He stopped in front of the chair, his pant leg brushing the edge of my robe. I should say something, ask him what he was doing. Be outraged or something. But I knew what he was doing and I wanted it.
A kiss. His lips against mine. His breath on my skin.
Bracing his hands against the back of my chair, he leaned over me. He smelled of cigars and whiskey and I wanted to eat the air around him he smelled so good.
“Jail,” he said, his voice a purr. “My father is in jail.”
I could barely follow his words, drunk as I was on the heat pouring from his skin.
“For…for what?”
“Theft.” He leaned in closer, his eyes boring into me. “He stole jewels seven years ago from a casino in Las Vegas.”
He seemed to want a reaction from me and I couldn’t begin to understand what that was. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Are you?” he asked, his eyes narrowed and I blinked, stunned, some of the hazy fog of lust lifting from my brain.
“Of course,” I said. “That’s terrible.”
He stared at me a while longer then smiled, but I didn’t believe it. There was something dark happening in Matt and, like the glasses, it made him that much more attractive to me.
“It is terrible,” he agreed, his eyes roving over my face and hair. The silence stretched out between us until I thought I might snap from the tension.
Kiss me, I thought. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.
“I should go,” he whispered, pushing himself away from me. I nearly fell over, that’s how far I’d been leaning toward him. Chills, hot and cold, crawled over my flesh.
Embarrassment made me sick to my stomach.
“Right,” I said. “Me, too.”
But he didn’t move. And neither did I.
“Matt-“ I breathed.
He touched me, my neck where I could feel my heartbeat pounding against my skin and his fingers. His fingers spanned my throat, lifting my chin. A show of strength and power and dominance that made my body weak and wet.
He held me there.
A trapped bird. And oh my god, the things I wanted.
I gasped with pleasure so acute, so sudden and sharp, I felt it like lightning through my body.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
Then he was gone. Out the door without a sound.
I remained where I was, alone and trying to breathe, trying to calm this sudden storm. But it didn’t work and suddenly that side of me, the side I tried so hard to bury and ignore and pretend was not a part of my DNA, took over.
My feet moved. They took me out of the room, down the hallway. My instincts drove me, compelled me and I was at the door to the sleeping porch in seconds.
The doors, warped by years of humidity, didn’t shut and I barely had to press on the etched glass to open them.
He stood with his back to me in a shaft of moonlight so dense it was if he stood in water up to his elbows. He ripped off his shirt, the movements violent, barely controlled. He was muttering something, swearing, but I didn’t try to hear, distracted as I was by the dip in his spine, the flare of his back, the upper curve of his ass in loose, low-riding khakis. He was like a statue, strong and perfect, and I wanted to press myself against all that warm living flesh. The smooth skin and hard muscle.
He turned and rifled the shirt into the corner, the muscles in his abdomen shifting, flexing.
And then he saw me and stopped. Stopped moving, swearing, even breathing.
“Savannah.” he whispered, stepping out of moonlight into the darkness. Just my name. A warning and a plea.
I took a step toward him and he held up his hand as if to contradict all the heat between us and I didn’t want that. Couldn’t have it.
“Savannah, I’m not wh—”
I kissed him.
I kissed him to shut him up. To shut myself up. To feed the growing ache in my body.
It was awkward, off-kilter, my lips lopsided against his. I was actually kissing a good portion of his cheek.
Mortified but committed, I stood poised ready for rejection.
But it didn’t come. His arms curled low around my back and I was surrounded by his strength. His heat.
His lips, thick and full, were slightly chapped against mine, and the kiss was featherlight, a breath of sensation that roared through me.
It was chaste, innocent, but with a delicious promise of more.
He pulled me closer until I felt his heartbeat against my chest, his erection hard against my belly.
His tongue tasted the corner of my lips, fleeting and careful and I let him in.
It was so sweet, the slide of lips, the wet lick of tongues.
Suddenly, it was more. The kiss grew rougher, his hands bolder. My breasts rested against his hard chest and I arched, torturing herself with pressure. Nothing but silk between us and it was somehow hotter than if we’d been naked.