Rival's Challenge

CHAPTER SIX

ANTONIO STOPPED AND relief was sweet and treacherous through Orla. But he didn’t turn. She knew this moment was huge. She was throwing caution to the wind. Grabbing at pleasure. Stepping into danger, into the unknown. But the necessary. She needed this man like she needed to breathe, right now.

‘Stop,’ she said, stronger this time, firmer. ‘I don’t want you to go. Stay.’

Antonio turned and something clicked into place inside Orla. An assertion. That this was right.

He looked fierce and elemental in the soft lights which threw his face into sharp relief. Something quivered through her: recognition of a mate. But before that could freak her out, he uttered a guttural-sounding ‘Come here.’

And without a conscious thought in her head, because it had been replaced with sheer blind instinct, Orla went to him.

It felt like they melted into each other. Her arms were around his neck; one of his hands was in her hair, cupping her head, the other across her back like a steel bar, welding her to his hard body.

It was a spontaneous combustion. They kissed and it was desperately passionate. Mouths open, tongues duelling, as if they’d never get enough of kissing like this. Somewhere deep inside Orla something melted but she was too hot to think about it now.

Antonio drew back and said roughly, ‘Bedroom.’

Orla sucked in deep breaths, slightly shocked at how fast her heart was beating already.

‘The door on the left.’

As soon as the words left her lips she was being lifted up into Antonio’s arms and he was carrying her through her living room to the bedroom. Just like the first time, a part of her thrilled at this display of cavemanlike masculinity in spite of her very feminist principles. Unable not to, Orla reached up to touch his jaw and felt the growth of stubble. Her body tightened with need.

He shouldered his way into the room where one lamp sent out a soft glow casting everything into shadow. He stopped by the bed and slowly, provocatively, slid Orla down the length of his body until she was standing in front of him.

Without taking her eyes off his, she kicked off her shoes, dropping a couple of inches in height. His hands went to the tiny buttons at the front of her dress and she could feel his frustration build when they proved too delicate for him.

She swatted his hands away. ‘Let me.’ Her own hands weren’t much better though, shaking. She bit her lip and Antonio put out a hand, cupping her jaw, a thumb freeing her lower lip.

And then, interrupting her button undoing, he uttered something guttural in French and tipped up her head so that he could claim her mouth again as if he couldn’t help himself. Orla’s hands went to his arms to try and remain upright. She hadn’t even undone all the buttons yet but the flames of desire were licking up around them and then her own hands were searching frantically for his shirt, undoing his buttons now.

His jacket had already disappeared and Orla revelled in smoothing her hands across his bare chest when his shirt fell open. Damp heat moistened between her legs and she could feel Antonio’s hands go to her dress, pulling it up, one of his hands finding her panties and delving under the silk fabric. Had she worn silk because all along she’d hoped this would happen?—the insidious voice in her head resounded but Orla blocked it out.

His hand was cupping her butt cheek now, making her groan softly, pressing closer to Antonio, hips circling against him. When his hand explored deeper, fingers searching along the seam of her body, finding and releasing her wetness, she groaned in earnest.

Their mouths h

adn’t parted and now their breaths were suspended as Antonio’s wicked fingers stroked Orla intimately. She broke away, looking up into that dark, dark gaze. Shocked all over again at how visceral this desire between them was.

‘I need you. Now.’

Orla’s body responded to his words as if she’d been set on fire from the inside out. Shirt hanging open, Antonio took his hands off her body to open his belt and undo his trousers, pushing them and his underwear to the floor in one movement.

Orla couldn’t stop her gaze dropping and the anticipation in her body almost shot off the Richter scale when she saw him so aroused and ready. He’d been big before, but now he looked even bigger than she remembered.

He was bending, reaching under her dress for her underwear, tugging it down her hips and legs. Unsteady on her feet, Orla fell back onto the bed, and Antonio threw her panties to the side. With his big hands, he pushed up the dress until it pooled in a silken mass around her belly.

Orla knew she should be feeling wanton, or wicked or something. But she couldn’t drum it up over the intense need. Antonio straightened up, tall. Proud. A warrior. Then he went and sat down in the armchair beside her bed. She came up awkwardly on her elbows to see him looking dark and brooding. He was ripping the foil off a condom and smoothing the rubber over his erection.

‘Come here, Orla.’

Orla somehow managed to get up from the bed, her dress falling down over her legs, and gaping open at the front where she’d had to leave her buttons because it had proved too much of a challenge to undo them. She walked over to him and he reached for her, hands spanning her waist, pulling her onto him so that she had to straddle him, knees locked tight by his thighs and hips.

She gasped when he brought her down, her body rubbing against his arousal, caught between them. He brought up his hands and she thought he was going to attempt the buttons again but with a feral sound he put his hands to the delicate material and pulled it apart, making buttons pop and the silk rip.

To her shock, Orla found that instead of being angry, she felt excited by his impatience.

He looked at her. ‘I’ll buy you a new one.’