Page 18 of Settling the Score (The Karma Club #4)

‘Orrrr’ – she lifted a finger to the side of her lips and tapped, in a way he found outright distracting – ‘a translated lyric from a Britney song?’ Her eyes roamed his body, her features showing she was still lost in thought. ‘A quote from the Barbie movie?’

His laugh surprised him. ‘Nah. It’s just something about the future,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I got it ages ago.’

‘You have such a squeaky-clean image,’ she said, apparently dropping the meaning of the tattoo. ‘Do your sponsors know about all this?’

He eased his shorts back into place, ignoring the part of him that wanted to actually keep sliding them down, all the way down, until he was butt naked. What the hell had got into him?

‘Hell nah.’ He turned back to her properly, forcing a grin to his face. Sienna’s eyes were still troubled though, like she was thinking about something she couldn’t comprehend.

‘It’d probably add to your cachet, anyhow,’ she said after a beat. ‘Everything you touch turns to gold, right?’

Her tone was a little sharp. His smile slipped. ‘That pisses you off?’

Her eyes flew to his, wariness in her expression. ‘Not at all,’ she said, the words a little rushed. ‘I’m happy for you, Aiden. You’re living your best life, right?’ She didn’t give him a chance to reply. ‘Anyway, we came here to swim, didn’t we?’

She flashed him a brittle smile then stalked towards the shore, leaving him staring after her, a jumble of feelings he’d have to be a genius to decode.

* * *

She should have abandoned their mission the second he’d stripped out of his shirt.

The second her eyes had clung to his chest like an addict faced with a drug den.

The second she took a step closer and her fingertips had tingled with a need to reach out and feel.

The second he’d slipped his shorts down and showed just a hint of his perfectly toned, tanned ass, and her abdomen had clenched with a fierce need to possess and be possessed by him.

Because it was becoming abundantly clear to Sienna that her carefully drawn plan all hinged on her having the ability to control herself around Aiden, and that was starting to feel like a Sisyphean task.

As a kid, she’d been totally under his spell.

He’d entranced her, captivated her. She’d idolised him, worshipped him, adored him and loved him.

But she wasn’t a kid any more. The scales were supposed to have fallen from her eyes. She knew he was a selfish a-hole now. She’d seen it for herself.

Surely that should have offered some kind of inoculation against finding him attractive?

Why couldn’t her stupid brain take a more prominent role in managing this whole situation? It was like it had set the out-of-office email reply and stepped away from the keyboard of decision making. She was totally on her own.

She didn’t want to find him hotter than Hades.

She didn’t want to feel an almost impossible need to jump his bones, but gawd, standing on the sand, looking at his flawless, caramel skin, remembering the way his body weight had felt pressing down on her, remembering the way his hands had caressed her body, remembering how even then, as a relatively inexperienced teenager, he’d known just what to do, where to touch, to make Sienna soar, made it impossible not to feel tempted.

She looked down the cove a little way, not remotely surprised to see they were completely alone.

It was a private island, belonging to the owner of the Titans, loaned to Blake and Astrid for their wedding.

Apart from the island staff, there was no one here but the wedding party, and they were all engaged in hunting for flags.

Her toes hit the water, but instead of it providing a cooling splash of relief to her overheated skin, it had the opposite effect.

Every cell in her body was hypersensitive, so the sensory overload of cool contrasting with warm made her tingle, especially her nipples.

They puckered in response and she was glad she’d resisted the urge to strip out of her own shirt.

She felt the moment Aiden came to stand behind her, even when he didn’t say anything.

She stepped deeper into the water, moving away from him, running away, just like he did.

Except, not just like he did. He’d dropped her like a hot potato the second he’d had a better offer – and for Aiden, that ‘better offer’ had been all about himself, his future, his prospects.

The water lapped around her thighs. Two more steps and it was at her breasts. She dipped down then, covering herself to her neck, revelling in the feeling of the crystal-clear Mediterranean.

Aiden was right there, though, so much bigger and more powerful, just watching her, thoughtfully, like he had stuff going around in his brain that he was trying to understand. She glared at the shoreline mutinously.

‘You know what, Sienna?’

She forced herself, grudgingly, to look up at him.

His body was only submerged to his hips, thanks to the fact he was built like half man, half minotaur.

She tried not to look at his naked chest, but it was right there, broad and fascinating, between the ridges of his buff abdomen, the tattoos, the line of hair that ran down into the waistband of his shorts.

Shorts that were wet now, and clinging to him just like her clothes were stuck to her.

‘What?’ she finally said, realising he was waiting for her to ask him something.

‘I think you’re wrong.’

She glanced at him then looked away again quickly. ‘About what?’

‘I don’t think this is ancient history.’

The blood in her veins seemed to go all turbo charged, rushing through her so fast she could hear it pounding inside her ears.

She stood a little unsteadily, hands on hips, only realising how revealing her wet shirt was when his eyes slid down her to her clearly delineated breasts and still-puckered nipples. Heat exploded, not just in her cheeks, but through her whole body.

‘It’s been over ten years,’ she pointed out, but her voice was husky now. She wasn’t even sure if he heard it, because she’d spoken so softly and the ocean was rolling gentle waves towards the coastline.

‘I don’t care if it’s been twenty years, you can’t seriously tell me you’re not feeling this?’

Everything spun into blinding hyper colour clarity.

Sensation.

Danger.

The goddamned plan.

The stupidity of thinking she could flirt with him and stay enough in control to make sure she won, this time. It had always been like this between them. It hadn’t just been because they were hormonal teenagers in their first flush of relationship excitement. This was them, pure and simple.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ she lied. A terrible lie. One he clearly saw through, because his lips twisted in a mocking smile.

‘No?’ He took a step closer, something sparking in his eyes when they latched onto hers, probing her face. Studying her. Looking inside of her, deep inside, in that way he’d had way back when.

‘So, if I were to touch you… nothing?’ he prompted.

Her throat seemed to close over. Desire throbbed between her legs. Despite the cool of the ocean, warm heat slicked there, making her painfully aware of how badly she wanted him to touch her.

‘And if I were to kiss you?’ He moved closer. Close enough that he could do either of those two things. Touch her. Kiss her. Whatever he wanted.

If she agreed.

If she even hinted that she was okay with that, he’d make a move, and she’d be lost.

As lost as she’d been back then. Because even though so much time had passed, and she was a totally different person now, he was Aiden, and she was Sienna. He clicked, she jumped. That’s just how it had always been.

She was dumber than dumb to have thought, for even a second, she could take the upper hand here.

But then, Astrid was in her head. And Paige, and Bella.

Reminding her that she was a strong, intelligent woman now, that she’d been through a shit tonne of adversity and was still going, one step after the other.

Studying law part time, so she could help people like her dad.

Supporting Melanie as best she could. Visiting her dad every weekend.

Working to keep a roof over her head. Doing the best she damn well could to live a good life, and contribute to her town, to make the people she loved happy.

She tilted her chin, channelling those women, who’d helped her see what they did, who’d built up her confidence since Chicago, and made her believe she was capable of anything. Her fears and doubts ebbed away, leaving only certainty that she could handle this. She could handle him.

He was just a man, not a god, and no matter what she wanted from him physically, there was one ginormous, vital difference to how things had been between them back then.

Her body was one thing. But her heart and mind were totally another. He could touch her, and kiss her, and drive her completely wild. She’d never be stupid enough to let him anywhere near her heart, and without that, he had absolutely no power to hurt her. Zilch. She was safe.

Whereas he was, she hoped, a bit of a sitting duck this time around, just like she’d been back then.

First step to proving that? Picking up the gauntlet, of course…

‘I can’t say for sure,’ she said with a shrug, aware that it made her breasts shift. ‘But it sure sounds like an interesting experiment, cowboy.’