Someone else was in the room.
She snapped her eyes open and peered over Loukas’s shoulder. The pitch-blackness that had met them when they’d entered the large library had given way to a dim grey gloom in which nothing appeared to be moving or out of place between the walls of floor-to-ceiling books. She was imagining things. Against her throat Loukas’s mouth continued to weave magic, complicating the push-pull of her fears and her wants as the sound came again.
Sounds.
In tune now with more than just the rush of blood in her ears, this time she heard a softer gasping moan answer the straining sounds. And more sounds, now louder, and more grunting, punctuated by urgent panting and then the unmistakable slap of flesh against flesh, building in speed, steadily and inexorably.
She squeezed her eyes shut again, wishing she could close down her hearing, afraid to breathe, afraid to move. Someone was making love—right here in the library—and they’d inadvertently stumbled right into their secret tryst.
But there was no shutting out what was happening, and the sounds fed into her consciousness, reminding her why she’d come there, and setting her flesh to prickling awareness of the man holding her even in her shock.
Because they’d come here to engage in that same act—to make those same noises, to seek that same inexorable release.
Loukas’s mouth stilled and he pulled back as he too realised what was happening. He touched one finger to her lips and pulled her closer against him, as if sheltering her from what was happening while he edged a look over his shoulder. They had to get out of here. He would surely know that as well as she did. But before they could make a move a sound and a sudden movement in the low light drew her eyes directly to the source—and she found them.
Mostly hidden from view, sheltered from the door behind a long sofa, it was no wonder that whoever it was had been too absorbed to realise they had company. She was just about to turn her face away when the man rocked back on his knees and she recognised him.
Mayor Goldfinch!
No wonder the library door had been unlocked—Grace must have brought him here.
Now Jade had to get out, and take Loukas, before either of them saw her. She would never in a million years subject Grace to that kind of embarrassment. She couldn’t let her find out that they had inadvertently stumbled upon them during such a private act.
She prodded Loukas to leave, but he stilled her movements. ‘Wait,’ he whispered, so quietly she half wondered if she’d inhaled his words instead. ‘Wait just a moment.’
But she didn’t want to stay. She didn’t want to hear any more, to be witness to anyone’s lovemaking—least of all to Grace’s. More than anything she wanted to get out, now, and it took supreme strength of will to remain cradled in Loukas’s arms while she waited seemingly for ever for the pair to resume their frantic activities.
The sounds of motion and mounting excitement finally resumed, telling her Mayor Goldfinch had Grace exactly where he wanted her once more. She wanted to close her ears as every sound, every whimper, fed into her own needs, making her overwhelmingly aware of what she herself might be doing right now, of what she’d given her tacit agreement to. Her flesh shimmied into action where Loukas held her, where she brushed up alongside him, as the aura of coupling wrapped itself around them.
But at last they were moving out of here. Loukas was just manoeuvring her closer to the door, ready to bundle her out, when she heard gruff words.
‘Oh, Rach. Oh, sweet baby, I’ve missed you.’
For a second she thought she’d misheard the name—it had to have been Grace that he’d said—but then she spied the lush sheen of red satin slung over the settee, had recognised the young, drawling tones responding enthusiastically to the Mayor’s encouragement and cold revulsion worked its clammy way up her spine.
Because it wasn’t Grace that Mayor Goldfinch was entertaining. It was Rachael Delaney!
She almost cried out with the shock, but a large firm hand clamped down over her mouth, rendering her mute. Under cover of the noise of the couple’s latest activities, Loukas had the door pulled open and whisked her back outside before she could react—and before the couple could know what was happening.