‘I have to find some way to work off the residual adrenaline rush from the qualifying session, Seraphina. Unless you’re offering to relieve some of my more…physical tensions.’
Her lower abdomen clenched in reaction to that catastrophically sensual drawl, and as if he could sense it his lips twitched.
‘I’d be quite happy to knock you out—would that help?’
There it was again. That smile. A dangerous and destructive weapon known to bring women to their knees. And the fact that it turned her own to hot rubber made her madder still. ‘Then again,’ she sniped, ‘we wouldn’t want to mar that pretty-boy face, would we?’
A trick of the light, maybe, but she’d swear he flinched, paled…before something dark and malevolent tightened the hard lines of his body until he positively seethed.
Whoa…
Her mind screaming, Danger! Danger! Run!, she backed up a step and nudged the door. She wanted to snarl and bite at him. It was as if her body knew he was the enemy and she was gearing up for a fight. The fight she’d once been incapable of.
Not any more.
Her blunt nails dug into her palms, but in the next breath he pursed that delectable mouth in suppressed amusement, as if it had all been some huge joke, and the change in him was so swift, so absolute, she floundered.
‘There’s something dark about him all of a sudden.’ Or she could be hallucinating from an overdose of his pheromones.
‘If you don’t mind,’ he drawled, ‘I’d appreciate it if we kept my face out of it. After all, I wouldn’t want to distress the ladies with some unsightly bruising.’
‘Like you need any more ladies! Looks to me like you’ve had your fair share already this evening.’
He looked well-sexed, to be sure. Hair damp, with his glorious fresh water-mint scent flirting with her senses, she guessed he’d just stepped from beneath the assault of a shower.
‘On the contrary, I was just about to indulge in a good workout.’
Disgust drove her tone wild. ‘Yes, well, bedding the latest starlet or pit-lane queen is one thing—partying the night away before racing on the most dangerous circuit on the calendar is downright risky and inappropriate!’
He gave an elaborate sigh. ‘Where is the fun in being appropriate? Even the word sounds dull, don’t you agree?’
‘No, I don’t—and nor do our sponsors.’ She rubbed her brow to pacify its exasperated throb. ‘I swear to God, if you don’t start pulling through for this team I will make you wish you’d never been born.’
‘You know, I believe you would.’
‘Good.’
He brushed the pad of his thumb from the corner of his mouth down over the soft flesh of his bottom lip. ‘So if you haven’t come to indulge in some heavy petting why are you here, beautiful?’
His voice, disturbingly low and smooth as cognac, was so potent she swayed, nigh on intoxicated.
For an infinitesimal moment his cerulean-blue eyes held hers and a riot of sensations tumbled down the length of her spine. Pooled. Pulled. Primal and magnetic. And she hated it. Hated it!
Beautiful?
‘Don’t mock me, Finn. I’m not in the mood for your games. I want this place cleared and you sober. How dare you party it up and put the team at risk while everyone sits around feeling sorry for your little soul?’
‘You know as well as I do that sympathy is wasted on me. Especially when there is a profusion of far more…enjoyable sensations to be experienced at my hands.’
Ugh.
Temper rising, implosion imminent, she felt her breasts begin to heave. ‘For someone who blew up an engine this morning—and, hey, this is a wild idea—how about you start thinking of how to salvage the situation instead of screwing around? Have you been drinking? You could get banned from the race altogether!’
With a shake of his head he tsked at her. ‘No drinking.’
‘You swear?’
One blunt finger scraped over his honed left pec. ‘Cross my heart.’
Time stilled as she walked headlong into another wall of grief and memories slammed into every corner of her mind. The games of two children. One voice: ‘Cross my heart.’ The other: ‘Hope to die.’
There it was. The elephant in the room.
Tom.
Cold. Suddenly she was so very, very cold. Only wanting to leave. To get as far away from this man as she could before the emotion she’d balled up in her chest for months punched free and she screamed and railed and lashed out in a burst of feminine pique.
She’d tell her dad he was barking up the wrong tree. No way could she work with Finn. She felt unhinged, her body vibrating with conflicting emotions, all of them revving, striving for pole position. And that was nothing compared to the hot whirlpool of desire swirling like a dark storm inside of her. How was that even possible? How was that even fair?
Life isn’t fair, Serena. You know that. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Makes your heart beat harder and your will indestructible.
So before she left she was getting the answers she wanted if it was the last thing she did.
In all the times over the last eight months when Finn had imagined coming face-to-face with Seraphina Scott, he’d never once envisaged the tough, prickly and somewhat prissy tomboy with her ear smashed against a door panel, listening for the orgasmic finale sure to come.
How very…intriguing.
It had certainly made up his mind on how to handle her impromptu arrival. With one look his heart had paused and he’d stared at the sweet, subtle curve of her waist, battling with innumerable choices.
Apologise? Not here, not now. Wrong place, wrong time. The risk that his defences would splinter equalled the prospect that she wouldn’t believe him.
Wrap her tight in his arms because for a fleeting moment he’d sensed a keen vulnerability in her? Far too risky. If he buried his face in that heavenly fall of fire he might never come up to breathe again.
Act the polite English gentleman? Despite popular opinion he was more than capable of executing that particular role. He could be anyone or anything any woman wanted, as long as it wasn’t himself. The problem was that kind of outlandish behaviour would only make her suspicious and no doubt she’d hang around.
He might be responsible for the words delectable, fickle and playboy appearing in the dictionary, but he was far from stupid. Soon she’d start asking questions about her brother’s death, and he had to ensure they never came to pass those gloriously full raspberry lips. Lips he’d become riveted upon. Lips he’d do anything to smother and crush. To make love to with every pent-up breath in his taut body until she yielded beneath his command.
Never.
So in the end he’d settled for their habitual sparring. The usual back and forth banter that was sure to spark her every nerve and induce the usual colourful dazzling firework display. Make her hate him even more. Followed by her departure, of course.
While a vast proportion of him had rebelled at the notion, some minuscule sensible part had won out. After all, if there were fairness and justice in the world he would be the man six feet under and not