“My feet are killing me,” she said.
“You brought me back here to tell me that?” Whatever she said, he was already delighted by it, by her barely contained glee.
Finley Cartwright was a triple threat. Sing, dance, act. She’d done all three tonight. Played the part of an unwitting con to make him look like a good guy, waltzed into the wallets of unsuspecting marks, and sang her little heart out. A modicum of pride would be acceptable for seeing the potential in her, for coaching her. The way his body went on alert because they were alone, because she wasn’t acting now, she was projecting her astonishment and her gratitude, wasn’t pride—it was the thick buzz of lust.
“I’ve worked here, functions like this, offered drinks, cleaned up after people. Tonight, I made more money than I ever imagined possible using your formula. Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
He leaned back against a smooth wall and spread his hands like a preacher. “Ye of little faith.”
She took two steps forward and pressed against him with her whole body, with her fingers hooked over his shoulders.
“Finley.” He kept his hands away and used a warning tone. Superhuman effort required.
“You could say you don’t want this.”
That was certainly an option.
She stood on her toes. He lowered his head and she kissed him. Ah, don’t do this.
She pulled back enough for them to make eye contact. Enough for him to see the mad mix of excitement, gratitude, and desire in her expression. It was everything he felt and tried not to show. He’d be right back in that alley outside the Blarney before his head had cooled if he let her kiss him again.
He failed at faking it.
She fucking kissed him again.
She laughed and dragged her teeth over his bottom lip, and he had to hold her then, because she was vibrating with excitement, had to wrap an arm around her, span his palm about the back of her neck, soften his lips and kiss her back, because he was throbbing, too.
That’s all it took for don’t-do-this to become don’t-stop-this.
He was backed against a wall with a live wire in his hands, with a bolt of lightning on his tongue, and a complete loss of his better intentions. Gone. Gone to her champagne taste and her hot enthusiasm. Gone to her honest desire and her kitten whimpers. Hero to zero in the space of a lick. Hands on her skin, pressing her fast to him, riding the surge of passion with the skill of a thief and the remorselessness of a liar.
When she broke from his lips to moan, to bend her knee, to ease off a shoe, he had enough sense left to steady her, to strangle his own impulses.
“Finley, no, we have to stop.”
The shoe clattered to the floor and she wobbled, hands to his chest for balance. “We can go somewhere.”
Out of here, for sure. Somewhere public he’d be forced to remember how to behave with her.
She wrestled the shoe back on and led him by the hand down a corridor to another door that brought them out in the vestibule. Before he could explain he’d lost his head and why they had to stop, John Alington interrupted.
“Been trying to get to you all night, Cal. You got a minute now?”
He kept has arm around Fin, hoping that would dissuade Alington, but he was one of those inconsiderate assholes who thought the world revolved around him. He owned a TV station and a couple of magazines. He’d been accused of sexual harassment over a dozen times. The victims were threatened with the worst kind of intimidation until they withdrew their complaints while Alington won industry awards. That made him a whale of an investor Cal wanted to noodle. But first, he wanted to throat punch Alington for the way he was looking at Fin as if she was a pretty thing he wanted to paw at and wouldn’t care if he broke.
“A word about Everlasting, Cal.” He’d roped Alington to his latest scheme well. The man wanted to drop money on the promise of a cure for aging. “I know you say it’s not a safe investment, but I want in.”
“John, I’m done with business for the night.” He looked at Fin. She was business and he needed to close the deal with her, but she made him feel drunk: reflexes shot, internal engineering malfunctioning, senses dulled to the point where knocking out one of his prize whales and taking her home to bed was a good idea.
He was conning himself.
“I want to be a first-round investor. Ground floor stake. I don’t want to hear any excuses why that can’t happen.”
“I’m not talking business now.”
“You’re always talking business, Sherwood.” Alington favored Fin with a predatory smile. “I’ll see you at the Langely’s anniversary party,” he said and left to join his sour-faced wife.
“He’s a peach,” Fin said. “He’s one of your trout, and you just upped the stakes with him. You sent him away.”