“Sure is.” He hurries up the stairs, then stops at the top, bent over.
“Matt.” He looks awfully pale. I’m torn between touching him, grabbing him because he looks like he’s about to fall over, and stepping away from him.
Good sense prevails, and I keep my hands to myself. I’m not letting my guard down around him ever again.
He shakes his head like a dog and straightens, continuing toward the source of the noise.
“Is she sick?” He has stopped at the door and I frown as I enter the room, heading to Mary’s bed. “Hey, girl, what’s wrong?”
She wails something unintelligible and throws herself into my arms. I make out the words “dream” and “Mommy” and my heart clenches in my chest.
“She’s not sick. I checked.” He frowns. “She didn’t want me holding her.”
“Shh.” I pet the girl’s silky hair, then beckon for Cole to join us, and he climbs off his bed and comes to cuddle. “Everything’s fine. It was just a bad dream.”
Matt is still standing at the door, that familiar pain in his eyes, a hurt like a bleeding wound.
I have to look away, not trusting myself.
With a last long look at us cuddling on Mary’s bed, he turns around and leaves. I hear his steps heading to his bedroom.
I won’t go after him.
Not again.
He’s been cold with me, and I know I pushed him when I said I knew about his wife’s death. I said it too soon. Made it sound perhaps as if I’d been going around behind his back, asking questions.
Which I had, but I thought… I thought it was to help him, since he wouldn’t open up himself, wouldn’t talk to me.
That was stupid of me. I should have waited. In fact, no, I shouldn’t have cared. He’s just my employer, and I came near to begging for this job. I love his kids. They’re growing on me, with their quiet pain and their need for affection. I want to take care of them.
For myself. For them. Not just because he asked me to, not only because he’s paying me to.
For him.
I know. I’m in too deep, running out of air, and I can’t seem to find the surface.
I leave the kids playing with a Lego set, cross-legged on the carpet, still hiccupping, figuring they need a few moments to come around—during which time I can check if I have the ingredients to make them pancakes.
I want to pamper them, since waking was so traumatic today.
The floorboards creak under my steps as I make my way toward the stairs. I wonder where Matt is, and then I know.
I’d been half hoping he’d be gone by the time I came out of the kids’ bedroom, but I can hear him in the shower.
Cursing silently, I start toward the stairs, but before I take two steps, the water shuts off and the bathroom door opens.
I’m caught like a deer in headlights as Matt emerges in a billowing cloud of steam, clad only in a small towel slung around his narrow hips. He’s toweling his hair with another towel as I take him in, slightly dazed.
Because the man is cut. Ripped. Much more muscular than I thought, despite the glimpses I caught when seeing him in his faded T-shirts over the days and weeks.
And the ink I noticed on his arm continues around his torso.
Barbed wire, wrapping around him in a death hold.
I open my mouth to say something—Wow is the word that springs to mind, as well as Holy Shit—he notices me and does a double take.
He lowers the towel from his head, his dark hair sticking out in all directions, and damn if he isn’t cute on top of being drop dead sexy.
He’s almost thirty, twelve years older than me. He’s a brooding, rude asshole who doesn’t really want me in his house. He’s bearded and tattooed and despite being a dad to the kids playing next door, every inch of him screams bad boy.
So what does it say about me that I don’t care for Adam kissing me, but I’m wondering instead how Matt’s mouth would taste?
As if hearing my thoughts, he licks his lips, his gaze dipping to my cleavage, and his eyes darken, pupils dilating.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he wants me. That powerful chest is rising and falling fast, and then I see the unmistakable bulge at the front of the towel, and swallow hard.
Jesus. He’s hard, and an answering throb starts between my legs. My blood beats hot under my skin. My face flames.
I can’t move from the spot. Couldn’t if my life depended on it. I can’t stop looking at him, at the way his biceps flex as he clenches the towel in a powerful fist, at his flat stomach, his chiseled pecs, his ink, his mouth, his burning eyes—and then my gaze backslides again, returning to the tent on the front of the towel.
Good God, just how big is his cock—and why do I feel so hot as if I’m about to self-combust?
“Tay…” His voice is hoarse, and I swallow a moan at the sound of it, his voice so strained by arousal, wrapped around his pet name for me.
I like it. Tati makes me feel like a little kid. Tay makes me feel like the woman a man like Matt would notice.
Letting the towel in his hand drop, he takes two steps, pinning me to the bannister of the stairs. He touches my face, looking down at me, and his hardness presses against my stomach, hard like steel.
He smells of soap and arousal, a dark, spicy scent that I draw deep into my lungs.
What is happening? My body is on fire. My skin aches, begging for his touch. His callused, big hand on my face isn’t enough. Not nearly. I need it elsewhere.
Everywhere.
I lift a hand to touch a droplet that’s sliding down his chest, lingering over the ink, over the smoothness of his warm skin, the solid feel of the muscle underneath.
He draws a shaky breath, his cock swelling more, pressing into me though the layers of fabric, making me gasp.
“Fuck,” he whispers, “fuck, girl.”
He grinds into me, his hand sliding around the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair, strands catching on his calluses, tugging. The slight sting makes me gasp again, makes my nipples harden, strain against the lace of my bra.
Heat unfurls between my legs, deep inside me. Oh God, I think I just soaked my panties.
Is he going to kiss me? His mouth is beautiful, full lips parted as he pants raggedly.
He doesn’t. His head jerks up in alert, though I can hear nothing over the sound of my harsh breathing.
Then he steps back, releasing me. “You should run back to your little boyfriend,” he says snidely and strides away. He enters his bedroom and slams the door behind him, leaving me shaken, aching and confused.
What in the world just happened?
Chapter Seventeen
Matt
Christ, what was I thinking?
Goddamn hell. Today has just been too much for my fraying control, and it’s only eight in the fucking morning.
Another sleepless night steeped in nightmares.
Another morning of despair.
Mary’s scream and tears.
Cole’s soft weeping.
And then Octavia, quieting the noise in the house, in my head. Soothing the children, loving them.