by Claire Kent
His rhythmic motion was becoming more urgent, so Elizabeth moved her free hand from his ass to her own body, her knuckles brushing against the base of his cock as it pumped into her. She massaged her clit clumsily, trying to build up the momentum of her growing orgasm.
Matt pulled her toward him more closely, his other arm tightening around her and pressing her chest up against his. His face was slightly damp and filled with tight emotion, and he was grunting with his rhythm.
She felt her whole body shake as the pressure started to break.
Matt made a hoarse sound and jerked his hips. He fell out of rhythm, but at this point it didn’t matter. Elizabeth was already falling into her climax.
Matt came just before she did, burying his face in her hair and choking on the sound of her name. As his cock was pulsing inside her, Elizabeth came as well, not trying to stifle the loud sound of her release.
Shuddering, she clung to him after the waves of pleasure faded. She tried to take in enough air. She could feel his hot, damp breath in her hair, against her scalp, and the clutch of his arm around her was bruising.
She collapsed against him as he wrapped his arms around her, praying this meant what it felt like it had meant.
Finally Matt released her, took care of the condom, and zipped up his pants.
Elizabeth felt uncertain and young, standing in her kitchen wearing nothing but her bra. She waited for him to say something.
“Matt?” she said at last when he just stared at her, his damp face tightening in a way she didn’t understand.
He didn’t reply.
“What’s going on? What is happening here?” She desperately needed to know. She couldn’t let herself hope again until he gave her some sign it was safe.
She shouldn’t have had sex with him again without knowing for sure.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw, like he was torn by unseen forces. Finally he admitted, “I have no idea.”
She let out a long exhale that seemed to release the hope she’d been holding on to. “Okay. I get it.”
“I’m still a former stripper who owns a sleazy club, you know.”
Her back stiffened. “I know that. I don’t care. I don’t care what you do. I just care who you are. And that’s the man I want.”
He looked almost stunned by her words, like he didn’t know how to process them. “You’ll care eventually.”
“No, I won’t. I’ve figured that much out now. You can do anything you want.” One of the things he had said caught up with her brain and made her ask, “So you’re not going to strip anymore?”
“No. Never. I’m done with that. But I still own the club, and the difference isn’t going to matter much to all your friends.”
“I don’t care what they think. Stop using it as an excuse.”
“I don’t think I can start over. There’s too much that’s always going to pull me back.”
“Why would you have to start over? You’ve got a lot of good things in your life right now.”
“Maybe. But they all feel…empty. And that’s not what I want to bring to a relationship.”
She made a frustrated sound. “If something is empty, you don’t have to throw it away. You can fill it. Matt, you can fill it. If you want this, we can make it work. I’m sure of it.”
There was a really long stretch of silence, broken only by the pounding of her heart.
“I’m not sure,” he said at last, his face twisting with obvious emotion. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair, but…to make a relationship work, you’ve got to be able to hope that it will succeed, that it will last, that it will be…be good.”
“Yeah. Of course you do.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how to hope. I don’t know how to start over. I just don’t know.”
She stared at him, understanding, realizing he meant it. It crushed the hope that had just been rising in her own heart. She lowered her head. “I understand. I really do. But I’ve got to start rebuilding my life now, and I can’t build it on something that’s not real. I can’t do that to myself again. So I think you’d better leave until you know.”
Chapter 12
Two weeks later Elizabeth got into her car after her first day at her new school.
She’d decided not to wait to hear what the board would decide at her old school. She didn’t want to keep working for them anyway. Even the thought of the little kids she loved tasted bitter after the response of the school to the video of her and Matt.
So she’d submitted her resignation and had started sending out her résumé to schools, hospitals, and youth centers within an hour of where she wanted to live that might be able to use an art therapist.
She’d actually had interest from several, and when she’d gone to interview, she’d really liked the people and the setup of a smaller private school that was close to the neighborhood she wanted to move to. It was low-key and professional—not particularly expensive, so it attracted a number of different kinds of families—and no one who worked there seemed to care about who she was.
They wanted her to really do therapy—not just be an art teacher who had a degree that made parents think they were getting something extra.
So she moved into an apartment and started a different job. Most of her new coworkers must have seen something on the news, but they didn’t mention it and it didn’t seem to change how she was treated.
Maybe these were the people Matt had been talking about—who could fairly judge a person based on something other than their personal life.
Mostly the people at the school seemed grateful to have someone with her experience, since they’d recently lost a counselor to a chronic illness and they had a lot of kids dealing with serious issues.
The first day had gone well. She liked the people she worked with, and the kids had been great—not nearly as spoiled and demanding as the ones at her previous school. She couldn’t believe she’d found another good job so easily.
For some reason she’d been thinking that all of her job prospects were doomed, but she was actually starting to think she could do some real good here—do what she’d originally wanted to do when she got the degree.
This school couldn’t pay nearly as much as her old one, but she’d already known she would need to move out of the house she’d been renting. It was much bigger and more expensive than she needed, so she’d found a smaller apartment in an older neighborhood.
It actually wasn’t all that far from where Matt lived, but that had nothing to do with her decision.
She assumed Matt had decided that he didn’t want to pursue the relationship. They’d left the possibility open, should he decide he wanted to, but it didn’t seem very likely at this point. She shouldn’t be surprised. They were just so different, and he had lived so much of his life not letting anyone in.
It wouldn’t be easy for him to open up now. He thought he had to completely restart his life to have a good relationship, and he didn’t know how to do that. He probably didn’t think it was worth it.
It hurt like hell when she thought about it, so she mostly tried not to think about it. She was really busy with moving and starting the new job, so at least she had other things to focus on.
As she started to drive home, her phone rang, so she answered it and put it on speaker.
It was Katie.
“Hey,” Katie said, “how was the new job?”
“Good. I like it a lot. I think it’s going to work out.”
“Oh, good. I’m really glad.” Katie sounded almost hesitant. “And you like your new place?”
“Yeah. It’s great. It’s almost nice that it’s so much smaller. It’s so much less space I need to keep under control.”
“Good. Maybe I can stop by and see it sometime.”
“Sure. Just let me know.”
Katie paused. “I know I wasn’t much help. Before, I mean. I know I handled it all wrong.”
Elizabeth sighed. “It’s okay. I get it. It was a hard thing
to wrap your mind around.”
“Maybe, but that’s not how a friend should have acted. I shouldn’t have made it seem like I was disappointed in you, and your whole world was ending. You’ve been amazing in the last two weeks, kind of starting over like you have. I hope if things ever fall apart for me, I can handle it just as well.”
Elizabeth smiled, feeling a warmth spread through her chest. “Thanks. I’m sure you would.”
“I’m not sure at all. But you can be an inspiration to me.” There was a teasing note in her voice now that brought the conversation back to their natural rhythm. “I’m really glad you can be happy.”
“Me too.”
There was a different sort of pause before Katie asked slowly, “You haven’t heard from him, have you? The guy, I mean. You were kind of serious about him, weren’t you?”
The warmth in Elizabeth’s chest tightened into a weight as she remembered Matt. “Yeah. I was. And no. I haven’t heard from him. I doubt I ever will.”
“I don’t know. If you can pull it together so well, maybe he can too.”
“I hope he can. But I think I would have heard from him if he was interested in pursuing something.”
“Does he know you’re interested?”
“Yes. I laid it all out for him and let him know the ball was in his court. I’m not going to chase him and beg him to let me in.”
“Of course not. I was just checking. Sometimes guys are kind of clueless and they need a little push.”
Elizabeth chuckled softly. “Yeah, I guess. But I don’t know what kind of push I could give Matt. If he doesn’t want me enough to…to make an effort, then he doesn’t want me enough. I want someone who wants me that much.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. I think that’s the right perspective. Well, just wait and see. You never know.”
—
“I don’t want to be here, Mattie.” Matt sighed as he looked around the spacious private room he’d arranged for his mother at the rehab center. He’d tried putting her in rehab several times before, and each time he’d gotten her a spot at a different program, in the hope that one might do the trick when none of the others had been able to do so.
Truth be told, he felt almost no hope at all, but they were doing this again anyway.
“I know you don’t want to be here,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “But we’re going to give it a try.”
“We can do it on our own,” she said, her pale, too-thin face looking up at him pleadingly. “Just the two of us. I can stay clean this time. I promise.”
There wasn’t any sense in arguing with the words, even though he’d heard them over and over again throughout the years. He just ignored them as he lifted her suitcase to the bed and opened it. “This looks like a pretty decent place. You’ll do just fine here.”
It was more than a decent place. It was like a luxury hotel, and it had cost him a fortune to get her the space here—particularly on such short notice.
But he wasn’t fool enough to believe that throwing money at the problem was ever going to fix it.
“Please, Mattie. Don’t leave me in here. You know how I feel about being cooped up like this.”
“You’ll do fine,” he said as calmly as ever. “I’ll call tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”
He knew he had to get out of here quickly before her pleas turned into a full-blown temper fit. He’d brought her here immediately after being checked out of the hospital. She was still weak and exhausted, but if he took her home, she’d be high before she unpacked her bag.
“Mattie, please—”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
He made a quick exit, feeling sick at the sound of her voice coming through the closed door.
He felt sick about a lot of things.
He stopped to talk briefly to one of the nurses, asking her a few details about the program and verifying its rules about visitors.
After he thanked her for the information, the middle-aged woman gave him a sympathetic smile. “I know this whole routine gets old after a while, especially when it never seems to work, but I’ve seen things finally click with people, even after years of failed attempts.”
“Yeah?” he asked, trying to smile and not look as exhausted as he felt.
“Yeah,” she said with a nod and another smile. “You’re a really good son, to keep trying.”
“What else can I do?”
“You could give up on her. You could give up hope. You haven’t done that.”
“Maybe I have,” he muttered.
The nurse shook her head. “You haven’t. You brought her here, didn’t you? You haven’t given up hope.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that, and he felt strangely emotional, so he just nodded and murmured a thank-you before he made his way back to his SUV. When he got behind the steering wheel, he turned on the engine, but instead of backing out of the parking spot, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat.
He’d told Elizabeth he didn’t know how to hope—his life feeling like a downward spiral he’d never been able to pull out of.
He’d believed it when he said it to her, but something had struck home about the words the nurse had just spoken.
He’d kept trying with his mother. Maybe that was hope enough.
Maybe he could keep trying with Elizabeth too.
She’d made it clear she wanted a relationship with him, and she must know he wanted it too. But he hadn’t been able to commit to it, so she’d told him to leave until he could.
He wondered if she was waiting for him—or if she’d assumed he was a lost cause and was starting to build her life without him.
He didn’t like that idea. But he liked even less the idea of trying to build the rest of his life without her.
Maybe he didn’t have to.
Maybe he could keep trying.
Maybe that was hope enough.
—
Elizabeth came home to an apartment full of unpacked boxes and piles of clothes she’d just left on hangers and thrown in the backseat of her car to drive over to her new place. She couldn’t live in such a mess for very long, so she ate a quick salad with a glass of wine, and then she got busy.
She was stacking up soup bowls in her new cabinets when her phone rang.
The screen showed it was her mother, so she picked it up. “Hi, Mom.”
“I was calling to see how your first day of work went.” Her mother sounded stiff and a little awkward, but she was clearly making an effort.
“It went well. I think I’ll really like it.”
“Good.”
After a long pause, Elizabeth asked, “How are you?”
“All right. I had garden club this afternoon.”
“Was it…was it okay?”
Her mother gave a long sigh. “It wasn’t as bad as I expected. They all asked me about you, of course, but at least you aren’t on the news anymore.”
“Okay. Good. I think. Were they mean and catty?”
“Some of them were. But some of them always are. That’s just part of it.”
Elizabeth almost smiled, since she took this statement as a gesture of grace, instead of the guilt trip she’d been getting for the last two weeks. “I guess so.”
“So how are things with you? Are you dating anyone?”
“Mom—”
“I know. Don’t get mad at me. I was just asking.”
Elizabeth knew her mother was worried about her, and the concern was channeled as intrusive questions. She knew her mother wasn’t—at the moment—trying to be controlling. But she didn’t want to let her mother’s ideas dictate her choices anymore, so she said quietly, carefully, “I’m not dating anyone. But when I do, it will be up to me and no one else.”
Her mother was silent on the other end of the line for a moment before she said, a smile in her voice, “Well, I assume the young man will have some say in it as well.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help but la
ugh. “Yes, I guess he will.”
She felt almost good about their conversation—like she had put her foot down in a way that needed to be done but she and her mother had still managed to connect.
Then her mother said without warning, “Your father and I are thinking about moving to Florida.”
Straightening her spine, Elizabeth said, “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We’re just starting to talk about it. It’s an idea.”
“Well, it’s not a bad idea. I mean, he could play golf all year long and you could lay out by the pool. But is it…I mean, I hope it’s what you really want and not just because you think you need to get away from…from everything.”
“We’re just thinking about it. We’re not trying to run away. I’d love to go somewhere warmer.”
“That would be good. I’d miss you, of course, but I could come visit. And I think it would be good for Dad’s health to slow down some. But I don’t want you to do it unless it’s going to make you happy.”
“We’re just thinking about it.”
“Okay. Well, just let me know.” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Is…is Dad around?”
“He’s outside. He’s tinkering on the car.”
He’d always loved to work on cars, but he’d rarely had time to do so. “Okay. Well, maybe just tell him he can call me if he wants. I…I miss him.”
She hadn’t yet talked to her father since the whole thing had blown up. He just couldn’t get over his disappointment in her.
“I’ll tell him. He’ll call you soon. I’m sure it will be soon.”
“Okay.” She felt a little choked up, but she heard someone ringing her doorbell. “Thanks, Mom. There’s someone at the door. I’ll call you back later, okay?”
“Good-bye, dear. Don’t open the door to a stranger.”
Elizabeth was chuckling a little at her mom’s last instruction as she walked to the door. She glanced through the peephole and froze when she saw it was Matt standing on the other side.
