Deb had been drawn to his fame, had exploited it. And he’d let her. He’d been in love for the first time in his life and he would have done anything to keep her happy. He had wanted to use his influence in the art world to help her make a name for herself. Why shouldn’t he? He hadn’t realized, then, that he was expendable; that the second she got what she wanted from him she’d be out the door.
Kevin shook his head, loathing his inability to keep the past where it belonged. He’d buried this crap a long time ago, so why was he suddenly dwelling on it? Why was it suddenly right there, front and center in his mind?
His lips curled sardonically. Who was he kidding? Serena was the reason it was all rushing back to him. She shook him up, invaded his mind, made him ache. Usually, when working, he could block out everything from hunger to nuclear holocaust, but not tonight and not with her. Tonight the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up—as did another notable part of his anatomy—and it took everything he had to even remember what the sculpture was supposed to look like, let alone why he shouldn’t be thinking about her. Wanting her.
He ground his teeth together, conscious of the ever-present whirring of her camera. How she could concentrate on taking pictures right now, he didn’t know. Between the storm, the heat and—he glanced at his watch—the time, his body was telling him that there were better ways to spend the remainder of the night. And every single one centered around the beautiful, sexy woman behind him.
Muttering a curse, he strolled to the refrigerator in the corner of the room and grabbed an ice-cold beer. If he couldn’t work anymore, then he could at least try to quench the desire she ignited with alcohol.
He chuckled grimly to himself. Of course, when you added alcohol to fire all you usually ended up with was one hell of a flame.
“You want one?” he asked, keeping his back to her as he fought the strength of his arousal.
“Hmmm?” Her voice was soft and sexy. Shivers shot down his spine and he felt his eyes narrow speculatively. What had put that sultry note in her normally crisp and businesslike tone?
He turned to her, a beer in his extended hand. “Here. I’m done tonight.”
Her eyes were hazy, far away, as if she too were aroused. Kevin’s eyebrows rose as he watched her blink several times, trying to bring him into focus. Maybe the attraction wasn’t as one-sided as he’d thought.
“Thanks.” Serena took the beer, twisted the top off and drank a long, slow swallow.
His eyes greedily followed her every move as she closed her full lips around the top of the bottle, tilted and drank. Her throat moved as she swallowed and her ripe, unpainted mouth slid in a subtle back-and-forth motion that had drool pooling in the corners of his mouth. Suddenly his c**k was so hard he thought he’d explode.
When she lowered the bottle a single drop glistened on her bottom lip and he ached to lick it off. Before he could step closer, the tip of her pink tongue darted forward and swept across her lips, once, twice, a third time.
He cleared his throat in an attempt to disguise the groan he couldn’t quite smother. He tried to turn away, but couldn’t—he was literally frozen in place as his eyes wandered over her from head to toe.
The heat from the furnace was truly overwhelming tonight—he’d had to stoke it up to get the reaction he needed from the metal he was working with. Because of the heat, she had discarded the oxford shirt long ago, and now only a thin, caramel-colored tank top covered her lush, high br**sts. One of the spaghetti straps rode low on her shoulder, resting directly above a wicked looking scar on her biceps and revealing the absence of a bra. An absence made even more obvious by the hard peaks of her ni**les beneath the soft cotton fabric.
Though he knew it was rude to focus on those lush nipples, he couldn’t force his gaze away. He wanted to touch them, taste them, draw them into his mouth and suck the sweetness from her until she writhed beneath him in ecstasy. What would she taste like?
He heard Serena’s breath hitch, knew suddenly that she was as aware of him and his body as he was of her. He had never before lusted so obviously after a woman he was working with, had always tried to be considerate of a woman’s feelings during working hours. But normal working hours had come and gone. It was the middle of the night, hot as hell and the storm raging outside was tying his gut into knots. He wanted Serena, had burned for her from the second he’d first laid eyes on her almost seventy-two hours before.
And though he had restrained himself, believing that she was not in the slightest interested, the answering arousal in her own eyes suddenly changed everything.
He took a step closer, his gaze still focused on her telltale nipples. They grew even tauter and he knew—he knew—that there was no way he could stop himself from touching her.
It was way too hot for her to be cold, way too steamy in the studio to question whether it was arousal making her ni**les peak. As he drew closer to her, stalking her, really, he forced his eyes back to her face.
Eyes closed, head tilted back, lips soft and open, she rubbed the beer against the back of her neck and down the side of her face. A soft moan revealed the pleasure the contact with the cool bottle brought her. Opening her eyes, she noticed his predatory stance for the first time, saw his eyes blazing with a need he couldn’t hide.
He watched her own widen in answer, watched them glaze over as the passion she too was fighting to hold off rose up and overwhelmed her. Her scent, a mixture of wildflowers and hot, spicy woman, teased him, drawing him closer and closer to the edge of his resistance.
Reaching forward, he plucked the beer from her hands and slowly drank, enjoying the taste of her as much as the beer. He watched as her eyes found a drop of sweat at the hollow of his neck, as they helplessly followed it as it worked its way over his bare chest and onto his stomach.
* * *
She wanted to reach her tongue out and sweep the drop from his body. Wanted her tongue to follow the lazy path made by the drop, testing, tasting every inch of his well-muscled torso before working her way slowly, oh so slowly, beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Serena’s breath hitched in her throat and her eyes met Kevin’s for the first time in many hours. His breath, too, was coming in harsh pants, and she could tell that he was as aroused as she was. That he wanted her at least as badly as she wanted him.
She reached one still-trembling hand toward him, whether in invitation or denial she didn’t know. But when he grasped her fingers with his own, she shivered at the strength in his work-hardened palm. And when he slowly, oh so slowly, lifted her hand to his lips, she shuddered with the power and the pain of her desire.
His tongue reached out and caressed her index finger, once, twice, before drawing her slowly into his mouth. His teeth nipped lightly at her fingertip, even as he pulled her deeper and deeper into him. He sucked her finger gently, his tongue sweeping in slow, lazy circles as his mouth slid back and forth.
Serena’s breath came in short gasps and her knees weakened until she feared their ability to support her. Her eyes drifted shut and her head rolled back on her neck. She knew this was wrong, knew she shouldn’t be doing this. Kevin wasn’t the type to be satisfied with a one- or two-night stand and she didn’t have anything else to offer.
But she couldn’t deny the need flowing between them. Didn’t want to deny it. And his mouth on her finger felt so incredibly good. How would it feel on her lips? Her br**sts? Between her thighs?
As Kevin slowly relinquished his hold on her finger, she bit back an instinctive protest. She was on fire, burning, her underwear soaked through. Glancing down at the front of his jeans, she felt her eyes widen at the erection the denim couldn’t begin to disguise.
She reached to touch him, but he grabbed her hand before it could connect. “Not yet, cher,” he whispered, holding her newly captured hand to his chest. His heart pounded heavily, riotously beneath her palm. Her fingers flexed, explored, slid lightly over one nipple, and his heartbeat grew faster, harder.
Echoing her own, she thought, as blood pumped hot and quick through her veins. The storm raging outside had moved inside, buffeting her from every side, sweeping her into its powerful, chaotic embrace and leaving Kevin as her only anchor.
His stormy, heavy-lidded eyes burned into her own, midnight blue and fierce with desire. His musky scent overwhelmed her. Yet his touch was tender and his lips gentle as they moved slowly over her finger, down her palm, his tongue trailing a path of fire wherever it touched. Leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world, his mouth pressed long, lazy kisses across her hand—over her love line, her life line, slowly, slowly working his way down to the rounded pad at the base of her thumb. And there, right there, at the juncture where her palm met her wrist, he bit gently, firmly, his teeth sinking in even as his tongue laved away the hurt.
Serena’s knees gave way and with a cry of ecstasy she slid, trembling, down the wall.
Kevin crouched beside her, his eyes on hers, searching for any sign of uneasiness. But she was too hot, too steamy, too far gone to think of the consequences. Reaching out, she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him forward until his lips met her own.
He tasted like the cinnamon gum he chewed obsessively, a combination of spicy and sweet that drove her to the brink of her control and then beyond. She knew he’d meant to take it easy, slow, but with the first powerful touch of his mouth, Serena was lost and her uninhibited response sparked his own. His tongue swept across her lips—ravenous, demanding, desperate—and she opened for him as lust burned through her.
They plundered each other, tongues testing, tasting, tangling together. She sucked his lower lip between her teeth and bit slowly; he groaned in response, his hands sliding down to cup her ass, to press her against him.
She was hot and wet and frantic to feel him within her. Kevin must have sensed her desperation, for he tightened his hold, pressed more firmly against her, began a gently thrusting between her thighs that sent her pulse soaring. A high, keening sound escaped her, one that would have mortified her at any other time. But here, now, with the frantic grip of her hands on his body and the powerful thrust of his h*ps against hers, it seemed natural. More than natural. Perfect.
But she wanted more, needed more. Breaking free of his kiss, Serena slid her lips slowly over his cheeks, relishing the stubble on his unshaven jaw before her tongue darted out and explored the inner shell of his ear. Frenzied, frantic, she closed her teeth around his earlobe and bit gently, even as her hands moved to caress the rippling muscles of his back.
Kevin growled deep in his throat and moved his hand slowly down her chest. As his fingers closed around her breast for the first time, a huge streak of lightning lit the sky beyond the studio and the lights went out, plunging the room into a still and eerie darkness.
Chapter Two
Serena stiffened, pulling away from Kevin as fear wrapped itself around her throat in a tight-fisted chokehold. Bloody images flashed in front of her eyes before she could stop them. “What happened?” she demanded, hands pressing urgently against his shoulders.
“It’s just the storm, bebe,” he soothed, his black-magic voice calming the shock waves pulsing within her. “Any time a big one hits, we lose power out here. I’m surprised we’ve had lights this long.”
He lowered his head to her neck, let his tongue stroke lazily across the hollow of her throat. But she pushed at his shoulders again, shoving him away hard as she scrambled to her feet. “Do you have a flashlight?”
“A flashlight?” he responded dumbly.
“Yeah, a flashlight. Or a candle? Anything?” The urgency in her voice barely registered on him.
“Do we need one?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I thought what we were doing was pretty well-suited to the dark. Not that I don’t look forward to seeing you in the light.” His voice was low and teasing as he reached for her again. A note of humor crept in. “So, where were we?”