Staking His Claim (8 page)

“I just came to check on you,” he said curtly.

Anger sparked along her nerve endings. “I don’t need to be checked on. I’m watching a movie in the park, not dancing topless in Times Square.” When he only continued to watch her, she sighed. “Look, I didn’t lie to him for the fun of it. He’s got all this engagement stuff happening with Hayden. Not to mention the two jobs. I didn’t want to be a—”

“Nuisance?”

Hearing him call her that—
again
—did not sit well. Lucy knew from experience that redness was climbing her neck, coloring her cheeks, and she refused to let him see it. She grabbed her purse and attempted to stand, but Matt curled an arm around her waist at the last second and dragged her down onto his lap.

“Hey. I didn’t mean that.” His voice rumbled at her neck and caused her to sag back against him, the new contact allowing his mouth to sift through the hair behind her ear. “Not the first time I said it. Not now. Okay?”

She blew out a breath. “Can you please strike it from your vocabulary, then?”

Matt hummed in his throat by way of answering. She couldn’t help but marvel at how right it felt being held by him like this. Cradled against his chest, his body temperature warming every inch of her. Their bodies molded together, like they’d been superglued. How could she have missed touching him when they’d known each other such a short amount of time?

“What movie is this?” he asked into her hair.

Lucy’s eyes shot wide. “
Back to the Future
. You’ve never seen it?”

“No.”

“I weep for your childhood.”

Matt’s hesitant laughter rolled through her, but she quickly became distracted when his rough fingers began drawing patterns on her inner thigh, teasing the hem of her dress. He might as well have been stroking her between her legs for the sensations he was creating. “Catch me up.”

“Huh?”

“On the movie. Tell me what’s happening.”

She tried to swallow but her mouth was dry. “Um…so. Doc Brown, the older gentleman who looks perpetually stressed out, has built a time machine.”

“How?”

Lucy turned her head slightly and caught his clean leather scent. “Basically he souped up a DeLorean. And also…gigawatts.”

“Gigawatts?”

“You kind of have to suspend your disbelief for this.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Disbelief suspended.”

Oh God, he really should smile more.
“Marty goes back in time, but everything gets screwed up when his mother develops a crush on him.”

“What kind of movie did you say this was?”

She laughed, but it emerged sounding breathless. “It’s a classic.” Matt’s fingers inched higher on her leg, slipping underneath her dress, effectively cutting off her amusement. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he hooked his free arm around her midsection and positioned her higher on his lap. When his erection swelled underneath her bottom, Lucy released a shaky breath.

“Keep explaining. What happens to Marty?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Me?” He tilted his hips once, twice. “I’m always serious.”

“They go to the high school dance and Marty plays ‘
Johnny B. Goode’ and happily ever after,” she said all in one breath. With his big body surrounding her, arousal evident in his deep voice, yearning rolled through her, concentrated between her legs.

Matt took one corner of the blanket and tossed it over her lap. “Did you go to dances in high school, Lucy? Were you the bad girl who tempted all the boys? Yes, I think you were.”

In one quick movement, he pushed aside her panties and shoved two thick fingers inside her. It took her by such surprise that a small scream would have escaped her throat if Matt hadn’t covered her mouth and yanked her head back against his shoulder.

“Shh.” His breath at her ear sent a delicious shiver down her spine. “Be very quiet and very still or everyone will know I’m fingering your pussy under this blanket. It needs to be our little secret, doesn’t it, baby girl?”

When Lucy could breathe normally, she nodded. The illicitness of the situation hit her full force. Not only was this her brother’s best friend, but he was an ESU officer. In uniform. She would have been lying to herself if she said the risk didn’t crank up the yearning in her belly to overdrive. His fingers were high and tight inside her, creating heart-pounding pressure. It felt like her survival depended on what happened next. With a valiant effort, she tried to slow her shallow breathing and relax against him, so no one would notice what they were doing. Otherwise he might stop.
No. Don’t stop.

“Good girl, Lucy.” His tongue outlined her ear, but still his fingers didn’t move. “Your ass feels good sitting on my cock. We didn’t get that far last time, did we?”

She whimpered into his hand, her hips beginning to circle of their own accord.

“If you don’t stop that right now,” he growled, “I’ll take away my fingers. Do. Not. Move. You’re going to sit like this the entire movie.”

Immediately, her hips went still. She wanted to wail in frustration, but could do nothing but remain unmoving. His thumb brushed over her clitoris once,
only
once, and she started to shake.
Oh please, why won’t he give me what I need? I need. I need.

“You need to get off, Lucy? It wouldn’t take much, maybe a couple strokes of my thumb and you’d get relief. I’d get to complete my shift with your pleasure on my fingers.”

Lucy reached up and removed his hand from her mouth. “Please,” she whispered. “Matt, I need it.”

“Do you know how many times I came thinking about you last night?” He took a quick, angry bite of her shoulder. “Thinking about your hot, wet pussy?”

His words, the sting radiating from her shoulder, sent her closer to the precipice. All the while, the pressure grew and became more insistent, though he hadn’t even moved his fingers. “I-I’m sorry. Please, Matt. It hurts.”

“I thought you like the way I hurt you.” His thumb jiggled her clit until her teeth bit so hard into her lip, she was sure she drew blood. Abruptly, he stopped. “Or was that a lie, too?”

Lucy’s world tilted momentarily as his words registered. Her inner studio audience gasped in unison, one member of the front row fainting in shock. Is that why he’d come here? He was punishing her for lying? Even with a monsoon of hormones raging through her, the idea of him using her attraction against her was infuriating. Every moment they’d spent being physical had been honest.
This
moment was honest. She hadn’t held a single part of herself back. Matt questioning her truthfulness when it came to the pleasure they’d experienced together…it felt like a betrayal. It made it, and
her
, feel cheap.

Lucy didn’t know where she found the will to push his hand away and slide off his lap, but somehow she managed it. Matt tried to keep her against him, but released her when she started to struggle in earnest.

“Did you enjoy that?” she whispered furiously. “Torturing me?”

His expression was a mixture of confusion and stark arousal. “Lucy—”

“That was low, Matt.” Her voice shook. “Getting back at me…like that.”

If she hadn’t been watching him closely, she would have missed the tinge of guilt that crossed his features. She’d been right. He
had
been punishing her. With no intention of giving her pleasure. He’d come here for some sick form of revenge.

“I’m not that hard up.” She stood, backing away as Matt rose to his feet as well. “Don’t come near me again.”

Deciding to ditch the blanket instead of going anywhere near him, Lucy spun around and made for the street. She wasn’t surprised to feel Matt’s hand curl around her elbow before she reached the sidewalk. With a curse, he pulled her back against his chest. “You have the wrong idea. I didn’t mean to—”

“If you’re going to punish me, Matt…we both have to be on board for it. And I’m not. Not like that. I don’t like feeling manipulated.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, opened his mouth to speak.

His two-way radio on his shoulder crackled to life. A nasally female voice released a series of codes that sounded foreign to her. One thing was obvious from his expression, though. He was needed somewhere else. Matt looked like he wanted to rip the thing off his body and hurl it into the nearest garbage can.

“We’re going to talk about this,” he said gruffly.

“What’s the point?” Lucy pulled her purse higher on her shoulder and turned away. Her pride had been battered. Her body ached for something only Matt could give her. She needed to get away from him and think.

As she turned the corner toward Hayden’s big, empty town house, there was an undeniable part of her begging him to follow, but she quashed it, increasing her pace instead.

Chapter Eight

Matt stood among the flashing blue and red lights on West Forty-Second Street as the final civilian was loaded into a waiting ambulance. A downtown city bus had overturned when the driver tried to take a left turn at too high a speed, crashing through a department store window. As a sniper, there hadn’t been much for him to do in this situation besides assist rescue workers in carefully extricating the injured from the wrecked bus and blocking off the immediate area surrounding the accident. His particular skills were needed in vastly different situations, such as hostage standoffs or high-speed chases when a vehicle needed to be disabled from a distance. He spent the rest of his time on patrol, utilizing his other ESU training, as with tonight’s situation.

Now that he had nothing left to distract him, his mind went immediately back to Lucy. With the thought of her came a wave of self-disgust so powerful, he wanted to break something with his bare hands. He’d severely fucked up tonight. Going to Bryant Park to check up on her, his intention had been to keep a safe distance, just to make sure no one bothered her. At least, that’s what he’d told himself. If he was honest for two seconds, he would admit he’d been starving for the very sight of her. Then she’d been so close, lying in the grass, nighttime falling around her. She’d looked so damn beautiful in her dress, a content smile on her lips, he’d had no choice but to get closer. As if he’d been magnetized.

She hadn’t been smiling for long, though. In typical Matt fashion, he’d found a way to ruin her night and break the trust she’d given him so freely. What he’d done to her in the park had been a form of torture, especially for a responsive, uninhibited girl like Lucy.

One look at her had rattled the chains he’d wrapped around his needs, tempting his inner demons to the surface. Demons that belonged in the past, but refused to stay there. He hadn’t been able to get a handle on them or consider the consequences before he’d twisted her dishonesty into permission to punish her. By withholding her pleasure, he’d made her feel ashamed, or worse, ridiculed. Completely inexcusable. Lucy had nothing to do with his past or what it had done to him.

What she didn’t realize is, demons or not, he wouldn’t have been able to hold out much longer. He’d been desperate to feel her climax around his fingers.

Matt rubbed the back of his neck impatiently. The rational part of him insisted her outraged reaction was a good thing. In one fell swoop, he’d guaranteed she wouldn’t come on to him ever again. She’d stop examining his body with those sea-glass eyes, as if she wanted to tear his clothes off at the first opportunity. Stop begging him with her body language for a repeat performance of their afternoon in the motel room. Hopefully, she’d decide she’d had enough fun dabbling in his world and move on.

Right?

Fuck no. Those were all mistruths he told himself in an attempt to make them stick. To appease the conscience that told him over and over again,
you are not right for her. Or anyone.
He’d proven that tonight, hadn’t he? Yet despite all that, what he really wanted, so badly his hands shook, was to go back in time and give her that orgasm. The kind that made her thighs clench and her words slur. The fact that he’d let her walk away unsatisfied made him feel like a caged animal. It might be fucked up, it might be completely off base, but he’d somehow taken mental responsibility for Lucy
.
Her pleasure.
Mine. I didn’t satisfy what is mine.

It was dangerous to think of her in those terms, because it could never happen. Look at how his control deserted him in her presence. He’d been down that road, watched people he’d known so well turn on him, look at him like a stranger. His messed-up past could never touch her. She saw him as one of her adventures and nothing else. While there was still time, he should walk away. Stop making excuses to see her. Touch her.

Instead, he found his ESU truck making the turn toward the Upper West Side, rather than downtown where he lived. The second he made the unconscious decision, he felt relief rush through him, which quickly became a low, steady simmering of heat underneath his skin. One more time. Just one more time so he could correct the error in judgment he’d made earlier. He wouldn’t be able to sleep or eat or concentrate until he gave Lucy what he’d unwisely deprived her of underneath that blanket. His mind rebelled against any other outcome.

She needs me.

That thought overrode every warning in his head.
She’s too clean. Too bright. You’ll taint her. She’s Brent’s sister and you’re seriously overstepping your bounds. Leave her alone.

She needs me.

Fuck it, I need her, too.

Matt parked his vehicle outside the town house and took the steps two at a time. He paused briefly at the door, giving himself a moment to accept what going to her like this meant. It meant he wanted her despite the lie. It meant he would no longer have the right to hold it against her. It meant a giant
fuck you
to doing the right thing.

Already he was battling his body’s demands and he couldn’t think past them. For several long, anxious seconds, he didn’t think she was going to answer the door, until he saw a shadow pass in front of the peephole. Then silence. She didn’t want to open the door. His throat went tight over the realization.

“Let me in, Lucy.” Jesus, he barely recognized his own voice. It sounded like he’d swallowed razor blades.

Nothing. She didn’t respond and he heard no movement. He racked his brain, trying to remember some stray drop of knowledge he’d learned from Daniel’s and Brent’s headlong dives into couple-hood.
Anything
that could help him here. Then it came to him. Sorry. Men were always forgetting to just apologize. Hadn’t
he
been the one to tell Brent that?

“I’m so damn sorry, baby.” He sighed against the hard wood. “Open the door for me. I have to see you.”

A lock turned and very slowly the door opened. Lucy stood before him in a white nightshirt that barely reached her thighs. Her eyes were puffy. From sleep or crying? His heart seized at the idea it could be the latter. Barefoot, hair tumbling around her cheeks, she looked so achingly fragile, he wanted to fall on his knees and bury his face against her skin. Absorb her warmth and give her his own in return.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, the wary note in her voice hitting him square in the stomach.

Matt didn’t have the words. He rarely did. Everything had stayed locked up inside his head so long, he didn’t know how to say the right thing anymore. So he braced his arm on the doorjamb and leaned in close, thanking God when her lips parted in awareness. He hadn’t managed to obliterate her attraction to him, at least. “I’m sorry, Lucy.” He took a chance and let his mouth graze hers gently. “I’m so sorry.”

Her breath hitched as she swayed closer. “For what?”

“Not making you feel good when you needed it.” He traced her lower lip with his tongue. “Let me in so I can fix it.”

“Matt,” she started, shaking her head. He was losing her, so he took it a step further. Couldn’t afford to let her say no. He hooked one finger in the front of her low-rider panties and tugged her closer, satisfied when her eyelids drooped. “You probably shouldn’t come in.”

“No?” His hand coasted over her belly, then lower so his knuckle could run just under the edge of her underwear. “If you don’t let me in, how am I going to find out if you’re sweet all over?”

Seeing that he’d distracted her with that question, he backed her into the town house and kicked the door shut behind him.

“How do you intend to find that out?”

She knew. Matt could tell by the way her eyes challenged him from underneath her lashes. She just wanted to hear him say it. Christ, this girl made him hot. Somehow innocent, tempting, and challenging all at the same time. The wariness was still there, too, instilling a renewed urgency in him to replace the trepidation in her eyes with passion.

Her breasts were outlined by her thin T-shirt, alerting him to the fact that she didn’t wear a bra. They rose and fell with her quickening breaths as she watched his face. A desire to get her out of that T-shirt so he could suck and lick his way over every inch of her gorgeous body burned everything else out of his universe. He realized his thoughts must be showing on his face because her own expression shifted, clouded with need.

Without wasting another moment, Matt brought his mouth down on hers. Goddamn. A groan ripped from his throat. He hadn’t kissed her earlier and the feel of her lips brought on a fresh wave of heat. He’d forgotten what it felt like to slide his tongue along hers, feel her plump lips fall open to accommodate him. Kissing Lucy felt like breathing. He didn’t have to think about it. They simply moved together, instinct taking over.

Reluctantly, he broke away to let her catch her breath. Already, his cock felt like it was being strangled in his pants. As she sucked in oxygen, he spoke against her lips.

“You going to give me a nice little taste, Lucy?”

Instead of answering, she threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged him down for another searing kiss. Matt cupped her bottom in his hands and boosted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist. Immediately, she squeezed him and began a hot little writhing motion that had him stopping to press her up against the nearest wall, to give her three quick pumps of his hips.

“Hottest fuck of my life,” he growled into her neck. “Can’t think of a goddamn thing but getting back inside you. What did you do to me?”

No, he couldn’t get lost in her like this. Tonight was about giving her what he’d deprived her of in the park. He couldn’t
wait
to give it to her. With a growl, he yanked her off the wall and walked her into the living room. He broke their kiss to lay her on the nearest surface, an oversize ottoman in the opulent living room. God bless the girl, she tore her own shirt over her head, jostling her curls so they fell over one eye, making her look like a
Playboy
pinup instead of an accordion-playing grad student. She looked up at him, all swollen lips, upturned breasts, and excited green eyes, and his heart tripped all over itself.

If I’m not careful, she’s going to rip me wide open.

When her fingers started working his belt buckle, he came back to himself. He took his shirt by the hem and discarded it on the floor. On hands and knees he prowled over her until she was forced onto her back, hands knocked loose from his belt. “No, no. I know you’d suck me so good. But my mouth will be giving the pleasure tonight.”

He gave a long lick of her pert nipple and she moaned. “Twist my arm, why don’t you?”

Matt trailed his tongue between her breasts, taking the other nipple between his lips and sucking, humming in his throat to send vibrations through her body. When her back arched, fingernails cutting into his shoulders, he trailed his touch up the inside of her thighs. They fell open for him, a show of submission that made him pulse with heat. With pride.

When he began to massage Lucy through her already-damp panties, she nearly came off the ottoman. “Matt. Oh my God.”

“Did you touch yourself here when you got home, baby girl? Maybe watch a little porn to pick up where my fingers left off?”

She blushed, but shook her head frantically on the soft surface. “No.”

Thank God. He’d wanted to be the one. “Tell me why.”

“I don’t know, I…” Her eyes squeezed shut. “I didn’t want to give in to it. Didn’t want to admit you got to me.”

Would this girl ever stop surprising him? He shoved the material of her underwear aside and traced her seam with his middle finger. Damp. Beautiful. “But I do get to you. Don’t I?”

“Yes,” she whispered, slaying him. “I get to you, too.”

He felt transparent in that moment, as though she could see right past his defenses. It alarmed him, forced him into motion again before she could say something else and strip him completely. Taking one final suck of her delicious breast, he began dragging his tongue down her belly. It shuddered underneath his treatment, her navel dipping in time with hot little gasps. Without taking his lips from her warming skin, he slid her panties down her legs, finally baring her completely.

“Look at you, spreading your legs for a kiss.” He pushed two fingers into her heat, swearing under his breath at the slickness of her arousal. She threw her head back, hips lifting and falling, just as uninhibited as he remembered. “The first time I tongue you into coming, it’s going to be an apology. The second time will be a reward for waiting.” He fell to his knees and took his first intoxicating taste of Lucy. A growl worked its way free of his chest. “The third time is going to be because I fucking love to hear you scream.”

“Matt.
Now
. Please!”

He wanted to take his time, but he couldn’t stop once he got started. The way she whimpered his name as his tongue circled her clit made him feel like a god. In an effort to get close as humanly possible, he threw her legs over his shoulders and focused on turning her world upside down. When her thighs began to clench and shake around his ears, he drew his middle finger in and out of her entrance, sucking with increasing pressure on that bundle of nerves that would get her off. His cock was pressed against the ottoman, hips pumping rhythmically as he imagined fucking her, being surrounded by all that tight heat.

After a few too-brief moments, she dug her nails into his hair and tugged, her flesh spasming against his mouth. “Oh my God. It’s so good. So good.”

He continued his ministrations, but kept his eyes on her bucking body as she came. Lucy getting off was the most unbelievable sight he could remember. He’d feared her becoming an addiction, and he saw now that his concern had been more than warranted. His own condition was rapidly deteriorating, sending him into madness. Hunger pumped madly in his veins. He wouldn’t give in to the impulse to climb on top of her body and ride her until he got tired of hearing his name screamed at the ceiling. As in, never. He wouldn’t. This was for her. Only her.