“But what about—”
“Nina, stop.” His rebuke was short and curt. It sliced through my attempt to speak like a machete. “I told you. I have to account for every source of information I have. I probably shouldn’t have even asked you about this Kate character. If I report that you told me this information in confidence, I have to explain the nature of our…relationship…” He looked at me sadly, almost as if that was exactly what he wanted to do. “But if I do that, I’ll almost certainly get tossed off the case, and there is no one else who can pursue it. We literally only just brought my boss in on this, and it’s been almost a year. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”
I did. Of course I did. We had been over it so many times.
I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I was back in that office, so long ago. I was looking at the papers, staring at my signature. Watching the chains of this life wrap around me in an iron cocoon.
Matthew was certain this was the only way for any of us—that meant Olivia and me—to be free of this captor. I’d have to trust him.
I swallowed. “All right. I won’t say anything more.”
Matthew stood there for a moment, rubbing his chin while he thought. “Nina, I—”
“What?” I interrupted.
He looked mournful. Sorrowful. “I know I don’t have a right to ask you this. But can you…if I got you something, is there any way you could access your hus—Calv—Gardner’s cell?” He stumbled over Calvin’s name and title like they put a bad taste in his mouth, practically spitting at the end. “It would be a SIM card, like you put in your phone. Do you think you could manage it?”
I opened my mouth to say no. But the need written clearly across Matthew’s face stopped me.
“Yes,” I said. “I can.”
“And then you’ll get out of town? Unless you want me listening in on you…”
“Won’t they know?” I wondered quietly. “That I’m leaving because of this. Won’t they?”
Matthew’s jaw tightened. “Not if you do it right. I thought you said that you and your husband barely saw each other as it is.”
The defensive note hurt.
“We didn’t,” I reiterated carefully. “Before he was confined to the state, he was barely home.”
“So, maybe your marriage soured a bit with the sudden constant contact,” Matthew volunteered acidly. “You might decide to take Olivia to school and stay for a week or two yourself. I don’t know. Go to a spa or whatever ladies like you do in the mountains.”
I snorted before I could help it. He had no idea how right he was.
“I could go back to school.” I said it before I really thought it. But as soon as it was out, I realized it had been circulating for days. Maybe weeks. Maybe even months.
More, I’d told Jane.
What do you want? she had asked.
It was a question I hadn’t even dared ask myself for ten years—since I had left Wellesley, come back to New York, and walked straight into the clutches of the man who now owned me.
But he wouldn’t for long.
And I needed to reclaim something of myself again. Now…before it was too late.
I looked up. “Do you think that’s ridiculous? I never went back, you know. After I had Olivia.”
Matthew didn’t look surprised.
“I’d be a thirty-year-old junior,” I joked. “Hilarious. They’d all think I was their professor.”
“I think it’s a fuckin’ great idea,” Matthew said softly. “And if it gets you out of New York…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant. All the better. Though being four hours from him, from the possibility of him… That sounded like torture.
“Yes,” I said. “Well. We’ll see. How long is it for?”
“Two weeks.”
“And will you continue after that?”
Matthew shrugged. “If needed. I can’t speak for the NYPD side—unofficially, they do all sorts of surveillance, even if they can’t promise everything will be removed; just that it won’t be used in court.”
I ground my teeth. “And you really don’t think it will be suspicious if I suddenly leave?”
Matthew shoved a hand back through his thick, dark hair. “I don’t—fuck, Nina, even if this tips them off, I just—” He shook his head ruefully. “Would you believe me if I said the idea of one of them spooks seeing you naked makes me want to commit murder myself?”
“I don’t understand,” I burst out. “This is ridiculous. You told me I had to stay in my marriage to keep myself safe, and so I have, and now you’re telling me to leave, but—”
“I said you had to stay married to him, not stay with him,” Matthew snapped.
“So it’s my fault I stayed in my own home? Is that what you’re saying?”
“What? No. Fuck!” Again, his hand shoved through his hair, leaving it standing up slightly in the back. Disturbing his normally impeccable veneer. “Look, I can’t pretend it’s easy to send you back there. It kills me, and you know it! But this—all this—will get you out of it in the end. If—if that’s still what you want.”
“Of course it’s what I want!” I was practically shouting, now. “But I’m not the one making snide jealous comments, Matthew. And I’m not pretending there’s a happy ending for us at the end of this either.”
“Who’s pretending, huh? I never said anything like that.”
“I. Know,” I gritted out. “Believe me, I know. What do you want me to say here?”
Matthew’s jaw quivered. His deep eyes tracked up and down my body once, twice, maybe more. He opened and closed his mouth several times, like he was rehearsing arguments that bubbled to the surface only to be tamped down again.
“Seriously, doll,” he said, more softly now. “What do you want me to say?”
The air between us crackled. I had never wanted to touch him more, but at the same time, my chest was heavy with overwhelming sadness. This is how it would always be. No one would come out of this anything but alone.
He was doing his best.
That was all I could ask of him.
“Nothing,” I said as my heart broke all over again. “Nothing at all.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. Then he opened his mouth to speak.
“Fine,” he said. “I won’t.”
And then he kissed me.
Chapter Twenty
Once again, I kissed him back. I’d always kiss him back; I knew that now. Kissing Matthew was as natural to me as breathing. I couldn’t touch him and not respond. Just like I couldn’t be around him and not love him.
Even so, this was different.
Yes, it had been two months since our meeting at the Grace. Close to a month before that, a similar rendezvous. But this—raw, urgent, unstoppable—in the middle of the woods, where no one would find us and at the same time, anyone could. Somehow, it was completely different.
“I can’t,” he said in between kisses as we stumbled through the dirt and into the solid trunk of my favorite old oak. “Goddammit, Nina, I can’t fucking stop.”
“I know. Oh, God, I know.” My words were whimpers in between starving lunges for his lips, his cheeks, any part of him I could find. It really did feel like, in this moment, I needed him to breathe.
“Wanting you. Loving you. Needing you.” His teeth scraped under my jaw like he was trying to consume me. “Do you understand? It’s ruining me.”
I winced, even as my fingers curled into the slightly damp thickets of his hair. Oh, I understood that too. True, I was ruined in too many ways to count long before I met him. But since that fateful night, I’d become utterly shattered. I didn’t recognize myself anymore.
I was no longer Nina Evelyn Astor de Vries Gardner. In his arms, I was a phantom being, somehow truer than anyone I had ever been, but at the same time, nameless.
I existed simply for this.
His hands slipped past the waistband of my breeches, taking harsh handfuls
of flesh as he twisted us around and backed me up against the tree.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he yanked at the buttons and fly. “Get this off. Get everything off.”
“We shouldn’t,” I whispered even as I helped him, pulling hard enough that I feared I might rip the zipper.
“We must,” Matthew argued back with a groan as his hands found bare skin.
He sank to his knees there on the forest floor, bringing my pants with him until they were piled atop my riding boots. His palms slid up and down my thighs while he pressed his lips to the smooth skin of each and inhaled deeply. The cross and the saint hanging from the chain around his neck clinked lightly.
The first time he had ever done this to me, we were high above the city, protected by the penthouse at the Grace. Since then, a few more times—once at his home, twice more at the Grace. But somehow, it was here, that I was truly in awe.
A man like this.
On his knees.
Like a gesture of prayer. A gesture of worship.
For me.
If I hadn’t been positively enraptured by the sight, I wouldn’t have believed it.
And then, as his tongue flickered between my thighs, I didn’t have time to consider beliefs at all. Desire shot through me like an arrow. I fell back against the old oak, mindless of the bark against my back. Pinioned between the tree and Matthew, I was locked upright while he continued with his work. My fingers twisted through his thick black locks, and I pulled and moaned while he slipped one finger inside me, followed by another.
“Christ, baby”—his voice vibrated against the most sensitive part of me—“you’re soaked.”
His frank observation only made me that much more heated.
One day, I thought, I will worship you like you worship me.
Unlike anything else, I was certain I was up to the task. It felt like the only thing I was put on this earth to do at all.
“Mrs. Gardner?”
We both froze. Matthew stopped his work, and I suddenly felt like the wind had been completely knocked out of me.
From his knees, Matthew looked up at me and mouthed, “Who the fuck is that?”
I twisted so I was looking around the trunk to where Kellan sat atop one of the horses on a trail not twenty feet away. “Oh, hello, Kellan,” I called in a voice just slightly too strained to sound credible.
“Mrs. Gardner?” he called again from the other side of the grove. “Are you all right?”
From his knees, Matthew grinned lasciviously at me. His green eyes twinkled from where he was resting his chin just below my navel. I had never wanted to slap him or kiss him more.
Then, he shocked me even more by slipping his hand between my legs again.
“I—yes,” I creaked over my shoulder. “Just—just taking a moment to myself.”
“Are you stuck, Mrs. Gardner? There’s a bog over there that’s deadly.”
The finger tickled my delicate entrance.
I tipped my head up. “I’m fine, Kellan. Thank you!”
“I expect Ms. Olivia will come by to see Sunshine soon, don’t you think?”
Matthew’s shoulders vibrated with mirth, but he didn’t stop. Two fingers slipped completely back in, joined again by his mouth just two inches or so higher.
“Yes!” I shouted.
There was silence over my shoulder as I started to shake. Matthew’s other hand dug into my thigh to keep me still.
“Oh my God,” I breathed lightly. “Oh my God.”
“I’ll just head back to the stables and get Sunshine ready, then, Mrs. Gardner,” Kellan finally called out. “You come on soon.”
The finger inside me curved. Matthew’s lips sucked. I came. My entire body began to shake, tremble. Intensely, violently, yet imperceptible and silent. Thank God Kellan was half-blind. I was a leaf in the wind, fully at the mercy of the black-haired devil between my legs. And completely and totally in heaven.
I barely registered the sound of the horse and rider receding into the woods as I gradually drifted back down from my impenetrable high. Matthew’s breath was warm against my thigh until suddenly it was gone, and just as suddenly, I was flipped around to hold tight to the tree and a pair of impossibly strong hands yanked my hips back.
“Matthew!” I hissed as I clawed at the bark. “Kellan—”
“Is gone,” he cut me off, then thrust inside me in one quick, merciless movement. “Fuuuuuuuck.”
His voice was a rumble of desire against my neck. He pulled my hair to one side, burying his nose in it and inhaling deeply. Then he licked my neck, a long, luxurious swipe like I was something succulent, a fruit, a treat, fastened his mouth under my jaw, and sucked. Hard.
The effect was immediate. The desire that had burned through me so quickly before was raging once again as he moved.
“Do you remember?” he muttered as one hand drifted over my bottom, a thumb playing lightly over the other, more forbidden opening there. “That first night? Right here?”
Did I remember? I had practically begged him for it that night. I still didn’t know what had come over me. In my mind, we had only the one night. I had never done anything like that before, and I had known without a doubt that I had wanted this man in every way possible, thinking I’d never have the chance again.
Just like I had felt every time since.
“You were so tight,” Matthew murmured as he surged forward, again and again. “So fucking tight.”
His thumb pressed, penetrated slightly. My chin tipped toward the sky as I arched back toward him. Lord, there was nothing like this. He was so big, I was so ready, and together we were…
“Perfect,” Matthew rumbled again. He began to quicken his pace. He took hold of my hips even tighter, then moved one hand around to find my clit again. “Can you? Right here for me, baby? Will you let go so I can feel it?”
My body began to shake. I was surrounded by friction—Matthew inside me, his hand on my clit, the other on my backside. Teeth on my neck, the tree under my cheek. A moan escaped me, a siren from the depths of my soul. Matthew plunged forward and bit my skin. The hand between my legs pinched every so lightly. And I fell apart. We fell apart. Together, animals in nature. Lovers in heaven.
If only, my addled brain thought as I slowly returned to consciousness, we belonged there.
I sagged into the tree, barely registering Matthew’s slow return to normal breathing, then his careful movements to put us both back together. When at last he had pulled my breeches back into place, then turned me gently to fasten them, I was already crying. Two silent streams of tears fell down my cheeks all over again.
The same emotions I felt were echoed all over his stark, beautiful face.
Love.
Anger.
Desperation.
Shame.
Matthew slipped a warm hand around my neck and pulled me close, tucking my chin into his chest so he could stroke my hair.
“Shh, baby. I know. I know.”
“I just—why can’t—how could—”
The words were choked between sudden violent sobs. Matthew rocked me back and forth, soothing my pain and perhaps his own too.
And after all, this was likely it. I already knew there was no way I could stay through the weekend. I needed to go home. Gather my things and Olivia’s. Find some way to convince my husband I needed to leave for a few weeks without looking suspicious.
Once I was gone, there would be no reason to see Matthew again. He would be in New York. I would be…wherever I was.
But not with him.
And so the questions remained—though neither of us said them aloud as we clung to each other, hidden in the forest.
How could something so wrong feel so utterly right?
How could the universe be so cruel as to keep us apart?
We walked back slowly, hand in hand through the trees, then dropping them eventually as we came into sight of the house.
“I think we’re going to go home tonight,” I said quie
tly. “I—it’s for the best.”
Matthew looked like he wanted to argue, but didn’t. He knew I was right. There were arrangements to be made. He needed to do his work. I needed to figure things out.
The house loomed before us, the driveway containing a few more cars than when we left. Yes, it was definitely time to leave.
I opened my mouth to say as much, but before I could, something else caught my eye. Something absolutely catastrophic.
“What is it, doll?” Matthew asked. “Nina, what’s wrong?”
I turned away, closed my eyes, and took a moment to smooth on the implacable mask I had been trained to wear since birth. Then I turned back and fixed my expression to a hard scowl. Matthew looked startled.
“What the hell?” he murmured.
I continued to scowl, not even worrying about the frown lines undoubtedly appearing because of it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, between my teeth as if I were completely angry. “I’m not upset with you. But my husband just pulled up, and if I don’t look angry to see you…well, it’s going to be…”
“Nina?”
Matthew’s green eyes flew wide open with sudden comprehension. “Shit.”
He shoved his hat back on, effectively shading his expression until he was able to control it. Then we both turned around to face my husband.
Calvin stood in the driveway, looking sweaty and rumpled from what must have been a long drive here from Manhattan. He had emerged from one of several cars we paid a fortune to store but hardly used.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Calvin demanded. He slammed the Mercedes door shut and strode across the driveway, kicking up bits of gravel as he went.
“That’s exactly what I was asking Mr. Zola,” I said with as much disdain as I could muster. “I just finished a ride to discover that he was here. Snooping around our family business.”
“I am an invited guest with a right to basic conversation,” Matthew said casually. “Your cousins and I go back a bit, if you recall. I was invited for the weekend. I apologize, Mr. Gardner. I’ll just get my things and be on my way.”
He nodded briefly at me, then at Calvin.
“That fucking wop rat,” he seethed as he watched him disappear into the house.
The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2) Page 21
