Flying (12 page)

Matthew’s thumb stroked her jawline. The hand at the small of her back pressed her against the thickness in his groin. He brushed his mouth along her cheek to nuzzle at her ear, his breath hot. His shoulders lifted and fell with a sigh before he mouthed her neck. Her head tipped back at the wet slide of his tongue on her skin, then the nip of his teeth along her collarbone.

“Yes,” she breathed, and gave herself up to each small pleasure. “Like that.”

Desire had become the one true constant in her life, the only feeling she could count on never to disappoint her. Desire required nothing from her. No investment. No responsibility. All desire wanted was to be sated. It was physical, and therefore, could be killed.

She pushed his hand between her legs, the denim an inconvenient and unaccustomed barrier. Still, when his knuckles rubbed at the seam of her jeans, it pressed her clit so sweetly she bit her lip with the pleasure. His mouth returned to hers, the kiss teasing and taunting her until all she could do was open her mouth and let him take it however he wanted.

Matthew worked her button free, then the zipper. He slid his fingers into her panties and unerringly found her clit. He dipped a little lower to slide along her folds, then up again. She wasn’t quite wet, and Matthew withdrew his hand long enough to slick his fingers with his mouth before sliding them again into her panties. It was such a simple thing, not showy, just practical, but lust pulsed through her, making her throb around his fingers as he pushed them inside her.

Matthew shuddered a little against her, his tongue dipping inside her mouth before he broke the kiss again. He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. Pinned by his hands behind her neck and between her legs, Stella could only return the look.

His mouth teased at hers. “Bedroom, down the hall.”

She followed him, their fingers linked. His room was sparely furnished with a bed on a Hollywood frame, no head-or footboard, made up with a plain blue comforter and several pillows in white cases. A small bedside table, a match of the one in the hall, held a lamp with a plain white shade, a utilitarian-looking black clock with red numbers, and a tissue box. The dresser in one corner and the surprisingly beautiful armoire in the other were antiques too, of softly curving wood inlaid with a pretty pattern and equally lovely ornate handles. No curtains, just a plain white roller shade. Through another narrow doorway, past the black wooden door with the crystal knob, she could see what looked like a white-and-black-tiled bathroom. The hint of a claw-foot tub.

Inside the room, Matthew let go of her hand. He gestured at the bathroom. “If you want to...”

“Oh. Sure, yeah.” She definitely could use the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and ran the water in the sink, which had the cutest old-fashioned taps. She didn’t peek inside his medicine cabinet, though she wanted to. She blotted her face, studying her reflection.

She could still keep track of the number of men she’d fucked. She didn’t need to know or remember their names to recall the taste of each of them. The length and thickness of their pricks. The smell of their cologne. She didn’t have to be able to pick them out of a crowd for each one of them to have been imprinted on her in some way. They’d all left their mark.

But not on Stella. On someone else, whoever she was when she put on the lipstick and the lace. Stella didn’t walk in those high-heeled pumps, but Stella’s was the face that looked at her from this mirror now.

What the fuck was she doing?

Stella gripped the sink with both hands and listened to the rush of water with her eyes closed for a moment or two. She should walk out. Get her coat and purse and carry-on the way she’d meant to, call a cab. Leave this apartment and this man behind her, no matter how sweet his kiss. His touch.

She used the toilet and then automatically used the sink again to clean herself. She laughed, the sound low and shaky, as her fingertips moved in the heat of her flesh. She could tell herself whatever she wanted, but she was going to go out there and fuck him, because something inside her made her helpless to stop herself.

Because she
wanted
to fuck him.

She wanted to.

That was the simple truth of it, and she could be ashamed, or she could be honest. She could be brave and bold, she could be a little crazy, or she could embrace this desire, because she certainly could not deny it.

Stella looked at herself in the mirror again. This was who she was, even without the hair, the makeup, the clothes. Here she was.

She slipped out of her cardigan to be in just the tank top beneath, her nipples already jutting against the thin fabric. The blessing of small breasts meant she could go without a bra when she wanted, and though she normally didn’t, she was glad she had done so today. The granny panties were going to be bad enough. If she’d worn the bra she’d packed, wash-worn and faded, she’d have been too embarrassed to take off her clothes.

Matthew hadn’t taken anything off, but he had turned down the bed and sat on the edge of it with his head bowed. He looked up when she came out of the bathroom, and his smile looked sincere even if it was only half the brilliance it had been earlier. She moved to stand between his knees, her fingers brushing over the short scrub of his hair before she cupped his face in her hands and tipped his head back.

She didn’t kiss him, not at first. She just looked at him. The bedside lamp had pretty decent light, golden, casting half his face in shadow. She traced the lines at the corners of his eyes, then the shallower ones bracketing his mouth. She touched the silver in his hair and the scruff of beard growing in on his chin and cheeks. This was a man who’d lived.

One fingertip moved over his eyebrows, one at a time. Matthew closed his eyes under her touch, still smiling. When she drew a finger over his lips, they parted just enough for her to slip the point of her index finger inside. He bit it gently, then sucked, and the sensation sent a delicious shudder all through her.

He opened his eyes. His hands slid up the backs of her thighs to cup her ass, though he didn’t pull her closer. She thought he would lie back on the bed, maybe pull her on top of him. Instead, he pressed his cheek against her belly, just below her breasts. She’d noticed before the heat of his skin and felt it now through her tank top. He was a furnace. Her hand stroked the back of his head and found the back of his neck.

They stayed that way for what felt like a very long time, breathing in. Breathing out. She wondered if he heard her heart beating or if it was only the pulse in her throat and wrists, the rush of it in her ears that made it seem so loud.

Matthew murmured something she didn’t catch and tipped his head back to look up at her. The phone on the bedside table rang just as she kissed him, but Matthew shook his head when she started to pull away. He shifted on the bed, tugging her down next to him.

“Let it ring.” In the next minute, though, his pocket rang. He sighed, defeated, and moved to pull out his cell phone. He looked at the screen and frowned. “Sorry. I should’ve known she’d just keep calling until I answer.”

Stella sat back on the bed, giving him space to answer the call. Awwwwwkward. As Matthew answered, she gestured, pantomiming that she was going to go out to get her own cell phone. She couldn’t be sure he understood her charade, but he nodded.

“Yeah. Hi.” He sounded brusque.

Stella ducked out of the room to get her purse. No messages from Tristan or his father. She shrugged off her worry, but it didn’t go far. She sent another quick text as she walked back toward the bedroom.

“What do you want me to do about it? Well, buy them what they need. You take care of it. You don’t need my... No. Of course not. Well, if they were with me, I’d do it, but they’re not. Yes, I’ll have them next weekend. You’re the one who said they needed the stuff right now. If it can wait, sure, I’ll take them. If not... Look,” Matthew said sharply, “I don’t see what the problem is.”

Stella paused, not wanting to intrude. She typed another message to Jeff, and with reservations, added one to Cynthia too. She didn’t like going to Jeff’s wife for things, but the fact was Cynthia, God love her, did keep track of everything much better than Jeff did. Stella remembered how that had been.

“Just take care of it, then! Christ, Caroline. What do you want me to say?”

Silence. The creak of the bed. Matthew sighed. Stella gently pushed the door open, and he looked up.

“Hey,” she said.

His smile looked tired. “Hi. Sorry about that.”

She came in and sat next to him. “It’s fine.”

“It’s my ex,” he explained, though she’d figured that part out. “Something with the kids. I don’t really know why she can’t just deal with it, but she likes to mess with me, make me feel guilty under the guise of keeping me ‘in the loop.’”

He made air quotes with his fingers, a gesture Stella would’ve found irritating but for the fact that he’d used the word
guise
correctly. She was such a sucker for a good vocabulary, it wasn’t even funny. She shrugged and nudged him with her shoulder, teasing.

“No problem.”

Matthew brushed some hair off her face, then over her shoulder. When his gaze went to her mouth, she anticipated the kiss and leaned in...just as his phone rang again. He muttered an expletive.

“I’m not answering it.”

She laughed and kissed him, spoke against his mouth. “You probably should. Or turn it off.”

“Yeah...” They melted into the kiss. His hands slid up her body to cup her breasts, and he thumbed her nipples.

His phone beeped with a voice mail. A moment later, a text. Matthew groaned and buried his face against the side of her neck while Stella laughed and petted his hair.

“Maybe you should call her back,” she offered, taking a peek at the phone. The text was simple to read:
ANSWER YOUR PHONE.

He sighed, looked at the text and frowned. He didn’t listen to the voice mail, just tapped in a number. “What?”

Ouch.
Stella settled back on the bed, watching Matthew as he got up from the bed to pace. He spoke with his hands when he got upset, his face expressive. Studying him was a guilty pleasure, since he looked very, very fine when he was angry. She was glad she wasn’t on the other end of the phone.

“Why do we have to have this discussion now? Let me talk to them.” He frowned and tossed up his hand. “Of course they’re in bed, why would you call me when they’re awake so I could actually talk to them? I did call them. I left a message. Christ, Caroline, if you don’t answer the house phone, I figure it’s because you’re busy or, you know, out and about doing something that you should be paying attention to, not answering your damn cell phone. Like driving, maybe you should pay attention instead of answering the phone, right?”

He paused, cutting a sort of guilty-looking glance toward Stella. “No, I’m at home. Yes, I’m alone.”

Stella considered feeling offended, but knew she’d have said the same thing if the situation were reversed. She carefully kept her eyes on her own phone. Matthew tossed his phone in the dresser drawer and climbed up on the bed.

“Sorry,” he said.

She shook her head. “Really. It’s okay.”

He leaned in to kiss her.

Her phone chimed.

“Cock-blocked by technology,” Stella said.

Both of them burst into laughter. It was cathartic, a release of sorts, kind of like orgasm in the way it built and built, then crashed. The bed shook with it, they gasped with it, it stole their breath the way good sex would have. It felt as intimate as sex. It felt real.

“You’d better check it.”

She did. It was from Cynthia, of course, telling Stella not to worry. Jeff would pick Tristan up at the house whenever he got home and bring him to their place. She’d added a *
hugs
* at the end of the message, totally irrelevant and useless and also annoying. Cynthia added it to almost every message. It was probably her sig line.

“Important?” Matthew asked.

Stella tossed her phone into her bag and put it on the floor. “No.”

Then they were kissing again, and his hands were moving over her. He pulled her tank top over her head and pushed her onto the bed at the same time. He covered her with his body, his mouth moving on hers, down her jaw and throat and finally to her breasts. Stella moaned when he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked gently. Then the other.

He moved off her just long enough to pull his shirt off too, revealing a chest and belly as nicely muscled as his arms. And hair, oh, she did like a man’s chest to have hair. Not too much, not like a pelt or anything, but a nice pattern of it on his pecs and then a bit more down lower on his belly.

“What?” He’d stopped kissing her, noticing her looking.

“Just enjoying the view.” She arched upward to take his mouth again, her hands moving over his skin. She tugged at the button on his jeans and slid her hand inside, remembering how it had felt when he’d done the same to her in the hall. Her fingers encountered cotton and hot, hard flesh.

His groan, muffled inside her mouth, sent a shiver through her. It seemed as if they’d been at this for hours and now neither one of them wanted to risk another interruption. Clothes came off. The golden lamplight hid a lot of flaws, but it wouldn’t totally hide the scars.

And it didn’t. Matthew traced the longest one, the ugliest one, from side to side across her belly but said nothing about it.

He bent back to kissing her as his hand moved between her legs. His cock was hard against her thigh, and when she stroked it, his hips pushed forward in that involuntary way most men seemed to have. She loved that helpless thrust, as though they couldn’t stop themselves from fucking into her fist.

“Shit,” he said under his breath, and sat up to look down at her. “I don’t have anything.”

Stella had been riding a lovely wave of arousal, but now she blinked. At least he was assuming she’d want him to use something. “Um...let me check my bag.”

She rolled to hook it with her finger and pull it toward her. She found the small plastic zipper case she used to store feminine supplies, not sure if she’d actually stuck a condom or two in there or if she was remembering wrong. This wasn’t the purse she usually took on her turnarounds.