“That makes me laugh. Want to know why? I didn’t want to risk hurting Emily. Of course I did anyway, but then I fixed it.” He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe you can do the same, if it should come to that.”
While Matt wanted to believe so, they were comparing apples and oranges. Stone and Emily hadn’t first had the kind of deep friendship that Matt thought he had with Sarah. Unlike him and Sarah, they hadn’t circled each other for months. Flirting, playing, dancing around their desire for each other. Now that they’d given in to that desire, he was supposed to be good with that. It should be enough. And yet all he could think about was whether or not he could talk her into keeping the house. If she did, that single move would tell him a lot. It would show that she was ready to go to another level with him. And if that were the case, he was all over it. He just needed the green light.
The rest of Matt’s day passed in a blur of flights to Oregon and Arizona. Matt finally got to call it a day around six o’clock. As he pulled up to Sarah’s house he noticed a woman in the front yard holding a stake and a sign placard that read For Sale.
“Can I help you?” Matt asked.
The woman turned to him, giving him a smile probably required for graduation from real estate school. “Hi, I’m Jenny. The Realtor? I tried knocking on the door and no one answered. But I already talked to Sarah about putting up the sign. She said it was okay.”
“Did she?”
He considered that for a moment, wondering why he thought in a million years that anything he wanted mattered. “We’re not quite ready.”
“And you are?” She squinted, as if trying to place him.
“Matt. I’m taking care of the remodel.”
“That’s okay. I know about the repairs. But since I’m in the neighborhood, I just thought—”
Matt took the sign and stake out of her hands. “I’ll put this up when we’re ready.”
The finality of that seemed to register with Jenny. “Oh, but—”
“Thanks for coming by.” He gave her his best charter pilot smile. And damn if he’d almost said Thanks for flying with us.
Jenny politely said goodbye and hopped into her gold Mercedes-Benz. Matt watched her drive away, telling himself that he didn’t need the additional pressure of the sign going up. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t let the Realtor put it up. It wasn’t because he didn’t want the house to be sold. It would be sold, and he had to wrap his mind around that fact once and for all. No matter how attached he’d become to it.
He walked inside the house and once again endured Shackles’s assault. He picked up the creature who for some reason seemed to adore him no questions asked, and gave him a rub. The shower was going, which meant Sarah would be in there. Naked. Wet and naked.
One of his favorite combinations.
He pressed his ear to the door and heard Sarah singing the theme from Titanic. Off-key.
Actually, there was no reason he couldn’t enjoy their time together, whatever little was left of it. It was what he’d signed up for at the start of all this. He was crazy to want more, anyway.
He was going to forgive her for selling this house.
Just as long as when he walked into that bathroom, she wasn’t quite done showering. He went for the door which, thank you, baby Jesus, was not locked. He walked inside and shut the door closed again, then pulled off his shirt and kicked off his shoes, pants and underwear.
CHAPTER THIRTY
SARAH SANG HER heart out as she belted out the theme song for Titanic. Boy, it was truly amazing how awesome she sounded in the shower. Might be the acoustics in here. She wondered whether if she stood on the bow of a ship, the wind blowing in her hair, she could look half as good as Kate Winslet had. Deciding it was all a pipe dream, she massaged the sudsy shampoo in her hair that had promised to tame her unruly waves.
The shower curtain flipped open. “Don’t quit your day job.”
“Gah!” Sarah screamed and lost her footing but before she could slip and fall, Matt’s strong arms righted her and held her in place.
“Whoa, there.”
“Matt?” she said, opening one eye.
“Were you expecting someone else?”
She wiped the suds out of her eyes and stared at Matt. He was naked and in the shower. Shower. With her. Naked. She shouldn’t complain, but, dammit, her heart had briefly reconsidered the song’s pledge to go on and on.
“Warn me next time. Slam the door or ring a bell. Something.”
“I’m sorry, but I was enjoying your moving rendition from Titanic. Do you always sing water-related songs in the shower? ‘Singing in the Rain’, ‘Michael Row Your Boat Ashore’, that kind of thing?”
She slapped his shoulder. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“My plan was to give you an orgasm.”
“Oh, um—” Before she could say another word, Matt had led her back under the shower head and started rinsing the shampoo out of her hair.
She closed her eyes under the warm water, and luxuriated in the incredible feel of his hands in her hair, fingers gently massaging. Stroking. She was no stranger to his talented hands—she just hadn’t thought that talent would extend to shampoo rinses. But oh yes, this was amazing, and she moaned, feeling strangely beautiful when she did. She might not be Kate Winslet, but right now she was one of those shampoo commercial models. The ones with the long dark hair that was shiny and straight.
“Oh God, you’re so good at this.” Too, she might have added, but she didn’t want to give him a bigger ego.
“Keep singing,” Matt said as he leaned in and briefly nuzzled her ear.
“No. I know I’m not any good. I sing for myself.”
“I like it,” he said. “Sing for me.”
“No.” Damn him anyway, and his incredible fingers, which were massaging her in tiny little circles now. She moaned again.
“You have to fight me on everything.” He stopped massaging. “Please.”
She tried, but her breath hitched when one of his hands dropped to her nipple and tweaked it.
“Yes? What will your heart do?” He grinned at her, the wicked man. His hand slipped down between her thighs and she forgot the words. As in, every word. Ever.
Matt’s fingers were exploring every inch of her folds and pressing in all the right places. She opened her legs for him, her hips helplessly gyrating under his touch. The warm shower water pounded in her ears, mixed with the uneven sound of her own heavy breaths coming shorter and faster. Matt swallowed one of her moans with a long and deep kiss. The two of them were wet and slippery and this moment in time might be the single most erotic moment of her life.
“Matt,” she gasped, “You...you better stop. Please. I can’t... I’m going to...”
“Do it,” he said, his voice sounding husky near her ear. “I want you to.”
Sarah didn’t know what to think or feel anymore. She only knew that she wanted to fight this overwhelming feeling and loss of control. To hold back a moment and stop everything. Stop this emotional monsoon that was Matt. But then he sunk his teeth into her earlobe and she quite possibly sunk her nails into his back. Every random worry and thought was wiped away as in the next second she came completely apart. Her tense legs liquefied under her and she would have fallen to the floor if not for Matt.
But she didn’t fall because he was right here holding her up like he’d done far too many times already.
“Mmm. Okay?” He nuzzled her wet hair as he held her tightly in his arms.
She could feel the hard length of him pressing into her, but he was asking whether or not she was okay. He was somehow tender with her even when he teased her mercilessly. How did he do that? Manage to make her feel sexy in a shower? Manage to get her to let go the way he did every time?
She’d been fooled man
y times before into thinking that sex was love. Am I doing it again?
No. She wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
“I’m fine,” she murmured against his neck and laughed a little at how she’d been the opposite of fine a few seconds ago.
Truthfully, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be fine again.
Matt shut off the shower and stepped out. He toweled off, then tried to dry Sarah.
She took the towel from him and did it herself. He quirked an eyebrow but she just smiled. “I can do it.”
She did, and wrapped a towel around protectively. It was the harsh light in this bathroom, she told herself. Not the most flattering to her body. Matt’s body, on the other hand... The lighting didn’t hurt his looks and she found herself staring as he draped a towel around his hips. The bulge underneath the towel could not be hidden.
He caught her staring. “You want to help me with that?”
Hoping she didn’t look too eager, Sarah nodded. “Please.”
Matt chuckled and tugged on her hand. They wound up in his bedroom this time, where he managed to take her towel off in one swift move. She didn’t resist, but just stood there underneath his heated gaze. He removed his towel, and then they were once again just two lonely people who were physically bare to each other.
“You’re so beautiful.” Matt stroked almost reverently down her stomach and to her thighs.
She wanted to believe him but also correct him. She didn’t feel beautiful. Women like Emily were beautiful. The women in fashion magazines were beautiful. And perhaps girls who hadn’t grown up like Sarah had, angry and bitter. That kind of bitterness eventually made it to the outside. But none of that was any longer the point. The glorious and amazing point was that Matt, somehow against all odds, found Sarah beautiful. She believed him. Those weren’t just words to him. Not Matt.
Maybe someday she’d believe it, too. For now that was good enough for her.
Well, that and the way Matt lowered her onto his bed and then wedged his big body between her legs. He kissed her over and over again. Long and deep kisses that left her panting. He had such a handle on this kissing thing that she could subsist on those alone. But there was always more with Matt. Much more in his bag of tricks. He pushed her arms up over her head and urged her to grab hold of the bottom of the headboard. Then he slid down the length of her body, licking as he went. Down the column of her neck to her shoulder, spending time on each nipple sucking and licking as if he were not in a hurry to get anywhere else. As if he had all the time in the world.
She, on the other hand, was in a hurry as she wriggled and squirmed underneath him. Letting go of the headboard with one hand, she placed it on his hip and tried to get him to move where she wanted him to be. Where she needed him to be.
“Patience.” He guided her arm back up into place.
“You’re killing me here.” She tightened her legs around his body and arched toward him.
He groaned and ignored that, sliding farther down her body to lick her bellybutton. “Good to know.”
She moaned. “That isn’t helping the not-killing me thing.”
“Neither will this,” he said and put his tongue and lips on her core.
Sarah gasped and froze. “Matt...please...you really don’t have to...”
But he wasn’t listening. Instead his tongue teased her as she slowly lost her mind, or what little was left of it. So this was it. This was what it felt like when the last barrier of physical intimacy had been ripped away between two people. Gone. Her body whipped into frenzy, Sarah felt her heart come along too in leaps and quivers. She wanted this man so much. Sarah gripped the headboard until she heard it creak. She fisted the sheets. Lowering her arms, she curled her fingers into his hair, trying not to pull and hoping he would still have most of his hair by the time he was done with her.
A wave of intense pleasure rolled over her with a fierceness that shook her body. She shuddered and came right out of herself, crying out his name. Matt slid up her body, holding her tight as her breathing slowed and she came back down to earth again to rejoin the mere mortals.
When she opened her eyes to take a good look at him, he was propped up on one elbow, smiling down at her. It didn’t help the situation. She’d been gasping and panting like a fool who’d just met the Stairmaster, feeling sweaty and flushed, damp hair plastered to her cheeks.
His fingers lightly swept some of the stray hairs off her cheek as he studied her. “You look sweet. As sweet as you taste.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. Wrecked as she felt, she somehow looked sweet. To him. It wrecked her all over again. He did that to her.
“And I think you liked that.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” She grinned, batting eyelashes at him.
She’d never batted eyelashes in her life. Goodbye prickly, hello bag of feathers. Apparently there was a first time for everything.
“Probably when you said, ‘More, Matt. Please.’ You’re so polite. Always with the please.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Would you prefer orders, Airman?”
“That depends,” he said, rolling her on top of him. “I take my orders from superior officers.”
She bent her head and licked from his neck to his abs, her long hair leaving a trail as she went. He tasted salty, and sweaty, and one hundred percent all man. His body tensed, and the hard length under her left no doubt to his physical state. She rose on her knees and stroked him until he groaned and thrust into her hand.
“Get in me,” she ordered with a small smile.
“And I take orders from sexy women, too.” He reached over and ripped open a condom with his teeth, which he handed to her.
His hands grasped her hips firmly where he needed her and he thrust into her with a force that made her moan. She took her cues from him, meeting him stroke for stroke, and together they found and moved in a rhythm all their own. Moving above him, her hips gyrating in time with his, she felt fully desired and more powerful than she ever had. She’d been missing this...for too long.
Her body tightened as she rode a peak and this time said his name on a sigh. He continued to thrust into her and held on tight through the release as intense waves of pleasure rocked her world. It was only a moment later, eyes half-mast, when she realized they had ridden this one together.
She rolled off him and he tucked her under his arm. “You slay me each and every time.”
For once in her life, the feeling was quite mutual.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HUNTER FINALLY HAD this parental-unit thing down. Now that he had managed the parents, life was hella easier. Matt was way cooler than Hunter had remembered, and as for Joanne, life was simpler when he kept her completely in the dark. Like a mushroom.
She seemed happier now that she had her special time with Chuck. Hunter had apologized to the guy for the meme, and Chuck had surprised Hunter by actually being pretty cool. For a minor league player.
Before work Joanne made Hunter bacon and eggs, which was so unusual for a weekday that he wondered if he’d forgotten his own birthday.
She set a plate in front of him. “What would you think if Chuck and I made it permanent?”
Hunter took a bite of bacon and considered what Joanne was really saying. Grown-ups always had some secret meaning to every freaking thing they ever said. This could be a trap.
“Permanent?”
“You know. As in Chuck and I get married.”
“You’re getting married?”
“No, not yet. But what would you think about that?”
“I think that would be great. And if you have to move with him, you know, for the baseball stuff, I can always live with Matt and his girlfriend.”
Oh, crap. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Joanne’s eyes got dark and small like they
did when she was über-pissed.
“Why? Would you rather live with them than me?”
Hunter shoved more food in his mouth and pretended he couldn’t chew fast enough to talk. He shook his head.
But Joanne waited him out for more, eyes about to pop out of her head.
Finally he had to stop chewing. “I’m just saying.”
Sometimes he really would like to live with Matt and Sarah and it wasn’t because of the food. If Matt was cool, Sarah was like the head designer of cool. The CEO. As far as he could tell, she’d never told anyone about the time she’d picked him and Megan up by the lake. The last thing he wanted was to sic Joanne on her.
Joanne went fists on hips. “You’re my son, Hunter.”
“Like I don’t know that?”
“Sure, it’s easy for her to be your friend. I don’t get to do that. You only have one mother.”
“Take a chill pill. I hardly know her. She’s not going to be my new Mommy or anything.”
Joanne shook her head. She looked like one of those Mylar balloons, hours after the party when he and his friends had pounded all the air out of it. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
Huh? What?
“I really do like Sarah. She’s nice and I do appreciate that she’s been kind to you.”
Hunter didn’t speak.
“You and I...we’ve got to work on our communication. If you would just talk to me more, tell me when stuff is bothering you, and when you think I’m being unfair. Well, maybe that might help.”
“Huh. Okay.” Hunter wondered if now might be a good time to bring up the Marines.
Probably best not to push his luck. But the formerly rough waters looked smooth for sailing. Tomorrow he’d ask about the Gold’s Gym membership, even if he’d already had a decent start on getting in Marine shape, thanks to Megan.
“Do you...have a girlfriend yet?” Joanne wiped the surface of the counter for the bazillionth time, not looking at him.
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