Chapter Seventeen

At some point in the last few days, Matt had come to a rather startling conclusion: in every way that mattered, he’d been a damned virgin before Lexi. She made him feel things he hadn’t before. Hell, she made him feel, period. And he didn’t need to dip his toe in a deep pool of retrospect to realize that she’d always been the best part of everything.

He didn’t know where they were going with this, or where they could go, or if she wanted it to go anywhere at all—especially considering that they’d agreed they were ignoring it, a strategy that had lasted only a few hours—but he had this moment, and he had Lexi, and if this was the last moment they’d share like this, he wanted it for all it was worth.

So he didn’t think. He didn’t try to justify what he wanted, or whether it was a good idea. He just pulled her as close as any two people could be and kissed her as deeply as he knew how. He captured one of her hands, tightly lacing her fingers with his own, pressing against the mattress, the comforter pillowing around them until his entire world consisted of softness and heat.

He brushed back her hair, everything hinging on the moment her eyes fluttered open and somehow captured his soul.

“We suck at ignoring this,” she said, the fingertips of her free hand tracing the line of his jaw, the ticklish spot behind his ear, curling in his hair. She stretched beneath him, her legs seemingly miles long when she hooked one around his thigh and opened the other around his hip.

“The only thing I want to ignore,” he said, “is our previous plan to ignore this. Now, unless you object, hush.”

She probably had about a hundred replies to that, but he saw the spark in her eye and knew that not a single one involved a request to stop. So he didn’t, other than the time it took to run across the hall and grab a condom from his room. He was going to have to start buying them in bulk. And stash them in every room of the house so there were no interruptions ever again.

When he returned, her gaze took his breath. She was so unbelievably beautiful that he had to take a moment to believe she was real. This wasn’t wall sex or sofa sex or frantic sex. This was different. A bed had never seemed like a big deal to him before, but he’d never made love to Lexi in one. Hell, he’d never made love to anyone in one, for the simple reason that there hadn’t been anyone before her. Not anymore.

But those were thoughts for later.

He couldn’t remember the exact moments they’d joined before. Just the explosion of sensation, the kind that blinded him to everything but the sheer bliss of it. This time he felt everything, inch by inch, her heat enveloping him, her body seizing and claiming him, the sinking, the falling. The moment lingered, a stillness between them, until she’d taken all of him and couldn’t take more, when he saw the passion blazing in her eyes and the lust swollen on her lips.

For a few precious seconds, he didn’t know how to move. How to be worthy of her. But then she arched her back, driving him impossibly deeper, and he matched her movement, retreating on a long, slow slide that left her whimpering and making filthy demands, her breath hot against his ear.

He smiled and sank again, the pace so brutally slow that he thought he’d die, but if ever a moment was worth a last breath, it was that one. The slower he moved, the more frantic she grew until she was panting and hot, her body clenching so tightly around him that he nearly saw stars. Realizing he wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer, he shifted to one knee, changing the angle, knowing he’d hit the right spot when she gasped and flailed and almost instantly shuddered. He held on until her trembling slowed, then gave in, rocking his hips in long, deep strokes that did the job faster than he ever could have wanted.

By the time he finished, he was wasted, but he had one more thing he needed to do. As far as fantasies went, it wasn’t anything that would make the front page, but it mattered to him.

He hoped it would matter to her.

As soon as he had feeling in his legs, he scooped her in his arms and carried her to his room, pulled back the covers, and followed her into his bed.

…

Lexi was so blissed out that she didn’t think to question Matt or what he was doing. Not until she found herself in the middle of his king-sized bed, her limbs tangled with his, his gaze intense and holding her in a kind of reverence.

“Why?” she asked, though she wasn’t entirely sure of her question.

“Since the first time,” he said, “I’ve wanted you in here.”

“I’d think your bed has been christened plenty,” she said, softening her words with a smile.

“Not by you. Not by us.” He glanced briefly toward the window that faced her own bedroom window. “I used to lie here and think about you lying there. Especially after we’d finish a movie or whenever I’d leave your house late, I always hated to be here alone, knowing you were there alone.”

“You thought about us?” she asked, surprised.

“If I thought I could have gone over there, if I ever thought we had a chance, I would have been there so fast,” he said. He didn’t mention whether that had changed, but there was something in his voice that gave her hope.

He traced her skin with his fingertips, detouring nefariously to the deepest, hottest, wettest parts. Lexi gasped, incapable of controlling her physical reaction. The only thing better was the slow creep of his grin, the promise that was for her alone.

His voice saying he’d do anything, anything, to make this real.

Something about it then, in the easy darkness, made her think it just might be possible. That it might be worth it to try.

Her next orgasm came so quietly, so intensely, that tears filled her eyes. He couldn’t have known that, yet he seemed to know exactly what to do as he kissed his way from her inner thighs to her quivering belly, past her aching breasts, to gently stroke her face and make a quiet promise that there wasn’t anything he wanted more than a thousand more nights just like this one.

And God help her, she believed him.