Captured at Nightfall (Capture My Heart Love Story) (9 page)

When h
e bit down softly over the side of her throat, she cried out.

A
hand skated up the outline of her ribs, drawing a moan from her throat that rumbled against his mouth.

“
Matthew,” his name a benediction on her lips.

He drew back enough to settle his forehead against hers before he pulled completely away.

“No, wait.” Her fingers grasped for him, but came away with only empty air.

A starving man’s eyes met hers seconds before he
dragged in a deep breath and his expression closed down hard. “I don’t do this, Allie. You don’t want me. This”—he motioned between them—“won’t work. There is no happily ever after here. I don’t do relationships. I fuck and leave; and you’re not the kind of girl to take that.”

His words stung like a slap and she winced.

“
Oh
.”

She fumbled in her purse, fishing for her keys. As soon as she was able to secure them between her shaking fingers she jammed them into the
car door. “You’re right, I guess,” she mumbled. When she felt brave enough, she looked up at him, barely able to hold his gaze without cringing. “Thank you for the dinner. I was planning on paying.” She forced a smile and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Matthew
, looking far too calm and composed, leaned in before she could shut the door on his face. “Drive safely, Allie,” he breathed. “Goodnight.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as she cranked the
car’s engine over. “You don’t scare me, you know.” She puffed her chest up with her last reserves of courage and added, “And how do you know what kind of girl I am?”

With that, she left
Matthew, his mouth popped open, and drove for home.

Allie
came in through the front door on auto-pilot. Her brain was working on overload, anxiously trying to compartmentalize the huge mess of emotions swirling around her head. Anger. Lust. Fear. Longing. Sadness. All vying for attention beneath her too-thin skin like a bruise. There was a lot of negativity that came with Matthew.

Major understatement, there.
She rolled her eyes.

The man was a health hazard—and not just mentally. Her heart was banging an angry rampage against her ribs, joined by her aching libido. Her legs were rubber, her flesh on fire. The surge of blood inside her cheeks still roaring.

Somehow she managed to kick off her single shoe and stow her purse in her room before she wandered into the crackerjack family room and planted herself on the sofa. Boy, she’d be happy to get this stupid boot off. Her head lolled back into the well-worn cushions as she sighed. Her fingers brushed over her swollen lips as the memory of his scorching kiss tingled beneath her light touch.

“
Ahh,” she breathed—moaned?—with unfulfilled frustration. His touch was still burning her insides up, even now.

“
Allie!” Lainie’s screech sent Allie a foot in the air.

“
Lainie
!” Allie’s widened eyes snapped shut as she clambered over the arm of the couch, tripping over her stupid booted foot as she went.
Oh, gross! Gross!
She kept her eyes squeezed shut, but the image of an almost-naked Lainie and Jason had been etched inside her skull—probably permanently.

“Shit!”
Jason’s voice muffled though a cotton shirt he was, no doubt, tugging over his head.

“I’m sorry!”
Allie wailed. “I didn’t notice you were . . . erm . . . in the middle of . . . uh,
yeah
. . . when I came in.”

“What the hell,
Allie! Didn’t you see the heart?” Lainie’s voice was breathless.

Allie
and Lainie had decided to hang a heart ornament outside the door if one of them was busy with a guy. That way, if one of them saw the heart, they’d know to text the other to make sure it was all clear before coming inside. A girly version of the tie on the doorknob. So far, Lainie had been the only one to use the thing.

“Crap,
Lainie. I’m sorry. I didn’t even notice.”
Shit
, she must have seriously been in La La Land.

Allie
peeked through her fingers and sighed with relief.

Clothes
. Thank goodness.

Jason
was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; his hair standing out at all angles like he’d taken a few volts from a stun gun. Allie’s gaze flew to the ceiling after she caught a glimpse of Jason’s tent pole in his Levis.
Barf
. . . she was going to need to work on some serious repression techniques to get
that
image out of her head.

Lainie
flashed wide
what-is-your-deal
eyes over her shoulder before tugging Jason to the door.

Allie
’s arms wrapped over her head and she flopped back into the couch with an
oomph
! Lainie and Jason were making friendly in the doorway while Allie tried to block them out. Finally, the front door opened and shut, and then Lainie was sitting on the couch a foot away from her.

Both their
eyes made the rounds along the circumference of the room before they locked in an awkward exchange with each other. Lainie’s face mirrored Allie’s own horror-riddled expression. Allie took in Lainie’s rat-nest hair and miss-buttoned shirt and broke out in laughter. Lainie joined in, shoulders relaxing, until they were both forced to wipe away tears.

When she could breathe again, Allie
shook her head. “Geeze, Lainie. I had no idea you could get your legs up so high! I could have folded you up and mailed you to China!”

“Shut
up
!” Lainie lobbed one of Jason’s forgotten socks at her face.

Allie
’s eyebrows rose. “So, you and Jason again, huh? Was this just a booty call or are you two together now?”

Lainie
bent down to scrounge her bra out from under the couch. “Don’t know”—she shrugged—“He
was
looking good the other night. Maybe this time it’ll stick for more than a week.”

Allie
shook her head. She would
not
lecture her again about free ice cream or buying cows.

Lainie
’s eyes narrowed. “I see that, Allison Young.”

“What?”

“You know what. Your stuffy librarian face. The one that always comes before the granny lecture on giving it away for free.”

Allie
rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Lainie! That was one time, and it was
advice
, not a lecture. Remember . . . after Jason had just crushed your heart for the
bazillienth
time?”

C
hin tucked into her chest, Lainie started re-buttoning her shirt. “Your problem is you don’t give it up
enough
. You’re not ever going to get laid with an attitude like that.”

If only
Lainie knew Allie had been all spread out under Matthew, doing her best impression of Jezebel only a half hour before.

“What was that look?”
Lainie’s eyebrow arched.

Allie
flushed “What look?”
Oh, crap. Busted.

“That starved,
me-so-horny
look.” Both eyebrows up now.

Allie cringed.
“Nothing.”

“Uh,
huh.” Lainie’s lips twisted to the side. “You look like you’ve been up to shenanigans of your own tonight.” Eyelashes batted with feigned innocence. “Would this have anything to do with the dangerous sex god you went to see this afternoon?”

“How do you know
Matthew’s a sex god?”

“Oh, please,
Allie. You can smell the virility on that man a mile away.”

Allie
sighed. Lainie got a
little
action and wound up like the Energizer Bunny. “I got one minute particle of action. He kissed me.”

Lainie
’s mouth hit the floor. “Serious?”

“Well,”
Allie added, “it was more like attacked, actually.”

“Oh, boy.
I’m telling you. Men like that are all or nothing. Best thing to do is dig your nails in and hope to hell you can hold on for the ride.” Lainie smirked.

Allie
laughed. “You’re nuts tonight.”

Lainie
’s mouth spread with a grin. “It’s all this pent up, unfulfilled lust. If you’d have waited ten more minutes to barge in, I’d have been calm as a Hindu cow.”

“Gross.”
Post-coital Lainie. Allie did
not
need that image.

“So how’d it go? Good, from the sound of it.”
Lainie’s face was all open and expecting.

After a brief regaling of PPMS, the uncomfortable dinner, and then the big make out,
Allie added, “He’s so dark and brooding. And I think, maybe a little crazy.”

Lainie
’s lips pursed. “Sounds like it. Sexy as hell, though.”

No arguing with that
. Allie sighed.

“W
hat are you going to do?” Lainie asked.

Allie
shook her head. “No clue. He’s just so . . .
much
. I like him, but I think he’s most likely got a huge amount of baggage in the way. So,” she sighed. “I’m leaving it up to him; ball’s in his court. I’ve already gone so far out of my comfort zone, tracking him down, I don’t have it in me to keep pushing.”

Lainie
nodded. “That’s a hard one.” She stood and gathered the remaining, discarded clothing on the floor. Blue eyes briefly met Allie’s. “Who knows, though? He seems into you. Maybe he’ll come around.” She shrugged and folded her in a brief goodnight hug.

Once
Lainie had wandered off to her bedroom Allie slumped down into the couch, letting the cushions well up around her. “Probably not a winning plan to put things in fate’s hands,” she muttered unhappily. She had the feeling that if it came down to Matthew and fate, Matthew would punch fate in the face.

That
night Allie woke with her back arching high off the bed and her head pressing deep into her pillows.

Green eyes shone in the dark like a phantom above her.

Matthew
.

She’d kicked her sheets into a lump at the bottom of her mattress, exposing her tee-shirt-clad figure.
Matthew’s hands were on her thighs, curving around her flesh, his fingers digging in as they pushed the tee-shirt up to expose her panties and belly.

Her heart thundered through her chest. “W-what are you doing here?”
her voice a breathless moan. She was having a difficult time framing whole sentences when his fingers were tracing over her calves and ankles and sending fissures of heat licking through her belly.

That hypnotic, dark gaze d
rew her in from above her knees. “
I had to see you, Allison.”
Warm lips pressed a hot kiss just above her kneecap on the inside of her thigh. “
I can’t get you out of my head.”
He kissed her again, an inch higher this time, and Allie fought to control the quivering in her legs. His kisses moved relentlessly and deliciously higher, breath blistered over her hypersensitive skin.

So much sensation.

Her fingers knotted into the mattress’ sheet, determined to hold herself together and make it last. She was going to enjoy his exploration of her body for as long as she could . . . .

He nuzzled her thigh with the
edge of his smooth jaw, thick eyelashes fluttering closed as he inhaled, drew her scent in like she was his only source of oxygen and he’d been deprived for far too long. Those perfect white teeth flashed just before they set into her supple skin and Allie arched high off the bed again.

“
You drive me wild, baby.”

Suddenly, he was on top of
her and she cried out in surprise.

Oh
! He could move fast. His body all hard marble sliding beneath hot flesh, pressing her into the mattress like he would scorch their two bodies into one. When his hips swiveled into hers, Allie gasped.

Matthew’s
eyes held hers while a greedy mouth swallowed her gasp. His tongue plundered her mouth, taking all she freely offered: twisting and stroking over hers in an erotic dance.

He pulled away, leaving her breathless and quivering, and his teeth shined again with a brutal smile.

              “
What you do to me . . . you strip me of all control.”

His fingertips played over her skin, light as butte
rfly wings, traced over each breast, driving Allie mad with the need for so much more.