He lifted a hand and cupped her cheek. “Was it terrible?”
She tilted her head into his warm grip. “Yes.” She closed her eyes against the memory of the past, and the strength of the present. “He made a lie of everything I felt. He was the first man I ever loved. The only man I’ve loved. And he was never really mine. I had no business being with him. Every time we kissed or made love, we were insulting his wife, but he knew and I didn’t.”
She blinked her eyes open to find him staring at her face.
“Did she stay with him? Or kick his ass to the curb?”
Willow’s lips twisted. “I think they’re still together. I left. I moved here. I didn’t want anything to do with him once I found out what he was capable of. How could I ever trust him?”
Matt felt his heart turn over in his chest. He could well understand how a man – any man – could fall foul of their marriage because of Willow. Not only was she stunningly beautiful, she was intelligent and interesting, standoffish in a very sexy way, and totally fascinating. In short, she was temptation on legs, but that shouldn’t matter. No man in a proper marriage should be tempted by someone else. There was no excuse for it.
And Matt didn’t much like being tarred with the same brush. His situation was completely different.
She lifted her hand to his, still pressed against her warm cheek, and rubbed her fingers across his. “He didn’t wear a ring either.”
He nodded steadily. “The ring is back in my safe. I took it off the day we decided to separate.”
“And when was that?” Her need to know everything about him was becoming overwhelming.
Matt sensed that his answer wouldn’t please her. He shook his head slowly, and brushed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. “Our marriage has been dying for a long time. She left me two weeks ago.”
“Two weeks?” She recoiled from the intimate touch of his hand to her face, and glared at him disapprovingly. “How do you know it’s really over?”
“It’s over. She wants out. I want out.” His expression showed his guilt. “I could never forgive her for…” he shook his head, clearing the sentence from the air. “Megs made some bad decisions, but I can’t blame her. I chose my love for the army over her, time and time again. I shouldn’t have married her, knowing I didn’t really love her enough to make it work.” He put his hands on her thighs, digging his fingers into flesh, his eyes heavy on hers. “I’ve had my own experience with extra-marital affairs. I don’t believe in infidelity. I despise it. I’m not asking you to get in the middle of my marriage.”
Willow felt a sharp stab of something in her ribcage. “What are you asking me for then?”
His laugh was a husky sound in the balmy night air. “A chance.” He’d been at the frontline of a high-risk war for years. He’d battled his way across the desert, and led men to face a foe that was fearless and gruesome, and yet he felt a lurching sense of foreboding now. He had to take it, though. He had to see if this weird connection he’d sensed from the first moment they’d met was as strong as he hoped. He pressed his lips to hers, lightly at first. Just enough to show her his intention, nothing more.
She didn’t pull away. Instead, she let out a small puff of warm air, and her hands lifted to his chest, her fingers splayed across his muscled abs. He deepened the kiss, separating her lips and teasing her tongue. They meshed as one, and passion tore through him like a river of volcanic lava. Impossible to stem, it burst within his body.
He pushed his body closer, and at the same time, cupped her rear with his hands, pulling her forward on the bench, so that their bodies were almost fused. She moaned softly as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and her hands tore to his hair.
Matt needed more; so much more. But instinctively, he knew that pushing his advantage now would get him nowhere. Willow was cautious, and she had every right to be. She’d been in the middle of one marriage, and he wasn’t about to drag her into his own marriage breakup. He would stop kissing her. He would. Eventually.
But for now, the feeling of her warm, slender body in his arms was too good to resist. He let his fingertips glide over her back, softly hinting at what pleasures he wanted to bring her body. They tangled in the dark mane of her hair, pulling at it, releasing it from the topknot she habitually wore, and encouraging it to tumble down her back.
He would stop.
He must.
He lifted her shirt, allowing his fingers to tease the soft, warm flesh at the side of her body. His will-power was taking a battering, as his body began to march to the beat of an ancient, all-powerful drum. Desire and desperate hunger warred inside of him, churning his gut and storming his reserves with a total need for possession.
But he had to stop.
His will-power, always something he valued, was hammering through his conscience. He wanted her, but not like this. Not when the strength of their mutual attraction had washed away her valid arguments. He wanted her when she was begging for him. When she was absolutely certain that she wouldn’t regret pursuing this.
Gently, he eased his mouth from hers, and disentangled his fingers from her body. He straightened her shirt, and stepped back. The look on her face was like a deer that had been caught in headlights. Shock, complete and absorbing, made her stare at him in blank confusion.
It only took a second for indignant fury to take over. She glared at him with slightly more warmth than an eskimo’s igloo. “What the hell was that?” She demanded, swinging her long legs off the bench and pacing away from him, towards the lounge.
Matt had to fight the urge to smile, and he couldn’t have explained why if asked. “I do not want this!” She spun around and scowled at him darkly. “I don’t care if you think you’re separated. You still have a wife, and I’m not prepared to be a rebound thing.” She stiffened her shoulders, and tried to slow the frantic racing of her heart. “I mean it, Matt. This isn’t funny, so I don’t know why you’re smiling like that.”
He didn’t mean to, but he laughed. “Because you’re adorable when you’re angry.”
Willow groaned inwardly. What was she doing? She closed her eyes for strength, but it just brought the memory of their kiss slamming back into her. The parallels between Matt’s behaviour and Ashton’s were too obvious. Both had kept their marriage statuses from her intentionally; and both had overpowered all of her senses with their powers of seduction. Except the way Matt had made her body sing was completely different to how she’d felt with Ashton. Completely different to anything she’d ever known.
She formed her hands into fists by her side. “I don’t want this.”
“Liar,” he grinned, and he surprised her by settling down comfortably in her sofa, as though he belonged there. It brought a frown to her face. Her sofa was a hand-crafted Scandinavian piece she’d bought at a furniture expo a year or so earlier. The finest timber, polished to a walnut sheen, was graced with restored vintage leather. It was elegant and fine, yet Matt’s burly form sat perfectly against it. The juxtaposition shouldn’t have worked, and yet it did.
“Don’t sit down,” she said with genuine frustration. “You need to go.”
He laughed again, and this time, it sent small arrows of pleasure and desire shooting down her spine. “Not until we’ve talked. Don’t fight me on this, Willow. I know how to get through to you now, and I’ll kiss you all night if I have to.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” she said with a huff, but she took up the seat beside him, and lifted her legs, crossing them beneath her.
His eyes dropped to her lips, and he made a small tsking sound. “Pity.”
Her heart turned over in her chest, and secretly she agreed with him. She stared into his bright blue eyes and felt like she was falling into the deepest ocean imaginable. “What do we have to talk about?” She whispered thickly. “I just met you.”
He nodded, his handsome eyes mocking her. “Yeah, and you’ve been thinking about me ever since then, too.”
The flush of pink in her
cheeks gave him all the answer he needed.
He reached out and put his hand lightly on hers. It felt so right. He couldn’t explain it, but sitting like that was some kind of magic. He frowned. He didn’t believe in that kind of sentimentalism. At least, not usually. “Meghan left me fairly recently, it’s true, but really I left our marriage just after it began.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I shipped out a month or so after. I stayed away a long time. Can’t say I gave her much say in the matter.”
“It’s really not any of my business.” Willow’s fingers were tingling beneath his, but she didn’t move.
He squeezed her hand. “It is, Willow. Because I’m hoping that you’ll agree to go on a date with me.” He frowned. His plans were so loose they were like spaghetti, but he heard himself speaking, and knew his suggestion was genuine. “That you’ll understand that I haven’t considered myself married in anything but name for a long time.”
Her eyes flashed as they met his. “And your wife?”
“Soon to be ex wife,” he corrected with a small smile. “Meghan isn’t a part of this picture.”
Willow felt her stomach fill with butterflies. She stood, taking hold of her own hand to relieve the emptiness that flooded through her when she lost his touch. “It’s too complicated, Matt.” Her smile was tight, reminding him of the first time he’d met her. It was incredible, but she seemed to be erecting mental barriers before his very eyes. It was as though she was shrugging back into that cloak of coldness, and putting him at a distance to her. Incredible, and infuriating. “I’m sorry about your wife, but I’m not interested in distracting you, or whatever.” She moved away from him, back to the kitchen, without giving him another glance. Discarded on the bench, her coffee was still warm. She lifted it to her lips and drank it moodily.
“I’m trying to explain that the way I feel about you has nothing to do with Meghan.” He said quietly, leaning against the kitchen door.
Willow jumped. “God, you scared me half to death. I didn’t hear you come in here.”
He nodded sardonically.
He was so handsome. His looks were the kind that movie stars emulated but could never quite perfect. Rugged, outdoorsy, with an air of strength and fire. But his personal life was too messy. Too complicated. “I just don’t have any interest in getting in the middle of something like your marriage. Sorry.”
He compressed his lips, trying to tamp down on his powerful sense of frustration. “And I’m telling you you’re not. That you won’t be. Meghan and I are completely over. From both sides, it’s done. Do you need to see divorce papers to grasp that?”
She bit down on her lip. “No. It wouldn’t help.” She flashed him another tight, terse smile. “I think you should go now, Matt. I really don’t want Anna getting the wrong idea about us. Somehow I don’t think she’d approve of any of this.”
He breathed out an angry sigh. “Can’t say I much care, right now.”
“Maybe not, but I do. Ike and Anna have been really great to me.”
“So? They’re nothing to do with how you and I feel.”
Willow’s laugh was shaky. “How we feel? We hardly know each other! You’re on the rebound, Matt. You’re seeing romance ghosts that aren’t there. I’m just the girl next door to the place you’ve come to mend a broken heart. You need to wake up and realise that there’s nothing between us except the Berries’ fence.”
“Damn it, Willow, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Huh?” She had no clue what he was about to do. Until his lips touched hers, she couldn’t have guessed at his intention. But the second they connected, she groaned, as her whole body began to vibrate in time with a different beat. She had a fleeting sense that she was allowing something very, very stupid to happen, but it felt too good to resist.
He kissed her hard, and he lifted a hand to her cheek to hold her head steady. His other arm he wrapped around her waist, to keep her body near his. Damn it, he wanted her.
Willow lifted her arms, to wrap them around his neck. His body was warm and firm, and he smelled so impossibly good. In fact, everything about the kiss felt perfect. Like coming home, after a long, cold winter. She frowned as the analogy formed in her mind, but she didn’t pull away.
If this were a scene in one of her novels, a spell would have been cast, to cause this degree of kismet and rightness. Her fingers curled in his thick, fair hair, tangling with it in a way that conveyed her desperation. She pressed her body harder against his, and against her flat abdomen, she could feel the hint of his arousal. It made her insides slick with moist heat, and her hands dropped from his hair, to do battle with his shirt. She lifted it, so that she could run her fingernails down his back, and then slide them into the waistband of his jeans. The top of his butt was warm and smooth, the skin supple and toned beneath her hands. She felt him shudder as she kneaded his muscles.
He was magical.
Surely he was some kind of other-worldly creature, who had come into her life to stir up this hornet’s nest of sensuality that she hadn’t known existed. Oh, she’d read sex scenes in novels that would set bodies on fire, but never had she known this kind of passion.
Her whole body seemed to quiver with arousal, as she pulled at his belt, and worked it free of his pants.
Matt swore against her ear, low and gruff, as his hands pulled at her shirt and lifted it over her head. He cupped her breasts, muttering another oath as he felt their neat roundness in his calloused hands. Her bra was lace and dark, with satin detail – the kind of bra fantasies were made of.
He’d committed to return to the east coast. He had a company to run. A future to line with fucking gold, as his father had insisted. But all he wanted to do was bury himself in this woman and be her pleasure forever.
He unhooked her bra and removed it, sliding his fingers over her long, smooth arms before dropping it to the floor. Naked from the waist up, he laced his fingers through hers and stepped backwards, just far enough to properly observe her. His eyes raked her figure slowly, sending little swirls of awareness over her as he went.
“What are we doing?” She mumbled nervously, her eyes heavy on his face.
He grinned, closing the distance and kissing her again. Her body melted against his, and now he could run his palms over her naked skin, feeling her satisfying warmth for himself.
“What we both want.” He lifted a finger to her chin and angled her face to his. “Right?”
She could deny it. But why would she? He was right. Her whole body was throbbing with a powerful, dark need. And he was her craving. He was what her body desired.
“My room’s through there,” she murmured, nodding to a closed door across the house.
He didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled her behind him, shouldering the door to her room open so that he didn’t have to drop her hand. It was a small room, but large on style. The king size bed at its centre took up most of the space, and an enormous turquoise canvas in the centre of the wall served as a bed head. Fairy lights twinkled around a mirror, and a picture of Albert Einstein hung in a frame, with the words, Creativity is Intelligence Having Fun.
His lips twisted into a smile at the room, which screamed Willow from every decorative choice. But then, he focussed his attention back on the half naked woman before him, and he forgot about Einstein and Turquoise and Fairy Lights and white bed linen. He saw only Willow, and he felt only the sharp spike of desire for her.
Compunction fuzzed at the edges of his brain. He ignored it, and with remarkable ease. Tomorrow, he would think through what they were doing. What, by then, they would have done. Tomorrow, there would be time for remorse, if necessary. For guilt, because he knew his future was at the other side of the country.
In that moment, his body was in charge. He scooped her up, earning a squawk of surprise, as he laid her down gently on the bed. He placed her lengthways, in line with the pillows, and he moved across her quick
ly, so that she could feel for herself the strength of his need. Through his jeans, and her leggings, he pressed his arousal, hard and heavy; his hips moved as though he were about to possess her.
She arched her back and her fingers clawed at his shirt; her own libido was stoked to fever pitch.
His laugh was a low rumble, as he pushed out of his shirt and tossed it across the room. He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her passionately, tangling his fingers in her hair, as their naked torsos connected and sparked waves of electricity off one another.
Willow’s laugh echoed his own; she was happy, and the sound of that pleasure filled the room. He pulled at her leggings; they were skin-tight but he tugged at them until they were freed from her body. Her legs, so long and slender, deserved more attention, but he was desperate now. His whole body was tense, like a predator about to pounce on its prey.
He stepped out of his jeans and boxers, and came back to lie on top of her, his weight a heaven-sent balm against her skin. Her fingers danced over his body, craving touch. She wanted to feel every inch of him, to taste him and pleasure him. Her body was covered in a fine dusting of goose pimples. She arched her back, her need making her almost mad with the force of its intensity. Her eyes blinked up at his face, then drifted lower, to the broad expanse of his shoulders and muscled chest. She swallowed, as his sheer strength and power communicated itself to her. He looked like a man who could kill a bear with his bare hands. Completely powerful and in control. She lifted her arms above her head, stretching like a cat.
He laughed, and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin at the base of her neck. She jerked in response, her body shivering as his kiss deepened and dragged lower, to her nipples. He took one in his mouth, rolling it with his tongue until swirls of pleasure were almost like pain; so intense they were just about unbearable.
Tempted by the Billionaire: A Hometown Hero Series Novel Page 6
