The Black Sheep and The English Rose. Donna Kauffman

      “Oh, it was quite amusing, indeed. The poor bellman almost had heart failure when he came to collect my luggage. Gallant of you to send him, by the way.” The corners of her mouth twitched, and a real smile threatened.

      And that was it. Right there. The reason Finn got himself into trouble whenever Felicity Jane was involved. She was the only woman he’d ever met who viewed the world with the same sort of detached amusement he did. The only difference—and it was a hefty one—was that his detachment came in handy in his line of work. Well, he supposed hers did, too. It was just, in his line of work, he had a vested interest in making sure the good guys won. As far as he could tell, in Felicity Jane’s world, it was only important that Felicity Jane won.

      “Yes, well, I had thought, perhaps, you could use a hand.”

      “I’d forgotten what a charming bastard you could be.” She did smile now, and the warmth of it reached her eyes. But he was smart enough to know that all was not forgiven. Nor would it ever be. That was the other thing he liked about prowling around Felicity Jane. She kept him on his toes. Even when she was keeping him on his back. Maybe especially then.

      “I’m wounded,” he said. “I’d hoped you hadn’t forgotten a single thing about me.” He sat on the corner of the bed, by her feet. Her ankles had been bound with what looked like a man’s silk tie. He fingered the edge of the silk without touching her skin. She didn’t flinch or shift away from his touch. Not that she could have escaped him completely, but she could have made her feelings on the matter clear if she’d wanted to. He kept his gaze casually fixed on her ankles, though there was nothing remotely casual about the way his body was responding to her barely clad proximity.

      Seeing her bound, even if it was with a monogrammed, designer silk tie, wasn’t helping matters much, either. He wasn’t normally into such things, but then, where the two of them were concerned, normal didn’t often come into play. If ever. Play, however…that was something they knew more than a little about. And playing with Felicity Jane was as intoxicating as it was dangerous.

      He flipped the end of the tie over her toes. “I see you still have a penchant for men’s neckwear.” There was a slight roughness to his tone, one he knew damn well she would pick up on. Just as he knew she’d use every advantage she had with him. And she had more than a few.

      He wished like hell that knowledge perturbed him a bit more than it did. Because, right at that very moment, he should have been interrogating her in order to figure out how best to continue tracking down the Byzantine piece.

      Not entangling himself once again in Felicity Jane’s very enticing web.

      As if reading his mind—and he wasn’t too certain she couldn’t; it would go a long way toward explaining her uncanny ability to keep herself one step ahead of him—she lifted her foot and lightly stroked her perfectly painted toes along the inside of his wrist.

      She waited until he looked at her, then smiled and said, “I wasn’t nearly as creative with his tie as I was with yours.”

      Finn’s body sprang to full attention, just as she’d wanted it to. He forced himself to hold her gaze and tried to ignore the obvious bulge in his pants, knowing she wouldn’t.

      Two could play, however, and he knew right then he was definitely going to be one of them. He stroked a finger along the arch of her foot, well aware he was walking too fine a line to likely come out unscathed. And not particularly caring. It had been too long for him. Too long without putting his wants first, even for a night. And, if he was being completely honest, too long without someone like Felicity Jane.

      And, as two long years of ultimately unfulfilling liaisons would attest, he’d learned that there was no one like Felicity Jane.

      He trailed his fingers over the fine bones of her ankle, somewhat surprised his fingers weren’t trembling a little. After all, he’d imagined this moment more times than he cared to admit, all the while never letting himself believe it would actually come to pass. They’d tangled only twice before, both of them during a time in his life he thought of now as purgatory, his life suspended between the one he’d always thought he’d be leading and the one he was leading now. It had been a time of dealing with his past, with his family, and discovering what he truly believed in. He had always known what he didn’t want, which was a life like his father had led. One driven by greed and a hunger for more power. It had taken his father’s death to teach him what he truly did want in life.

      Now he had people counting on him, people who meant the world to him. He had a business to run, and work that was more important to him than anything he’d done before. Running Trinity, Inc., with his two closest friends, using his father’s amassed wealth to help those who couldn’t otherwise win against a system that was good, but not foolproof—the very same types his father had exploited whenever possible—was easily the most personal thing he’d ever done. And the most rewarding.

      He lifted his gaze to hers, wondering just what he was putting at risk here. There was the inescapable sense that now that he had everything else in order, he’d simply been waiting for her, for this moment, all along. Which, considering how their past liaisons had ended, should have sent him bolting from the room, yet kept him riveted to the bed as if he were the one shackled to it, not her.

      Her eyes flashed like bright sparkling gems themselves as he continued his slow exploration. Using only his fingertips, he drew them slowly up the back of her calf, watching as her pale skin glowed a soft pink across the bridge of her nose, before tinting her cheeks. An oh-so-innocent reaction, when he knew oh-so differently. In some ways, they were too much alike. Innocent didn’t describe either of them. They’d done too much, seen too much. Just as she had to know he was already diamond hard and ready to pick up right where they left off in Prague, he knew that if he drew his fingertips along the creamy, endless length of her legs, he’d likely encounter a soaking wet strip of expensive silk stretched between them.

      “A shame we can’t see our way toward working together,” she said, her voice having also taken on a rather husky edge.

      “A tempting offer,” he replied, surprised she’d made it. He’d made that offer before, but she was stubbornly independent. Never willing to so much as discuss the offer, much less take him into her confidence. He wondered if the offer now was an indication of how desperate she was. And if that was why she was tolerating his touch right now. Not because she’d been wanting this moment to happen as ridiculously much as he had.

      “Temptation is something we both know more than a little about,” she said in a voice filled with all the carnal knowledge she had of him, making him twitch hard inside his now snug trousers.

      He had to work to keep from adjusting his position. “True,” he managed. “However, my client wouldn’t be too thrilled if I came home empty-handed. And your client—” He paused and stilled his fingers, too, then cocked his head. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a client.”

      She held his gaze easily, her smile growing. “At least you credit me with the ability to come out the victor this go-around.”

      It wasn’t lost on him that she hadn’t refuted his assessment that her motives for being involved in this little caper were purely selfish. “I credit you with thinking you can, and that makes you just as dangerous. And I still haven’t forgotten Bogota, what was it, almost three years ago now?”

      “About that. And I hadn’t thought you would.” She pushed her bound feet downward, so she could dig her toes into the hard muscle of his thigh. She might as well have been pushing them between his legs for the reaction he had.

      No, he hadn’t forgotten Bogota. Not one sultry second of it.

      “I simply thought you’d credit your uncustomary loss that morning to bad luck. Or bad, what was it, clams, I believe?”

      There were, however, parts of that ill-fated assignment he’d rather never recall. “A pretty heartless solution considering that if we hadn’t called for room service, in another hour or so you’d have likely had me so depleted I wouldn’t have cared what you took.”