Rival's Challenge
But then the doors opened and Antonio indicated for her to get out. He saw her jaw clench, but then she stepped out and he followed. Her room was at the end of the corridor. She put her key card in the door and it opened. She turned around immediately and he could see the pulse beating at the base of her neck. Frantic. He remembered how her pulse had felt under his hand earlier and his own sped up in response.
‘OK, thank you. This is me.’
He knew she was aiming for jocular but it came out forced and something resonated deep inside him. Telling himself this was just all part of the game plan to unsettle this woman, he drawled, ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
‘Certainly not.’
Antonio had to smile at Orla’s frigid tone as he pointed out dryly, ‘Need I remind you that you don’t have to put on the scandalised-virgin act?’
She spat out now, her cheeks high with colour, ‘We both know neither of us are virgins.’
Antonio’s body tightened. And yet he’d guess that she hadn’t been very experienced at all. In spite of her bravado that night.
He was actually about to admit defeat and step back and leave her when she opened the door wider and said huffily, ‘For heaven’s sake, you can satisfy yourself that there are no intruders and then leave….’
Antonio’s body reacted, blood leaping, keeping his body aroused, hard. She stood back and he walked in. Immediately a faintly exotic scent assailed his nostrils, unlike the usual hotel scent. It was her scent, and as he walked into the suite of rooms he had to stop his jaw from falling open.
She had obviously completely redecorated the suite to suit her tastes. To create the home she spoke of missing out on? His chest tightened. Everything was soothing, calming—in tones of off-white. A big comfortable couch and low table with two armchairs. A state-of-the-art TV and music system. Beautiful watercolour paintings on the walls. It had a visceral effect on him, tugging on some deep echo within himself of a long-forgotten desire for his own space and … peace.
Everything was pristine, neat and tidy. Bookshelves set up against one wall, but he could see that they were temporary and didn’t like how that made something protective rise up within him.
He found himself being drawn to one of the watercolours on the wall. It featured a stunning wild landscape/seascape in greens and blues. He sensed Orla’s presence beside him, her unique scent, mirroring that of the room.
Her voice was husky, tugging on his nerve endings. Making them sensitive. ‘That’s Slea Head in Kerry, near where we come from. In the west of Ireland.’
Antonio didn’t like to admit how something in the picture called to the wildness he’d felt inside him for a long time.
Something was shifting. Things weren’t so cut and dried. Yes, he wanted to seduce this woman and get her to comply with his demands for his sister’s benefit, and apart from that he wanted her with a hunger like no other. But now … it was as if he was getting a glimpse into her soul. And it made him feel disorientated.
Orla felt like screaming into the deafening silence as Antonio gazed intently at the painting as if he were at a gallery and not standing in her very private rooms. Say something! She berated herself for letting him come in. She was normally fanatical about her privacy, but when he’d been lounging in her doorway looking so big and sexy … something inside her had weakened. Something wild and wanton had risen. Like the other night.
She never even allowed the hotel staff to come into this suite of rooms, cleaning them herself—she had that phobia of someone rearranging things while she was out.
The conversation they’d just had over dinner had made something indefinable change within her though. Some defence she’d been clinging to was shakier, weaker. Pathetically, she’d gone from coldly declaring, No, to standing aside to let him in within seconds. This man who threatened her on so many levels.
Orla felt completely exposed and vulnerable now. She folded her arms across her chest. Her voice was tight. ‘I think we can assume I’m safe now.’
Antonio’s big body went still. He slowly turned around to face her, gazed down at her. Orla stopped breathing and went hot all over. He was so big.
He was also the epitome of elegant masculinity in his dark suit and light grey open-necked shirt. On the surface. But just below that, Orla sensed the danger oozing from every gorgeous pore. He really looked about as urbane as a wild panther prowling the city streets.
She went distinctly wobbly as he closed the distance between them. He lifted his hands and she only realised what he was doing when she felt her hair fall down around her shoulders. Pinprick needles of sensations exploded all over her body.
Ineffectually she put up her hands. ‘Wait, what are you doing?’
Antonio’s eyes glittered darkly. Orla saw him casually throw the pin that had been holding her hair up onto a nearby chair.
‘What I want to do,’ he said in that deep rough voice, ‘is make love to you. Because you’ve been torturing me for days. Because I don’t think I can walk out that door again without touching you first….’
His face tightened. ‘But if you don’t want this, say it now, Orla, because this is the only chance you have to say no.’
Orla gulped. Her whole body resonated with his words, humming with anticipation, but some remnant of her defensive shield was still in place. Not yet smashed to pieces by this man. If she said yes to this … it was huge. The other night had been an aberration, a moment out of time. They’d been strangers. But this decision would be taken in all consciousness, knowing exactly who he was. She could barely contemplate the significance or the potential fallout. She shook her head even though it felt like the hardest thing in the world.
‘No,’ she whispered with little conviction, ‘I don’t want this.’
Antonio’s face went even tighter. He was shutting down, closing off. Orla had a vision of seeing him tomorrow after the inevitable sleepless night she was about to endure. She could already feel the frustration clawing at her insides, her body rejecting her words. And once again all other concerns were fading fast into the background.
Antonio was stepping back and already she felt even that distance like a gulf of gigantic proportions. He turned around and something in Orla rose up, something wild and visceral and feral. That rejection of her own words, so strong now that she couldn’t ignore it. Still, he was almost at the door before she could let it out and it emerged like a raw cry. ‘Stop!’