Private Scandals

veins. “I wanted to give you time.”
    “I don’t want time!” she shouted at him, felt the first sweet snap of release. “I’m not fragile or weak or delicate. I want you to stop looking at me as though I were, as though I’d crumble. I’m alive. I want to feel alive. Make me feel alive.”
    He reached out, brushed his knuckle down her cheek. “You should have asked for something more difficult.”
    He kissed her. She could feel the sparks of fury he was struggling to bank, taste the hot frustration, the searing need.
    “Don’t,” she murmured. “Don’t be gentle. Not now.”
    He wanted to be. But she was pulling him down on the bed, her hands already frantic as they tugged at his clothes. He couldn’t be gentle, couldn’t tap the well of tenderness when her mouth was driving him beyond caution into madness.
    Her body vibrated against his as she arched and strained and writhed. More was all she could think. More of him. More of that simmering violence she had watched him fight to chain for days. She wanted him to release it now, inside her.
    She could hear her own heart drum heavily in her ears, feel each separate pulse throb. Her muffled cry was one of triumph as he ripped her shirt aside, seeking flesh.
    The wind kicked against the windows, rattling glass. It hooted down the chimney, struggling to puff smoke into the room. But the fire blazed in the hearth and burned brighter with the threat of the storm.
    On the bed they rolled like thunder.
    His mouth was on her, ravenous, teeth scraping skin already damp with passion. His breath was hot and quick, his hands bruising in their hurry to possess. She reared up to meet him, her head falling back, her moan long and feral.
    Faster. Faster. The desperation peaked as he yanked at her jeans, his hungry mouth racing down her shuddering torso toward the violent heat. Her hands dived into his hair, pressed him closer, closer. Her nails scraped unfelt down his back as the first orgasm pummeled her.
    “Now.” She nearly wept it, dragging him up, frantic for him to fill her. Her hands clutched at his hips, her legs wrapped around his waist. “Now,” she said again, then cried out when he drove himself into her.
    “More.” He yanked her body up, plunged deeper, thrusting hard, still harder while the ferocity of pleasure racked through him. His body felt like an engine, tireless, primed to run. He mated it with hers, steel cased in velvet, pumping faster each time he felt her muscles contract like a moist fist around him.
    When she arched, straining, he pulled her to him until they were torso to torso. Her teeth sank into his shoulder even as her body moved like wet silk against his. Again she went rigid, her body stiffening, then breaking into shudders. Her eyes sprang open, staring glazed into his while she went limp.
    “I can’t.”
    He shoved her back, grasping her hands and dragging them over her head. “I can.”
    He devoured her, letting the animal take over, ripping each new response from her with impatient teeth, enticing new fires with tongue and lips.
    His breath was burning in his throat, his blood pounding in his head, in his loins. The final wave of sensation swamped him, flooded through his system like light—white and blinding. He thought she cried out again, just his name, as he emptied himself into her.

Chapter Twenty-four
    M arshall Pike’s office looked like an elegant living room. But no one lived there. It reminded Finn of an ambitious model home, decorated for prospective buyers who would never slouch on the brocade sofa or wrestle on the Aubusson rug. There would certainly never be a careless ring left by a careless glass set on the Chippendale coffee table. No child would ever play hide-and-seek behind the formal silk draperies or cuddle up to read in one of the deep-cushioned chairs.
    Even Marshall’s desk seemed more of a prop than a usable fixture. The oak was highly polished, the brass fittings gleamed. The desk set of burgundy leather fit seamlessly into the color scheme of wines and ferns. The ficus tree by the window wasn’t plastic, but it was so perfect, its leaves so radically dust-free, it might as well have been.
    Finn had lived with easy wealth all of his life, and the material trappings it could buy, but he found Marshall Pike’s pristine office, with its low hum of an air filter discreetly sucking impurities, soulless.
    “I would, naturally, be happy to cooperate with the police.” Piously, Marshall tugged