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‘Like someone peed in your biker boots?’
‘Exactly.’
One side of his mouth kicked up ruefully before his focus drifted to the window, far into the distance, as if he’d virtually left the room.
Angst crawled through her stomach and Serena gnawed her top lip.
Yes, she was crushed, but she could easily have gone to a hotel. It was a convenient excuse and she knew it. Somehow she had to slide him back on track.
Letting go of a long, soft sigh, she sprinkled some candour on her remorse.
If she’d been courageous enough to look into her heart, to face her own fears, she would have accepted that culpability lay with fate. Otherwise she couldn’t possibly have kissed Finn with everything she was. And, if she wanted to be brutally, painfully honest, blaming him had been a grand excuse to hate him even more. Since the moment she’d laid eyes on him he’d stirred a hornets’ nest of inadequacies to sting her pride and spawn desires that defied logic. Reason.
Inadequacies she’d been slammed up against from when she was nine years old—ribbed for being ‘too girly’ to play—and had stolen a pair of blunt scissors to hack off her hair.
Desires she’d always had to force, coerce, to do her bidding. Determined her past would not define her.
Disaster.
Until Finn. Who had never failed to spark every female cell in her body to ignite. The sexual pull of his velvet gaze roving over her when he thought she wasn’t looking jacked her pulse. Made her dream about the firm, sinful stroke of his hands moving over her skin and the hot drive of his tongue between her lips. Then came the heat, spearing through her veins like arrows of fire.
She didn’t want her heart to thump when he was near or for weakness to spread through her limbs. He was still a Casanova. A prolific player.
He took a long, sensual pull of water from a tall glass bottle and she watched his smooth jaw work, his sexy throat convulse, and knew this was a stupid, stupid idea. Tough.
‘So, can I stay here?’
‘No!’ he choked. A distressed noise followed by a splutter. A cough. A hard swallow and watering eyes. ‘I don’t do sleepovers.’
Her mouth going slack, she wasn’t sure which to process first. The fact that he didn’t do sleepovers with his women or the fact he thought she wanted to ‘sleep’ with him!
‘I didn’t ask you if you did. I asked you if I could hang out here while you go out and do your Lothario thing.’ Okay, she was digging for info, but right now she didn’t care. ‘You know—borrow your place. Like friends do.’
Wincing inwardly, she hung on his reaction as she played the friend card, unsure if the tight knot in her stomach wanted him to pick it up or discard it.
‘I was planning on staying in most of the night.’
‘Oh.’
Come to think of it, of late there’d been no kiss-and-tell stories. No rumours of orgies or nightclub antics. Half of her gloried in the idea that he was abstaining from his playboy shenanigans and the other half hated the suspicion that he was becoming reclusive, withdrawing from the world even more.
For pity’s sake, the man had her tearing herself apart!
Finn scrubbed a palm over the back of his neck. ‘Fine. You can hang out here. For a little while.’
‘I’ve never seen a “fine” such as yours right now, Finn.’ At his quizzical expression, she elaborated. ‘Like I’m sticking hot needles down your fingernails.’
His knuckles bleached white as they gripped the lip of the bench. ‘Probably because that’s what it feels like trying to keep my hands off you.’
A loaded pause sparked in the air. ‘Seriously?’
‘Oh, you’re happy now?’
Maybe. It wasn’t so bad resisting him if he felt the same. Maybe he hadn’t been lying to her. Maybe he did find her beautiful after all.
Her heart smiled. ‘I’ll be even happier if you feed me and let me beat you on your games console.’ Friend stuff.
He snorted. ‘In your dreams, baby.’
She had the feeling that was exactly where he’d be tonight. In her dreams. Centre stage. Just as he had been last night. And every other night she could remember.
‘You have until ten o’clock to triumph and prove your console supremacy, then I’m going out.’
‘Oh.’ That was not disappointment in her voice. Certainly not.
Finn cocked an arrogant brow and tilted his head, as if she’d presented him with a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. ‘I’ll make you a deal.’
‘I’m not keen on your deals. Last time I ended up—’ Ohh, there it went. Stomach flipping over...
‘Getting your belly button piercing licked?’
