How did he shake off the press?
I’m pretty sure Wilson must have kept the coast clear for him to escape unnoted, but . . . oh my god, Matt is at my apartment door.
My mother would die that he’s at my “shitty” little apartment.
I open my door with shaking hands, letting him inside, worrying she might be right. He’s looking around with a frown, and suddenly my worries multiply, and I grab his hand and try to distract him.
“I have a big bed. Come on,” I whisper.
“You really shouldn’t live here all alone,” he says, frowning deeply at me.
I smile and tug him toward my room—swaying my hips until that catches his attention.
He follows quietly, his eyes taking me in now, instead of my apartment.
I kick off my shoes and lie down on my bed, wondering why he’s not at The Jefferson Hotel with a do not disturb sign on the door. Why he’s here. I catch him glance around my bedroom and at my window, a look of protectiveness in his eyes, but when his eyes return to me and he sees me here—lying in my bed, sort of panting, waiting—his gaze shifts. It becomes partly tender, partly hot, and that alone gives me a hint of why he’s here.
Plus knowing his staff never really lets him rest, I suspect the moments with me are his only rest times—the only times he truly disconnects.
“Was your place really swarmed tonight again?” I ask.
“Yeah, but it always is.”
He speaks casually.
He kicks off his shoes, tosses his cap aside, and stretches out on the bed next to me, both of us on our sides, up on one elbow, facing each other. He smiles and reaches out to run his index finger down my cheek. “Couldn’t stay away. Wanted to see if you got safely home.”
“Or just wanted to see me,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
Suddenly, he shifts over me, and I’m on my back, with Matt’s big body on top of mine.
He’s stroking his hand up my arm, his thumb caressing my skin, his weight the best feeling in the world next to . . . sex with him.
“Do you really want to spend the night here?” I ask, breathless, rubbing my toes along the sides of his bare feet. “I’m sure your bed is so much more comfortable. Or the one at the hotel. I’m babbling, aren’t I? I just . . .”
He’s nodding slowly, looking at me.
“It’s surprising to see you here,” I finally admit.
“A good surprise?”
It takes me a while to admit it, but I do. Nodding. “A good surprise.”
“Are you done?” he asks, curling his hand beneath my hair to lift my head up a few inches. His eyes are impossibly dark as I continue to nod.
I swallow, then smile and raise my head a little higher. I don’t have to lift it too far. Matt closes the distance between his lips and mine, and I’m being kissed for the first time on my own bed. Little as it is.
“We should get you a safer neighborhood, and a better apartment,” he says, nibbling my jaw.
“No,” I say, canting my head back to give him access.
“Why?” He eases back.
“Because there’s no we here. I’m not your kept woman.”
He pulls back and his eyebrows pull together. “You work for me.”
“I’m underneath you right now, Matthew.”
He smiles, shakes his head chidingly, then eases back to eye me as he smooths a hand to brush my hair back.
“I like how real you are, Charlotte. The way you stand up for yourself, and the way you stand up for others. I like how honest and hardworking you are. How sweet you are.” He captures my lips between his, brushing his hand along my forehead again, looking into my eyes.
“Can you blame me for wanting to protect you? I never thought I’d meet a woman like you. That pushed all of my buttons like you do. I want you against any hard surface available and I want to shield you from everything at the same time. I never expected you. And I didn’t expect you now.”
It takes a few seconds to find my voice. “Did you really believe you’d never meet anyone who would be herself with you?”
“Most worry too much about putting up a front they believe matches mine.”
“I don’t.”
“I know. Which makes you rarer than anything to me. So precious.” His voice thickens as he expresses his appreciation.
I grab his jaw and kiss him, and Matt grabs my hands and pins them over my head, kissing me, softly but with an underlying urgency and force. And then I’m getting disrobed and taken, in a bed I’ve always slept on alone, by the only man I’ve ever really wanted and the only one I can’t really ever have. Not if he wins this.
But I take what I can get, moaning softly beneath his kiss as his roaming hands move over me.
25
THE LAST PRIMARY
Charlotte
The next weekend, Matt visits his grandfather in Virginia.
I’m sort of glad for the distance. We’re sinking too deep. Though a part of me wants to get in deeper, deep enough to drown, I know that’s not the best for him, for me, for anyone.