Christmas Alpha Read online

  “No?” he mused.

  “Absolutely not,” she assured him emphatically. “My company knows exactly what route I was taking today, and at what time I was supposed to be where, and when I don’t get back to the depot on time it isn’t going to take them long to work out exactly where I made my last delivery.”

  “Commendable, I’m sure,” Finn drawled dryly. “Except it isn’t going to make a bit of difference to the fact that you’re not going to be able to leave here today. That second phone call? It was from the agency, telling me that the girl I hired won’t be coming here today after all—”

  “No doubt she heard about the whips and paddles in the basement and thought better of it!”

  After months of finding absolutely nothing to laugh about, Eva Shaw seemed able to amuse him without even trying. “You think I have whips and paddles in the basement?”

  Eva thought there was a distinct possibility that he might have bats in his belfry, if he thought he was going to keep her here against her will!

  “Are you into that stuff, Eva?” He stepped towards her, close enough that Eva’s senses were invaded by the warm, totally male smell, the heat, and the sheer presence of him. “Do you like being tied up? Blindfolded?” One of his hands moved up to lift a thick length of her hair before curling that silkiness about his long fingers. “Would you like that, Eva?” His head lowered, his breath warm against her throat and ear as his fingers in her hair prevented her from moving. “Would you like it if I tied you to my bed and licked and sucked you all over before fucking you senseless?”

  A shiver ran the length of Eva’s spine, both at his closeness, the caress of his heated breath, and the wicked images evoked by his graphic words.

  If she closed her eyes she could actually see herself, tied up and helpless on a bed, the sweat glistening on Finn Devlin’s back as he lay between her parted thighs, those chiseled lips against her bared breasts as he licked and then sucked her aching nipples into the heat of his mouth, Eva squirming and arching with pleasure as she pleaded for him to do it harder.

  She could see the play of muscles over that broad back as Finn slid lower, groaning low in her throat as she felt that marauding tongue stroke over her—

  Eva’s eyes opened wide in panic as she realized she had actually groaned out loud.

  That she was balanced precariously on the edge of climaxing just from imagining being completely at this man’s mercy.

  “How much would it take, do you think?” His gaze now held hers captive, his breath a warm caress against her heated cheek. “I’m guessing one, maybe two strokes of my fingers against your clit to send you over the edge?”

  Eva knew, from the throb and ache between her thighs, that just the one stroke would be enough to send her hurtling into a bone-melting orgasm.

  She didn’t know this man. And what she did know she didn’t like. Finn Devlin was a—

  Finn Devlin?

  Was it possible this man was Finn Devlin?

  The Finn Devlin?

  In none of the photographs she had seen of him had his hair been this long and unkempt. And he had always been formally dressed, usually in a designer-label suit and silk shirts, or tailored casual trousers, also with a dark silk shirt, usually with some beautiful model or actress draped and smiling on his arm.

  But, she now realized, she had seen this face before; those wicked Irish-blue eyes, with the laughter lines fanning out from the corners and beside the sensual curve of his mouth, cheekbones clearly defined on either side of his perfectly straight nose, and that square jaw currently darkened by dark stubble.

  She winced as the rest of his weird conversation suddenly made complete sense to her. “I’m guessing that ‘the girl from the agency’ you were expecting is actually a model, and that the ‘thing’ you intended doing with her was taking photographs?” Ridiculous didn’t even begin to describe how Eva now felt at the assumptions she had jumped to in regard to this man.

  At just thirty-two years of age, not only was Finn Devlin a world renowned photographer, feted by the elite of society worldwide, but the previous year Eva had actually attended one of the exhibitions of his photographs at a London gallery, and just been blown away by them. A single print of an original Finn Devlin photograph sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

  And she had just called him a sexual deviant!

  Finn straightened slowly before taking a step back, eyes narrowed warily. “You know who I am.”

  “Finally—yes, I do!” Those moss-green eyes were slightly accusing. “Why didn’t you just tell me that earlier?”

  In all honesty, it hadn’t occurred to Finn that he needed to do so.

  For one thing there was his name on the parcel.

  And for another, that’s just the way it was nowadays. Wherever he went he was recognized and speculated about, as were the women he dated. And he had grown tired of it all some time ago, the fawning and willing women, the flattering and equally willing men.

  It had been okay when he was twenty-five, when his photographs were first taken seriously and he had become an overnight success—after struggling for the previous seven years trying to get a gallery to even look at them!

  It had all been new and exciting then, the parties and the women, just his name enough to secure a table at a restaurant or admittance into an exclusive nightclub.

  Seven years later and he’d had enough of the parties, the booze, and most especially the women. Woman, he corrected grimly. A bitch of a woman, as it turned out, who had set out to use him but had become obsessed with him.

  The Mistress, as he now referred to her.

  Not his mistress, but someone else’s; Finn just hadn’t known it at the time.

  Six months ago that whole situation had blown up in his face, in a way that he could never have anticipated.

  After that last incident with Moira four months ago, Finn had changed his cell number—again—and moved out of London to stay in this house owned by a friend in the wilds of Wales.

  But after four months of solitude he had gotten bored and decided that work would help alleviate the boredom.

  Which was the reason he had assumed Eva Shaw was the model he had hired to pose for the photographs for his next exhibition.

  And instead she was here to deliver the parcel that both he and Jack were pretty sure had been sent by Moira. Which was why the other man had telephoned him earlier, to warn him the parcel was on its way, sent on to Finn by Jack’s assistant Bridget while the other man was in New York for two days.

  To make matters worse, Bridget had also made note of a telephone call she had received several hours later, from a woman who had claimed she worked for the photography company who had sent the parcel, and needed Mr. Devlin’s address to send on a missed item, which Bridget had innocently given her.

  Jack was currently threatening to sack Bridget for her incompetence. Finn couldn’t see the point; the damage was done now. No point in making the situation worse. Besides, he liked Bridget.

  And if Moira was this determined to find him, then she would have done it with or without Bridget’s help.

  God knows what was in the parcel.

  Finn didn’t want to know what was in there...

  “I assumed, with my name on the parcel, that you already knew who I was,” he answered abruptly.

  “It never even occurred to me that you were the Finn Devlin,” Eva dismissed, still feeling foolish. “There are probably several million Finn Devlins in the world,” she added defensively.

  “Oh at least that in Ireland alone,” he confirmed lightly. “But I doubt too many of them would have told you to come in and take your clothes off the moment they met you!”

  “Is your next exhibition going to be nudes?” Eva tried to salvage at least some control over this conversation.

  His jaw tightened. “One nude.”

  “One nude?”

  “Interested, after all?” He quirked one dark, mocking brow.

  “Not in the lea
st!” Her cheeks blazed with hot color.

  “Pity.” That blue gaze moved over her with slow deliberation.

  “I believe it’s time I was going.” Eva pulled her hat back on over her hair, wrapped her scarf about her neck and headed for the door. “Have a good day, Mr. Devlin,” she called out as she went. “A Happy Christmas. A Prosperous New Year—”

  “Er—Eva—”

  “—And a successful life—”

  “Eva!”

  “Yes?” She was frowning as she turned.

  Finn Devlin sighed. “Eva, the reason my original model isn’t going to arrive today isn’t because she heard about the whips and paddles in the basement—”

  “I had no idea who you were when I made that comment!” She was starting to feel uncomfortably hot again. Or just mortified at how ridiculous she must have seemed earlier!

  “Eva, the snowstorm has turned into a blizzard.” He grimaced. “All motorists are being advised to seek shelter and remain there until the worst of it’s over.”

  “That doesn’t apply to the Dailey Courier Service.” No, no, no, this could not be happening to her! “‘We come to you, we get through’,” she repeated desperately as she threw open the front door and was almost knocked off her feet by the force of the howling wind and snow. The white delivery van, just feet away, was barely visible, indistinguishable from the heavy snowflakes being tossed and thrown about in the wind. “It will have blown itself out in a little while,” she began to babble, “and then I can—”

  “It’s forecasted to be like this for at least another twelve hours or so, and even then it’s still going to be snowing.” Finn pulled her effortlessly back inside the house before once again closing the door on the storm raging outside. “Apparently it’s a blizzard that’s blown in from the Arctic and caught everyone by surprise.”

  Surprise? That had to be an understatement!

  Admittedly, when Eva had gone outside for the parcel the wind had seemed a lot stronger than when she’d arrived. But she had been so irritated by then, just wanting to get this delivery over and done with, and then be on her way, that she hadn’t really paid much attention to it.

  The wind was now howling like a banshee, and even that brief glimpse outside had shown her that the snow was drifting against her van as well as the sides of the house. If it carried on like this for several more hours goodness knows when she was going to be able to get out of here.

  “Roads are closed, airports too, trees are down, and the trains and buses have stopped running,” Finn Devlin informed her dryly as he leaned back against the front door, arms once again folded in front of that perfectly muscled chest. “Tell me, Eva, are you totally against being photographed in the nude...?”

  Chapter 3

  “I said no, Mr. Devlin.” Eva glared at him over the top of the steaming mug of coffee he had just made and poured for them both. “N. O. It spells no!”

  Finn had persuaded his unexpected visitor to at least take off her jacket, hat and gloves before joining him in the huge oak kitchen, kept warm by the wood-burning stove along one wall.

  It had the added benefit of allowing him to see that the dark green cable-knit sweater did indeed fit snugly over pert breasts. Surprisingly large breasts, considering Eva was so slender everywhere else...

  He had always been a breast man, liked to look at them, to cup them in his hands, squeeze them, lick them, and taste them. Eva probably had nipples as huge as ripe berries too, if they were in proportion to the rest of those firm and full breasts.

  Finn wanted to touch them.

  He also wanted to photograph them.

  And he had just told Eva so in no uncertain terms.

  “Would you please stop staring at me like that?” Eva shifted uncomfortably as she sat across the kitchen table from him.

  “You have a fine pair of breasts, Eva Shaw.” He raised his gaze and held hers as he deliberately and slowly licked his lips. “I would really like to photograph them.”

  “And I would like for you to stop ogling them!”

  “How old are you, Eva?” Finn eyed her curiously. Those exotically tilted moss-green eyes, and that perfect sexy bow of a mouth, were surely indicative of a sensual nature, and yet Eva’s body language now proclaimed the opposite.

  Her chin rose. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  He shrugged. “You’re displaying all the indignant outrage of a schoolgirl because I admired and looked at your breasts, so I was just wondering if you are one?” Now wouldn’t that be just perfect? The first woman he had felt sexually aroused by in months, and she turned out to be too young, and so off-limits!

  “I’m twenty-two and in my final year of a master’s degree in history,” she bristled. “I want to teach.”

  Not quite off limits... “The courier job is just for the holidays, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brains as well as beauty,” he admired.

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Devlin.” Those green eyes had darkened with scorn. “And my age has nothing to do with my outrage at you being a… At your familiarity.” She had obviously thought better of calling him something far worse.

  Finn leaned back in his chair as he continued to look at her. “Has any man ever seen you naked?”

  “Mind your own damned business!” she gasped.

  “Topless, then?”

  “I went to a topless beach on the last day of my holiday in Spain last year!” She eyed him challengingly.

  “But did you go topless?”

  After a great deal of hesitation, Eva had finally joined the rest of her friends and taken her bikini top off. Much to her embarrassment. She had breathed a sigh of relief when it was time for them all to go back to the hotel, so they could pack for the flight home the following day. “Yes, I did.”

  Finn nodded. “So it was okay to show your breasts off to a beach full of strangers, but not to have them displayed as art in a reputable gallery?”

  “Yes. No!” Eva’s cheeks burned. “You’re just trying to confuse me now!” She shot him an exasperated frown. “I am not, most definitely not, showing you my—I’m not showing you any part of me naked. What I am going to do is just sit here—quietly—and wait until the worst of the storm has passed. After which I intend to leave.”

  “The roads will still be impassable.”

  “Then I’ll walk out!”

  Those blue eyes narrowed at the desperation in her tone. “What did your uncle have to say on the subject when you spoke to him earlier?”

  Eva had used her cell phone to call her uncle, while Finn made the coffee. As might be expected, her Uncle Dave had told her to stay put until the weather cleared. He had also told her that no one was getting ‘through’ at the moment, and that included the Dailey Courier Service.

  Her uncle had even gone on to say how kind it was of Mr. Devlin to offer her refuge in his home. Kind? Hah! The man just wanted to sit and ogle her breasts. And try to persuade her to take her clothes off!

  If Eva were honest with herself, she was a little bit flattered that a photographer as famous as Finn Devlin would want to photograph any part of her. Not that she intended to admit that to this arrogant Irishman!

  Besides, her breasts were not for public consumption. Or private, come to that!

  She drew in a ragged breath as she recalled how easily Finn had aroused her earlier. It was embarrassing how easily, when he had barely touched her, just breathed hotly on her skin as he talked softly into her ear. She had never even realized until that moment that her ears were an erogenous zone.

  “Perhaps you have a boyfriend who might object?”

  Eva thought briefly of Tom, the man she had dated for a couple of months before the summer holiday. And then dismissed him; Tom had ended their relationship because she wouldn’t show him her breasts either.

  She gave a shake of her head. “What is it with men and breasts?” she muttered disgustedly.

  “Ah, well, now you’re talking!”
Finn grinned as he leaned across the table, his gaze now on a level with that outstanding part of her anatomy. “Breasts are a glory to behold. Part of a woman’s femininity. Not all of it, mind. That hot little cave between your thighs is also—”

  “Mr. Devlin!” Eva placed her coffee mug noisily down on the tabletop.

  Finn grinned unrepentantly. In fact, he was really starting to enjoy the way Eva bristled with indignation every time he said something she considered outrageous—which seemed to be often. Her eyes glowed, and her cheeks turned a pretty shade of deep pink when she was roused to anger. As for her hair—it was a wondrous glory to behold, so it was.

  Would the thatch between her thighs be as black and silky? Finn was betting it was. He had a feeling she would taste delicious down there too, all thick and creamy on his tongue.

  His grin widened as he realized his cock was sharing his interest, hot and throbbing inside his denims.

  Which was something of a relief; he had thought he would never grow hard again after what Moira had done to him.

  It was such a relief that Finn wanted to take his cock out and stroke it in celebration of the moment. Or have Eva stroke it for him...

  “If I could prove to you that the photographs are art,” Finn murmured, speculative, “would you reconsider posing for me?”

  “Yes. No!” She looked flustered as she realized what she had said. “I know your photographs are art, Mr. Devlin—”

  “Finn.”

  “I’ve seen prints of them,” she continued determinedly. “They’re beautiful. It’s just—I have a mother and a father who would mind very much seeing nude photographs of their daughter on display for everyone and the world to see.”

  “Your face wouldn’t be in any of them. Everything else, but not your face,” he added suggestively.

  “Oh that makes me feel sooo much better!” She rolled her eyes.

  Finn chuckled. “Look, why don’t we step into my studio, I’ll take a few photographs for you to look at. With your clothes on,” he drawled mockingly as she looked about to protest again. “If you don’t like what you see then I won’t ask again.”