Undisclosed Desires (3 page)

“There’s a price to cooperation,” he said
with a husky tone. “A kiss.”

“That’s not a good idea,” she said, taking
in a raspy breath.

“Just one,” he pleaded, opening his eyes.
Their hazel depths bewitched her.

“Okay,” she conceded, and then bent back
to quickly peck his lips with hers. “You’ve had your kiss, now let me up.”

“That’s not a kiss,” he complained. “This
is a kiss.” While his right hand continued to pluck at her nipple, his left
came up, and with his palm against her cheek, he brought both her face and
upper body around. Then the tip of his tongue carefully licked at the line of
her lips right before his mouth met hers.

Quivering, Grace couldn’t help opening her
lips to his insistent mouth, allowing his tongue to slide inside. Antonio’s
lips devoured her as his tongue penetrated, stroked and probed. Soon, her
answering tongue tangled with his as her mouth matched his hungry assault. One
of her hands clutched at his head, her fingers buried in his hair. She ground
her bottom against his hardness. Antonio groaned into her mouth and a tremor
went through him. If anything, he grew harder.

He broke their kiss. “Inside you,” he
breathed. “I have to be inside you. Now.” His mouth took hers again. The hand
at her breast left and went to her knee, stroking up her thigh, pushing under
the hem.

Pulling away briefly, she choked out,
“Yes.”

Wiggling, she managed to hike up her dress
as he fumbled at his zipper.

“Damn,” he swore, and then she heard the
zipper give way and felt him reach inside. Finally, his length sprang free of
the fabric and pushed against her cleft impeded only by the silk bikini panties
she wore.

Antonio leaned them both forward in order
to drape her over his glass-top coffee table. Both of them tore at her panties
until they were down over her bottom and half down her thighs. Leaning forward
until the head of his penis tantalized her, Grace panted. “Oh Antonio.”

Before the sound of the last word had
faded, he impaled her, driving into her core. With the panties still at her
thighs, she felt incredibly tight and he impossibly big as he pushed to the
hilt and she felt the tip of him at her innermost recesses.

One hand levered on the coffee table beside
hers, and she felt the other caress her belly before his fingers inched
downward to play with her. He moved his powerful body, recoiling only to plunge
relentlessly in again. Driving her ever closer to climax. Her core tightened
into a coil. Her knees weakened and dizziness swept through her. Just as she
thought the pleasurable pain of it was too much to bear, she convulsed. The
tight coil released and ripples of carnal delight rolled through her. Antonio
bucked against her three more times before his own release came and she felt
his semen spurt inside her.

He collapsed against her back, and Grace
felt the edge of the table bite into her belly. But even with that small
discomfort, the weight of him and his warmth along her body delighted her. So
when he pulled himself out of her and sat back, she almost groaned with
disappointment.

Grace sat up also, pushing her dress over
her thighs to hide her bare butt, and pulled up her panties. She pushed at the
hair sticking to her damp forehead and tried to regain her breath. Grace forced
away all rational thought. She just couldn’t bear to…She started to stand but
her legs were still shaky, and she wondered whether they would hold her up let
alone allow her to walk out the door. But before she could test the issue,
Antonio stood and kicked off his pants.

He grabbed Grace from behind and pulled
her to her feet. “We have more kissing to do,” he said as he strode into the
bedroom, dragging her behind him.

“Oh really,” she said with a smile. Once
they were beside the bed, he pushed her down crosswise along the foot.

“Yes.” His answering smirk was saucy. “You
have no idea how many parts of you I intend to kiss before this night is over.”

Grace definitely wanted to find out.

But by the next morning, doubts assailed
her as she lay beside his snoring form.
Omigod
,
she thought. She’d had sex with Antonio. What did that mean? He seemed to be
into the sex. However, he’d also had a lot to drink. Had he been too drunk to
even know it was her? But then could he really perform like that if he’d been
all that drunk?

Her climaxes—the first and second of
her life—qualified as leg-melting, intense and all-consuming. Draining,
actually. Obviously, Antonio had come too, but the more she thought about it,
the more doubtful it seemed to her that this interlude had been anything
special for him. So, Grace had slid out from under him, praying her movements
wouldn’t awaken him. Once she rose from the bed, there had been the job of
finding her clothes and dressing. She managed to get out the door with enough
clothes on to prevent arrest if she was stopped while driving home.

The next day, Sunday, Grace’s nerves
hovered on the edge of fractured. Each time the cell phone rang, she leaped to
examine its face. But Antonio didn’t call. He didn’t email. He didn’t contact
her in any way. By Monday morning she’d been a wreck, certain she’d not only
made a fool of herself by falling into bed—and onto the coffee table
before that—with him, but she’d destroyed their friendship and lost the only
real contact she could have with him.

When he’d arrived at the office, Antonio
had knocked on her closed office door, opened it and stuck his head around the
corner.

“Hey, bud,” he’d said, nothing in his
expression betraying any recollection of their interlude. “Are we on for lunch
today?”

“Yeah,” she’d said after a moment of
confusion. “Sure. Meet you at the elevators at noon.”

“Great,” he said, slapping the doorframe.
“I always need to eat a lot to get rid of a hangover and I’m still dealing with
a doozy from Saturday.”

“You did seem to be drunker than I’ve ever
seen you,” she offered tentatively.

“I can’t remember a thing after the third
beer, but I’m assuming you got me home,” he said with an easy smile. “Thanks. I
hope I didn’t cause you any problems.”

“No problems.” Intense relief swept
through her. Antonio didn’t remember anything about her being a fool. Their
friendship wasn’t over.

Not until later did she think about the
real implications of his lack of memory. She really must be a lousy fuck just
as Brad had said. Having sex with her was totally forgettable.

A male bar patron snickered into his glass
of beer as Brad made his accusation. Antonio bristled and opened his mouth to
respond. Grace suspected this would not be pretty, so she interrupted with a
hand to his arm. “No scenes, please,” she whispered to her friend. “Nice seeing
you, Brad, and whatever your name is,” Grace said to her ex and his girl.
“Congrats on your engagement.” She tugged Antonio over to a table in the
corner.

“You should have let me pummel him,”
Antonio grumbled as he sat down.

“He’s not important enough to pummel.”
Grace plopped down onto the chair. “Just forget him.”

“I bet the douchebag came here
deliberately, hoping to find you so he could throw his engagement in your face.”
Antonio scowled. “He knows Finnegan’s is our place.”

The words “our place” tickled her. Grace
and Antonio had a “place” of their own, almost as if they were a couple.

At that moment Javier Garza, Antonio’s
friend, walked through the entrance. A great-looking guy, Javier still couldn’t
match Antonio. Plus, he tended to dress like a nineties grunge rock musician.

“Hey.” Javier greeted them with a wave.
“Can I join you two?”

“I suppose,” Grace agreed with a mock
frown. “If you really have to.”

Javier smiled and slid onto the seat next
to Grace, his shoulder touching hers. “I’ll grow on you…if you let me,” he said
suggestively.

Antonio frowned.

Grace chuckled. “Makes you sound like
mold. Mold isn’t very sexy. Mold makes me sneeze.” She smacked his arm. “Is
that the best line you’ve got tonight?”

“How about moss?” Javier offered instead.
“Moss grows easily and moss can be very soft.”

“Slight improvement,” Grace teased. “But
soft isn’t necessarily good. I don’t think that is going to win the heart of
any of the ladies here tonight.”

“I’m just concerned about one special
lady,” he said.

A laugh broke from Grace. “Sure.”

“So I’ll try to think up something
better…just for you,” Javier whispered in a husky tone into her ear and gave a
little nose nuzzle into her hair.

“Knock it off, man.” Antonio’s grip on his
beer bottle whitened his knuckles. “Grace doesn’t want you mackin on her
tonight.”

“How do you know?” Grace joked. “Maybe I
do.” She gave an exaggerated wink to Javier. “I’m going to the ladies’. Order
me another beer.” She got up and wound her way through the tables to the
restroom. Antonio followed and stopped her with a hand to the arm.

“Stop flirting with Javier,” he said.
She’d never heard him take such an angry tone with her.

“What do you care?”

“He’ll think you’re serious.”

“Maybe I am.” Seeing Brad had raised all
the old feelings about wanting someone in her life. Wanting another human to be
physically close to. The longing for a sexual relationship. And if it couldn’t
be Antonio she had that kind of relationship with, maybe she’d have to settle
for someone else.

“He’s not for you,” Antonio growled, his
fingers pinching her arm.

“Just tonight you said you thought I could
have any man,” Grace reminded him.

“I didn’t mean my friend.” Even with his
olive complexion, a mottled red flush of anger flooded Antonio’s face. “Not
Javier.”

She wasn’t good enough. “Thanks a lot,”
she said, forcing back the tears that sprang to her eyes.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Right.” She jerked away from him and
turned on her heel.

“Where’re you going?” he asked, grabbing
her again.

“To the restroom, if that’s all right with
you.” She pointedly glanced at where his fingers pressed into her arm.
Antonio’s gaze went to the spot also, and he released her immediately. “When I
get back, we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.” She continued away,
finally pushing through the swinging door to sanctuary.

Inside, she recomposed herself. For a
minute, she stared into the mirror. A splash or two of water cooled her
reddened cheeks. After a quick repair of her makeup, she took a long breath in
and blew a long breath out. Grace squared her shoulders and walked back into
the bar.

When she returned, Antonio and Javier
stood at the bar, waiting to order. She approached but stopped short when she
heard their conversation.

“Come on! Grace is hot, buddy,” Javier
said.

“I said no,” Antonio replied.

“Are you saying you want her?”

“No.” Antonio’s tone was harsh. “I’m
saying she’s my friend.”

His words were like a machete slicing
through her belly. She’d known he didn’t find her attractive, but having it so
bluntly thrown in her face was a dagger to the heart.

“I’ve waited months for you to make a move
and you haven’t. So, by bro rules, you have no claim to protect. She’s not your
territory,” Javier said. “If you don’t want to hit it, don’t try to cock block
me.”

“I don’t want to hit it?” Antonio yelled.
“I
have
hit it, so back off. She’s
out of your league.”

“You screwed her and didn’t go back for
seconds?” Javier whistled. “Still, I’d like to find out for myself if she’s a
bad lay.”

Just then Javier glanced over and spotted
her. His face blanched. At his expression, Antonio spun around.

“Grace, I—”

“You have hit it?” she asked. “You
remember?” Whirling around, she bolted away from them and toward the door.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she fought to keep them from falling as she
strode, carrying the last shred of her dignity. Antonio did remember, but it
had been so bad he didn’t want to acknowledge it? Pain. Everything was lost.
The knowledge of the impossibility of any further friendship between them rose
in her throat like bile and she choked it down.

With the exit door within reach, she felt
herself seized by the shoulders from behind and turned in one motion. She had a
quick impression of Antonio, his face set in hard lines, before he wrapped his
arms around her in a crushing embrace. His head came down and his mouth pressed
against hers, hungry and insistent. The bar patrons whooped around them. But
the passion of the exchange mocked her. Pity. All pity, she thought.

“I knew it!” a female voice shouted. “I
knew I would find you in this bar.”

Grace pulled away from Antonio’s bruising
kiss. Susie Rayle, Antonio’s girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, stood glaring at
them.

“And I knew I’d find you here with
her
,” Susie said to Antonio. But he
didn’t seem to be listening. He stared at Grace for long seconds before he
blinked and acknowledged Susie.