Page 33 of Whispers at Seaside
Her fingers curled into his flesh, and he claimed her mouth once again, taking her in a wild, rough kiss that had them both moaning, clawing, begging for more. Her breathing became ragged as their mouths made sweet, frantic love.
“Don’t stop,” she panted out.
Her head tipped back with a long, greedy moan. She was so into this, so into him, he never wanted to stop. He wanted to slide down her body and feast on her, but there would be no easy way to cover that if Hagen woke up. His desires would have to wait, so instead, he took her to the place she craved.
She clung to his arms, panting out his name. “Matt. Matt.Matt.”
After, she reached for the part of him that ached for her. He kissed the rosy flush on each cheek and couldn’t resist also kissing the spray of freckles on the bridge of her nose, as he took her hand in his and said, “We’ll have time alone this weekend. I’m not in a rush. Pleasuring you is enough for me for right now.”
A sleepy smile crawled across her face. “Most guystake. Yougive.”
“Don’t count on that, baby. When I get you alone, there’ll be taking going on for sure.” He lay with her in his arms until her eyelids grew heavy. “Come on, let’s get you inside.” He helped her up, and they headed back into the house. Matt checked the lock on the back door and found Mira peeking into Hagen’s bedroom.
“Do you want me to come with you tomorrow when you take Hagen to camp?” he whispered.
“You have your own work to do.”
“I can work around it.” He followed her to the front door and drew her against him. “I know you’re fully capable of handling this, but you don’t have to handle it alone, and I promised Hagen that if someone was bothering him, I’d make sure it stopped.”
“Is that what you whispered to him?”
“Yes. I wanted him to get a good night’s sleep, and knowing he’s got both of us looking after him should help.”
“Matt, you can’t make promises like that. You can’t guarantee that you’ll stop someone else from doing something.”
“The heck I can’t,” he said more calmly than he felt. “No one is going to get away with making Hagen feel bad. Not while I’m around.”
“You don’t have to go all badboy on me.” She ran her fingers over the patch of skin revealed by his open collar. “But seriously, you can say you’ll try to stop it, but you can’t promise. He’ll take it literally.”
“I want him to take it literally. When I make a promise, I keep it. If he can’t count on the adults who care about him to protect him, who can he count on?”
She seemed to mull that over, and he realized if he hadn’t been coming on too strong before, he was now.
“I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful with what I say from now on. If you’d rather I didn’t go, I won’t. I just hate the idea of anyone making him feel bad.”
“Selfishly,” she said quietly, “it would be nice to have you with me because I would get more time with you, but at the same time, it feels silly to have you go. It’s a conversation with a counselor, not a deposition, and you have enough on your plate alrea—”
Her words were smothered by his kiss. She was so cute and so willing to put herself last in every situation—when all he wanted was to put her first. Where she belonged.
“What time do we take him to camp?”
Chapter Twelve
“THIS IS ALL too fast, right?” Mira said quietly into the phone Thursday morning. Serena didn’t answer, and Mira feared she’d lost the call. “Serena?”
“I’m here. I’m just cutting off my left arm to see if it leads to being you.”
Mira heard the smile in her friend’s voice.
“What iswrongwith you? You practically named your vibrator after this guy, and now that he’s basically being handed to you on a silver platter with a note that says ‘Prince Charming is here,’ and you’re worried about going too fast?”
Mira sighed heavily. “But I have Hagen to think about.”
“Exactly, and Rick asked him what he thought of Matt yesterday morning and he said he wished he lived here all the time. Wake up,sunshine. Stop borrowing trouble.”
“I’m not borrowing trouble. I’ve been a single mom for a long time. It’s weird to suddenly have someone other than you or my brothers want to step in and help.”
“I know,” Serena said thoughtfully. “You’re like those do-it-yourself guys who insist on fixing everything themselves, only they’re plugging holes with toilet paper while you use concrete. Let him in, Mira. What’s the worst that can happen? Hagen will stop being teased by some punk kid, you’ll have a few weeks of great sex—by the way, we are going to talk about the sex—and then you’ll go back to your life with new memories. You’ll see each other every few weeks, and maybe one day it’ll lead to more. I don’t see how you or Hagen are losing out on anything.”
