Fin was her connection to the past, to where Simon was alive and well. Somewhere deep in the far reaches of her mind, Liz knew if she couldn’t see or touch Fin, she’d wonder if everything that had happened was a nothing more than a bad dream.

She’d awake in the morning and expect Simon to be bouncing around in the kitchen and getting ready for school. Okay, maybe not school since it was summer, but still…

Liz opened the medicine cabinet and found a toothbrush. The toothpaste was hard at the cap, but with a little influence, Liz managed to bead a strip of minty fluoride on the brush and gave into a decent cleaning of her teeth.

After wiggling into a soft satin nightgown, she made her way back to her room. Light from the kitchen tossed a shadow on Jake’s frame. He’d positioned himself on the couch and had moved the chair in front of the door. Like they’d leave. The man didn’t get it. They had nowhere to go.

Inside their room, Fin’s sword was within arm’s reach. The broad expanse of his naked chest brought a ripple of pleasure down her neck. She remembered how good it felt to touch, to smell, to taste. His kilt sat on the dresser. She shivered.

“What is that you’re wearing, love?” His husky voice rumbled in the room.

“It’s a nightgown.” Why was her mouth so dry?

“Gown? It doesn’t reach your knees.”

Liz glanced down at her nightclothes. “We still call them nightgowns, even if they don’t reach the floor.”

Liz forced her eyes to his. His brow lifted in amusement. But it disappeared quickly. “Did you walk by that man wearing only that?”

“What man?”

“Jake?”

“He’s in the living room.”

“But he could have seen you.”

Liz felt her shoulders start to shake. This was rich. Fin was worried about another man’s eyes on her body. “I don’t think he noticed.”

“The hell he wouldn’t. You need to cover yourself when you exit this room.”

Her head fell back with a full-blown laugh.

“Right.”

“I mean it, Elizabeth. I’ll not have any man feast his eyes on what is mine.”

“Yours?”

“Aye. Mine.”

Oh, the gall. “Listen, just because we’ve...slept together, once I might add, doesn’t make me yours.”

Her laughter was gone, and her mouth no longer felt like the Sahara desert.

Fin’s eyes turned to stone. He flipped off the covers and revealed every asset the good Lord had given him. His c**k stood erect, reaching toward his chest.

Liz blinked, forcing her eyes away from him.

She placed a hand on her dresser and caught his reflection in the mirror. He reached her in two strides but didn’t touch her. His breath reached out and stroked her skin. “Shall I prove it?” he whispered close to her ear.

“I don’t belong to anyone.” And never had. What she and Fin shared was chemistry. Hot, fiery chemistry.

Fin stalked behind her, his body so close his heat tickled her ni**les into an erect state. “You are mine,” he said before his lips found the top of her shoulder.

Her head tilted to the side by only an inch. His tongue caressed her skin before giving her a quick nip with his teeth.

The inner folds of her sex liquefied instantly.

His hands hadn’t even touched her yet, and she was ready to fall on her back and open up for him to sink into. God, she was pathetic. “I’m not yours, Finlay.”

Her words held no conviction. They fluttered out, weak, meaning nothing.

She watched him through the mirror. His fingers feathered up her bare arms until they found the thin strips of her nightgown and eased them over her shoulders. It fell to the floor and left her completely bare. Liz closed her eyes and held her breath.

With only his fingertips, Fin guided his touch over her back and down her hips. Heat built and trickled down her spine, settling between her legs.

As if sensing her need, his palm reached around her body and flattened against her quivering stomach.

She held perfectly still, desperate to convince him she wasn’t affected. Her hand gripped the dresser painfully.

“Are you still denying you’re mine, love?”

She swallowed hard and gave a quick nod. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Only his arm around her waist, and his hand tempting the tender flesh of her abdomen, touched her, but she burned from the heat of his body. She knew if she inched back, even a little, she’d feel his erection press against her skin.

Fin’s hand slipped lower, brushed against the hair nestled between her legs. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting. One long finger sank into her wet flesh, her mouth dropped open.

“You can pretend all you want, Elizabeth, but your body does not lie.” His fingers slid over her swollen clit, forcing a groan from her lips.

Fin moaned and pressed his body to hers.

She couldn’t take it. Her hips bucked forward, reaching into his touch, her head fell back on his shoulder. Her body swelled and tingled with each touch, each caress. His other hand came up and cupped her breast. She wanted to cry out but remembered the other people in the apartment.

“Open your eyes,” he demanded.

She couldn’t. She knew he’d be watching them in the mirror. He’d force her to see just how much control he had over her. “No.”

His fingers sliding in and out of her sex, forcing her desire to build, stopped. She wanted to weep and beg him to continue.

“Open your eyes, love.” This time his words sounded more like a plea than a demand.

Her lids fluttered open. She noticed both her hands grasping the top of the dresser, her knuckles white with strain.

Fin flicked her sex with his hand and pulled her back into his arms. When she met his gaze, she didn’t see the triumph she expected. Instead, his eyes melted in a pool of softness. Something she couldn’t identify. Something she’d never seen from him before.

He bent his knees and allowed his erection to slip between their bodies.

She started to turn toward him, wanting to feel him inside her. He refused and kept her facing the mirror. He reached down, opened one of the drawers, and lifted her knee up until her foot rested on the wood.

Fin wanted to watch. Damn if that didn’t turn what wasn’t already lava in her blood into a fiery mass of liquid heat.

Liz released her death-grip on the dresser and reached around to stroke Fin’s steel-like thigh. He ground his teeth when her fingers brushed his erection.

Liz found the pearly drop of moisture at the tip of his c**k and ran her thumb over it. Fin cursed and thrust his hips into her hand and closed his eyes. She stroked his heat once, twice and then leaned forward on the dresser. Opening his eyes, Fin bent his knees until she felt the length of him sliding up behind her. He wrapped his hand, wet with her moisture, around his erection, and slid it down the cleft of her ass.