The Rumours Collection

Kat’s heart was still skipping over the word ‘sweetheart.’ Lots of men used terms of endearment and they usually meant nothing. Sweet nothing. But somehow the way Flynn said it gave it weight. Substance. A foundation she could stand on while the rest of the world trembled with uncertainty. ‘Do you think she’d do it? Ruin opening night to get back at me?’

‘Do you want me to have a chat with her?’

She gave him a horrified look. ‘No!’

‘You’re not really frightened of her, are you?’

Kat tossed her hair back off her shoulders—a gesture of bravado straight out of the actor’s handbook. She just wished she felt the indifference she was portraying. ‘Of course not.’

‘How about we go out to dinner tonight?’

Kat frowned. ‘Dinner?’

‘To celebrate you getting the part.’

She chewed at her lip. ‘I don’t know...’

‘Ouch.’

Kat looked up at him in concern. ‘Is your foot okay?’

He grinned at her. ‘That was my ego, not my foot. How many times does a guy have to beg a girl to go out to dinner with him?’

She looked at him narrowly. ‘Just dinner?’

‘I’d offer to take you dancing, but can you see me burning up the dance floor on these sticks?’

Kat’s conscience and willpower went into battle again.

Dinner will be fine.

You think?

Of course it will. We’ll have a drink, eat a meal. Go home. Simple.

You’ll sip champagne while gazing into his dreamboat eyes and start planning how many of his babies you’ll have.

I will not. Anyway, he’s not the settling down type.

But you are.

Am not. I want a career. Stardom. My name up in lights.

And then what?

And then I’ll be happy.

Yeah?

Kat forced a smile. ‘I’m not much of a dancer myself. I’ve never been able to get through a waltz without pulping my partner’s toes.’

He smiled with his eyes, making her stomach free-fall. ‘Sounds like you just haven’t found the right partner.’

The restaurant Flynn took her to in a cab was owned by one of his clients. They were given the best table in the house in a romantic corner that gave them privacy from the other diners. Flynn ordered champagne and, once it was poured, raised his glass to hers in a toast. ‘To your brilliant career.’

Kat took a sip of the delicious bubbles whilst looking into his eyes that were dark as pitch, yet soft and melting. How on earth was she going to stop herself from falling in love with him when he looked at her like that?

You’re well on your way.

No, I’m not. I’m just aware it could be a danger, that’s all.

Stop looking at his mouth. Dead giveaway.

Kat put her glass down and shifted in her seat, keeping her gaze trained on the cleft in his chin. ‘So...how was your day?’

‘Look at me, Kat.’

She looked. Felt her heart kick at the way his knowing smile curved up the corners of his mouth. The mouth that had kissed hers—kissed it and made it hungry for more. So hungry it was all she could do to keep herself on her side of the table. Her knees bumped against his, sending a shockwave of awareness through her body, concentrating in the heated core of her womanhood. Warmth flooded her, need oozing, the ache of lust building with every beat of the silence as his gaze tethered hers. ‘Wh-what?’

‘You’re nervous.’

‘I’m not.’

‘When was the last time you went out to dinner with a guy?’

Kat let out a long sigh and looked at the salt-and-pepper shakers on the crisp snow-white tablecloth. ‘September last year. Charles the creep. I was so ashamed I was physically sick when I found out he had a wife and three little kids, one of them only a few weeks old.’ She brought her gaze back up to his. ‘How can men do that to their wives?’

Flynn made a twisting movement with his mouth. ‘There are some prize jerks out there, that’s for sure. I come across them all the time in my line of work. You’d be shocked at how many men try and wriggle out of paying for their kids once their relationship with their mother is over.’

Kat fiddled with the stem of her glass. ‘I just hate how I didn’t see it. That I didn’t see through him. How could I have got it so wrong?’

He placed his hand over her restive one, the warmth and steadiness of it moving through her entire body like a soothing wave of a calming, cleansing drug. ‘You did the right thing by getting out of it as soon as you found out. But I can see how it would make you cautious.’

She looked at their entwined hands, hers so light against the tan of his. ‘I’ve always prided myself that I’m nothing like my mother. She was hopeless at reading men. She was in and out of dysfunctional relationships all through my childhood. I never knew who would be there when I got home from school. Sometimes it was so scary. I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see the innate badness in some of the men she brought home. I could see it and I was just a kid.’

Flynn’s expression was gravely serious. ‘Were you ever in danger? Did any of your mother’s men friends hurt or interfere with you?’

Kat pulled her hand out of his light hold on the pretence of brushing back a wayward strand of hair. She didn’t trust herself to touch him for too long. His touch made her body hunger for him. Hunger and ache. ‘A couple of times I had to fight off some unwanted attention, mostly when I was a teenager. It was worse when Mum was drinking. She just didn’t pick up on stuff. I couldn’t talk to her about it, as she would get angry and blame me for being too mouthy or whatever.’

His frown formed a bridge between his eyes. ‘But in spite of it all you still loved her?’

She gave him a crooked smile. ‘Yeah, well, that’s what kids do, isn’t it? Their survival depends on it—loving their caregivers. Not that she was great at caregiving or anything. But, yes, I loved her.’

‘Is that why you don’t want kids?’ he said after a moment. ‘Are you worried you won’t do a good job of mothering your own kids?’

Kat picked up her glass for something to do with her hands. ‘I guess on some level... But I really want to achieve what I set out to achieve first. If I get tied down with kids and marriage, I’ll never reach my goal.’

‘What if fame isn’t everything you think it will be?’

‘It’s not just the fame,’ Kat said. ‘I’ve wanted to act for as long as I can remember. I know I won’t be satisfied until I exhaust every opportunity to make it onstage. It’s not like I want to prove it to anyone else. I need to prove it to myself.’

‘It’s a tough life, working for weeks and then nothing for months,’ Flynn said. ‘There are good years and bad years. Plays fold without notice or run for season after season until you’re bored out of your brain for the want of something fresh and more challenging. Then there are the great reviews and the awful ones. You have to have a tough skin.’

She met his dark gaze across the table. ‘And you don’t think I have one?’

‘Underneath that tough exterior is a girl with a soft heart. I see it. Cricket sees it. Miranda and Jaz saw it. Probably Elisabetta saw it, which is why you’re feeling so threatened by her.’

Kat had always prided herself on the impenetrable armour she wore around her heart. But in his presence she could feel it falling away, piece by piece, like a glacier fracturing. He seemed to understand her in a way no one had ever done before. It was hard to keep her defences up when he was so strong and supportive, so intuitive and accepting of her. ‘Do you think I should meet Julius and Jake?’

‘They wouldn’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But they’re on your team, Kat. We all are.’

‘Apart from Elisabetta,’ she said with a downturn of her mouth.

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. ‘Let your talent do the talking. You have no reason to doubt yourself.’

Kat stroked her fingers over the flesh of his thumb, feeling a rush of lava-hot heat go from his body to hers. His eyes held hers in a lock that said all that needed to be said. The message was erotic, exciting, thrilling. Urgent. The need that pulsed between them made her inner core vibrate with a longing no amount of celibacy pacts could withstand.

Resisting him any longer was pointless. They had been moving towards this moment from the first time they’d locked gazes. She wanted him and couldn’t bear prolonging the agony. She could no longer find any reason not to explore the chemistry between them. So what if he wasn’t the settling down type? She wasn’t ready for the white picket fence and cottage flowers either. All she wanted was to feel his arms around her, to feel alive in the way a man can make a woman feel when they both like and respect each other. She couldn’t think of a man she liked and respected more than Flynn.

Maybe that was what she had been doing all wrong with dating up to this point. She had dated men who weren’t her equal intellectually, not strong enough to stand up to her and for her. They had only been interested in her body, not her mind, her emotions, her ambitions, her drives and aspirations.

‘If we were to get involved...hypothetically speaking...’ Kat chanced a quick glance at him. ‘What would you want out of it?’

His thumb found the nerve-rich centre of her palm and began stroking a mesmerising caress across the sensitive flesh. ‘You mean apart from sex?’

Kat’s belly quivered at his touch, at his words, at his smouldering-coals look. ‘I mean...would we be having a fling or be in a...a relationship?’

‘You said “relationship” like it was a prison sentence.’

‘Yes, well, some of mine have been a bit like that.’

His stroking continued, stoking a fire within her body she could feel deep and throbbing in her core. ‘What about your celibacy pact?’

‘I’ve proven my point to my friend. Besides, I think she’s going to break it herself this weekend. She’s going to be within arm’s reach of her ex. Always a dangerous prospect for her.’

‘Whose idea was the pact?’

‘Mine mostly,’ Kat said. ‘I just got tired of getting involved with men who were shallow and not interested in me as a person. Or ones who told blatant lies.’

‘Well, if it’s any comfort, I’m not married, haven’t been and was only engaged for forty-eight hours eleven years ago,’ Flynn said. ‘Every other relationship—and I use that term loosely—has been temporary.’

Kat stroked her fingertip over the blunt end of his thumb, watching as his dark ink-like pupils flared with molten heat. Even the candle on the table flickered, as if it was tired of competing with the flame of attraction glowing between them. ‘So...if we get involved what will we call it?’

His mouth slanted in that spine-tingling manner. ‘How about a flingsationship?’

She gave him an answering smile. ‘I’ve never heard of one of those. What does it involve?’

He winked at her. ‘Let’s go back to my place and I’ll show you.’

CHAPTER NINE

IN THE CAB on the way back to Flynn’s house Kat could feel desire flooding every inch of her body like the wash of a warm tide. Flynn was holding her hand against the strong muscles of his thigh, an intimate anchoring of her to him that made her fingers itch to creep closer to the hot, hard, tempting heat of him. He glanced down at her with a teasing glint in his eyes. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said in a sexy undertone. ‘There are security cameras.’

Touching him was all she could think about. Touching him, stroking him with her fingers, licking him with her tongue. Tasting him. She communicated it with her gaze, a kind of visual foreplay that made his pupils flare and his hand tighten over hers. ‘Just wait till I get you alone,’ she said.

‘You’ll have to be gentle with me. I’ve got fractures.’

Kat bit her lip as she glanced at his bandaged foot. ‘Will it make it...?’

‘Awkward but not impossible,’ he said, holding her gaze.

She saw the hunger there, the need, the longing. For her. Had any of her partners looked at her like that? As if she was the only woman in the world he wanted to make love to? ‘When was the last time you...?’ She left the question hanging open.

‘September.’

Kat raised her brows. ‘Why so long between drinks?’

He kept his eyes trained on hers, the heat in his fuelling the fire already raging in her flesh. ‘Because when I set my mind to something I don’t allow distractions to take my focus off my goal.’

Kat licked her lips with a quick dart of her tongue. ‘How long were you prepared to wait?’

‘However long it took.’

‘What if I didn’t play ball, so to speak?’

‘I knew from the moment we met you would.’

It wasn’t just hubris on his part. Kat had known it too. Deep in her body she had known he was the one man she would not be able to resist. She reached up with her hand and stroked his lean and tanned cheek, his light stubble catching on her fingers. ‘I hope I’ll be worth the wait.’

Something softened in his expression. ‘Is that a lack of confidence I hear again?’

Kat puffed out a little sigh. ‘It’s easier for guys. Simpler. For women it’s a little more complicated...or at least, it is for me.’

He cupped her cheek with his warm hand, his eyes holding hers in an intimate lock. ‘I’ll make it good for you. I promise.’

‘Even with crutches?’

The look in his eyes made every knob of her spine shudder in anticipation. ‘Count on it, baby.’

Keeping Cricket out of the bedroom proved to be more of a challenge for Flynn than getting her into it, Kat thought wryly as she listened to the little dog whining and scratching on the other side of the door. ‘Do you think he’ll settle down?’

Flynn reached up to loosen his tie. ‘I’m not making love to you with a dog breathing down my neck.’

‘But he sounds so miserable.’

‘He’ll get over it.’ He tossed the tie to one side. ‘Now, come here so I can undress you.’

She looked at him balanced awkwardly on his crutches. ‘Maybe we should switch it around. I’ll undress you.’

His dark eyes gleamed. ‘Be my guest.’

Kat made him sit on the bed and knelt down between his spread thighs to unbutton his shirt. She peeled it off his broad shoulders, leaning into him to press kisses to his warm, tanned, muscular flesh, from the base of his neck to the tightly whorled cave of his bellybutton.

She heard him snatch in a breath as her tongue circled his navel, but he put his hands on her shoulders to stall her from going any lower. ‘That’s not the way I plan to do this,’ he said. ‘You’re pleasure is my priority. My goal.’

Kat shivered at the steely intent in his gaze. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Take your clothes off. Slowly.’

Kat got to her feet, balancing on one foot and then the other as she removed her heels. She slid her tights down from beneath her simple black dress, letting them fall in a twisted heap on the floor next to her shoes, all the while holding that dark-as-night, hungry gaze. She reached behind her back to pull down the zipper on her dress, letting the fabric shimmy down her body before it too landed in a puddle at her feet. She lowered one bra strap and then the other, her breasts still cupped in their black lace. She unhooked the back of her bra and watched as his eyes devoured their shape. She had body issues, just like any other young woman her age, but somehow standing in front of him in nothing but her knickers made her feel as if she was the most beautifully proportioned woman he had ever seen.

Cricket gave a piteous whine from the other side of the door, scratching at the woodwork as if he was determined to dig his way through to his beloved master.

Flynn muttered a curse. ‘I can’t freaking believe this.’

Kat laughed at the agitated look on his face. ‘Let him in. I don’t mind. Really.’

He mock-glowered at her. ‘I’m not having a threesome with a dog.’

She moved closer to the bed, hooking one finger under the edge of her knickers. ‘Have you ever had one?’

He frowned. ‘A threesome? No. Not my thing at all. You?’

Kat shook her head. ‘A guy I was dating asked me to a while back but I refused. Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last long.’

‘Nice to know I’m not the only conservative lover around.’

She arched a brow and eased her knickers a little further down. ‘How conservative are you?’

His smile made her insides shift and shudder in delight. ‘Come over here and I’ll show you.’

Kat stepped out of her knickers and moved within touching distance, her breath leaving her chest in a little gasp as his hands settled on her hips. She stood between his legs, her hands resting on his shoulders, her heartbeat tripping like a foot missing a step when his mouth came to her breast. He glided his lips along the sensitive flesh, his tongue passing over her budded nipple in a teasing, barely touching stroke that made every nerve ending beg and plead for more. He suckled on her gently before switching to her other breast, torturing her spinning senses with the promise of fulfilment.

There was a building storm in her body—a storm of need that refused to be ignored. She could feel the tension in her lower body, the delicious pulse and contraction of her womanhood, the deep ache that begged to be assuaged.

He guided her to lie down with him on the bed, somehow removing his trousers and underwear before he came down beside her, his damaged foot off to one side out of harm’s way. He stroked the seam of her body with a slow-moving fingertip, his touch like fire against bone-dry tinder. He explored her more intimately, sliding one and then two fingers into the secret cavern of her body, coming back to the swollen bud of her clitoris, massaging it with such deft skill she came apart within seconds. The sensations rippled through her body, fanning out from her core to all of her limbs, even to her very fingertips, in wave after wave of spine-tingling pleasure.

He planted a warm hand on her belly. ‘But wait. There’s more.’

Kat sucked in a breath as he brought his mouth to her. The feel of his lips and tongue on her most intimate flesh made her whole body shake and shudder. The earth-shattering orgasm thundered through her body, hurtling her into a vortex unlike anything she had experienced before. She was breathless when it was over, stunned that her body could respond with such violent fervour.

Flynn gently lifted a strand of hair away from her mouth and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Was that as good as it looked?’

Kat touched his mouth with a fingertip. ‘You know it was.’

He captured her finger and pressed a soft kiss to her fingertip. ‘You could’ve been pretending.’

‘I’m not that good an actor.’

He kissed her fingertip again. ‘Repeat after me: I. Am. A. Brilliant. Actor.’

Kat tried to pull her hand away but he held firm. ‘This is silly...’

‘Say it, sweetheart.’ His eyes wouldn’t let hers go. ‘Say it for me.’

She took a breath and released it in a whoosh. ‘I. Am. A. Brilliant. Actor.’

He smiled and inched up her chin. ‘I want you.’

Kat drew in another sharp breath as his eyes seared hers. She could feel the swollen heat of him against her thigh and reached down to take him in her hand. She moved her hand up and down his shaft, watching as he fought for control with every movement of her hand.

‘Hold that thought,’ he said and rolled away to retrieve a condom from the bedside drawer.

See? He’s done this a thousand times.

So?

You’re just another notch on his bedpost.

Firstly, he doesn’t have a bedpost—he has a bedhead. Secondly, he’s waited months for me. That makes it different.

What makes you think you’re so special?

He likes me. And I like him.

You’re falling in love with him.

I’m doing no such thing.

Flynn paused once the condom was in place. ‘Are you okay?’

Kat quickly rearranged her features. ‘Sure.’

A tiny frown appeared between his eyes. ‘We don’t have to continue this if you’d rather not.’

She smoothed out the crease of his frown. ‘I guess being a lawyer and all you’d be pretty pedantic about consent.’

‘It’s not about me being a lawyer. It’s about me being a man who respects a woman’s right to say no at any stage of the encounter.’

You are so going to fall in love with this guy.

Kat ignored the debate with her conscience to gaze into his dark eyes. ‘I want you. I really, truly want you.’

His mouth came down to hers in a slow burn of a kiss, stoking the fire of her need until her entire body was shaking with it. She whimpered, she begged, she clawed at his back and urged him to put her out of her misery, but still he took his time pleasuring her with his mouth, with his tongue, playing, flirting and teasing hers.

‘Don’t be so impatient,’ he said against her lips.

‘Aren’t you...you know...?’

His erection moved against her folds, potent, thick and heavy with desire. ‘I am, but I want you to be ready for me.’

I was ready for you the first time I set eyes on you, Kat wanted to say out loud. But instead she used her body to do the talking, pushing herself against his swollen heat, her breath catching as he entered her slickly in one deep thrust that made every hair on her scalp tingle and twirl. He groaned as he surged again, the rocking movement of his body triggering powerful sensations in her core. She was close but not quite close enough. But, as if he could read her every need, he reached down between their entwined bodies and found the throbbing heart of her desire. His fingers worked their magic and suddenly she was flying, spinning, rolling over and over, losing track of anything but the explosive release pulsing through her entire body.

Flynn followed with a series of thrusts that signalled his own release. Kat felt the tension of him just before he pitched into the abyss, heard the guttural groan, felt the hot breeze of his expelled breath against her neck. She felt him relax against her when it was over, his arms still holding her as if he never wanted to let her go.

She tiptoed her fingers up and down the musculature of his back, exploring every knob of his spine, from between his shoulder blades to the base just above his taut buttocks. She felt his skin quiver like a horse shaking off an insect. ‘Am I tickling you?’ she said.

He leaned on his elbows to look at her. ‘You have beautiful hands. But then everything about you is beautiful.’

Kat traced the outline of his mouth with her fingertip. ‘This is kind of weird...’

‘What is?’

‘Me being in bed with you.’

‘Doesn’t feel weird to me. It feels amazing.’

She looked into his coal-black gaze. Had he felt anything like the cataclysmic release she had felt? ‘Better than usual?’

His expression was closed for a nanosecond, as if he had retreated to some place in his mind where no one else was allowed access. But then he smiled a lopsided smile. ‘Fishing for compliments, Miss Winwood?’

Kat pulled at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘Will you tell Jaz and Miranda and the twins about us?’

His eyes moved between each of hers, as if he too were searching for something she was trying to conceal. ‘Would it bother you if they found out?’

She thought about it for a moment. ‘Not really...as long as they know this isn’t heading anywhere serious.’

Something about his expression looked tight. Pulled back. ‘Wedding fever might’ve hit the Ravensdales but it’s not going to hit me.’

Kat studied the taut line of his mouth for a moment. ‘I would’ve thought you’d be the first person to want to settle down and have a family.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because you didn’t have one growing—’

‘I did have one.’ He rolled away from her to dispose of the condom. ‘I still have one.’