was enough to make her splinter into a thousand ecstatic pieces.
He thrust into her warm, still-tight flesh, the sensation nearly blowing his mind, and his last thought before the earth spun on its axis was that nothing had ever felt this good. Nothing. He felt the violent beckoning of sweet release just as he heard her give another choked moan of disbelief, and then his blood thundered and he moaned.
She rolled off his sweat-sheened body and collapsed on the bed beside him. It took a moment for her breath to return to anything approaching normality. ‘Wow,’ she said eventually.
‘Wow, indeed,’ he echoed drily. But he felt shaken. Was it simply because they were virtual strangers that their lovemaking had been the best of his life? He stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
And now what? Catherine dozed for a moment or two, then opened her eyes again. ‘I guess I’d better think about going.’ She held her breath almost imperceptibly, wondering whether he would beg her to stay. She gave a half-smile. No, not beg. Men like Finn Delaney didn’t beg—didn’t ever need to beg, she would hazard.
‘Must you?’ he questioned idly.
Well, there she had it in a nutshell. He wasn’t exactly kicking her out of bed, but neither was he working out a busy timetable for the rest of the day.