Chapter Thirteen
Whitney’s parents visited her every year like clockwork, their trip aligning, not coincidentally, with her birthday. She’d once told them it was the worst present they could possibly give her, that any other time out of the year would have been better, that she’d even take time off from her regularly scheduled activities if they would leave her alone to celebrate in peace.
Whitney loved her birthday. She also loved her parents. She just didn’t love them at the same time.
“But it’s technically my birth day too,” her mother always protested, ignoring Whitney’s pleas and blazing forward with whatever plans she’d already laid out. “I’m the one who did all the work. Thirty-six hours of back labor, Whitney. You should be buying me presents.”
Nothing Whitney did or said could stop them. Never mind that she’d rather go dancing and eat a whole cake and spend way too much money on new shoes. Never mind that she had no desire to entertain them in the middle of the personal and professional quarantine area her life had recently become. The parental units were currently making plans to visit Pleasant Park.
God help them all.
“Well, if you’re planning my surprise party, you can go ahead and cancel,” she said glumly to John, who had come over to watch the Lifetime marathon on her DVR. “Mom and Dad couldn’t be talked out of visiting again this year.”
“Poor baby.” John dropped a giant bowl of cheesy popcorn onto Whitney’s lap. It was warm and smelled of processed food heaven—Kendra would have had a fit. “I happen to love your parents. Do you remember the year they took us all to Medieval Times and your dad was so drunk he volunteered to joust that huge knight?”
“That wasn’t because he was drunk,” Whitney pointed out with a sigh. “My parents are weird, and I don’t know why they refuse to get a hotel. I think they do it on purpose to spite me.”
“I think they do it on purpose because they love you.” John shoved his hand deep in the popcorn bowl until he reached the half-popped kernels. He had the disgusting habit of sucking off all the flavor and then spitting them out. “Also because the only way they ever learn anything about your life is by going through all your stuff while you’re at work.”
“They don’t do that.” Whitney grabbed the remote and selected their first show, part one of a series in which a woman with amnesia first gave birth to a demon and then, a few years later, to an angel. “I put all my kinky sex stuff right where they can find it. There is nothing like a vibrator in the crisper drawer to keep your parents from snooping in the really good cupboards.”
“You’re sick, you know that?” John spit out a popcorn kernel into a napkin and laughed. But as the movie came on, he sobered a little. “Are you going to introduce them to Dimples?”
“Shh,” Whitney hissed, watching the screaming blonde woman give birth from the back of a taxi. “You’re ruining the dramatic opening.”
“My humblest apologies,” he murmured. “I just wonder how it is you’re going to manage to hide a man like that in a town like this.”
Whitney ignored him. It wasn’t a question worth asking, let alone answering. Besides—there was no way Matt would fit inside the crisper drawer.
* * *
Her parents’ visit was slated to begin in T minus three days. As it had been a week since Whitney had last seen Matt at his school and even longer since she’d seen him without his clothes on, she sensed an urgent need to pay him a visit.
Not because she wanted sex. Because she wanted to make sure he was okay.
If her parents were going to be present for two weeks—two weeks in which she refused to introduce them to Matt in fear of getting their hopes up—she needed to do this now, to call and face her demons. Face his demons too.
Oncology wasn’t her field, but she’d done a rotation during her residency. All it took was one or two days on the floor to realize how much that disease tore apart families and people. Even if the patient was a cheating ex-wife with codependency issues.
Especially if the patient was a cheating ex-wife with codependency issues.
She swung by his apartment on a Saturday afternoon. Fearful that a phone call would put him on his guard or that he might turn her down flat if given any advance warning of her arrival, she was making this a sneak attack. She’d even slipped into a pair of jeans and a beige sweater before leaving the house. Beige was her safe color, asexual and bland.
“Holy crap,” Whitney said when he pulled open the door. Tired and morose, Matt had never looked so beaten down. A stubbly growth covered his jaw and chin, a worn black T-shirt stretched tight across his frame. “You, uh, look like you could use a nap.”
It wasn’t her most glib response, but it was all she could come up with on short notice. She held up a six pack. “Or beer. I brought beer.”
Matt gestured for her to come in, his expression neutral. “I’m sorry I haven’t called. I should have called.”
“No. You shouldn’t have.” Whitney swept into the kitchen and put the beer in the fridge. Unlike his normal leafy greens and carefully lined up Tupperware, his shelves held a mess of takeout cartons and a lone withered orange. Things were worse than she realized. Peeking over her shoulder, she added, “You don’t call unless you want to. Remember? No rules?”
His face screwed up for a moment before straightening back out, almost as though he was trying hard to remember their past conversations, as though she’d fallen so far off his radar he no longer remembered her last name. “Thanks for thinking of me—with the beer and all.”
“Of course.” She handed him one. “Have you eaten?”
“No, but I’m not really hungry. Unless you are...?”
She thought of his fridge’s contents. “Nah. Not right now.”
An awkward silence fell, oppressive in how strange it felt. This was the first time she didn’t feel easy and perfect being in Matt’s presence. Damn that Laura. Damn her for getting cancer and making it Matt’s problem.
Maybe that made her a terrible human being, but it was a role she’d gladly play if she could just get Matt to smile.
“Okay. You have ten minutes,” she announced, pointing her beer at him.
His brow knit. “I do?”
“Yes.” She threw herself onto one of the kitchen chairs. “I want you to talk to me about Laura for ten minutes—whatever you’re feeling and whatever is happening. And then she’s gone for the rest of the day.”
Matt blew out a long breath and studied Whitney, lounging at his table as though she’d dropped over for a chat about the latest Eagles game. He’d known, when she appeared unannounced at his door, that he wasn’t going to get off easy today. No more sitting and staring at the wall, wondering what he was supposed to do. No more waiting for the phone to ring, to see if Laura had any more information about her diagnosis.
“I’m sorry about before,” he said. “For yelling at you.”
“I said talk about Laura, not apologize.” Whitney’s gaze was unwavering—her presence solid and warm. How was it that this woman was able to carry so much energy and joy with her wherever she went? It fizzled and crackled around her and made him think, for a small space of time, that he could be happy again. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Now spill.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather not.”
“Not an option. I want to hear all the gory details. Have you talked to anyone else?”
He let out a soft snort. It wasn’t exactly the sort of topic one foisted on coworkers or a set of six-year-olds, and the last thing he wanted was Lincoln’s or Hilly’s advice on the subject.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Whitney marched over to the microwave and set the timer for ten minutes before leaning on one elbow on the counter. She trained her eyes on him, unblinking and, to all outward appearances, interested and sympathetic. “Start talking.”
As always, he did as she commanded—not because he had to, but because he wanted to. It was an important difference, one he couldn’t always put into words but felt just the same. Making this woman happy was as ingrained into him as breathing.
“She had an appointment on Tuesday, and she wanted me to go.”
“Tell me you didn’t say yes. Doesn’t she have any family or friends in town?”
“Is you asking questions part of my ten minutes?” he asked. “Because that doesn’t seem fair.”
She made the motion of a zipper over her lips and gestured for him to continue.
“Her family does live here, but you have to understand that they’re pretty conservative people. When our marriage ended the way it did...”
“You mean when she cheated on you...”
He shot her a warning look. It was hard to explain this town to people who didn’t grow up here. Pleasant Park was anything but pleasant if the locals chose not to accept you. Judgment and contempt came with the territory.
Then again, maybe she knew more about that than most...
“When she cheated on me,” he said, gaining momentum even as the words tripped over his tongue, “there was a pretty big public outcry. Most of the people here have had kids in my class, and since my sister and brother are their own kind of fixtures, we’re pretty well liked. It was really hard for her—for her whole family—for a few months. They’d go into the diner and wait for an hour for their food. Teenagers egged their house. Small stuff, but the kind of stuff that weighs on you after a while—especially since it wasn’t any of the town’s goddamn business.”
Whitney nodded. “That’s for sure.”
“Anyway, the point is that most of her friends started dropping off not too long after we separated. I don’t doubt her sister would have gone with her to the doctor, but not without making a big deal out of it. So yes, I went, and sat in the waiting room. And don’t you dare look at me like that. You just have to accept that no matter how much she hurt me, Laura was—and is—very much a part of my life. I’m not going to let a woman I once pledged my life to visit a cancer specialist alone. No one deserves that. Not even my worst enemy.”
He paused, waiting for her to insert a snide remark or comment on his nobility. But she just nodded, real warmth in her eyes.
“So that’s pretty much it. She still doesn’t have any conclusive results, but I think they did one of those biopsy things.”
Whitney opened her mouth and then promptly shut it again. It was probably killing her not to insert an opinion after every word.
“I don’t know what else to say,” he continued. “There’s lots of medical terminology I’m sure you already know. Laura is scared and freaked out and I’m not sure what my role is supposed to be yet. I told her it’s probably best to go into the city—they have specialists there and she can stay with an aunt—but she didn’t really talk much. She mostly cried.” His voice cracked. “Which seems fair, given the situation. She’s only twenty-six.”
Silence blanketed them both—not awkward or comforting, just present, like oxygen. There was a lot more he could say, but the depressing realization that it would come out more as a jumbled mixture of sounds rather than actual words was too strong to ignore. He liked Whitney—more, he knew, than she liked him—and he refused to break down in front of her over this.
A few more minutes were left on the timer, but he didn’t make a move to fill the silence, and she, bound by her word, did the same. It was odd. They weren’t touching at all, but he felt closer to her in that moment than during any of their sexual entanglements.
Of course, the second it went off again, Whitney bounced into action. “So, I brought a few movies, but it’s a nice day out, so that seems like a really depressing way to spend the afternoon. Which is why I also brought a kite.”
The randomness of that statement forced a laugh out of Matt. “Is it even windy enough outside for a kite?”
“I don’t know. Do I look like the type of woman who kites?”
“Then why did you buy it?”
“It’s pretty.” She said it with certainty, as though that were the answer to everything. Kite purchases. Relationships. World peace. “Can’t you just make it work by running fast?”
Matt had a suspicion Whitney was secretly some kind of master kite flyer and was testing him. They’d get outside only to find that she had one of those thousand dollar contraptions with dual handles, and she’d soundly whip his ass, laughing at him all the while.
It sounded wonderful.
“We can head to Blue Lake,” he suggested. “I think the winds are pretty decent on the shoreline, and there’s a cabin up there that used to belong to my grandparents.”
“Oooh,” Whitney squealed. “Waterfront real estate. Why, Matt Fuller, you never told me you’re a man of property.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not that kind of waterfront. Oh, and Whitney?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For letting me talk. For being here.”
“Of course.” Whitney turned sharply away. “Let’s get going. Daylight’s burning.”
* * *
Whitney had a small arsenal of outdoor equipment in the trunk of her car, which was strange, given how incredibly non-outdoorsy she claimed to be. In addition to a kite, there were coats and blankets and a picnic basket that she vehemently ordered Matt not to open, for fear of releasing the scents and spores of a long-gone day at the park. There was even a cricket bat, though she was hard-pressed to explain its presence among so much random gear.
“If you think this is bad, you should see my closets” was all she’d say as they piled inside and she revved the engine, taking off at a good twenty miles per hour over the speed limit.
Matt was slowly getting used to her way of driving, though he might have preferred to put the top up, considering it was a crisp spring day with a thermometer firmly topped out at fifty-five degrees. As he watched Whitney out of the corner of his eye, her hair whipping playfully in the wind, he decided maybe he would bear the cold. He wanted to cement the sight of her, youthful and flushed, in his memory to store for the hard days ahead.
Life with Whitney was ass-hugging jeans and laughter. It was stolen kisses and rushed orgasms. It was yelling and arguing and a constant battle of wills.
Life with Whitney was exhilarating.
“Take this exit and turn right.” Matt pointed toward a rustic one-lane road that disappeared into a dead overgrowth. One nice thing about having a frozen face and wind tearing up his eyes was that it wasn’t necessary to attempt conversation. He felt more at peace than he had in days. “I really hope your car can make it. The road is awfully rough.”
Whitney turned to him and winked. “Oh, Matt. My car and I were made for hard riding.”
Matt groaned. “I set myself up for that one, didn’t I?”
Whitney just laughed before hitting the gas pedal with a vengeance. A normal person would have slowed down to take the backwoods hairpin turns with a little more caution. Or at least to reduce the kickup of dust. But she was oblivious to death or danger or dirt, and Matt settled in to the inevitability of misery.
Compared to how he’d felt earlier in the week, dropping Laura off at their empty house, refusing her entreaty to come inside and keep her company, this freezing, dirty misery was a wonderful feeling.
Whitney stepped on the gas again. Although she was trying to be discreet about it, she was keeping a close watch over Matt’s face, which alternated between irritation and sadness. Sadness meant she needed to speed up, because he was starting to think again. Irritation meant she was doing her job well.
She might not have a ton of experience being the supportive girlfriend type, but she wasn’t Matt’s self-appointed rebound girl for nothing. When faced with a distasteful situation that had no easy answer, the only thing to do was think about something else. Anything else. And since even she knew whipping off her shirt and putting on a personalized burlesque show might be a touch gauche right now, she’d settled for a kite and a drive. It was the best she’d been able to come up with on short notice.
As she turned the last corner into what looked like a solid wall of trees, Matt indicated that they’d finally arrived at their destination. She parked under a huge evergreen tree and waited for Matt to come around and open her door. He always let out a little huff if she tried to do it herself—and, truth be told, she was getting kind of spoiled. Those little gallant gestures of his—opening the door for her, hanging on her every word when she spoke, the way he always made sure she came first before taking his own pleasure—they added up to something substantial.
“Welcome to Chez Fuller,” he said, taking her hand and helping her out of the car. “The family legacy, hunting lodge, fishing shack—call it what you want. My grandfather built it with his own two hands.”
Whitney took in the sight of the so-called legacy with a laugh. Matt’s grandfather had obviously not been one of those men who could craft an entire city from a pile of leaves and a matchstick. The log cabin looked solid enough—it had walls and a ceiling—but the front door creaked on ominous hinges and there wasn’t a single wooden beam overhead that wasn’t sagging and crowded with wispy cobwebs.
“It’s just the one front room and an upstairs attic. Hilly, Lincoln and I used to all fit up there if we didn’t breathe too much, but the last time I was here a family of eagles had taken up residence in the rafters.”
“Your family must be big on outdoor adventure, huh?”
“What can I say?” Matt spread his arms. “We’re a classy people. Now grab that kite. I want to take it for a spin.”
Whitney obliged, even though there was no way that thing was going to get any air. She’d bought it at a Chinese grocery store the next town over, which had incredible to-go lunches but otherwise contained products that were a mystery to her. She didn’t eat any fruits or vegetables she couldn’t recognize, so assuming she could do anything with a fuzzy melon other than mock it relentlessly was ridiculous. But they’d had a shipment of decorative kites out one day, and she’d picked up a long-tailed dragon painted a vibrant red and sporting fangs bigger than its feet. She thought it would look nice against the bright blue sky of summer.
The dull, overcast spring weather would work too. She had a man to cheer up, after all.
Matt pulled the kite out of its brown paper wrapping with a grimace and shook his head at what he called the poorly designed aerodynamics of it. She should have figured he’d be far too practical a man to simply enjoy the shiny-pretty.
“Just give it one try,” Whitney wheedled. “I saw a fireplace inside the cabin and the kitchen cupboard—singular, by the way—had a giant jar of Ovaltine in it. I’ll make hot chocolate for us when we’re done.”
“That stuff is older than I am. We’ll die.”
“Then we go out with a flourish. Spoilsport.”
The distance from the house to the lake was short. The temperature plunged with each step closer to the shoreline, and when they finally broke through, the wind whipped up off the water a good ten degrees cooler than the forest air.
Whitney’s face stung cold and chapped, her lips dry. But still she smiled and broke into a laugh when she reached the edge of the lake. The sandy shore was littered with debris and branches, the water a murky brown of slime and grabby tendrils of lakeweed. Definitely a little rustic for her taste, but watching Matt struggle to untangle the kite, freezing his ass off in a thin jacket, filled her with a sense of comfortable happiness she refused to define.
“So, how did you say this was supposed to work? I run fast?”
“Can you run fast?” she asked, tilting her head sideways. Matt had the lean build of a runner, firm in all the right places, his ass a muscular and delicious handhold. But she’d always taken him for a long-distance sort of guy—endurance over fancy acrobatics—rather than a sprinter. Long-distance guys always made the best lovers.
“I’m fast enough,” he said gruffly. “Faster than you.”
“If I’m your measure of athletic prowess, then you’ve got problems,” Whitney said with a laugh. She found a fairly dry spot on a fallen log and sat. Only a little moisture seeped up through her jeans, and it was hopefully too cold for bugs.
Matt proved surprisingly adept at flying a kite—the result, she was sure, of hours of playing card games with children and watching patterns of cloud animals march through the sky. He’d gotten the string unwound and was testing the kite by tossing it into the breeze when he turned to her.
“Why are we doing this again?”
“I like to watch you work with your hands. It’s sexy.”
He stopped, staring at her with the fixed intensity he always got when she dared to talk dirty to him. A mixture of suspicion and rampant sexual interest, that look curled through her belly with a slow, steady burn.
“What? You have the most dexterous fingers of any man I’ve ever met. When you do that thing—that one where you pin me down, spread me wide open and massage my * with your thumb—I always think what a shame it is you never thought about becoming a surgeon.”
“You use that time to think about my choice of careers? That’s one of my best moves.”
Her own sudden burst of laughter caught her off guard. “It’s a very brief thought, I promise. Want to know what else I think about?”
“No. I want to get this over with.” He jiggled the kite. “It’s cold, Whitney, and this contraption is a piece of crap.”
“How’s this, Galahad?” She uncrossed her legs and watched him struggle with the flimsy material. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t make today about sex, but damn. With that dimple peeping out and the slow, careful way he licked his lips, it was a wonder she’d waited this long. “Every second you keep that kite in the air is a second I will spend with my mouth wrapped around your cock. We can pretend we’re in a real cabin, all cozy and warm and rolling around on a bearskin rug.”
He paused, head tilted. “I’ve always thought bearskin rugs were a little creepy. Especially if they keep the head on.”
“Afraid of a little bite?” she asked, her voice low.
Matt’s dimple deepened, and it was all Whitney could do not to launch herself across the beach and take him right then and there. He was being coy on purpose.
Men didn’t normally do that—at least not with her. They took what she offered and reveled in it, like dogs and their favorite rubber chew toys—always a little fearful that if they let down their guard, she might take away their privileges.
Not Matt. She had a feeling she was the dog and he was the treat. He had the power here—he set the pace of an arrangement that was verging fearfully into courtship territory. Today was clear proof of that, and even though danger flashed a warning red right in front of her, she was powerless to stop it.
She could feel the danger as he sat on the log next to her and worked at the knots of the string, slowly and leisurely, a man who didn’t have a care in the world. She leaned in and kissed him just below his ear, a spot she knew was sensitive and normally had him growling and throwing her to the bed.
“It’s not going to work,” he said pleasantly, though she noticed his hands stilled as her teeth nipped his lobe. “I’ve been issued a challenge, and I intend to meet it. Did you bring a stopwatch?”
“I can count.” She moved a little lower, her lips against his neck. He smelled of the outdoors and Irish Spring—by all accounts the most basic of scents a man could possess. But as he did in the case of all things commonplace, Matt made them his own. Comfortable and tantalizing and somehow the best smell in the entire world.
“There! I got it.” Matt sprang to his feet, ignoring her.
“You tell me when to start.” She slipped her hands into her armpits. The day grew colder as the sun dipped farther into the trees. There better be firewood inside the cabin. Gathering sticks would take up valuable sex time.
“No counting super slow.” He lifted the kite. “Okay. Go.”
With a quick flick of his wrist, the kite was out of his hand and into the air. For a moment, Whitney was sure it was going to take a nosedive right for the water, but he pulled at the last second, and it rippled against the wind, shooting straight up to the top of the tree line.
She began counting out loud, purposefully inserting “Mississippi” between each beat. He ignored her, unwinding the string so that the kite moved higher into the sky. There were a few moments when she thought the kite might snag on a tree, forever lost to the chipmunks and evergreens, but he always seemed to pull up at exactly the right moment.
At six hundred and five seconds, she stopped counting and called out, “Okay. Now you’re showing off.”
He turned, grinning. “No. This is showing off.” Wrapping the handle of the kite deftly around the branch of a tree a few times, he effectively made the kite a permanent fixture in the sky. “Do you want to keep counting?”
“You cheat!” Whitney squealed as he came up behind her, wrapping his hands just under her breasts and burrowing his face in the crook of her neck. He inhaled deeply, seemingly content for the moment to smell her hair.
She’d always wanted that—a man who smelled her hair. It was a simple gesture but an intimate one, one that signified a subconscious need that was out of his control. But when he remained there, embracing her, not pulling her toward the cabin where she could make good on the kite’s promise, she stiffened.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice muffled.
“It’s cold. Let’s go inside. You can build me that fire.”
He remained in place a moment longer before grabbing her hand and leading her back on the path. His hand was strong and sure; her legs wobbled.
They almost gave way entirely when he leaned in close and whispered into her ear, “With what I have planned, a fire is the last thing we’ll need to stay warm.”
* * *
Whitney always made good on her debts.
She sent faithful student loan payments on her massive medical school debt every month. She repaid people who helped her move with generous purchases of pizza and beer. And when she lost a bet, she paid in full.
“But I never concede to cheaters,” she explained from their twined position on the dirty cabin floor. “Not even cute ones.”
“You’re just a sore loser,” Matt teased. He spoke directly to her breasts, taking his time kissing each one. The slow, lazy circles of his tongue were agony. She wanted him to suck, pinch, play. Instead, he gazed worshipfully at where the mounds of flesh swelled before his eyes, his breath warm as he lightly flicked a tongue over the protrusion of her nipple.
“Less talking. More sucking.” She arched into him and fisted his hair, forcing his mouth closer. When he finally clasped her nipple lightly between his teeth and suckled, she let out a cry that probably frightened all the wildlife within a mile radius. An explosion of pleasure swept through her, throbbing as it forced its way to her achingly empty core.
Always, it came to this. Always, she felt the void of Matt much more painfully than she thought possible.
With her hand still gripping his hair, she yanked him back. “You know what? No. I don’t owe you a single lick.”
His dazed expression sharpened. “Of course you don’t. I was just kidding with the kite back there. We can stop.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. This man could not be any more adorable if he was wrapped in bacon. “Oh, we’re not stopping until I’ve had at least three orgasms. But after your little stunt outside, I think I’m placing a strict fellatio embargo on today’s activities.”
“Mmm,” he agreed, his lids heavy as he appraised her. “I think I can handle that.” He licked his lips and allowed his gaze to travel southward, not stopping until he reached the juncture of her jeans-clad thighs. Moisture steeped her panties as his meaning became clear. He’d do it too. Dive between her legs and not come up until she could no longer think.
“You’ll be handling it all right.” She rolled and rose to unsteady knees. So far, the only clothes they’d managed to lose were her shirt and bra, which suited her current purposes just fine. She needed the denim barrier below if she intended to remain firm. “Across the room. Five paces.”
His lips quirked in a question, but he did as she commanded, counting them off like a dueler of old. When he got to the end, he swiveled on one foot and made a gesture toward a fake gun. “Okay. What now?”
“Take it out.”
His eyes flared for a moment, desire lighting his face. “You’re serious?”
“Unbutton. Unzip. Oh, and take off your shirt nice and slow first.”
Matt must have realized her delicious, wicked intentions, because a smile worked slow and satisfied across his face. Without another word, he began at the top button of his shirt, taking his time with each one.
There was something about Matt that made him a natural stripper. A big part of it was his lazy confidence, which didn’t balk at behaving a little ridiculously from time to time. But that wasn’t all. Maybe it was the rough forest of hair extending into his jeans, promising so much more. Perhaps it was that he knew how much she loved every second.
Most likely it was just that he knew what awaited at the bottom of that treasure trove of a body of his. How could he not? Thick and strong, his erection had such a powerful effect on her she could barely breathe at the sight of it. And she wasn’t attached to the damn thing. Walking around with that cock every day of the year must be some kind of torture.
“What now?” he asked, his voice hoarse. With his chest exposed and his jeans open at the fly, he wasn’t technically naked, but it was pretty cold in here. And his erection sprang from his nest of dark hair with so much glorious promise the rest of the room fell away.
“I want you to take your dick in hand and stroke it. Tell me how it feels.”
She half expected him to be shy about being so vocal, but Matt was a creature of contradictions. He didn’t swear in public, he didn’t like talking about sex in a casual setting and he had a delightfully small vocabulary when it came to her vagina. But as he wrapped his fist around his cock and began an agonizingly slow motion up and down the length of it, he showed no restraint.
“It feels incredible,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Hot. Hard. Heavy.”
Whitney felt herself squirming under his concentrated stare. “Yes. It’s definitely all those things.” It was the most beautiful cock she’d ever seen, all thick and veiny and strong. “Faster. I don’t want you to hold anything back.”
He groaned and pumped harder, never once losing eye contact with her. A lock of hair fell into his face as he concentrated on the task, and his body jerked with each movement.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Whitney commanded. “Tell me what you want.”
“I’m thinking of you. Naked. Sitting on my face.”
The unexpectedly blunt reply caught Whitney by surprise in the best possible way. She had to remind herself to breathe. “What else?” she asked, her voice almost a croak.
“I’m remembering how you taste, sweet and hot. Delicious.” His hand moved faster, driving against his erection with intense focus. “I’m thinking about how smooth your legs are when I force them open, how you get so wet I can barely stop myself from licking every inch of your thighs.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Your breasts. God...” he groaned. “The perfect weight in my hands—I dream of them sometimes, of the way they swell when you breathe heavily, like they can’t get free fast enough. And when you moan like that, I swear your nipples get darker and tighter, begging for my touch.”
Unable to prevent herself, mesmerized by his words, constricted with need, Whitney flew across the room.
He caught her, mid-flying-tackle, providing a cushion when they both fell. And even though the breath flew from their lungs, neither one of them cared enough to stop the crashing of their mouths in a passionate, searing kiss. Whitney couldn’t open her mouth wide enough, her tongue couldn’t get deep enough. She wanted to devour him.
Reaching down, she grabbed the brawny heft of him and finished the job he’d started. It didn’t take much—just a few pumps—and he was groaning into her mouth, spilling hot and sticky over her hand.
She waited just long enough for him to catch his breath before reaching for her jeans and practically ripping them off her body.
“I want what you said. All of it. Right now.”
He took her face in both hands, his eyes kindling fire at her. “Nothing on this earth would make me happier.”
She sighed and gave in to the heady rush of Matt’s hands forcing her legs apart. He moved both of them closer to the wall, allowing Whitney to brace herself with both hands as he lowered her to his mouth.
He kissed deeply, almost hungrily, as if drawing the blood from her whole body and forcing it down to meet his lips. Before Matt, she’d had no idea that a man could kiss a woman as passionately at her entrance as he could her mouth. But he did. His tongue delved in, sweeping along the inner folds of her labia, enjoying every taste. He nibbled and nipped at her *, applying the perfect amount of pressure when she cried and ground harder against him.
And best of all, he never loosened his possessive grip on her thighs. He pulled her away and brought her closer on his own terms, refusing to let her simply take her pleasure. Instead, he gave it.
She cried out and slapped her hand on the wall as she came. The resounding sting in her forearm did nothing to still the crash of sensation that moved through her. In fact, she slapped the wall again and laid her head against the splintery wood, groaning as he continued providing pressure to the sensitive nub, her body jerking with a few more final twinges of pleasure.
When he pulled away, he left her cold and empty in the glorious space where his head had just been. But not for long.
“Well,” Matt said happily. “That makes one.”
Oh, God—had she really commanded three of those?
His fingers traced a slow and careful pattern up along her lower belly, reigniting the fire that hadn’t gone completely out. She groaned again and sank farther to the ground.
Yes. Yes, she believed she had.
* * *
There was a stitch that ran about two inches along the length of Matt’s side, and he was pretty sure he was going to need Whitney to check his toes for frostbite later, but he didn’t dare move. She’d fallen asleep, exhausted, in his arms, nestled up against him in an unprecedented moment of intimacy even though the blankets they’d spread out over the floor smelled of death, and a frightening rustling in the vicinity of his head signaled that a nest in the nature of the rodent family was located nearby.
Also, Whitney was a blanket hog.
Of course she was—he could have guessed that weeks ago. She was exactly the type of woman who would sleep horizontally and snore and otherwise make sleep inconvenient.
He didn’t care.
He ran a hand gently along the curve of her bottom, which was bare and pressed up against him, stirring his groin despite several hours’ worth of backwoods cavorting that left his whole body numb. He loved the sight of her naked, the feel of her naked. Soft, responsive, a seemingly endless bounty of curves and nooks to explore. Even now, as he ran a hand over the softness of her belly, she murmured and purred, shifting against him.
How easy it would be to get used to this. Or to slip even further into the incredible gift she offered him by moving their sexual relationship to the next level.
Naturally, he’d thought about it—all the time, he thought about it. Maybe he’d take it slow, kissing her entire body from head to toe, savoring all his favorite parts before finally entering her. Possibly he’d push harder. Probably he’d push faster. He’d be unable to control himself as he took his pleasure in the hard, frantic thrusts his body demanded. Over the table, on the bed, up against the shower wall. The seemingly endless loop in his head was nothing if not inventive.
He groaned. Either the noise or the fact that he’d grown rock hard against her signaled the end to her brief nap. As sleep ebbed away, her body stiffened against his.
Wisely, Matt kept quiet and didn’t move his hand. A man didn’t work in his profession without learning a little patience. Letting him talk about Laura had been an act of kindness, bringing him here for a change of scene even more so. Whitney might like to drive home the temporary nature of their relationship whenever she could, but she was warming to the idea of more. She had to be. He wasn’t sure he could bear it otherwise.
Whitney pretended to be asleep for a few more minutes, unnaturally still and tense. When she finally turned, it was with a forced stretch and a yawn, her smile tight.
He leaned in and kissed her nose. “My toes are freezing.”
It was the right thing to say because she laughed and relaxed a little, though she pulled away enough that his body felt the loss of her heat and softness. “Get one of those single moms to knit you some socks—I’m not contributing to anything that covers you. I like you much better in the nude.”
Whitney was nothing if not predictable—that was a classic Step One. Put him in his place. Matt was a sex toy, an object of lust and welcome to encourage the attentions of others as long as it didn’t interfere with their arrangement.
“By the way, we’re going to have to cool it a little this week.”
Step Two. Set more boundaries.
“That’s fine,” Matt said congenially, rolling over and stretching his limbs. His toes were cold but not discolored. Still, he pulled on his boxers and jeans, comfortably half-dressed while he searched for his socks and shirt. “Give me a call when you’re free.”
“I mean it, Matt. Don’t stop by or anything. My parents are visiting, and I don’t want to have to explain...” Her voice trailed off and she waved her hand between the two of them. The movement brought to mind just how cold it was, and she shivered, all of her body covered in a ripple of goose bumps, which didn’t fail to take hold of her nipples, pointed skyward and tempting.
He turned away. That was Step Three, and it was the one that hurt the most. Drive home her refusal to capitulate with whatever force was necessary. The more brutal, the better.
“Got it. The parents are in town. No clandestine meetings. No lovers hidden under the bed. I’ll cease to exist.” As soon as he said the words, he regretted them. They smacked of little-boy-irritation.
“Hey—if you don’t like the arrangement, we can stop right now.” She’d pulled on her shirt and underwear, but even in a state of half undress, she was formidable. She meant every word.
It would be the easy solution, that was for sure, to let her go and move on. He would miss the sex—good God, there wasn’t a hot-blooded man on earth who wouldn’t miss that sex—but more importantly, he would miss her.
Longing for a woman wasn’t new to Matt. A guy didn’t grow up an awkward, straight-A student without feeling the lack of female admiration in his life. That sort of thing—of him trying too hard to please, always falling short of the goal—had been a staple of almost all his relationships to date. Even with Laura, she’d fallen out of love with him before he’d fallen out of love with her. He’d always done more wanting, more waiting, more everything.
Whitney had sensed that at the outset—wasn’t that what she said? That he needed a rebound girl in order to learn how to differentiate sex and a relationship?
He obviously sucked at that.
“It’s not a problem, Whitney,” he said, forcing himself to continue looking bland and uninterested. She didn’t seem convinced, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it unless they dumped all their thoughts and emotions onto the floor and pulled them apart, examining for clues.
Like that was going to happen.
So they got dressed. They cleaned up the dirty cabin and piled into the car, the top thankfully up and secure as night settled around them.
As Whitney cranked up the radio and stepped on the gas, Matt could just make out the red kite in the distance, still flapping proudly in the wind, full of sexual promise.
He hoped it would be there when they came back.
Who was he kidding? He hoped they came back, period.