Page 27 of This Haunted Heart

I leaned down and sucked one pert nipple into my mouth, through her chemise. Sucked hard enough to hurt. Sucked until I dampened the linen, turning it sheer, and her bodyquivered beneath me.

“I need . . .” she cried.

“I know what you need,” I told her, stroking inside her and rubbing deep circles right where she craved me most. She came around my fingers with a low moan, her body squeezing me tight.

Rynn worked her throat as she fell from her peak, her cheeks flushed. Her lashes fluttered, and muscles flexed in her legs. Her toes curled and uncurled into the blankets.

“You’ve entirely missed the point of this transaction,” she told me languidly. “I can’t make sense of you. If you don’t want to play this game correctly, then why the hell are we playing at all?”

I watched her pleasure drip down my palm, entranced. “The game is growing on me,” I said, voice gone to gravel. Then my gaze lifted to hers. “You owe me an answer.”

She scoffed. “That wasn’t the point of the trade.”

“Matters not. Those were the rules.”

She tried to shift onto her side so she could close her legs, but I kept her open to me.

Rynn rolled her eyes. “What’s your question?”

“Have you ever been in love with someone? Truly in love. Not lust. Not a trade or transaction. The real thing that hurts and haunts you. The kind that aches when they’re away and aches again when they’re near but in an entirely different way.”

She swallowed, and her lashes lowered. “I know what you mean. You need not carry on poetically.”

“Then answer the question.” I waited for her words, air trapped in my lungs.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I’ve loved a man like that. We grew up together. I loved him truly. He was my first and only.”

Her words tore through my shriveled heart like shrapnel.

She reached for me, cupping my face, her doe eyes widening. “God above, you’ve never looked so sad.”

I leaned into the comfort she offered, unable to pull myself away from her. My next breath shuddered out of me.

“Why don’t you let me take some of that sad away for a little while,” she said softly, her fingers tracing the scar that cut through my brow. “I could make you feel better. I want to. I have since the very first time I laid eyes on you. Don’t you remember?”

Her honeyed words were temptation itself, the devil in the desert with the only bread and water around.

“If you loved this man so, then why aren’t you still with him?” I kept my tone light, hoping the shadows hid at least some of the telling agony on my face.

Her chin fell. I wanted to make her look at me. I wanted to shake her and shout at her. Rip my shirt off and make her see all the wounds she’d caused, make her sorry . . . I wanted . . . wanted to hurt just a little bit less.

“I answered your question,” she said somberly. “Let me give you the release you so clearly need. Then I can have the informationIwant.”

“No.”

“No? You misunderstand the whole purpose of this trade. I meet your needs. Then you—”

I laid my body over hers, pinning her to the bed. “No.” I kissed her lips, quick and brisk. “That’s not what I agreed to.” I pressed my lips to her throat. “I agreed to a release for information. That’s the trade.”

She bucked her body under mine, rubbing her heat against my hard length. “Finley—”

Kissing her breasts, I pushed up her chemise until they spilled free of the satin. I filled my palms with them. She tried again to rub herself against the part of me that ached for her the most, but I shifted my weight so that her heat ground against my thigh instead.

“There it is,” she said softly, studying my face.

“What’s that?” Watching her unravel herself, I longed to know what she saw in me.

“Lust,” she whispered. “Why not just take what you crave, Finley? Clearly you don’twantto want me, but you do, so here we are. Why fight it? You’ve proven your point now. You didn’t care to be manipulated by the wicked harlot, so you manipulated me back. Well done, you. Come and claim your prize.”

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