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‘Ow!’ Pain shot up her arm and she flipped her hand in an attempt to dislodge the hold—even as she was flung back in time and any lingering panic was ramped up into bone-shattering fear. ‘Get off me!’
Except the more she struggled, the tighter the hold became—until the knife-edge of terror scored her heart and her vision swam in the blackest waters...
A rough yet familiar voice shattered the obsidian glaze. ‘Hey, let her go. She’s okay.’
Mr Manacle released her so fast she stumbled backwards. Her only conscious thought was that she was taking up self-defence classes again. Pronto.
Righting her footing, she glanced at the owner of that masculine rumble.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, her voice disgustingly fragile as she rubbed at her wrist to ease the throb of muscle and friction burn.
‘You okay, Serena?’
Vision clearing, she focused on the handsome, boyish face of one uneasy chocolate-haired Jake Morgan. Scott Lansing protégé and an apparent star in the making. She’d never watched him drive. For some reason he always got a bit tongue-tied around her, and the fact that he was Tom’s replacement gave her heart a pang every time she looked at him. Not his fault, Serena. Let it go.
‘Peachy. Since when does Finn have security?’
‘Had them on and off all season. Mainly for parties when there’s a big crowd.’
Translation: when he needed to fend off gatecrashing bombshells.
‘Where is your dissolute host?’ she asked, somewhat surly and unable to care. She was shaking so hard she had to cross her arms over her chest to stop her bones rattling.
‘Not sure.’ Jake’s Adam’s apple bobbed and his eyes jerked to a door leading to what she guessed was the main salon. ‘I haven’t seen him for a while.’
Oh, wonderful. He was covering for Finn. ‘Forget it. I’ll find him myself.’
The sensation of copious eyes poring over her wild mane and crumpled clothing made her flesh crawl and she had to fight the instinct to race across the polished deck. Ironically, the door to the devil’s lair suddenly seemed very appealing and she slipped inside with a bizarre sense of relief.
The lavishness of the place was staggering, and way too gold-filigree-and-fussy for her. She might have a DNA glitch but it didn’t even suit Finn. Granted, he’d purchased the mega-yacht from some billionaire, but at least a year had passed since.
After ten minutes of being creeped out by cherub wall sconces she was standing in a corridor surrounded by more doors. It was all like a bad dream...
Moaning, purring, steamy and impassioned noises drifted from the room at the far end of the panelled hallway, licking her stomach into a slow, laborious roll.
Pound-pound went her heart as she edged further towards the sounds, her gaze locked on the source as if drawn by some powerful magnetic force.
Her hand to the handle now, a wisp of a thought passed through her brain: did she really want to catch Finn the notorious womaniser in flagrante with his recent squeeze? She had enough nightmares to contend with at the best of times. Except...she could hardly roam around here all night, could she? If he was in a drunken stupor she only had sixteen hours to clean him up, and she was not leaving this place without some answers!
Astounded at what she was about to do, she pressed her ear up against the door panel in an effort to decipher voices.
Rustle went the sheets and creak went the muffled bounce of springs, as if bodies were interlocked and undulating in an amorous embrace. Cries of rapturous passion bloomed in the air and her blood flushed hotly, madly, deeply, in an odd concoction of mortification, inquisitiveness and warmth.
Jeepers, what was wrong with her?
Focus.
Ignoring the anxious thump in her chest warning that exposure was imminent, she leaned further in and relished the cool brush of wood against her fevered flesh.
The woman, whoever she was, was clearly glorifying in what was being done to her. No subdued cries or awkward silences while she wished it were over. Just murmurs of encouragement in a deep velvet voice that made the damp softness between Serena’s legs tighten.
Not Finn. She would recognise that seductive rasp of perfect Etonian English laced with the smattering of an American drawl any day. A distinct flavour from the time he spent in the off season, presenting a hugely popular car show in the States.
Not that she liked his testosterone-and-sex-drenched tone—not at all.
Edgy, she licked her arid lips and told herself to back away before she was nabbed. So why couldn’t she move? Why did she strive to imagine what was happening behind this door? Wonder how, precisely, Mr Velvet Voice adored his lover’s body for her to reach such hedonistic heights that she became paralysed, unable to do anything but scream in wanton pleasure and abandon—?
‘Has she come yet?’
A voice, richly amused and lathered with sin, curled around her nape.
A squeak burst from her throat.
Her head shot upright.
Boom! Her heart vaulted from her chest and she pivoted clumsily, then spread herself against the door panel like strawberry jam on toast.
One look...
Oh. My. God. No!
Squeezing her eyes shut she began to pray. This is not happening. Not again. I am not the unluckiest woman alive!
‘Good evening, Miss Seraphina Scott. Come to join the party?’ he asked, with such unholy glee that she was fuelled with the urge to smack her head off the door. ‘There’s always room for one more.’
‘When...’ Oh, great—she couldn’t even breathe. And her heart—God, her heart was still on the floor. ‘When hell freezes.’
She wanted out of here. Now. Except the idea that she was acting like a pansy made her root her feet to the floor like pesky weeds and she prised her eyes wide. Only to decide being a sissy wasn’t so bad.
Leaning insolently against the polished panels, no more than two feet away, Finn St George smouldered like a banked fire and the heat spiralling through her veins burst into flames, seared through her blood. All she could think was that she must have done something atrocious in another life to deserve this.
After what he’d done, had it truly been too much to hope his mere presence would have stopped affecting her?
She hated him. Hated him! He hadn’t changed one iota. Still the most debauched, moral-less creature on two legs. And clearly he intended to go on as if he hadn’t taken a crowbar to her life and smashed it to smithereens. What had her father said? ‘He goes on like nothing’s happened...’
Over her dead body.
Seraphina. No one was allowed to call her that. No one!
‘This isn’t a social call, I assure you,’ she said, proud of her don’t-mess-with-me voice as she restrained the urge to shiver before him. ‘Any other time it would take an apocalypse to get me into this den of iniquity.’
His mouth—the very one that had been known to cause swooning and fever-pitch hysteria—kicked up into a crooked smile and one solitary indentation kissed his cheek. ‘And yet here you are.’
Here she was. It was a pity, that for a moment, she couldn’t remember why. All she could think was that that mouth of his was a loaded weapon.
‘I do seem to find you in the most...deliciously compromising situations, Seraphina.’ His prurient grin made his extraordinary eyes gleam in the dim light. ‘Listening at doors? Bad, bad girl. I ought to take you over my knee.’
Thanking her lucky stars that she wasn’t prone to blushing like a girl—because, let’s face it, she’d never been one, and the fact that this man made her feel like one was probably the greatest insult on earth—she weighed up the intelligence of answering that symphony of innuendo. Meanwhile she returned his visual full-body inspection just as blatantly. Why he insisted on going through this rigmarole every time they met was a mystery. With one arching golden brow he arrogantly put her in her place—ensuring she understood that she was a duck among swans.
Unluckily for him intimidation didn’t work on her. Not any more.
As she soaked up every inch of him she decided she didn’t understand the man’s appeal.
Obviously there had to be some basis for his being named the world’s greatest lover, an erotic legend in the racing world. But, come on, plenty of men must be good in bed—right? Plenty had sexy dimples in lean jaws. Plenty had a mouth made for sin, lips that moved sensually and invitingly and downright suggestively, and eyes the colour of—
Ohhh, who was she kidding?
Finn St George was flat-out, drop-dead insanely gorgeous—an abundance of angelic male beauty.
Thick dirty-blond hair; cut short at the back and longer at the front to fall in a tousled tumble over his brow, gave him a sexy, roguish air. And that face...
Not only did he defy nature, he literally bent the laws of physics with his intriguingly wicked mouth and that downright depraved gleam in his cerulean eyes. Eyes that had catapulted him into the hearts and fantasies of women the world over.
Between his leading-man looks and his celebrated body—currently dressed in low-slung board shorts and an unbuttoned crisp white linen shirt, showcasing his magnificent torso—he was mouth-watering, picture-perfect in every single way.
It was a good thing she knew how well a polished chassis could hide an engine riddled with innumerable flaws.
‘What do you think you’re playing at, Lothario? Don’t you think drinking and partying the night away before a race is dangerous, even for you?’
‘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 an innocent kid who’d always looked at him as if he were some kind of hero.
What a joke.
But death eluded him. No matter how many of life’s obstacles he faced, and no matter how many cars he crashed. He was Finn St George—dashing, death-defying racing driver extraordinaire. Death took the good and left the bad to fester—he’d seen that time and time again. Not that he deserved any kind of peace. When it finally came and he met his maker he doubted he’d hear the sweet song of angels or bask in the pearly glow of heaven. No. What waited for him was far darker, far hotter. Far more suited to the true him.
Was he worried? Hell, no. Rather, he looked forward to heading down into fire and brimstone. It couldn’t be much worse than what he’d lived with all day, every day, for the last eight months.
Ah, great. There he went again. Becoming ridiculously maudlin. Entirely too tedious. A crime in itself when faced with the delectable Miss Seraphina Scott, who never failed to coerce a rush of blood to speed past his ears.
Clink. The door behind her opened and a bikini-clad blonde shimmied past, trailing one French-tipped talon down Finn’s bare forearm. A soap opera star, if he remembered correctly, and a welcome distraction that twisted his torso as he watched her saunter down the hall with a practised sway of her voluptuous hips.
What he couldn’t quite discern was why his eyes were on one thing while his mind, his entire body, was attuned to another, riding another wavelength—one set on Seraphina’s ultra-high frequency.
Typical. Because—come on—if there was ever a more desirable time to regain some kind of sexual enthusiasm for his usual coterie of fanatics it was the precipitous return of Miss Scott.
‘One of yours, I presume?’
Derision drizzled over that strawberry and cream voice making every word a tart, sweet bite.
‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.’ Turning back to her, he licked his decadent mouth in a blatant taunt. ‘Yet...’
Shunning her sneer of scorn, Finn gave an unconcerned shrug. Women had been flinging themselves in his direction since he’d hit puberty. What kind of man would he be to deny their every sensual wish? Anyway, he loved women—in all their soft, scented glory. Almost as much as he loved cars. It was a shame the current state of his healing body continued to deny him full access.
Not that he was concerned. It would fix itself. He just had to make sure he was a million miles away from this woman when it happened.
‘Do you think you could refrain from thinking with your second head for one solitary minute?’
He pretended to think about that and in the silence of the hallway almost heard himself grin. ‘I could. If you made it worth my while.’
Three. Two. One. Snap.
‘You’re a selfish bastard—you know that? Anyone else would try and focus on the good of the team after we lost Tom. Or should I say after you took Tom from us?’
Strike one. Straight to his heart.
‘But not the consummate indestructible Finn St George. No, no. You think only of yourself and what slice of havoc you can cause next. If it isn’t women, it’s barely being able to keep a car horizontal.’
‘While horizontal is one of my preferred positions, I admit it doesn’t always work out that way.’
Grimacing, she moaned as if in pain. ‘Don’t you take anything seriously? You crashed a multimillion-pound car last month. One I doubt will ever see the light of day again.’
He scrubbed a palm over a jaw that was in desperate need of a shave. ‘That was unfortunate,’ he drawled. ‘I agree.’
‘Is everything a joke to you?’
‘Not in the least. I just find it tedious to focus on the depressing side of life. I’m more a cup half full kind of guy.’
‘Unfortunately that cup of yours is going to run on vapour if you don’t start winning some races.’
Yeah, well, he was having a teeny-tiny problem getting any shut-eye, thanks to the flashbacks visiting him far too often for his peace of mind. And, while his driving had always controlled the restless predator that lived and breathed inside him, of late that wildness had overtaken all else. Until even behind the wheel he felt outside of his own body. Detached. His famed control obliterated. Even as he wiped his mind he could still feel the tight scarred skin of his back rubbing against his driving suit—and then... Hello, flashback.
Luckily his body was healing. The memories would pass and he had all season to make it up to Michael Scott. Thirteen races to land the championship. Piece of cake.
‘Don’t worry about a thing, baby, the team is in safe hands with me.’
It was, of course, entirely possible Michael didn’t think him capable of pulling them out of the quagmire. Hence this visit from Little Miss Spitfire.
‘Now, why does that fail to ease my mind? Oh, yes— because these days, unlike Midas, everything you touch meets a rather gruelling end.’
Strike two, sending his heart crashing into the well of his stomach even as he managed to hide his wince with another kick of his lips. ‘You need to trust me, baby.’
She snorted. ‘When sheep fly and pigs bleat. I’m pretty sure the first step to trust is actually liking the person.’
He let his debauched mouth fire into a full-blown grin.
Finally—someone who loathed him instead of walking on eggshells and spouting blatant lies to his face that it wasn’t his fault. Michael Scott had a tendency to do just that. But Finn wasn’t blind to the turmoil in the other man’s eyes. The reality was his boss had a team to run and they were locked in a multimillion-pound contract, so Mick had no choice but to keep him around until the end of the season. The fact the man had to look at him every day left a bitter taste in Finn’s mouth. Mick was a good guy. He deserved better.
After years of driving with the best teams in the world, constantly restless, his itchy feet begging to move on, he’d hoped he could settle with Scott Lansing for a while. It was more family than moneymaking machine, and respect ran both ways. Little chance of that now, but he’d win this season if it were the last thing he did.
As long as this woman stayed out of his way.
‘Also, do me a favour, would you? Quit the baby thing. It suggests an intimacy I would rather die than pursue.’
Then again, he couldn’t see close proximity being a problem, because—oh, yeah—she wanted to stamp on his foot good and proper. He could see it in those incredible eyes. Eyes that were a sensual feast of impossibly long dark lashes acting like a decadent frame around a mesmerising blend of the calmest grey with striations of yellow-gold as if to forewarn that there was no black and white with this woman—only mystifying shades of the unknown. Ensuring he was continually intrigued by her. Bewitched by her secrets. Yet at the same time they promised peace, true tranquillity—a stark, stunning contrast to that hair.
Her hair...
A shudder ripped through his body just from looking at it, inciting pure want to move through his bloodstream like a narcotic. Because that spectacular mane of fire told him she’d been burned and lived to tell the tale. A survivor.
Shameful, reprehensible; his eyes took a long, leisurely stroll down her lithe little body, soaking up her quirky ensemble.
Clumpy biker boots which, more often than not, made him instantly hard. Skin-tight denims and an apple-green T with the words ‘It’s All Good Under the Hood’ stroking across her perfect C’s.