Free Heather Graham by Siren from the Sea

and need, longing to touch and be touched, to share the good and the bad, innermost thoughts and the most idle laughter.
    And yet this girl with the emerald eyes …
    It wasn’t love, and it wasn’t lust. Well, maybe there was just a little lust involved—he’d be a fool or a blind man not to be feeling a little lust. He was drawn to her. Pulled closer and closer by the tenacious threads of fascination. The hint of something deep and binding; summer days touched by the sea and sun, long winter nights warmed by a fire. Waking each morning beside a lovely and loved face with lips that curled to a shell-pink smile …
    There was enough steam in the bathroom for him to call it a sauna.
    Flynn gave himself an impatient shake. He hadn’t survived it all thus far by falling prey to beautiful faces.
    He knew damned well that she was a liar. He couldn’t allow himself to forget for a minute just how adept she was at her lies. He had to accept them all …
    He just couldn’t fall for them. Or her.
    Until his day came to get at the truth. Which it would, he assured himself. Soon enough.

CHAPTER FOUR
    F LYNN’S CAR WAS A sporty Porsche, a red convertible. He asked Brittany if she minded driving with the top down. She assured him that she didn’t, silently glad that she had given up on the idea of doing something elegant with her hair, and had just left it to swing loose down her back.
    The night was lovely and exciting. Lights sparkled upon the water; the air smelled pleasantly of salt and freshness and as the little car whipped along, Brittany felt soothed at the rush of wind against her cheeks. Flynn was a competent driver; she felt comfortable leaning back in the seat and allowing herself to feel the soft touch of the dark sky and delightful brush of the night air. Occasionally he glanced her way, and she was able to give him a languorous smile that bespoke a total ease with his company.
    At length he turned inland, and they began to climb from sea level. The wind still caught at locks of her hair and teased them about her face, but Flynn slowed their speed, and they were able to talk above the roar of the engine.
    “How large a gathering is it going to be?” she asked him. Her eyes fell to his hands, dark against the beige leather covering on the wheel and the snow white of his tux. A trembling sensation took her unaware as she suddenly remembered being in his arms; feeling those hands at her nape, coursing along her spine …
    “Not too large, from what I understand,” Flynn responded, flashing her a white smile. “Juan will be there. You and I, Ian, Mr. and Mrs. St. John, Joshua and his wife and their daughter, and Rose.”
    Brittany caught a flying wave of hair and twisted the whole of its length into a knot with her fingers as she turned to him with a laugh. “You’re forgetting I’m new here. Ian is our host, I know. Who are the others? I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit of an outsider.”
    “Oh, I doubt that,” Flynn assured her, giving her a quick glance that appeared almost sardonic in the play of moon glow and shadow. “I’ve a feeling you’ll be quite the rage of the ball, so to say.” He gave her no chance to protest or comment, but continued, “There’s a bit of a social system here, you see. A number of Britons, a few Americans …” He shrugged. “It seems sometimes—in Spain—that we become one with a common language. Each season, there’s a regular scurry of events. A closed group in a way.” He gave her a wide grin that was ruefully honest. “Edith St. John reigns as queen. She’s from Coventry; Harry, her husband, is an American. He’s a middle-aged man, meek beside our grande dame , and yet his witticisms fly right over her busy head. You’ll enjoy them. She’s a whirlwind and a bit of a busybody, but her heart is really one of brilliant silver, if not gold. Josh and his wife are the newcomers; they just took up residence here last Christmas with Elly—Eleanor, their daughter.