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 well he was one of the highest earning sportsmen in the world.
For a beat he paused at the side of the bed. ‘Let’s just say I decided the yacht didn’t suit. She’s on the market.’
‘Now, that is a shame.’ If he restored the rest of the yacht in the same vein it promised to be spectacular.
‘Do you like my bedroom, Seraphina?’
His voice was a pleasured, suggestive moan as he flung himself atop a gargantuan carved bed covered in black silk sheets and propped his back against a huge mound of textured pillows.
‘I love it,’ she said, unable to hide her awe and trying her hardest to look anywhere but at him. ‘Present company excluded.’
Black wood furniture lined walls of the deepest red, with the spaces in between splashed with priceless evocative art to create a picture of virile potency and sophisticated class. It was visually breathtaking. Until the intimacy of the dim lighting set her right back on edge.
Searching the darkened shadows behind her, she cleared her throat, ‘Lights?’ she said, and hoped she didn’t sound as jittery as she felt.
Bending at the waist, he leaned sideways to press a button on the tall glass nightstand and the opaque ceiling flickered for one, two, three beats of her thundering heart before the night sky shone down upon the room, ablaze with a million twinkling stars.
The sheer magnificence pulled her eyes wide. ‘Seriously?’
He plucked a large red apple from the colourful mound of ripe delicacies toppling from a crystal bowl, then straightened up and raised one of his heart-stopping smiles.
Just like that her unease drifted, melted like a chilled snowflake on a new spring breeze.
Moonlight frosted his body, from the open white linen draping his sides to the wide bronzed strip of naked torso in between, taking his powerful beauty from angelic to supernatural. Otherworldly. Dazzling, magical and utterly surreal.
And she forgot all about not looking at him, suddenly entranced.
He tucked one hand beneath his head, tossed the glistening red fruit up into the air with the other and his honed six-pack flexed and bunched—the sight bringing a mist of perspiration to her skin.
‘So. Come back for more, Miss Scott?’
His sinful rasp shattered the spell he wove so effortlessly and she gave herself a good shake. The man was lethal.
‘I have heard my mouth is highly addictive.’
Serena raised a brow and hoped she looked suitably unimpressed. She had no desire to stroke his ego or any other part of him ever again. ‘Such a…tempting offer, Mr St George, but I think I’ll pass. Your reputation has been highly exaggerated.’
Apple to his lips, he sank his teeth into the crisp flesh with a loud crunch and she dredged the taste of tart flesh from her memory banks, making her mouth water.
‘Ah. Must have been the champagne, then.’
‘What must have been the champagne?’ she murmured, distracted by the rhythmic working of his lean jaw. It truly was not good form to be so sexy even when eating. ‘The champagne, incidentally, that I did not drink.’
‘The weakening of your knees,’ he drawled, with a wicked satisfaction that rolled over her in hot waves before he let loose an irrepressible grin that seared her nerves.
One day… She thought. One day she was going to wipe that smirk off his face once and for all. The thought that today was as good a day as any made her let loose a smile of her very own.
Strangely, he froze mid-bite. As if her smile affected him just as much as his did her. The mere notion that he had the power to make her believe such a thing made her temper spike.
‘Speaking of knees—I’m going to bring you down on yours, pretty boy.’
A curious tension drew the magnificent lines of his body taut, precisely as before, and she racked her brain to figure out the trigger. All she could think was that there was more to this man than met the eye.
In the next instant he relaxed. ‘I do hope that’s a promise, Seraphina. I’d be more than happy to oblige.’
Blowing out a pent-up breath, she deliberated over how long she could ride this roller coaster of emotion with Finn at the helm before she plunged to her doom.
Especially when he licked his lips hungrily and dropped his feral blue eyes to the seam of her jeans, to the zipper leading down to the tight curve of her femininity. From nowhere an image of Finn on his knees before her as she stood bathed in moonlight slammed into her mind’s eye. Oh, God.
Ribbons of heat spun in her veins, moving through her blood in an erotic dance. Her skin was suddenly super-sensitive, and her nipples chafed seductively against the soft fabric of her plain white bra. The shockingly carnal expression on his face made her wonder if he’d visualised the very same.
As if. He’s just trying to distract you again and you’re letting him!
She stiffened her spine and ordered her voice to sweet. ‘Oh, I’m so glad. In that case, let me be the first to tell you the good news.’
Crossing one bare foot over the other, he leaned back with more of the insolence he’d doubtless been born with. ‘Somehow I don’t believe you mean good in the literal sense.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. We could learn a lot from each other, you and I.’
The true meaning of that statement lay between them, gathering momentum with every passing second. It would take time, of course. To get him to talk. To unearth his secrets. To make him crack. Thankfully she had all the time in the world.
Another flash of perfect teeth sinking into white flesh. Another lazy crunch. Another sexy swallow gliding down his throat. ‘I doubt that.’
The lack of innuendo suffused her with pleasure and a heady sense of power. It seemed she was
