Seduced and Ensnared (2 page)

She still looked calm, cool and collected—until he caught the flutter of the pulse in her throat. It beat as if she’d just run a marathon.

Good.
At least she wasn’t unaffected by him.

“Would you like to ride with me or follow in your own car?” He preferred she’d go with him but didn’t want her to get nervous and bolt.

But she wasn’t going anywhere, if the half-smile on her face was anything to go by. That look threatened his sanity…and held the promise of a hot night ahead.

Too bad she would hate him later.

“I’ll get my car and meet you out front.” She turned but slid him a glance over her shoulder. “It may take me a few minutes to get out of here. Don’t leave without me.”

Then she walked away without another look back.

Cam let his gaze follow her across the room, dipping to caress the curve of her ass as she stopped several times to speak to the few remaining people in the room. Her uncle was the last. She laid her hand on his arm and spoke a few words into his ear. Cam found himself holding his breath again but her uncle just nodded, kissed her on the forehead and waved as she walked out of the room.

Moving into a shadowy alcove along the side of the room, Cam made sure no one was watching then whispered the spell that teleported his body into his Dodge Viper in the parking lot.

* * * * *

Stella couldn’t believe she was actually going to follow a man she’d only just met back to his home—for the sole purpose of having sex.

She’d given her bodyguard the rest of the night off, telling him she was going to head straight home to bed. He hadn’t argued, probably because he had a new girlfriend he was anxious to meet. And she’d never done anything like this before.

As she made her way to the underground parking garage, she made a halfhearted attempt to talk herself out of going to Cam’s. But by the time she unlocked the door of her BMW M6 coupé and slid behind the wheel, her sweaty palms and shortness of breath made up her mind for her.

She hadn’t been this excited about a man since…well, since never. And it felt good.

Thinking about what his naked body would feel like against hers made her sex weep. She revved the engine, letting the tires spin for a second before they grabbed and shot her forward. Driving was the one absolute joy in her life and she took every opportunity to do it fast and dangerous.

Kind of like tonight’s rendezvous.

With a smile on her face, she downshifted around the corner with her foot on the accelerator and popped off the seat at least a few inches as she exited the garage. As the sports car screeched to a halt in front of the building, she looked around for Cam.

The roar of a well-tuned engine drew her gaze to the muscular Viper in the lot. Yeah, that suited him.

Making his way out of the aboveground parking lot, he stopped next to her and lowered the passenger window while she lowered her driver’s window.

“Nice car,” he said.

She let her grin loose, liking the way his gaze narrowed and intensified. “I like them fast.”

She would have finished with “Like my men,” but didn’t want to give Cam a completely wrong impression of her.

Of course she’d agreed to go to his house with him—after they’d talked for what had seemed like forever but could only have been an hour at most. He probably already thought she was easy.

But she was no pushover.

“Want to show me how fast?” His smile returned and his gaze shone with a competitive light.

Bring it on.
She was ready for anything he could dish out. “A race? You’ll need to give me your address, because once I blow you away, I’ll need to know where to go.”

His smile intensified. Holy hell, she’d thought his other smiles had been devastating. This one blew the roof off those. It made her thighs clench and she swore she might have started to orgasm.

“110 Spook Lane, Reading. The entrance to the driveway is a little hard to find in the dark. But don’t worry, you’ll be following me all the way.”

Just to make sure she knew the way, she repeated the address for the onboard navigation system. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Cam.”

Then she stepped on the gas pedal and let the Beemer leap out ahead of the Viper. Exhilaration whipped around her with the wind that came in through the open window as she sped down the road to the exit.

The company was located in the country to the northwest of the city. The quickest way to get to Cam’s home would be to take Route 78 to Route 183. Then it was straight into the city. Provided she didn’t run into any cops—which she’d make sure didn’t happen.

The Beemer hugged the curves as she raced for the entrance ramp to the highway. In her rearview mirror, she saw the Viper right on her tail.

A jolt of electricity shot through her, a feeling unlike any she’d had before. It felt like…freedom. And it felt good.

Reaching the open freeway, she pressed the pedal to the floor and cranked the stereo.

My Chemical Romance’s “Dead!” blared from the speakers, Ray Toro’s guitar propelling the rock song to near-operatic heights.

She’d never felt more alive in her life.

Chapter Two

Cam watched the Beemer nearly disappear into the late-night traffic of long-haul trucks and vacationing SUVs.

Damn, the woman had a lead foot—and gave him a raging hard-on that threatened to bust the zipper on his pants.

He’d never expected the cool, collected woman he’d met at the party to drive as if she thought the devil was behind her.

Letting his foot drop to the floor, he wove in and out of traffic, keeping an eye on her taillights. When he’d closed the gap to only two car lengths, he settled in to follow.

After a few miles, she took the exit ramp off the four-lane highway at fifty miles an hour and stepped on it again when she hit the two-lane country road that rose and dipped and curved. No streetlights illuminated the road and driving required his total concentration. He spent a few tense minutes rounding curves, hoping he wouldn’t see her car wrapped around a tree.

Instead, he watched her taillights wink back into sight. She was a hell of a driver and he was left to play catch-up. Not that he couldn’t do it but he loved the thrill of the chase. It made the catch that much more intense.

He stayed on her bumper when they hit the open stretch of Route 183 from Bernville to the city limits, grinning like a kid with a new toy. They encountered more traffic the closer they got to the city and she decreased her speed to a more manageable fifty miles an hour.

When Route 183 became Schuylkill Avenue, she surprised him by turning off Schuylkill and heading toward Centre Park. She winged around Charles Evans Cemetery then continued uphill to Thirteenth Street, past Reading High School and the old St. Joseph hospital to Duryea Drive.

Tinia’s Teat, this road was treacherous during the day. He hoped to hell she knew what she was doing, because one wrong tug on the wheel and she could send that little car over the edge and down a steep drop into the forest covering Mt. Penn.

Every time her taillights disappeared, he held his breath until he saw them winking ahead of him as she tapped the brakes to take another curve.

He lost sight of her at the turn onto Hill Road. His heart nearly stopped when she didn’t reappear.

Shit, what the hell—

Her Beemer idled just past the turn onto Spook Lane, sleek and gleaming in the pale light of the half-moon.

He released the breath he’d sucked in and pulled alongside her to find her smiling at him.

“I figured I’d let you show me which house is yours,” she spoke through the open window. “You said the lane was hard to find.”

He nodded. “You’re a good driver.” That was a complete understatement. She’d single-handedly shattered all his prejudices about women drivers.

Her smile kicked up a notch, firing the already-boiling lust in his gut.

“I love the freedom of speed. It’s exhilarating.”

Damn, if he didn’t know better, he’d think the woman was laying a spell on him. His palms were damp, his chest actually ached and his cock felt ready to burst.

But from everything he’d learned about Stella Palmer, she didn’t have any power. Except that which came naturally to women.

“The driveway’s just a few hundred feet ahead. Don’t worry about the trees. They’re not as close as they seem.”

Actually they were, but Cam made the tiny lane onto his property safe to pass with the soft chant of a displacement spell. Stella wouldn’t realize what was happening, especially in the dark, but the spell would displace the trees long enough for the cars to pass.

His house couldn’t be seen from the road, not even in winter after the leaves had fallen. It was camouflaged in a stand of centuries-old pines that Cam supplemented with new trees every year. The modified A-frame log cabin blended into the trunks perfectly.

Parking his car on the circular driveway instead of the belowground garage, he waited for Stella to pull in behind him. He walked to her door, opened it and held out his hand to help her out.

Her hand was as warm as his and the look in her eyes even more so.

They didn’t say anything as he opened the front door and ushered her through. He’d willed a few lights on as he’d parked, just enough to banish the shadows.

She took a thorough look around, noting everything from the hardwood floors covered with thick Turkish carpets to the Italian silk drapes and the overstuffed couches and chairs scattered around the open floor plan of the first floor. The kitchen in the back was utilitarian, but then he wasn’t much of a cook. If she noticed his lack of a dining table, she didn’t say anything.

“Your home is gorgeous,” she said, her voice low, as if she didn’t want to break the silence but had to fill it somehow.

“Thank you, it’s been in my family for a few years.” Cam had lived here for nearly sixty years and his grandfather had built the cabin almost two hundred years before that, but she didn’t need to know that. He didn’t want to scare her away…not yet.

If he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to scare her at all.

“Would you like a drink? I’ve got
prosecco
or
pinot grigio
.”

She flipped him a glance over her shoulder as she walked toward the seating area in front of the natural-stone fireplace. “
Prosecco
, please, unless you’re going to have the
pinot
?”

Holy hell.
If he’d read that look correctly, she’d just told him to forget the wine and kiss her. He froze by the door, his every muscle straining to take that first step toward her, grab her and flatten her lithe body against his. He was desperate to grind his erection against the soft silk of her dress before ripping it off her body.

Instead, he headed to the fridge in the kitchen, pulled out the bottle and poured them each a glass. He turned and found she’d followed him. She leaned a hip against the small island separating the kitchen from the living area, her now-bare feet pale against the dark terracotta tiles on the kitchen floor.

She noticed his glance downward. “My shoes were killing me. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” He planned for her to take off a lot more than her shoes later. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Your home is beautiful. Do you live alone?”

Cam handed her one of the glasses in his hand. “Yes. Though my brothers crash here a lot.”

Her fingers grazed his as she took the glass, leaving behind a tingling sensation. “How many do you have?”

“Three.” He took a swallow of sparkling wine, hoping the alcohol would douse the lust, at least a little. He hadn’t anticipated this uncontrollable desire that drew him to this woman like a moth to a flame.

“Younger? Older?” Stella asked.

He led her back to the sitting area, waiting until she’d settled onto one end of the couch before taking the other. “I’m the oldest.” And supposedly the one with his head screwed on tight. He never fell for the wrong women. Lately he hadn’t fallen for any of them.

His last steady companion had been nearly twenty years ago. Since then he’d dated but never the same woman more than twice. He hadn’t met a single one he’d wanted to wake up with more than twice.

His second-oldest brother Antonin had hit the jackpot recently. Fiorella was a sweetheart and he’d promised Nino nothing would ruin their happiness.

That meant he needed this woman.

Cam wished that was more of a hardship than it really was because, damn it to hell, he liked her—too fucking much.

“I’m an only child,” she continued, still gazing into his eyes. “I enjoyed it while my parents were alive but after they died, I was very lonely.”

With that statement, she’d handed him an opening on a silver platter. “You had your uncle.”

Her smile softened. “Yes, Uncle Daniel did his best. But he wasn’t my dad and since he’d never had kids of his own, he was a little lost with me.”

“You seem to have turned out fine.”

“Thank you. Uncle Daniel may have his faults but I never doubted his love.”

She took a sip of the
prosecco
, drawing his gaze to her now-glistening lips. He caught himself before he could lean forward and lay his mouth on hers.

“Did you grow up around here?” she asked and looked at him with such sincere curiosity he knew he was a goner. He might as well scrap this whole mission before he screwed it up completely.

Or maybe it was time to stop talking.

He nodded, swallowing before he spoke. “My parents still live in the area so they’re close enough to meddle.”

“Do you get along with your family?”

He did. He loved his family unconditionally. He’d do anything for his parents and he’d die for his brothers. He was seducing this woman because the woman his brother loved was in danger from Stella’s uncle.

Daniel Bonnini had a dark side, one he didn’t believe Stella knew anything about.

But what if she did?

“Cam?”

If she did, he’d deal with it. But at this moment, he could almost pretend they were just two people doing the mating dance—and he was ready to change the tune.

Leaning forward, he set his glass on the low table in front of the couch and turned to face her. Stella must have picked up on his intention because she put her glass on the table next to his then held his gaze.

She wasn’t going to back down and he had a momentary twinge of… Regret? Doubt? Whatever it was, he shoved it away and reached for her. He didn’t have to go far because she met him halfway.

His hands fell on her shoulders, pulling her against him. Her chest hit his at the same time their lips met.

Sweet Goddess, her lips were soft and the press of her firm breasts made his blood rocket through his veins. She wasn’t at all inhibited, opening her mouth at the first touch of his tongue. She tasted hot and sweet and, Gods be damned, her mouth fit his as if it was made for him.

As he lifted his hands to cup her face, his thumbs slid along the slash of her cheekbones then down her jaw to her neck. Her smooth skin felt warm to the touch and he continued stroking down to her shoulders then back up.

He felt the growl of a moan start in her throat then spill into his mouth, stoking the fire already roiling in his gut. Damn, he could lose himself in the act of kissing her, of stroking his tongue in and out of her mouth, mimicking what he wanted to do with his cock.

Just the thought of the sweet wet suction of her lips wrapped around his shaft made him throb with pleasurable pain and he had to get closer.

Dropping his hands to her waist, he lifted and shifted her over his lap, the skirt of her dress easing up to allow her legs to spread so she could place a knee on either side of his thighs.

She couldn’t weigh more than one-ten, all long limbs and sleek muscle. Her tiny rounded ass settled against his thighs and he let his hands slide down and cup it before pressing her closer to his groin.

She took the hint without much persuasion on his part, scooting closer until the material of her dress was caught between her mound and his erection.

The pressure both eased and inflamed him and he had to break away before he hyperventilated—which would have proved just how much of a moron he really was for letting this woman get to him.

Staring into her equally startled green eyes, he thought about what he had planned to do tonight, what he needed her for and who Stella was—a tool to use to screw Daniel Bonnini. Or so he had thought.

Then he’d met her and talked to her. And damn if he hadn’t fallen for the one woman he couldn’t have.

Stella stared into Cam’s dark eyes, mesmerized by what she saw there.

She wasn’t alone in this maelstrom of pure emotion. Raw male desire was evident in the jumping muscle of his jaw and the rough sound of his breath escaping from between his clenched teeth.

And she couldn’t ignore the rock-hard erection that not even four layers of cloth could disguise. God, the man was
huge
. And hot. Not just between his legs. He radiated heat like a furnace and she soaked it up like a black cat in the sun.

It should have made her wary. Instead, seeing in Cam’s eyes the same mix of confusion and lust she felt made her blood fizz and pop.

They were going to have sex and it was going to be good. She knew it just as sure as she knew Cam was about to lean forward and kiss her again.

She met him halfway, threading her fingers through the longer curls at his nape and locking him to her. She sighed into his mouth as if the few seconds he hadn’t been kissing her had been a lifetime.

God, the man kissed like, like…well, like someone who knew how to kiss. Maybe that was a warning that she was in over her head way too far. But she couldn’t seem to care when his tongue stroked along hers, shooting a bolt of sensation through her body. Her nipples tightened almost painfully and if he didn’t move his hands from her waist to cup her breasts soon, she would have to move them herself—after she got rid of the dress.

She needed his touch on her bare skin, needed to feel his hands, his fingers. She knew she didn’t have a great body. She was too short to be willowy and too skinny, all angles and sharp points.

She worked out so she’d built up a little muscle mass, which helped her to not look like a gangly still-developing teenager.

Her breasts, though small, were shapely and extremely sensitive. She wanted Cam to cup them and put his mouth on her naked skin.

Unfortunately Cam’s hands were still fastened to her waist, as if holding her in place, but he didn’t have to worry about her going anywhere. Not until he’d made her come at least a dozen times and he couldn’t get it up anymore.

It took her a few long seconds to break away from his mouth, from the sheer erotic pleasure of his lips against hers. Then it took her a few more seconds to be able to speak.

“Cam.”

He froze, his expression wary, as if she was going to tell him to stop. God, the man was absolutely beautiful, so why would he think she’d want him to stop?

Stella leaned forward until they were cheek to cheek. He must have shaved right before the mixer, because the expanse of skin was still smooth. Her lips stopped only a whisper away from his ear, partially covered by silky black hair. She could’ve sworn he tensed but he didn’t move an inch. It was a challenge she couldn’t deny.