The curtains were still drawn—soft gold things, through which the morning sun filtered, gilding the subdued light and giving the room a slightly surreal feel.
Lots of books, he noted. Run-of-the-mill furniture. Two fairly ordinary sofas transformed from the mundane by the addition of two exotic throws. A couple of framed prints and a collection of small china cats. Not enough to tell him anything much about the real Catherine Walker. His mouth flattened as she walked back into the room and deposited the flowers in the centre of a small pine coffee table. Their scent filled the room.
Now what? wondered Catherine. Were they going to carry on as if nothing had happened between them? ‘Coffee?’ she asked.
He shook his head and moved towards her, driven on by some primeval urge deep within him. His eyes were shuttered as he pulled her into his arms, feeling her soft flesh pliant against the hard lines of his body, which sprang into instant life in response. ‘I haven’t come here for coffee.’
She opened her mouth to protest that he might at least adhere to a few conventional social niceties before he moved in for the kill, but by then he had lowered his mouth onto hers, and she was so hungry for his kiss that she let him. How long had it been? Four weeks that felt like a lifetime…
‘God, Finn—’
‘What?’ He cupped her breast with arrogant posse
ssion, liking the way that the nipple instantly reacted, pressing like a little rock against his hand.
To be in his arms once more was even better than she remembered, and the honeyed pleasure which was invading her senses was driving every thought out of her head other than the overriding one—which was how much she wanted this. Him.
‘Mmm? You were saying?’
‘W-was I? I can’t remember.’ Catherine’s hands roved beneath the washed-out blue sweater, greedily alighting on the silken skin there. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you.’
‘And you, too. And this is certainly the kind of welcome I was hoping for.’ His voice sounded thickened, slurred. He drew his mouth away from hers and his eyes were glittering with blue fire. ‘My only objection is that I’m not seeing quite enough of you, Catherine. Don’t you think it’s time to remedy that situation?’
And with a single fluid movement he peeled the tee shirt off her body, over her head, and threw it to the ground, so that she was standing naked before him.
‘Finn!’ She felt the air cool her already heated body, but any consternation fled just as soon as he touched his lips to her nipple, and she began to shake as she clutched his dark head further against her breast. ‘Oh, God!’
That shuddered cry of pure, undiluted desire fuelled his already overwhelming hunger, and he yanked his sweater over his head, kicked off his deck shoes, pulled roughly at the belt of his jeans and unzipped them. ‘Take them off,’ he commanded unsteadily.
On fire with her need for him, Catherine sank to her knees and slid the denim down over the hard, muscular shaft of his thighs, burying her head in the very cradle of his masculinity, her tongue flicking out to touch him where he was burningly hard. He groaned.
‘Are you always like this?’ he demanded, once the jeans were discarded, and he drew her down with an urgent need onto the carpet, their naked bodies colliding and merging with a mutual greed.
‘Like what?’ Hungrily she nipped at a hard brown nipple and he shuddered.
‘So responsive.’ So bloody easy to turn on, and so fiendishly good at turning him on until he thought he might explode with need.
Only with you, she thought, but that seemed too frighteningly vulnerable a thing to say. She licked instead.
He moved over her, his eyes burningly bright—a strange, shining combination of blue and black. In the heat of the moment his mind went blank and he forgot everything other than the sweet temptation of her flesh.
‘God, Catherine, I want you so badly.’ He slipped his hand between her thighs, where she was as wet as he had known she would be, and a wild kind of fever heated his blood. He moved and then groaned, then groaned again as he thrust into her, deep and hard and long, and she gave a low, exultant scream of pleasure.
‘Is that good?’ he ground out. ‘Because—sweet God in heaven—it feels good to me!’
She gave herself up to the delicious rhythm, feeling control beginning to slip away.
‘Is it, Catherine?’ he urged, wanting to hear the surrender he could feel in her fast-shivering flesh. ‘Is it good?’
Through dry lips she managed to say the very word she had said to Miranda. ‘Unbelievable,’ she groaned, as he filled her and moved inside her. ‘Unbelievable.’
It happened so quickly, and her orgasm seemed to make Catherine’s world explode. For a moment consciousness actually receded, and she was lost in a dreamy, perfect world of feeling and sensation, then it slowly ebbed back and reality was just as good. She smiled. That was if reality was lying naked in Finn’s arms with the whole day—maybe even the weekend—ahead of them.
And this time they would do things other than make love. She could cook him lunch—had she got enough food to produce something impressive?—and then afterwards she could take him to the park. Maybe an early film, and then supper… Sooner rather than later she was going to have to come clean about her job, and very probably the mix-up about the article, but she could deal with that. She was certain she could…
‘Mmm,’ she breathed in anticipation. ‘Mmm!’
Her ecstatic response shattered his equilibrium and a sudden icy chill shivered its way over his bare flesh.