“He’ll be back.” A rush of emotion brought tears to her eyes. “Fitzroy takes pleasure in controlling me. He will have doctors certify Jessica insane, and there’s nothing I can do to protect her.”
Finlay gritted his teeth. “I’ll kill him before I let that happen.” He spoke with such vehemence she didn’t doubt his word. She would never doubt his word.
“Tell me what to do, Finlay.” A tear trickled down her cheek, and he wiped it away with his thumb. “Am I wrong to keep her hidden here?”
“I’m hardly qualified to know what’s best. I’ve made mistakes.”
“We both have.”
“No doubt we’ll make more.”
“No doubt.”
Their panted breaths caressed in the cold night air.
“Do you remember the last time we were alone together in the woods?” she said. They had escaped the family picnic to stroll, to kiss, to touch each other intimately amid a white blanket of snowdrops.
“We stood beneath the ancient broad oak and pledged our troth.”
“Faithfulness and fidelity, that’s what we swore.” And like a fickle fool, she had broken her promise within months of learning he was dead. “Forgive me. I should have waited. I should never have given up hope.”
“And I shouldn’t have been foolish enough to trust a man who took bribes for a living. Had I escaped my prison earlier—”
“I ruined everything.”
“You did what you thought was right.”
She hung her head. Why was life so complicated? That said, she was more fortunate than most and had managed to keep Jessica hidden all these years. Should she not count her blessings?
Finlay gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. “You will save Jessica, and you will be happy again. This tree might not be a four-hundred-year-old oak that has defied the odds, but I pledge to do everything in my power to help you.”
“And I shall be forever in your debt, Finlay.”
“You owe me nothing.”
They stared at each other for so long another tear trickled down her nose and landed on her chin.
Finlay traced her lower lip with his thumb. “Don’t cry.”
He studied her mouth, his gaze so hot her body burned. When he angled his head, she knew he might kiss her. Anticipation sent her stomach lurching. It took every effort to wait, to keep her greedy hands by her sides and let him take his time.
“One kiss cannot hurt,” he muttered before capturing her mouth.
Oh, how wrong could a man be?
The feel of his mouth moving seductively over hers was like the sweetest pleasure, the sharpest pain. Intense hunger consumed every thought, every feeling. She kept her arms pinned to her sides, frightened to touch him lest he come to his senses. Desire was her constant companion when in Finlay Cole’s company. But the physical ache was unbearable.
Jessica was right. The need to devour every inch of him, to gorge on every morsel, thrummed in Sophia’s veins. How she wished she could throw caution to the wind and just love him.
But then he snatched his mouth from hers and frowned. “Forgive me. It’s clear this isn’t what you—”
She didn’t give him a chance to finish speaking. Did he not know she longed to ravage him senseless? Did he not know her every thought and action stemmed from a need not to hurt him again?
Sophia threw her arms around his neck, came up on her toes and claimed his mouth in a desperate frenzy. She didn’t care that his beard prickled her skin, or that the strange presence lingered in the woods.
Something shifted within him.
Restraint’s bindings fell away.