Page 43 of Savage Blooms
Nothing had made him wonder if perhaps he would like to be the one in the chair, giving out commands, or if he would enjoy being the one sitting on the floor, waiting with bated breath to be led.
“I have a question,” he blurted.
“Of course you do,” Eileen replied, rolling her eyes without slouching so much as an inch. “You’re practically made of questions.”
“Be nice,” Finley ordered, giving one of her tresses a tug.
Nicola closed her book on the couch next to Adam, a littlethudthat signaled Finley had her total attention.
“How long has this…” Adam said, gesturing broadly at whatever was happening between Eileen and Finley. He wished he had better words for it, or at least words that didn’t make him feel stupid. “…dynamic been going on? If it’s not rude to ask.”
“From the start in some ways, I suppose,” Finley said, hands deftly wrapping strand over strand. “Only for the last couple of years, in others. The structure of it, the rules and boundaries, we talk and agree on together. But the nature of the thing… that has a life of its own. That’s older.”
Eileen closed her eyes, letting the conversation wash over her as Finley expertly braided her hair. Adam had never seen her so soft. It was like she was one of Nicola’s brightly colored paints, diffused by Finley’s touch as though it was water.
“How did you learn?” Adam went on. He was nothing if not a student of life, after all. This was just a bit of harmless sociological curiosity.
“To take care of her like this? Some of it’s through instinct,” Finley said, holding out a hand for the hair tie around Eileen’s wrist. “Some of it’s research. I’ll remind you I do have access to the internet, Adam. I might be a hick, but I can read.”
Heat coursed through Adam, and not just from arousal this time. Why did the embarrassment just excite him more? If he wasn’t careful, he would get hard, which would only embarrass him more, which would only make everything worse.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m kidding,” Finley said with a smile. “Lighten up.”
“Okay then, answer my question.”
“Pushy,” Finley said, like he didn’t approve of Adam’s behavior, like he might have an idea or two about how to correct it, and now Adamwashard, so hard that he shifted the laptop on his thighs to cover the evidence. “Ideally, in situations like this, you’d want to find a mentor to teach you. But Eileen and I didn’t have that luxury.”
“Could you teach someone else?” Nicola asked.
Every eye in the room fell on Nicola, Finley and Adam staring at her like she was on fire, Eileen acknowledging her with impressed raised eyebrows. Nicola just shrugged, refusing to feel awkward. You couldn’t make Nicola feel a damn thing she didn’t want to.
“I’ve never tried,” Finley managed eventually. “Are you… asking me to show you?”
“Or you could show Adam and I could watch?” Nicola suggested, with that pixie smile that was sweet and sharp at once. “I learn best by watching.”
Adam wanted, perhaps more than ever in his life, to play it cool. Instead, he spluttered, “What? Obviously, like— No way! I wouldn’t, like, unless—”
“Never mind,” Nicola said, picking up her book and opening it up to a random page as though she were actually reading it. “It was just an idea. Adam, if you aren’t up for it—”
“I’m up for it,” Adam snapped. Was he totally terrified of what a kink lesson from Finley might entail? Sure. Was he going to back down now, when Nicola was clearly trying to get a rise out of him? Absolutely not.
“It isn’t up to Adam,” Finley said, directed at Nicola. He spoke to her sternly, like she was his to command, and Nicola snapped her mouth shut as though Finley had just gagged her. “It’s up to Eileen.”
Finley leaned down and began talking to Eileen in a low, quick voice, the words impossible to make out. Eileen nodded and responded back in a whisper, gazing up at him.
Then Finley nodded and said, “Eileen sleeps better after a scene anyway. I can show you a wee something, nothing inappropriate, if she’s willing to demonstrate. Does that sound all right?”
“Yeah,” Adam said, voice too bright, too eager. He hadn’t even known he had wanted this, but now, it was searingly obvious to him that he had been thinking about nothing but this since that first night at Craigmar.
“Stay on the ground,” Finley said to Eileen, pressing two fingers into her shoulder in a way that seemed deliberate, like some kind of code. “Adam, will you stand up?”
Adam did as he was told, and Finley held out a hand to him, helping him to his feet. It was only a moment of contact, but it was unexpected, and Finley’s fingers were still warm from trailing through Eileen’s silky hair. That instant of touch made it harder to breathe.
What thefuckwas he doing?
Nicola tossed her book aside and leaned forward, studying the scene-in-progress with an academic’s eye. Or it would have been academic, were it not for the peaks of her nipples through her thin shirt.
