Rival's Challenge. Эбби Грин

considering this was the boldest thing she’d ever done in her life.

      ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

CHAPTER TWO

      I’M HERE, AREN’T I? The sparky husky words washed over and through Antonio, ratcheting up the exquisite knife-edge of arousal in his body. He’d never been brought so close to the edge before, when he’d barely touched this woman!

      For a split second something inside him contracted when he realised just how far out of his zone of control he already was, but he couldn’t focus on it. All he could see was this woman’s, Kate’s, mouth, plump and kissable.

      He put his hands on the door over her head, caging her in slightly, angling his body forward. She was looking up at him, eyes huge. Lashes long and dark.

      ‘Take down your hair.’ He wanted to see it fall around her shoulders.

      After a slight hesitation she lifted her hand and huffed slightly. ‘Has anyone told you you’re awfully bossy?’

      Antonio’s mouth quirked when he thought of the platoons of elite soldiers he’d commanded. ‘Frequently.’

      She pulled at something and then her hair was falling down in soft silken skeins around her shoulders, its colour vivid even in the dim light. Antonio dropped a hand and took some strands between his fingers. He’d never felt anything so fine, so soft. A dim and distant damaged reflex of his memory wanted to break this moment apart but he wouldn’t let it rise. He utilised the exercises that had brought him back from the brink of madness and focused on her, on her smell. Musk and roses. All at once ethereal and earthy.

      Unable to resist the torture any longer, he let her hair slide through his hand and trailed his fingers across the delicate line of her jaw. He saw the pulse quicken at the base of her neck and felt his body throb in response.

      Tipping her chin up with only the slightest of pressure from his fingers, he dropped his head and his mouth touched hers. Sensations exploded behind his eyes. Hers were still open too, dark blue. He’d noticed that in the lift. Like dark violets. Emitting a growl at his own restraint which was barely hanging on by a thread, he closed his eyes and deepened the kiss, feeling that lush mouth soften even more under his, opening to him, inviting a deeper intimacy.

      When their tongues touched it was like an electric shock. He felt small hands reach out to grab his shirt; his chest shuddered at even that fleeting touch. Unable to hold back from what he’d wanted to do all evening, Antonio dropped his other hand and found the gap in the front of Kate’s dress. He slid his hand in and cupped her bare breast, feeling the hard nub scrape his palm, and he felt feral with need, cupping, squeezing that flesh, fingers pinching at the peak, making it harder. Her skin was like silk. Warm and soft.

      Through the roaring of blood in his head, he could feel her body moving closer to his, hear her moans coming from deep within her. He caught her round the waist with his arm; she felt tiny and fragile and it called to something deeply masculine within him, a primal part that had gone long unused. The material of her dress was slippery and he pulled her into him, against where his flesh was so stiff and hard.

      Orla dragged her mouth from Marco’s and gazed into glittering eyes. She was breathing hard. She was plastered against him, on tiptoe, and she could feel him, long and hard and thick, against her belly. Her mind blanked. She knew he was a big man. But he felt huge. An explosion of damp heat made her even wetter.

      He was breathing harshly too, his chest moving rapidly. His hand was still on her breast.

      Feeling completely wanton, Orla got out roughly, ‘I want to see you.’ She could give orders too.

      Marco drew his hand out from under her dress and Orla had to bite her lip not to grab his hand and put it back on her hot flesh. Slowly he started to undo his buttons and Orla’s eyes followed their progress as his chest was slowly revealed bit by bit. Her eyes widened when he pulled his shirt off completely and it fell to the floor.

      Magnificent was too banal a word for the perfection in front of her. He was a warrior. Surely descended from ancient warriors. His chest was massive. Rock-hard. Muscles clearly delineated and rippling. Dark hair dusted his pectorals and descended in a line under the belt of his trousers. Orla’s gaze dropped farther and she saw the bulge pushing against the material. She gulped.

      ‘Now you,’ came the throaty command.

      Orla looked up again. Mouth dry, she reached behind her for the small button at the top of the back of her dress. She released it and held the dress in place for a moment before taking a deep breath and letting it fall forward and down, held in place now only by the belt.

      Marco’s gaze felt hot on her skin. Her breast that he’d touched still throbbed.

      ‘You’re so beautiful.’ He reached out a hand and traced the aureole of her other breast with a finger. Orla bit back a groan, her eyes closing because it was sensory overload to take in both the sight of him and the feel of him. Her skin puckered tight.

      And then her eyes flew open and she gasped with shock when she felt the hot sucking heat of his mouth. Orla’s hand went to his head, fingers stabbing deep into thick hair. His skull was hard and his mouth was pure wicked torture. She sagged back against the door, her legs increasingly shaky.

      ‘Marco …’ she panted. ‘I don’t think I can keep standing.’

      Her legs were wobbling in earnest now. He lifted his mouth off her breast and she cursed her weakness. But then he straightened and scooped her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. She put her hand to his chest, the muscles bunching and moving under her palm. For a woman who prided herself on being strong and authoritative, being held like this struck at that deep feminine chord within her.

      He carried her in through the suite to the bedroom where one small lamp was on by the bed. Orla noticed stuff around the place—books, clothes—but she barely took it in; the strength and power in the body that held her was awesome. She faintly wondered if he might be an athlete.

      Marco put her down on the bed and trailed his hands down her legs, slipping her shoes off so they fell on the floor with a soft thud. Then those hands came back up her legs and he pushed them apart, standing between them, at the edge of the bed.

      Orla’s breath quickened. His hands were on her thighs now, huge. His thumbs climbing higher and higher to where her body would tell him just how badly she wanted him too.

      She felt embarrassed by what her body was about to reveal. Impetuously she said, ‘Don’t!’

      He stopped. ‘Don’t what?’

      Orla turned her head away, desire thick in her body, but feeling exposed in a way she’d never felt before. No man had ever made her feel this out of control.

      In a small voice she said, ‘I don’t want you to know….’

      ‘Know what?’

      She looked back at him, the words trembling on her lips—how much I want you—but she held them back, saying instead, huskily, ‘I don’t even know you.’

      Marco’s hands didn’t move. He just stared at her in the dim light and then presciently answered her unspoken words. ‘I know…. It’s the same for me.’

      He took his hands off her thighs and immediately Orla wanted them back on her. Instead they were on his belt and he was opening it, sliding it through the buckle with a sibilant hiss of leather through fabric. Now he was opening his trousers, hands disappearing under the waist, pushing them down, taking his briefs with them.

      All the breath in Orla’s body seemed to disappear as she took him in. Massive and aroused. Moisture beading at the tip of his erection.

      ‘See …’ he said with a funny tight quality to his voice, ‘how much I want you? It’s mutual.’

      He