“Sit, sit, sit!” Effie giggled with delight when the animal did just that.
“Lie down,” Niall cut in, adding before the feat had even been accomplished, “Shake!”
“Ye have to give him time to do one before the other,” Aila chided, though not unkindly. “Be patient.”
Ian’s nursemaid, Jean, grumbled from where she sat with Fergus. It appeared she was attempting to force a morning meal down the throat of a toddler who’d much rather be playing on the floor with the others. “They’ve been at it all night.”
Finn, too, had been at something all night. Clearly he was far more pleased by the manner in which his had been spent. And with whom he had spent it. He watched Aila as she ruffled the shepherd’s ears in a playful fashion until he rolled over to present his belly. The three of them gave him the affection he was looking for while the dog’s tongue lolled merrily. Then with a sudden jerk, Rab flipped back on to his feet. His wary attention devoted to Finn as he strolled into the room. Aila turned to him as well, the modest blush on her cheeks a sharp contrast to the caution in her eyes. He wondered at the reason for it.
“Good morning.” Her color heightened even more at his quiet greeting. Nose quivering, Rab inched forward and Finn pinned the dog with a look. “Heel.”
Promptly, the dog circled to Aila’s side and plopped its rear down, ears at attention.
“A well-trained beast.”
“He comes when called.”
There was an inkling of mockery in her tone, enough to suggest that the dog wasn’t the only beast she referred to, and once again that rise of amusement that had been missing for so long in his life sprang to his lips.
* * *
No drug could provide a high to match the euphoria his smile provided.The impact struck Aila with all the force of the last she’d seen from him. Like a kick in the gut without the painful side effects. Which wasn’t to say the force of it was any less brutal.
Memories of their long evening together bore a similar punch.
She couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking.
While Aila was no prude, she wasn’t given to casual sex. Especially with a man she hardly knew. However, instantaneous attraction was a rare thing, and lust, in her experience, was fleeting…as was her time here. If she’d ever wanted to recklessly indulge herself, this was her moment. She wasn’t fool enough to pass it up when the opportunity presented itself.
Nay, as stunning as it had been, it wasn’t the sex that troubled her.
When he’d swooped her up into his arms, pressed every inch of her against his rock-hard chest and rock-hard…. Nay, even then she’d had some presence of mind to know what she was about.
When he’d kissed her…thatwas when she’d lost her head.
Twenty-seven years of being too confident for her own good, she’d done some impetuous things in her life, but nothing like that. For the first time, she’d lost every iota of inhibition and good sense.
And leapt headlong into the fire without a second thought.
Aila would have thought herself experienced enough not to become so thoroughly dazzled by a man, no matter how overwhelming he was. She’d been called the same by a number of the men she’d dated in the past. Overwhelming. Intimidating. Smart, capable,blah, blah, blah. The very things that attracted men to her often tended to frighten them off again. Most of them before they ever approached the subject of sex.
More than one decidedly underwhelming Tinder date had ended with some version of the guy admitting that, while he’d love to shag her, he couldn’t see himself in a relationship with a woman “like” her. Aila translated that as a woman with more balls than any of them. The tossers hadn’t even been smart enough to put off this announcement until after they shagged her.
Then somehow got pissed when she wouldn’t.
That tendency had left her with a sex life punctuated by frustration and disappointment. There’d been a couple of one-night stands — one night due to the aforementioned problems — and a handful of relationships of varying lengths, with Kyle and his lack of imagination being the longest. Not one of them had ever induced her to throw caution and common sense to the wind.
Perhaps it was because they didn’t make men like Finn in her time. If they did, she’d never met one. Finn bore an elusive quality even Brontë’s new beau for all his masculinity and gentlemanly manner didn’t possess. Unsurpassed magnetism. Virility? A primeval appeal that drew on the primitive urge to propagate the species?
Nay, it was something Aila couldn’t quite put a name to.
All she knew was that Finn Keeley drove her to a place where wit and wisdom abandoned her. Gah, she’d sent an entire box of condoms into the past with Brontë, however it had never occurred to Aila she’d have need of even one during her historic holiday. Much less many. In the heat of the moment with Finn, it had never even crossed her mind. She’d had unprotected sex for the first time in her life!
And it had been magnificent.
Finn had made love to her for hours…to her entire body. There wasn’t an inch that had been spared from his touch, from his lips. From his tongue. Aila shivered at the recollection. In the darkness without the sight of him to distract her, she’d been lost to pure sensation. The delicious friction of his massive body against hers. Taking her. Consuming her.
Fulfilling her again and again, each climax more powerful than the last.
