by Megan Hart
“Yes.”
“Nobody died,” she said quietly.
“That should make it better, shouldn’t it?” His laugh sounded more like a bark, harsh and without humor. “Nobody died.”
She understood, or at least thought she did, how coming so close to what might’ve been could have affected him so much. What she did not understand was something altogether different. “Why didn’t you just tell me this, instead of letting me think you’d actually come to see me?”
“I wanted to come see you, Stella. I tried. I booked the flight. I went to the airport. And when the time came, I just...could not get on that plane. I know I wasn’t going to be the one flying it, but even that, not being in control... I couldn’t. I can’t.” He sounded broken.
She tried to find sympathy for him, and found only more of the same numbness that had covered her for weeks. “The first night we met, I told you my pain. I don’t know why. Why you. Why any of it. But I did, so you’ve known since that first night what makes me who I am. Why I do what I do. And all this time, you couldn’t tell me this?”
Matthew made a low noise. “It’s shameful. I’m embarrassed. You’re right. Nobody died. How could what happened to me possibly compare to what happened to you?”
“My pain,” she said slowly, “doesn’t mean that I can’t understand someone else’s.”
“You weren’t too nice to that guy in the airport,” Matthew said. “And I didn’t forget what you told me. ‘Even when you’re terrified that you can’t take one more step or deal with one more thing, there’s never an excuse for behaving like a prick.’ That’s what you told me. I didn’t want you to think I was being a prick.”
She laughed sadly. “But that’s what you were.”
“I was embarrassed,” Matthew said sharply. “It was intimate, Stella.”
“Too intimate? You could put your penis in me, but you couldn’t be honest with me?” The words choked out of her, and finally she got up on shaking legs. She needed to move.
When he said nothing, Stella let out a small, wounded sigh. She swallowed her bitter words, though the taste of them made her gag. She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to be calm.
“Is that why your marriage ended?”
“She accused me of pulling away from her. Then of cheating. Which I didn’t do, ever,” Matthew said. “She didn’t understand why I was spending so much time in the airport bar. The drinking...got out of hand. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. Or the girls. I missed school plays. I missed holiday dinners, trying to get on a goddamn plane, just once. And I couldn’t do it. My marriage ended because I was an idiot.”
“The question of whether or not your marriage actually ended is still up in the air,” Stella said coldly. “Do you want to get back together with her?”
“No.” He sounded stunned. “No, God. Never. We went to counseling. It didn’t help. A lot of shit came up, stuff that might not have made a difference if not for what happened, but it did. Sometimes things don’t work out. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel like shit for the way I behaved toward the end of our marriage. But I don’t want to be with her. I want to be with you.”
“I told you everything. Every fucking thing about me. And now I find out that I don’t really know you at all. Do I?”
“You know me better than anyone ever has,” he said in a low voice. “I’m sorry if you can’t believe me.”
She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Breath after breath, until she could keep herself calm. When she could speak without sounding like a raging bitch, she said, “Why did you tell me this now?”
“Because I missed you so much I couldn’t stand it anymore,” Matthew said.
Stella’s breath caught in her throat. Despite everything, despite all the pain he’d caused her, that water had seeped into every crack and crevice. There was no denying it.
“Please come to Chicago,” he said quietly. “I can’t come to you, but I miss you. I know it’s a lot to ask of you to come here. But I want to make it up to you. Please, Stella. I want to try.”
And what answer could she give him, Stella thought, other than yes?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Matthew greeted her at the door with a bunch of flowers that ought to have made all the pain of what had happened between them go away. Stella took them. Smelled them. They were mostly lilies, the smell of which always made her want to gag, but she found a smile for him anyway.
A kiss too.
“I should put these in water,” she murmured against his mouth, not moving out of his arms as his fingers went to the special spots on her hips that still felt as though they’d been made to fit him. Always would, she imagined.
Matthew backed her up against the wall. Slowly, not rushing. The press of it against her back echoed the similar press of him against her front, and laughing, Stella turned her face to hold out the flowers to keep them from getting crushed.
“This,” Matthew said against her neck. “This neck. This is what I want.”
The press of his teeth. The hiss of breath. His fingers, tightening. Stella closed her eyes. The flowers fell. Matthew kissed her neck, her throat, then skimmed his mouth along her jaw to finally get at her mouth again, and his hand was between her legs. Under her skirt, inside her panties. His fingers were inside her a moment after that, and all she could do was arch into the touch.
She found the back of his head and held him against her. “Bite me.”
He did.
“Harder,” she said.
He did that too.
It felt so good. It always did. And so she let herself sink into that place where pleasure and pain were indistinguishable. Later, she thought when his teeth scraped her skin, later the memory of this pleasure might make the pain easier to bear.
Something would have to.
Matthew pulled away, dark eyes gleaming, breathing hard. He pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes closed. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Stella turned her face so she could nuzzle against him for a moment. “I think I ruined the flowers.”
“I can buy you more.”
She laughed, not because it was funny but because her throat had gone suddenly tight and the burning prick of emotion was stabbing her eyes. “You don’t have to.”
Matthew pushed the bulge of his cock against her. Made her breathless. She turned her head again, and he bent back to her neck. Nuzzling. Licking. Kissing gently while she tensed, waiting for him to use his teeth again.
Waiting, always waiting.
When he bit her, Stella cried out, low. His fingers moved again inside her, then on her clit. His touch shifted, too fast. Too slow. Teasing, though not on purpose, and she moved against him in frustration. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. The hand not moving between her thighs hooked beneath her knee, lifting her leg to hook around him. The pictures on the wall rattled in their frames as he pushed against her.
She could’ve reached for his belt. Unzipped him. Pulled out his beautiful cock and touched him the way he was touching her. She would have, in the past. She always did. But she didn’t now. She put a hand between them to cup him, to rub him, but she didn’t do more than that.
Matthew shuddered against her. Moaned her name. The sound of it, those two syllables broken in the middle by the hitch of his breath, the soft rasp of desire making it rough, echoed inside her. She pressed her knee to his hip and pushed herself against his fucking fingers.
“Make me come,” Stella murmured. “I want to come for you.”
He went to his knees in front of her and pushed her skirt up past her hips, then pressed his face against the lace of her panties, his hot breath caressing her hotter flesh beneath. Matthew hooked his fingers in the lacy fabric and pulled it over her thighs, exposing her to the rapid, flat stroke of his to
ngue against her clit. A second later he spread her with his fingers to get deeper inside her and she gasped at the invasion.
“Oh. Fuck. Yes,” she said.
He muttered something against her, words she couldn’t make out. They didn’t matter. He could be reciting the alphabet or the motherfucking Declaration of Independence against her cunt; all that mattered was that his lips and tongue kept moving on her flesh. That he didn’t stop.
Stella looked down at the man on his knees in front of her. He’d closed his eyes, his face buried against her. He gripped her ass, moving her against his mouth, then slipped a hand beneath her knee again to hook it over his shoulder. Open that way, exposed, she felt embarrassed, but only for a moment because the magic he was working with his tongue on her clit made it impossible for her to think of anything but how good it felt.
“Matthew,” she breathed. Then again. His name. She loved the way it sounded. It had never been a name she liked until she’d met him, and then it had become the sexiest name she’d ever known. “Matthew, make me come.”
He murmured again, soft sounds of assent. Maybe her name. Maybe terms of adoration, words of love, the ones he never said to her any other time than when he was between her legs. She wanted to grab something. Needed to. Her hand skimmed the top of his head, seeking purchase, but his hair was too short for her to grip. She settled for bunching his shirt in her fingers for a moment before she put her hands on the wall beside her.
Coiled springs of pleasure built inside her. The flicker of light in the corners of her vision reminded her to breathe, breathe. Stella rocked herself against his mouth. The flat of Matthew’s tongue stroked her clit in a smooth, steady pattern until there was no more thought. Nothing but desire.
Her orgasm flooded her. Swept her away. And when she could open her eyes and focus again, there he was, looking up at her with that secret smile she’d come to know so well but never understand.
Matthew stood. Stella’s dress fell down around her thighs again. When he kissed her, she tasted the memory of her own pleasure. When he tried to pull away, she held him close for a few more seconds until his muscles tensed beneath her, and she had to let him go.
* * *
In Matthew’s kitchen, Stella pulled out eggs, butter, bacon. Bread for toast. She found some sweet orange and yellow peppers in the fridge. She sliced them and added them to the omelette while Matthew watched from his seat at the center island, glass of wine in his hand. She caught him staring and turned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?” she said again, a little annoyed this time when he only gave her an enigmatic smile and shrug.
“I just like seeing you here, that’s all. I like it when you’re here.”
It was a sweet thing to say, and she ought to enjoy it. Stella concentrated on flipping the omelette and sliding it onto a plate, not looking at him. She pulled the toast from the toaster, added it to the plate. She pushed all of it toward him across the island and took the glass of wine he handed her.
“You’re so good to me,” Matthew told her.
And she was. She knew it. Her choice, always, to be good to him. He’d never asked her for it, yet there it was. Given and taken, over and over.
She stiffened but didn’t pull away when he moved behind her to nuzzle at the back of her neck. When he pushed her skirt up again, past her hips. Tugged her panties down. When he shifted her so that her hands skidded, flat, on top of the island and kicked a foot between hers to spread her wider for him, she bent her head. Closed her eyes. When he pushed inside her, she was still so wet from his earlier attentions that there was no friction. His cock filled her, pressing deep. At this angle, it hurt a little, but she’d never minded before and didn’t now.
She wasn’t surprised—he’d eaten her pussy so nicely twenty minutes ago, she’d have been shocked if he hadn’t wanted to get a little something for himself too. She wasn’t surprised when the phone rang either. But when he moved to answer it, Stella reached behind her to grip his hip.
“No,” she said. “Don’t stop.”
One, two, three more rings before the answering machine picked up. The same number of slow thrusts inside her. She pushed back against him as his recording began to play, the only message the buzz of the dial tone. Predictably, a minute after that, his cell phone rang.
Again, Matthew tensed, but when he pulled out, Stella turned and grabbed him by the shoulders. Stroking him, she fit him back inside her, this time with the edge of the island digging into her back.
“Don’t stop,” Stella said.
Matthew groaned and kissed her. He lifted her onto the edge of the island, which meant he had to strain to keep fucking into her, but she guessed it didn’t matter because he shuddered against her. He buried his face against her neck. She gripped his shoulders.
His cell phone pinged with a text.
Matthew kept fucking her. Harder now. Almost desperate, as if he was trying to finish fast.
Stella took him by the chin and forced him to look into her eyes. She clamped her knees to his sides. “Slower.”
His kiss bruised her mouth; she didn’t care. Matthew fucked her harder. Faster, despite her command. The fierceness of his thrusts slammed his pelvic bone against her clit, and there it was again. That helpless pleasure. That mindless need he always created in her.
They came together, him with a gasp, Stella in tongue-bitten silence. Matthew clung to her for a moment before pulling out and reaching for a clean dish cloth from the drawer, which he handed to her while he put himself back in his pants. He didn’t look at her when he picked up his phone.
“Shit,” Matthew said wearily. “Guess who.”
Stella hopped down from the island and used the dish cloth carefully before pulling her panties back up and adjusting her dress. She tossed the dish cloth into the open washer, then went to the sink to wash her hands as Matthew answered the text from Caroline.
When she turned at last to look at him, his expression told her everything. Without a word, Stella took the plate with the omelette and toast on it. She pushed past him and dumped it in the trash. Then she put the plate in the dishwasher.
“It’s the smoke detector. It’s beeping, and—”
“And she’s incapable of changing the battery,” Stella finished for him, her voice steady. Without any evidence of the emotions tearing her up inside. “Yeah. I figured.”
“I won’t be long.” Matthew’s mouth thinned. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Stella looked at him. “Take as long as you have to.”
Matthew hesitated before giving her a tentative smile. “It won’t take me long at all, I promise.”
“It doesn’t matter how long it takes,” she said. “I won’t be here when you get back. Stay all night, for all I care. You might find it hard to explain to her why you can’t get it up so soon, but then again, maybe you won’t have a problem.”
He stared at her, mouth open and working, for a few seconds before his teeth clicked together. He scowled. “That’s a shitty thing to say.”
“You know what’s shitty? I came here. I flew to Chicago to be with you, and we only get so much time, and you’re wasting it!” Stella cried, loud enough to send him back a few steps.
“What am I supposed to do, just tell her to let it keep beeping? Keep the girls up all night?”
“Yes!” Stella shouted. “Yes. That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. Tell her to figure it the fuck out. It’s her house, not yours. Her smoke detectors. Her problem. You are not her husband anymore. Remember?”
Matthew said nothing.
“But I forgot. You feel guilty. You owe her.” Stella pushed him away. “Go.”
“Did you mean what you said? You won’t be here?”
“Yes,” she told him. “Does that cha
nge your mind?”
“Don’t push me,” Matthew said warningly.
“I’m not pushing you. I’m telling you. Go and do whatever it is you do over there. Play at whatever it is she wants you to play at. I’m done, Matthew.”
With that, she pushed past him and headed for the front door. Her bag was still there. Before she could grab it he’d snagged her elbow. Turned her.
“Wait.”
It was more than she’d expected from him, and it was enough to stop her from yanking open the door. Stella turned. She waited.
Matthew sighed. Stella didn’t soften. Didn’t budge, not even when he put his arms around her and pulled her close to nuzzle at her neck. She did not sink into his embrace.
“Don’t leave—” His phone pinged with another text.
Stella waited, but he didn’t pull it from his pocket. Finally she put her arms around him. They stayed like that for a minute or so, until she said quietly, “She manipulates you, Matthew.”
“I know.”
“She uses your children to do it, which I find despicable.”
Matthew said nothing.
“She left you. Not the other way around. I know you feel like it was your fault, and maybe a lot of it was, but the fact is, whatever the reasons, you are not married anymore. She doesn’t get to have the benefits of having a husband without the husband part of it.”
He backed away at that. “Wow. Thanks for making me feel like shit about trying to be responsible.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Or you should know it.” She swallowed hard to keep her voice steady, already knowing there was no point to this conversation. He wasn’t going to hear her, no matter what she said or how she said it. She reached for him, hating herself for it but trying to give this one more chance. One last time. “Look at me.”
He did, though the belligerent set of his jaw and narrowed eyes didn’t give her much hope of him being willing to listen.
“I love being with you.” At her words, something gleamed in his eyes, giving her hope enough to link her fingers with his, to pull him a little closer. “I love the way we fit together. How I feel against you. I love the way you make me laugh.”
