“I REALLY ENJOYED the show tonight.”
“Thanks, Kendra.” Matty grinned at her across their late-night table at Green Street Restaurant, liking her more and more. Granted, she’d only met her for the first time about fifteen minutes earlier, when she and Jameson had come to the stage door after the show, but she was one of those people who instantly appealed.
Not to mention Matty had never seen her brother so relaxed and outgoing and smitten. Around other girlfriends he’d always seemed vaguely apprehensive, as if awaiting judgment day. With Kendra he just looked happy. Matty might have had her last sleepless night over her baby brother for a while, though he and Kendra had a complicated future to work out, with Jameson about to go back to Keesler.
“How’s the knee, Jamie?”
“Jamie?” Kendra gave Jameson an incredulous look. “I’ve never heard you called that.”
“Ha!” Matty gestured to her brother with her wine. “There’s worse. When he was little, we called him Jam-Jam.”
Kendra clapped her hand to her mouth to muffle a snort, then lowered it and blinked sweetly at Jameson. “Jam-Jam... What a lovely name.”
“Hilarious.” Jameson rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “What about you, Fatty Matty?”
“Argh!” Matty clutched her chest. “Not that one!”
“Oh, ouch.” Kendra winced in sympathy. “That is horrible. Especially since you’re anything but heavy.”
“Used to be.”
“Ouch again.” Kendra lifted her glass. “I’m a member of that club, too.”
“Then you know. I think that nickname was one of Hayden’s.” Matty made her disgust plain. She and her twin brothers got along pleasantly now, but that was about it for closeness. They belonged to another era. “Kendra, what kind of insulting nicknames did you get hit with?”
“There’s not much you can do with Kendra. My brother called me Kenny, not that clever, but it annoyed me so he did it. Mom and Dad just used endearments like honey or sweetie or ladybug. At school I got teased for being me.” She patted Jameson’s arm under the table. “Mostly by your brother.”
Matty waved away the comment. “Boys are too dumb to show attraction in normal ways.”
“We learn, though.” The look he gave Kendra was pure adoration.
Kendra threw him a quick nervous smile and ducked her head.
Uh-oh. What was that? Embarrassed to show her feelings in front of the sister, or she wasn’t quite feeling the big love yet?
If it was the latter, silly, silly girl. You didn’t take that kind of devotion for granted, because it didn’t strike often. No man had looked at Matty the way Jameson had just looked at Kendra for a long, long time. No one since Chris.
“Excuse me, guys, I’ll be right back. It’s been a long time since intermission.” Kendra stood and headed for the restroom.
Matty beamed at her brother. “She’s great, Jameson.”
“Yeah, she’s okay.” His smile belied his casual tone. “I hear I have you to thank for siccing her on me.”
“Me?” Matty thumped her hand to her chest. “I have no idea what you’re—”
“I beat it out of her.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “Thanks, Matty. You’re a pain in the ass, but your heart is in the right place.”
“Thank you, brother dear.” She rested her chin on her hand and speared him with a look. “Have you gone over to see Mom and Dad yet?”
“I will.” He shifted irritably. “I should, I know. And I will.”
“How’s Mike doing?” Matty had never met Mike, but would worship him forever because his apartment had saved Jameson from being driven crazy by their mom and dad during his recovery.
“He’s loving the training. Working hard, studying hard.”
“You’ll get there.” She watched his face carefully. He wasn’t as hard to read as her other brothers, but still a tough one.
“It’ll be a long haul. But yeah. They’ll probably put me on a desk job until I’m ready to start up again.”
“How will you and Kendra leave things?”
“Well, Ms. Nosy.” He reached to tweak her nose, knowing she hated it.
“Off me, you pig.” She reared back in plenty of time. “Now go on. You and Kendra...”
“Too soon to tell.” He was all brisk business again, leaning back, stretching his legs to one side of the table.
“But you’d like to stay together.”
“Yeah.” He met her eyes, and Matty saw the vulnerability. Oh, gosh. He’d been through so much.
“She feel the same?”
“As I said, it’s too soon to tell.”
Matty nodded, heart aching. How could Kendra not fall for him? If she broke his heart, Matty would have to take her out personally. “Any chance you’ll give up this Cartwright idea of devoting your life to the Air Force?”
“For that, I’ll have to say it’s too soon to tell.” He checked over his shoulder to see if Kendra was on her way back yet.
“Right, right. Shutting up. Butting out.” Matty flung herself back in her chair and buried her nose in her wine, gratified when he chuckled.
“You want to have lunch tomorrow? What is that, Saturday?”
“Mmm, I can’t, I’m busy.” Immediately she started blushing.
“Yeah?” He was watching her closely, which made her blush harder. “Who’s this guy?”
“What guy?”
“Matty...”
Matty inhaled slowly. When she’d told Jameson about Chris shortly after they broke up, Jameson had come close to driving to Pomona to beat the crap out of him, more figuratively than literally. She hoped. But she couldn’t lie to her younger brother. “Chris Hamilton.”
“What?” His face crumpled into disbelief. “The Creepy Professor?”
“It’s just lunch.”
“What does he want?” Jameson was sitting straight now, all military posture and protective instinct. “How did he find you?”
She shrugged, why does it matter? “He came to my show. We talked after.”
“Don’t trust him.”
She raised her left eyebrow. “Do I look stupid to you?”
“No. Sorry.” He laughed shortly. “He just totally messed with you.”
“Believe me, I remember.” She put a finger to her chin as if she’d just thought of something profound. “Gee, kind of like you messed with Kendra in school.”
“Oh, come on.” He folded his muscled arms across his chest. She remembered when they’d been skinny sticks. “Not remotely comparable.”
“No?”
“I was a kid doing stupid kid stuff out of unhappiness I didn’t understand. He was a grown man—”
“Doing stupid grown-man stuff. I know. But he still swears nothing happened with Clarisse. And I know for a fact she was psycho.”
“Oh, God.” A look of horror grew on his face. “He’s playing you. He still wants you.”
“Am I interrupting?” Kendra approached the table and sat down, looking between them. “Uh. Should I go back to the bathroom?”
“No, no, you’re fine.” Matty giggled and held up her hand. “Jameson is in caveman mode because a guy who was horrible to me six years ago wants to have lunch.”
“Really?” She looked at him curiously. “That horrible? Worse than you were?”
“Much.” He glared at Matty, who grinned smugly. “You’re going to give him another chance, aren’t you?”
“Only if he earns it.”
“I gave you one.” Kendra nudged him with her shoulder.
“See?” Matty smiled appreciatively.
“It’s not the same thing. This guy was her professor. He knew better.”
“Excuse me.” Matty raised her hand like a kid in class. “I knew better, too.”
“He cheated on you with another student.”
“Actually, that was just my assumption.” Matty spoke calmly to balance her brother’s temper. She’d laid it on thick six years earlier out of the horrible pain she was in, painting herself as the innocent victim and Chris as the heartless predator. She could see why Jameson wouldn’t buy a new version now.
“She was naked in his apartment!”
“She was a very disturbed girl. He still says he didn’t touch her.”
Jameson’s eyes narrowed. “How many times have you seen him?”
“Twice. We had drinks once, dinner the other night.”
Kendra’s head was going back and forth following the conversation.
“I can’t believe this.” He turned to Kendra. “What do you think?”
“Me?” Her eyes shot wide. “I’m not touching this one.”
“No, I’m serious. You counsel people. You heard the problem. What do you think?”
Matty watched her, curious, nodding when Kendra turned her gaze to assess Matty’s reaction.
“Bearing in mind I know almost nothing.” Kendra laid her hand on Jameson’s arm. “I’d say give your sister the benefit of the doubt here. I don’t know this guy, and it sounds like what he did was a lot more serious than what you did, but I had certainly written you off, Jameson. Now that we’re older, I can understand more of what you were going through and how you felt. But you think my father would be happy to find out I’m dating you now, after all the stuff I told him about you, all the times I came home in tears over something you’d done?”
“Woman logic.” Jameson rested his head despairingly in his hands.
“She’s just having lunch with him.” Kendra patted him consolingly, giving Matty a wink. “I don’t think that’s so awful.”
“Thank you, Kendra.”
Jameson’s head shot up. He glared at Kendra teasingly. “Yeah, thanks.”
“I was talking to Mom yesterday.” Matty spoke to change the subject, grateful for Kendra’s support. “She’s already baking and freezing pies for Thanksgiving.”
Jameson chuckled. “Trust Mom to have it all under control.”
“What’s your Thanksgiving tradition, Kendra?” Matty’s stomach sank the second the words left her lips. To someone who’d lost her family so recently, it was not the offhandedly polite question Matty meant it to be. “Sorry, that was awful. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Kendra’s smile was strained but genuine. “Last year I spent it with a friend’s family. I think I’ll just hang out at home this year.”
“Come to ours.” Jameson stroked her hair back from her face. “Food’s great. And maybe Dad will convince you to enlist.”
“You can wash dishes while the men watch football.” Matty rolled her eyes. She’d given up trying to fight the gender inequity ingrained in her family culture, but it still drove her nuts.
“Oh, that’s tempting.” Kendra snorted.
“I help. Sometimes.” Jameson’s hand was gently massaging Kendra’s neck. “I did once, anyway. I think last year I rinsed a fork.”
Matty cracked up. This Jameson was new. She liked him very much. Watching him respond to Kendra’s distress, the way he looked at her...
She was just plain envious.
Steady. Matty was not going to let herself jump into a relationship with Chris because she was lonely or because she hadn’t been touched tenderly by a boyfriend in a long, long time and she craved it like crazy. Before tomorrow’s lunch she’d need to have her list of reasons to go slowly, eyes open, intellect on full alert for a good long time. Only then would she permit herself to soften toward him.
Well, ahem, she’d softened pretty much like butter in the oven last time she saw him. But that was because she hadn’t been forewarned or forearmed. Because she’d had champagne, because the night had been clear and beautiful and romantic and Chris was...Chris. Tomorrow they’d have a picnic lunch at Blaisdell Preserve, a public park ten minutes north of the Pomona College campus, emphasis on public. Daylight. No alcohol because she had a show that night. Not a setup for getting carried away.
She’d be cool, confident, calm and controlled.
* * *
COOL, CONFIDENT, CALM and controlled.
The words rang in her head as she sat behind the wheel of her Kia on her way out to Claremont, home to the Pomona campus and the very sexy Professor Chris Hamilton. The day was cool and hazy here by the coast, but farther inland when she reached the desert, the air would clear and temperatures rise. Southern California had it all.
She couldn’t say she was entirely cool, confident, calm and controlled, but she was enough so that she’d come across that way. Machiavelli would approve. Inside she was tense, timid and in turmoil. The memory of the pain Chris had caused her battled with the memory of his arms around her Wednesday night in the downtown parking lot. Every time she thought of his lips on hers, a bolt of adrenaline got her attention in a serious way. A sexual way.
Oof. Maybe Jameson was right and this was a mistake. Matty just couldn’t imagine putting her feelings for Chris to rest unless she faced him again and worked through the mess they’d gotten themselves in. Her hope was that, at the very least, she’d reach a place where she’d be better able to give another man her whole heart. The dating she’d done over the past six years had been an exercise in confusion and comparison. Not fair either to the guys she was seeing or to herself.
The trick was to define seeing Chris today as a new, healthy exercise, and let go of the persistent hope that she could give her heart back to the man who still held a piece of it.
She turned up the Patsy Cline CD she had playing and sang along with a Gershwin tune, clearing her mind of any complication. The haze was gradually lifting as she sped west on I-10, sharpening the beauty of the distant snow-dusted mountains, a welcome natural contrast to the traffic and urban sprawl close by. As she’d predicted, the air was warming, too. The temperature sensor on her car read in the low seventies, compared to the sixties close to the coast.
By the time she reached Claremont and had turned onto Harvard Avenue, she had managed to pull herself together internally, as well. She had all the power here. This was Chris’s battle to fight. If he wanted her back, he’d have to work hard, regain her trust, prove himself worthy. She could sit back like the emperor at the Colosseum, thumb ready. Up? Okay, she’d give him another chance. Down? Hurl him to the lions!
On Seventh Street she slowed, looking for the right house number, heart pounding again. Normal to be nervous. It meant nothing. Getting close, closer...there. A charming house set back from the street, Craftsman style, painted deep green, with large trees and a nicely landscaped front yard.
Taking a deep breath, Matty swung the car to the curb and parked. Switched off the engine. Closed her eyes and counted to ten.
Then she opened the door and launched herself out, big smile on her face, clutching the container of cookies she’d offered to bring for their dessert—peanut butter–oatmeal–chocolate chip, made that morning while she sipped her coffee.
She approached the front door, raised her finger to stab the doorbell.
Cool, confident, calm and controlled.
The door opened, revealing Chris in thigh-hugging jeans and a loose maroon T-shirt, one hand on the door. His hair was damp from a recent shower, his eyes were clear and warm and he smelled like soap and shaving cream and man.
Crap. Crap.
“Hi.” The syllable barely sounded. She had completely fallen apart, victim to a wave of lust so intense the only thing keeping her from flinging herself at him was that she’d drop the cookies.
He stepped back from the door; she crossed the threshold, fly into the spider’s web, closing her eyes as she passed him, trying desperately to reconnect with the part of her that had been so strong seconds before. Where had it gone? How could she get it back?
Come on, Matty. She needed to break this tension, jump-start a normal, casual tone, start chatting, comment on the house, how it was in such good shape and how he’d done such nice things with it.
His hand took her arm. He turned her toward him, took the cookies from her stiff hands and laid the glass container gently on a table in his front hall.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but he pulled her toward him and kissed her, over and over, walking her back until she hit the wall and his body could press into hers.
Oh, that body. A man’s body, fully formed, broadened, muscled and loaded with life and experience.
She kicked off her flip-flops one at a time, thunk, thunk, and gave in, wrapping her arms around his neck, realizing deep down she’d known this was going to happen, that this was why she was here, what she wanted more than anything.
Her hands found their way up under his shirt, to his chest, firm and sexy, a man’s in the prime of life. He was eleven years older than she, but she had never felt so at home or natural with anyone else.
He had her cream-colored top off in seconds; his face rubbed the swells of her breasts while he unhooked her bra.
It slid off, leaving her breasts cool and sensual, exposed to his sight and his touch.
“Oh, Matty.” He gazed reverently, cupping their weight, then took a lingering taste of her nipple, a hot sensation that shot down between her legs.
She whimpered, let her head drop back to rest against the wall, scrabbling her fingers over his shirt, bunching the material to take it off more easily.
The shirt pulled over his head; he straightened, a naked-torsoed god among men, and gathered her in his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder and stood still, listening to his breathing, as rough as hers, absorbing the familiar feeling of his skin on her skin, of her soft breasts pressed against his hard chest.
His sigh was a mixture of ecstasy and relief. Matty understood. She’d had one word running a loop through her brain: finally.
Finally.
“Do you want this, Matty? You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Her voice came out a husky groan. “Yes.”
He released her, hands traveling down her sides as he slid to his knees, pressing his face against the flirty cotton knit skirt she’d pulled on that morning, wanting to look casual and sexy for him, but not as if she was trying to do either.
She fisted her hands, breath ratcheting up a notch, waiting for the heat of his mouth on her, the way he could make her come faster than a speeding bullet, with orgasms more powerful than a locomotive.
Oh, Chris.
His hands explored her waistband, then yanked the skirt down, her panties after; he buried his face between her legs, searching for and finding all the spots that would send her over the edge.
She lowered herself, spreading her legs, fisted his hair, urging him on, not that he needed encouragement. His tongue was driving her wild, bringing her close already.
“Yes.” Her breath stuttered; her thigh muscles trembled. She pushed back against the wall, closing her eyes, bracing herself, waiting. She was close. So close.
The tongue stopped. Her eyes shot open to find Chris standing, hair disheveled, eyes hot with desire. He stepped forward and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her into his bedroom, laid her on the bed and proceeded to take off his jeans faster than it had ever been done by any human since the dawn of time.
With a small sense of satisfaction, she watched him retrieve a condom from a box on a high shelf in the back of his closet. Satisfaction because she got to watch the fabulous bunch and release of muscles in his back and very nice ass, but also because he wasn’t keeping a big box right by the bed, available at a moment’s notice.
Matty pushed the thought away as soon as she had it. This was about him and her and right now.
Condom on, he nearly dove back over her on the bed, making her giggle. “Been a while?”
“Six years.”
She blinked in astonishment, then snorted. “Come on.”
“Since I’ve been with you, Matty.” He lowered his head and kissed her sweetly, tenderly, then again. “I’ve never stopped wanting to be with you.”
No, no, no, none of that romantic stuff. They were here to screw each other because they couldn’t keep themselves from doing it. That was all. That was enough.
She pulled his head down harder to deepen the kiss, spread her legs and tried to pull him over on top of her.
“Wait. I want to look at you.” He put his hand at her collarbone and drew it slowly down her stomach to the hair between her legs, down one thigh, then the other, low as he could reach, following its progress with his eyes. “I’ve missed you.”
“Um. I’m actually up here.” She pointed to her head, wrinkling her nose at him, even knowing exactly what he meant, because she’d missed his body, too. And him.
He grinned and moved on top of her. “Trust me. I know where every inch of you is. How it likes being touched. And tasted. And loved.”
Not that word.
He slid inside her, watching her face, filling her completely. She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths to keep from crying. She still loved him. She might always love him.
Then he started moving, and she concentrated with all her might on the sensations in her body so she could ignore those in her heart, pushing against his thrusts, savoring his size and shape, not too big, but enough that she knew he was inside her, felt him deep and hard, out and in, long thrusts alternating with smaller, gentle ones, bringing her closer every time.
Slowly, her thoughts were wiped clean; her body’s hunger took over. She writhed underneath him, lifted her head, let it drop, sweat breaking on her skin, clutching at his back, panting and gasping for her climax.
And when it came, it bore down on her with astonishing power, a shaft of hot sweetness that built nearly unbearably, making her strangle a scream in her throat. Then the beautiful release, vaginal muscles contracting around his penis. He paused to feel her coming, then pushed again savagely until his body arched and his mouth opened in a silent yell. She didn’t have to look. She knew how he came. She knew so much about him.
Except whether he’d break her heart again.