Rival's Challenge Read online

  He put his hands on the door over her head, caging her in slightly, angling his body forward. She was looking up at him, eyes huge. Lashes long and dark.

  ‘Take down your hair.’ He wanted to see it fall around her shoulders.

  After a slight hesitation she lifted her hand and huffed slightly. ‘Has anyone told you you’re awfully bossy?’

  Antonio’s mouth quirked when he thought of the platoons of elite soldiers he’d commanded. ‘Frequently.’

  She pulled at something and then her hair was falling down in soft silken skeins around her shoulders, its colour vivid even in the dim light. Antonio dropped a hand and took some strands between his fingers. He’d never felt anything so fine, so soft. A dim and distant damaged reflex of his memory wanted to break this moment apart but he wouldn’t let it rise. He utilised the exercises that had brought him back from the brink of madness and focused on her, on her smell. Musk and roses. All at once ethereal and earthy.

  Unable to resist the torture any longer, he let her hair slide through his hand and trailed his fingers across the delicate line of her jaw. He saw the pulse quicken at the base of her neck and felt his body throb in response.

  Tipping her chin up with only the slightest of pressure from his fingers, he dropped his head and his mouth touched hers. Sensations exploded behind his eyes. Hers were still open too, dark blue. He’d noticed that in the lift. Like dark violets. Emitting a growl at his own restraint which was barely hanging on by a thread, he closed his eyes and deepened the kiss, feeling that lush mouth soften even more under his, opening to him, inviting a deeper intimacy.

  When their tongues touched it was like an electric shock. He felt small hands reach out to grab his shirt; his chest shuddered at even that fleeting touch. Unable to hold back from what he’d wanted to do all evening, Antonio dropped his other hand and found the gap in the front of Kate’s dress. He slid his hand in and cupped her bare breast, feeling the hard nub scrape his palm, and he felt feral with need, cupping, squeezing that flesh, fingers pinching at the peak, making it harder. Her skin was like silk. Warm and soft.

  Through the roaring of blood in his head, he could feel her body moving closer to his, hear her moans coming from deep within her. He caught her round the waist with his arm; she felt tiny and fragile and it called to something deeply masculine within him, a primal part that had gone long unused. The material of her dress was slippery and he pulled her into him, against where his flesh was so stiff and hard.

  Orla dragged her mouth from Marco’s and gazed into glittering eyes. She was breathing hard. She was plastered against him, on tiptoe, and she could feel him, long and hard and thick, against her belly. Her mind blanked. She knew he was a big man. But he felt huge. An explosion of damp heat made her even wetter.

  He was breathing harshly too, his chest moving rapidly. His hand was still on her breast.

  Feeling completely wanton, Orla got out roughly, ‘I want to see you.’ She could give orders too.

  Marco drew his hand out from under her dress and Orla had to bite her lip not to grab his hand and put it back on her hot flesh. Slowly he started to undo his buttons and Orla’s eyes followed their progress as his chest was slowly revealed bit by bit. Her eyes widened when he pulled his shirt off completely and it fell to the floor.

  Magnificent was too banal a word for the perfection in front of her. He was a warrior. Surely descended from ancient warriors. His chest was massive. Rock-hard. Muscles clearly delineated and rippling. Dark hair dusted his pectorals and descended in a line under the belt of his trousers. Orla’s gaze dropped farther and she saw the bulge pushing against the material. She gulped.

  ‘Now you,’ came the throaty command.

  Orla looked up again. Mouth dry, she reached behind her for the small button at the top of the back of her dress. She released it and held the dress in place for a moment before taking a deep breath and letting it fall forward and down, held in place now only by the belt.

  Marco’s gaze felt hot on her skin. Her breast that he’d touched still throbbed.

  ‘You’re so beautiful.’ He reached out a hand and traced the aureole of her other breast with a finger. Orla bit back a groan, her eyes closing because it was sensory overload to take in both the sight of him and the feel of him. Her skin puckered tight.

  And then her eyes flew open and she gasped with shock when she felt the hot sucking heat of his mouth. Orla’s hand went to his head, fingers stabbing deep into thick hair. His skull was hard and his mouth was pure wicked torture. She sagged back against the door, her legs increasingly shaky.

  ‘Marco …’ she panted. ‘I don’t think I can keep standing.’

  Her legs were wobbling in earnest now. He lifted his mouth off her breast and she cursed her weakness. But then he straightened and scooped her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. She put her hand to his chest, the muscles bunching and moving under her palm. For a woman who prided herself on being strong and authoritative, being held like this struck at that deep feminine chord within her.

  He carried her in through the suite to the bedroom where one small lamp was on by the bed. Orla noticed stuff around the place—books, clothes—but she barely took it in; the strength and power in the body that held her was awesome. She faintly wondered if he might be an athlete.

  Marco put her down on the bed and trailed his hands down her legs, slipping her shoes off so they fell on the floor with a soft thud. Then those hands came back up her legs and he pushed them apart, standing between them, at the edge of the bed.

  Orla’s breath quickened. His hands were on her thighs now, huge. His thumbs climbing higher and higher to where her body would tell him just how badly she wanted him too.

  She felt embarrassed by what her body was about to reveal. Impetuously she said, ‘Don’t!’

  He stopped. ‘Don’t what?’

  Orla turned her head away, desire thick in her body, but feeling exposed in a way she’d never felt before. No man had ever made her feel this out of control.

  In a small voice she said, ‘I don’t want you to know….’

  ‘Know what?’

  She looked back at him, the words trembling on her lips—how much I want you—but she held them back, saying instead, huskily, ‘I don’t even know you.’

  Marco’s hands didn’t move. He just stared at her in the dim light and then presciently answered her unspoken words. ‘I know…. It’s the same for me.’

  He took his hands off her thighs and immediately Orla wanted them back on her. Instead they were on his belt and he was opening it, sliding it through the buckle with a sibilant hiss of leather through fabric. Now he was opening his trousers, hands disappearing under the waist, pushing them down, taking his briefs with them.

  All the breath in Orla’s body seemed to disappear as she took him in. Massive and aroused. Moisture beading at the tip of his erection.

  ‘See …’ he said with a funny tight quality to his voice, ‘how much I want you? It’s mutual.’

  He came between her legs again and Orla could only lie back and let him replace his hands on her thighs. They moved upwards until they formed a V at the juncture of her thighs. She fought not to squirm against them, as if to guide him to touch her more intimately.

  And then, his eyes smouldering, he pulled aside her panties and stroked his fingers along her very damp cleft. He said something in a language she didn’t understand. It sounded guttural, French. But not like any French she’d ever heard.

  She closed her eyes, her entire body going as taut as a bowstring as he stroked her and then slipped a finger inside her. Her back arched off the bed; she gasped out loud, hands clenching at thin air.

  He came down beside her, the bed dipping with the weight of his big frame. One finger became two inside her and his mouth found her breast and suckled roughly. Orla wanted to scream. She was spiralling faster and faster towards the peak, her hips jerking against his hand. And without warning it broke over her and inside he
r, the most powerful orgasm she’d ever experienced. It was so mind-altering that she wondered if what she’d experienced before had even been an orgasm.

  Marco’s hand stilled against her as her pulsating body came back to earth. Orla felt disorientated; she opened her eyes and saw him like a Greek god beside her. His hands went to the belt on her dress and he undid it, far more dextrously than Orla would have managed it right now. To her mortification, she knew she was trembling with the force of what had just happened.

  Then he was pulling back and tugging her dress down over her hips and off. Now she wore only her panties and he slipped them off too. Orla saw him reach for something and heard a ripping sound. A condom. He was about to smooth it onto his erection and Orla felt a burst of desire. ‘Wait.’

  He stopped and looked at her and she could see what pleasuring her had cost him when she could see the sweat on his brow, the strain on his face.

  A wicked inner sorceress she’d not known she even had inside her said, ‘Let me.’

  Tonight she was Kate. Tonight reality didn’t exist, or it did but it was part of a fantasy she wasn’t even aware existed in her mind. Tonight she could be someone else.

  She came up on her knees, thankful that they didn’t collapse because all her limbs felt like jelly. She took the condom out of his fingers and came closer to the edge of the bed. He was so tall that all she had to do was reach out and roll it over that thick length, the veins standing out in bold relief under delicate skin.

  Orla bit her lip when she hit the base of his shaft, and then his hands were on her arms and he was gently pushing her back down onto the bed, her legs folding underneath her.

  ‘Sweetheart, if you keep touching me and looking at me like that, this will be over before we’ve even started. I can’t hold on.’

  Marco scooted her back onto the bed, and pushed her legs apart and lowered his body into the cradle of hers. Holding her breath, Orla felt that thick head push into her body, stretching her, impossibly. Even though she couldn’t have been more ready. She sucked in a breath and felt him thrust a little deeper.

  ‘You’re so small. I don’t want to hurt you.’

  He was. Almost. But not quite. Orla was hovering on the threshold between pain and pleasure. She drew up her legs beside his thighs and said, ‘You’re not.’

  Something about his concern and the gentleness of someone so huge made Orla feel quivery inside. She wouldn’t have expected it of him from that first intimidating sight of him in the shadows of the bar.

  He thrust a little deeper and the pain flared for a second before being replaced with something more tantalising. Slowly, Marco started to move in and out, his chest rubbing against Orla’s breasts, making their sensitised tips tingle.

  Her breath got quick again. She moved her legs to wrap them around his hips and he slid deeper. He still wasn’t in all the way though, and he moved his hand between them, his thumb finding that sensitive clump of cells and rubbing rhythmically against her, making her moan.

  And then he slanted his mouth over hers, and as if a dam broke within her, Orla felt something release, and Marco slid deep inside her, touching every single nerve point in her body. Or at least that was what it felt like.

  Her legs tightened reflexively around Marco’s lean waist, her body spasmed with a rush of pleasure and as he thrust in and out their tongues sucked and licked and tasted. They were joined at every possible point and Orla truly didn’t know where she ended and he began because it felt for the first time in her life as if she was whole, as if a missing part of her had slid home.

  The tempo increased and Orla could feel her body clasping at him with the onset of another orgasm, even more powerful than the last. Their bodies grew slick with perspiration. Orla dug her heels into Marco’s hard muscled backside and with a strangled roar he thrust one final time, the tendons in his neck standing out as they both hovered on the brink of something earth-shattering. And when it hit them simultaneously, it was like a force of nature, sweeping everything aside, obliterating any previous experience in the blinding white heat of pleasure.

  Antonio blacked out for a moment. Literally lost consciousness. And then came back to himself within seconds, breathing harshly, his body embedded in Kate’s … held in her tight clasp. He could still feel the spasmodic pulsations of her inner body around his length and extricated himself with a wince of pain and pleasure.

  He looked at the woman under him; she was staring up at him with the same stunned expression that he figured was on his face.

  He rasped out, ‘OK?’

  Silently, she nodded. Her cheeks were flushed, hair a tangle of glorious red around her head. Antonio found it within himself to move so that he could pull the covers over her. And then he said, ‘I’ll be back in a second.’

  He stood up, and to his consternation, his legs felt distinctly weak as he walked to the bathroom where he dealt with the protection. He stood at the sink afterwards and looked at himself. His face was flushed too, eyes glittering brightly. But he felt altered in some indefinable way. Which was crazy. It had been sex. Just sex. The hottest sex he’d ever had, a small voice pointed out. Even so, it was just sex.

  He’d hooked up with women like that many times before, preferring short encounters with mature, experienced, willing females with no strings attached. This was no different. They hadn’t even told each other their real names, for crying out loud! But it felt different. He rubbed absently at his chest where he felt an ache growing and frowned at himself. Splashing water on his face, he cursed this moment of introspection and went back into the room to see Kate on her side, curled up, facing away from the bathroom. And the ache in his chest intensified. Had he hurt her? She was so small.

  He padded over and pulled back the cover, sliding into the bed. He saw her shoulders tense and something in him rejected that. He needed to see her. He put a hand on her shoulder, feeling the delicate bones, and tugged gently. After some resistance, she rolled over, holding the sheet over her chest.

  She was pale now, biting her lip. Eyes huge. Antonio felt a punch to his gut. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  She shook her head and said in a low voice, ‘No. It’s just … I’ve never … It’s never been like that. For me. So intense.’

  Relief made the feeling in Antonio’s gut subside. He couldn’t help a small smile as he automatically reached out to push some hair back from her smooth cheek. ‘Me too.’

  She narrowed her eyes then and said with a touch of acerbity, ‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’

  Antonio looked at her. ‘And I bet you say that to all the guys.’

  She shrugged a shoulder minutely. ‘Maybe.’

  A lightness infused the atmosphere now, dispelling the intensity of a few moments ago, and Antonio growled softly, ‘You’ll pay for that.’

  And then the implication of what she’d just said hit him and suddenly the thought of another man touching her made him see red. It made him gather her into his body and clamp his mouth to hers with a feral sound from deep within him. He didn’t want her to think of any other man after tonight. Only him. He wanted to brand himself on her.

  With a soft sigh he felt her resistance melt away as their kisses got more and more heated, the fire in their bodies igniting again. The sheet was quickly dispensed with and Antonio drew Kate’s slim supple body over his, spreading her thighs either side of him.

  Urgently before he donned protection he asked, ‘Are you too sore?’

  Kate had her hands braced on his chest, her arms pushing her small pert breasts together and forward. Everything in Antonio was screaming for release. Already. Again. It made him nervous because he couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before, but he couldn’t think about that now.

  She shook her head, tendrils of hair slipping over her shoulders like flames of fire. She moved back, teased him with her body. Antonio put on the protection, his hands uncustomarily clumsy, and then slowly, torturously, exquisitely, brought Kate down onto his aching shaf
t.

  He saw stars as her tight damp sheath took him in. He saw the fierce concentration on her face, their eyes locked. And then she started to move against him and Antonio could do nothing but submit and surrender to the wild ride once again.

  When Orla woke up, tendrils of the dawn light illuminated the room in a faint pink glow. Birds tweeted, and through the open curtains she realised there was a terrace outside the bedroom. A very opulent and luxurious bedroom. Not her bedroom. His bedroom.

  A Chatsfield bedroom with its signature bespoke furnishings.

  It all came rushing back. Along with the realisation that her body ached all over and she was tender between her legs. Very tender. She blushed to think of taking him into her body, how big he’d been. How good it had felt.

  Orla held her breath and turned her head. Marco lay beside her; they weren’t touching. His huge body was in a louche sprawl, completely naked. Wide awake now, Orla came up gingerly on one arm, wincing as muscles protested.

  They’d made love over and over again. And each time had felt like she was falling deeper and deeper into a vortex of need. Even now, as her gaze drifted over his face, she felt that need rising. In spite of the tenderness between her legs. She’d take that burn again.

  A shadow of stubble darkened his hard jaw. He appeared no less intimidating in repose. Just as fierce. Orla’s eyes widened though as she looked down his body and saw a veritable patchwork of scars and marks. There was a bunch of very distinctive circular puckerings of flesh around his pectorals. She mustn’t have noticed them before because it had been dark—she blushed—and she’d been too intent on succumbing to the most intense desire she’d ever felt.

  There was a tattoo high on the biceps of the arm nearest her. It looked like a coat of arms. He had the body of an elite athlete … or a warrior. Her impression of last night came back, even more forcibly in the light of dawn, gazing at his scarred body. Literally from neck to knee, there were all kinds of marks—healed cuts, stitch marks. Those mysterious circular shapes.