She rolled her eyes. “Okay.”
“I mean it!”
“Okay!”
“I mean it, Romy! I’m the opposite of jealous! I want him to have you. I always wanted him to have you. That’s why I introduced him to you in the first place. He’s a fucking saint! There’s no one better for you.”
She blinked at him—once, twice, slowly—and she finally understood why Matt called it the blink of insanity when she did that: because she was blinking at a stark, staring madman. “Oh my God,” she said. “You want him to have me? What am I? A reward for good behavior?”
“You’ve got it ass-end around, Romy, I want you to have him.”
“And what about what I want for myself?”
“We’re talking about what you want—a clean-cut, solid-gold hero.”
“No, Matt. If we were talking about what I want, we’d be talking about you.”
“Romy, you only think—”
“Don’t tell me what I think! If I wanted to have sex with Teague I’d have done it when we were dating!”
“But this is about more than sex. It’s about sharing a baby, raising a baby, providing the best for a baby.”
“And if I’d wanted to have a baby with Teague, I’d have turned down your offer and called him straight up to ask him!”
“So ask him! Go on! You know it’ll be better with him.”
“And if I asked him, what do you think he’d say?”
“He’d say yes.” He tore his hands through his hair. “Ah Jesus, he’d say yes.”
“He’d say Let’s wait, Romy, that’s what he’d say. He’d say Let’s think it through. Let’s do the math. Let’s get the fucking paperwork in order. And meanwhile, Romy, why don’t you get your own lawyer to look into precedents, even though I’m a lawyer myself, because two lawyers are better than one, and maybe go back to the doctor for some stronger painkillers and bleed your goddamn life out while I think it through, and then when you’re sure you’re sure and I’m sure, we’ll get married and then we’ll start trying.”
“And that’s what you wanted—due process.”
“No! No! I don’t want another version of myself! I want what you did! What you offered is what I want. Fast and brave and unthinking and...and fuck-it-all, let’s just do it. That’s what I want. And you! I wanted you! I want you still.”
“Stop, Romy!”
“No, I won’t stop. You turn up here, all but scare Teague out of the flat for what reason I have no fucking idea since you’re not fucking jealous, and then you tell me I’m supposed to fall into Teague’s arms because you think that’ll work better for me? Well, the answer is no! I’m not doing it. I remember very well that you got me and Teague together in college. I also remember you never asked why we split up.”
“Because it didn’t matter why.”
“Of course it mattered! But I think you knew why we split up. And I think you didn’t want to face it. Well, I want you to face it. So in case you don’t know, I’m going to tell you—it’s because I couldn’t love him. And the reason I couldn’t love him is because I already loved—”
“No!” he said, cutting her off.
“Why not?”
“Because it’ll be the end. Don’t. Say it. Don’t, Romy.”
“Not saying it out loud won’t change the truth.”
He grabbed her right hand, lifted it. “Wanna know about love? It’s this. He gave you his dead sister’s ring even though you’d been broken up for two and a half years. What does that tell you?”
“That he knew I’d cherish it.”
“The way he cherishes you.”
“No!” she said.
“Not saying it out loud won’t change the truth,” he said, throwing her own words back at her. “You want love—he’ll give it to you. I won’t.”
“We’re friends. Teague and I are friends.”
“What do you think you and I are?”
“I don’t... I want... I don’t know anymore.”
“Having sex didn’t make us more than friends, Romy—all it made us is friends with benefits. Benefits that were supposed to accrue to you. And who knows? If you’d stayed the night those benefits may have had more of a chance to accrue. Well, spilt milk, water under the bridge, whatever—you cut things short. So stand by that decision, because your instinct was right—I’m not the best man for this. And if the friend dynamic is what’s bothering you about Teague, let me tell you that I’ve had sex with friends before and I will again. So I suggest you accept that you can have sex with friends, take another look at Teague and the next time he gives you a ring it’ll have a whopping big diamond in it.”
“I don’t want a diamond.”
“Yeah, well, even without the diamond, compare his platinum ring to what I gave you for your twenty-first birthday. A computer game. I mean, seriously! There’s the difference between him and me right there on your finger.”
“You gave me shares, Matt, not a computer game. Shares in Artie’s start-up gaming company. Shares he wanted to be yours, not mine.”
“They were worthless.”
“And now they’re not.”
“Yeah, well, as I’ve said before, money’s an easy thing for me to give.”
“Those shares weren’t money to you. They came from that soul you say you don’t have.”
He flung her hand away. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Don’t worry about my soul, Romy—protect your own. Or I may yet give in to my baser urgings and steal it.”
“Oh, Matt, can’t you see? You don’t have to steal my soul. I’ll give it to you willingly. I’ll gift wrap it for you. I’ll change it to suit you, twist into any shape you want, paint it any color you like.”
He grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her in close, looking down at her with such an intense mix of fury and fuck me, a sliver of almost-pleasurable fear shimmied down her spine. “Make it pitch-black and we might have a deal,” he said.
“I said any color—I meant it.”
“I’ve told you before, Romy, be careful what you say. What you open the door to. There are wolves out there—wolves like me.”
“Then teach me to be a wolf.”
“A kitten can’t become a wolf.”
“What can I do to convince you?”
“Nothing.”
“What about if I...if I bite you?”
He laughed.
“I mean it. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Bite a man through the skin until I draw blood. There. That’s my deepest, darkest fantasy. What do you think about that?”
He released her, stepped back, tilted his head to one side and dragged at his sweater, the T-shirt beneath, to expose his neck to her. “Go ahead, Vampira.”
She swallowed. “I...”
He laughed again. Released his sweater. “You’re not. My. Speed.”
Her eyes flickered downward, to the front of his jeans. “I don’t believe you.”
“As you said—that’s always there.”
“As you said—you wouldn’t be able to function like a human if it was.”
“I’m not much of a human. And my services are no longer required, remember?”
“And yet, knowing that...here you are.”
“I came because we had unfinished business.”
“Then finish it!”
“It was finished the minute I walked in the door and saw him.”
“Prove it’s finished. Kiss me.”
“No.”
“Then don’t kiss me. Fuck me.”
CHAPTER NINE
“ASKING TO BE fucked isn’t enough to bring you down to my level,” he said, but although his voice carried the right amount of sneer, desire raced through him so fast he trembled with it.
She straightened her spine, and it made his heart lurch. God, she’d always been
a straight arrow. The straightest. “Then tell me what will,” she said.
He retook her right hand, brought it to his mouth, licked the problematic platinum band, then sucked her pinky finger into his mouth. He watched her as he sucked, as he kept sucking. Stop me, stop me, Romy, he pleaded silently, because he hated himself for what he was about to ask.
But she didn’t stop him. She did nothing except close her eyes, and then open them as though she wouldn’t allow herself that weakness. He slipped his mouth from her finger, slowly, insolently, but kept hold of her hand. “Taking off his ring will be a start. Do that and I’ll fuck you.”
He saw her eyes go wide, the swallow she took. But she tipped up her chin and threw his challenge back at him. “I won’t make what’s between us about Teague. It has nothing to do with him.”
“It has everything to do with him. I’m the bit of rough you have on the side—he’s the one you go home to. You don’t take off the ring of the man you go home to.”
“I came home to you, Matt. For three and a half years I came home to you. After every man, I came home to you. And you...you came home to me.”
“Oh, Romy.” He had to touch her. Had to. Just once. So he cupped her cheek, even though he knew she’d feel the fine quivering in his fingers. “I could count your men on one hand. And there’s the difference. Do you have any idea how many sex partners I’ve had?”
She brought her hand up to cover his, keeping it there. “I only care that it took ten years to make me one of them.”
“But you were only one of them for a night,” he said. “And you won’t be again unless you take off his ring.”
“If it’s so important to you, you take it off. Take it to Teague. Tell him everything. Tell him the reason I always wear it is because I feel guilty for not...not loving him the way you seem to think I should. But do it after, not before, so I know this is about me, not him.”
“And if I insist on doing it now?”
“You won’t. I know you won’t. You stopped me so many times in San Francisco, making sure I was okay, making sure I hadn’t changed my mind. You said you wouldn’t do anything I didn’t like—and you didn’t. I know you won’t do anything I don’t want you to do now, either. You’re not the man you’re trying so hard to tell me you are.”
And that was when he lost it, as though he could hear a snap in his brain, and he crushed her against his chest. How could he want to be her hero and yet simultaneously need to show her that he’d be her downfall? He was confused, and crazy with lust for her, and so damn tired of not having her.
“So be my type all the way now. Mine, not his,” he said, and ground his cock against her to let her know exactly what his type was.
And God, she felt good. Plump and fragrant and perfect. A delicious tremble ran through her and he loved the feel of it so much he ground his cock against her again.
“Do you like that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she gasped.
“My cock?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t even say the word, can you?”
“Cock. Your cock.”
“And if I said I wanted to see you on your knees for me, with my cock in your mouth, sucking?”
“I’d do it.”
“Say it, Romy.”
“I want to suck your cock.”
“Would you do anything I ask?”
“Anything!” she moaned, her hips arching helplessly into him as he rubbed himself against her again. “Oh God, it isn’t fair to torment me like this.”
His mouth hovered over hers. “You want fair? Then hear me. I don’t care about your heart, or your soul. I care about your body, for a limited time only. And all that’s of interest to me right now is if...” grind “you’re...” grind “wet!”
A whimper reached past the whoosh of his pulse in his ears, but no words. He wished he could see her eyes, but they were tightly closed now. It was hard to see her so lost in passion, knowing he wanted to be more for her, to be better for her, and yet be unable to convince himself that was possible. But he was helpless. He would take her, lost or found, his or Teague’s or anyone else’s, any way at all, even though he didn’t deserve her, and pray that this time he’d get her out of his burning blood so he could leave her alone.
He ground himself against her again, more urgently now, and she edged her thighs slightly apart. “Tell me, Romy. Hurry. Tell me you’re ready, you’re wet and ready enough for me.”
Her eyes bolted open. “I’m not telling you—you’ll have to find out for yours—”
It was as far as she got, because Matt found he couldn’t wait another second to put his mouth on hers. Not gently. He couldn’t be gentle. He wanted her too much. No more words. No taunts. No dares. No time. He needed her on his tongue, needed her limbs and her breaths tangled with his. He needed to be closer, surrounding her, inside her.
For the longest moment she stayed with him, and then she moaned against his mouth and it seemed to snap her back to reality. She bolted against him and struggled free, and then stared up at him, her breaths coming in sharp bursts, her magnificent chest heaving.
Had he scared her off already? “Romy,” he said. Just her name, but there was a plea in it—a plea both to stop him and to not stop him.
She gave a cry of surrender, flung herself into his arms again, kissed him so hard their teeth crashed together and he fucking exulted in it. It wasn’t anything soft that she was offering, nothing comfortable. No more stopping. No backing out. So when she eased slightly away, a murmur of apology for hurting him on her lips, he used his hand on the back of her head to jam her mouth against his and instantly she gave herself up to him. A drench of heat, back and forth between them. He shoved one thigh roughly between her legs, and she surged against him. A drugging, sucking kiss. A wanton, blazing kiss.
When he broke to breathe, he kept his mouth close enough to taste her. “Tell me it’s me you want, that I’m the only one.”
“Yes!” she said, surging against him. “You, I want you, any way you want to be.”
“Only me.”
“Only you.” She shoved his chest. “There.” Another shove. “Satisfied? Now do it!”
God, the triumph of it! He didn’t care if she shoved him through the nearest wall as long as she meant those words. It was wrong to want to hear them, worse to ask to hear them, but he needed them. A kind of forgiveness, permission to be exactly who he was, to be only what he could.
“Am I satisfied?” he asked, and framing her face with his hands, he kissed her harder still. “I won’t be satisfied until I’m buried inside you.”
Another rough kiss, hot and wet. Her hands were at the front of his jeans, unbuttoning, unzipping him, and he wondered how long he’d last when he’d been starving for her for so long. Mouths crushing, bruising, a clash of teeth and tongue, his heartbeat going crazy, excitement fizzing in his blood.
He kept kissing her, couldn’t seem to stop, as he dragged her jeans halfway down her legs. Unable to wait another inch, he ripped off her panties. He wanted to tear every stitch of her clothing and rend from her life everything that had kept her from him for four unfathomable weeks, for ten clueless years.
Romy’s hands were under his sweater, under his T-shirt, skating up his chest. He wished she’d rake him with her nails and make him bleed for her. And as if answering that need in him, she dug her fingernails in. He drew back, not to stop her but to see her as she marked him, and the ferociousness in her face made him kiss her again. Wanting him made her angry. Well, he was with her there, furious at how much he wanted this with her. So if a bit of fierce would bring them to terms with what was between them, then he’d give her fierce.
He untethered the last of his restraint, hauling her to the floor and under him, his cock lunging even though her legs weren’t open to him. He was going to take her here, now. He was goi
ng to pretend there was no choice, even though he knew the choice would be waiting at the end of whatever they did.
Her jeans were manacling her legs, but he couldn’t bear to let her go long enough to release her from the bind. His cock wasn’t going to wait; it was weeping for her already. He’d have to take her as she was, even though she’d be so tight in that position he’d likely explode the moment he was inside her. He tore his mouth free and dragged in a tortured breath.
“Hurry, hurry,” she pleaded, struggling against the stubborn jeans that wouldn’t let her open her legs for him. “Oh God, hurry!”
She craned upward to lick his lips, and he kissed her again, easing a hand between their bodies, sliding it down, down, tangling his fingers in her pubic hair. She sobbed out a breath, raised her hips in encouragement and he delved lower, pushing between thighs that were almost clamped together. She started to shudder, her hands pulling at the hip band of his jeans, trying to free him.
“Make me come,” she said. “Do it.”
“I will,” as he plunged his fingers into her.
“More, I need more.”
But he stayed there for a maddening moment, loving the silky moisture against his fingertips, playing in her heat, absorbing the little shivers of her body.
“Matt!” she cried.
He eased off her, barely enough to free himself while one hand continued to play in her wetness. He jolted as his naked cock nudged at her opening, so eager for her he fumbled uncharacteristically as he slid his fingers out, pushed his cock inside. The fit was so snug he thought he wouldn’t make it all the way in. But one thrust and he was there. Fuuuuuuuck. He stopped to absorb the dizzying sensation of being one with her as she whimpered and gasped and gripped him. A blinding, heaven-hell moment. It was tight, so tight, having her thighs almost closed.
“God, you feel good,” he gasp-groaned.
“So do you. Right there. Exactly there, exactly like that. Stay there. Fill me.”
He tried, he really did, despite his cock demanding that he move into the age-old rhythm. He dropped his head to her shoulder, panting through the need. But it was no use. “Romy, I have to move. Just...oh God...once. Just once.”
Getting Lucky Page 9
