THIRTEEN
MATTHEW
ICE HAD NEVER BEEN SO EROTIC.
Not ever.
The way she sucked it into her mouth and ran her tongue around it. I almost unloaded in my boxers just watching her.
I hadn’t had sex in a while, and it was taking its toll on me, but having Shannon around and not being able to touch her wasn’t making things any easier. Still, I couldn’t stay away from her. She was intoxicating and refreshing. She was witty and joyful, and most of all, she didn’t ask anything of me.
It was a nice change from the women who wanted everything.
I took my time collecting our shoes to take her home because I needed a minute to calm down and gather myself. I was completely out of my league with her. She was seducing me without even trying, and I had never been enticed so sweetly.
Melting into my sectional, I rested my face in my palms. My deep breaths burst through my fingers until I could focus. Taking her home was the smart thing to do. She wasn’t ready for what I was offering, yet here I was, upstairs coming apart at the seams.
By the time I got downstairs and went into the living room, she was asleep on the formal couch. She’d tucked her hand sweetly under her chin, and her mouth was slightly opened. She wasn’t snoring, but her breathing was deeper. I watched as her chest rose and fell with each breath.
Getting an extra blanket out of the linen closet, I covered her and turned off the lights. If I thought she would have gotten in my bed, I would have offered it to her, but knowing Shannon, I knew no matter how much I offered it to her, she wouldn’t take the bed. Honestly, I knew if I woke her for any reason, she would want to go home. Strangely, after seeing her sleeping so soundly on my couch, it was the last thing I wanted to do.
The first time a woman had stayed overnight, and she was sleeping untouched on my living room couch.
It was a whole new level for me.
Moving around the couch, I started for the stairs, but a moan slipped through the darkness prompting me to turn the light back on. I looked down at her as she groaned and wiggled in her sleep. She looked as though she was having a nightmare. I leaned down to wake her, but just before I touched her, she spoke.
“You’re nothing like him,” she muttered. “You could never be him.”
I pulled back, my eyes moving her face as she gradually calmed down and began to settle into the couch.
Him?
Was she seeing someone?
In a relationship she failed to tell me about?
The room went dark once again when I flipped the switch. I went to my room, but instead of sleeping, I lay there for over an hour thinking about how much it would suck to find out Shannon was involved with someone else. I’m not sure why it would suck since I wasn’t even thinking about a relationship, but for some reason, the thought of her being with anyone else made me feel a little sick to my stomach.
I WOKE THE NEXT MORNING BEFORE SHE DID, and when I went into the living room, she was still sleeping soundly on the couch. She’d tossed the blanket on the floor, and her shirt was askew, showing me a bit of her lacy bra.
My dick was already hard with morning wood, but seeing a glimpse of her bra was making my dick throb. I’d never been aroused by so little in all my life.
Still, even in my aroused state I couldn’t help but wonder who he was. Obviously, he meant something to her if she was dreaming about him. I’d gone to bed the night before feeling a bit hurt, which, of course, made me angry. I slept for shit, wondering what her deal was.
I’d never felt the strange sickness rolling around in my stomach before, so I wasn’t sure if I could pinpoint it exactly, but I imagined it felt a bit like jealousy would.
That was impossible, though. I’d never been jealous of anyone or anything in my entire life.
She stirred.
Her scarlet hair falling over her face. Using a finger, I slid the strands away from her eyes. When I did, they popped open, her green orbs staring back at me in shock. She jerked, sucking in a breath.
I’d scared her.
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hands. “It’s me.”
She blinked the sleep away, and her head turned as she took in my place.
“What time is thit?” she slurred, her swollen tongue really making an impact.
“It’s just after six.”
“Why in God’s name are you up this early?” She squinted at me with evil eyes.
“I don’t sleep well.”
I was always up with the sun. Sleeping had never been an option for me, but it had been much worse the night before.
She covered her mouth and flinched in pain.
“Hurts like hell today, huh?”
She nodded, not wanting to talk. I didn’t blame her. I hadn’t had my tongue pierced since high school. It was something high school kids did a lot, but I remember it hurting worse on the second day. In some ways, Shannon was doing things way later in life. I was in high school piercing things, and she was an adult.
“I guess that’s what you get,” I said.
It wasn’t until after the words came out I realized how snappy I sounded. Her face crinkled at my tone, and I ran my fingers through my hair aggravated with myself.
“I mean, sticking a needle through any part of your body isn’t supposed to feel good.” I tried to explain.
I was fucking this up even worse. Quickly, I changed the subject.
“Are you hungry?’ I asked, knowing she wouldn’t be up for eating.
She shook her head.
“More ice?”
She nodded. “Yeth, pleath.”
She and him and the fucking ice were going to be the death of me.
Shannon used the bathroom, washing her mouth out with mouthwash as the piercer had said, and while she was taking care of her business, I waited patiently, trying to pretend like questions weren’t burning my tongue. I didn’t have any right to ask, but I wanted to know if she was seeing someone. I needed to know if someone else was touching her.
Thankfully, she came out of the bathroom with a tiny smile on her face and saved me from embarrassing myself.
I didn’t bother with breakfast since I wasn’t much for eating in the morning, and I knew she would never be able to handle eating on the second day, but once we were out of the house, I stopped by Starbucks where I got a hot coffee for me and a caramel Frappuccino for her.
“So how did you sleep last night?” I asked over my steaming cup.
She slid her straw in and out of her cup, sloshing through the ice.
“Eh.” She shrugged.
“Not good then?”
I was fishing for answers to questions I had too much pride to ask, but she wasn’t giving me anything.
She reached up, tying her hair into a knot and exposing the creamy skin of her graceful neck. I closed my eyes, imagining another man licking the softness there, and I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Are you seeing someone?” The question flew from my lips.
She paused, her luscious lips wrapped around her straw. Her brow popped up, and she snorted.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A perfectly logical one.”
She chuckled. “What makes you think I’m seeing someone? Do I seem like the kind of woman who goes out with another man if I were in a relationship?
“No. It’s just … last night you were talking in your sleep about a guy, and I just assumed …” I stopped, taking another sip from my hot coffee.
I was trying hard not to sound like a jealous creep, but I knew I was failing miserably at it.
Her face paled when I mentioned her talking in her sleep, but just as quickly the color crept back into cheeks, she looked away.
“There’s no one,” she said with finality.
“Because if there is, you can just—”
“Matthew,” she said, cutting me off. “There’s no one.”
I nodded, accepting what she was saying and letting it go since I felt like a total ass.
An hour later, I dropped her off at her car. She had a thing about me going to her apartment. I tried not to think it was because she had a guy living there with her and Lilly, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind. More than likely, it was because she didn’t want another run-in with me and Devin. I had told her I was over that entire situation, but I understood.
I got out and walked her to her car. She pulled out her keys and then turned to face me with a smile. She wasn’t done up. She still looked sleepy, and her hair was piled on top of her head with a band she found in the bottom of her purse, but she looked amazing. Better than she had ever looked before.
Seeing her drowsy with sleep and bed hair made me wonder what she would look like after a night of sex.
Soon.
Soon, I would know the answer to that question.
My lips ached to kiss her, but I didn’t want to hurt her. Instead, I leaned in and gave her a soft peck on the mouth.
“I’ll text you,” I said, pushing a strand of loose hair behind her ear.
She nodded. And then she turned away and got into her car. I leaned up against my driver’s side door, sipping my coffee as she pulled away.
Going back to my place, I showered and dressed. My mother wanted me to attend a few meetings, but when I finished with that, I planned to spend the rest of my night drunk on Jonathan’s father’s yacht.
The day flew by in a mix of phone calls about charity events and real estate talk. I knew what I was doing, but it was not what I wanted to do with my life. Honestly, I had never taken the time to think about the things I desired. It was always about what my mother required.
When I wasn’t thinking about what everyone else wanted, I was thinking about what people needed. When my father was alive, he donated his time and money to a lot of charities I continued to take care of in his stead. Charities like Charleston’s Children, a program for underprivileged kids in the area. It wasn’t as glitzy as the charity events and balls my mother threw, but it was more gratifying.
That’s what I want to do with my life, I thought. Gratifying things. Things to make the world a better place. My mother didn’t understand that. She did things for show, for the praise. It was always about who was watching when she did good deeds, and I hated that about her. My dad was the opposite, and I knew once the reins were handed over to me, I would turn things back around to the way they were when he was alive.
Once I finished the work stuff, I hauled ass toward the coast and found myself enjoying the sun and Charleston breeze on the top deck of Jonathan’s father’s yacht. It wasn’t boating season anymore, so we lounged in comfortable clothes around a gas flamed fireplace Jonathan’s father had installed the week before.
We were keeping close to the shoreline, watching the sun disappear behind the horizon. It was beautiful, and I should have been focusing on the splendor surrounding me, but I wasn’t.
Shannon.
She was all I could think about.
Picking up my cell, I typed in a message to her and stuffed my phone back in my pocket.
Me: Thinking about you.
As soon as I put my phone away, it buzzed with a response.
Red: Thinking about you too.
I grinned down at my phone before shoving it back in my pocket.
“Looks to me like whoever she is, she has her hooks in you,” Jonathan said.
I couldn’t see his eyes behind his shades, but I could tell he was looking at me. A smirk on his face.
“It’s not like that.”
“Sure, it’s not.”
I supposed if anyone knew me best, it was him.
That night, I forgot about my phone and drank with my friends. I didn’t flirt with the women, and when one of them tried to shower me with her attention, I made up an excuse to get away.
It wasn’t until almost one in the morning when I finally gave up on having a good time without Shannon and went back to my place. Instead of climbing the stairs to my room and falling asleep on my eight-thousand-dollar mattress, I kicked my shoes off by the front door and crashed on the couch where Shannon had slept the night before.
The blanket I used still smelled like her, and I fell asleep with a grin on my face thinking of being wrapped in her softness.
WE TEXTED FROM THE TIME WE WOKE UP until the time we climbed into bed the following day. She was at work while I was clocking my community service hours at Twin Oaks.
Once I finished at Twin Oaks, I stopped by my mother’s house.
It wasn’t much different from my place, a bit larger and decorated in darker colors. The only difference was my mother had acreage, while I had a small lot closer to the water.
“Is my mother around?” I asked Charlotte, my mother’s maid.
She was younger, her pitch black hair pulled tightly into a severe bun.
“In her office,” she answered, dusting the front entrance table.
My shoes squeaked over the expensive marble flooring, my mother deciding it was nicer than the original hardwood floors beneath.
She was sitting behind her massive desk, her face down as she scribbled something on a sheet of paper with one hand while holding a small crystal glass with what I knew was vodka in the other.
“Starting a bit early, aren’t we?” I asked, moving into her space and falling onto the chaise lounge in the corner.
She peeked up over her designer glasses before looking back down at her work.
“What is it, Matthew? Want to buy another hundred-thousand-dollar car?”
She wasn’t stupid. She knew the only reason I’d blown that kind of money on my Tesla was to piss her off.
“Of course not, Mother. Now, a yacht like Mitchell’s? That would be nice.”
She knew the floorplan of Mitchell’s yacht by heart. I remember the moment Jonathan and I realized my mother was fucking his dad. It was disgusting, but I didn’t give a shit who she fucked. That didn’t keep me from rubbing it in her face that I knew, though.
She pulled her glasses from the bridge of her nose and set them on her desk.
“Aren’t you supposed to be doing community service or something?”
I chuckled. “Actually, today was my last day. I think I’ll keep volunteering, though. The people there are nice.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose in aggravation. “So let me get this straight. You were upset when you were being forced to clean the place, but now you want to do it for fun?”
I didn’t bother explaining. It was like speaking to a brick wall adorned in Prada and Gucci.
My phone went off in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see it was from Shannon.
“I have to go, Mom. I’ll see you at our next family visit,” I said sarcastically.
She didn’t respond.
Instead, she slid her glasses back on and waved me away.
I checked my message as I left the house.
Red: My tongue is all healed. Tonight, there will be burgers.
Me: I could go for a burger.
Red: I wasn’t fishing for your time or anything.
Me: I know, but I’m fishing for yours.
I smiled as I pulled away from the drive and headed toward my place. It wasn’t until I was opening my front door that my phone buzzed again.
Red: Okay. I’ll eat a burger with you, but not five-star burgers. I want grease and cheap soda.
I laughed, and instead of texting her back, I pressed the call button. She answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” she answered.
I could practically hear her smile through the phone.
“I could do cheap and greasy for you.” I grinned.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive.”
“Okay, good. What time do you want to meet?”
“How about I come pick you up this time?” I asked. Even knowing what her response would be, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see if she didn’t want me to come to her place for any other reason.
Some other reason like a boyfriend she was living with.
“Pick me up? You mean, like a date?”
I grinned into the phone. I wanted to say yes, but I had a feeling that would push her away. So instead, I said, “No. Not like a date. Like a friend coming and picking up another friend.”
There was silence on the other end and then, “Okay.”
Which sent a wave of relief over me.
I’d been to their apartment before. Although, the last time I barely gave Shannon the time of day since I was so set on my revenge. Thankfully, Lilly and Devin weren’t there. She opened the door, and my mouth dropped open. I was knocked speechless.
She was wearing a loose dress that draped from her shoulders. It was a soft green color that made her hair and eyes pop. Cinched at the waist to show her curvy figure, it stopped just above the knee, making her long legs look even lengthier.
Her skin glistened with some sort of illuminating lotion, and her face was fresh with just a tiny bit of color on her eyes and lips. Long red beach waves fell over her bare shoulders, begging to be pushed to the side so I could kiss her exposed collarbones.
“Wow,” I said.
She blushed. “I hope that’s a good wow.”
My eyes traveled down her curvy figure, over her thighs and long legs, all the way down to her ankle boots.
“It’s a great wow.”
“Thank you,” she said, tucking a red wave behind her ear. “Come on in. I just need to get my stuff.”
I stepped into her apartment, and strangely, it felt more like home than the home I grew up in. It was small and warm with well-used, comfy furniture and a large TV in the corner. It was clean, yet had things on the kitchen counters as if people lived there.
It was homey.
I moved to stand behind the couch closest to the front door and peered down the long hallway. I heard music playing from her room, which turned off as soon I heard it as if she was listening to it while getting ready. But better than anything else, the place smelled like her. Her sweet perfume wafted all around me.
I was losing my mind.
A woman had never affected me this way, and I didn’t hate it. I was no longer going to run from whatever was happening with us.
“All ready,” she said as she came out of her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
I stood to the side as she locked up, and occasionally, the breeze would blow her perfume my way. Moving closer to her, I ran my nose up the side of her hair and breathed her in deeply.
“You smell amazing.”
She stilled, her keys dangling from her fingers. “Thank you.”
When I pulled away, I took her hand in mine, and we walked together to my car.
There was a burger place close to King Street that I had never tried, but it looked like the kind of place she would enjoy. The atmosphere was comfortable with framed pictures of all things Charleston everywhere. Twinkling lights dangled above the entrance, and music played throughout the place.
“Hey, y’all.” A waitress passed us when we entered. “Sit wherever you’d like, and I’ll be over in a bit to take your drink order.”
I looked over at Shannon with a raised brow. “Is this one-star enough for you?”
She giggled behind her hand. “Oh, no. This is definitely at least a two.”
As promised, we ate greasy burgers and drank cheap soda, and as always when I was with Shannon, I laughed until my stomach and cheeks hurt.
It took nearly twenty minutes for me to talk her into allowing me to pay for dinner, and then we were back in my car. It wasn’t technically a date, or at least that was what I told her, but I still wasn’t ready to take her home. Once she realized we were headed in the opposite direction of her apartment, she looked over at me and grinned.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we’d do something crazy again.”
“Oh, God. My tongue’s finally normal again. Nothing that involves my mouth.”
I laughed. “Damn. I was hoping for a lot of mouth action tonight,” I joked.
She poked me in my side, and I grinned over at her, picking up her hand and kissing her knuckles.
She tensed.
I noticed she did that a lot with me, but it was strange because I was sure she was starting to trust me. She had to know I would never do anything she wasn’t ready to do.
Ten minutes later, we pulled up outside the tattoo parlor, and she sucked in a breath.
“You’re not serious with this.”
I snickered. “I definitely am. I’ve been wanting to poke you for a while now.”
She snorted. “You’re such a pervert.”
“That I am.” I put my car in park. “Come on, Wild Thing, let’s go get you poked.”
She laughed, and when I took her hand outside my car, she slid her soft fingers between mine and walked inside with me.
A tiny seashell was what she chose. Taking the saying “coming out of her shell” literally.
It was cute.
The tattoo artist, a large man with a large beard named Bruce, had her relax back in the chair.
“Where are we putting this thing?” he asked.
She looked up at me before grabbing the bottom of her dress. She pulled it up deliberately, revealing the creamy skin of her knees and then her curvy thighs. She tugged a little too much, and I could see the lacy black panties she was wearing.
My breath hitched.
I’d seen naked women many times, but with just a bit of thigh and a panty shot from Shannon and I was rock hard.
“I want it there,” she said, pointing at the top of her thigh.
My mouth went dry.
The tattoo artist laid the stencil against her skin and pulled it away, leaving the lines of a seashell on her skin.
“Okay. Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded, nibbling on her bottom lip with excitement in her eyes.
She hissed as the needle entered her skin, and her eyes shot to mine. She closed her eyes in pain, and her mouth opened, but instead of discomfort, the look resembled the pleasured ache of an impending orgasm. My cock grew harder. I couldn’t believe I was getting aroused by her pain, but the faces she made, the way she breathed and moaned in agony ... I was sure it was exactly how she would sound if I ever got the chance to make her come.
No.
Fuck that.
When I made her come because it was happening. I was going to feel this woman if it was the last thing I ever did.
Standing to the side, I watched for forty minutes as the tattoo artist drew the perfect seashell on her thigh. His glove-covered palm sliding over her skin, lifting her dress higher sometimes. I found myself jealous of him.
He was touching her.
Feeling her.
Drawing a sexy reaction from her.
Those were all things I wanted to do, and I would. Starting tonight, I was going to make my move. There would be more than kisses—more than whispered lips—there would be touching and pleasure.
“All done?” I asked when the artist wiped her tattoo with cleaner and began to wrap it.
“All done,” he answered. “You sat like a champ, baby,” he said to Shannon.
I didn’t like him calling her baby. She wasn’t his fucking baby. And seeing her glow under his pet name only made my hackles rise higher.
I paid for her tattoo while he was getting her set up, which she bitched about, and then we were off again, heading back toward my part of town.
“So where to now?” she asked.
“My place?”
She grinned over at me, her green eyes sparkling in the lights outside my car.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I asked to be sure.
She nodded. “Take me to your place.”