Chapter One
Kevin Riley was the stuff fantasies were made of.
Her fantasies, to be exact.
Six foot five, heavily muscled, with the most beautifully intense blue eyes she’d ever seen, he captured her attention like no man ever had. And with his half-naked body in front of her and nature thrashing fiercely around her, it was all she could do to keep her clothes on, her mouth shut and her camera aimed somewhere besides his absolutely fabulous ass.
Not that he should mind—it was one of his best features, after all. And she was being paid, well paid, for taking pictures that showed his every side.
Of course, she wasn’t sure that fifty shots of his ass were quite what the publishers had had in mind when they’d hired her, no matter how glorious it was. Besides, her humming libido couldn’t handle much more without going into severe overdrive anyway.
Serena snorted before she could stop herself. Who was she kidding? She’d passed overdrive a while ago, was now heading straight toward spontaneous combustion at an alarming rate. The thought disturbed her and she moved restlessly, desperate to focus on something—anything—that could bring her traitorous body under control.
She glanced toward the large windows that covered an entire side of the old, redbrick studio and tried to concentrate on the storm raging through Kevin’s little slice of bayou. But the wildness of it—the utter lack of control—only made her more uncomfortable.
Rain pummeled the tin roof, flashes of lightning illuminated the darkness beyond the house and thunder shook the studio as it exploded across the sky. Mother Nature was in a frenzy and much of southern Louisiana would pay the price on this steamy summer night.
She was just one more victim.
It was three a.m. and she should have been asleep, tucked safely into bed in her Baton Rouge condo. Nature whirled around her and she should have been terrified as she witnessed the destruction caused by every gust of seventy-mile-an-hour winds. She was working and she should have been focused, completely absorbed in taking photos for the book that could blow her career wide open. But she wasn’t.
She wasn’t at home asleep, she wasn’t terrified, and she certainly wasn’t focused.
What she was, was aroused.
Powerfully, frighteningly aroused.
Wetness pooled between her thighs, her ni**les 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 h*ps 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. 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 important, 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 n**ed 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 blond 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 overactive 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.