Christmas Alpha Read online

  He really wished he’d heard back from Lucien about when or if he could get some of his security people out here; he wasn’t worried for himself, but it really wasn’t fair for Eva to be dragged into the mess his life had become because of his stalker ex-girlfriend.

  “The blanket of snow outside just adds to the eeriness,” Eva spoke softly again into that black silence.

  Finn gave a disgusted snort. “I bet you were one of those kids who liked to hear ghost stories before bedtime, and then spent the rest of the night listening for strange noises, with your head under the bed sheets, too afraid to sleep.”

  She gave a husky chuckle. “Strangely enough...”

  Finn’s eyesight had now adjusted a little to the sudden blackness, and he could see shadowy outlines with the help of the light from the reflection of the moon upon the snow outside. “As both of us appear to be going down to the kitchen for the flashlight, it would probably be a good idea for you to take my hand.”

  Eva accepted it was the sensible thing to do as she fumbled about in the dark for a hold on Finn’s much larger hand.

  It also felt strangely intimate as his much longer, much warmer fingers curled about hers so that he could help her to navigate back down the stairs. More so, in some ways, than what had happened between them in the studio earlier. A connection, flesh against flesh, that while not in the least sexual, nevertheless possessed an unsettling intensity of feeling.

  “I hope you thanked your friend for me too?” Eva murmured half an hour later as the two of them once again sat at the kitchen table drinking steaming mugs of tea.

  Finn had lit some of the candles he had found in the cupboard under the sink before checking the fuse-box and then telephoning the electric company once he found that everything there was still working. A recorded message had informed him that this whole area was affected, and power would be resumed as soon as possible. After which he had telephoned Lucien again.

  According to the other man it was quite usual to have power outages in this area, even without the snow, and so the other man had brought in a generator not long after he bought the house. Big enough that it could keep the rooms on the ground floor of the house, as well as the alarm system, powered and running. With the help of the wood-burning stove, and the fire in the sitting room, the two of them could at least keep warm and prepare hot food and drinks.

  The news wasn’t so positive on the arrival of Lucien’s security guys; the snow really had blanketed the whole of the country and was causing chaos everywhere. Most of the roads were now impassable. Lucien was looking to get a couple of his men to Wales in a helicopter, but for the moment not much was getting off the ground except for emergency vehicles.

  Just to complicate matters, Finn and Eva would now need to sleep in the same room tonight. In fact the two of them had already brought the duvets and pillows down from upstairs and placed them in front of the fire in the sitting room before coming back to the kitchen to drink the tea.

  There was no way Eva would have agreed to those sleeping arrangements without the power outage, not after Finn’s deliberate crudeness earlier.

  Finn’s uneasiness, regarding whom Eva might have seen, and who had made those footprints in the snow, had only increased when the power went off so suddenly, and he now believed it was imperative that he and Eva stayed together.

  He shrugged in answer to Eva’s comment. “I very much doubt Lucien would have appreciated your thanks even if I had passed them on.”

  She eyed him curiously. “Why on earth not?”

  “He’s funny that way.”

  “You have strange friends.”

  Lucien was the least of it.

  And Moira was the worst of it...

  That she had managed to track him down here, by sending that parcel to Jack, and then pretending to be someone else on the telephone in order to find out his address, would seem to indicate she had gone completely stalker on him.

  And if that had been Moira outside earlier, then where was she now?

  She would need somewhere to shelter from the storm overnight, and the only place that Finn could think of close by was the empty stable at the back of the house. It might be worth him taking a look in there once Eva was asleep.

  Once Eva was asleep...

  Lying beside her all night was going to be a test for his self-control.

  “You seem distracted, Finn.”

  He brought his attention back to the here and now as he focused on Eva sitting across the table from him. “Sure, and it isn’t everyday I find myself stranded in a snowstorm with such a desirable woman.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I thought we had already established that I’m not letting you ‘fuck’ me?”

  Finn smiled ruefully. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re desirable.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Finn Devlin.”

  “Then maybe you should try and distract me by telling me a little more about yourself?” he answered smoothly. Eva was a desirable woman, no doubt about it. And the two of them were stuck here together until the worst of the storm blew itself out. He just wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Do you have any other family besides your parents and the uncle who owns the courier company?”

  “Grandparents. Uncles and aunts. Dozens of cousins,” she dismissed ruefully. “Usually we all descend on my maternal grandparents for Christmas Day.” She looked glum.

  “We’ll get you out of here before then.” Finn reached across the table and clasped her hand in his as it rested on the tabletop.

  There was that connection again, Eva realized with a puzzled frown. That feeling of intimacy as Finn’s fingers closed about her own. Again there was nothing sexual about it, it was more...warm, and somehow comforting, and yet at the same time she was still totally aware of everything about him.

  Finn just was.

  Tall, imposing, there.

  In your face there.

  Eva couldn’t think of any other way to describe what it was like to be with a man who was so compelling.

  Did Finn feel that connection too?

  A glance beneath her lashes showed that Finn was staring down at their linked hands, a frown between those deep blue eyes.

  Yes, Finn felt it too.

  Then what had that all been about earlier, when he had spoken so crudely of ‘fucking’ her? Had he been intentionally pushing her away?

  And if so, why had he?

  Admittedly they lived very different lives, and ordinarily would never have met at all—he was Finn Devlin, photographer extraordinaire, and she was a history student working during the Christmas holidays as a courier—but… “What’s going on, Finn?” she prompted slowly. “What is it you aren’t telling me?”

  That frown deepened into a scowl. “Isn’t the fact that we’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere in a countrywide blizzard, with no electricity, enough for us to worry about?”

  Too slick. Too mocking. Just too everything, in fact.

  Eva gave a shake of her head. “You can cut the act, Finn, because I’m not buying it.”

  He released her hand before leaning back in his chair to look across at her, a mocking smile tilting his lips. “Just as well, because I’m not for sale.”

  Nope, still not buying it. “Do me a favor, would you, Finn, and stand up?”

  He tensed warily. “Why?”

  “Because I asked nicely?”

  “I don’t see—”

  “Please. Ah, just as I thought,” she nodded knowingly as he rose noisily to his feet and she could once again see that telling bulge in his denims. “Care to explain why it is you’re deliberately keeping me at arm’s length, Finn, when it’s obviously the last thing you want to do?” She raised questioning eyebrows.

  “I don’t think it’s my arm you need to worry about.”

  “Stop it, Finn,” Eva snapped her irritation.

  “Maybe I’m acting this way because we’ve known each other a matter of hours?” he bi
t out exasperatedly as he sat down again. “Because I agree with you, it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to take this any further?”

  “That didn’t seem to bother you earlier.”

  Finn scowled darkly. “I stopped, didn’t I?”

  “Eventually, yes. But most men wouldn’t have done that.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “I’m questioning why, if you feel like...that,” she nodded in the direction of his groin. “You set out to annoy me earlier by being deliberately crude.”

  “Maybe I’m just into self-denial?”

  “And maybe I’ll threaten to cook you breakfast tomorrow morning if you don’t stop lying to me.”

  There was absolutely no way Finn could stop himself from grinning at that comment; the pizza tonight really had been pretty awful. “Anything but that!”

  “Well?”

  Finn sighed his frustration; this woman really was the most stubborn, pig-headed—

  But, damn it, if Moira really had followed that parcel here, then Eva deserved to know the truth. Remembering what Moira had done to the woman in the restaurant just because she was with him, Eva could be in as much, if not more, danger than he was.

  His hands clenched into fists at the idea of Moira being anywhere near Eva.

  He gave a shake of his head. “The parcel you delivered earlier today was from Jack, my agent.”

  She nodded. “I told you it said Jack Miller on the return address label.”

  “Because he’s been forwarding my mail on to me here for the past four months.” Finn nodded.

  “Go on,” Eva invited softly.

  He couldn’t look at her any longer. “I was involved with someone a while back.”

  “How long ago is a ‘while back’?”

  “Six months.” He grimaced. “She was not the sort of woman you would ever take home to meet your family, especially not my family. We saw each other on Friday and Saturday evenings—nights, for about six weeks,” he admitted uncomfortably.

  “And?”

  “And from Sunday to Thursday she spent the night with her much older and married lover. He worked in the city during the week, kept an apartment there, and went home to his wife in Cornwall on weekends. I had no idea.” Finn gave a disgusted shake of his head.

  “But you found out,” Eva guessed.

  “Oh big time,” he confirmed, his voice hard. “I turned up as usual one Friday night and he was there—his wife had gone away for the weekend to visit her sick mother in Aberdeen. They suggested, as I was there, that we have a threesome.” His top lip turned back with distaste. “I declined. Which was when I found out that Moira had been secretly recording the two of us together for weeks, and that the two of them would...watch it, when they were… Apparently it excited both of them.“ Finn stood up again, feeling the same nausea as he had that night when he had learned he had basically been used as the star in a porn movie for Moira and her aged lover to enjoy.

  “The mistress...” Eva realized.

  “The mistress,” he echoed bleakly. “I demanded and destroyed every one of those damned discs with me on them before walking out. I just wanted to forget every moment I had ever spent in that apartment. Moira had other ideas. She—” He breathed shakily. “Apparently she decided that she preferred me to her married lover. She came to my apartment building the next day, I refused to see her. She began to telephone me, day and night, so I changed my number. She began following me whenever I went out. I… I took another woman out to dinner for the first time four months ago, and Moira followed us to the restaurant and made a scene.”

  “What sort of scene?”

  Finn couldn’t even look at her as he related what had happened in the restaurant that evening.

  Eva looked suitably disgusted. “Couldn’t you both have pressed charges?”

  “Yes, we could have pressed charges!” His eyes blazed a deep and angry blue. “The woman, an actress, didn’t want the publicity. If I had pressed charges then she would have been brought into it whether she wanted to or not.” He gave a shake of his head. “I decided that the best thing for everyone would be if I removed myself from London for a while. Let the situation with Moira calm down.”

  “And has it?” Eva chewed on her bottom lip.

  “I don’t believe so, no.” He sighed wearily. “The parcel you delivered earlier? It was sent from her.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Nothing I want to talk about,” he dismissed grimly. “I won’t bore you with any of the details, but suffice it to say that she used that parcel as a means of finding out where I am.”

  Eva’s eyes widened. “And did she succeed?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  Eva could only stare at him as the nausea warred with shock inside her. Oh not towards Finn. What had been done to him, without his knowledge or consent, wasn’t his fault. He was the victim, not the perpetrator.

  No, it was the thought of this woman, Moira, her obsession with Finn, that made Eva feel queasy. The length the other woman had been willing to go to in order to—

  Eva tensed. “The person I saw standing outside under the trees earlier, watching the house...” She turned instinctively to look at the kitchen window, noting for the first time that the blinds had been pulled down. That Finn had made a point of pulling the curtains in the sitting room when they played chess earlier. She turned sharply back to Finn. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.” He nodded grimly. “Yes, I believe she just might be.”

  Oh God...

  Chapter 9

  “Finn, you’ve been outside and checked in the stables, been down to the basement too… Any whips and paddles down there, by the way?”

  “No,” he drawled ruefully.

  “Oh.”

  “There’s no need to sound so disappointed!”

  Eva wasn’t disappointed at all, she was just trying to make Finn feel less tense. “Finn, you’ve made sure the house is securely locked, the alarm is switched on, now you really have to try and get some sleep,” she advised softly as he lay on his back beneath the duvet beside her, one arm over his eyes, but obviously far from being able to sleep.

  Not that Eva felt much like sleeping herself. But probably for completely different reasons than Finn.

  Unpleasant as his revelations about his ex-girlfriend had been, it was the knowledge that this woman could be outside the house somewhere that now had the adrenaline singing through Eva’s veins.

  To a degree that all Eva’s senses were now very much alive.

  To a degree that she was super aware of Finn as he moved restlessly beside her. Of the warmth of his body just inches away from her own. Of the fact that he had removed his denims, but replaced them with a pair of black boxers that hugged his thighs—and left even less to the imagination than the hip-hugging denims had.

  Eva had stripped down to her panties and t-shirt, for the sake of comfort, too.

  She gave up trying to sleep and rolled over onto her stomach, resting her chin on the palm of her hand as she looked up at Finn, his skin gleaming a light bronze in the firelight. “Did you love her?”

  He gave a disgusted snort but kept that arm over his eyes. “Don’t be bloody stupid, the woman is off her head!”

  “But you didn’t know that at the time.”

  “I know it now, okay?” He lowered his arm to frown at her. “I was never in love with her, but she could be fun, outrageously so, and—” he broke off, jaw tensing.

  “And she was good in bed,” Eva guessed ruefully. “But if you didn’t love her, I don’t understand what the mistress photographs are about...?”

  “The mistress photos aren’t because I care for Moira.” He glowered moodily. “They’re for the opposite reason. A way of exorcising her. Of… Of… Oh bloody hell!” He scowled darkly.

  “They’re a way of laying her bare, literally, in the same way that she did to you,” Eva realized softly.

  “Maybe,” he muttered gruffly. “I
feel… Damn it, I feel violated, Eva. Can you understand that?” He glared at the admission.

  Yes, Eva could understand that, knew she would feel exactly the same way if someone had made recordings of her in such an intimate situation, and then shared it with another person.

  “It isn’t your fault, Finn. This woman sounds as if she was...unbalanced, well before you decided to walk away.” Filming yourself with one lover, so that you can share it with another lover, was definitely not normal. “Her stalker behavior these past months only confirms it,” Eva added as Finn would have spoken. “What about the photographs you took of me, Finn? You never did say whether or not I look the part?”

  He closed his eyes, instantly able to picture every one of those images of Eva he had taken this afternoon. Photographs he had intended to be as raw and revealing as those images of him having sex with Moira had been.

  Instead Eva had looked sensual, utterly beautiful, an alluring siren with long and silky sable hair, with seductively inviting rather than carnal green eyes, her lips pure temptation.

  As for her gorgeous breasts...

  Finn was sure Eva was completely unaware of it, but he could see those beautiful rounded breasts right now, down the gaping neckline of her t-shirt.

  They were just so… Jesus, Finn had never seen and touched such wonderful responsive breasts. As for her nipples—they were so damn sensitive he was sure Eva had been on the edge of coming when he stroked and tugged on them earlier.

  He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, almost able to taste her. “Your photographs are beautiful, Eva,” he assured huskily. “A sensual delight. Every one of them.”

  Eva felt her cheeks become warm at the sincerity she could hear in Finn’s voice. He thought she was beautiful. A sensual delight. “Have you been to bed with anyone since… Since?”

  “No,” he ground out. “I couldn’t. I’ve tried, but every time I could see myself as if I were in a porn movie, and… Today, with you, it was the first time I’ve reacted physically to a woman since the night I destroyed those discs.”