Rebel with a Cause

She just stared at him, letting her eyes say it all.

‘Really?’ He dropped the basketball. It rolled away, coming to a rest against the newly painted fence.

‘Don’t you think?’

He’d gone very still. ‘I’m not sure either of us is thinking.’

‘Isn’t it going to happen anyway? Hasn’t it been on the cards for days?’ She angled her head and studied him, half dying inside now with her boldness. He was so silent. Too silent. ‘Do you really want to stop it?’

His hands were on his hips, his biceps flexing. ‘We probably should.’

‘Why?’ She could see his chest rising and falling faster than before. She knew he felt it too.

Angry fingers suddenly gripped her upper arms. ‘Why are you chasing this?’

She flinched. Chasing? Like some infatuated teen stalking her first prey? Shocked, she blurted the truth. ‘I’ve never done this before. I’ve never had a fling. Never had a one night stand. I’ve always been “good”, always watched out for my reputation, always gone out with “safe” guys.’ She’d had a couple of steady boy friends, then that engagement. She shut her mind to the memory, turned back to the heat of the moment. ‘Just for once I want the freedom to do what I want to do, take what I want, have what I want.’

‘And I’m what you want?’ His jaw was rigid, the strength in his fingers not easing an iota.

She glanced down his body. ‘You’re very fit.’

‘What is it that’s really turning you on? Going with someone outside your select social circle? Someone from the wrong side of the tracks, someone rougher? Is that what I am to you?’

Her senses flared at the word rougher. She could do with some rough right now. ‘I don’t care about your background.’ She didn’t actually care about him—did she? ‘Like I said, you’re just very fit.’ She sighed, frustrated. ‘And every time I see you, you’re half naked. What do you expect? I’m only human.’

A short laugh was shaken from him. ‘So you just want physical, Sophy?’

‘Really physical.’

The breath whistled out between his teeth. She held her breath, frozen as she watched him decide.

‘I don’t do relationships, Sophy.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

His fingers relaxed but didn’t let her go and his smile returned. ‘This is not going to get out of hand.’

She stepped closer, anticipation twisting with satisfaction and spiralling higher. She’d won. For once she’d been bold and it had worked. ‘Of course not. You’re going to be very much in hand.’ She smiled. Really, dirty flirty talk was easy. She could so be the queen of it here.

‘I think you’re confused about who’s going to be dominant.’ His hands tightened again, drawing her closer still. ‘I’ll be in control, Sophy—you don’t want to be.’

That was exactly it. She didn’t want to be in control any more. She just wanted to feel. Not think. Just experience it, release the tension from her system. ‘Okay.’

His expression flared. His hands moved, looping round her back, imprisoning her. ‘So what did you have in mind?’

‘What about my office?’

‘Now?’ He laughed freely. ‘A late afternoon lay? Just before you leave?’

‘It has a certain appeal.’ Her eyelids were heavy, her cheeks flushed. She’d wanted him for days, of course she wanted him now.

‘Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?’ His voice dropped to a carnal whisper, but his eyes were like polished stones. ‘We’ve barely kissed. We might not be that good.’

Barely kissed? Oh, he was full of it. Her lips curved into a lush, lazy smile. ‘You don’t believe that. Besides…’ she skated the tips of her fingers over his jaw, shivering with the pleasure of being able to touch ‘…you do everything to a brilliant standard.’

‘So do you.’

Not quite true, but she was happy to skip it. ‘Then we’ll be brilliant together, won’t we?’ She was wholly leaning against him now, feeling the heat of him through her linen shirt. ‘Let’s try it out.’

‘Oh, Sophy,’ he muttered, his face even more angular. ‘You’d better know what you’re doing.’

In answer she lifted her face, inviting it all.

In a fast movement he caught her mouth with his. It wasn’t anything like the gentle kiss of the day before. This was brazenly sexual—branding her with its heat. She gasped, held back for a scrap of a second beneath the bruising, blazing invasion. Then threw herself headlong into the eye of the storm, locking her hands behind his neck, letting her breasts press against him. His hands pushed her tighter against his hardness. And he was hard all over.

His heated skin melted her. His tongue swept between her lips, she parted to let him in as deep as he wanted. Twirled her tongue around his and felt his grip tighten even harder on her.

Yes.

Her neck muscles strained as she pushed up into his kiss, not wanting the searing assault to ease even a smidge. She rocked her hips. Rising onto tiptoe to feel that bulging ridge nearer to where she really wanted it, rubbed closer again, desperate to relieve the agony that now flared deep within. She felt rather than heard his grunt. His hand cupped her butt, fingers firm on her flesh, holding her as he rocked back against her—his thrusting slow, devastating, while his mouth was still sealed to hers. His tongue teased into her the way she really wanted that other part of him to. Her moan reverberated between them then. Oh, yes. That was what she wanted. All the strength of him ripping into her.

His kiss altered, breaking but quickly returning. Nipping at her mouth he pushed her harder against his straining erection. She shifted her feet to part her legs that fraction more, rotating the half centimetre she could against him, torturing them both. She cursed the clothes that were scrunching between them. He bent her back to force her body closer still, until all she could do was cling to his shoulders and accept his demands. She didn’t want to stand any more anyway. She wanted to lie down. She wanted him to pin her with his weight and pound into her. Fast, hard, now.

All her desire unleashed with just the one kiss.

He took the weight of one breast in his hand and her body buckled with the sensation. ‘Yes.’ Her high cry, half whispered.

So there was such a thing as pure, carnal lust. An at traction to a body, where nothing else mattered but touching it, feeling it and making its beauty come alive. There could be a free, physical joy. She’d been missing out for years—had always taken everything too seriously, been too cautious. She swept her hand hard across his shoulder, up his neck and into his hair, clutching to his deliciously dangerous heat. It was time to play catch-up.

Lorenzo fought hard with his raging lust, and hers, easing them out of the kiss, forcing his hands to slow and then to stop their exploration of her skin. It hurt.

He lifted his mouth a millimetre away from hers. Saw that passion had made her blue eyes glow more vividly than ever before. He couldn’t resist another brushing kiss, nor could he resist the way her nipple was pressing into his palm. His fingers mirrored the action of his mouth—brushing the sensitive nub just as his lips did hers.

Very, very lightly.