Seducing Her Rival by Seleste deLaney

lips. “I’m…”
    “Do not say you’re sorry.”
    His lips quirked to the side—he was starting to really love the fire residing inside Mercedes. “I wasn’t going to. I’m not sure what it is about you, but I’m not sure I’m going to last much longer than last time.”
    Her nails dug into the bed again, and judging by the blazing red scratches on her chest, it was a good thing too. “I loved last time. But if you’re truly worried, please, fuck me hard until you can’t. Then we can do it again and again until you feel you’ve performed adequately, but you are killing me .”
    Lucas hadn’t meant to make her beg again, but damn it sounded good coming from her lips. Too good. “As the lady wishes.”
    Gripping her hips, he slammed into her over and over. She wrapped her free leg around him, pulling him closer. Her nails dragged along his chest, digging in as she came again. The pain kept him focused, watching as her face flushed with pleasure. More. He wanted more of that. He thrust into her again, savoring every inch of contact as her heat washed over him. Mercedes started gasping, her glorious breasts heaving beneath him. Lucas managed to hold on until the moment she screamed his name. That sound pushed him beyond the brink and he came so explosively he saw stars. Her muscles contracting as her own orgasm took hold, Mercedes milked his cock until there was nothing left.
    He collapsed next to her on the bed, and she bent the leg he’d had extended the whole time, wincing slightly. “If you want me to pretend to be a gymnast, amado , let me know ahead of time so I can stretch.” Abandoning the leg, she rolled toward him, nuzzling his neck.
    Sated, at least for the moment, Lucas ran his fingers through her hair, wondering how he’d been so lucky as to crash into her before she became lost in the throngs of passengers. She was exactly what he needed right now—all heat and passion and no promises of anything beyond the moment. Then he frowned slightly. “You’ve called me that word twice now. I don’t know what it means.”
    “ Amado ?” she asked as she kissed his neck.
    He nodded, trying to focus on her words instead of her magical lips. “Yeah. I learned Japanese and Mandarin for business and a smattering of German for financial things, but I know pretty much zero Spanish.”
    She kept kissing him for a while before answering and he almost forgot what he’d asked. “It means crazy man with more money than sense, but I usually just say amado because it’s shorter.”
    It sounded like a lie, but as her teeth nipped at his collarbone, he decided he didn’t care. She could lie as much as she wanted. It wasn’t exactly like he’d been completely forthcoming; she deserved her secrets, even if they were silly ones. After all, it wasn’t like this was anything more than a vacation fling. “From you, I’ll consider it a term of endearment.”
    She laughed. “Take me again before dawn and I might end up giving you a pet name in English just to shake things up.”
    Never one to ignore a challenge, he made sure they christened the Jacuzzi next. They wound up in the bubbles after, talking about everything and nothing—music, dreams, the sea, the charity she worked for—lingering until the first rays of sunlight kissed the horizon.
    Considering their shared obsession with helping children—not to mention their love of classic rock, ethnic food, and animals—it seemed like she was his kindred spirit in more than just physical ways. It honestly surprised him that they hadn’t crossed paths before now, either at one of the smaller, family-run eateries he liked to frequent when he was alone or even more so through her work with the charity.
    New York City was big, but it wasn’t always that big to someone who had spent his whole life there. And certainly he would have remembered if he’d seen someone as stunning as Mercedes.
    As they’d drifted off later, the name Better Todays kept ringing