Chapter Thirteen

Lexi was more than a little irked that Matt had chosen to meet her at her parents’ house. As he’d pointed out when trying to persuade her to live with him for the duration of the repairs of her home, her parents were nearly an hour away. That Lexi and Matt would start the day in the same house and drive separately was enough to raise a brow or two. Lexi having to stammer an excuse for it mere hours after they’d had frantic sex against a wall made it ridiculous. That she’d have to insist everything was fine in front of Matt, who would have carnal knowledge of exactly how untrue that was, was laughable.

Especially since the reason everything wasn’t fine had nothing to do with him being an idiot and everything with her wanting to do it again. About once an hour she’d catch her fingers tightening, gripping a shirt that wasn’t there, trying to hold onto a man who’d didn’t want to be held, and she’d feel the loss all over again.

By the time she stood on her parents’ front porch, there wasn’t a breath deep enough to save her. So she just walked inside and through to the backyard, numbly aware of how everything that had been so familiar for the entirety of her life now felt so different. The last time she’d walked through that house, she hadn’t slept with Matt. The last time she’d gotten a drink out of that fridge? No sex with Matt. The last time she’d climbed those stairs? Hadn’t had sex with Matt.

Her entire life as she knew it had somehow taken sides, cleaved neatly around the moment that he’d managed to simultaneously both fill and empty her with the force of a single thrust.

The result of which was her wandering through her childhood home, thinking of Matt and thrusting and the odds that the heat that crept to her face hadn’t already turned her a dozen shades of red. Fortunately, if anyone could divert her thoughts from sex, it was her parents. Until Matt got there, or until they started asking relentless questions about why he wasn’t, she was safe. Hanging on to that happy thought, she slid open the French door off the kitchen and stepped outside.

She nearly fell backward when she saw Matt sitting on the deck with her dad.

“What… I didn’t know you were already here,” she said. Great. Now she had no idea what, if anything, he’d told them. Not helped by the fact that her face had to be blazing, which meant convincing them that nothing was going on would be next to impossible. She suddenly had no clue how to act. Were things supposed to be normal with them? He’d left the house that morning pretty ticked off, so his casual smile now was anything but disarming. In fact, it had a certain predatory quality to it.

Her dad, after standing and wrapping her in a hug, said, “He’s lending us the Jeep to move mulch to the flower beds in back.” He gave a quizzical look. “He didn’t tell you?”

Lexi glanced at Matt, who sat serenely, no signs of helping her out. “I was with Elsie,” Lexi said. “I guess it slipped my mind.”

“How is Elsie?” Lexi’s mom asked, coming up behind her with a drink, which she handed Lexi.

Grateful for the brief reprieve, Lexi drained half the glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade and said, “Her usual self. Whatever regimen they’ve got her on is working wonders.”

“What’s working wonders,” Lexi’s dad said with a smile, “is that stuff she has planted in her window box.”

Matt snorted.

Lexi’s mom gave an uncertain smile, as if she didn’t quite get what they were talking about, which was just fine with Lexi. Matt and Lexi’s dad fell into a conversation about a couple of small wildfires in the west, to which Lexi half listened, since her mom insisted she didn’t need help in the kitchen. Everything was done. Just waiting on the grill. With that last point, her mom shot her dad a look that Lexi had seen a thousand times before, but this time it made her sad. She hadn’t realized before that when she’d pictured her future, with the two point four kids running amok in her parents’ vast backyard, that Matt had always been in the chair next to hers. She’d never thought of herself with him, but it startled her to realize that she’d likewise never seemed to consider there might have been anyone else.

“So what’s this I hear about you looking on the computer for a date?” her mother asked. “On that website with the silly commercials?”

Lexi died inside. Apparently, Matt’s innocent act was entirely that, and with her parents staring at her she could hardly shoot him the death look she so desired. But she glanced at him anyway and was surprised to see that same conflicted, smoldering look he’d worn right before he’d wrecked her against the wall. In a flash, the look was gone, but it was too late. A flutter in her chest upended any grip she had on her current reality, sending her pulse racing errantly like a dry leaf tossed by an autumn wind to twist and skip across the ground.

Any prayer that she’d had an ally in him was dead the moment he spoke. “Not just a date,” he said, “but a relationship.”

“Are you okay with that?” Lexi’s mom asked him. The question clearly surprised him, because the hint of a smirk he’d worn dropped out of sight.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Matt asked.

Lexi fumed inside. Now was not the time to bring up amazing sex, but did he have to act like it hadn’t happened? Granted, she’d have killed him if he’d acted like it had, but still.

Lexi didn’t want anyone to answer that particular question, so instead she asked, “How would you possibly know I’ve joined a dating site?”

“I was there looking.”

Lexi stared at her mom, perfectly proper in her pearls and coiffed 1960s hair, and asked, “You were on a dating site?”

“Relax,” her ultra conservative mother said. “Your father and I were looking together.”

Oh, God. Lexi wanted to crawl under the floor. “You were what? Why?”

While she frantically tried to remember if she’d included anything on her profile she’d rather die than have her parents see, Matt snorted. “I’m all for expanding horizons and trying new things, but this might be more than I need to know.”

Lexi’s parents smiled pleasantly, either oblivious to what they’d just implied, or—

She cringed as a dark, horrible lightbulb came on. “Oh my God, you’re not swingers?”

Her mother paled. “What? No. Is that what that site does? Connect swingers?”

Lexi’s dad touched her mom’s arm. “Relax, honey. Lexi can’t be into that. You can’t trade partners when you don’t have a partner to trade.”

“Thanks a lot, Dad.” She was officially mortified, especially with Matt smirking at her. Fortunately—or not—her parents were staring at her, missing the innuendo in his gaze. So much for not discussing her sex life with her parents. But the joke was on them…they thought she didn’t have one. Thank God they didn’t realize she’d spent the most delicious moments of her life with her back flat against the wall, getting absolutely pounded by Matt, who now sat innocently kicked back in an Adirondack chair, one sneakered foot crossed over the opposite knee like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Innocent her butt. He sat there laughing with her parents. Traitors, all of them. And Matt didn’t say a word in her defense, though actually, she’s sleeping with me might not have been the best response.

“And for the record,” Lexi’s dad added, “We are not swingers. Your mother was just spying on you.”

“Perfect,” Lexi muttered.

“Better than finding out your parents are swingers,” Matt said with a laugh. And then those laughing eyes fixed on her, and she could have sworn they were smoldering, and that made her want to absolutely melt.

“I’m going to get a drink,” Lexi said. She might have to dump it over her own head, but she’d cross that bridge after she escaped into the house. Right now she needed to not be looking at Matt.

The plan was a good idea for precisely three seconds. Because no sooner than she’d slid the glass door shut behind her, it opened again. She spun to find him there, hot as sin and looking on the verge of committing any number of them. When their eyes met, the slow smile that shaped his lips sent her thoughts straight to where that mouth had been. And all the places it hadn’t. Low, low in her belly the heat rose. Clenching her thighs helped nothing.

Before she could do something stupid, she did something insane—she grabbed his arm and dragged him upstairs and into her old bedroom, quietly, firmly shutting the door behind them.

“Are you crazy?” she hissed.

His smile dripped with false innocence. “For what?”

Disbelief bloomed wildly in her chest. “Do you really not know? Is this just who you are? Someone who stares people into orgasms?”

He blinked, his smirk slipping into wonderment. “Do I what now?”

“You know what I mean.” And because he probably didn’t, and she really didn’t want to explain, she added, “Never mind. This is not the place for this conversation.”

“Conversation not desired. Noted.” He grinned, that playful, idiotic sexiness that would forever be a reminder of how pliable his mouth was. And then it was on her, soft and warm and teasing. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, mostly out of an urge to clobber him, but that resolve melted the moment he deepened the kiss, his mouth dipping lower, tongue teasing and dancing and sliding against hers, dizzying her to the point that she might have forgotten to kiss him back.

Because Matt was kissing her. In her old bedroom. How many hours had they spent sprawled in there doing homework or watching movies or just talking? How many times had she glanced over, watched his mouth, wondered how it would feel against her skin? How many nights in that very bed thinking of his hands skating the length of her body, tracing the curves, teasing her core?

She didn’t know the answer to any of that. She knew only that her imagination sucked, because it didn’t touch reality. And the reality was that he’d slid a hand under her shirt, his palm as rough as his caress was gentle, so lightly grazing her skin that she thought she’d explode. She whimpered against his mouth, then gasped when he managed to lift her against his waist, her legs spread around him, the hottest part of her centered against the hardest part of him. Every molecule of her body buzzed frantically and, as if he sensed that, he kept to a torturously slow pace. The harder she tried to grind against him, the slower and more deeply he moved. Her head spun to the point that she didn’t realize she was on her old bed until the shock of the cool bedding hit her back and Matt’s flattened hand slid against her upper thigh. She squirmed against him, so wound up that all she wanted was hard, fast relief, and yet there he was, turning slow and sensual into cruel and inhumane.

She managed, despite his cargo shorts, to close her hand on his erection. He hissed, swore, and dropped his forehead to her shoulder, the two of them trading dizzying breaths, and in that moment Lexi heard her name being called from somewhere in the house.

“Oh, no.” He didn’t protest when she pushed him off, rolling him to the side. She jumped up and made the mistake of looking back, seeing him lying on her old bed, erection straining against his zipper, his heated gaze feeding every orgasm she’d have for decades to come.

“Lexi—”

“Gotta get back down there,” she said in a rush. “You can…I’ll cover for you while you…fix that.”

“I’d rather you fix it,” she heard him say, but she ignored him and fled downstairs. She had no idea if they’d ever be able to fix this mess.

But the solution, if there was one, wouldn’t come from her staying in that room.

…

Matt lay there for a solid minute trying to figure out how to get some blood back to his head. As he did, he glanced around the room, surprised by how familiar it felt. He guessed the decade since he’d been a regular in there hadn’t changed much.

Even if everything else had.

He couldn’t believe Lexi had left him…not hanging, but then again, they were in her parents’ house, and at least one of the parents in question had noticed their absence. It clearly hadn’t been his brightest idea, but he hadn’t had an idea at all. He’d been fueled by desire, and not the kind that led to strangers groping in the back of a bar. It was something he’d lived with the last few days, yet it still managed to hit so fast and hard that he didn’t think he could take his next breath unless it quivered straight from her lips.

At this rate of schmuckiness he’d soon find himself penning sonnets that would torture middle schoolers for centuries to come. They’d be forced in a literature class to offer some great insight, and the one kid who got it right—the one who figured out that Matt clearly just wanted to drag Lexi into his bed and bang her so hard that the headboard ended up in the yard—would probably get detention instead of the A he deserved.

Some things were just destined to suck.

Frustrated, maybe defeated, he stood and did his best to adjust himself so he wouldn’t inadvertently take out a doorframe on his way back downstairs.

Lexi’s mom looked up when he let himself on the deck. “Oh, Matt, are you okay now, honey?” She walked over to him, her gaze snagging on his shirt. He glanced down just as she started to smooth the fabric where Lexi had fisted it nearly into a knot.

He really hoped he wouldn’t have to explain that.

“I’m fine,” he said, a bit perplexed.

“Lexi just told us you weren’t feeling well.” She felt his head and he groaned inwardly. “I think you’re hot.”

Deliriously, he thought. For your daughter. Wisely, he kept the thoughts to himself. Instead, he busied himself by stealing looks at Lexi whenever her parents more or less had their backs turned, then tolerated the hot tea with honey and lemon he was served with his steak because he wasn’t about to argue with the closest thing he had in memory to a mother.

Lexi, meanwhile, had flipped a switch, having apparently decided that tormenting him would be far more entertaining than wallowing in whatever she thought about what had happened upstairs. The worst part was that her antics—lip biting, back arching, breast jutting—all slipped in when her parents weren’t looking were so un-Lexi-like that he couldn’t take her seriously, but it still sent every blood cell he could spare, and remain upright, rushing to his pants.

Her parents asked about Lexi’s kitchen fire, and Matt couldn’t manage to take a single jab. Maybe he was sick. He half listened as her dad talked about contractors and paperwork and how maybe he should check things out, the conversation not entirely grabbing Matt’s attention until he heard Lexi assure them that Matt was on top of absolutely everything. He could only assume—or at least assume they assumed—she meant the work on her kitchen, but he knew better, and he knew she knew better, so he sat there thinking about actually being on top of her. It was a disaster, with only a clear-topped patio table between him and raging embarrassment.

He declined dessert, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about Lexi wearing it. And she made sure of that, turning her spoon every which way after each bite to lick off the smallest specks of chocolate mousse and whipped cream, only to dip the spoon back in and start all over again.

He’d never in his life been so happy to leave that house.

At least until he remembered he wouldn’t be leaving alone. He’d offered to leave his Jeep with Lexi’s dad for a couple of days so he could transport bags of mulch across their heavily landscaped property. It made a good excuse to drive separately—something far better than sorry, but Lexi and I are having an awkward moment after some awesome sex—but he hadn’t exactly thought it through, because now they stood on the driveway, Lexi giving him some wicked side-eye about getting into her car.

She pointed. “Passenger seat.”

Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have pushed his luck by trying to drive, but he wasn’t the best shotgun in the world. He wasn’t sure anyone could be with Lexi in the driver’s seat, but that was another opinion he wisely kept to himself. Most of the time.

“Lexi, I can drive.”

“You’re sick, remember? I don’t want you breathing on my steering wheel.”

He glanced toward the house, where her parents stood like they were in one of those auto insurance commercials where the kid drove off to college, with her dad’s hands resting on her mom’s shoulders and her mom giving a little wave, and he groaned. “Fine.”

He climbed in the passenger seat, moved it as far back as it would go, and made very sure his seat belt was fastened. The vigor at which he tackled that last part earned him a glare.

He waited until they were out of sight of the house to speak. “Was that really necessary?”

She sent an innocent glance his way. “Which part? You groping me in my bedroom?”

“No. You telling your mother I was about to keel over.” And licking the spoon like it had a Tootsie Roll center, but he left out that part.

Her hands tensed on the wheel. “From where I stood, I’d say that was accurate. Besides, that serves you right for kissing me.”

He didn’t answer. They fell into a stiff silence that ended ten minutes later when she asked how his date had gone.

“Which one?” he asked. He stared past her, at the landscape whipping by at highway speeds. Nothing about the view had changed.

But everything had.

“Too many to count?” she asked.

“No,” he said evenly. “I just need you to pick one.” When was the last time he’d even thought about another woman? He’d kind of forgotten they existed.

“Okay,” she retorted in the same measured tone. “What about that nurse, Camille? Weren’t you supposed to go to a concert or something?”

“It wasn’t a date. And besides, I canceled.”

That earned him a long look that he sorely wished had been directed at the highway in front of them. “Why?”

“She’s not the one for me.” It hadn’t been a date to begin with. He’d been given the tickets but hadn’t particularly wanted to attend. She’d mentioned loving the band. He offered them to her. Case closed. But he’d said something terribly wrong, because Lexi had turned almost as pale as the white line she was dangerously close to straddling.

“Do you want me to drive?” he asked, grabbing the overhead handle and hanging on for dear life.

“Since when are you looking for the one?” Lexi asked, her voice shaky. She straightened the car in the lane, but otherwise chose to ignore his question. “I thought you were more of a love ’em and leave ’em type.”

He looked away, less in the mood for the conversation than when she’d started it, and that was saying something. “Yeah, well, things change,” he mumbled, half hoping she hadn’t heard. He didn’t think he could field any questions about what he was looking for. The truth was, he wasn’t looking. He’d found her.

The problem was, he couldn’t keep her.