Love Bites

Anything to get away, if not very far.

Tea whistled mournfully on the stove. She ignored it, staring off into the distance while she pressed dents into the dials with her white-knuckled fingers.

“Cait.”

She whipped her head around at his voice. Her blazing blue eyes drilled into his. “I don’t want to speak to you.”

“Too bad.” He tried to ignore that she was trembling, so faintly he doubted she even realized. “I’m here, and we’re talking.”

“There isn’t anything to say.”

“Bullshit.”

She pressed her lips together and faced the cheerful rooster-patterned wallpaper above the burners. “I would tell you to go fuck yourself, but Tris already had that honor.”

“Jealous?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “We both know how much you’ve wanted that particular piece of ass since college.”

She glared at him. If he wasn’t mistaken, her trembling had become straight fury. Good. If she started to cry, he’d lose it. He could handle anything but that.

“Are you jealous?” she countered. “Since if I want his ass, I must not want yours.”

“Oooh, I’m crushed.” He rubbed his palm over his heart, his gaze measuring hers. This conversation had taken a turn he hadn’t expected, but he’d ride it out. “I expected you to deny it,” he said, hoping like hell his voice stayed even. “To tell me I was wrong.”

Cait shrugged jerkily and yanked her teapot off the stove. She glowered again when he came up beside her to turn off the burner. “I can handle that myself, thank you very much. Don’t you have a bed to be bent over? So sorry I interrupted your private time.” She turned away, but he shot out his hand and grabbed her arm. “Let me go, dammit.”

“Not bloody likely.” He tugged her closer, noting the flare of her nostrils and the way her irises darkened like storm clouds.

She had such expressive eyes. Each nuance of emotion showed up there, a virtual guidebook to her thoughts.

Right now anger brewed in them. Maybe even jealousy. But there was more.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked softly, tightening his hold when her shaking intensified.

She shifted her face away. “I asked you to let me go.”

“You really do want him,” Matt murmured, pressing his fingers into her sensitive skin. But he couldn’t let go. Her scent wrapped around him, fresh like peaches but warmer, sweeter.

Drugging him into forgetting he was supposed to be making her understand.

She set the teapot aside on the small refinished hardwood table. If Tris were there, he’d grab an oven mitt and slide it underneath to protect the wood.

Since he wasn’t, the pot remained.

“I bet you loved it when you realized I’d be out for a while tonight. Plenty of time to rip the rug out from underneath me and use it to whack each other off.”

Since that phrase made him think of a mobster show and not sex, he had to fight back a smile. “Why should you care? You’re not sleeping with either of us.”

“Why should I care? Did you really just ask me that?”

“Yes.” He stepped a fraction closer. “I did. So?”

“How long have you been fucking each other right under my nose?”

Matt swallowed, hard. “Almost a year.”

Her eyes widened, and she whirled out of his grip. “A year? You’re kidding me. There’s no way, just no way you could be—” She clutched her midsection. “There were girls. You’ve been with women since then. I know you have.”

Now he was the one to shrug. “Yeah. We’re still into women too. It’s not an either/or with us.”