as for the smell! The mince couldn’t be cooked yet, surely? She had a memory, admittedly vague, of her grandmother spending far longer than a mere few minutes cooking hers!
Cautiously she approached the Aga, and was just about to lift the lid off the pan when Finn came bursting into the kitchen.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he was demanding as he strode past her and grabbed the pan off the stove, carrying it over to the sink, where he dumped it unceremoniously then removed its lid to peer in disgust at its smoking contents before turning on the tap.
‘It’s not my fault if your cooker isn’t reliable,’ Maggie informed him with a bravado she was far from feeling.
‘My cooker!’ Finn exclaimed through gritted teeth. ‘It isn’t the cooker that’s unreliable, it’s the cook. Why on earth didn’t you add some more water to it?’
Some more water. Maggie gulped and looked away, feigning disdain, but obviously her acting wasn’t good enough, because to her chagrin she heard Finn saying in an oh, so dangerously soft voice, ‘You did add water, didn’t you?’
Maggie swallowed. Her grandmother had had very strong views about lying, but surely on this occasion…
‘You didn’t, did you?’ Finn breathed in disbelief.
Maggie affected a nonchalant shrug. ‘So we favour different schools of cooking…’
‘Different schools?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You haven’t a clue, have you?’ He scoffed sardonically. ‘Thank you, fate. Not only have I got to house her; I’ve got to feed her as well. Tell me,’ he invited unkindly, ‘just how many other non-skills do you possess that are likely to bring havoc to my life? You can’t read a map, you can’t cook, you—’
‘Stop it.’
Maggie wasn’t sure which of them was the more shocked by the sound of her tear-filled voice.
The silence it caused seemed to stretch for ever, hostility giving way to shock, shock to a soft little prickle of sensual tension which in turn led…
‘I’m sorry.’ It was the gruff note of real apology in Finn’s voice that did it, Maggie assured herself later. That and the fact that she had really been intending to walk past him and out of the room—would have walked past him if her eyes hadn’t been blurred by tears of shame and anger causing her instead to walk into him, into him and into…into his arms.
CHAPTER THREE
‘I’M SORRY. I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ Finn apologised gruffly, as he pushed the silky hair back off Maggie’s face, his fingertips enjoying the soft delicacy of her skin. Her throat seemed to fit the curve of his hand perfectly. She was trembling slightly, and in his own body…
‘You haven’t. You didn’t,’ Maggie responded huskily. She couldn’t stop looking at him; their glances were meeting, meshing, mating; she didn’t want to stop looking at him.
‘I’ll make us something else to eat,’ Finn offered. He knew he should release her, but he didn’t want to, couldn’t bear to.
Maggie shook her head. ‘It’s you I’m hungry for,’ she whispered softly. ‘Not food. Just you. Only you, Finn.’
As she lifted her face towards his Maggie knew that she had never done anything in the whole of her life that felt more right than this, more right than Finn.
Finn tried to apply the brakes of caution and common sense to the escalating urgency of his response to her, but one look into the dark haze of her passion-filled eyes had much the same effect on those brakes as the wall of water sweeping down the river had had on Maggie’s car.
His kiss was tentative at first, his lips exploring the soft curves of hers, but then she moved closer to him, nestling into his arms, her breathing quickening, the look in her eyes making Finn groan out loud.
‘Kiss me, Finn,’ Maggie whispered insistently, adding with a shaky urgency that made Finn catch his own breath in fierce longing, ‘Properly this time.’
‘Like this, do you mean?’
Finn’s hand slid beneath her hair, supporting her head as they gazed helplessly at one another. They kissed quickly, as though equally wary of what they were doing, equally wary of their mutual hunger for one another. Brief, fierce kisses were snatched, as though they were starving, in fear of being deprived of the means of satisfying their hunger. But slowly their kisses became longer, deeper.
Behind her closed eyelids, Maggie savoured the richness of the texture of Finn’s mouth. His kisses were the most extraordinarily sensual she had ever experienced. Without doing anything more than holding her and kissing her he had made her whole body come alive with longing for him. Everything about him was having the most erotic aphrodisiacal effect on her, making her think things, want things, want him, with a female ardour and urgency that left her breathless. Breathless and aching, eager, hungry, and wanting him. Just as he wanted her. Finn was a man, and even if his kisses hadn’t shown her that he wanted her as passionately as she did him his body would have given him away.
Experimentally she slid her tongue-tip into his mouth. The arm he had wrapped around her body tightened and she felt him shudder, felt too the corresponding quiver of reaction that set her own limbs shaking.
‘Don’t do that unless you mean it,’ Finn warned her rawly. Heat flamed in his eyes, and beneath her explorative fingertips the hard high planes of his cheekbones burned.
‘I do mean it,’ Maggie responded. Automatically she looked round the kitchen, and, correctly sensing what she was seeking, what she was thinking, Finn released her from his arms and took hold of her hand, silently leading her out of the kitchen and towards the stairs.
His bedroom was on the opposite side of the landing to the room he had given her. Silently he drew her into it, and equally silently Maggie went with him. It was simply and traditionally furnished, and at any other time she would have turned her nose up its shabbiness and lack of style. But the bed was large, with heavy iron head and footboards.
The air in the room was clean and slightly cold, so that Maggie shivered a little.
Watching her, Finn remembered how cold he too had found the farmhouse when he had first moved in. It didn’t possess any central heating, but he had grown used to its lack of modern conveniences.
As she shivered again Maggie instinctively moved closer to Finn, seeking the warmth of his body. The sensation of his arms closing around her was so intense that it rocked her on her heels. As they kissed Maggie felt as though Finn’s warmth was wrapping itself all around her, enfolding her. She could feel his hands moving over her body and she started to tremble. Not with cold now, but with a growing ache of need.
Unable to resist their temptation, Finn explored the taut shape of Maggie’s breasts. Her nipples, tight and erect, pressed into his palms through the fine silk of her shirt. Opening his eyes, he absorbed the eroticism of their tautness pushing against the fabric before slowly circling them with his thumb-tip.
Maggie had forgotten that she had ever been cold now. Feverishly she slid her palms over Finn’s naked torso. She ached to see all of him. To touch all of him, and now, oh yes, right now.
She had just made the very interesting discovery that when she trailed her fingertips across his collarbone and then down his arm his whole body shuddered in sharp response, and when she placed her hand flat against his chest and then moved it lower, so low that it was resting on the belt of his jeans, that shudder became a whole lot more intense.
His own hand was travelling the length of her spine, taking her mind off the way he was reacting and focusing it instead on the way she was feeling. Arousal, hot and sharp, lifted her skin in tiny goosebumps against his touch, as though it just couldn’t get close enough to him.
She exhaled softly as Finn’s hand moved to the buttons on her shirt, and then found that the sensation of his fingertips brushing against her naked skin as he unfastened