Christmas Alpha (7 page)

 
“I have a strong constitution.”

 
“You’re going to need it with my cooking,” she assured him dryly.

 
Finn folded his arms in front of his chest, muscles bulging beneath the short sleeves of his navy blue t-shirt. “I’ll risk it.”

 
“You’re a brave man, Finn Devlin.”

 
Finn went to collect his heavy coat before pulling on his boots, followed by his hat and gloves, and heading for the front door.

 
He had deliberately downplayed Eva’s claim just now, wasn’t about to let her see how worried he was. Could it have been Moira out there? Watching the house? Watching
him
?

 
Surely if Eva couldn’t leave, then Moira wouldn’t be able to get in either?
 

 
Unless she had driven in before the storm hit so badly...?

 
This house was miles from its nearest neighbor—Lucien really did value his privacy—and the chances of anyone else finding themselves stranded out here were virtually non-existent. It had been pure fluke, the delivery of that bloody parcel, that had resulted in Eva being caught out by the weather.

 
Or luck?

 
Eva was entertaining. On so many levels. She had a mouth on her, and he didn’t mean those made-for-sex lips. A spirit that refused to give up. And yes, she was also sexy as hell.
 

 
That ‘sexy as hell’ part had almost caused Finn to completely lose control earlier. Before good sense prevailed and he pushed her away by being deliberately dismissive.

 
If Eva really had seen someone outside just now—and she seemed convinced that she had—then surely they in turn would have been able to see the lights shining in the house, if not Eva silhouetted in the window. If that was the case, why hadn’t they headed towards the house rather than away from it?
 

 
Finn thought of the parcel he had opened a short time ago, and its disturbing contents, wondering once again if Moira could already be here...

“Find anything?” Eva prompted lightly twenty or so minutes later when Finn, having already removed his coat and boots, now stomped into the kitchen and headed straight over to stand by the hot stove to warm himself. She had kept her tone deliberately light so that Finn wouldn’t see how glad she was to see him safely back in the house.

 
Eva had felt guilty the moment she heard Finn go outside into the blizzard, and had immediately started to worry that he might get lost in the snow, become disorientated, and somehow wander off in the wrong direction.

 
She had no idea what she would have done if he hadn’t come back.

 
Gone out into the snow looking for him, probably, and no doubt become lost herself!

 
“It’s as I thought, there’s no one out there,” Finn dismissed, head bent as he continued to warm his hands on the stove, his cheeks ruddy from the cold outside.

 
“Oh.” Eva instantly felt foolish for having made such a fuss earlier. “Here,” she handed him a mug of the tea she had poured for them both the moment she had heard the front door slam closed as he returned.

 
“Thanks.” He cradled the warmth in his hands as he took a grateful sip. “What did you decide to make for dinner?”

 
“You have a freezer full of food.” She smiled approvingly. “I chose pizzas as something I couldn’t ruin. They’re in the oven now.”

 
He raised dark eyebrows as he looked at her over the rim of his mug. “Have you ever cooked in one of these stoves before?”

 
She gave him a puzzled glance. “No.”

 
“Oh.”

 
“What are you doing?” she demanded as Finn put down his mug of tea and picked up the oven cloth before going down on his haunches to open the oven door, the kitchen instantly filled with the smell of burning. “I only put them in ten minutes ago!” Eva wailed as he brought out two pizzas that were more than a little black around the edges.

 
And she had thought that even she couldn’t spoil pizza!

 
Finn placed the hot baking tray on the trivet. “These stoves cook in half the time a normal oven does. I found that out myself the hard way too!” He grinned.

 
Eva found herself fascinated by the grooves that had appeared in both Finn’s cheeks as he smiled. Not quite dimples. His face was far too hard and chiseled to have anything as tame as dimples. But those twin grooves were definitely interesting. So much so that Eva’s fingers itched to touch them.

 
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I’m sorry I sent you outside for nothing.” Had it suddenly gotten hot in here again, or was it her imagination?

 
“It wasn’t a completely wasted trip,” Finn assured briskly. “I brought some more wood over to the house and stored it in the garage.”

 
“And then came in to burnt pizza for dinner!” Yes, it was most definitely hotter in here! Had become so the moment Finn came into the kitchen...

 
He shrugged those broad shoulders. “Win some, lose some. We needed more wood anyway.”

 
Eva moved away awkwardly, attempting to cover her discomfort by busying herself cutting the blackened edges off the pizzas. “Did you have anything nice in your parcel earlier?”

 
“What?”

 
Was it her imagination or had Finn’s voice sharpened and that blue gaze narrowed?
 

 
She shrugged. “Most parcels I deliver this time of year have presents in them.”
 

 
“Oh. Yes. No.” He turned away to get some plates down from one of the cupboards. “Just some photographic equipment I ordered and my agent sent on to me.”

 
Why didn’t Eva believe him...?

 
The sudden sharpness of Finn’s voice?

 
The narrow-eyed glance he had just given her?

 
Or his sudden tension?

 
Whatever the reason, Eva was sure that Finn had just lied to her.

 
She just had no idea why he had...
 

 
Chapter 7

“Chess?” Eva eyed the board dubiously.
 

 
Finn shrugged. “Do you play?”

 
“Yes. Are these pieces real jade?” They had eaten dinner, such as it was, and moved into the sitting-room, which was when Finn had challenged her to a game of chess.
 

 
It seemed a little tame after what had happened between the two of them earlier.

 
“I expect so.” Finn turned from pulling the curtains carefully and completely across the windows. He had already switched on a couple of lamps, and put a match to the fire, the logs crackling away merrily in the hearth, in order to make the room feel even cozier.
 

 
Lucien may be obsessive in his need for maintaining his privacy, but that didn’t mean the man didn’t surround himself with beautiful things. Everything about this house, secluded away in the woods, was as elegant as the man himself. Including the jade chess set on the table in front of one of the windows.
 

 
“Loser pays a forfeit,” Finn added challengingly as a way of preventing Eva from questioning the careful way he had ensured the curtains were pulled fully across the windows.

 
Eva looked across the table at him with suspicious moss-green eyes. “What sort of forfeit did you have in mind?”

 
He shrugged. “The winner gets to decide that.”

 
“Really?”

 
Finn wasn’t sure he altogether trusted that light of battle in her eyes. “How long since you last played?”

 
“Oh not since I left school. Heads,” she called as he flipped a coin for who was to start.

 
“And that was what, all of three years ago?” Finn taunted before looking down at the coin. “Heads it is.” He nodded as she took her seat opposite him.

 
“Almost four,” she answered him dismissively, already studying the chessboard.

 
She looked far too businesslike for Finn’s liking. Almost like a gladiator facing off against another. Lesser.
 

 
Not that Finn was about to complain. He would quite happily lose the damned game on purpose, if it kept Eva from asking him any more questions about the contents of the parcel she’d delivered this morning.

 
And the person she had thought she’d seen standing outside earlier...

 
He didn’t want Eva to know that the parcel she had delivered had contained the receipts from every restaurant he and Moira had ever gone to, as well as a couple of hotel bills, several sets of her sexy lingerie, and a pair of shoes which had been all she’d worn to bed one particular night—and Finn still had the scars on his back to prove it.

 
To say Finn had been shaken when he had opened the parcel and seen what was inside would be an understatement. He hadn’t even realized Moira had taken the restaurant and hotel receipts, let alone kept them. As for the underwear and shoes…

 
There was also the lengths Moira had gone to in order to get them here.

 
Who did things like that?

 
Someone who was mentally unbalanced would be Finn’s guess. Someone who was obsessed...

 
The other thing he didn’t want to tell Eva was that although he hadn’t found anyone outside in the snow, he
had
found evidence that someone had been standing under the trees. The snow there had been flattened in quite a large area, as if that someone had been standing outside for some time.
 

 
He had also found what looked like footsteps leading directly to the studio window.

 
Quite possibly allowing the person to have watched through that window the whole time he had been taking photographs of Eva in those scraps of black lace.

 
And afterwards, when he had taken off her bra and feasted on her breasts.
 

 
“How were the photographs when you checked them earlier?”

 
Finn’s fingers fumbled on the smooth jade of the piece he had been about to move, almost overbalancing it before he quickly caught and righted it.

 
“Fast reflexes,” Eva mused.

 
More like jumpy as the proverbial cat, Finn acknowledged with a grimace as he took his move.

 
Eva had insisted on clearing away after their meal earlier, to make up for burning it, and Finn had excused himself on the pretext of looking at the photographs he had taken of her earlier.

 
What he had actually done was go through the whole house, checking that all the windows and doors were locked and that Lucien’s state of the art security system was switched on. He had also made a phone call to the man himself, explaining the situation and requesting assistance; if anyone knew anything about security it was the obsessively reclusive Lucien Wynter!

 
Finn probably should have called the local police too, just in case, but if he had to take a bet on who was going to come through for him, he would opt for Lucien every time. The man had a level of personal security to rival most heads of state.
 

 
If it had just been Finn here on his own, then he wouldn’t have bothered even calling Lucien; he was quite capable of looking after himself if he had to. It was Eva he was worried about.
If
Moira was out there—which he sincerely hoped she wasn’t—then Eva could be in danger. For the simple reason that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 
And because Finn had almost made love to her earlier.

 
The thought of Moira, of anyone, watching him and Eva intimately together, made him feel sick.

 
As for the photographs he had taken of Eva this afternoon...

 
He had intended ‘The Mistress’ photographs to be purely of a woman’s body, displaying carnal seduction and lust in every pose. A siren, luring men in, and then holding them captive with her voracity for debauchery and sex.

 
That was exactly what Moira had done to her married lover Ian Jackson, Finn was sure of it, and what she had tried to do to him too.

 
Eva’s photographs, after the first half a dozen, when she was obviously self-conscious about posing in only her underwear, were of a woman sleek and sensual as a feline, every perfect line of her body full of grace and beauty, and at the same time so damned sexy that any man looking at her would instantly harden with desire.