she wondered. But did it really matter? She tried her best to stop her gaze from traveling from Antonio’s sensual lips down to the small V of skin exposed at his shirt collar, but her eyes went there anyway.
Just then the bartender reappeared, placing the club soda in front of Kenzie.
“What can I get for you, Antonio?” he asked. Kenzie raised an eyebrow. Was he a regular at a hotel bar? That was a definite red flag. What kind of business was he involved in anyway?
“The Atlantico Reserva, neat. Thank you, Jose. And for you?” he said, turning to Kenzie. “Something besides the water?”
“I’m good with this,” Kenzie said, pursing her red lips around the straw and taking a long sip. She felt Antonio watching her mouth and suddenly felt downright pornographic. Removing the straw from her mouth, she smiled. “I don’t drink.”
She said it offhandedly, disguising the fact that her choice to abstain was a heavy subject. Three years earlier, Cole had been at the wheel in a drunk driving accident. When Cole didn’t survive, she had stopped drinking alcohol, thinking that it could do no good in her life.
Antonio raised an eyebrow and smiled back at her. “So, what do you do to relax? When you’re not ‘on business’?”
Kenzie thought for a second and realized she couldn’t remember a time in recent years when she wasn’t totally consumed with her business. It was the most important thing in her life now, and ever since she had found out the studio was in danger of closing, she’d had trouble sleeping. Maybe some relaxation would be just the thing to set her mind straight.
Kenzie turned her body toward Antonio’s so that her bare knee grazed the inside of his leg. “I own a yoga studio. So, I guess you could say my work is my relaxation. Do you practice?”
Antonio’s eyes lit up and he laughed loudly. “Uh, no. I prefer other forms of physical activity.”
Who was this guy? On the one hand, his smile was so warm and inviting, she felt like she already knew him. But then there was that glint in his eye, and the way he commanded the room that suggested to her that he was someone very powerful, and quite possibly, dangerous. In any case, he was oh so different from the gentle, overly-intellectual men who tried to court her back home. Antonio was such a...man!
Falling back to the hair-twirling habit that manifested itself whenever she was nervous, Kenzie twisted her hair up to the top of her head and formed a makeshift bun and exhaled deeply. Was the air-conditioning out of whack or was she just not used to all this intense heat?
Unexpectedly, Antonio reached his fingers into her glass and fished out an ice cube. Taking the slippery cube between two of his manly fingers, he reached around Kenzie and began to trace circles with it at the base of her neck.
“Better?” he asked, maintaining direct eye contact with her as droplets of water melted down her back.
“Oh yes,” Kenzie whispered. Emboldened by his move, she leaned closer to him. “Maybe I could show you some yoga poses, I’m sure you could benefit from them.”
Antonio leaned toward her, matching her body language. They were so close that she could breathe in his scent—a mixture of fresh cologne and sweat that nearly made her swoon, making the hairs on her arms stand up on end and sending electric signals straight down to her lady parts.
“I would like that very much,” Antonio said in a low, husky voice. Kenzie glanced down at his crotch and could see that he was feeling the same shock waves, too. Part of her wanted to reach out and put her hand on that sexy bulge, right there in the bar, but propriety, and the nearby table of vacationing senior citizens, stopped her.
“Should we go to my room?” Even though she was usually confident, Kenzie surprised herself with how forward she was being. Maybe being away from home was making her feel especially free.
“Yes,” Antonio responded immediately. There was an urgency to his tone that was both flattering and vulnerable.
Kenzie slid off the bar stool and tossed a bill onto the bar. As she turned and strode confidently toward the elevators, she could feel the tender area between her thighs getting wetter with every step. It had been a long time since it had happened spontaneously, and the sensation surprised her. Without needing to turn around, she could feel that Antonio was following close behind.
Pressing the up button a few more times than was necessary, Kenzie imagined stepping inside the elevator with Antonio, and thought about what he would do to her. Envisioning him pushing her up onto the side of the wall, his mouth devouring her lips and neck, she teetered on her high heels, praying for the moment when the doors would finally open.
As they did, Kenzie was dismayed to see a large family crowding the small elevator car. When they didn’t exit, she stepped inside, disappointed to see that Antonio was separated from her, forced next to the opposite wall by the family’s gargantuan stroller. Antonio made eye contact with her and shrugged. After what seemed like an eternity, the car stopped on Kenzie’s floor, and they politely excused themselves past the vacationers, alone at last in the deserted hallway.
“It’s right over here,” Kenzie whispered, leading the way to her room. Part of her wanted to turn around and let Antonio take her, right there by the ice machine, but the good girl inside her told her to wait. With Antonio so close behind her, she could feel his hot breath on her neck, she keyed into the room and he followed her inside, letting the door click shut behind them.
Turning to face him, Kenzie wrapped her arms around Antonio’s neck, bringing her mouth up close to his in a dizzying haze of anticipation.
“Wait,” he whispered, breaking the spell and pulling back from her. “I thought you were going to show me your yoga.”
Kenzie tilted her head to the side in confusion. “You want me to do yoga? Seriously?”
But Antonio didn’t need to answer. She could tell by the way he was assessing her form that he was totally serious.
“Okay.” She shrugged, moving away from him. If this was what he considered foreplay... “Get down on all fours.”
Antonio laughed, but then he removed his shoes and suit jacket and did what she told him to. Kenzie assessed the muscles of his back, visible through his T-shirt, and his firm ass through those tight-fitting jeans before getting down on the floor next to him.
“Follow me,” she said, leading him through a cat-cow sequence. “Arch your body up—like a cat. Then open your heart forward...”
Kenzie turned to see that Antonio not only had perfect form, but he was syncing his breath with hers. She looked straight ahead, pushing out her chest and could feel Antonio’s gaze wandering toward her ass, which she knew was on display with her dress riding up, exposing it to his view. When pushed back like that, it took on its roundest possible shape.
As she continued the sequence, Antonio moved in front of her. When she tilted her gaze up to meet his, she could see the unbridled desire in his eyes.
“I have to kiss you now,” he said, pulling her up toward him. They were facing one another, both on their knees, and Antonio grazed the side of Kenzie’s neck. His mouth was wet and hot, and the sudden contact sent a shiver running through her body. Hungrily, she moved her mouth to meet his and instantly they were locked onto each other, a swirl of tongues meeting, taking turns playfully biting each other’s lips as they gasped for breath. It was so crazy that she was doing this with someone she’d just met. Kenzie couldn’t remember the last time she had felt such a sense of urgency. She glided her hand down the length of Antonio’s body until she found the hard bulge in the front of his pants and tentatively began to touch it.
Meanwhile, Antonio was doing some exploring of his own, his hands going down the curves of Kenzie’s body, awakening something inside her that she had been ignoring for too long. With a look of confidence that made her head dizzy with desire, Antonio pulled Kenzie’s dress up and over her head, and began kissing her naked breasts. Kenzie threw her head back and closed her eyes, savoring the moment and really