The High Price of Secrets

“I am a bit,” she admitted, realizing now that she was ravenous.

“Help yourself while I pour the wine.”

Tamsyn eyed the spread he’d laid out—smoked chicken, coleslaw, fresh bread rolls as well as olives, baby gherkins and sundried tomatoes. Her mouth watered. “It looks great,” she commented, filling the plate he handed her. “I suppose you just threw this together?”

“Ha! I wish I could take the credit. No, I asked Bill at the café to put this together for us.” He looked at her, his features softening. “You remind me a lot of her—Ellen.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. You look like her, of course, but it’s also the way you move, the way you sit. It reminds me of when she used to declare dinner a picnic, even in the middle of winter, and we’d sit around on the floor—Ellen, Lorenzo, Alexis and me—eating with our fingers off the plates. She’d laugh, how she’d laugh.”

At first his words hurt, opened wider the gap between what she’d had and what she’d lost when her mother had left her. But then she felt a different sensation, almost tenderness, as a similar picture flooded her mind. Of her mother and Ethan and herself as a small girl, sitting in front of the fireplace at The Masters, rain pelting against the side of the house and yet they were cozy, together—enjoying a meal as if it was the simplest and most fun thing in the world. And she could hear her mother’s laugh echoing through her memories; sense the touch of her mother’s fingers on her face as she brushed away a clinging scrap of food from a cheek.

Tamsyn swallowed against the rise of emotion that clogged her throat.

“Damn, Tamsyn, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought—”

“No, you haven’t upset me,” she choked out, “not at all.”

“Then why are you looking so sad?”

“I just had a similar memory. Just a snippet, but I know it was real.” She reached across the short distance between them. “Thank you,” she said in all sincerity.

“For what?” He curled his hand over hers.

“For sharing her with me. Even just that little bit.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed them against her knuckles. “I wish I could do so much more for you, Tamsyn.”

“I know,” she answered, and she did. It still stung a little that she was being prioritized last, but she understood why his loyalty to Lorenzo went deep. And really, he was doing everything he could for her that didn’t directly challenge that loyalty. That had to mean something.

He took her empty plate with his free hand and stacked it with his. Tamsyn’s heart rate skipped a beat as he turned his gaze back to her. He still held one hand in his, and with the fingers of the other he traced the contours of her face—his touch so gentle, almost reverent.

“I want to make love to you again,” he said, his voice a soft growl. “Will you allow me that honor?”

Twenty

Tamsyn felt the shiver of desire run from the base of her spine and all the way up into her clouded brain. She could refuse him, pull her hand free and withdraw from his request. He’d respect her decision, she was certain. For all that he’d withheld truths from her, she understood he was an honorable man. But her body had its own demands and try as she might to hold on to her anger with him, she couldn’t resist him.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice a whisper taken on the breeze that nuzzled and eased around their bodies.

His irises widened and she heard his breath hitch just that little bit. Enough for her to know he’d been anticipating a no from her. Enough to know what it meant to him that she’d said yes.

“Thank you,” he said, pulling her toward him and meeting her lips with his own.

His kiss was tender at first, a soft play of his lips against hers—sucking, teasing kisses that enticed and tempted. Her nipples tightened beneath the cotton of his shirt, pressing against the fabric with an ache that spread all the way down to her core. A soft moan fled her mouth as he traced her jawline with his mouth, sucking softly at the sensitive skin of her throat.

Tamsyn hitched herself against him, her legs falling on either side of his, her rapidly dampening center pressing against the ridge that told of his body’s own silent entreaty. Finn’s hands were at her waist, pushing up the fabric of his shirt, tracing her ribs and slowly, oh so tormentingly slowly, moving higher to cup the fullness of her breasts.

His thumbs grazed against the tight nubs that peaked at their tips and she shuddered, pressing harder against him. He squeezed and rolled the taut beads between thumb and fingertip and in response she arched her back, flexed her hips against him, against his straining erection. Finn’s mouth traced a blazing trail of wet heat to the fullness of her breasts until he took first one, then the other nipple in his mouth, rolling them with his tongue, suckling and grazing them with his teeth.