Page 55 of Savage Blooms
Finley stiffened beneath her kiss, but he didn’t pull away. She moved her mouth languidly over his neck, tasting the salt on his skin and feeling the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed hard.
“Fine,” he blurted, and Eileen pulled away with a triumphant grin. He was a piss poor Confession player, and she liked that about him. “There are the lights, out in the woods. Old folks call them friar’s lanterns. My dad didn’t believe in television; he said I could either read or climb a tree if I got bored, so I spent a lot of time playing outdoors. If I was out at night I would sometimes see a haze glowing off in the distance, but it would always get further away the closer I got. The first time it happened I was so spooked I ran all the way home and barreled through the cottage door, shouting about aliens in the woods. My father gripped my shoulder and said, so serious, ‘That was something dangerous, Finn. If you’re lucky,they’ll cause mischief, and if you’re unlucky, they’ll snatch you away underground. You ever see something like that again, you stay far away from it, you understand?’”
“Then what happened?” Nicola asked, rapt. Their little circle was getting tighter, and Nicola had leaned so far forward that she was almost able to reach out and touch Finley. Eileen was closer to Adam, too, close enough to see the golden stubble coming through on his jaw after the long day.
“I’d go years without seeing them,” Finley went on. “And then overnight, they would be everywhere I looked. After a while I realized they only showed up at certain times. Hard times.”
“What do you mean hard times?” Adam asked, rapt.
Finley opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“That’s enough, I think,” he said.
“Finley,” Nicola groaned, sounding practically pained. “Come on.”
Eileen rolled her eyes, then leaned back into Finley’s space and started trailing kisses across his jaw. He withstood her advances valiantly this time, keeping still as a stone.
“It won’t work, Isla,” he said.
“Won’t it?” she asked, then cupped him unceremoniously through his slacks.
Finley hissed, the sound ripping through the air like a bullet, and then seized Eileen by the wrist, hard enough to bruise. Eileen just laughed.
“Come on,” she tittered. “You know the rules of this game as well as I do. Nicola, do you want to have a go at getting the story out of him? Or maybe Adam?”
“I saw them the night your parents died,” Finley said, tossing her hand back into her own lap.
Eileen had nothing to say to that.
“Why would they have come out then?” Adam pressed, curious as a cat and just as foolish.
“One question per round,” Finley said quietly, looking chastened. Once again, he had ruptured Eileen’s fantasy with the double-sided sword of truth. “I’m done for now.”
“Your turn, sparrow,” Eileen said to Nicola, too sharply, too brightly. She hated being caught in a moment of hurt, and Finley’s words had sliced right through her heart. Never mind her feelings; dead was dead and no amount of crying would bring her parents back. She couldn’t have done anything about it, no matter what Finley did or didn’t see that night. “Be a good sport or else I’ll have to seduce the truth out of you.”
Nicola gave a nervous laugh that sounded like she wouldn’t mind that at all. It was a pretty mental image: Nicola whimpering in tortured delight as Eileen slipped her hand underneath the hem of Nicola’s floral dress.
Adam opened his mouth to ask a question, but he never got the chance, because Finley beat him to the punch.
“Doyoubelieve in faeries?” he asked.
“I believe in lots of things,” Nicola said simply. “God, true love, astrology… Faeries don’t seem so far-fetched,especially considering how long people have been telling stories about them.”
“Good, an honest answer,” Eileen said, taking back the reins of the game. They were getting lost in the weeds of the supernatural, which wouldn’t do at all. There would be time for that later, after everyone had been properly warmed up to each other. She had only intended to use the magic question to set the scene for more intimate talk. “Back to you, Adam. Have you ever thought about sleeping with Nicola?”
Adam made a choked noise.
“We’ve never slept together,” he said tightly.
“She didn’t ask if you had, she asked if you had thought about it,” Finley said, a flash of command in his tone.
“This is a stupid game,” Adam blustered. “I’m tired. You all have fun, I’m going to bed.”
“Game’s not over, Adam,” Eileen said. She hated it when people cut games short, and she hated it even more when people were sore losers.
And then, in a windfall of good fortune, Nicola took Eileen’s side.
“There’s no harm in answering one question,” she said, batting her pretty eyelashes like she was asking to cheat off his chemistry test, not asking him to crack open his ribs and expose his beating heart. There was a sharp shine in her eye, as though depending on how Adam answered, he might win riches beyond his wildest dreams, or he might get his hand bitten off.
