Page 66 of Savage Blooms
Adam slid his hand down her belly and covered her hand with his own, applying more pressure than she couldpossibly give herself. He worried for a moment that he might be hurting her in a way she didn’t like, but then she tipped her head back against his shoulder and moaned in earnest. She was close, and Adam was hurdling towards his own climax embarrassingly fast. He wanted to get her there, wanted to satisfy her enough that she welcomed him back into her body again and again.
Adam yanked her collar to the side and sank his teeth into the juncture of her shoulder, hard enough to leave teeth marks.
Eileen let out a cry loud enough to startle a rock dove from a nearby tree, and clenched down around him. Adam’s own orgasm rushed up like a wave to drag him down into the depths and he spilled into her with a choked gasp, but Eileen didn’t relent. She bucked back against him until she was entirely spent, until Adam was so overstimulated he was on the verge of begging for her mercy.
The muscles in his thighs were little better than jelly by the time it was done, so he was relieved when Eileen pulled him down into the grass with her. He didn’t care about the damp, cold ground, or the rocks beneath his body. He was wrapped in the smell of crushed moss and sweet rain and sex, draped in Eileen’s arms.
“Thank you,” she said, pressing the words into his mouth like she was pressing her signet into an oath. “You did so well. I had to know you could give me what I needed.”
“I’ll give you whatever you ask,” Adam said, the post-coitalhaze intoxicating enough to make him terrifyingly honest.
“I know you will,” Eileen purred, stretching out underneath him like a contented cat. “You’re such a good little soldier in bed.”
Adam probably wouldn’t be recovered enough for another round for at least twenty minutes, but his cock kicked weakly at her praise, eager to be used by her regardless.
“Was that mean enough for you?” he teased, trying to regain some sense of normalcy, of control. But nothing felt normal around Eileen, and he would probably have better luck trying to maintain control of a roiling Highland storm.
“Yes,” she said, kissing him very softly, almost shyly, like she was embarrassed to be caught acting tenderly. “But I still think you’re kind, deep down.”
Then, the cuddling was over. She smoothed her skirt down over her thighs, heedless of the mess it hid, and stuck out a hand to Adam. He let her pull him to his shaky feet, the world spinning around him.
Eileen’s face hardened suddenly, snapping over Adam’s shoulder as though she was displeased by an intrusion. That certainty that they weren’t alone flooded back in a sickly rush. Had Finley been out here the whole time? Had Nicola?
He followed Eileen’s gaze into the forest, but there was no one there. There were only shadows, so dark and deepthey seemed to move of their own accord. A tree branch shuddered and shook, but no hare ran out from the underbrush, and no family of birds rustled in the leaves.
“We should go,” she said. “Walk me back to the house?”
She extended her arm like a regency gentleman, like Adam hadn’t just knocked her to the ground and fucked her in the muddy grass. Adam took her arm, grateful for the steadying touch, and let her lead him away from the mushroom ring and back towards the manor.
He couldn’t help but look over his shoulder most of the way, however, as that ambient sense of presence followed them like a shadow.
He also couldn’t quite smother the instinct in the back of his brain screaming at him to run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nicola
Nicola was aware something had shifted between Adam and Eileen after they returned to the house arm in arm and damp from the rain and smelling like freshly turned earth, and she strongly suspected that something was sex. Nicola had supposed such a scenario might drive her mad with jealousy, but when Adam sidled up against Nicola in the upstairs hallway, murmuring a hello against her neck with the fading scent of Eileen’s crushed Iris perfume clinging to his skin, what Nicola felt was hot all over.
She had always taken a guilty thrill in watching Adam disappear into dark rooms at parties with other girls, or return from “stepping out for a cigarette” with another boy with a hickey bit into his neck, but it was better now, because it was unclouded by the pain of pining. Now she couldtouchAdam, she could kiss him in the hallwayuntil he smelled not only of irises but of daisies, and she could press her body to his up against the wall and tease him mercilessly about hooking up with Eileen until Adam, flushed and hard and grinning, divulged just enough details to stoke the fire in her belly.
“And you like that?” Nicola responded between kisses. “Having sex outdoors where anyone could see you?”
“I don’t know,” he said breathlessly, digging his fingers into her soft hips. “I like everything these days. I want everything, with everyone.”
Nicola let out a moan and only kissed him harder, wantonness responding to wantonness. He was the only person she knew who was as much of an unrepentant slut as she was, and she loved him for it.
Then Finley called from downstairs:
“Soup’s getting cold, lovebirds! Eileen found a muscadet in the cellar; get down here before she drinks it all.”
“I wouldnot!” she called back, faux offended.
Nicola and Adam hustled down the stairs with their fingers loosely linked, doing their best to suppress their laughter. Something about the pervading warmth inside the house, balmy as summer from the heady mix of domesticity and carnality despite the rain outside, made Nicola feel pleasantly feverish from her head to her toes.
She could get used to this.
Nicola hoped she and Adam would have the chance to deepen their connection in a more physical way after lunch, but Adam was swept almost immediately into astudious genealogy research session in the library with Eileen, and they even left the door open so Nicola could see that research was actually what they were doing.
