A Bargain with the Enemy

‘Why are you doing this?’ Tears glistened in those dove-grey eyes.

‘Why do you think I’m doing it?’ Gabriel rasped, hating being the cause of those tears, but hating even more the idea of giving up on what he knew was between the two of them. Bryn could fight it all she liked, but her responses to him told him that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

She made a dismissive gesture with her hands. ‘Probably because you’re the arrogant Gabriel D’Angelo?’ she accused huskily. ‘Because a D’Angelo doesn’t take no for an answer?’ She gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘Or possibly because you just enjoy torturing me!’

Gabriel’s hands clenched at his sides even as he bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile. ‘Nice try, Bryn, but I’ve already warned you I’m not backing off because you deliberately insult me.’

‘I’m not—’

‘Yes, you are, Bryn,’ he rasped. ‘And yes, I’m arrogant. Enough so that I don’t intend taking the answer “no” from the woman I know wants me as much as I want her.’

She drew in a sharp breath.

‘You—’

‘Your lips might be saying no, Bryn,’ he continued remorselessly, ‘but the rest of your body, your aroused nipples especially—’ he deliberately lowered his gaze to where those hardened nubs were pressed so noticeably against her black cotton shirt ‘—are definitely saying yes, please!’

Bryn instinctively crossed her arms over her breasts even as she inwardly acknowledged the truth of Gabriel’s claim; she was aroused from the sensual pleasure of having Gabriel’s hands caressing her feet and calves just a few minutes ago, but also because she seemed to be in a constant state of arousal whenever she was in Gabriel’s company.

She only had to look at him, into those sultry dark eyes, at those sculptured kissable lips, the long, lean lines of his utterly masculine body, for her own body to become achingly aroused.

And now Gabriel was suggesting—no, ordering—that she spend at least part of every day for the two weeks before the exhibition in his company.

Her eyes glittered with anger now rather than tears. ‘I don’t even like you very much at this moment, Gabriel.’

He gave another humourless smile as he crossed the distance between them in soft predatory strides. ‘If this is not liking me then long may it continue,’ he scorned harshly as Bryn took those same steps back, until she could go no farther, her spine pressed flush against the wall as she stared up at him. ‘I believe I could become addicted to the way you hate me, Bryn.’ Gabriel’s expression was grim as he once again held her imprisoned by placing his hands on the wall on either side of her head, his dark gaze deliberately holding hers as his head lowered and his mouth claimed hers.

Bryn groaned low in her throat as, after the briefest hesitation, her arms moved up about Gabriel’s shoulders and she met the fierceness of that kiss with a hunger of her own, no room for gentleness as their tongues duelled, Bryn’s fingers becoming entangled in the dark thickness of the hair at Gabriel’s nape as she moved up on tiptoe to curve her body into his. The softness of her breasts pressed against the hard muscles of Gabriel’s chest, her thighs arching as she pressed her mound against the hardness of his arousal, that arousal pulsing in response, growing longer, firmer, as she ground her thighs against his slowly, instinctively seeking that pressure against her hardened nub.

Gabriel wrenched his mouth from hers to hungrily kiss the length of her throat, the tops of her breasts, groaning his frustration as her fastened shirt stopped him from going any lower. A barrier he easily dispensed with by taking hold of both sides of her shirt and simply pulling, several buttons flying off as he pushed the shirt down her arms and let it fall to the floor.

‘Oh, yes,’ he rasped hotly as he gazed down hungrily at the creamy swell of her breasts visible above a red lace bra. ‘I’m going to lick and suck your oh-so-sensitive breasts—’ his gaze held hers as one of his hands moved to unfasten the clasp at the back of her bra before dropping it down onto the floor with her shirt ‘—and I’m going to continue licking, sucking and biting these pretty breasts—’ his hands moved up to cup those thrusting globes tipped by swollen strawberry-ripe nipples ‘—until you come for me again.’

Bryn felt her cheeks pale. ‘No, Gabriel—’

‘Yes, Bryn,’ he ground out harshly, eyes feverish, his skin flushed against the hard blades of his cheekbones. ‘You want it as much as I do.’

She did. Oh, yes, she most certainly did. She ached to feel Gabriel’s lips and hands on her again, and that amazing, overwhelming feeling when he brought her to climax.

‘These are mine, Bryn.’ Gabriel’s hands squeezed her breasts. ‘Do you understand? These are all mine. To lick and suck, to give you pleasure! And I’m not letting you walk out of here tonight until I’ve proven that to you!’ The past few minutes—Bryn’s rejection of there ever being a relationship between the two of them, of Gabriel himself—seemed to have stripped him of showing even a veneer of civilised behaviour.

A loss of control that had touched an equally primitive need deep inside Bryn.

Heat gushed between her thighs, the nubbin swelling, pulsing, in the dampness of her curls as Gabriel lowered his head and sucked one nipple deep into the heat of his mouth even as the thumb and finger of his other hand captured and plucked its twin into the same throbbing needing.

Again and again he suckled her nipple, remorselessly caressing and squeezing its twin, both just short of pain, until Bryn was wild, mindless with hunger, with a need that pulsed and ached between her thighs and caused her to groan, to arch her spine, forcing her breast even deeper into the tormenting heat of Gabriel’s mouth as he pressed his thigh rhythmically against that swollen nubbin.

‘Gabriel?’ Bryn gasped in protest as he released her breast to look up at her.

‘Come for me, Bryn,’ he encouraged throatily. ‘Watch me as I take you over the edge. No way, Bryn!’ he refused fiercely as she used the last slender thread of her control to defy him by turning her head away. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ he rasped harshly. ‘Look at me now, Bryn, and tell me you want me to stop!’

A sob caught in her throat as she slowly turned back to him, instantly losing herself in the glittering black pools of his feverish gaze.

‘Tell me to stop, Bryn, and I will,’ he encouraged huskily.

‘I—I can’t,’ she sobbed. ‘Don’t stop, Gabriel!’ she urged achingly as her fingers tightened in his hair, drawing him back towards her breasts. ‘Please don’t stop!’

‘Look at me this time, Bryn,’ he encouraged softly, his breath a warm caress across the aching moistness of her swollen nipple. ‘I want to look into your eyes as you come for me.’ His tongue flicked out, a tormenting lash against her swollen and aching nipple, continuing to rasp that tongue against her, his gaze continuing to hold hers as he released the button of her jeans before sliding the zip slowly down.

Bryn couldn’t have looked away if she had tried, her pleasure swelling, rising out of control, at the eroticism of watching Gabriel as he now parted his lips about her nipple before suckling, gently at first, and then more deeply, her breathing hitching, fracturing as she felt his hand against the heat of her abdomen as it slid beneath the red lace of her panties, his fingers lightly circling her swollen nubbin.

Again and again those tormenting fingers stroked, above and then below that swollen nubbin, dipping his fingers into the dampness of her channel before slowly caressing but never quite touching her right where she most craved his touch, never giving her the pressure there that she ached for.

‘Please, Gabriel,’ Bryn gasped when she couldn’t bear the torment a moment longer. ‘Please! Oh, yes,’ she gasped, her hands clinging to his shoulders, her thighs thrusting up instinctively as his fingers finally brushed lightly over that aching nubbin. ‘Harder, Gabriel! Harder!’ She cried out as the pleasure built, higher and then higher still as he increased the pressure and speed of his stroking fingers.

‘Let go, Bryn,’ Gabriel encouraged harshly against the creaminess of her breast. ‘Come for me.’ He captured the swollen nubbin between his fingers, squeezing as his mouth returned to her breast, drawing greedily on her nipple as he felt that nubbin throb and then pulse between his fingers as Bryn shattered into a shuddering, gasping climax, as he took it all, unwilling, unable to stop, until he had wrung out every last shuddering, trembling ounce of her orgasm.

‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!’ Her head dropped down weakly onto Gabriel’s shoulder as she continued to quiver and shake and cling to him in the aftermath of her pleasure.

Gabriel took her into his arms and held her tightly against his chest, his breathing as ragged and uneven as hers. ‘And that, my beautiful Bryn, is why I refuse to walk away from you. From this. From us,’ he told her gruffly. ‘Not even if you beg me to.’