haunted her soul.
‘I’m not lying, baby,’ he murmured.
The crackle of energy sizzling between them turned sharper—a sense of anticipation much like the coiled silence before the boom of thunder.
Surely he wasn’t going to...? He’d be crazy even to contemplate...
His body came up flush against hers—all hard lines, latent strength and super-hot heat—sending shock waves straight through her. Then his free hand splayed over her waist, swept around the small of her back and tugged her closer still, until every inch of their bodies—her soft curves and his hard-muscled form—were fused together with need and sweat and fire.
Need? No, no, no. Impossible.
‘Wow, you really do have a death wish, don’t you? You’re on a collision course for total bodily destruction here, Finn.’ Bending her knee, she aimed it to jerk upwards into his groin. Or maybe from this angle she could hook her foot around his ankle and send him off balance...
Kiss.
His lips pressed against the corner of her mouth, then brushed across the seam of her lips.
Ohhh, not good—not good at all. Especially when he moaned low in his throat and started to...well, to nuzzle his way over her cheek, then flick the tip of her nose with his to coerce her head back. And whatever had taken over her body answered his every command.
A heated ache bloomed between her legs, and when he nibbled on her lips to prise them apart the electric touch of his tongue was like a shot of high-octane fuel surging through her.
Don’t respond. Don’t you dare kiss him back.
‘No...’ she breathed, hating him. Hating herself even more for wanting. Flailing...
Serena reached up to push him away but ended up grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, holding on for dear life, powerless to sever the warm, moist crush of his mouth against hers as he moved with a consummate and inexorable seductive ease to find the perfect slick fit for their mouths.
Oh, my life. His kiss was slow and lazy, not meant to enflame but to enrapture, and before she knew it she was whirling in the epicentre of the fiercest storm, bringing her own force of nature into play.
She shivered and arched into him. Never had she felt anything like it. That warm, damp place between her legs throbbed together with her heartbeat and she wriggled closer, pushing her breasts into his chest to relieve the heavy, needy ache.
Tender and fiercely intimate, he didn’t take her will, he invited. He didn’t invade her body, he lured. He didn’t punish her for her internal struggle, he tempted and teased with an amorous touch.
The pure sensual pleasure of it all was enthralling, making her feel feminine in a way she’d never dreamed possible. A way no man had made her feel before.
He deepened the kiss—the languorous thrust of his tongue a velvet lash of tormenting pleasure. It poured through her veins, heated her bones and weakened her limbs. It blasted all thought from her head until her most basic sexual instincts screamed for him to be inside her. Instincts she’d never known she possessed...
There were reasons for that, of course. She—
Whether it was the rush of unwanted memories or the gentle touch of his hand deviating on a feral bent to roughly fist and yank at the hem of her T, she wasn’t sure, but—oh, God—he might as well have dunked her in an ice bath.
Emotion was a burning ball at the base of her ribs— embarrassment, humiliation and a heart-rending vulnerability that brought tears to her eyes. No! No tears. But all of it, all at once, was so overpowering that her mind began to shrill.
Flattening her palms, she shoved at his chest. Finn instantly let go and took a large pace backwards, that awesome chest heaving as he held both hands in the air in a show of surrender.
Intelligent guy.
The walls of the hallway began to close in on her as she gulped hot air. ‘What the blazes are you doing?’
Taut silence pulsated off every surface as Finn blinked dazedly and scrubbed his palms down his face, playing the role of slightly rattled, wholly astonished, guiltless gent! He belonged on the stage—he really did.
He gave his head a good shake. ‘Seeing if your lips taste as good as they look.’
‘What?’
He must think her dense. A fool. She was so far removed from his usual entourage she might as well derive from another planet, and for months he’d poked and prodded at her blatant lack of femininity. Now he expected her to believe his impetuous come-on was legitimate?
He was messing with her and she knew it.
And how could she have forgotten Tom? The part this man had played in her brother’s death?
Guilt climbed into her chest and sat behind her ribs like a heavy weight. It crushed her lungs, making her breath shallow, her voice high-pitched. ‘Answer me, Finn! What was that about?’
His lips parting to speak, he faltered yet again.
Why did she feel as if he wanted to tell her something? Something vital. Something she desperately wanted to hear. Nothing but the truth.
Rightly or wrongly—more than the next race, more than his success or the victory of Team Scott Lansing—the promise of that truth was the only thing tempting her to hover in his orbit.
Hold on...
‘Are you trying to get rid of me? Is that your game?’
Wow, it seemed the heights of her humiliation knew no bounds.
Finn blinked several times in rapid succession and with every flutter of those ridiculously gorgeous thick lashes his expression smoothed into unreadable impassivity, until once more she was looking at Lothario.
‘Is it working?’ he drawled.
‘Yes!’
‘Good,’ he said, those legendary dimples winking at her. ‘Then you’ll be pleased to know the door is that way.’
With a swift finger towards said exit, he pushed open a panel to her left. One he strolled through before it closed behind him, leaving her standing there, jaw slack, twitching in temper. The nerve of the man!
Fury grounded her flight instinct.
He wanted rid of her? He could go to the devil! This was her family, her life, and she was staying put. Her team was in trouble because of him and he needed to pay his dues. Not forgetting the fact he was hiding something and she wanted to know exactly what. Maybe then she could start to repair her broken heart and let Tom go. Move on. Find some peace. Remember what it was like to enjoy life—although she often wondered if she ever had.
Two steps forward, she pushed at the panel of what appeared to be a secret doorway. If it hadn’t budged an inch and then rebounded back with a slam she would have thought it locked. Was he leaning on the other side, trying to regulate his breathing like she was? Don’t be a gullible fool, Serena. He’d be grinning like the feckless charmer he was, delighted that he’d got the better of her.
The second time she put all her weight behind the oak, pushed and stumbled into a room, tripping over her feet with as much elegance as a battering ram.
A zillion things hit her at once—mainly gratitude for the fact that her ungainly entrance was witnessed only by Finn’s back as he swaggered towards the bed and the sheer extravagance of the room.
‘Wow.’
Infinite shades of midnight blue, the decor was a pulse-revving epitome of dark sensuality and masculine drama, and about the only thing on this floating bordello that fitted the man himself. As if, after purchasing the mega-yacht, Finn had only stamped ownership on this one room.
‘Did you run out of money before the renovations were complete?’ she asked, tongue in cheek, knowing full