The Woman Sent to Tame Him

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 claim 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 * 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.

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.

Serena stroked his damp hair from his brow and revelled in the feel of his body—heavy, slick and replete against hers.

Voice gruff, he murmured against her neck, ‘You okay, beautiful?’ with such tenderness that her chest ached.

‘More than okay. That was...outrageously good.’

‘Unbelievable.’ He lifted his head, caught her gaze. ‘Incredible.’

As if unable to stop himself he dipped his head to kiss her again—a kiss so sweet and tender that a lump pulsed in her throat and all she could think was that she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to lie here forever and ever. With him.

Gently, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, his hardness still locked inside her body, holding her tight as though fearful she would vanish into thin air.

‘You’ll stay here. All night. I can’t let you go yet.’

‘I’ll stay.’ Serena buried her face in his neck, tasting the musky scent of their passion and the remnants of his dark cologne. Desperately trying not to overanalyse his every touch, his every word.

He didn’t do sleepovers. He’d told her that before. So maybe she was different from all the others—special enough to hold his attention. Careful, Serena, you know better than that. ‘Yet’ implied that he would let her go come morning.

Fighting the hollow emptiness in her stomach, she snuggled closer, until they clung to one another as though braced for a turbulent storm.

For now she’d just enjoy him. Take what she could. Nothing would stop her. Not even the sound of her heart cracking wide open.

* * *

Selfish. He was so selfish craving the entire night with her. No doubt he would go to hell for it. So what was new? At least he’d have tasted heaven on the way.

Self-loathing gnarled and twisted in his guts like thorny branches as the tight skin on his lower back nipped, reminding him of what lay between them. And although it was wrong to hide, he was grateful for the shadows. The only light came courtesy of the thin slice of moon shining eerily through the leaded windows, ensuring he languished in the grim certainty that his world would come crashing down with the dawn—and if this was all he had of her he was taking it. Taking it all.

Spooned into the delicate delineation of her back, with her soft skin whispering over his chest, he toyed with a lock of her ruby-red hair; corkscrewing a silken strand and watching it bounce like a loaded spring.

Aw, man, he had it bad. Knew she could steal his heart as it lay vulnerable outside his chest.

Something close to panic clutched his throat and he felt driven to lighten the mood, to lift the portentous silence, fall back on the charm that never failed to smother his emotions.

‘I do find you in the most delicious compromising positions, Miss Scott,’ he said, his voice a decadent purr as he kissed the graceful slope of her shoulder.

She groaned. ‘Don’t remind me.’

‘You never did tell me why you broke into my trailer through the bathroom window four years ago.’

‘I...I didn’t know it was your trailer! It was identical to ours. It was pitch-black, I was tired, I’d just come back from London and my key wouldn’t work.’

He trailed one fingertip down her upper arm and a quiver took hold of her svelte body, ruining the indignant tone she was aiming for. He smiled mischievously.

‘Yeah, whatever. You just wanted to see me in the shower.’

‘I didn’t even know you!’

‘Hey, no need for panty-twisting. On the scale of women trying to get my attention it veered towards the tame side. It was quite the introduction. I was the perfect gentleman too—caught you before you went splat on the floor.’

‘Gentleman? You said my boots were the sexiest things you’d ever seen and if I wanted your body I had to leave them on!’

‘Ohh, yeah! Go get them and I’ll prove how serious I was.’

He’d been deadly serious—until he’d locked onto that stunning gaze of hers and his world had tipped upside down. Then his only thought had been how quickly he could shove her back out through the window and transport her to another planet. Which didn’t quite explain why, at this moment, she was gloriously naked in his bed.

She coughed out an incredulous laugh. ‘You’re insatiable.’

‘Only for you,’ he said. Meaning it. She’d ruined him. No other woman in the world seemed real any more—just mere cheap imitations that might as well not exist.

Crap, he was in big trouble here. And when she canted her head and peeked up at him, brow nipped, gauging his sincerity, his stomach hollowed out.

This was getting too deep. He knew it. She knew it. He could tell by the way she turned away, scissored her legs out of the silk sheets and moved to perch on the edge of the bed.

‘I should go. Let you get some sleep. You have to race in the morning and...’

And he didn’t care, he realised. He would rather she stayed. Which was scarier still.

‘Serena—’

That was when he saw it, in the ivory glow of the moon shimmering over her back. Artwork, moving across the base of her spine.

‘Aw, baby’ he growled. ‘That is one hot splay of ink.’

Her spine flexed as she stiffened for a beat, then she murmured, ‘Thought you might like it.’

With one touch her body softened and he traced the design with the tip of his finger, skimmed the garland of tiny pink and purple flowers outlined in black, curling into a circle to form the traditional peace symbol and then swooping outward in an elegant trail to each side of her back. But it was the small butterflies at either side, fluttering at her hip bones as if poised to fly from their captivity, that cinched his chest.


‘It’s beautiful, Serena.’

Intuition told him there was more to this than met the eye, but before he could pry she said, ‘Finn...?’ with such vulnerability that he was powerless to do anything but nuzzle closer and worship the ink with lush, moist kisses, smoothing his hands over every inch of skin he could reach, caressing her, loving her.

Until she tumbled into his arms and he made love to a woman for the very first time. Took them both soaring to the euphoric heights of nirvana, where life as he knew it ceased to exist.

* * *

When reality knocked at the temporal door of his mind Finn was half sprawled over her, one leg flung over her thighs, one arm tucked around her waist, his head cushioned on her soft breasts. Even in slumber she cradled him close, her affectionate fingers toying with and stroking his hair.

Longing nearly shattered him.

It was like coming home. An indefinable precious feeling of utter peace he wanted to wake to every morning. She felt perfect in his arms. All soft, warm woman. His woman.

He wasn’t letting her go. He was never letting her go. He—

He froze. Something foreign slammed into his chest as reality hit and his life skewed dangerously.

No. No, she could never be his, he told himself, fighting the crush of what felt suspiciously like panic. Fear. He had no choice but to let her go. Watch her walk away, powerless, as her endearing affection hardened to hate.

This was what he’d been afraid of all along, he realised. Losing himself. Relinquishing his hold on the reins of his life, allowing his emotions to rule until he wanted it all. Needed a woman he could never have.

Gingerly he eased back and cool air slapped his sweat-drenched body with lucidity.

It was all for the best, right? Yes. Absolutely. He’d only cause her pain in the end, with his uncanny knack of hurting people. Eventually he’d let her down as he had Eva. He didn’t trust himself not to.

Yeah, he shouldn’t forget the notion that he was some kind of bad luck charm for those he cared for. Had he been able to save his mother? Tom? No. Well he’d be damned if he took Serena down too.

Curling up on her side, Serena snuggled into the pillow, subconsciously reached for him. His heart kicked with the demand to pull her into his arms. Hold her tight. Adore her. Never let her go...

Finn launched off the bed, stumbled to the bathroom and with a quick flick of his wrist at the controls turned the shower spray to fast, hard and mind-numbingly cold.

There he stood, hands braced on the sandstone tiles, head bowed, while the water pounded his scalp and shoulders and he commanded his heart to stop beating for her. He shoved common sense down his throat until he nigh on choked on it, oblivious to time or place... Until bright light slashed through the room and a sharp, pained cry rent the air—

‘Oh, my God, Finn! Your back. Baby, your back.’

Slam went his heart against the wall of his chest and he cursed inwardly. How could he have forgotten even for a moment? Idiot. This was what she did to him—banished thought until he operated like a loose cannon. Out of control. He hadn’t wanted her seeing him like this, finding out this way.

Drenching his lungs with fortifying air, he commanded his heart to calm and relished the sanity that rained over him, bringing with it relief. So much relief it punctured his nape and made his head tip back until he stared at the whitewash on the ceiling.

It was over.

Now she’d loathe him. Just as he deserved. Hate him. Run. Far, far away from him. Before he hurt her, ruined her life beyond repair.

Slowly, inexorably, he allowed the cold to bleed into his veins, into his soul, until he was frozen to his emotional core. Braced for the highway to hell.