The Acostas Box Set. Susan Stephens

she demanded fiercely, making it sound like a challenge as she locked her hands behind his head.

      A challenge? This was a pleasure. The kiss was long and hot and deep. She tasted warm and sweet, and fiercely female. There was nothing girlie, soft, or vulnerable about Holly now. This was an equal match between a woman intent on claiming her mate, and a man who rejoiced in her strength as he lifted her.

      She had never done anything remotely like this before—had never clawed at a man’s clothes, hungry to feel his naked body hard against her. There was nothing delicate or tender happening here. She was burning up from the inside out.

      Buttons from her pyjama top flew across the kitchen and skittered across the floor as she yanked Ruiz’s top over his head. He only paused briefly to protect them both, and then he took over, resting her on the side as he pushed the top from her shoulders and the pyjama pants from her legs. His clothes dropped to the floor. Excited sounds escaped her lips. Ruiz’s naked torso was stronger, harder, warmer, more beautiful than even she had imagined. The wide spread of his muscular shoulders was enough to turn her on, but it was the look in his eyes that really did it for her, because that promised more excitement than she had ever known. Holding Ruiz’s darkening gaze, she traced the pattern of muscle and sinew from his breastbone to his shoulder, then down over his biceps to his forearms, and on to his hands and the lean, elegant fingers. ‘Now,’ she whispered urgently.

      He brushed his mouth against her lips—a promise that wasn’t enough for her now. ‘Don’t tease me,’ she warned him. But he did, brushing his lips and his stubble against her neck and her cheek, and then her lips, promising, always promising, yet pulling away before she could taste him. He repeated this until her body was a furnace and she was wild for him.

      As Holly pressed herself against him he tested her and found her ready. He still took his time, teasing her for as long as he had with kisses. She moaned with need when he gave her the tip and then exclaimed with disappointment when he took it away again. She shivered and opened herself more for him, pressing her thighs back as he touched her, crying when he paused. He dipped again, a little deeper this time, and then retreated. She was so moist, so warm, so completely ready for him, but even with the thought of that tight wet grip waiting to claim him banging at his brain he knew it would be better for her if he made her wait.

      ‘I can’t stand this,’ she raged in a shaking voice.

      ‘You have to,’ he whispered. ‘It will be all the better for it—’

      ‘Really?’ she exclaimed, and, arching forward without warning, she took him. She took him. He gasped and shuddered with surprise, slammed by an overload of sensation. ‘Steady,’ he cautioned as her fingers bit into his buttocks. ‘If you do that,’ he warned as she bucked and arced against him, ‘it will all be over too soon—’

      She ignored him. Screaming out his name, she plunged headlong into the first climax. It was a battle to hold her in place as she thrust her hips frantically to claim each wave of pleasure as it hit her. ‘You’re so big,’ she groaned with satisfaction as the storm subsided.

      ‘I aim to please,’ he managed to say wryly, keeping up a steady rhythm until she was ready to start again. ‘I trust that wasn’t a complaint,’ he added in a husky whisper against her mouth, unable to resist the temptation to kiss her again.

      ‘A complaint?’ she murmured when he released her. ‘I trust that was just a sample?’

      He laughed. She was ready for more and this time she didn’t want any distractions. Taking him in an even firmer hold, she ground out, ‘Don’t tease me—Don’t wait—Don’t stop—’

      ‘You’re incredible,’ he said. And it was true. He’d met his match.

      They feasted on each other, and neither of them tired. He persuaded her to hold her thighs back so he could increase her pleasure. It was then he discovered that she loved to watch. ‘You’re quite something,’ he murmured, accommodating that wish too. Arranging her comfortably with one leg over his shoulder and one tiny foot on the counter, he worked steadily to keep her hovering on the edge, but this was the hottest woman he’d ever known. Could he hold on? ‘I’ll tell you when,’ he instructed, staring deep into her eyes.

      Her retaliation was swift and fierce, ‘Don’t make me wait,’ she warned him. ‘Don’t you dare make me wait—’

      ‘Now,’ he commanded, taking her with a firm, deep thrust. The sound of her voice—the language she used—all of it increased his pleasure tenfold and this time they rode the storm together, inventing a new erotic dictionary along the way.

      They must have been unconscious for a few moments, Holly thought as she slowly came round to find Ruiz resting against her, breathing steadily, still holding her safe in his arms.

      ‘What?’ he murmured, raising his head to look at her.

      A sudden rush of doubt swept through her at the thought of what they’d done. Without the same hunger driving her she had too much time to think.

      ‘Holly?’ Ruiz prompted, sensing the change in her.

      ‘Nothing,’ she said. But there was something wrong, and they both knew it. A game that had started out so innocently had turned into something so much more.

      ‘Do you regret it?’ Ruiz asked with concern.

      ‘No, of course not.’ Reaching up, she closed her eyes and kissed him, but the doubts refused to go away.

      ‘You’re not frightened of me, are you?’ Ruiz demanded softly when they broke apart.

      Nothing could be further from the truth. She wasn’t frightened of Ruiz. She was frightened of her feelings for him.

      Cupping her chin so she couldn’t avoid his gaze, Ruiz demanded, ‘Is there someone else?’

      That was so ridiculous she laughed. ‘There’s no one else,’ she exclaimed. But Ruiz was partly right, even if he was wholly wrong. She was completely here in the moment with him, but the past couldn’t be erased, and she couldn’t forget that when her ex had come on the scene she had been so grateful, so thrilled by the attention he lavished on her, she had fallen for it—for him—to the extent that she would have trusted him with her life. Fortunately, she had only trusted him with her bank card, but her small pot of savings had disappeared just the same. No wonder she doubted her own judgment now.

      Ruiz eased her carefully down, making sure she was steady on her feet before he let her go. ‘Forget him,’ he said in a voice she had never heard him use before. ‘Whoever he was he can’t hurt you now. I won’t let anyone hurt you, Holly. You have to learn from the past and move on. Don’t you think you can? Why not? When we first met you weren’t sure you could make it as a journalist, but look at you now. Where has that woman gone?’

      ‘On permanent vacation?’ She smiled wryly to make light of it, but Ruiz wasn’t in the mood for a joke and told her so. ‘It’s time to give yourself a break, Holly.’

      ‘And it’s time you stopped being kind to me for your sister’s sake,’ she fired back, knowing even as she said it that she was allowing the past to spoil things for her.

      ‘You think I’m being kind to you?’ Ruiz said.

      ‘What can I think when you’ve already told me that being kind to me for Lucia’s sake is what you feel obliged to do?’

      ‘You’re twisting my words. You should have more confidence in yourself Holly.’

      She dragged in a shuddering breath as Ruiz’s lips brushed her cheek and then her neck, and finally her mouth. She wanted nothing more than to believe him.

      ‘You’re still too serious,’ he said, drawing back to look at her, but then his wicked mouth tugged in a smile, ‘and here was me thinking I had done everything possible to make you smile.’

      She huffed and relaxed a little. Everything they had shared was reflected in Ruiz’s eyes. It was both arousing and terrifying.