Chapter 27
I diot. Idiot. Idiot.
What had she been thinking? She’d been sitting in his lap . . . and had he been about to kiss her?
He had, hadn’t he?
She hadn’t imagined that, had she?
The sexiest man alive had been about to kiss her.
And what did you do?
Knee him in the balls.
Groaning, she started pacing across the room, slapping her forehead with the palm of her hand.
So stupid.
So dumb.
How was she going to face him again? Could she live in here forever?
“What do you think, Dicky?” She sat on the bed and grabbed her dolphin. Then she lay on her back with a groan, staring up at the ceiling.
Maybe she should run away.
Join the circus.
Change her identity. It was the only thing she could do.
She stared over at the door. What would she do if he walked in right now?
Part of her didn’t want to see him again. But a big part of her wished he’d walk in right now. Hoped that he would take her in his arms and kiss her.
What would it be like to go back out there and climb into his lap again?
To feel his hard body against hers.
To touch him all over, kiss every inch of his warm, smooth skin.
Another groan escaped her and she rolled onto her stomach. Her nipples were hard and her body was warm.
Getting up, she drew her curtains. She wasn’t ever going to forget to do that again.
A shudder ran through her at the memory of what Ryan had been doing in his car while watching her.
Sick bastard.
She stumbled into the bathroom. She’d already had a shower, but she took another one hoping it might relax her. Instead, she was hyper-sensitive so every touch of her hands against her skin just turned her on more.
It was infuriating.
By the time she finished her shower, her clit was throbbing and she knew she would struggle to sleep until she took care of this hunger.
Drying off, she grabbed Richard out of the bedside drawer and turned him on.
The buzzing made her jump. Shit. He sounded loud when he wasn’t, well, inside her.
There was no way Matthieu could hear her? Right?
No, he was out in the living room, watching television. And once she got under the covers with Richard inside her, the noise would surely be minimal.
Climbing into bed naked, she spread her legs and started to touch her clit with her finger. She moved carefully at first. Soft and slow. Closing her eyes, she imagined it was Matthieu touching her. That his hands were hard on her inner thighs as he lapped at her clit.
A small sigh of pleasure escaped her. Then a louder moan.
She paused, tense. But she didn’t hear anything. He wouldn’t have heard her.
She was safe.
Was she kidding him?
Matthieu lay on the narrow bed in the tiny bedroom and listened to her moans of pleasure through the too-thin walls.
He’d come in here to get his laptop. And then he’d heard something that had made him freeze.
He’d told himself to leave. To go back into the living room and pretend he’d never heard anything. Instead, he’d found himself lying back on the bed, listening for anything more.
There was a buzzing noise and his eyebrows rose.
A vibrator?
It was soon muffled. But the noises coming from her weren’t. He didn’t know if she realized how thin these walls were or that she was being as loud as she was.
Another moan.
Fuck. He couldn’t stand it. He knew it was wrong. This whole thing was wrong. He should take himself into the living room. Or hell, out of the house. But no matter where he ended up, he knew that he was going to hear the noises she was making for days to come. Weeks.
Fuck, years.
He still couldn’t believe that he’d nearly kissed her. That was bad enough but listening to her make herself come . . . yeah, this was a new level of unprofessionalism.
Undoing his pants, he shoved them and his boxers down and wrapped his hand around his thick cock.
It hadn’t suffered from her kneeing him in the balls the other night. It was hard and throbbing and his balls were demanding release.
As she moaned in the bedroom next to him, he ran his hand up and down his shaft until he heard her cries die off. Only then did he let himself find release.
After cleaning himself up, he lay back down with a groan.
Merde .
It was Saturday night and she was hiding in her bedroom.
Again.
This couldn’t go on. She couldn’t keep hiding from him.
It was so boring in here.
Plus, she was hungry. She’d lied about having a headache so she could retreat to her room and avoid speaking to him.
Which she knew she wasn’t supposed to do.
With a groan, she put her arm over her eyes.
Her phone beeped and she opened it up to check the messages. It was the group chat with Millie and Livvy. She had to be careful that Matthieu wasn’t around when she checked these messages. She swore he had some sort of sixth sense for when she was getting into trouble.
Millie and Livvy had texted her earlier to let her know that their mission had been hugely unsuccessful today.
Livvy: We need to watch both entrances.
Millie: I’m still upset that I missed David leaving with the puppies.
Poor Millie. She’d waited ages on the street only to belatedly realize that David must have used the back entrance, which came out on a different street.
Spike had apparently become so alarmed at how late she was, that he’d tracked her down and found her sitting in her car. She’d claimed that she had just finished her coffee and had been leaving to go home.
But Millie wasn’t sure he’d bought that.
Millie: I have to be careful this time. Spike wants me to text when I finish the class, after I finish coffee, and when I leave to come home. He’s being crazy.
Livvy: He’s being protective. But it does mean that you’ll have to be quick. You don’t want him checking your tracker.
Tracker? Millie had a tracker?
Millie: You got it, Tera-d. Stego is over and out.
Huh?
Maya: Are you guys sure about this? I don’t want you to be in danger or to get into trouble.
Millie: Of course I’m sure, Bronte-B. Can’t let those puppies be exploited by the evil man.
Maya: Um, right. What’s with the names?
Livvy: Millie thinks we need code names and if you haven’t realized it, she loves dinosaurs. I’m a teradactyl, you’re a brontosaurus and she’s a stegosaurus.
Ahh, right.
There was a knock on her door. Crap. “Yes?”
Maya: Got to go. Matthieu is knocking on my bedroom door.
Millie: Over and out, Bronte-B.
Um. Sure.
“Can you come out, please,” Matthieu said through the door. “I’d like to talk to you.”
Crap. That was the last thing she wanted to do. But she guessed she couldn’t put this conversation off any longer.
“Sure.”
She climbed off the bed and checked her appearance in the mirror. Urgh, she looked like crap. She attempted to tame her hair, but it was like it had a mind of its own.
Opening the door, she stepped into the living room. Matthieu was sitting on the sofa with Princess Priss on his lap. She was purring loudly.
She’d never slept on Maya’s lap like that. Normally, she jump into her lap, claw Maya’s thighs until they felt like pin cushions, then climb off with her tail in the air and a superior look on her face.
“She never purrs like that for me,” she said as she sat down on the other end of the couch, next to Dougie. He was lying on his back with his feet in the air.
Gummy was standing on a side table, staring out into the backyard, on chicken duty.
She wished that Tank and Big B would join them. Maya glanced over at the spare bedroom door that was open slightly.
“You’ve been keeping the door open more,” Matthieu commented.
“I thought it might help Tank feel more like he belonged here if the door was open. I don’t know if that’s true, though. Or I’m just making things worse. I feel like I’m failing him so badly.”
Her shoulders slumped and ridiculously she felt like crying.
What was wrong with her?
Suddenly, she found herself pulled onto her feet and pressed against a firm chest. Then she was being slowly rocked back and forth.
“In no way have you failed him. Remember, you’ve given him a loving home where he’s safe and he has a protective friend.”
“But what kind of life is it where he faces the same four walls all the time? He’s so depressed. Even when he goes outside, he seems so sad. I was thinking that maybe I should take him on a car ride. However, I’ve never been able to get him into the car. He’s too heavy for me to lift.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he told her. “Together.”
She should pull out of his hold. It wasn’t right to lean on him like this. But it felt so good. She felt so secure and warm. And it was nice just to have someone to lean on. To feel like she was part of a team.
“How about we take him in the car one day with the other dogs. Even if he doesn’t get out of the car, we can roll the window down for him.”
“That sounds . . . amazing. We’ll have to take Big Berry too.”
“We can do that.”
It was like a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. They had a plan. And even if it didn’t work at least they would have tried something.
Matthieu placed his hand on the back of her neck and it made her feel grounded. Some of her worries seemed to drift away as she relaxed further.
“How is your headache?”
She tensed slightly. Urgh. Why did she lie? She hated lying to him. “I feel good.”
“That’s good. You don’t need any painkillers?”
He was making her feel even worse with his caring questions.
“No, I’m good now.”
“Then I need you to sit down. I have to talk to you about a couple of things.”