He cocked his head, his surprise evident. “Your parents never told you?”
“No. Nothing. I knew I was…different. I didn’t know why until I came here.”
“Does Finn know?”
Guilt again. “No.”
One finger pointed at the ceiling, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Finn came in the room. “I’m afraid I’ll have to steal the pleasure of Cora’s company from you, Da.” He gave his father a funny little bow. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said, winking and kissing my hand in a formal, gentlemanly way. “Don’t you have a date to go on?”
Fergus nodded, mumbled something incoherent, and watched me in this confounded way as Finn steered me from the room, honoring his promise to keep us apart when I most wanted to hear what his dad was about to say.
Thirty-Nine
A hundred candles.
There had to be at least a hundred candles in the library, shimmering against the windows, reflecting in the mirrors, scattered among the shelves and tables.
I gasped. “It’s beautiful, Finn.”
The full moon shone through the large picture window in the library like a polished alabaster plate. Finn and I gazed at it while leaning arm against arm at the open window. The back of his fingers brushed mine.
“I once read that the author Karen Blixen would curtsy to every full moon,” I told him.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Out of respect, maybe? I always loved that idea. Of giving props to the moon just for being there. Just for shining.”
He looked at me with a heavy-lidded gaze. “I could bow to it for the way it shines on your hair,” he said. “Like silver stars spilling over your dark curls. You’re beautiful, Cora. You shine.”
I leaned into his shoulder. “And every night,” I continued, a bit breathy, “she would stand for a moment at her south-facing door in Denmark, gazing out toward her beloved Africa.” I curled my fingers around his arm. “I know I’ll do that when I go back home. Face east. Face Ireland. And think of you.” It hurt my heart to think of it.
Tell him the truth.
He coaxed me to sit cross-legged on the thick gray velvet couch, with our knees touching. His hands rested on his thighs, palms up, like an offering. I placed my hands over his, reveled in the familiar swirl of energy around our skin and the light music of his pulse under my fingertips. We stared into each other’s eyes. His eyes were so familiar and yet so uncharted, like a well-studied map to a place I’d never been.
Knee to knee, palm to palm, soul to soul. When we first met, I was too shy to stare into his eyes for longer than a few dreamy seconds. I felt so bare, so…seen. Now I had no fear of Finn’s eyes. They were toasty warm and filled with humor and life-lust. They spoke love when he looked at me.
After a few moments, an incredible thing happened: the conversation of our heart rates slowed, then synced. Our pulses fired at exactly the same time, thrumming softly in unison through our hands. “Do you feel that?” I asked, almost afraid it would stop if I moved or spoke or even breathed.
He smiled. “Every time I’m near you.”
“It’s amazing.”
Tell him. “Finn, I—”
He broke the connection and grazed his fingers over my collarbone, sending rolling heat down my arms. I found myself tilting my neck to the side as his hand brushed whisper-light over my skin, so feathery, it was excruciatingly pleasurable. I sighed when he wound his fingers into the curls at the nape of my neck.
“Pleased with yourself?” I whispered, noticing the satisfied smile on his face.
“I’m pleased I make you feel good. I’m pleased with how you react to me.” He touched my lips with two fingers, tracing the contours. They parted involuntarily. “I could watch you all day, luv,” he murmured against my mouth.
His full lips melted into mine, his tongue teasing. My breath hitched when his kisses traveled from my lips to my neck, behind my ear. “I’ll never tire of the sounds you make,” he whispered.
My back arched against the pillows of the couch. He hovered over me, his aura pulsating with the warm orange-red fire of desire, tinted with the yellow of his affection. He was a sunset shining on me, warming me. Igniting my cravings.
As we kissed, my leg wrapped around his thigh, and I pulled him closer. Any restraint he had been showing fell away with the full contact of our bodies. I was pinned between the plush softness of the couch and his firm, muscled body. It was like sinking together into the top of a storm cloud. He pressed against me and kissed with more hunger. I moaned softly.
“That…sound,” Finn gasped. “I want more.”
My lips roamed down his neck to the soft crook where his tattoo flared out. I still hadn’t seen it entirely. And I wanted to. Badly. I wanted to rip his shirt open and follow the spirals, trace them with my mouth.
Buttons skittered across my body. I realized I had yanked his shirt open to his waist. Shocked, I looked up to see him staring down at me more intensely than he ever had, full of love tinged with a fury that had nothing to do with anger. He was beautiful. Smooth lines and waves. The tattoo swirled over the right side of his chest, arching up onto his neck.
I tasted the stars.
We writhed together, arms and legs a tangle of need. It was as if we couldn’t get close enough. My soul opened to him. My desire to give him everything I had was overwhelming. This is what love is. Two storm-drenched, raging streams merging together, blending into one. I lost myself in the tide, surrendering to the overpowering current.
He whispered my name over and over, like an incantation. “Cora. Cora. God, I love you.”
I fell into him. Into an abyss of need. So excruciatingly good it hurt. I couldn’t breathe. I felt faint, as if I were dissolving—dissolving into him, a comet hurtling into the sun, losing its own fire.
My ecstasy morphed into panic. A sharp spike of adrenaline consumed the rush of passion. I was coming out of myself.
Being drained of all that I was.
Dying.
I was a flame plunged into ice water. Biting cold tore at my insides. The numbness was so severe, I could barely feel my hands and feet. I gulped for air, my lungs and chest aching as if I were kicking for a surface that would never come.
“You’re killing me,” I choked out, my voice a whisper.
Finn’s beautiful mouth was still locked on mine, his kisses strong, pulling me even deeper into him. I lost myself. There was agony in coming apart like that, at being reeled away from myself.
My leaden arms pushed against his smooth chest, but he was unmovable. Any strength I had, I used to bring my knee up into him. I clawed and struggled, but it was like moving a mountain. Somehow, I rolled out from under him, falling to the floor onto my hands and knees, my dark curls bleeding onto the red carpet beneath me. When I looked up, I couldn’t see Finn. He was nothing but shadow. I could see only his aura. The brilliant, blinding, pure white light of it.
Forty
Finn’s face appeared closer to me now, dazed and rapturous. His eyes were as clouded as that night in my bedroom. My eyes registered the full view of the triple spiral on his chest. Did he realize he had his arms outstretched? That the light burst from his fingertips like some kind of sorcerer?
I tried to move my heavy body, terror and survival instinct telling me to get away from him. I couldn’t feel my hands at all, though they supported me on the carpet. The room swung in and out of focus as I struggled to stay upright. Fearful thoughts struck like lightning. Searing. Burning away everything I thought I knew about Finn.