Violet drew the metal tab of his hoodie down farther, the sliver of hair-dusted skin expanding to a wedge. Then a strip. Then the teeth released, exposing his whole chest. Delicious.
“Excuse me,” he said teasingly. His hand shifted from her stomach to her cheek, his skin warm, his calluses a teasing rasp along her temple.
“What?” she said, pushing the hoodie from his shoulders until the sleeves trapped his arms by his sides.
Humor danced in his dark irises. “It’s chilly. I need my hoodie to live.”
“No, you don’t.” She stroked her hands up his bare chest, the hair on his pecs. “You need this.”
She kissed him.
Brilliant colors burst behind her eyelids.
Fireworks. It was always fireworks with him, an uncontrollable energy sparking in her veins.
The growl, low in his throat, jarred her from her doubt. She could use the shimmer and sizzle tonight. Saying “damn the consequences” seemed rash, but...damn the consequences. Cow and barn and open door and all that.
He flicked the sleeves from his wrists. The sweatshirt thwapped on the floor.
His belt buckle would sound even better.
Her hands went to the metal clasp.
“We can’t get it on in your brother’s house, Violetta.”
“That ship has sailed, Matias. Long ago.”
“Huh?”
“Me, sleeping with someone in this house. It’s happened more than once.”
Not that any of the furniture was the same anymore. Her twin bed was long gone, and with it, most of her most tangible memories about her first high school girlfriend. But flashes of giggling with Marina, sprawling across Violet’s constellation-print quilt with clumsy caresses, still surfaced occasionally. And she and Lawson had spent Christmases here before her parents moved off the island. Before he moved off the island.
She shook her head. He was the last person she wanted in her head when she had her hands on Matias’s bare chest.
“Right. It was your house.” He walked her back against the counter and slid a hand under her shirt and up her stomach. Not reverent this time. Hungry. “Seems like a challenge. Make you forget about every other time any other person touched you under this roof.”
She tried to catch her breath. “Well, not if you think it’s against the rules to mess around here.”
“Funny thing about you, Violetta. The minute I start kissing you, I forget about all the ‘shoulds.’”
“There’s always the guest room,” she teased. “It’s made for guests. In the name and everything.”
“I always knew you were smart.” His palm caressed her breast, teasing her nipple through the thin fabric of her bralette.
She nearly buckled over. “S-so sensitive.”
He gentled his touch. “Damn, sorry. I can touch you in other places.”
A needy squeak escaped her. There was no pretending to be chill when Matias Kahale was offering pleasure. “P-please.”
“Yeah?” His fingers trailed over her belly to the waistband of her leggings, trailing tingles from one hipbone to the other. “Like there?”
Gasping, she nodded.
His smile crept along his face, sly and sexy. “If I was smart, I’d already have you upstairs.”
She took a few steps backward. “So fix it.”
He was nearly stalking as she retreated from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs. Hands under her ass, he swept her up, all fluid motion from thick, muscled limbs. She clung to his broad shoulders. Locking her ankles at his back, she settled against him, her core grinding against his hardening length.
Her breath hitched. “Didn’t trust me to make it up the stairs?”
“Didn’t trust myself not to lift you onto the counter and take you there.”
“Mmm, I like that option.”
“Come over to my place and I’ll make it happen.”
He paused on the landing, pressed her against the wall and kissed her long enough her head spun. She laced her fingers into his hair and gripped, shifting against his body. The ache between her legs spread, aching, demanding more than pressure through clothes.
“Let’s...let’s worry about tonight, first.”
Giving into the impossible need was inevitable tonight. She didn’t know how she was going to feel about this tomorrow.
But right now, it felt simple, like sex should be.
His hands. God, his hands. Strong and firm, but capable of tenderness she could barely process. Holding her against the wall, but also the gentlest brushes against her stomach earlier.
And the only better thing he could do with them was stroke her center until it was the only thought, feeling, need in the world.
His lips devoured her mouth, then her neck, his big body pressing against hers, holding her off the ground.
“One night at a time?” he murmured, voice a bare rasp.
“Yeah.”
The soft strands of his hair tangled between her fingers. She smoothed them, their silky softness, and shifted her hips until the angle was torturous. Their layers of clothes were both friction and frustration.
“Mati... Oh. Mmph. Yes.” Sparks flickered across her vision. “T-take me to bed?”
He chuckled and pressed his mouth to hers. “Haven’t you figured it out by now? Whatever you want, I will give it to you.”
Her heart spun, echoing the blur in her head.
“Just you, Matias.”
His steady composure wavered, as if he was worried he’d overpromised.
“For tonight,” she added. Asking him to be hers all the time...
She didn’t know if she could.
Didn’t know if he could, either.
Sex, though, was simple enough. Bring each other to the brink, past it, into those moments where the world became a pinwheel, whirring in the wind.
Holding her tight, he took the rest of the stairs like they were in a race.
“Where’s the fire?”
“You said not to go slow,” he teased, nudging the guest room door open with a toe.
He laid her gently on the mattress and crawled next to her. His face went serious, his hand spanning her stomach.
“We don’t need to worry about having sex while I’m pregnant,” she said. “It’s fine.”
“I know.” He almost breathed it. “It’s not that. The last time we crashed here... The night Iris was born...”
She sandwiched his hand between hers and her belly. “We were so tired we barely noticed we were sharing a bed.”
“Until we’d hiked back home.”
“My shower is still blushing.”
The tips of his fingers slipped under her waistband. “Then to now... Nothing is the same.”
“Mmm.”
His palm drifted lower, until his teasing touch brushed along her slickness. “Except this. This hasn’t changed.”
“Uh...did you expect it to? I haven’t given birth yet.”
He laughed and kissed a trail down her neck, pushing aside the wide neck of her T-shirt to continue his soft journey along the curve of her breast. “I didn’t mean your shape, Violet.”
His hand was heavy on her sex, but nearly still, only the tiniest movements. They were enough to make her melt into the mattress.
“Wh-what hasn’t changed?”
A single digit slipped into her entrance. “How badly I want to make you shatter.”
The heated words seared her skin. Her hips arched off the bed. His finger buried deeper, and she gasped.
“Won’t take long,” she whispered.
“It never does. Unless I want it to.”
So cocky. It would chafe, if it wasn’t so damn true. She was powerless to resist his talented hands. Every time.
He slid his fingers from her pants, and she nearly cried from the lack of pressure. He touched her like she was porcelain, stripping her of her T-shirt and bra, her leggings and underwear. Too careful. Too indulgent.
She tugged at his own clothes with panicked, shaking hands.
“Hey. There’s enjoying each other with reckless abandon, and then there’s rushing. And rushing usually means something’s wrong.”
“You almost made me come. Which you claimed to be your primary goal,” she said. Hopefully she sounded calmer than she felt. “What could be wrong?”
“For starters, not talking about sex like we’re in a staff meeting.” Scolding lips moved across her neck. “I want to make you feel so good you forget what the alphabet is, let alone goals.”
Stilling her hands with a kiss to each of her palms, he finished undressing himself and then lay on his back. He lifted her to straddle his hips.
With no fabric between them, his length seared her sensitive skin, promising hot, delicious thrusts. Testing the trail of hair along his belly with her fingers, she rocked forward, the slide eased by her arousal. Just far enough to tease the tip of his erection.
His wide palms gripped her thighs. Dark irises, almost entirely swallowed by his pupils, fixed on her. Desire shadowed his face.
Satisfaction seared her veins. Bringing this rugged, potent man to his knees—or rather, being on her own, sliding over him—was the ultimate thrill.
Addictive.
But not what would tip her over the edge.
After bending to steal a kiss, her hair falling around their faces like a curtain blocking off the world, she slid to the mattress and pulled him over her.
He settled between her thighs with a slow smile. “This works, too. If you don’t want to be on top.”
“Not tonight.” Pleasure crashed in from every side, lighting along her skin. She gripped his taut hips and pressed into him.
He groaned, frayed and unrestrained.
Mmm, yes. Wild like that. She let her thighs fall open. No one felt like Matias. It was incomparable, all raw and powerful and—
Tender?
He was at her center, thick and thrusting, but it was so damn slow. One hand on her hip, controlling each fraction of movement, slipping closer to filling her.
Fingertips traced her cheek, brushing her hair off her forehead.
“We rush too often,” he whispered. “Want to savor you.”
Finally, finally, he slid all the way.
Jaw straining, he paused, bracing on his elbows. “Why do you feel so...”
The gap taunted her, teasing. He wasn’t moving. Wasn’t talking. Only sparking eyes and parted lips, leashed strength in bunched muscles, hovering over her.
She glided her fingers along his forehead. “Feel so what?”
“Electric.”
Her heart filled. Not the word she’d expected, but somehow better than anything she could have predicted.
One soft kiss brushed her eyebrow, her temple. Then a taste of him, sweet-tart nips. A tangle of tongues, twisting and thrusting until his hips matched the rhythm.
Driving her toward being so full, so complete, she was swamped in it.
In him.
As if each cell in her body was snapping like magnets, clicking into perfect alignment.
Like nothing could separate them.
And for one moment, she wanted to believe it possible.
Him weaving love around her, through her, in her. Temporary, sure. But real. He cared.
He slowed the pace, and she gasped, tormented by his powerful body. He could dominate. Speed her toward ecstasy. Bring her to a frenzied end.
But no, he was drawing it out. Rough fingertips nuzzled her core, lifting her out of her mind, away from all rational thought and doubt.
It was too intense not to believe in the possibility of what they had.
Of what they might be able to make.
“Matias,” she moaned, caught up in his love-soused touch. More, and she’d be floating untethered.
He muttered a dark, crude complaint. “Say my name again and I won’t be able to hold on.”
The blossoming ache between her thighs pulsed stronger with every flex of his hips, every forward slide.
She nodded, a frenzied silent plea. “Let’s...together...”
His eyes flashed dark, and he buried himself deeper.
Pleasure unlocked. Him, a secret key. She splintered into climax, showered with fragments of light.
She clung to him. His heart thudded against her chest, echoed by her own racing pulse. Gulping for air, she let herself float back to earth.
Reality filtered in. Truth, too.
She’d been plain wrong, earlier.
Nothing about having sex with Matias was simple.
“How is she still sleeping?”
Violet’s mumbled question startled Matias. He hadn’t realized she was awake. She’d been still ever since he came back to bed after giving Iris a bottle.
She’d stolen his T-shirt, and between the soft cotton and her softer skin and the top-notch sheets in the guest bedroom, he hadn’t felt this indulgent in a long time. He lay on his side, body curved around Violet. She was on her back and had her knees draped over his bent legs.
So much soft skin and curves, pressed into him.
Maybe they’d have time to revisit last night before the baby woke.
His body perked up, and he trailed his hand down her side, testing the shape of her.
She yawned and threaded her fingers through his wandering hand, holding it above her cotton-covered belly button.
“Iris is still sleeping. We might have a few minutes.” He could accomplish a lot in a few minutes.
“Franci’s going to be livid Iris slept in for us,” she said mildly. “She’s always up at six for them.”
“She was so sleepy at six thirty. Happy to go back to bed.”
And so was I. Even though he hadn’t slept any more.
Lying in bed, holding Violet while a baby snoozed in the next room—this could be his life soon.
Well, the baby. Not the lying-in-bed-with-Violet part.
Goddamn it, he wanted both.
A charge ran through him. Fear? No. It wired him, but it wasn’t a flight instinct.
Excitement.
He’d been feeling it a lot lately, a reaction he needed to temper.
They might have had sex last night, connected as much emotionally as physically, but they weren’t together. And waking up with her in his arms wasn’t going to happen if they were living separately.
“This is nice,” he said.
A pathetically vague statement, but one he could slough off depending on her own feelings.
She moaned.
Not pleasure-filled like he’d coaxed from her last night—distressed.
He flicked on the bedside light. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t move,” she said quickly. “For the love of everything holy, stay still.”
“Okay.” He eased back down.
She gripped his arm across her chest and took a long slow breath through her nose. Her complexion was green.
Ah. “Feeling queasy?”
“Yeah. In the mornings, around this time. If I lie here for twenty minutes, I should be okay.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No. But...no sudden movements.”
“Damn.” He winced. “That bad?”
“One hundred percent do not recommend. Zero stars.”
Tentatively, he rubbed her stomach.
She sighed and nestled closer. “I wasn’t this nauseated with my other pregnancies. It can—morning sickness, that is—be a good sign. There’s a correlation between it and successful pregnancies. Whenever I’m hanging over the toilet in the morning, I keep reciting the stats to myself.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been asking how you’re doing, and you keep saying fine.”
Weeks of smiles and pat answers.
“Because I am fine.”
He didn’t believe her.
He didn’t know what to do about it. Damn it, he hated being helpless. “I’d suggest you ask your midwife at our appointment on Monday, but I’m thinking you know all the remedies.”
“I’ve been popping ginger pastilles nonstop. There is medication, but I don’t think it’s bad enough for me to need it. The nausea fades come midmorning.”
Not good enough. “I want to fix it.”
“You caused it,” she teased weakly. “All your fault.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He splayed his fingers over her belly. Not round yet. But touching her felt special, anyway.
He couldn’t hold back a smile.
A hint of amusement crossed her pale face. “You don’t seem sorry.”
“I am about you feeling sick.”
“But not about knocking up your best friend’s sister?”
He should. Really should. But bro codes were built on patriarchal double standards, and he and Violet were both adults who’d more than consented. “I owe promises to you, not Archer. Given I ‘knocked you up.’”
“Something you sound way too proud of, by the way.”
“I swear, it’s like a biological urge. I didn’t expect it.”
“Caveman,” she said.
“Little bit.”
“You know, the egg isn’t passive in the process,” she grumped. “It puts out chemicals to attract the sperm.” An enormous sigh escaped her. “My eggs have been good at that part, at least.”
Stroking her hair, he kissed her temple. “I can tell it still hurts. What you lost. I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s okay.” Her eyes drifted shut.
She relaxed into him. They lay for long, silent minutes. Her breathing was calm, rhythmic. Had she fallen back to sleep?
Warm lips pressed against his neck. “We’ve never woken up together before.”
“And we managed to do it three times this morning.”
Each wake up had been so different. The absorbent black of 2:00 a.m., when Violet had groaned before disentangling from their embrace, stumbling from the spare room to the nursery next door. Matias had offered to do that feed, but they’d agreed the baby would be less startled seeing her aunt in the middle of the night rather than her honorary uncle. The hints of a post-storm sunrise had glowed on the horizon during the six thirty squawk. Matias had gotten up for that one, leaving behind an irresistibly cuddly Violet, expecting his day was starting.
But three-quarters of the way through her bottle, Iris had dozed.
Matias had not fought it, hightailing it back to bed.
“I wouldn’t say no to waking up with you again sometime,” he said.
Her eyes blinked open, the same blue as the hints of morning light he’d glimpsed on the horizon from Iris’s room when he’d peeked through the curtains.
“I’m not used to you wanting to sleep over. It’s still unexpected,” she said.
Christ, it would hurt if she didn’t want to continue this.
And he didn’t know if she did. But if he asked her flat-out, she might not be ready to answer. Or she would be, and it wouldn’t be the answer he wanted.
Her trusting him meant being honest. Maybe not with this, though. Not entirely.
Not when honesty meant...everything.
Yeah, he could picture more mornings with Violet. Endless mornings.
Throwing around words like endless would guarantee the actual end of this. But he could make sure she knew she was special to him without him taking things too far.
“I like unexpected things,” he said quietly.
“Me, too.”
He lost track of how long he lay there, entwined in the lazy weekend embrace.
A click broke the silence.
Violet froze. “Was that the front door?”
“Oh, shit.” Matias bolted from the bed, launching himself in the direction of the sleep pants he’d left tossed on the floor when he’d come back from feeding the baby. “I didn’t mean that kind of unexpected.”
Violet groaned, drawing the comforter up to her chin. “If I get up, I’m going to be running for the bathroom. You need to be the one to leave.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere!”
Iris’s room.
He hurried into the hall, right as Archer got to the top of the stairs, a crutch on each arm and a confused frown on his face.
“Where’s Violet?”
“In the bedroom.”
Archer’s gaze narrowed in on Matias’s bare chest. “But you were in the bedroom.”
He shrugged casually. Don’t look lower, friend. Do not make me explain this off as morning wood.
Archer’s jaw ticked.
“We couldn’t decide who was going to sleep on the couch,” Matias said, scrambling for anything mildly convincing. “So we shared.”
“Shared.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter. It’s Violet, for Christ’s sake.”
“That’s not reassuring.” Those narrowed eyes were mere slits. His tanned hands were white on the grips of his crutches.
His throat tightened. His best friend didn’t trust him with his sister. Understandable.
Crappy, too.
He respected Violet’s intent to keep this all private until she felt sure about the outcome, but he knew the secrecy could bite them in the ass once their friends and family found out.
“I would never do anything to hurt her,” he vowed. A promise he’d make a hundred times over, until every soul on Oyster Island believed he’d follow through.