Night Owl(16)

I looked at the webpage again. The quote was from Virgil, popularized as an epigraph in My ántonia by Willa Cather.

Huh. Cather. Why did that name sound familiar?

After racking my brain for a few minutes, I Googled "M. Pierce epigraphs."

I knew it. The epigraph to The Silver Cord was a Willa Cather quote: "Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past." And it was from the novel My ántonia. What a weird coincidence.


Did Matt read Virgil or Willa Cather? Or both? He obviously read quite a bit. And given our collaborative story, I knew he liked to write.

My phone chimed and I jumped.

Who the f*ck was texting me at 1:00 a.m.?

That was my first thought.

My second thought: please let it be Matt.

Come outside.

I swallowed thickly. I couldn't move. Come outside...? Oh... my god.

Matt was outside. Either Matt was outside, or he was weirdly ordering me to have an orgasm on the lawn. Fuck. Obviously Matt was outside. Oh f*ck oh f*ck oh f*ck. Brain, work!

I scrambled out of bed and stumbled toward the door. I was wearing a pair of Aerie boxers that barely covered my ass and a lacy white cami with a shelf bra. Oh, and the blue satin thong, because on some pathetic level I still wanted to be wearing it when Matt called.

I grabbed one of dad's old coats and threw it on before going out by the sliding door to the patio.

Fuck f*ck f*ck. Matt had come over. He was here. I was about to see him. If he was ugly as sin, what would I say? Um... hi... yeah... I need to sleep.

Awesome plan. And way to have the shallowest thoughts ever, Hannah.

I was on autopilot as I padded around the side of the house. I wanted to see Matt before he saw me. That turned out to be easy, because Matt had his back to the house and his hands braced against a black Lexus. Holy f*ck.

This was textbook sketchy. Black car, strange man, middle of the night. Maybe I was about to be abducted. Maybe I was about to become one of those news stories that makes people say, "I feel bad for the girl, but she was asking for trouble."

Was I asking for trouble?

Tonight, trouble was a beautiful body standing next to a beautiful car right outside my house, waiting for me.

I didn't feel a single twinge of fear.

I felt raw elation.

I hadn't broken the spell. Screw the hottie outside the bar. Matt was here and I hadn't even seen his face and I was already wet.

I jogged across the lawn, unable to compel my feet to walk. My breasts bounced as I moved. The joys of being a double D.

"Matt!" I called.

He turned. I'm a little blind without my glasses, but I knew immediately what I was looking at. The rabbit guy. The young god. The dude outside the bar.

My steps faltered.

I couldn't process this revelation.

Had he... followed me home?

He came to me, pushing away from the car, and his dark eyes were hungry. He closed the space between us in a stride.

The rabbit guy. Was Matt. Was the young god. Was the man I wanted.

"Yes," he said as if reading my thoughts. "That was me outside the bar. It was an accident. A coincidence."

Somehow, improbably, Matt's real voice was sexier than his phone voice.

He pulled me into his arms, shoving the coat from my shoulders. It fell to the grass. Oh god. Oh god, this was happening.

"Matt," I whispered.

He crushed my body to his. I was hyperaware of my hard nipples pressing into his chest. He stood a head taller than me and nestled his chin into my hair easily. I wrapped my arms around his waist. He was all lean muscle, heat, and a racing heart. I thought I might faint if I didn't cling to him.

"Hannah," he growled. He explored my body roughly, an arm keeping me pinned to him. I couldn't have escaped if I wanted to. That realization—and Matt's force and strength—made me tremble with excitement.

He wasn't shy.

I wouldn't be gentle, he'd told me on the phone.

He wasn't lying.

He raked his hand over my side and down to my ass, which he squeezed and rubbed. I could hear his breathing grow ragged as he touched me. Abruptly, he yanked my tiny boxers into my crack—worst wedgie ever—and slapped my bare ass.

"Uhn!" I gasped. I rocked into him. Holy shit, was he already hard?

Move hands, move! I wanted to meet his hunger; I wanted to tease him with my fingertips, to have the courage to feel his erection.

Instead, I was mewling like a kitten and clinging to him.

"My f-family," I bleated, my mouth leaving a wet spot on his chest. His t-shirt was so soft, his chest so firm. But god, if someone in the house happened to look out a front window, they were going to get an eyeful of my mostly bare ass (and a stranger fondling me).

"Oh yeah?" Matt whispered into my ear. There it was—the cruel, sweet voice. The devil would have a voice like Matt's. My legs turned to jelly. "You think they might be watching? How about your neighbors?"

As he spoke, Matt tugged my little boxers tighter and tighter into the cleft of my bottom. He wanted me to be uncomfortable. And I was enjoying it.

"God, I hope they are," he said. "You deserve it, Hannah. You deserve to be humiliated for driving me so insane. Do you have any idea?" Again, the flat of his hand came down hard against my backside.

"Oh!" I lurched against him and he groaned.