Last Light (31 page)

For fuck’s sake—this was exactly why I shouldn’t be around him. He had this infuriating mind-melting effect on me.

I stared at my knees.

“Yeah,” I said. “Still here.”
Still working up the courage to tell you that I lied about sleeping with Seth … and then gave him a hand job.

Matt’s quiet chuckle sounded behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. He stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, shuffling through the index cards I’d prepared. His gaze flickered to me and I lowered my eyes. Fucking
fuck.
What the hell was going on here? Somehow, within the space of three weeks, I had reverted to Hannah Who Cannot Speak Much Less Think Around Matt Sky.

And I was supposed to be angry with him.

And he should really be angry with me.

Instead, he seemed quietly grateful for my presence.

“These are too much. Pam wants me to quote Thoreau?” He laughed. “It’s quite simple, Gail. ‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.’”

“Yeah, Pam is … kind of funny.”

“Mm, kind of.”

I listened to the
flip, flip
of the cards in Matt’s hands. The sound stopped, and he padded around the couch to stand before me.

“Look at me, Hannah.”

I gazed up at him. This close, I could see the deep emerald tone in his eyes and smell the subtle spice of his soap.

“What did you think of my new book?” he prompted.

“Um…” My fingers knotted on my lap. “It’s a lot to process right now. You probably have no idea how weird it is … to read about yourself in a book. In so much detail.”

“No, I don’t.” A trace of amusement glimmered in Matt’s eyes—
what the hell could he find humorous right now?
—but he looked dead serious in the next moment. “I’m sorry I keep writing about you. I keep thinking about you. I’m obsessed with you.”

I inhaled swiftly.

I’m obsessed with you.
Words that should frighten me. But Matt spoke with a calm honesty that undercut my fear.

I gave a minute nod.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay?”

“Yeah … okay.”

He touched my cheek. I tipped my face into the cradle of his hand.

“Do you still find me attractive?” he said.

“Matt…” My voice broke. His question chipped at my heart. And the look on his face—that disarming mixture of cockiness and vulnerability. I reached for him. “God, you know I do.”

He climbed onto the couch, straddled my lap, and took my face between his hands.

This was simple.

We were good at this.

And selfishly, I needed this—to remember the difference between intimacy for pleasure and intimacy for love.

Matt, on the other hand, probably needed some affirmation of his desirability.

He kissed me and I made a soft sound of pleasure.

He tilted his head to seal our lips. His tongue moved in and out of my mouth, and soon he matched that suggestive rhythm with his body.

He groaned when I sucked on his tongue.

I held his hips as he rocked against me. I parted my legs, my dress riding up, so that Matt’s hardness found the soft spot he wanted. We ground together. I did all the little things that drove him crazy. I slipped my hands under his shirt and tweaked his nipples. I raked my nails through his hair, down the back of his neck. I dug my fingers into his tight ass.

“Take it out,” he gasped against my mouth. Always so bossy.

“You take it out.” I licked his jaw.

He fumbled with the knot on his pants. While I sucked on his neck, he guided my hand to his cock. Rock hard. I pumped it a few times, moving the skin over his rigid erection.

He tried to lift my dress, but I pushed away his hands.

“Hannah, please.”

“Not yet.” I leaned back into the couch. “I want to watch you. Let me watch…”

Matt’s sadness was gone, replaced by frustration and confusion. I nudged him off my lap. I couldn’t have moved him if he didn’t want to move, but he yielded. Maybe he felt guilty about all the lies. Maybe he was too horny to complain.

“On the floor,” I whispered. I watched him with wide eyes. Would he go along with my idle fantasy? Matt loved to see me desperate for him; I loved to see him desperate for me. We weren’t so different in our desires.

Matt hesitated, glaring at me. I fluttered my eyelashes.
Please?

“Fine,” he said. He slid off the couch and knelt on the floor, his cock in his hand. My breath quickened as I looked at him.
Perfect.
Matt hadn’t even taken off his pants. His hair still smelled like shampoo. He looked disheveled and delicious, a fantasy incarnate.

He stared at me as he jerked off. Sometimes his eyes strayed over my body—my legs in nylons, heels on my feet—and sometimes he glanced down at his cock, but most of the time he held my gaze. He didn’t say much. He was trying to keep it together, I could tell.

He began to pant, his arm and hand moving faster. I licked my lips. If I had Matt’s boldness, I would have told him that this was so erotic for me.
This.
My lover in his raw need. My pussy swelled in my tight thong, the sensitive skin tingling.

Matt’s lips parted. He twitched with pleasure.

“Fuck.” He sighed.

Cum oozed from his tip. I listened to the sound of his lust, the sound of him working his own body furiously.

“Don’t cover it,” I said. “I … I want to…” A wave of heat reddened my face. “I want to watch you come. On yourself…”

Matt moaned. He was too lost to pleasure to glower at me now. He stripped off his T-shirt and sprawled on his back. I stood over him, staring down. My jaw dropped. Why was this so hot? I clenched my hands to keep from touching myself.

Matt writhed on the floor. One hand caressed his sac while the other jerked up and down his shaft, twisting from base to head and back.

“God, oh God,” he moaned, and I knew he was going to come. The first thick spurt of cum hit his chest, another spattered along his stomach, and finally it oozed down his cock to his fingers. He hissed and cursed and said
God, fuck, fuck,
his eyes closed.

I swayed on my feet.

My thong was soaked.

Matt’s eyes drifted open. He relaxed against the hardwood, his chest heaving.

“How wet,” he asked between ragged breaths, “are you—after that, Hannah? Are you happy?”

I touched my cheek. I felt feverish with arousal.

“Get down here,” he snarled. “Get out of your clothes. Come ride my face.”

Matt crooked his finger and beckoned. I wriggled out of my nylons and thong and practically fell on top of him.
Fuck.
How could I feel brazen enough to ask Matt to jerk off on the floor, and in the same moment too paralyzed with embarrassment to put my sex on his face?

“Dress … too,” he said, slowly catching his breath.

I lifted off my dress and unclasped my bra. I tossed the garments aside, and then I hovered awkwardly over Matt as he stared at my tits.

“Come here.” Lust strained his voice. His eyes were dusky. “Come on. I want this. Don’t hold back, Hannah. Do your best…”

I trembled as I crawled up Matt’s body.

I planted my knees on either side of his head and lowered the apex of my thighs to his lips.
Fuck …
this felt right and wrong and so hot. And I wanted it.

I quietly appreciated yoga as I sank, my legs flexing easily to bring my sex to Matt’s mouth. The contact sent shivers through me. My damp body … his warm breath and lips. I moved cautiously—did he seriously want me to suffocate him?—but Matt seized my buttocks and forced my pussy against his mouth.

“Matt!” I groaned.

He moaned against my cunt. His tongue lashed out, tasting the soaked seam of my body and delving in and out of me. He sucked on my clit and bit my lips, tugging, savoring my desire. He made the most indecent sounds.

Pleasure warmed me from my abdomen outward. I curled my fingers against the floorboards and the blush staining my cheeks burned hotter. With Matt’s mouth devouring my pussy, I kept getting wetter. I couldn’t stop. I
tried
to stop, because it was embarrassing—the amount of arousal oozing from me and coating Matt’s lips and tongue.

But Matt didn’t care. Or rather, he loved it. He lapped at me and licked it away; he sucked on me and made me wet again. Delight crackled up my nerves and sent signals like fireworks to my brain.

“Oh, God … Matt,” I moaned. “Matt …
Matt.
”

That boy loved to hear his name on my lips. He moaned in response, his voice vibrating over my clit, and I gasped. “Fuck, Matt!”

Another answering moan, muffled in the soft petals of my sex.

His strong hands encouraged me to move. He drove me up and down, rubbing my body over his lips, down to his chin, up to his nose. I shook violently.
Oh …
I was making a mess on my lover’s face, I could feel it.

I dared a look at Matt. My breasts swayed above the floor, and beyond them I saw the top of Matt’s head. Even in this, he couldn’t stay still. He leaned away from the floor. He pressed his mouth into my body intimately, buried his face, gasped for air.

My hips wanted to roll against his mouth, but I held back. Why?

I want this,
Matt said.
Don’t hold back. Do your best …

Matt always wanted me to abandon reason—in sex as well as in life. That’s what he did. Why couldn’t I? He lived without fear of what others thought. I lived like a normal person, in my self-imposed restraint. But Matt was free, I knew, and I was not, and the double edge of his freedom was his incredible instinctive selfishness.

I swayed my hips, bucking against his face. He slapped my ass. The swift sting heightened my pleasure. I thrust again and he hit me again. When I began to move on my own, he released my bottom. God, I probably had bruises, he gripped me so hard. And fuck, I loved that. I loved his fierce need.

I watched Matt as I drove my sex over his mouth. Sticky streaks covered his skin. He licked and sucked when he could, but mostly he let me work my rhythm. I understood then what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to bring myself to orgasm like this.

I didn’t miss a beat as I moved. Why should I? So often during sex, Matt forced his erection into my mouth—and I gagged on it with joy. His desire and my degradation were white-hot pleasure for us both. My desire and his degradation were the same.

In the groove of Matt’s mouth, I found a spot to rub my clit. I rode him steadily, my thighs tense as I applied pressure. He stopped spanking me. His hands rested against my sides and his noises quieted. I threw back my head, blood rushing to it, and the colors of the condo swirled kaleidoscopically. All for me—this crazy décor. Our small, safe, happy place.

I closed my eyes and searched for my pleasure.

When the roll of my hips grew tiny and frantic, Matt plunged his tongue into me. He fucked me with it as I came.

I moaned, my voice a hoarse cry, and I rubbed out the whole of my pleasure against his mouth, and it was fire and heaven all over again. That garden where only he took me.

Chapter 42

MATT

We lay together on the floor, sticky and breathless.

“Are you cold?” Hannah whispered.

With her sweet breath blowing across my ear, her body draped over mine, I almost believed we were all right.

“You know I am,” I said, because I always get cold after I come, and she hugged me.

She doted on me for a while—rubbed my sides, kissed my collarbone, and feathered her fingers through my hair—and then she sat up and the spell snapped.

We weren’t all right.

I wiped my face and chest with my T-shirt. I retied my pants.

Hannah swayed as she struggled back into her panties and dress. I watched, detached, rather than reaching to steady her.

My hand ached. Fortunately, Hannah hadn’t noticed me favoring the left.

I retrieved a hoodie from the bedroom and returned to find her standing by the door, her expression inscrutable.
Don’t leave,
I thought, though I felt so confused. Warring emotions. Loneliness for Hannah. Brittle anger when I remembered Seth.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She plucked her keys out of her purse. “We probably shouldn’t have done that. It confuses everything.”

I folded my arms. “I enjoyed it.”

“Yeah…” She trailed off. Her gaze danced along the floor, pausing where I’d knelt. “Um. Your keys.” She freed our condo and mailbox keys and held them out to me.

I closed her fingers around the keys. “Keep them.”

“Matt—”

“Just keep them. Where are you staying?”

“At a hotel. Alone.”

“Move back in. We don’t have to have sex. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Yeah, because we have so much restraint.” Her gaze loitered on the floor. I could see her deciding that what just happened was a mistake.
Fuck.
It wasn’t a mistake.

“Tell me what happened with Seth,” I said.

Hannah blanched, her eyes growing wide.

“Tell me,” I insisted. “If you don’t, I’ll keep imagining the worst, and the worst is—”

“I didn’t sleep with him. I didn’t. I never cheated on you. After I left you, though—” Hannah hesitated, and I stared at her mouth, unable to comprehend.
She lied to me? She didn’t sleep with him. This is good news. But it feels bad.
“Matt, it’s fucking impossible to explain. I was drunk. I gave him a hand job. That’s all.”

Instantly, the image materialized. Sickening. Hannah’s hand on my brother.

I went for my cigarettes, which were on the coffee table.

“Fine,” I said.

“Fine? You’re angry.”

“Yeah, fucking sue me.” I turned away from Hannah. “Of course I am.”

“It was a onetime thing, Matt. It was a mistake. I was drunk … I was messed up. How can you be angry now, when you thought I slept with him before? God, you make no sense.”

I glared at the wall, seething.

“He took advantage of you,” I hissed.

“No.
I
took advantage of
him.
” Hannah’s voice hardened. “And I did it because I was trying to get over you, okay? And I never will, and I know that now.”