‘What else was I supposed to think?’
With a severe kind of control, completely at odds with the state of the room, he turned to face her and air hit the back of her throat. His beautiful blue eyes were black with guilt, devastation and fury. So much fury it poured off him in waves. Great tidal waves of anguish.
‘Hold up there, Lothario. What are you angry with me for?’
Slam went the glass to the marble and liquid sloshed over the crystal rim. ‘No booty call. But it didn’t take you long to fall into the arms of another man, did it?’
Serena flinched at the scathing lash of his tongue, the cut biting deep.
She’d messed up. Royally.
Raising one arm, Finn pointed due west and emotion gushed on a voice thick and unsteady. ‘Do you have any idea how hard that was for me? To see his arms around you, holding you close? To walk away thinking you were better off with him?!’
Words blasted from him like bullets—bang, bang—until she rocked where she stood. Then she cursed for thinking the worst of him.
‘I’m sorry. I waited and he asked me to dance. That’s all we did—dance. I...’ Her heart was beating so hard and loud she could barely think. But never mind her pride. She owed him this much. ‘I only want you, Finn.’
Serena held her breath, waited. She didn’t think it was possible for him to look even more tortured, but he did.
‘You have to leave.’ He stabbed his fingers through his damp hair, then pawed down his face. ‘Please, Serena, just go. I don’t know how long I can hold on.’
Realisation hit and her entire world narrowed to this point. This man. ‘So don’t. Let go.’
Though her insides trembled, she commanded her feet to move deeper into the shadows and reached up to grip the zipper hook at the side of her dress. Slowly she tugged downward.
Fists clenching, he shook his head. ‘Stop. Just stop. I’m on the edge here, Serena, and I can’t control myself with you. I don’t think you’ll like that.’
As if he’d tossed her into a bramble bush, her skin prickled all over with the flash replay of violent hands gripping her throat, twisting her wrists, pinning her down—
No. No! This man was Finn. Granted, she’d never seen him so dark before, and it made her wonder if she was missing something, but still... ‘I can handle it. I can handle you. I’m stronger than that, Finn.’ Clearly he lacked faith in himself but she trusted him. Completely. Utterly.
She dragged the single beaded shoulder strap down her arm and teased the satin past her plunge bra to her waist.
His throat convulsed. ‘Don’t you dare, Serena. Don’t you dare.’
She hurled his words from the yacht in Monaco so long ago back at him, amazed at how far they’d come, how far they’d travelled. ‘Oh, Finn, you should know better than to challenge me. Especially in that gorgeous husky voice of yours.’
Shimmying, she eased the rucked material past her hips and the pewter satin rustled to the floor to pool at her feet. Leaving her standing in a black plunge bra, tiny lace panties and studded heels. Now, if she could just breathe she might get through this.
With his shirt agape, she could see his chest heave and the way he looked at her—with such heat. Such fierce desire and molten need.
A look so hot she melted beneath his gaze, pooling like gasoline, brandishing her earthy colours. Raw, elemental and utterly flammable.
‘Serena,’ he growled. ‘I’m hanging on by a thread here, baby girl.’
‘You know what, Finn? I love it when you call me that.’ To think this man could have any women in the world and yet wanted her intimately, with such desperation, made her feel invincible. Confident. Beautiful. A real woman for the first time in her life.
He pointed at the door. ‘You’ve got three seconds to run. Three.’
Up came her chin as she walked towards him with a sway in her hips she’d never before possessed, and then she pressed her hand to his hot flesh, felt the rapid thump of his heart beneath her palm.
‘Two,’ he bit out. Sweat glimmered on his skin and his broad shoulders quaked as he fought the immense power of his body. ‘I can’t promise I won’t hurt you.’
‘I know you won’t.’
No more waiting. Avoiding. If this signalled the end of them, the end of their friendship, so be it. She didn’t want another friend. She wanted a lover—the only man she’d ever truly desired.
‘The fight is over, Finn.’
‘One,’ he said fiercely. ‘You’re making the biggest mistake of your life here, baby.’
‘Then so be it.’
Snap.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FAST AND FRENZIED, as if he were lost beneath an unseen power, entranced by a dark, feral spell, Finn simultaneously crashed his mouth over hers, gripped the front fastening of her bra and tore it wide.
‘Skin,’ he commanded around her mouth as he tugged the straps down her arms and tossed the black scrap across the room. ‘I want nothing between us.’
‘Whatever you want.’ Her voice was as shaky as the rest of her and for a second her inner voice whispered that she was mad. Totally out of her league. With no idea of how to give such an intensely passionate man what he needed.
Following her instincts, she placed her hands on his honed chest, then swept them up and over his shoulders, taking his shirt with her until it bunched and locked around his thick upper arms.
Finn shucked it off the rest of the way and grappled with the fastening at the front of his waist.
She’d never seen him like this. Ever. No practised seduction. He was uncoordinated. Lost. And to think she was the inducement made her blood surge with elation and fear and an excitement so intense she ached with it.
A sharp hiss whistled through his teeth as he fought with his tuxedo trousers and she simultaneously pushed his hands away and broke their lip-lock. ‘Let me do it.’
Not easy when he sank his hands into the fall of her hair, tilted his head and crushed his lips over hers, banishing every thought from her brain. He ravished her with a kiss that was desperate and messy but she loved it. Loved the way he thrust his tongue into her mouth and groaned with need and contentment. A sound of soul-wrenching solace.
Now she was the one who fumbled with the rotten button. Heavens, he was bursting past the satin waistband, and when she thumbed the velvet head of his erection and encountered slick moisture her knees refashioned themselves into rubber.
A deep groan rumbled up his chest and he simply...tore the trousers off, buttons pinging, material shredding—the sounds of patience evaporating in the sultry air.
Then his long, thick length was in her hand and she couldn’t even close her fingers around it. Oh, my life. She stroked up and down his erection as best she could and a sharp tug at the base of her abdomen made her insides clench. It felt as if she was contracting around thin air.
‘Finn,’ she whimpered. ‘I need you inside me so bad.’
With an agonised moan, he jerked from her grasp. ‘Soon. We need to slow this down or it will be over before it’s even started.’
A sob of frustrated need broke from her throat. ‘Finn, please.’
‘That’s it. Say my name. Tell me you want this. Want me.’
‘I do. I do.’ A wave of dizziness hit her and when she realised she wasn’t breathing she gasped in air.
He nuzzled deliciously across her jaw, scraped her neck with his teeth, and somehow she knew exactly what he wanted.
‘Go ahead—do it,’ she demanded, frantic for his mark, and he sucked on her skin until her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She had to clutch his wide shoulders to stop dissolving in a puddle at his feet.
Beneath her palms she felt his tight muscles relax, as if he was slowly relinquishing the image of someone else and staking his cl
aim on her. Branding her. And she loved it. Loved his sublime body too. From the lean ridges of his washboard abs to his sculpted arms—arms that made her feel gloriously safe, protected, coveted. Girly needs, but she was too far gone to care. She was tired of fighting them, weary of the constant struggle to stay strong. She only wanted him to hold her tight. For just a little while.
‘You’re so beautiful, Serena.’
Wherever his lips touched his urgent breath left heat—all the way down to her breast, where his hand cupped, where his thumb brushed over her tight nipple.
Her flesh ached for more, puckering when he took it into his mouth to swirl it and tongue it and suck it in a way she felt deep inside her pelvis.
She started to cry out but his mouth came right back, covered hers again, his fierce kiss silencing her until she surrendered to the sheer bliss of it all.
Finn splayed his hand over her stomach, rubbed her piercing with his palm, and his erection jerked against her bare thigh. Oh, that definitely did it for him. She wondered, then, what he’d think of the base of her spine...
‘As divine as these panties are,’ he said hoarsely, wrapping his fingers around the lace, ‘you’re even more so.’ And he tore them clean off.
‘Ohh, my life.’
Then he cupped her intimately, possessively, wickedly. ‘Wet...sooo unbelievably wet and hot.’
The deep rasp of his voice, the seductive touch of his fingers against her slick and swollen folds, made her move to create the friction she craved, and within seconds her knees gave out.
‘I’ve got you, baby.’ Curving his arm around her waist to hold her upright, he thrust a finger inside her.
‘Finn... Finn.’ Needing his lips back on hers, his taste on her tongue, she pushed into his mouth with a boldness she’d never before dared, mimicking what he was doing with his hand as she rode his finger to completion.
The vibrations gathered force like a flock of birds sprouting wings and flying up into the sky, taking her with them far up and away as her body flew apart at the seams.
Flailing, she clutched his tight shoulders—shoulders that shifted in a delicious pattern as he gently tumbled her atop the bed.
Shivering, tingling with aftershocks, she writhed on the cool satin as he crawled over her.
‘Aw, man, you are so incredibly, amazingly perfect. You drive me crazy, Serena. From the first moment I saw you I wanted you in my hands.’
Those very hands were shaking, but no more than hers, as he stroked up her waist and teased her ripe nipples in an unrelenting current of pleasure.
‘You...you did?’ Arching her back, she silently pleaded, then opened her legs wide to coax him into settling between her thighs.
He did too. Lowering his delicious weight until she could feel his hardness where she wanted him most.
‘Oh, yeah. And know what else?’
‘What?’
‘I wanted to know how you would taste. Not only here...’ He laved her nipple and gently sucked the peak into his mouth, stoking the internal fires he’d just doused. Then he shifted further down, gave the silver loop a quick lick. ‘And here...’ Another shift. ‘But especially...here.’
Before she even knew what he was about he was at the juncture of her thighs and taking a long, leisurely cat-like lick up her still swollen folds, which still beat a tattoo of lingering pleasure. She couldn’t possibly...
Serena bucked off the bed. Okay, this was really new to her, and she wasn’t so sure, and it was a raw, open feeling.
‘Finn?’ she breathed, with vulnerability lacing her voice, making it almost inaudible.
‘You taste so good, baby. I’ll never get enough of you.’
Oh. His words were intoxicating, making her feel giddy, making her heart soar. Which was just silly—she knew full well she needed to keep her heart out of this.
‘Trust me. Relax. You’ll love it.’ He trailed lush, moist kisses across her inner thighs and she could feel his hot breath dusting her flesh. ‘Heaven. I’m in sweet, delicious heaven. I love how good you taste. I knew you would.’
Gently, he sucked her clit into his mouth, pushed his tongue inside her, and every rational thought evaporated as he devoured her body and mind.
Within seconds she was writhing, fisting the trillion-count sheets. ‘Finn! I can’t take much more.’
‘I want you mindless. Desperate. Needing me as much as I need you.’ His gasped words were threaded with a hint of delicious agony. ‘Able to take all of me.’
‘Finn, please. I’m going out of my mind here. I’ll do anything. Just give it to me, for heaven’s sake—’
With a primitive sound that rumbled from his chest he crawled back up her body, prowling like a starved animal, his eyes dark as midnight, his body shaking with the strain of holding back.
‘Anything?’
‘Anything,’ she said, softly panting, her gaze fastened on his delectable mouth.
‘Beg me for it.’
Time stilled together with her heartbeat.
Power play. Control, she realised. Dominance. Her effect on him scared him. Made him feel out of control. And he wanted it back.
Yet how many times had she felt that way? Vulnerable, desperate to regain command of her life after the attack.
With no hesitation she reached up, cupped his gorgeous face, brought his mouth down to hers and kissed and begged and pleaded, told him exactly what she wanted him to do, using every uncouth word she could think of, until his eyes sparked electric blue and the arms that braced either side of her were shaking. And then—thank you, God—he thrust inside her in one powerful lunge, filling her huge and hard, covering her body with his, his possession so total she ceased breathing.
‘Bliss. Sheer...bliss.’
Her lashes fluttered downward as his solid flesh pulsed inside her, making her feel exquisitely stretched. He felt shockingly good.
Pausing, perhaps as stunned as she was, he held still, his lips against the throbbing vein in her neck where he inhaled deeply.
A sharp arrow of unease burst through the rapture. ‘Finn...?’
‘Shhh, baby. I’m listening to your heartbeat, deep and hard and true. I’m soaking in your scent, rich with your arousal for me. Knowing...’
‘Knowing?’ she whispered.
‘This is the closest I’ll ever get to heaven.’
Oh. Her heart filled to bursting for him.
Serena sank her fingers into his damp hair and held him tightly to her. All the while fighting a punch of panic. This shouldn’t be so intimate.
A chord of vulnerability sang to her heart and she squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t understand any of this. Not her body’s reaction to him nor the emotions swirling inside her.
Finn finally raised his head and began to move tentatively. ‘Look at me,’ he ordered.
Serena opened her eyes to see him braced above her, his expression dark and fierce, so intense she trembled beneath him. Then, with their gazes locked, he began to move faster, pumping long and deep and hard, sweeping her up in a vortex of sensation so strong, so powerful, she cried out once more.
Finn captured her mouth with his—his tongue a tormenting lash of pleasure—and sank one of his hands under her bottom, lifting her, the better to meet his powerful thrusts, and grinding against her.
‘Oh, yessss,’ she moaned, raising her legs and wrapping them around his lean hips. Her head tossed back and forth on the comforter as she fought to hold back the waves that threatened to crash over her. Almost sobbing with the fierceness of her need.
‘Look at me,’ he ordered again, louder this time. Heightening the sharpness of her desire. As if he didn’t want her to forget who was inside her, dominating her, loving her body with his.
As if Serena could ever forget. Impossible.
&
nbsp; She hastened to focus on his flushed face, where a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. His breath was hot and fast on her cheek; his erection throbbed inside her...then he suddenly crashed to a halt.
After a quick pause, in which he possessively gripped her waist, he pulled back. ‘I want you with me when I fall. I don’t want to be alone. Come with me.’
She tried, she really tried to push a yes past her lips, but at that moment he pushed so deep inside her that she felt him in every cell of her body and nothing came out but a high-pitched moan as she surrendered, let herself be dragged towards a climax the likes of which she’d never known.
‘Finn...’ she said brokenly, panicked that she wouldn’t survive—that she’d die from pleasure, break after having him and losing him, shatter beneath his searing intensity.
‘I know...I know.’ He smoothed her damp hair back from her face. ‘I’m here, baby, right here. Not going anywhere.’
She began to ride the shuddering crest. All-powerful, potent, almost violent as it ripped its way through her.
‘That’s it. Come for me.’ He caught her small frantic cries with his mouth, tangled his tongue with hers as he upped the pace and pushed her higher than ever before.
‘Finn!’
Climax was a blinding white-hot rush and she broke from his mouth as convulsions racked her body, making her spine arch violently.
Finn gave a final lunge, his dark-as-midnight eyes locked on hers, and at that moment she’d swear he touched her soul.
He stiffened, then came on a silent shudder that went on and on and on...
‘Yessss...’ she breathed, riveted on his gorgeous face, ravaged with pleasure, as he poured himself into her, giving her it all, and she’d never felt so strong, so powerful in all her life. She was a woman who’d just shattered this man. This beautiful, wonderful, amazing man.
A man who gave a convulsive thrust before he collapsed on top of her with a low sound of feral ecstasy. Then he wrapped her in his arms as if he never wanted to let go and nuzzled her neck, pressed a lingering kiss to the sensitive skin beneath her ear.
The Woman Sent to Tame Him Page 14