Last Light(87)

I squirmed on top of him. I should break away. Go inside. Sex wasn’t conducive to rethinking our relationship. Right? He touched me there again and my body responded, rubbing along his. My nipples stiffened against his chest.

“Always,” he whispered. “You feel it, too, don’t you? You always want me. I always want you. We belong together, Hannah.” His fingers dug into my bottom and I squeaked. It hurt just enough to feel good. I rocked against Matt. He sat up halfway, vying for control. Trying to get on top of me. In the hammock. And we went over together, tangled, grasping at each other.

Matt managed a quick “f*ck!” and I yelped as the hammock dumped us on the grass.

“Ack!” I landed on Matt’s hard body. Matt landed on the hard ground. My arm was up his shirt and his hand was down the back of my jeans.

He rolled me over and pinned me to the grass, grinning.

“Gotcha.”

“Matt, not here. Not right—”

As swiftly as he’d overturned me, he stood and pulled me to my feet.

“Then out here.” He tugged me deeper into the yard. Deeper into the dark.

An unexpected wave of giddiness made me giggle.

He glanced over his shoulder and smiled, his handsome face veiled in shadow. A perfect half-moon hung in the sky, casting coin-sized spots of light through the leaves. That light moved over his body and he was beautiful, and he was mine.

He released my hand and started to undo his fly, the humor fading from his face.

My blood turned to magma. Thick, slow, scalding.

I mirrored Matt, unbuttoning my jeans. Our zippers sounded loud in the silence.

We moved together clumsily, hands fumbling in the dark. I touched his cock and he sighed, thrusting into my grip. Nothing like Seth, I realized. I remembered the nihilism of Seth’s suite at the Four Seasons—people drinking and drugging and coming without feeling—and my heart quickened. That meant nothing. This meant everything.

We kissed. Matt guided me down onto the grass.

“Hannah,” he whispered. “You know I need this…”

Without ceremony, he settled over me—and slid inside me, the flared head of his cock stretching me wide. Ah—that moment—I arched under him.

“God, baby,” I gasped.

“Fuck, yeah,” Matt answered, driving his length home. Such rich satisfaction in his voice. He touched me deep inside. I raked my nails down his back.

“Heaven,” he said, and he moved over me. Filling me, emptying me. I flexed my body to meet his thrusts. “Not yet, no,” Matt panted whenever he felt me nearing the edge. Then he slowed and I slowed, and we started that exquisite rising spiral all over again.

“I want to be with you,” he whispered in my ear. “You’re soaked for me…”

I caressed his silky hair and rubbed his back when he began to move more urgently. This wasn’t our usual sex—rough and dirty and torturous. This was about love and mutual need, and my heart burned as hot as my pleasure.

I wrapped my legs around Matt’s waist. His jeans rubbed along my inner thighs, his abdomen grinding over my clit. This time, we didn’t slow down.

We gazed at one another in a state of wonder.

“Need this.” He mouthed the words again.

I fisted my hands in his hair.

My climax came as a slow shock, mounting in intensity until I was shaking, and I felt Matt coming inside me. Is anything more intimate?

I watched ecstasy unfold on his face against a backdrop of leaves and nighttime sky. It was, inadvertently, the most romantic sex of my life, and afterward we clung to one another.

Only then did the full weight of relief settle on me. Matt is going to live like a normal person. He’s in Denver, not hiding, and he wants a life with me. A life we can actually share.

We could really make a go of it now.

And if we failed? At least we tried.

I felt, too, the darkness of the last four and a half months—Matt at the cabin, me in Denver, lies and secrets. Worries. Quick calls. Lonely nights.

No more.

No more waiting and wondering about the future. No more living with one foot in the real world and one foot in Matt’s world. No more choosing between the two.

But I had been willing to give up a normal romance to be with Matt, because I loved him. Now he was willing to give up his sanctuary to be with me, because he loved me.

He loved me.

My happiness eased into soft, uncontrollable sobs. Matt held me close.

“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right now, little bird.”

His quiet voice went on and on in the dark.





Chapter 44


MATT


After the night Hannah cried, I assumed she would come home. She didn’t. She “still needed to think,” she said, and she “might have more stipulations.”

On Friday afternoon, I met with Pam and Gail Wieder of Denver Buzz. Gail showed me around the set, thanked me for agreeing to appear, and briefly reviewed the program. Afterward, Pam and the staff talked me through a pile of paperwork.

“I need you here at seven on Wednesday,” Pam said. “Here. I’m not going to hold your hand, Matthew. Call me when you arrive. We’ll go over everything, they might want to do a little makeup, then we’ll rehearse some more and—”