He pressed a finger to her chin. ‘Show me I’m old news. Don’t react when I kiss you, Phoebe, and I’ll believe you.’
She opened her mouth to protest but he took the opportunity to drop his mouth to hers and kiss her. Oh, she could have pulled away, kneed him in the groin, shoved at his chest, elbowed him in the ribs. When she looked back, she realised he’d deliberately hesitated a few seconds—between laying down the gauntlet and making good his threat, he’d given her time to respond, to push him away. But she hadn’t.
Because even when she knew her body would show her to be a liar, she didn’t—couldn’t—care. She just wanted him to kiss her.
She did her best not to respond as his mouth separated hers and his tongue invaded every single one of her senses. She tried to think cold, practical thoughts as his fingers tangled in the hair at the back of her head. She willed her body to stay completely still, as if frozen, as he pushed himself forward, his large frame easily engulfing her smaller one. And for several long seconds, she managed. She stayed almost limp against him, refused to kiss him back, refused to show that her heart was beginning to pound dangerously fast and her pulse was thready.
But then his knee caught a little between her legs, and the moan that escaped her was impossible to resist. It was like opening the floodgates. All the desire she’d felt and had no place for in the last five weeks suddenly went from gas to flame, and her whole body was alight with passionate wants. They stirred in her belly and spread throughout, so not only was she kissing him back, her hands were roaming his body, separating his shirt from his trousers and lifting it so she could touch the warm flesh of his bare back.
‘I hate you.’ She groaned against him, though she wasn’t sure if that was true. She hated Christopher, and how he’d made her feel, and she hated that Octavio had unwittingly found thatold emotional injury and reinflamed it, proving that she wasn’t anywhere near healed yet. Maybe she never would be.
‘But you want me,’ he said, moving his kiss to her throat, flicking the pulse point there with his tongue, which he clearly knew drove her wild. ‘And that’s the most important thing.’
‘Is it?’ She tilted her head back to give him better access.
‘Oh, absolutely,querida.It’s all that matters.’ And then he was cupping her breasts and the last vestiges of thought dispersed so she was just a quivering mass, his to do with what he would. And he understood that moment of surrender. It was as though she were a book and he could read her just perfectly. He pushed her shirt over her head, growling when he realised she wore no bra, but not hesitating before taking one of her nipples into his mouth and rolling it mercilessly, until she was incandescent. He moved a hand down her belly, finding the fastening to her jeans and pushing it open so that he could slide his hand into her underpants and brush her sex. She whimpered; he moved his mouth to absorb the sound, kissing her while his other hand turned its attention to her breast, squeezing the nipple that was already oversensitive.
‘Please,’ she groaned. ‘God, please.’
His response was a gruff sound of surrender and then he was stripping them both of their clothes with an efficiency Phoebe couldn’t have managed, given how badly her hands were shaking. Naked, he lifted her easily, wrapping her legs around his waist, so his arousal was nestled between the cheeks of her bottom. She rolled her hips, silently inviting, needing, desperately hungry for him. He made a deep sound of understanding and strode through the apartment, his lips seeking hers as he walked.
‘Where?’ he grunted.
She pointed to her bedroom door. Octavio shouldered it open and dropped her to the bed, his eyes firing to hers as he rippedopen a condom she hadn’t even realised he’d brought with them. Then again, in his position, he couldn’t exactly take chances, and God knew she didn’t want to run that risk either.
He unfurled it over his length and then he was moving over her, pushing inside of her, and she cried out at the sheer relief her body felt to have him filling her once more. The world seemed to stop spinning and every noise silenced, so there was only the solid racing of their hearts.
‘Octavio…’ She said his name long and slow, like a prayer that had been answered, and then she said nothing else, because he moved in such a way that made her body come alive and rendered her mouth mute—save for the little moans of ecstasy that escaped without her knowledge.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHENTHEDUSTsettled and her breathing returned to normal—though pleasure was still a fog wrapping around her body—sanity began to return, and Phoebe was nervous.
Nervous because she’d let this happen again, even after the way he’d been, last time. Nervous because he might treat her like that again, and if he did, what did that mean for her decision-making?
She’d come here to find her father, but also to grieve and move forward from the Christopher debacle. She needed to heal, to find peace and to reassure herself that she was capable of exercising some solid judgement with men. But wasn’t this falling into the same trap? Being so blinded by desire that she couldn’t think straight?
Well, if he thought he could just come to her apartment for sex and then leave again, he had another think coming. She wasn’t going to lie there, waiting for him to make her feel worthless. If anyone was going to get up and leave, it would be her.
Despite the fact that her bones were heavy and her muscles like liquid, thanks to the pleasure he’d lavished on her, and despite the fact she liked how it felt to lie right there, cradled to his side, she quickly jerked away, turning her back on him before standing and going to her chest of drawers. She pulled out a summery dress and yanked it over her head, not worrying about underwear, before turning to face him. ‘Do you need anythingelse?’ She crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring the look of wry amusement on his face.
How dare he?
‘We still have a conversation to get through.’
Pink bloomed in her cheeks. ‘I can’t see that we have anything to talk about.’
‘Really? Would you like another demonstration?’
She bit down into her lower lip and refrained—just—from telling him that maybe she would. ‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
He sat up a little straighter, the sheet draped over his lap. Her sheet. Would she ever wash it again? She banished the errant thought, narrowing her gaze.
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘I’m glad to hear you say that.’ He nodded slowly, as if that had been exactly what he wanted to hear. ‘How would you feel about coming to a sort of arrangement?’
