Chapter Seventeen
It had to have been a dream.
A fantastical concoction of repressed longings that resided somewhere in her head.
Replete, Gina curled into the cool, soft linens, ignoring the light that seeped through her eyelids. She didn’t want to wake. Once she did, the dream would have to end.
He carried her from the shower, laid her on his bed, then took his time rubbing a woodsy, aromatic oil into her damp skin.
She couldn’t move—didn’t want to. Her limbs felt far too heavy.
Matt cradled her, naked in his arms, ice-cold water at her lips, soothing her scratchy, dry throat, made raw from running and panting and screaming his name.
But she needed to touch him. So, with great effort, Gina lifted her hand to stroke the stubble along his jaw. He turned his head, and soft lips brushing her cheek to meet hers, Matt kissed her.
It was as if he’d woken her from a long winter’s slumber.
With renewed vigor, she held Matt’s face, plundering his mouth with her tongue. Wedged against her belly, his dick grew hot and hard. He took her lip between his teeth, and slick with a need of her own, she pulled back.
The feeling was visceral.
She wanted to devour him.
Matt licked the blood from her lip, and as she laved a trail down his chest, Gina smiled.
His cock twitched.
She tasted his skin, inhaling the subtle scent of him.
Warm and sweet and spicy, an ambrosia of cypress, citrus, and fresh herbs commingled with an alluring masculine musk.
Drawn to it, her nose pressed into his navel, and breathing in deep, she stole the pearly drop that leaked from the smooth mushroom head.
“Fuck,” he groaned.
And that negative noise, the constant hum she’d heard in the recesses of her mind these past three years, went quiet.
Gina sucked him like she was dying for his dick.
Because she was.
They made love in his nest of a bed all night long, falling asleep in each other’s arms as the first signs of morning appeared in the eastern sky. Gina couldn’t count how many orgasms Matt had given her. His fucking was intense; wild and savage one moment; gentle and tender the next.
Unleashed passion.
She got it now.
Vivid and raw and so incredibly real, it couldn’t have been a dream. Besides, her imagination was never that good, anyway.
With his arm draped across her middle, Gina gave in and opened her eyes.
From the paint colors to the artwork, black and white and cream covered the bedroom walls.
Animal-print throws and an assortment of accent pillows lay scattered on the floor where he’d tossed them.
She stared at a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II mounted beside a stuffed faux zebra’s head, and giggled.
The hand on her stomach moved, his fingers reaching for her nipples. She felt the contact in her clit. One touch from him, and her needy, swollen cunt was ready to be filled again.
“Mmm, fuck me.”
With your fat cock, your fingers… anything.
Even the sandalwood candle on the table would do. The way she was feeling right now, she’d gladly take all three.
Matt’s answer was to suck her nipple. He latched on, feeding from her as if she had milk to offer him, while he toyed with the other.
“Please, baby,” Gina begged, hooking her leg over his.
Infatuated with the morsel in his mouth, he only suckled harder. Matt loved her breasts and how he could get her off just by playing with them.
It was such a turn-on to watch him, holding him there, her fingers running through his hair.
He kept on with his sucking until she came.
“Good morning, bunny.” Then, tugging on her nipple with his teeth, Matt pushed two fingers inside.
Best fucking morning of my life.
She spread her legs farther apart.
“That’s it,” Matt crooned into her neck. “Give me that pretty pussy.”
Then, he rewarded her, adding another finger.
Before him, she’d never felt this way. Rabid. Reckless. She never could’ve imagined it either. God, what’s he doing to me? As he slid his thumb over her clit, Gina’s nails dug into his muscled flesh.
He groaned in what sounded like approval, his teeth nearly piercing her skin. And in that moment, she wanted him to draw blood. To see crimson on his lips. For Matt to leave his mark on her, a tell-tale reminder that body, heart, and soul, she was his.
Grabbing the ends of his hair, Gina pulled his mouth to hers. “I said, fuck me.” And she kissed him as if he were the air she needed to breathe.
He rolled her on top of him and drew his knees up, laying her back against his thighs. “I’m going to watch my dick stretch you open, bunny.”
Gina closed her eyes, head tipped back, as he notched himself at her entrance. It stung, and she hissed at the contact, the tissue still swollen from hours spent fucking.
“I want you to see it, too,” he said, nudging her. “Look, baby.”
She gazed into molten puddles of chocolate, the pupils blown, then down to the rigid part of him breaching her little hole. With only the head of his cock inside her, she traced the pulsing veins in his shaft with the tip of her finger, thighs trembling, her entire body tingling in anticipation.
He pushed his hips upward, the lips of her cunt parting for him, until he was all the way inside her. To be filled with him had to be the most incredible feeling in the world.
“You’re mine, Gina.” With his thumb rubbing her clit, Matt slowly moved in and out of her. “Forever and always, you’re a part of me. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” she moaned, biting her lip, a profound ache building in her core.
And along with his cock, Matt wedged his fingers in her pussy. “I mean it.”
Stretched thin, she whimpered.
“Like that, baby?”
Fuck, yes. But she could only nod.
“You’re bleeding a little.”
Gina glanced down. She must’ve torn. Blood stained his fingers and cock. “I don’t care. Don’t stop. It feels too good.”
“That’s my girl. You can take it.” He rubbed her clit, pressing in deeper. “You’re not a virgin anymore, are you?”
Like I was before?
But in many ways, she had been.
Only Matt made her bleed, made her come, and she was glad.
“No.”
“I love you so fucking much.” His dick stilled, while fingers unfurled inside her. “I’ll never have enough of you.”
She liked the sound of that.
I fucking love you, too.
She must’ve dozed off.
Gina opened her eyes to dim, gray light coming in through the bedroom windows, the zebra on the wall, and his callused fingers lazily stroking the curve of her hip.
“Hey, sleepy girl.” The mattress shifting beneath her, Matt leaned over and kissed her neck. “Hungry? I can fix us an omelet or something.”
“Uh, yeah.” Stretching as she rolled over, Gina nestled into his chest. “We need to eat, I suppose. What time is it anyway?”
“Three.”
Fuck.
She sat up in a panic, scrambling to get to her phone on the nightstand. “Shit, I gotta go.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” With his arm encircling her waist, he pulled her back toward him. “Relax, babe, it’s Sunday, and you don’t have a shift tonight.”
“You don’t understand,” Gina said. Her voice elevated, the words tumbled out of her mouth choppy and quick. “The festival… I was supposed to be there at noon to take over for Lina. Jesus, my mom’s gonna kill me.”
“I don’t think so.” And with his fingers running through her hair, Matt kissed the top of her head. “Look outside.”
She turned toward the window. A gentle summer rain fell from the thin gray sky to tacitly cascade down the glass.
No festival to worry about.
“See?”
“Still…”
Gina glanced at her phone. Missed calls. Text messages.
Teo: Whenever you decide to get your ass home, I told Mom you took off with a friend after the concert, and you were probably spending the night. I didn’t say which friend. You’re welcome.
She showed Matt the message. “I’m so dead.”
“Stop it.” He ruffled her hair with a chuckle. “You are not.”
“You don’t know my mother.”
“Yeah, I kinda do.” Nodding, his lips pursed to the side. “She never liked me.”
“I don’t think she likes anybody, least of all me,” Gina said and sighed.
“That can’t be true.”
“Trust me, it can.” She lay her head on his shoulder, tracing the ink on his bicep with the tip of her finger. It soothed her. “There’s no pleasing her. I can’t do anything right in her eyes. She’s never approved of my choices.”
“You went to college, became a nurse. You’ve got to know she’s proud of you.”
“Heh.” She scoffed with a toss of her head. “That’s the last thing she wanted me to be.”
Sad but true. And why?
“My mother wanted me to be just like her.” There it is. And I’m not. Her chest tightened. “Work in the bakery, marry a nice Italian boy, and pop out his babies. But that’s not what I wanted. So, I’m just a disappointment.”
“You don’t wanna make some babies?” He sounded hopeful. Would he be disappointed if she didn’t?
“Someday, I guess.”
“Listen to me,” he said, and lifting her to straddle his lap, Matt lowered his forehead to hers. “I think all that any parent wants is for their kid to be happy and loved.”
She shrugged.
He smiled.
“If your mom believes you’re truly happy, then she’ll be happy for you, too.”
I doubt that.
“Maybe.”
“C’mon, we need to get some food in your belly.” He kissed her lips. “You didn’t eat much last night.”
“I need to get home.”
With bands of steel wrapping around her, Matt held her to his chest. “I don’t want you to go.”
“It’s not that I want to…”
“I understand.” His lips brushed her forehead, and he loosened his hold. “It’s okay. I get it.”
God, I must sound like a child.
Rubbing his pec, Gina bit her lip and looked into his eyes. “I can come back tomorrow if you want me to.”
“There’s no if about it, bunny.”
“Yeah?”
He kissed her. “Yeah.”
“I’ll cook dinner and then we can watch a movie,” she offered, her smile so wide her cheeks hurt. “Put that fancy kitchen of yours to good use.”
“Sounds good to me.” Matt grinned, his fingers pressing into her hips. “Plan on staying the night.”
“I will.” Gina grabbed his cheeks and smacked a kiss on his lips before clambering off his lap. “But for now, it’s time for me to take the walk of shame to my parents’ house.”
“You will not.” He took hold of her wrist. “I’m driving you home.”
“They’ll see you.”
His midnight-purple car wasn’t easy to miss. How would she explain it?
“So?” Cocking his head, Matt released her. “They have to find out about us sometime, Gina.”
“I know, but not like that,” she said over her shoulder as she padded into the en suite.
Their judgments, the arguments, and their inevitable disapproval could come later. Gina wanted to enjoy this carefree time with Matt without them knowing.
She walked into the bedroom, holding the torn remains of her once pretty white dress. “Shit, I can’t go home in this.”
“Sorry about the dress.” Matt sat naked at the edge of the bed, his boyish smile unapologetic. He took it from her, caressing the fabric between his fingers, then placed it beside him.
“I don’t care about that, but I can’t walk in the door wearing nothing but my underwear.”
He pulled her to stand between his legs. “Do you really think I’d let you?”
“No, but I can’t show up in a pair of your sweatpants and a T-shirt, either.”
He reached for his phone.
She looked at him, confused.
“Problem solved.” And glancing up at her, Matt grinned. “Bo and Ava are just next door. You’re about the same size she is. So, she’s going to drop off some clothes for you to wear home.”
“Oh, God.” Gina winced, heat sweeping across her cheeks. “That’s so embarrassing.”
But what other choice did she have?
“There’s no reason to be.” He kissed her tummy, then, gazing up at her, Matt smiled. “I told you, you’re among family here, and we look out for each other.”
“Okay.” And biting her lip, she nodded.
“Now, c’mere.” He spread her thighs apart. “I need to be inside you again.”
His fingers strummed through her slit, and her breath hitched.
“I need you, too.”
And I always will.