Flat-Out Matt (14 page)

Matt raised an eyebrow. “
Tour the Greek cathedral
, huh? We can call it that, if you want. Sure.”

Julie smacked his arm and then turned to Celeste. “We may get there. Matt is going to take me home so… that I can get cleaned up. I’m probably covered in dead bugs, so I need to decontaminate.”

“
Cleaned up
?
Decontaminate?
Gee, you’re full of euphemisms today, aren’t you?”

“Matt, seriously,” Julie said between clenched teeth and nodded toward the back seat.

“Don’t worry,” Celeste said with delight. “I’m following along just fine. I understand that neither of you will be attending the Greek Festival. And you two certainly have no business visiting any cathedrals.”

**********

Matt took the keys from Julie’s hand, tossed them across the room, and shut her apartment door with his foot. He moved one hand behind her neck and pulled her mouth against his. She whimpered slightly, overwhelmed at how much she felt for him. The few kisses they’d shared before had been driven by emotion. This was different. This time it was about heat and longing. More specifically, how completely she wanted him out of his geeky
I’m Uncertain About Quantum Mechanics
T-shirt.

He pulled away for a moment. “Dana’s not here, right?”

Julie shook her head. Dana was gone for the weekend, but she was having trouble finding the words to say so. To say anything.

She had just jumped out of an airplane.

And, as of a matter of a few hours ago, she and Matt were together. No more secrets between them, no confusion.

This day was a lot to take in. And she wanted more.

“Julie?” Matt asked.

Although she knew logically that her body was here in the apartment, part of her was still falling to earth, as if she were still in the jump. It had been just as Matt described it. A rush, a high, a drug. A degree of pounding terror, sure, but mostly a dreamlike, out-of-body, euphoric experience. One that she was still in. The straps holding them together for the tandem jump had been tighter than she had expected, but she’d liked that. Being so tied to Matt, becoming totally part of each other.

“Julie? You okay?” Matt tucked her hair behind her ears and looked at her with concern. She lifted her mouth to kiss him again, but he stopped her. “Are you… here?”

She put an arm around his waist and pulled him in. “I want to be with you,” she whispered.

“I want to be with you, too. But you need to be grounded. You’re still in the air, aren’t you?”

“So what?” She smiled. “I like it up here. And I still know what I want.”

“I need you to be here. With me.”

She kissed him again, hard, and he responded with equal intensity, feeding her lightheaded state and letting her continue to drift in her soaring, dissociated world of rushing air and white noise. It was everything and nothing at the same time: feeling too much, too little, trying to separate this world from the adrenaline-based world. Eventually his kisses slowed, softened, and his firm hold on her waist eased a bit. Matt was bringing her back down to reality, gently and respectfully. And now that’s where she wanted to be. She let clarity set back in.

 Julie took her mouth from his as she wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. “I’m here.”

“In that case,” Matt stepped back and began unzipping her sweatshirt, “you have on way too many clothes.”

She put her hands over his. “Wait, I should go take a shower… first.” She could smell the leftover stench of fear still on her skin from the skydive.

And maybe from what she knew she was about to do.

Matt smiled. “In that case, you still have on too many clothes. And I’m pretty sure you’re going to need some help in that shower.”

“Because I’m incompetent?” she teased.

“Of course not. But showering can be complicated.” He dropped her sweatshirt to the floor. “It’s really not something you should try to take on alone after the day you’ve had.”

Julie kicked off her shoes. “That’s incredibly kind of you to offer your skilled help.” She took his hand and led him down the hall to the bathroom.

Wait a minute. Oh God. What the hell was she thinking
?
The bathroom had bright lights. And a toilet. How sexy is a toilet? Not very. Unless you’re into weird things. Which she wasn’t. In fact, as a person who had never been entirely naked with another person, she didn’t have the experience to be
into
anything. And what about the lights? Unless she’s got some crazy supermodel body, no girl wants to be seen under a horribly unflattering glare. But now what was she supposed to do? Stop in her tracks, shove Matt back into the hall, and slam the bathroom door so that she could shower in privacy? That was stupid. Being naked was stupid. Sex was probably stupid.

But then they were there, about to be surrounded by tile and pornographic lighting. This was a terrible idea.

Matt hit the switch on the wall, and in what Julie was quite sure could only be a sign from the universe that Matt was the one—
her
one—the light bulb crackled and flashed before going out. She smiled. Now there was just early evening light filtering through the window.

It was time to stop thinking.

She turned on the hot water in the shower, and then Matt was behind her, pulling her against him. Ever so slowly, he undid the top of her jeans. She looked down, watching as he pushed them lower until they fell to the floor. His hands moved to the hem of her shirt, and she raised her arms as he pulled the fabric over her head. He pushed her hair aside and brushed his lips over her neck. The way he was moving his tongue over her skin made her knees weak, and she leaned her head back into him.

The sound of his voice in her ear made her shiver. “I have been thinking about this—about you—for months.”

His hands moved to the curve of her waist, then up higher, gently over her breasts. For a moment, one hand slipped into her bra, tightening just enough so that she closed her eyes as a wave of anticipation took over. Steam from the running shower started to fill the room. Julie could feel her breathing pick up, her chest starting to pound under his hand. She nearly cried when he pulled away, but when that touch moved lower, down her stomach, the tips of his fingers sliding just under the top of her underwear… she didn’t complain. As he traced the outline of the fabric so painfully,
painfully
slowly, Julie briefly wondered if anyone could literally go insane with lust. Not just because of what he was doing to her now, but because it made her wonder what he might do to her later. He was both careful and aggressive. He was in control. It was the same way that Matt managed so many parts of his life, with this same undeniable capability.

 “You were scared earlier today. In the plane, before we jumped.” He whispered in her ear and then kissed her shoulder. “What about right now?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be.” His hands slid over her waist, across her stomach, until she was fully embraced in his arms. He held her close. “We’ll do what you want, when you want.”

She turned around to face him.

How you find love means nothing. It’s what you do with it when you see it that does. And when Julie looked at Matt, she unquestionably saw love. She would cart around hundreds of flat brothers and do the godforsaken Polar Plunge every year for the rest of her life if it meant that she would end up where she was right now.

“I want
you
, Matt. I want everything. You kept me safe today, you’ll keep me safe now.”

“Always. I promise, always.” 

Together, they eased off his shirt and pants. She took him by the hand as she stepped, still half-dressed, back into the shower, until she was leaning against the wall. Matt moved in front of her and pulled the shower curtain closed. She reached up for him, pulling him in to her, needing him to kiss her, to hold her. And he did just that. His kisses were so complete and passionate, so perfect, and she finally understood what it meant to drown oneself in another person.

She worried before about being self-conscious, about the lighting, about not looking like some airbrushed supermodel. That seemed a distant and ridiculous memory now because, considering how his hands were stroking her body, he made worrying about that impossible. And, she realized, he wasn’t
that
kind of a guy. He didn’t want or need her to be or look like anyone else. And she didn’t need that from him. They were Matt and Julie, real people. That’s why she could be so comfortable, so trusting, with him—he wanted her for who she was, as she was.

 Soon his kisses traveled from her lips to her neck. Then to the top of her chest, getting harder, more urgent. Occasionally he’d pause in one spot, tasting her skin, savoring the connection between them. Julie reached behind her and undid her bra, now wet and clinging to her body. Before she could get her arms down, he had lowered the straps himself. She found her hands in his hair while his mouth moved over her breasts. Time started to get fuzzy. Then he was kissing her lips again as his fingers raked into her back, pulling her against his chest, driving her wild. Julie wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling as if she could never get him close enough. His skin was soft under the water… slick, enticing… and she started to let her hands roam. Soon her touch reached down to his waist and she pushed him away slightly so that she could finally get his underwear off.

He met her eyes as she fully undressed him, and that adorable, flirty glint of his filled his face. “Now there’s just one more piece of clothing we have to get rid of.”

He kissed his way down her breasts and stomach until he was kneeling in front of her. Julie wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand up, and she couldn’t help the noise that escaped her lips as he took his time getting off her underwear. How could anybody be so patient? Fortunately he was leading things here because she could have easily been convinced to skip all of these delightful steps and just…
Oh, God…
Matt stayed where he was, his hands caressing the backs of her legs as his lips kissed her thighs. Julie shut her eyes and ran her hands through her hair as he meticulously worked his way a bit higher. Then he stopped, staying where he was for an all-too-short few moments, before standing in front of her again.

“Matt….” she breathed.

While his tongue slipped inside her mouth again, he lifted her leg, resting her foot on the rim of the tub. Matt, Julie noticed, might be socially inept in a myriad of ways, but he was anything but inept now. Everything he did was effortless, smooth. His hand glided over her back, then down lower, pulling her against him for a minute, and then letting her fall away so he could continue gliding that hand to the top of her leg, to her inner thigh, between her legs….

Julie had to pull her mouth from his so that she could breathe. She dropped her head forward, resting against his chest as he worked his hand against her. Just as she was getting close to being as heated as she ever had with anyone, he stopped.

“No,” she murmured, hearing the whimper in her tone. “Keep going.”

He lifted her chin up, kissed her cheek, and put his mouth by her ear. “We’re going to take our time.”

She groaned, making him laugh. “But you said
what I want, when I want
. I want now.”

He laughed again. “Trust me.”

So, because she
did
trust him completely, she didn’t protest as he washed her hair, soaped every part of her body, and teased her with lingering, unhurried touches. Besides, she knew that two could play at this game, so she returned the tease, taking the time to let herself get comfortable with him and with everywhere that her hands were starting to explore. It was impossible not to take a certain kind of satisfaction as Matt bit his lip when she let her hand graze between his legs.

She was surprised at how easy it was to be with anyone like this. She was… touching him. Quite intimately. Shouldn’t she be more nervous? More self-conscious? But she wasn’t. It didn’t matter to her that she hadn’t exactly been doing crunches and lunges all year in preparation for Matt seeing her naked because they were about more than that.

Later, in bed, Julie knew that no one had ever been so grateful to have the hot water run out. Not that she had anything to compare it to, but whatever Matt was doing with his tongue to her under the sheets right now was pretty unbelievable. Technically, what he was doing to her for the
second
time, but she wasn’t about to bring numbers and math and geekiness into this. Although the thought occurred to her that, considering Matt took every conceivable thing to an outrageously academic level, there was an extremely good chance that he’d extensively researched female anatomy and become some sort of expert on the subject.

But since he was the first person to make her body tremble in a way that only she had made happen before…. Well, from now on, she would never complain when he got so engrossed in his laptop that he failed to hear anything that she was saying.

God, he was thorough and attentive in a way she couldn’t have dreamed of. Julie moved her hand down, stroking his shoulder. She was nearly delirious.

But it wasn’t just what he was doing to her physically that was making her so euphoric. It was him, being close with him. Trading touch, and sound, and taste with the person she cared so much for. How, even though she didn’t know exactly what to do, Matt relaxed her, guided her, responded to her. Julie knew that for so much of their time together over this past year, she had been the one in control, steering him in different directions with Celeste, trying to bring him out of his own shell, and helping him find himself again in the craziness of his family. Now it was his turn to lead her, to be in charge, and she needed that from him. She liked that he was taking care of her. He would do what he was doing to her right now for the rest of the night if she let him.

And that one thought did interrupt her absolute bliss.

Julie reached her hand down and lured Matt up to her. She kissed him deeply, showing him how much she wanted him. “Matt?”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Matthew Watkins, are you stalling?”