Miss Prim's Greek Island Fling

He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Anger came to her rescue then. ‘You wanted me to lose control. You succeeded in making that happen.’ She moved in close until the heat from their bodies mingled again. ‘And now you want me to just what...? Put it all back under wraps? To forget about it? What kind of game are you playing, Finn?’

The pulse in his jaw jumped and jerked. ‘I just wanted you to loosen up a bit. Live in the moment instead of overthinking and over-analysing everything and...’

She slammed her hands to her hips. ‘And?’ She wasn’t sure what she wanted from him—what she wanted him to admit—but it was more than this. That kiss had changed everything. But she wasn’t even sure what that meant. Or what to do about it.

‘And I’m an idiot! It was a stupid thing to do.’ His eyes snapped fire as if he were angry with her. ‘I do flings, Audra. Nothing more.’ Panic lit his face. ‘But I don’t do them with Rupert’s little sister.’

The car keys sailed through the air. She caught them automatically.

‘I’ll see you back at the villa.’

She watched as he stormed down the hill. He was running scared. From her? From fear of destroying his friendship with Rupert? Or was it something else...like thoughts of babies and marriage?

Was that what he thought she wanted from him?

Her stomach did a crazy twirl and she had to sit on a nearby rock to catch her breath. She’d be crazy to pin those kinds of hopes on him. And while she might be crazy with lust, she hadn’t lost her mind completely.

She touched her fingers to her lips. Oh, my, but the man could kiss.

* * *

Audra glanced up from her spot on the sofa when Finn finally came in. She’d had dinner a couple of hours ago. She’d started to wonder if Finn meant to stay out all night.

And then she hadn’t wanted to follow that thought any further, hadn’t wanted to know where he might be and with whom...and what they might be doing.

He halted when he saw her. The light from the doorway framed him in exquisite detail—outlining the broad width of his shoulders and the lean strength of his thighs. Every lusty, heady impulse that had fired through her body when they’d kissed earlier fired back to life now, making her itch and yearn.

‘I want to tell you something.’

He moved into the room, his face set and the lines bracketing his mouth deep. She searched him for signs of exhaustion, over-exertion, a limp, as he moved towards an armchair, but his body, while held tight, seemed hale and whole. Whatever else he’d done—or hadn’t done—today, he clearly hadn’t aggravated his recent injuries.

She let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. ‘Okay.’ She closed her book and set her feet to the floor. Here it came—the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ speech, the ‘I care about you, but...’ justifications. She tried to stop her lips from twisting. She’d toyed with a lot of scenarios since their kiss...and this was one of them. She had no enthusiasm for it. Perhaps it served her right for losing her head so completely earlier. A penance. She bit back a sigh. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

‘I want to explain why it’s so important to me that I don’t break Rupert’s trust.’

That was easy. ‘He’s your best friend.’ He cared more for Rupert than he did for her. It made perfect sense, so she couldn’t explain why the knowledge chafed at her.

‘I want you to understand how much I actually owe him.’

‘How you owe him?’ Would it be rude to get up, wish him goodnight and go to bed?

Of course it’d be rude.

Not as rude as sashaying over to where he sat, planting herself in his lap, and kissing him.

She tried to close her mind to the pictures that exploded behind her eyelids. How many times did she have to tell herself that he was off limits?

‘I haven’t told another living soul about this and I suspect Rupert hasn’t either.’

Her eyes sprang open. ‘Okay. I’m listening.’

His eyes throbbed, but he stared at the wall behind her rather than at her directly. It made her chest clench. ‘Finn?’

His nostrils flared. ‘I went off the rails for a while when we were at school. I don’t know if you know that or not.’

She shook her head.

‘I was seventeen—full of hormones and angry at the world. I took to drinking and smoking and...and partying hard.’

With girls? She said nothing.

‘I was caught breaking curfew twice...and one of those times I was drunk.’

She winced. ‘That wouldn’t have gone down well. Your boarding school was pretty strict.’