Rebel's Bargain

‘Yes!’ Her voice was high and breathless as she peeled away denim and took him in her hand. So hot, so silky and strong.

Orsino yanked her thigh high over his hip and she felt the wall hard at her back. Hands to his shoulders she rose, her eyes snapping open to meet the blaze of his as he surged beneath her, filling her with heat and power till he reached the core of her.

For a suspended millisecond she froze, shocked at the acute pleasure.

Then Orsino roared something in Italian. Their bodies arched frantically and when he thrust again she felt his urgent pulse of completion. Hot seed exploded within and still he powered into her, forcing her to the brink of ecstasy till the world caught fire and she shattered into a thousand glittering shards.

CHAPTER SEVEN

POPPY’S HEAD FLOPPED against Orsino’s shoulder, her heart thundering, pleasure still coursing through her in tiny waves that rippled right to the tips of her fingers and toes.

His broad hand held her bare leg. His thighs wedged solid beneath her, supporting her, and his laboured gasps were hot in her hair.

He shifted a fraction and one last spasm racked her. She bit her lip against the cry of delight that rose to her lips. But he knew. His hand tightened possessively.

She squeezed her eyes shut. What nonsense! As if Orsino cared.

‘Poppy?’ His voice was a low burr of sound that abraded her like a rough caress. It made her skin tingle in places that had just come alive for the first time in five years.

Five years. She hadn’t been with a man before or since Orsino and now, like a piece of ripe fruit, she fell into his hands. How could she have done it?

Horror and shame washed through her.

How self-destructive could she be, giving herself to a man who despised her? The man who’d almost destroyed her?

Hands shoving at his chest she wriggled till he stepped back and she half slid down to the floor, ignoring the sharp pang of loss and protest from her wayward body. Her knees were so weak she’d have collapsed if it wasn’t for Orsino, holding her steady.

Heat scorched her cheeks as she looked down. One foot bare, the other still shod, and with her trousers tangled around that ankle.

‘I can’t believe I did that.’

‘Believe it, Poppy.’ Something in his voice jerked her head up. Eyes she knew to be dark brown glittered almost black. She expected smug satisfaction, even triumph in his expression, but found something else. Something she couldn’t name.

A pulse of connection passed between them, like in the old days when she’d felt a oneness with him that she’d believed utterly precious.

Old guilt swirled in a clogging tide. No matter how much Orsino was to blame for the destruction of their marriage, it was she who’d taken that first irrevocable step, in her grief and loneliness turning to Mischa for comfort. Even if she had pulled back before she broke her wedding vows.

‘Poppy?’ Orsino’s voice broke her thoughts. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

She hiccupped on welling laughter. Orsino comforting her? Impossible.

‘Of course it’s not.’ She forced herself to meet his eyes again. ‘But it’s still unbelievable.’ She scrabbled at her feet, wriggling her bare foot into her clothes and dragging them up rather than stand half naked before him.

By the time she’d finished his jeans were zipped up, too.

Another wash of heat flamed at the realisation he hadn’t even had to shuck his jeans off to take her. And she’d let him. More than let him, she’d egged him on, climbing his tall frame in her hunger for him. Her internal muscles clenched at the memory and she shivered.

Poppy tilted her chin, projecting haughty confidence to cover the way she trembled.

‘Pleasant as it’s been, Orsino, I need to—’

‘Running, Poppy?’ He arched one eyebrow, lifting the still-raw-looking scar that curled around his eye.

‘We’re done here.’ How she got the words out she didn’t know. But she had to get away before what was left of her composure crumbled entirely.

‘If I didn’t know better I’d call that statement naive.’

Her eyes widened. Orsino calling her naive? Last she’d heard she was the scarlet woman incarnate.

‘Look, Orsino. You’ve had your—’ she waved an arm as she searched for words ‘—gratification.’ How he must be silently crowing at the fact she’d succumbed to him so easily. ‘But it’s over and it won’t happen again. Now I’d like to go and have a shower.’

‘Of course it’s going to happen again.’ Slowly he shook his head, the look in his eyes doing silly things to her insides. ‘But next time had better be somewhere more comfortable. I told you I hadn’t got my strength back.’ He rolled his shoulder and shifted his arm, reminding her of the plaster cast he still wore.