Tie Me Down: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (37 page)

Powerfully, frighteningly aroused.

Wetness pooled between her thighs, her nipples peaked and she had to work—hard—to stifle the moan threatening to part lips it was becoming harder and harder to keep closed.

She’d never been this out of control before, had never been so aroused that she couldn’t focus on anything but the throbbing ache between her thighs. Serena pressed her legs together, desperate to stem the sensations bombarding her. But it was no use. Heat swept through her body. Her skin flushed a rosy pink and her heart began to race as the fine tremor of arousal shook her, making hands that were normally rock-steady tremble with reaction.

It was all his fault, she thought resentfully, studying Kevin Riley through the camera lens. Because while Kevin was the living, breathing example of every fantasy she’d ever had, his unbelievable sexiness did nothing to put her at ease. Fantasies were just that—something she could escape to when her hard-earned control stifled her, when life got boring and she needed a little spice. But fantasies were supposed to
stay
fantasies—who expected to encounter them in real life?

This was her work, her livelihood, her big chance, yet all she could think about was that luscious mouth and how it would feel pressed against her own. She wanted to pull him into the storm, to run her hands through his too long black hair and feel his muscles ripple beneath her fingers as water and wind lashed at them.

The musky sexiness of his skin called to her, and even with half the room between them she couldn’t escape his unique scent—a mixture of sandalwood and the crisp, clean outdoors. Passion, life, vitality rolled off of him in waves, swamping her as her fingers fumbled another roll of film into her old Nikon. She’d used the digital camera earlier, but something about the time, the storm and Kevin himself had cried out for a more primitive approach.

She lifted the camera again, hands shaking as she snapped the first pictures on the roll. Kevin’s jeans rode low on his hips as he bent, blowtorch in hand, to mold the lowest corner of the
sculpture. Intensity and passion etched his too pretty face—his lush lips were molded into a grim line and his eyes burned with concentration. Despite the air-conditioning, sweat rolled slowly down his bare torso before disappearing inside the waistband of his much-abused Levis. Lust roared through her, nearly bringing her to her knees even as the artist in her recognized the power in his unconscious actions.

Click, whirr. This was it. Click, whirr. The picture she had been waiting for all night. Click, whirr. The shot that would make her famous. Click, whirr. Sculpting Ecstasy. Click, whirr. Bending metal to his every command. Click, whirr. A work of art. Click, whirr. Of genius. Click, whirr. Was she speaking of Kevin or his work? Click, whirr. Perhaps both.

She slid to the ground, looked up through the lens. Click, whirr. His immense power overwhelming. Click, whirr. His talent huge, larger than life. Click, whirr. A giant in his field. Click, whirr. And she wanted him. Click, whirr. This man who was more a work of art than anything he’d ever created. Click, whirr. She burned for him. Click.

Serena snapped the last picture on the roll before lowering the camera to her lap with unsteady hands. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and her breath came in short, jerky gasps. Lifting trembling fingers to her lips, she struggled for control. But she was shaky, wary, disturbed by the truth she saw through the camera’s eye.

Kevin Riley, with his too long hair and too feminine features, with his Greek god body and devil-may-care attitude was the most talented artist she’d ever seen. She’d known coming into this project that he was considered a genius, but knowing was a far cry from being hit in the face by the sensual power and talent he exuded without trying.

She shouldn’t be here. The thought ran—unbidden—through her head. She couldn’t take this. What thinking, breathing woman could? His work alone turned her inside out. She was afraid that she hadn’t known she was close to. An edge she hadn’t realized existed seventy-two hours before.

She cursed Steve, the agent she and Kevin shared, under her breath. This whole thing was his idea. If he hadn’t called her, thrilled about the “absolutely fabulous” opportunity that
came with photographing the many facets of Kevin, she wouldn’t be here now. Of course, when he’d called, she hadn’t been able to say no. How could she? It was a huge career break for her, one that could send her rocketing to fame herself. Besides, she’d needed a distraction—desperately—something, anything to keep her mind off the upcoming hearing and her sense of impending doom. How could she have known that photographing Kevin would be nearly as disturbing?

The cell phone attached to her hip vibrated, but she didn’t answer it. Refused to even look and see who was calling. If it was
him
, she didn’t want to know about it, didn’t want to think about it. And she really didn’t want to spend the rest of the night tied up in knots over somebody’s stupid idea of a joke.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, she pushed the unwelcome intrusion from her mind. Instead, she focused on Kevin again, a subject only a little less uncomfortable than her very persistent and obscene crank caller.

After all, the man was a walking, talking example of human perfection. His muscles strained as he bent the warm metal to his every whim. Faded denim molded every inch of his lower body, cupping his ass in a way that Serena would very much have liked to echo. She sighed unknowingly, absently pressing a hand against herself in an effort to stop the ache that was slowly turning her lower body liquid.

Not that he’d notice if she dissolved into a puddle of unrequited lust on his studio floor. Though he had been pleasant enough when she had shown up on his doorstep two and a half days ago, he’d paid her almost no attention since. Used to a certain amount of attention from men, his complete lack of interest both annoyed and intrigued her.

But how could she be so attracted to a man who didn’t even know she existed? She wasn’t one of those women who always fell for the man who was just a little cold, just a small step out of reach. Or at least, she never had been before. She’d always liked her men hot, accessible and casual. Most importantly casual. For Serena, nothing was worse than having a lover who didn’t understand her boundaries.

Yet she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

She snorted again. Talk about an understatement. For the last two hours, she’d fantasized about making love with him in nearly every position possible. Not to mention some positions she had her doubts about but was more than willing to try.

Despite the storm raging outside, cooling the nighttime air, it was nearly stifling in the huge one-room studio. Kevin had the air-conditioning pumping full-blast, but it had little effect against the huge metal welding furnace throwing out heat in the corner of the room. Or the blowtorch Kevin wielded with amazing concentration.

Serena let her camera slide to the floor, fanned herself with a nearby magazine as she watched him. What was happening to her? Nothing ever distracted her or kept her from completing an assignment. But there was plenty of time, she reminded herself. And there was no way she could take any more pictures tonight, not if she had any hope of getting out of the studio without humiliating herself.

Absently, she slid her hand slowly down her bare arm, enjoying the silky smoothness of the skin. Imagined that it was his hand touching her, his fingers sliding slowly over her shoulder to find the hollow of her throat. She wanted to feel those rough, callused hands on her body, needed it with an intensity that shocked her. Her eyes trailed desperately over his naked torso, following the thin line of hair that disappeared beneath the button of his jeans. She wanted a man she shouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. Serena closed her eyes and silently willed away the need.

*   *   *

“Fuck!” Kevin cursed viciously as he burned himself for the third time in as many minutes. His concentration was shot, knocked to hell and back by the beautiful blonde staring at him through her camera lens. From the moment she’d shown up on his doorstep three days before—with her long legs and drop-dead attitude—he’d known that he was in trouble.

How could he not be? Everything about her—from her pixie-cut blonde hair to her serious brown eyes—screamed coolly professional. She even buttoned her oxford shirts to right
under her chin, a habit that was driving him completely insane. All he’d been able to think about for the past two days was opening those shirts one button at a time, slowly peeling them away to reveal every inch of her smooth, golden skin.

He’d worked hard to maintain his distance, to treat her with the same cool amusement with which she treated him. But while Serena gave every appearance of being oblivious to him and the hunger she ignited inside of him, he was anything but oblivious to her. Under her steady, detached gaze, he’d made a number of stupid mistakes in the last couple of days and it was beginning to seriously piss him off.

Turning the blowtorch off and setting it aside, he stepped back to look at his latest sculpture, frowning. Something wasn’t right, though he was hard put to figure out exactly what the problem was. While he planned every detail of his sculptures out before he ever began to build them, normally small variations occurred as he worked. A feeling he got that told him to bend this piece or twist that one. Intuition, really, that set his work apart from everyone else’s.

He rolled his shoulders, working out the kinks that came from long hours crouching over steaming hot metal as he bent it to his will. Disgusted with himself, his work and his over-active libido, Kevin closed his eyes as he stretched, determined to block Serena, with her too large eyes and too curvy body, from his mind.

He’d been down this road before he reminded himself, had learned his lesson well. After all, Deb had been one hell of a teacher. Yet here he was, lusting after another artist who wanted to use him to further her career. He shrugged restlessly, even as the old anger churned in his stomach. At least Serena was honest about what she wanted, something Deb had never been.

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 any more, than 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 business-like 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 cock 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 breasts. One of the spaghetti straps rode low on her shoulder, resting directly above a wicked looking scar on her bicep and revealing the absence of a bra. An absence made even more obvious by the hard peaks of her nipples 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?