Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Kevin Riley was the stuff fantasies were made of.

Her fantasies, to be exact.

Six foot five, heavily muscled, with the most beautifully intense blue eyes she’d ever seen, he captured her attention like no man ever had. And with his half-naked body in front of her and nature thrashing fiercely around her, it was all she could do to keep her clothes on, her mouth shut and her camera aimed somewhere besides his absolutely fabulous rear-end.

Not that he should mind—it was one of his best features, after all. And she was being paid, well paid, for taking pictures that showed his every side.

Of course, she wasn’t sure that fifty shots of his ass were quite what the publishers had had in mind when they’d hired her, no matter how glorious it was. Besides, her humming libido couldn’t handle much more without going into severe overdrive anyway.

Serena snorted before she could stop herself. Who was she kidding? She’d passed overdrive a while ago, was now heading straight toward spontaneous combustion at an alarming rate. The thought disturbed her and she moved restlessly, desperate to focus on something—anything—that could bring her traitorous body under control.
She glanced toward the large windows that covered an entire side of the old,

redbrick studio and tried to concentrate on the storm raging through Kevin’s little slice of bayou. But the wildness of it—the utter lack of control—only made her more uncomfortable.

Rain pummeled the tin roof, flashes of lightning illuminated the darkness beyond the house and thunder shook the studio as it exploded across the sky. Mother Nature was in a frenzy and much of southern Louisiana would pay the price on this steamy summer night.

She was just one more victim.

It was three a.m. and she should have been asleep, tucked safely into bed in her Baton Rouge condo. Nature whirled around her and she should have been terrified as she witnessed the destruction caused by every gust of seventy-mile-an-hour winds. She was working and she should have been focused, completely absorbed in taking photos for the book that could blow her career wide open. But she wasn’t.

She wasn’t at home asleep, she wasn’t terrified, and she certainly wasn’t focused.

What she was, was aroused.

Powerfully, frighteningly aroused.

She’d never been this out of control before, had never been so aroused that she couldn’t focus on anything but the throbbing ache between her thighs. Serena pressed her legs together, desperate to stem the sensations bombarding her. But it was no use. Heat swept through her body. Her skin flushed a rosy pink and her heart began to race as the fine tremor of arousal shook her, making hands that were normally rock-steady tremble with reaction.

It was all his fault, she thought resentfully, studying Kevin Riley through the camera lens. Because while Kevin was the living, breathing example of every fantasy she’d ever had, his unbelievable sexiness did nothing to put her at ease. Fantasies were just that—something she could escape to when her hard-earned control stifled her, when life got boring and she needed a little spice. But fantasies were supposed to stay fantasies—who expected to encounter them in real life?

This was her work, her livelihood, her big chance, yet all she could think about was that luscious mouth and how it would feel pressed against her own. She wanted to pull him into the storm, to run her hands through his too-long black hair and feel his muscles ripple beneath her fingers as water and wind lashed at them.

The musky sexiness of his skin called to her, and even with half the room between them she couldn’t escape his unique scent—a mixture of sandalwood and the crisp, clean outdoors. Passion, life, vitality rolled off of him in waves, swamping her as her fingers fumbled another roll of film into her old Nikon. She’d used the digital camera earlier, but something about the time, the storm, and Kevin himself had cried out for a more primitive approach.

She lifted the camera again, hands shaking as she snapped the first pictures on the roll. Kevin’s jeans rode low on his hips as he bent, blowtorch in hand, to mold the lowest corner of the sculpture. Intensity and passion etched his too-pretty face—his lush lips were molded into a grim line and his eyes burned with concentration. Despite the air-conditioning, sweat rolled slowly down his bare torso before disappearing inside the waistband of his much-abused Levis. Lust roared through her, nearly bringing her to her knees even as the artist in her recognized the power in his unconscious actions.

Click, whirr. This was it. Click, whirr. The picture she had been waiting for all night. Click, whirr. The shot that would make her famous. Click, whirr. Sculpting Ecstasy. Click, whirr. Bending metal to his every command. Click, whirr. A work of art. Click, whirr. Of genius. Click, whirr. Was she speaking of Kevin or his work? Click, whirr.

Perhaps both.