A Heat of the Moment Thing Read online

  “No thanks to his vocal talents.”

  “He’s not that bad,” I protested.

  Matt’s eyebrow shot up.

  “Okay, you’re right, he’s bad. But it’s Christmas. And it’s cold. He deserves a break.”

  “A bleeding heart. I might’ve known.” He shook his head, then leapt to his feet, produced a fiver from his pocket, and strode outside to deposit it in the busker’s hat. The busker responded with an earsplitting Mary’s Boy Child.

  Matt returned, grimacing. “Bad idea. What a racket. I blame you.”

  I grinned, glowing with warmth and Christmas spirit and general happiness. Outside, people strode by, hands in pockets, collars drawn up against the evening chill.

  “If you won a million pounds tonight,” I said, “what would you do with it?”

  “Ah. The humanitarian-materialist test.” He paused. Looked down into his coffee, took a contemplative sip. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

  “You first.”

  “Well, I’ve always thought when I got rich and famous—”

  “What?” I feigned surprise. “You mean you’re not already?”

  “On a lecturing salary?” He grinned. “Hardly. Anyway, when I’m rich and famous I’ll set up an organisation—”

  “Materialist! I knew it.”

  “Stop interrupting me, woman! A non-profit organisation,” he emphasised, “offering—”

  He stopped, then pointed his spoon my way. “And you’re not allowed to laugh.”

  What was coming? “Okay.”

  “Adventure-based courses for physically disabled kids.”

  My heart melted. “Oh, that’s a wonderful idea.”

  “It’s really just an expansion of what the Kinetix Centre already does. But we’d cater for specific needs, and we’d offer live-in options, too.”

  A lump rose in my throat. I shook my head. “Wow. Humanitarian. Definitely humanitarian.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I need the million pounds first, so don’t get too excited. The accommodation would be hellish expensive to set up, and as for the health and safety regulations . . .”

  His eyes met mine. “Hey, don’t get all teary on me. It’s just an idea.”

  I blinked to clear my vision. “An amazing, generous, kind-hearted idea. Is Stef your inspiration?”

  Matt stared into the dregs of his coffee.

  I waited, but he said nothing. Damn, I’d upset him. Me and my big mouth.

  He leaned back in his chair, placed both palms flat on the table. Studied his hands, then finally met my gaze. “Yes. He wouldn’t thank me for it, but I’d dedicate it to him.”

  Relieved I hadn’t offended him, and touched at what he’d just shared, I reached out and clasped his hand. “I think it’s an amazing tribute to an amazing person.”

  Matt squeezed my hand, nodded, stared out the window. The streetlamps and Christmas lights cast a golden glow over the cobbled stones, lending a magical air to the street. If I wished really hard, would we be able to stay like this forever?

  He turned back to me, his thumb exploring the palm of my hand. My breath shortened. My neckline warmed. Did he have any idea the havoc that thumb was wreaking on my senses?

  For a moment neither of us spoke.

  “Go on,” said Matt, “what would you do with your million?”

  “You’re so organised that I’m embarrassed to say, now.” I laughed, making light of it. “I was just going to put my gear in storage and go to Africa for a year or two. Vaccinate a village or something. I hadn’t really thought past the plane flight. You’re amazing. You’ve got it all worked out.”

  “Tell you what, let’s win a million each. You write my health and safety policy and I’ll work out your vaccination schedule.”

  We ordered second cups of coffee. Kept talking.

  “So there’s you and Stef,” I said. “Any other siblings?”

  “No. Stef’s needs were . . . hard work.”

  I bit my lip. Hard work didn’t even begin to describe what his family—what Matt—had had to deal with. I felt like such a heel. There I’d been, all these years, getting upset and agitated over my sister’s dramatics and my parents’ blinkeredness. It was just so trivial.

  “My mother didn’t like hard work,” Matt added.

  “How did she cope?”

  “The way she always did.”

  I waited, but he didn’t elaborate and something in his eyes told me not to go there.

  “And your dad?” I asked.

  His expression softened. “Dad was an amazing man.”

  “Was?”

  “He died when I was twenty-one.”

  I covered his hand with mine. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said, but his lopsided smile didn’t mask the sadness.

  “How old was Stef?”

  Matt stared out the window. “Only fourteen.”

  I frowned. That poor wee boy. How had he managed? And how had their mother found the strength to put her grief aside and give Stef the care he needed?

  “That must’ve been so hard for you all. Your mum, especially, with the increased responsibility.”

  His laugh was harsh. “My mother wouldn’t know responsibility if it came fully packaged with instructions.”

  I took in his words, his tone, his emotion. Wondered just what had happened. “So . . .”

  “So life goes on. And when things get tough you remember that someone else always has it tougher.”

  He said it like a hardened old man, but beneath the words I glimpsed a tearful little boy. My heart ached.

  “Dad always said Stef was the bravest person he’d ever met. But I think Stef got that trait from Dad.”

  Matt lapsed into silence, obviously thinking about his father. I didn’t interrupt.

  “Dad was a builder, and he loved his work, but he gave it all up to care for Stef.”

  “He sounds wonderful,” I said.

  “He was. You’d have liked him.”

  “I’m sure I would’ve, if he’s anything like his son.”

  Our eyes locked in an emotional, electric connection that sizzled all the way down to my toes. Surely, steadily, this man was drawing me in, and I was no longer sure I wanted to fight it.

  * * *

  Matt asked about my family, and I spoke candidly of my childhood, mostly happy yet always tinged with my own senseless feelings of inadequacy. He remembered what I’d said about Dani that day in the lift, and we discussed it more fully.

  “You’ve missed your calling,” I teased. “You should’ve been a therapist.”

  “And hang out on couches listening to people whine all day? No thanks. Exercise. Breathe. Works every time.”

  It took me far, far longer than it should have to work out what was going on. Sure, the underlying beat between us was still raw and sexual, but it went deeper than that. We were talking. Really talking. I’d shared things with Matt that I just did not discuss. Ever. And I doubted the things he’d told me this evening were his standard topics of conversation.

  This level of connection was not something I’d experienced before, but I liked it. I liked the strange mix of exhilaration and peace that went with it. It felt . . . precious. Right.

  My breath caught in my throat. My heart thumped hard and fast against my ribs. Shit. I set down my coffee and the china rattled as my hands turned into trembling clumsy paws.

  When? Why? How? I’d done everything I could to make sure this didn’t happen.

  Time stood still, waiting for me to catch up. And Matt sat across the table from me, completely oblivious, laughing as he told me about his first snake encounter, backpacking in Australia.

  Too stunned to speak, I nodded in all the right places and let him talk. I hadn’t felt like this since . . . Well. I hadn’t felt like this. Not with Mickey, not with that double-barrelled rich boy I’d wasted six months on, not even with that lecturer back in College.

  This was a first. As si
gnificant a first as my naïve fumblings with Billie what’s-his-name back in the Lower Sixth. No. More significant, because this felt like fate. No matter what I’d done to try and prevent it, it would’ve happened anyway.

  “Go on, then.” He interrupted my thoughts. “The first time you had sex, where’d you do it?”

  I gaped at him. How did he read my mind like that? “I—what?”

  “Well, you were off in a dream. I had to get your attention somehow.”

  I laughed shakily. “Ha! It worked.” I struggled to pull myself together. “Um . . . a layby on the M25. Back seat of a VW beetle.”

  This was a catastrophe. Now I really would have to resign.

  He chuckled. “Cramped.”

  How could I have been so stupid? “Hmm? Yes, rather.”

  I remembered the tangled mess of limbs and underwear, all notions of romance gone as Billie and I tried to work out how to achieve penetration—let alone orgasm—in the close confines of his mother’s car. Losing my virginity had been nothing like I’d expected.

  Ditto my job-of-a-lifetime.

  “I still like beetles.” I forced a smile. “You?”

  “Oh,” he said easily, “I’m not fussed on VWs, myself.”

  “No deflections allowed. Come on, spill the beans. Where’d you first have sex?”

  “Weymouth beach. Summer holiday with the family. Sand in every orifice.”

  I laughed. “The things we do for sex, eh?” Then blushed, wishing the words unsaid. I quickly manoeuvred the conversation onto safer topics.

  Eventually we left the café’s cosy warmth and ambled back towards the hotel. I dragged him in to a gaily-decorated women’s store to choose a scarf for Dani.

  “She helped me choose my Casino Night outfit,” I said.

  “Mmm. I can’t wait to see it.” His voice as he said it, all husky male baritone, coupled with the glint in his eye had me instantly weak-kneed.

  I paid for the scarf and waited for it to be gift-wrapped, dry-mouthed and über-aware of him wherever he moved.

  “She’ll love it,” he said as we left the shop.

  “Don’t you just adore Christmas?”

  His smile was teasing. “Not as much as you.”

  We stopped in the middle of the Halfpenny Bridge and stood arm-in-arm, looking down on the Liffey river. In the utter stillness of the night air, the streetlamps and car lights reflected perfectly off the water.

  “If you could be anywhere in the world right now,” I murmured, “where would you be?”

  He took his time answering.

  “Here.”

  I tore my gaze away from the water and looked up at him. “Really? Of all the places you’ve been, this is it?”

  “Mm-hmm. Beautiful night, beautiful place, beautiful girl. Dublin’s my pick.”

  He met my eyes, and the heat in his smile lit me from the inside out.

  “But I’d love to show you an Egyptian sunrise,” he added. “That would come a close second.”

  “Sunrise, you say? I don’t think so.”

  “It’ll be worth it,” he promised.

  My heart pitter-pattered. Not would be worth it. Will. That didn’t sound like a Mickey-length fling to me.

  Then again, it was only one word. Not much point in over-analysing.

  Whatever. I didn’t care. This evening would be branded in my memory forever.

  Returning to the hotel sometime before midnight, it was the most natural thing in the world for my hand to be in his. And for us to kiss in the lift. And for us to linger over our goodnights in the corridor.

  That’s when we heard them. Voices, one masculine, one feminine, and both coming from Matt’s room.

  I put a restraining hand on his arm. “Has Roland got company?”

  “I was wondering the same thing.”

  We waited a minute longer. Whatever they were discussing, it was intense. Then she giggled.

  “I think you might be about to interrupt,” I said.

  Then I had a thought.

  “Wait here a second,” I said and quietly unlocked my door.

  As I’d suspected, the room was unoccupied. And with the dining room closed for the night, it was fairly obvious where my room-mate must be. I beckoned Matt over.

  “That’s Amanda in there,” I said and his eyebrows almost launched themselves off his brow. “Which means a bed is available . . . but”—I shot him a doe-eyed look—“it’s in here.”

  He smiled at me, then, with his come-to-bed eyes. He gathered me close and backed me into the room. “Oh really?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The door clicked shut behind us.

  “What a disaster.” His lips grazed mine.

  “I know,” I mourned, still backing up.

  “How will you cope?” He expertly released my bra strap.

  I gasped. “With difficulty.”

  “But I hope you’ll put up with me somehow.” His lips were insistent against my neck.

  I slid my hands under his shirt and up the hard contours of his back. “I could just close my eyes and go to sleep as usual.” Excitement coiled in my belly.

  He picked me up and lowered us both onto the bed.

  “Well, I’ll do my best not to disturb you.” His lips explored the neckline of my cowl top, lower . . .

  My breath came ragged.

  . . . lower . . .

  A pulse kicked in, low and slow.

  . . . Mmm . . .

  I closed my eyes. My fingers tangled in his hair. His tongue, lapping through the lace of my bra, made hot, wet contact with my nipple. Heat surged through me. I moaned. Guided him across to the other nipple.

  “Christ, Becs.”

  His lips found their way back to mine, but his hand continued where his tongue had left off. He cupped my left breast, caressing the nub into hard arousal. Hot, aching need arrowed down to my core. I gasped. Arched my body up towards him. His erection ground against me, and he groaned against my lips. Lust surged between us. Our kiss grew urgent, our bodies moving as one.

  My fingers roamed over his shirt, stroking, searching, dispensing with buttons.

  Skin. I ran my flattened palms up and down his exposed chest, in love with his smooth, toned muscles, his sheer masculinity.

  He withdrew his lips and looked down at me, his hands in my hair, his eyes on my mouth, his erection against my hip. “Sleepy yet?”

  “Very.” I pulled him close for another kiss.

  He straddled me, lifting me slightly so he could shimmy my top up over my head. The bra followed. I lay beneath him, naked from the waist up.

  He traced a finger down my cheek. “You’re beautiful.”

  I felt beautiful, too. Like some divine creature who really was worthy of his adoration. Just as he was worthy of mine.

  I reached out and hauled him down on me, needing to feel his skin against mine. Fingers, tongue, penis, lips . . . I felt wonderfully vulnerable. Dangerously vulnerable. Nothing, nobody, had ever made me feel so exposed, so safe.

  Nobody came close.

  Slick with sweat, desperate for release, my body tensed and pulsed.

  “Now, Matt, now.”

  He smiled. “Not yet.”

  With deliberate leisure he raised himself on his hands, teasing me with just a flicker of him inside me. “And if you tell me you’ve got claustrophobia now, honey, there will be big trouble.”

  A silent scream rose in me. “If you don’t hurry up, honey, there will be even bigger trouble.”

  He grinned, unperturbed, then gradually lowered himself down on me, his penis driving slowly—ever so slowly—home until I felt full to bursting, shuddering with exquisite need. He paused to kiss me, so softly, so tenderly, it brought me to the brink of tears. Fear and joy swirled in my mind. Fear that I wouldn’t survive this emotional journey, joy that I was taking it with him.

  Then his lips left mine and, millimetre by agonising millimetre, he raised himself off me again until he barely penetrated.

/>   I sobbed. Dragged my fingernails down his back, trying to drag him closer.

  Again, with sensational control, he slid deeper and deeper within me until we were one. Another pause, another kiss, another quiver as he withdrew.

  An orgasm of gigantic proportions swelled within me. I cried out, clawing at his shoulders, holding on for dear life.

  “With you, babe.” He drove powerfully down, on me, in me, through me, again and again, holding me close, sharing the journey, until we both reached a climax so eclipsing, so monumental it could never, ever be passed off as a casual encounter.

  Nothing would ever be the same.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I woke—and there he was. Right beside me. Sharing my bed.

  In our bone-deep, post-coital contentment we’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Which sounded far more romantic than the reality, because now I needed the toilet and I was trapped under Matt’s right leg.

  I eased my body out from under him and slid gracelessly to the floor, then tiptoed out to the bathroom. Afterwards, I sat naked on Amanda’s bed and contemplated the dark hump across from me. Matt-in-my-bed. This was a dream, right? I leaned forward and prodded the hump. It groaned, moved, and revealed its face.

  Matt. Unbelievable.

  I glanced at the bedside clock—three-fifteen. If I didn’t get a couple of hours’ sleep I’d be a mess in the morning. I slipped under Amanda’s bedspread and closed my eyes, but sleep evaded me. I kept seeing images of our lovemaking, first in fast-forward, then in slow motion, repeatedly rewinding through those minutes when he’d held me at the brink of ecstasy. Finally, frame-by-frame, I relived the entire evening, starting when he’d helped me get rid of Hank until I fell asleep in his arms.

  It felt too good to be true—but there he was, sleeping in my bed, taking delicious to a whole new level. I rolled onto my side and watched him. Minutes ticked by. Peace blanketed me. Sleep didn’t matter. I’d get by on love.

  Matt rolled over and opened his eyes, glancing sleepily around. His smile as he found me spoke of such intimacy I almost couldn’t believe he intended it for me.

  He shuffled back a few inches and held the covers open. “Come back. I miss you.”

  Happiness welled. Suddenly emotional, I blinked back tears.