Chapter Eight #2
It was also not remotely messy, which he couldn’t help thinking was an essential truth about this woman.
Something she kept hidden, like the outbuilding that everyone assumed she kept in some kind of wild state when he’d seen for himself the care she had to put into it to keep it clean.
Everyone assumed that everything she touched was as disheveled as she sometimes was, he hadn’t seen that here in the house.
Clutter wasn’t the same thing as dirty, and her bedroom wasn’t even cluttered. It was cozy and it faced east, so when the sun felt like rising in these dark months, it would make everything shine. Matilda most of all.
That image threatened to undo him.
She pushed him back so he sat down on the bed, and he let her. Right then he would have let her do anything.
And as he watched, she continued to smile so brightly and beautifully straight at him as she began to peel off her clothes.
Surely, he would say something at any moment to put the brakes on this, to contain it or redirect it, but he didn’t.
Because she was acting out the fantasy he’d had all those years ago. And as he watched, she stripped down until she was finally standing before him, gloriously naked.
Then she gazed at him, expectantly, and he felt something seem to clutch inside his chest.
Because he wanted, more than anything, to be the man she saw when she looked at him like this.
He wanted, for the first time in his life, to be someone other than Tennessee Lisle.
Not that he had anything against himself, but it turned out that he was tired of the persona he’d built up around his name.
He wanted to be the man he saw reflected in her gray eyes. Because he could see that she found him hot. Exciting. And maybe just a little bit dangerous.
He’d never been so hard. He’d never wanted a woman more.
She was like a fantasy come to life, and he refused to let himself ruin it. So he didn’t say a word.
He only stripped off his own clothes in reply, and stood up so he could swing her up into his arms at last.
At last, because it felt overdue. As if they’d been working toward this forever, because it felt as if they had, even while it also felt as if this had all happened so fast. It was a rush, a breathlessness, yet at the same time it felt inevitable.
Undeniable. As if there had never been any possibility that they would end up anywhere but here.
Matilda wrapped herself around him, pressing her perfect breasts to his chest. Tennessee tipped them both over, back down onto that bedspread, and then he lost track of time.
Because the only thing there was, the only thing that mattered, was Matilda.
The way their bodies fit together. Her curves against the wall of his chest. The prick of her nipples and their velvety texture against his skin.
He followed the urge he’d had so many years ago and put his mouth on her skin.
He traced his way from her belly, down lower, tasting gold all the way.
He kept going until he could find her sweet heat, where he settled in and demonstrated what a little bit of stern responsibility and daily discipline could do.
A few times, just to make sure he was imparting the right message.
Only when he had her bucking her hips and crying out his name for the third time did he move on.
He flipped her over so he could finally admit to himself how deeply obsessed he was with that butt of hers that he was forever seeing around town and had wanted to get his hands on for what seemed like a lifetime.
He indulged himself there, too.
When she pushed against him, tipping him over so she could crawl on top of him, he let that happen. And she wasn’t any easier on him.
The way she touched him made his heart seem to crack hard against his ribs. She looked filled with wonder. Like he was a gift, and everywhere she touched him he felt like fire—and she shivered like she could feel the same heat in her.
The same damn flame.
And when it got to be too much, Tennessee jackknifed up to a sitting position, but she only slid her knees up higher so they were sitting the same way they’d been down on the couch.
“I’m completely clean,” she told him, with a frown, like she wanted to make sure he knew she was being serious. “I’m not saying that flippantly. I’m scrupulous about testing, whether I have any reason to be or not.”
“Noted.” Tennessee smoothed his hands over that wild hair of hers, all those silken red-gold waves. “I am also clean. Not because I’ve been scrupulously tested, but because time would tell tales if there were any to tell.”
“That sounded almost poetic, Tennessee.” She shifted slightly, there where she sat pressed up tight against him, and he could feel how hard and hot he was against all of her softness. Touching her heat. Close, but not quite there. “Are you telling me it’s been a long time?”
“It feels like a lifetime,” he said. “It’s definitely been years.”
“Years.” She looked baffled, and it was almost unbearably hot to witness. “Why?”
“Because I have certain preferences,” he told her, his attention on the perfect shape of her ears. “And I see no point in pretending otherwise. It only leads to frustration.”
“Preferences,” she echoed. “How exciting. Do you—”
But Tennessee was finished talking.
He took her head between his hands and he kissed her, long and deep. Once, then again, and when he was ready he pulled back just enough.
“Shut up, Matilda,” he ordered her, his mouth still touching hers. “Decide if you want to use a condom or not.”
“I’m good,” she whispered against his lips. “But I—”
“Why don’t you let me take care of this,” he suggested, and he couldn’t seem to keep from smiling. “You can tell me later if you have any complaints. Okay?”
And he could feel her melt. Her whole body was a shiver. He could feel it there in that sweet heat between her legs, and that shiver kept on going.
“Okay,” she whispered.
So Tennessee kissed her again, and then he reached down, set his hands beneath her butt, and lifted her up. She was already breathing hard, so all he did then was play a little bit, holding her up as he moved himself, just the very tip, through her wild, glorious heat.
Then, lifting his gaze so he could pin all that gray and blue fire with his, he lowered her down. Inch by agonizingly perfect inch, and he watched her flush. Then break out in a kind of sweat. Then open her mouth to gasp, though he did not speed up. He kept going slow.
Then slower still, to give her time to accommodate him.
And then, when he lowered her fully and he was in her deep, she tipped forward a little bit with her eyes closed tight and pressed her forehead to his.
“I think…” She breathed out, and it was shaky. “I think that if I just…”
“You’re not doing anything,” he told her. “Remember?”
But he moved her up just a little bit and then sank her back down hard, and she imploded.
It came on her quick, like a punch, then shook through her again and again.
And it took an iron sort of will to ride that out and to keep from falling over that cliff himself, but Tennessee was nothing if not perfectly capable of asserting his will over anything and everything.
He’d made it the project of his life, and now he understood why.
It was all worth it so he could hold himself still as Matilda sobbed against him, and only then, when she finally came back to herself—her eyes something like silver with all of that passion and pleasure—did he move her up a little bit to settle on her knees.
Then he gripped her hips and began to move.
And there was no pretending that this wasn’t intimate. They were staring straight at each other. There was no hiding.
It was raw, intense, and felt so damn good that Tennessee was surprised with each stroke that he could keep going.
But he did. He was that determined. He built her back up, one deep thrust after the next, maintaining his pace even when her breath caught again. Even when she tried to work a little bit of her own magic with those hips of hers that he thought might haunt him forever.
He maintained the same rhythm. It was drugging. It was extraordinary.
It was, he was certain, perhaps the biggest mistake he’d ever made in his life and he was loving every single second of it.
And finally, he watched a flush work its way all over her. It stained her cheeks and her neck and found its way down the front of her chest as he gripped her hard and began to move a little faster.
A little deeper.
Her nails dug deep into his shoulders. She threw her head back, her hair everywhere and her mouth open, as if this was a joy too great to bear.
He kept going, finding that place inside of her that she couldn’t seem to handle—and when he rubbed himself there, stroke after stroke after stroke, she fell apart.
This time, he let himself fall with her.
And what a way to go. He felt as if he was torn apart and scattered like glass, though he was sure that every last glittering piece of him could feel every matching, gleaming shard that was her.
It seemed like a thousand years later that they were reconstituted, themselves again, and he lay with her on that bright, happy bed and held her as she lay there, passed out hard in his arms.
She snored, and it was adorable. She was hot and warm and sweet against him. And he felt as if his heart had left his body entirely.
He suspected he knew exactly where it was.
Tennessee did not intend to sleep much this night, either. And she was even sweeter than a litter of adorable puppies.
But he could already feel the shift inside of him. It had already happened—maybe it had happened all those years ago at the swimming hole and this had been a losing game ever since. Whenever it had happened, what mattered was that he could already tell that it was too late.
And that meant Tennessee was going to have to figure out how to tell her—and everyone else, and himself while he was at it, and more dangerous, her—that what he needed from Matilda Stark was the thing she was very unlikely to give.
Not just herself. He figured she’d be happy enough with that.
But what he wanted from her was forever.