Carolina Home (17 page)

“That would be great. Thank you.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets. “No problem.”

She felt something slipping away, a mood, a moment, an opportunity. Maybe she shouldn’t worry about the wardrobe bomb blast in her bedroom. Maybe she should drag him home with her and the hell with her cluttered bedroom and dirty sheets. But then he’d be stuck at her place without a car.

“I really appreciate it,” she insisted.

Matt smiled at her. “What are friends for?”

The word trickled through her like melting ice.
Friends?

But sure, yeah, friends was okay.

If she were going to make a life here, she needed friends. They could be friends. Adult friends. Friends with benefits. She knew him well enough now to trust that whatever came next—or after—Matt was a man whose friendship was worth having.

She smiled back.

“See you in half an hour,” he said.

M
ATT PARKED HIS
truck in front of the Armstrongs’ empty vacation rental, two doors down from Number 214.

Not that he was sneaking around or anything. No harm in being discreet.

Allison’s cottage loomed in the dusk. Yellow light spilled from her windows, threw barred shadows from her porch. His heart beat like a schoolboy’s.

In the shadows beneath her deck, the silver Mercedes gleamed like a shark.

It was a good thing they’d had a chance to cool off, he thought. To slow down.

Allison was a smart, beautiful woman. She was also a lot younger than he was. Probably less experienced. He’d had relationships…Well, he’d had encounters that hadn’t lasted as long as the two-and-a-half dates he’d shared with Allison. But from her perspective, things must be moving pretty fast. He didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

He wasn’t looking to fall in love, wasn’t interested in marriage.

He would never let himself feel that desperate need, that stunned, bewildered, punch-in-the-gut loss, again.

He’d learned his lesson. Don’t get too close to someone who could leave you. Don’t depend on someone who could let you down. Don’t peg your future, don’t risk your kid, on anybody who wasn’t family. Keep things simple, keep things light.

But Allison deserved to know that as long as their relationship lasted, as long as she stuck around, she would be the only woman he slept with.

He would treat her with all the care and gentleness he was capable of.

And with respect, now and after.

He rang the doorbell.

He should have brought wine, he thought now that it was too late. Or flowers…No, she’d done that. Or candy.

The door opened and there she was, long blond hair, smiling brown eyes, and…
Hello, breasts
. She’d changed the jeans and T-shirt for a pink dress, elastic on top and loose on the bottom, that molded to her curves and exposed a lot of bare, perfect skin.

Deliberately, he returned his gaze to her face, shoving his empty hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t do something stupid like grab her. “Hey.”

Very smooth.

“Hi.” She stepped back to let him in.

Her house was furnished like every other beach rental, plenty of faded blue cushions and wicker, but somehow she’d
turned the standard décor into something uniquely hers. A bright cardigan tossed over a chair, her messenger bag tucked under a desk. A framed museum print, a woman in an old-fashioned dress looking out over the ocean, hung over the sofa. Thick white candles burned on the table. The room even smelled like her, like vanilla and spice. He wanted to sniff her, lick her, all over, the curve of her neck, the swell of her breasts, the inside of her thigh.

Down, boy.
He couldn’t jump her the minute he walked through the door.

The display shelves around the TV were crammed with books, fat, bright paperbacks jammed in with college textbooks, childhood classics mixed with mystery and romance. He wandered closer to look at the titles, hands in his pockets, searching for the thing to say that would make his visit seem less like a booty call.

“Lot of books,” he observed.

“Occupational hazard.” He felt her move up behind him, a whisper of heat along his skin. “I don’t feel at home without my books.”

“You have to travel light in the military. We moved around too much to hold on to things. But we had this one kids’ book—some duck family living in a park—I must have read that story to Meg and Luke about a million times.”

“
Make Way for Ducklings
by Robert McCloskey.”

“That was it.”

He’d bought a copy for Josh’s first birthday, trying to give his son…What? A sense of continuity, a feeling of home.

“But that’s so perfect.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder, a little taken aback by her delighted tone.

She smiled at him warmly. “It’s about a pair of mallards who decide to raise their family on an island. No wonder you liked it.”

“I guess. Yeah.” He’d sure as shit never thought of it that
way. He moved his shoulders, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. He hadn’t come over tonight to talk about children’s books.

“Do you like poetry?” she asked.

He looked down into her cleavage. Up into her eyes. Respect, he reminded himself. He could manage a few minutes of conversation before falling on her like a dog on a bone. “I haven’t read much.”

“Edna St. Vincent Millay?”

Never heard of her. “No.”

She smiled. “Would you like to?”

Was she kidding?

“Now?”

“I think now is an excellent time.” Standing back from him, she grasped the hem of her pretty pink dress and pulled it over her head. And there she was.

Naked.

His heart stopped. Sweet Jesus, she was beautiful.

And naked. Hard to miss that. Her nipples peaked, pink against the creamy white of her breasts.

And blond, honest-to-goodness natural blond between her long, smooth, honey-colored thighs.

Her naked thighs.

“What do you think?” she asked, a hint of mischief in her tone.

He couldn’t think. All his blood had deserted his brain and gone south.

“I think…” He cleared his throat.
Come on, dickhead. Speak.
“As long as you’re naked, we can do whatever you want.”

Her smile lit her beautiful face. “I mean about the quote.”

Quote?

“It’s Millay.” She turned slightly, her arms still lifted over her head. The position raised her breasts, her bare, amazing, twenty-five-year-old breasts, taut and smooth and…

She had a tattoo. Running along her ribs just under the pale bottom curve of her right breast, unexpected, erotic. Two lines of dark text inked into her silky skin, and some kind of flower lying on its side, its petals half open.

“‘I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one,’” he read.

“It’s from a poem about taking a perfect moment and accepting it for what it is. Not trying to hold onto it, not grasping at happiness.” Her gaze met his. “Just…being glad. Happy.”

He looked into her eyes, intelligent, warm, hopeful, and didn’t know what she wanted him to say.

He didn’t know if he could make her happy or not.

He sure as hell hadn’t made Kimberly happy.

“This moment feels pretty damn perfect to me,” he said.

It wasn’t poetry, but maybe it was the right thing to say anyway, maybe it was enough, because she grinned. “I bet I can make it feel even better.”

Oh, baby.

She moved closer, all the way close, her soft breasts pressing against his chest. His arms came around her automatically, his rough hands on the smooth skin of her back. The world spiraled down and coalesced with her as its center, Allison, her flushed, pretty face, her soft pink lips, the heat and humor in her eyes.

He couldn’t hide what she did to him, the evidence hard against her stomach. Her hands were on the back of his neck, urging his head down. She leaned up to kiss him, taking his mouth in soft, hungry bites.

His blood pounded as he kissed her back. His hands slipped down to cup her sweet ass as she tugged his T-shirt from the back of his jeans, working the fabric to his shoulders. He wanted to be inside her, to bury himself inside her, to make her part of him, his.

He broke off kissing her long enough to yank his shirt
over his head. While he was temporarily blinded, bound by his shirt, he felt her fingers busy on his buckle, cool and smooth against the hot skin of his stomach. His muscles jumped. His zipper rasped. She covered him with her hand.

Jesus.

He’d promised himself to take it slow.

But this…But she…

She shoved at his jeans, pulled at his boxers. His erection sprang free, dark and eager. She dropped to her knees, making this sexy hum,
Mmm
, in the back of her throat that nearly destroyed him.

He threw his shirt into a corner, threaded his hands in her hair. “Allison…”

He barely recognized his own voice. Begging.
Stop?
Or
Don’t stop?

She licked her lips and took him into her mouth.

H
E WAS HOT
and thick, salty and delicious, hard against her tongue.

His legs were planted like tree trunks, but Allison could feel the tremor in his muscles as she sucked him, worked him. It was such a rush, such a turn-on, knowing she could make big, strong Matt Fletcher tremble at her touch.

Kneeling between his feet, she rubbed her face against him, drunk on his scent, dizzy with power. Loving the feel of him, hot stone and satin against her cheek.

“Oh, God, Allison.” His fingers tightened in her hair.

He tugged her head up.

She smiled into his eyes, feeling almost incandescent with heat and satisfaction. “I’m not finished.”

A choked laugh escaped him. “I will be if you keep that up.”

Taking her shoulders, he dragged her up against his long, hard body. They kissed, his mouth hot and seeking. His
thigh thrust between her legs.
Heaven.
His tongue tangled with hers.

“Let me…” he said.

He hopped on one foot. They staggered, clumsy with laughter and lust, as he struggled out of his shoes, stripped off his jeans.

She reached for his hand. “Bedroom.”

He grabbed for his pants. “Condom.”

Most of the boys she’d had sex with needed to be reminded to use birth control.

But then, Matt was no boy.

Something she appreciated even more when she saw him like this, naked, his broad chest—no manscaping for this guy—his hard muscled stomach, his thick shaft jutting between his thighs.

Straightening, he hauled her off her feet and into his arms. A thrill ran down her arms and spine.

“So romantic,” she teased breathlessly as he carried her into the bedroom and sank with her onto the mattress.

But it was. It really was.

At five-ten and almost one hundred and forty pounds, she didn’t get swept off her feet very often.

“I’ll show you romantic,” he promised.

His lips moved down, hot against her neck, ticklish on her stomach, but she didn’t need that. She needed him, Matt, inside her, now. Wanted him as hot, as desperate, as crazy for her as she was for him.

She rolled with him, nearly clipping his jaw with her knee. His head dropped back against the pillow. She scrambled over him, straddling his thighs, stretching over his head for one of the condoms he’d tossed on the bedside table, practically shoving her breasts in his face. He liked that, turning his head to suckle her, making her catch her breath. So hard. So good.

She wriggled back, propping herself with one hand on
his hot, muscled chest. Sinking on her heels, she ripped open the packet and covered him.

His eyes darkened. “Sweetheart…Let me…”

She panted. “No.”

Leaning forward, she took him in hand, rubbing his hot length against her, making him feel how wet she was, how ready. He grasped her buttocks firmly as she shifted and…

Sat.

They both groaned at the same time. Reality narrowed down to this moment, to him, in her. She felt too full to breathe.

Matt held still deep inside her. His eyes sought hers. “Okay?”

Warmth unfurled inside her. She felt burnished inside and out with flower petals. She loved the look of concern on his face, loved…“Very okay.”

To prove it, she began to move slowly up and down, setting a rhythm. His big hands were hard on her hips as he pushed inside her, as he pulsed inside her, filling her, flooding her senses. She arched back, feeling him, wanting him in every nerve and tissue. He rocked her, faster and harder, moving inside her, part of her, hers. She was drenched, drowning in him.

Swept away.

She cried out as he slammed up into her, holding her tight. His release shattered them both. She came, clenching around him as he clutched at her, absorbing his shudders in her own flesh, colors running in her head like the sun sliding into the sea.

M
ATT LAY EMPTIED
. Stunned. Satisfied.

In his experience, there was no such thing as bad sex. Some of it was less good, that was all.

And some…

He blew out his breath. Allison’s warm, pliant body sprawled over him, her skin damp, hair silky against his jaw, across his chest.

It wasn’t just the sex, he thought. Or the end of his four-month moratorium. It was her. Allison.

She was as full of contrasts as the sea, the bright surface and cool depths. Every time he thought he had her figured, she surprised him. Like that tattoo she wore, waiting to be discovered under her pastel cardigans.

She stirred him up, he admitted. Stirred feelings he hadn’t let himself feel in a long time. He was drawn to her warmth, challenged by her determination to embrace life, to try things out, to take things on, to put herself out there.

To be naked, in every way.

She murmured and burrowed deeper into his neck.

She felt so good he didn’t want to move. He could stay like this for the rest of the night, for the rest of his life, forever.

The thought stuck in his mind, a quick, warning tug, like a big fish testing his line.

She yawned and stretched on top of him, making his skin prickle with awareness.