Zuri Day - Becoming The Boss

‘Sometimes…?’ he demanded.

‘They change colour. Gleam in a feral kind of way. Hypnotic.’

‘Hypnotic?’ he murmured silkily, his skin flushed beneath the shadowy peak of his cap. ‘Maybe it depends what he’s looking at.’

Their gazes caught, held in timeless suspension, and the pull tugged at the base of her abdomen until warmth flooded her knickers.

A groan ripped from his throat as if he knew. Could smell the scent of her arousal.

‘And…’ She smothered her lips with moisture. ‘He has this serious animalistic vibe going on. He growls .’

Sculpted in black leather, his broad shoulders rose and fell as the tempo of his breathing escalated. ‘Do you like it?’

‘I love it.’ She’d been lured, ensnared, and now she wanted to be caught—

No. No! God, what was going on with her? She had to cut this out. Think friends .

The hand that lay on his muscular thigh fisted and he pulled back an inch or three. ‘Do you know what Seraphina means, Miss Scott?’

She gave a little shake of her head and he elaborated.

‘The fiery one.’

Right now that made perfect sense.

‘So be careful that you don’t get set ablaze. You don’t want to get burned, do you, Seraphina?’

‘You burn women?’ she whispered, sounding more intrigued than appalled—and how ridiculous was that? Of course the man burned women. He had a much-publicised trail of ashes in his wake to prove it.

‘Badly,’ he murmured, his voice tinged with regret. ‘Hence my rules.’

Throat swollen, she had to squeeze out the words. ‘What rules are they, Finn?’

‘No commitment. No emotional ties. Just pleasure beyond your wildest imagination.’

‘That sounds…’

‘ Good. It’s good, baby. For as long as it lasts. A few hours at the most. Then there’s nothing but emptiness. So believe me when I say keep safe and don’t be lured by your inner fire. Especially when it ignites for me.’

A ten-bell siren blared through her head, silenced her desire. He was only being brutally honest. No flippant innuendo from this man. No play on words. No clever retort. She liked the real Finn St George, she realised. Very much. He was an arrogant, seductive, sexy blend of bad-boy meets boy-next-door.

Keep safe. Good advice. Not that commitment interested her. Emotional ties made her blood run cold. She’d just lost one man she’d loved, and being obsessed with a player who rapped on death’s door with alarming frequency wasn’t her idea of a rollicking good time.

Still, what if Finn was the only man she’d ever want sexually? Was she crazy to want to experience such pleasure once in her life? She knew the game, the rote, had been a spectator all her life. She could play by the rules, couldn’t she?

Serena fancied he could see the internal battle warring inside her, because he raised his hand and swept a strand of hair from her brow with a shiver-inducing graze.

‘Trust me, beautiful. It’s a bad idea.’

The main lights dimmed and what remained was a black canvas ceiling dotted with tiny pricks of light. It was like sitting beneath a million twinkling stars. So romantic that yearning pulled at her soul.

Finn eased back into his own chair, leaving her oddly bereft. Until the music struck an almighty beat and she felt the punch of power deep in the pit of her stomach. Then the full instrumental peeled from the band, the sound caroming around the vast expanse to infuse the atmosphere with what she could only describe as a seriously evocative sensual bent.

‘Oh, my life.’

The thought slammed into her psyche within seconds. Finn hadn’t intended bringing her here at all. So who…?

As if he could hear her mental meanderings, he murmured, ‘I was coming by myself. This is a new cabaret-style show directed by a friend of mine and he sent some tickets over last night. He knows I like to blend occasionally, and they often debut in Montreal. I’ve no idea what to expect.’

She was pretty sure he had a better idea than she did.

‘All I know is that it’s strictly over eighteens and it explores human sexuality.’

Okay-dokey, then. Right up her street. Not.

The risqué undertone of the music was a prelude to a stage lifting from beneath the floor, bringing the performers into view, still as statues. Until the Moulin-Rouge-type beat peaked with an almighty crescendo…

The cushioned pad beneath her bottom quaked, sending a vibration straight to her core, making the hair on her arms stand on end.

And then the artists came to life.

Heat that had nothing to do with the amount of bodies packed in one space and all to do with the hedonistic bent of the performance shot through her bloodstream, growing ever hotter when the stage became a writhing mass of mind-boggling feats of flexibility and synchronicity.

Bodies were bending, stroking, touching. Hands glissaded over painted flesh, the vivid colours of their skin alive with sensuous beauty.

Hanging from the dollies above the plinth were three massive chandeliers from which acrobats were suspended, and they too began to move in a series of gyrations, spinning and twisting as they swung from one bar to another in a dizzying spectacle.

Oh. And they were all half naked. Half naked and—

She sucked in a sharp breath and Finn leaned over.

‘You okay?’

‘Mmm…’ It came out like a groan, because where Finn had made her hot and bothered seconds before the show, now she was burning up. The fiery one.

‘You want to leave?’

‘Absolutely—’ She had to take another breath as one of the female performers wrapped her legs around her partner, locked groins tight and bent backwards to the floor, as if he were sliding inside her, as if…

‘Okay, let’s go.’

‘—not. No, I’m not leaving. I’m staying right here. A tornado whipping through the room wouldn’t move me as much as this. It’s… They…they’re beautiful .’

Dancing, whirling, bending—the women were incredible acrobats, so much femininity and strength all rolled into one stunning blend.

‘So strong,’ she whispered in awe.

‘They have to be. Strong-willed to train so gruellingly. Strong-minded to hold their positions, trust in their abilities. Believe in their talent. But elegant and graceful at the same time.’

Yes, and all the while remaining strong of heart, body and soul. No shame, only dazzling radiance.

Still staring at the stage, her mind spun. ‘What are you getting at, Finn?’

‘Maybe I’m just pointing out that being a woman doesn’t render you weak, and being strong or unique doesn’t make you less feminine.’

She didn’t see all women as weak. Did she? Then again, she’d never known many women. Only her dad’s bits of fluff, and they all seemed desperate somehow. Serena had watched them, thinking how bizarre they all were, flitting to and fro, trying to make her dad happy, in the idiotic assumption he would keep them. Desperate. Weak. But wholly feminine. Had she subconsciously knitted the two together?

Finn had told her she was feminine. His words, ‘Of course you are… In your own unique way…’ came back to her. She’d taken them as a kind of insult, but at the same time had longed for him to mean it. Despite or perhaps because of the shoe-slipper debacle.

Finn saw far more than what met the eye. Behind the celebrity persona he had a depth of intensity and an intelligence that astounded and intrigued her.

‘People underestimate you, Finn,’ she murmured, and the show continued all around them, just as the world still spun, ignorant of the seismic shift inside of her.

Seismic since she suspected that he was not only right but that her issues ran far deeper. Too deep for her to delve into that gorge right now.