Page 89 of Hunters and Prey

Chapter 13

Nothing ended a perfect date like a cup of coffee on a chilly winter night. If Elpis wasn’t already rapidly falling head over heels into the land of infatuation with Matt, the caramel pecan latte in her hand would have done the trick. The only thing better than a good cup of caffeine was a bout of hot and sweaty, dirty sex.

If she had anything to say about it, that’d be coming up next.

Her feet ached, but her chivalrous suitor had solved that problem by dragging both into his lap while they relaxed on the couch in her luxury suite at the Thompson House. Philadelphia had turned out to be a magical place filled with stories and legends from the past. With her sexy history buff as a companion, Elpis had paid visits to the Liberty Bell, the Museum of the American Revolution, and the Philadelphia Zoo, where she fell in love with the tigers and could have stood there all day watching them prowl.

They’d chatted over a candlelit dinner where she enjoyed her first taste of steak, and then they’d enjoyed a thirty-minute stroll back to her lodgings. All in all, nothing could make the day more perfect.

Aside from having his dick in her mouth again.

Blast. She cursed her one-track mind.

“Tomorrow,” Matt announced, dragging her back to the present, “I’ll take you to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, unless you’re tired of—”

“I never tire of museums,” she assured him. “Remember? When I said to show me the best of Philadelphia, I meant it. I only wish I’d asked for a week away from duty.”

He smiled. “I do too.” His thumbs pressed into the ball of her left foot and worked loose a tension knot that made her sigh in relief. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you enchant me that morning? I know I didn’t pass out from a bottle of wine.”

As much as El had expected the question, she’d also hoped to have more time to compose her thoughts. She shifted and swung her feet from his lap to the floor, body twisted to face him. Then she set the remainder of her coffee aside on the table. “Because I was scared.”

“Of what? Sex?” He frowned. “I wouldn’t have coerced you. I don’t do that shit.”

“No…I know you wouldn’t have pushed it. I’m saying I was scared of what it would mean if I trusted you. I was foolish to run away…I thought if we continued, if we did more, I’d jinx what we had.”

A furrow slipped across his forehead. “How could you jinx something that didn’t yet exist?”

“I don’t now. In hindsight, my head doesn’t make sense most of the time. This thought just came to me, and I realized if we had sex at last, after dancing around the subject for so many days, it would be too real, and then I would know what I was missing when you left and everything inevitably fell to shit. But…” Her fingers wandered over his chest, unfastening buttons one by one. “Being apart from you this past week has only shrouded our encounter in mystery. Now I spend every day wondering what could have happened. I wonder each night as I lie down to sleep how it could have been. What would have been.”

“And now?”

Elpis rose from the sofa and pulled off her dress. She tossed it aside along with the bralette chosen by her personal stylist, aware of Matteo devouring her with his gaze. He watched every step with hunger in his eyes, until she was down to only a scant scrap of lace.

When he stood and shrugged his shirt off, she leaned close and brushed her lips against his mouth, barely kissing him. “I know what I want.”

“Do we need one of these?” he asked, producing a condom from his pocket. “Uh, do you even know what this is?”

“I’ve taken care of it,” she whispered, focusing on the taste of his skin and the sculpted muscles beneath her hands. The man was rock hard, chiseled like one of the statues throughout the city, possessing peak athleticism and all hers to explore. “If you trust me. I’m a doctor, remember?” She’d read everything she needed to know about human birth control, then decided she liked Atlantis’s methods more. Drinking a tonic once a month was all it took to disrupt her fertility cycle.

“Can’t help but to ask.”

Elpis nudged him toward the bed, lightly shoving his chest until he sat. She smiled down at him. “That’s why I like you.”

“We got one more problem here though, sweetheart.”

She froze with one knee on the mattress. “What problem?”

Her world shifted as Matteo rolled her beneath him in the spacious bed. Though she was stronger by far, he grasped both of her wrists and pinned them above her head with one hand. “I’m not the kind of man to sit back while a lady does all the hard work.”

His belt came off in one tug, then the pants went down and only shorts remained, the ambitious bulge at the front everything she’d needed and wanted for the nearly two weeks since their last parting.

Yesssssss,the voice of victory sang in her head like a Greek chorus.

Off the shorts came, too, a dream come true that exposed him head to toe.

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