Miss Prim's Greek Island Fling

She swallowed. ‘On a Greek island.’

He crowded her in against a tree, his arms going either side of her to block her in. ‘If there was ever a time to let your hair down and rebel against your prim and proper strictures, Audra, now’s the time to do it.’

She stared up at him with wide eyes, and he relished the moment—her stupefaction...her bewilderment...her undeniable hunger when her gaze lowered to his lips. This moment had seemed inevitable from when she’d appeared on the stairs a week ago to peer at him with those icy blue eyes, surveyed him in handcuffs, and told him it served him right.

His heart thudded against his ribs, he relished the adrenaline that surged through his body, before he swooped down to capture her lips in a kiss designed to shake up her safe little world. And he poured all his wildness and adventurous temptation into it in a devil-may-care invitation to dance.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE ASSAULT ON Audra’s senses the moment Finn’s lips touched hers was devastating. She hadn’t realised she could feel a kiss in so many ways, that its impact would spread through her in ever-widening circles that went deeper and deeper.

Finn’s warmth beat at her like the warmth of the sun after a dip in the sea. It melted things that had been frozen for a very long time.

His scent mingled with the warm tang of the trees and sun-kissed grasses, and with just the tiniest hint of salt on the air it was exactly what a holiday should smell like. It dared her to play, it tempted her to reckless fun...and...and to a youthful joy she’d never allowed herself to feel before.

And she was powerless to resist. She had no defences against a kiss like this. It didn’t feel as if defences were necessary. A kiss like this...it should be embraced and relished...welcomed.

Finn had been angry with her, but he didn’t kiss angry. He kissed her as though he couldn’t help it—as though he’d been fighting a losing battle and had finally flung himself wholeheartedly into surrender. It was intoxicating.

Totally heady and wholly seductive.

She lifted her hands, but didn’t know what to do with them so rested them on his shoulders, but they moved, restless, to the heated skin of his neck, and the skin-on-skin contact sent electricity coursing through both of them. He shuddered, she gasped...tongues tangled.

And then his arms were around her, hauling her against his body, her arms were around his neck as she plastered herself to him, and she stopped thinking as desire and the moment consumed her.

It was the raucous cry of a rose-ringed parakeet that penetrated her senses—and the need for air that had them easing apart. She stared into his face and wondered if her lips looked as well kissed as his, and if her eyes were just as dazed.

And then he swore, and a sick feeling crawled through the pit of her stomach. He let her go so fast she had to brace herself against the trunk of the tree behind her. She ached in places both familiar and unfamiliar and...and despite the myriad emotions chasing across his face—and none of them were positive—she wished with all her might that they were somewhere private, and that she were back in his arms so those aches could be assuaged.

And to hell with the consequences.

‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he bit out. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t want an apology.’

The words left her without forethought, and with a brutal honesty that made her cringe. But they both knew what she did want couldn’t happen. Every instinct she had told her he was hanging by a thread. His chest rose and fell as if he’d been running. The pulse at the base of his throat pounded like a mad thing. He wanted her with the same savage fury that she wanted him. And everything inside her urged her to snap his thread of control, and the consequences be damned.

It was crazy! Her hands clenched. She couldn’t go on making romantic mistakes like this. Oh, he was nothing like Thomas. He’d never lie to her or betray her, but...but if she had an affair with Finn, it’d hurt her family. They’d see her as just another in a long line of Finn’s women. It wasn’t fair, but it was the reality all the same. She wouldn’t hurt her family for the world; especially after all they’d been through with Thomas. She couldn’t let them down so badly.

If she and Finn started something, when it ended—and that was the inevitable trajectory to all of Finn’s relationships—he’d have lost her family’s good opinion. They’d shun him. She knew how much that’d hurt him, and she’d do anything to prevent that from happening too.

And yet if he kissed her again she’d be lost.

‘I’m not the person I thought I was,’ she blurted out.