Chapter Eleven
“So then we thought maybe Kendra had printed the address or the date wrong or something.” Whitney’s hands moved rapidly as she talked. It made sense that she would be a hand talker, what with being a plastic surgeon and all, but Matt wished she’d sit still for a minute instead of pacing the tiny, slightly creaking floor of his apartment. “But it was all correct. We sat there for like three hours this morning, assuming someone would eventually show up to apply, but the only living thing that stopped by was a three-legged dog. We might have to try to find candidates from Philadelphia and pay them to relocate or something, which is only going to set us back further.”
“It could just be a fluke.”
“I don’t believe in flukes,” she retorted. “In this economy, how can there be no one in the area who needs a job? Do you want to quit teaching and come be my medical assistant?”
“No offense, but I can’t think of anything worse than taking orders from you all day long.”
As if a flip switched, Whitney’s mood instantly shifted. Gone were the fast movements, the faster talking—in fact, it was as if time slowed down, and her eyelids dropped as she slinked across the living room carpet toward where he stood in his linoleum-paneled kitchen. “Is that a fact? And what if I ordered you to sit your tight little ass down in that chair?”
Matt felt himself growing hard. One look from this woman—that was all it took. It wasn’t that he was a stickler for flowers and foreplay and all that, but it would have been nice to think he had some willpower.
Technically, this was the only reason she’d come over to his apartment today. Not flowers. Not foreplay. His only real responsibility here was to enjoy himself. The conversation about her work, the sharing of her troubles, that was just a bonus.
Her eyes glittered a warning.
“I’d sit,” he said, resigned. And he did.
“Oh, I like this,” she cooed, moving closer.
“But then I’d tell you to sit here with me.” He beckoned. Whitney’s eyes lit and she swung her legs—clad, as usual, in the tight, sexy-secretary skirts that shaped her body into a gift to the world—up over his legs. Sidesaddle. She was planning on riding him sidesaddle.
He claimed her lips for a kiss, taking his time in a slow, sensual play of their warring tongues. Whitney had a tendency to be a frantic—though generous—lover. She knew exactly how to grind her ass against his erection, forcing him to grip her hips and calm the incredible sensation that jerked him even through layers of fabric. If she wanted him to kiss her deeper, to plunge into her mouth without remorse and leave them both panting for air, she’d bite his lower lip, spurring him to action. And if she decided he wasn’t getting his hand up her skirt fast enough, she’d start making the journey on her own.
“Hey,” he said, when all those actions came into play at once. “You might have ordered me into this chair, but I’m not leaving until I’ve taken a little time to enjoy it. Sit still.”
She grinned and did the exact opposite, her squirms sending jolts of pleasure through his center.
“I mean it,” he growled. He began kissing a trail along her neck. Past the gentle slope of collarbone. Into the deep vee of her shirt, where the round peaks of her breasts rose from a scrap of wispy lace. He tasted one of those breasts, enjoying the soft swell of flesh against his tongue. “I intend to spend at least ten minutes doing nothing but this. You have the most amazing body. Let me savor it. Let me savor you.”
Pushing the lip of her bra out of the way, he took one of her nipples into his mouth. Hard and yearning, just like him. He suckled deeply, loving the way the skin puckered and rolled under his tongue.
As she gasped for air, he moved higher, kissing her jaw, her throat, all of it waves of rippling silk under the cinnamon-scented tumbles of hair that blanketed them both. Breathing deep, he nuzzled a path from her neck, enjoying the line of her shoulder unbroken by anything but his touch.
Whitney arched her back and ground into his lap. “Oh, God. I can’t.” Forceful hands on his shoulders pushed him out of the warm, blissful haven of her skin. Her eyes, for once, had lost their glaze of lust, replaced by something much more serious. “You have no idea how it aches. I can’t stand the buildup, knowing I don’t get to have you inside of me, knowing your absolutely perfect cock isn’t going to rip me in two. When you kiss me like that, it’s all I can think about. You. Filling me.”
A sudden blaze of fury intensified his rising lust. Filling her was all he could think about too—sweet kisses a different kind of agony. She wasn’t the only one suffering here.
“That’s not fair. You know that option is off the table if this thing between us is going to remain nothing more than a fling.”
“Exactly.” Her voice was strained. “Which is why you can’t take your time and...and...worship me like that. Get me off, Matt, make me scream. That’s all I’m asking. That’s all I’m here for.”
As you command. Fueled by the pulse of anger in his blood and the desperation in her voice, he stood. As she was still halfway on his lap at the time, she stood with him, her legs unsteady at the suddenness of it all. He used her lack of balance to bend her over the kitchen table, one hand nudging her legs apart, the other holding her neck to keep her in place.
If she wanted nothing more than skin and sensation, that was precisely what he’d give her.
“Yes. Like that.” She moaned and spread her legs, her back arched so that her ass rose in the air. He hiked her skirt around her waist, barely taking time to register the sight of her panties, tiny and damp, peeking enticingly up at him from between her legs.
Skin and sensation. Nothing more.
One finger slid in. Then two, tight and hot. Three, deeper still, and he kept her pinned to the table as she rode his hand to a shuddering, moaning halt.
The encounter was rough and crude, harsh in ways he didn’t know he was capable of. When he pulled away, Matt felt oddly shaken. Normally, he’d take a moment to drop a kiss near her ear, maybe offer a self-congratulatory joke. But today, he felt only that he’d somehow let them both down.
And he had, because he couldn’t give her everything she wanted. Everything she deserved. He was powerless in this relationship—something he’d never felt with Laura, even after she threw them away.
When Whitney turned to face him, she shared none of his remorse. With an almost malicious glint in her eyes, she licked her lips and zeroed in on his crotch, making it clear she had every intention of returning the favor. Even though Matt’s entire body throbbed with yearning, he crossed his arms and shook his head. He refused to accept her version of affection right now. Not like this.
Since work conversations seemed to be the only other intimacy he was allowed, he fixated on that.
“Don’t get all noble on me, Galahad,” she warned. “I can see quite clearly that there is some unfulfilled need saying hello over there.”
“I had a thought.”
She finished adjusting her clothes. “Does it involve me on my knees?”
“I don’t know,” he said irritably. “Do you listen better from down there?”
Whitney laughed, missing a valuable opportunity to ask him the source of his troubles. Probably because she already knew and refused to care.
“Do you want to hear it or not?” he asked.
“Okay, I’ll bite. And I’ll listen.” Whitney inclined her head. “What is this all-important thought?”
He waited a moment before speaking, willing his body to cool off and focus on her flop of a hiring fair. It wasn’t what he—or his body—wanted from her right now, but at least this was a concrete problem he might actually be able to solve. “Honestly? I think the reason you aren’t getting a whole lot of job applicants is because of your business model.”
“Wow. You really know how to make a girl feel all warm and fuzzy in her post-orgasm glow, don’t you?” Then, more suspiciously, “Why? What do you think is wrong with our business model?”
There had been talk in the teacher’s lounge lately—well, talk until he’d shown up—about the intrusive nature of a plastic surgery practice in a place where holistic health centers and family-owned businesses had long been the borough staple. Not to mention the intrusive nature of the practice’s founding members.
“You might be going at it a little aggressively, that’s all.”
The corners of Whitney’s mouth fell and her brows came together in the center of her forehead. “Define aggressive.”
“Well, that,” he said. “Don’t eat me, Whitney. You asked. Between the billboard you guys put up at the train station and the public, uh, argument between you and Natalie, you aren’t exactly winning anyone over the old-fashioned way. We like our change slow and subtle here in Pleasant Park. And you, my friend, are neither of those things.”
If he’d thought the joke would help lighten some of the heavy atmosphere in the room, he was sadly mistaken. Whitney leaned on the counter and began drumming her fingernails. “So, what? We have to make house calls with our weathered black bags and travel via horse-drawn carriage? Is that how we’ll get accepted? I’ve been around town long enough. Almost every woman here has had some kind of work done, and call me cynical, but five times out of ten it’s because they caught their husbands checking out a younger model. Kendra, John and I didn’t just pick Pleasant Park on a whim. This place is the Holy Grail for people like us.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Matt paused. In a quieter voice, he added, “And while no one is going to deny that marriage vows aren’t as consecrated here as one might hope, most of the cheating is done behind closed doors. We like to keep our faults and weaknesses close to home. Not plastered on a billboard every commuter has to look at twice a day.”
Before Whitney could respond, Matt’s cell phone rang, vibrating its way across the counter.
“If that’s Laura, so help me, I’m going to throw that thing out the window. I don’t care who it hits.”
It was, of course. Laura seemed to have an impeccable sense of timing these days. “It’ll only take a second.” Then, more to himself than Whitney, “If I don’t answer, she’ll just keep calling.”
“She doesn’t deserve you,” Whitney muttered, but she waved at the phone, giving in.
Matt regarded the still-ringing phone with distaste. Lately, Laura’s calls had become more regular and less important. He wasn’t stupid. He knew it was a direct reaction to his too-public relationship with Whitney, but that only made it harder to stop picking up. It was cruel to rub Laura’s face in his newfound happiness. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
With a quick nod to Whitney, he moved to the relative privacy of his bedroom to take the call.
“Laura?” he asked, his voice low. “What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you.” Her soft voice cracked.
“Okay. Fine. I have a few minutes.” Probably five. That was about Whitney’s limit, before she’d start banging on the door and demanding her turn to chat. “Shoot.”
“Can you come over?” she asked quietly. “It’s kind of a long conversation.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. The last time he’d gone over there, on the fateful yard work errand, it had taken hours before he felt comfortable leaving her there alone. Even after he’d answered her questions about the insurance, she’d seemed so sad and listless, so concerned about every detail in the house. She didn’t function well alone.
“It’s not a good time right now—how about we do lunch this weekend or something?”
“Oh. Is your girlfriend over?”
Girlfriend. That might be the word he’d choose to define Whitney’s presence in his life, but she’d probably end the life of anyone who said it out loud. “Sort of,” he said, uncomfortable with perpetrating the lie any more than he had to.
“You don’t have to pretend she isn’t there,” Laura said. “I’m happy you’re moving on. Really. And she seems...nice.”
He bit back a laugh. Nice didn’t even begin to cover Whitney’s many charms. “Thanks. Look—if it’s not a matter of life and death, can we just do this later?”
A choked sob came through the phone. “But it is, Matt. Death, I mean. Or it could be. I’m sick.”
* * *
Whitney heard a heavy thud from the bedroom and smiled, hoping it was the sound of Matt getting angry. She had never seen a man so blasé about being cuckolded as that one, and it would have been refreshing for a change to see him stomp and kick and possibly punch a wall.
Yes. Matt punching a wall would be hot—especially if he got that look in his normally kind eyes, the one where he knew he’d just lost control and didn’t give two damns about it. Or when he wore that expression of concentration so intense, a lock of his hair fell right in the center of his forehead and he couldn’t be bothered to brush it away.
But the thump wasn’t followed by any sexy sounds. It wasn’t followed by any sounds at all. In Whitney’s experience, several thumps indicated a healthy rage. One thump usually meant—crap. He was already on edge today. She hoped he hadn’t passed out in there.
“Matt?” she called, trying not to let her concern show. “Are you still alive?”
He didn’t answer. Alarmed, Whitney tossed the cereal box she’d been reading aside and pulled open the bedroom door. A more polite woman might have knocked, but that wasn’t a virtue she’d ever bothered much with.
Matt sat slumped against the far wall of his bedroom, which was as sadly underfurnished as the rest of the apartment, though still oddly neat and color coordinated. His phone was in his hand but not on, and he stared blankly at the opposite wall, where a damp, moldy patch had colored the white wall an antique sort of brown.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, forcing herself to lean casually against the doorframe. No need to overreact. All his limbs were still in place. “Does the duchess need you to open a can of pickles for her?”
When he looked up, it was as though a light somewhere had gone off. It was a look she knew well and avoided wherever possible. One couldn’t work in a hospital for any length of time and not know when a person reached their breaking point, when everything fell apart and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
She hated that part of medical care—just one more reason she’d committed to a lifetime of boob jobs for the overprivileged.
“She’s dying.”
“Bullshit.” Whitney stormed into the room and dropped to Matt’s bed, glaring at him slumped there, until he finally looked up. Inertia scared her more than anything else—she’d do almost anything to wipe that expression from his face. “This is another one of her ploys to get you back. I don’t believe her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said dully. “She’s not trying to get me back. She’s scared.”
“Or she sees that you’re finally moving on with your life and can’t stand it.”
Rage finally reared its ugly head. “I’m not having this conversation with you right now, Whitney, so you can stop. I know you never cared for her, but I refuse to believe even you could be so heartless right now.”
Whitney knew she was being cruel. She felt cruel. But she didn’t know how else to make Matt see that his quiet, stubborn strength had to give sometime.
“So, what? You’re just accepting this at face value? You don’t think she might be exaggerating things a little?”
“Laura doesn’t exaggerate. She withholds. She underplays everything until it’s out of control.”
“Is that what she did with that William guy? F*cking another man while you were married—that was underplaying her emotions? Jesus Christ. When are you going to wake up and realize she’s using you? That she’s always used you?”
Matt’s glance was sharp. “Who told you his name?”
“You’re not the only one who knows a thing or two about borough life.” Whitney could hardly believe her ears. Of all the things she’d just said, that was what he wanted to talk about? “It doesn’t take a cop like your brother to figure things out around here. The pharmacist over at the drugstore told me. Said he was some real estate developer passing through who breezed in, swept up your woman and breezed right out again. The people of Pleasant Park might like to hide their own flaws, but they’re more than happy to gossip about others’.”
“He was a real estate agent, not a developer.”
“He was an a*shole, that’s what he was. And Laura isn’t any better.”
“Why do you even care?” Matt was on his feet within seconds, looming so close he could have kissed her. None of that soft, melty-insides kissing, either. The hard, punishing kind. The kind that would have her once again bent over the table, taking in the virile edge of his wrath. “You’ve made it more than clear that you’re only here for a good time—why does it bother you so much that I have actual human emotions? That I care? We can’t all turn our hearts on and off like they’re on a switchboard. We can’t all be you.”
“Don’t you dare.” Whitney jabbed a finger in his chest. “You don’t know anything about my heart.”
“Of course I don’t,” he said, his voice low and steely. “You won’t let me. Talking about those things—sharing those things—would be something people capable of a normal, healthy relationship would do.”
“I’m capable of normal and healthy.”
“No, you’re not. You’re too scared to even try.”
“F*ck you.” She tried to pull away, but Matt gripped her arms with a strength she didn’t know he had. Looking pointedly at her arm, she expected him to release her, but he refused to budge. Goose bumps broke out along her skin.
“She says they’re testing her for cancer,” he said. Whitney’s goosebumpy feeling only intensified. “They’re still doing tests, but her mom died of it when she was only thirty-six, and they’ve always suspected it ran in her family.”
“Oh.” Whitney stopped pulling away. This, at least, was a language she could speak. “What kind?”
“Ovarian. That was what her mom died of, anyway. And Laura always had problems...you know, down there.”
“Down there? You can’t even say the words without blushing. You mean with her reproductive organs?”
“You don’t get to be mad at me.” Matt dropped her arm, but the pressure of his fingers—manic, desperate fingers—lingered like a bruise. “Since the day we’ve met, I’ve let you treat me like your sex toy, let you tell me what I’m supposed to be feeling about my ex-wife. And that’s fine. I was happy to play along. But right now, you don’t get to judge or command or even make a comment.”
“And you don’t get to cry.”
“I wasn’t going to. But I would like to be alone, if that’s not too much to ask.”
“This is something I might actually be able to help with,” she said hurriedly, not missing his clouded, murderous look. A shaky feeling flooded her stomach, spreading its reach into her limbs, wobbling through her arms.
And she’d always had such steady hands.
“I have friends—I know people back in the city...”
“I think you should go.”
“Matt. I’m sorry.” Never one to apologize easily, the words felt heavy on her tongue. They also felt like her last chance to repair something perilously close to shattering. “That was a horrible thing to say about Laura, and it was wrong of me to bring it up. I’m aware I don’t always put your feelings ahead of mine, but you know how I react when it comes to infidelity. I’m doing my best here.”
He didn’t hear her. “I’ll call you later.”
She didn’t move or speak.
“Please, Whitney. Go.”
With that simple, firm request, she had no choice but to comply. More powerful than anger, more painful than a fist—Matt was able to reduce her to a few inches tall with just one word.
And that was something no man had been able to do in years.