Page 68 of Savage Blooms
“IUD. Hasn’t failed me yet.”
“And how will you show me if you want the game to stop right away?”
“I’ll say something silly that I wouldn’t usually say. Like the word Eileen uses with you.”
“What word will you use?”
“Marzipan,” Nicola said, the word coming to her unbidden. It was her favorite candy. She wasn’t likely to panic and forget that.
Finley huffed out a laugh and grinned up at her. A wolf delighted by a lamb, or perhaps a loyal dog eager to be run hard by his mistress.
“Does a fifteen-second head start sound fair?”
“Yes, yes,” Nicola said, nodding fast. Adrenaline was already coursing through her, spiking her heart rate and urging her to run for her life.
“Do me a favor and try not to break anything in the house, or else Eileen is liable to kill me. Either way, I feel like this is going to be worth it,” Finley said, letting her go as he rose to his feet. He pressed his hands against the base of his spine, stretching up to his full height, and then glanced down at his watch and waited for the second hand to tick all the way up to the top. And then, with a finality that Nicola felt drop into her stomach like lead, he said, “Go.”
Nicola tore out of the library, kicking up the rug in the process, and scurried down the hall. She didn’t have the house mapped correctly yet, and the thought that shemight run into a dead end or turn the wrong way just to run headlong into Finley, who had grown up here, only made the game hotter. Her heart pounded, blood singing in her veins with a feral terror and joy she probably couldn’t describe even if she dedicated a whole book to it.
Alive was the only thing she felt right now, and that was the refrain chorusing in her head as she ran,alive, alive, alive.
Nicola tried to hide herself in a narrow broom closet and found she didn’t fit in alongside the linens, and then she threw herself against the door to the wine cellar only to find that Eileen had locked it. Nicola had no idea how many seconds had passed, five or fifteen, when she stumbled into the dining room. She was starting to panic now, the ticking clock making her reckless.
The tablecloth didn’t reach the ground, but it was long enough to hide her in shadow if Finley didn’t look very hard.
Right now, it was her only option, and so Nicola surrendered herself to it, crawling beneath the table and hiding like a child. She did her best to calm her ragged breathing as she waited for the sound of Finley running after her, or perhaps the sound of him calling her name through the house and making cocky promises about what would happen when he found her.
But that wasn’t what she heard. What she heard was a series of quick, light steps as Finley began to traversethe house with perfect calm, examining every room with clinical efficiency. There was something genuinely terrifying about Finley taking his time in rooting her out, and that terror made her more wet than she had been in a very long time.
Nicola pressed her hand over her mouth to keep her breathing from giving her away as Finley got closer, pausing only momentarily in the hall to check the closet before stepping into the dining room. She could see his socked feet and jean-clad ankles circling the table, as leisurely as though he were browsing for new packets of seeds at the store.
Nicola squeezed her eyes shut, not sure if she was praying for him to find her or for him to pass her by.
A strong hand thrust beneath the tablecloth and wrapped around her ankle, yanking her out from under the table. Nicola yelped in protest, but Finley was stronger than he looked when he really wanted to handle her with force, and she was soon lying on her back with Finley standing over her.
Nicola froze, really froze, like a rabbit holding still for the sake of its life. Her knees were frozen askew to reveal the underwear beneath her skirt.
Finley took a long look at her, like she was his to devour in tiny bites. Like he might be memorizing the sight of her blushing and frightened to replay in his mind later.
“Boo,” he said, and then fell on her mercilessly.
Finley did his damndest to pin her to the ground, lockinghis hands around her wrists as he tried to shove them down above her head. Nicola thrashed and writhed, valiantly attempting to fight him off. Finley was bigger than her, but she was wily, and she wasn’t afraid to fight dirty.
“Get off me,” she snapped, twisting out from under him before he wrestled back on top of her again. “I’ll scream!”
Finley covered her mouth with a broad hand. She bit at him, all delirious instinct, and he swore when her teeth nipped his palm.
“Christ.”
Now that soundedreal, like he was really mad at her, like he might want to take that anger out on her, and Nicola let out a whimper.
Finley went after her with renewed vigor, and it was only then that she realized he had been holding back before. There was no play in this now, no levity in the way his fingers bruised her wrists and the way his knee jutted beneath her thighs to open her up and keep her where he wanted her.
“You can fight me all you want,” he panted. “It’s only going to get me harder.”
Nicola saw through the part he was playing to his tacit assent, his permission to keep going, even though she had scratched so hard down his arms she had left raised red marks behind. And hewashard, his length pressing into her thigh.
She could let him take her like this and probably have a very good time, but she was having too much fun to give up the game now. More importantly, she didn’t want to go down without a proper fight.
