‘What are those marks?’ Closing the gap, he leaned in for a better look. ‘What is that?’
‘That is a gift from your security detail, keeping the hordes at bay.’
Hordes at bay? ‘Let me see.’
‘No!’ Tucking her hands tighter into the creases of her underarms, she regarded him as if he were ten kinds of crazy.
‘Come on. Stop being a girl. It doesn’t suit you.’
‘You know, that’s the first truth you’ve uttered since I got here.’
As he gently tugged her hand free his knuckles brushed over her soft breast. Holy… More heat raced south, pleasure and pain moving through him at full throttle.
Oh, man, the last thing he needed was his first hard-on in almost a year to be for this woman. It was an inconceivable prospect that was swiftly overtaken by the dark bruising marring her wrist, and his insides shook with anger as he remembered the sight and sensation of torn wrists, shredded skin, blood dripping from shackles.
‘Finn?’ she breathed. ‘What are you…?’
With deliberate and infinite care he brushed the backs of his fingers down one side of her forearm and up the other. ‘I…’ I’m sorry he hurt you. I’ll make him pay. I swear it.
‘Finn?’
Tilting her head, she frowned. Cutely. The action softened the often harsh yet no less cataclysmic impact of her beauty.
Seraphina Scott wasn’t pretty in the normal sense of the word. She was no delicate English rose. No, no. She was a wild flower. Tempestuous and striking. Made in technicolour. Hardy, tough. Weathering every storm, only to survive more beautiful than ever before.
And she was clearly waiting for him to expand. Trying to work him out.
Such a small thing, that softening. It made her appear vulnerable. From nowhere more words sped through his brain. I’m sorry…I’m sorry. So very sorry I took Tom away from you. I would do anything. Anything to bring him back.
How he wished he could tell everyone the truth. Let the world know what had truly gone down in Singapore. But with an ongoing investigation and a sense that he’d meet his adversary again one day it was impossible. Business hadn’t been settled. Too many men roamed free. So if there was to be a next time he was going in alone.
As if she knew the direction of his thoughts, she shaped her lips for speech—no doubt to ask more questions he would never answer, couldn’t even bear to hear. Tension throbbed like a living force, so heavy he could taste it, feel the weight of it pressing on his shoulders.
What was it going to take for him to get rid of her? He didn’t want Serena near him. Hell, he felt dangerous at the best of times. Around her he felt positively deadly. The need to charge upstairs and throttle the security guy’s neck roiled inside him, toxic and deadly, and surely he had enough blood on his hands.
Speaking of hands… For some reason he couldn’t let hers go. She was trembling. It couldn’t possibly be him. Finn required a large hit of G-force to feel moved.
Holding her wrist in the cradle of his palm, he reached up with his other hand to touch the wild mass of her hair. Hair the deepest darkest red, reminding him of ripe black cherries.
How long had he resisted the temptation of her? It felt like a thousand years.
Almost there and her eyes caught the movement, flared before she jerked backwards.
‘Finn. Let go of me. Right now.’
Distantly he heard the words, the quiver in her command, and knew they held no heat. Control slipped from his grasp and he fingered the stray lock tumbling over her shoulder.
Pure silk. Hot enough to singe. Fire burning on a dangerous scale.
Ignoring her sharp gasp, he corkscrewed the thick wave and tugged. Hard. Being rough. Too rough. But that was what she did to him. Severed his control. Fed his wildness. Even as the thought of hurting her fisted his heart.
‘Fiiiinn…’ she warned, as her chest rose and fell in rapid, mesmerising waves.
Familiarity rattled her. Always had. After the last time he’d touched her, however innocently, she’d avoided him for four years. Clever girl, she was.
Not once had he seen her embrace her father and he’d never noticed her with a lover. It couldn’t possibly be through lack of interest. Whether they would admit it or not, every guy on every team wanted a piece of her, Jake Morgan in particular carried a huge crush. But they always kept their distance. Prewarned? he wondered. Or did none of them have the courage to take her on?
There was a story there. One he’d pay any price to discover. One he would never know.
And that, he realised, was his answer. Or at least he told himself it was.
The charm he’d been born with, the charismatic beauty he’d wielded like a golden gun since he’d been old enough to deduce the fact that it got him out of many a sticky situation, would be the one thing—the only thing—to drive her away. Back to London. Out of sight. Out of mind. Free from the claws of temptation.
It wasn’t as if he could do any harm. Despite every word that fell from her delectable pout, she felt the same exquisite thrill of attraction he did. Hated it just as much as he did.
Decision made. It was bye-bye, Miss Seraphina Scott.
May the gods forgive him for what he was about to do.
He unleashed his desire and went in for the kill.
LIKE A RABBIT caught in the headlights, Serena’s heart seized, and her eyes flared as the world’s most beautiful man brushed the back of his knuckles up the curve of her jawline.
Weakness spread through her limbs and she started to shake as if she’d been injected with something deadly. And when he skimmed the super-sensitive skin beneath her ear and sank his fingers into the fall of her hair to anchor her head in place dark spots danced behind her eyes.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she barked. Or at least she intended to. Bizarrely, it came out as more of a panting plea.
‘You should know better than to challenge me, Miss Scott. Especially in that gorgeous husky voice of yours.’
‘Honestly, Finn, will you stop that for just one minute?’
‘What?’
‘The lies.’ She loathed them. Not only did they torment the girl beneath, desperate to believe him, they also whispered of a long-ago web of deceit, a dark betrayal that 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,