ROMY KNEW THE moment Matt entered the restaurant when her three dining companions’ gazes fixed on a point behind her and their jaws dropped.
She estimated Teague had reached Matt’s house fifteen minutes ago, so he was here faster than she’d expected. But he was wasting his time.
She refused to turn around, even though the tingling of her skin told her he was barreling toward her, and she stayed stubbornly in place when the smell of his pine-scented soap announced he’d arrived at the table.
“Good afternoon,” he said to her companions, his voice sending a quiver through every nerve ending in her body. “Please excuse Romy for a few minutes.”
And she found herself lifted out of her chair and—unbelievably—swung up into his arms.
She wanted to tell him to put her down, but one look into his green eyes obliterated every thought in her head so that even the gasps, titters and laughs from throughout the restaurant as he kissed her barely registered.
And then, “God, that felt good,” he said, and headed out of the restaurant with her held against his chest and she still said nothing.
“There’s an alley at the back of the restaurant out of the wind,” he said once they were outside. “Hang on and we’ll go there so I can kiss you properly.”
At last she found her voice. “You already kissed me properly.”
“So I’ll kiss you properly twice. Maybe even ten times. Or a hundred.”
“Put me down!” Belated, but hey, she’d said it.
“It’s warmer in my arms,” he said, and kept walking.
“Matt!”
“Okay, okay, sorry, we’re here,” he said, and slowly released her so that she slid all the way along his body until she was standing plastered against him—at which point he kissed her again, long and passionately, before pulling back to stare at her face, his mouth quirking up in the same rueful smile he’d worn when he turned up unexpectedly at her flat in London. “I’ve missed you, Romy!” And yes, that was the same breathless voice he’d used then, too. He was uncertain of her.
Oh God, it was hard to put her hand on his chest and stop him from taking her back into his arms. “You can’t do this to me again,” she said, and was distressed to hear the wobble in her voice.
“What do you mean? I’ve never done this before.”
“Yes, you have.”
“What? I’ve walked into a restaurant and carried a woman out like a scene in a movie, have I? I’d have sworn I’d remember that. It’s better than The Proposal, you know, what I just did. Demonstrative. Tell your mother.”
“I mean sex.”
“I haven’t had sex in a restaurant, either—but I’m up for it if you are.”
“I mean if you’re here to have sex with me again anywhere, I can’t do it.”
“Is it because of the baby? Is it dangerous? What does the doctor say?”
“Because of the—? No! Stop researching pregnancy! It’s because of how you make me feel after sex. Like...like I’ve taken something from you. I don’t have it in me to go through it again. And anyway, you told me that when a woman says it’s over, it’s over—no questions asked. So why are you here?”
“Well, that’s easy—I’m here because I love you.”
Her heart gave one huge thump and then started beating in operatic, percussive surges, making her wonder if she was about to have a coronary. She couldn’t speak, could barely think, because Matt—Matt!—had just told her he loved her.
“But on the subject of no questions,” he went on without seeming to realize the effect his words had had on her, “I find there is, in fact, a question to be asked before I accept it’s over. But this is a one-off, won’t work with any other woman. It’s this: What can I do to make you not want to leave me?”
“Oh, Matt! This isn’t fair. I didn’t want to leave you—you left me!”
“I know. I’ll spend forever making that up to you. I’ll even eat Lennie’s snails and tell him I like them.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Damn straight it’s not. I hate Lennie and his fucking snails. Oh, but by the way, we need to work on my swearing. We’ve got nine months to cure me of the need.”
“You’re making me laugh, it’s not funny. I offered you everything I am, in every way I know, and you still left me. I have nothing left to give you.”
“Then don’t give it to me. Make me earn it. Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it. I’ll keep doing it until you tell me to stop. Until you beg me to stop. Until you say, Jesus, Matt, enough already. And—Hey! Hey, no crying! No crying or you’ll make me cry, and I look worse than a troll!”
“You never cry.”
“Oh, Romy, I’ve been crying for two weeks straight.”
“You have not.”
“In my heart, I have. Tears of blood.”
“I thought you didn’t have a heart.”
“Yeah, well, I was wrong.” He took her hands in his. “My heart, as it turns out, was waiting for you.” He put her hands, both of them, over his heart. “There it is—you can feel it. It’s doing its damnedest to beat itself out of my chest and find a way into yours. Might take some work to get its muscles strong enough to do that, because it’s been knocked around over the years. It’s not as good as yours, but it wants to be. It’s kind of battered but it’s trying to heal so that it can beat to the same rhythm as yours every day of our lives.” He released her hands, his arms going around her, holding on. “Please, Romy, please!”
“I don’t know if I can, Matt,” she said, but she was clinging close all the same, her heart yearning to believe. “I need certainty, for me and the baby. I need you to be there.”
“I’ve been there for ten years.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not, you know. I’ve been protecting you for ten years, because I’ve loved you all that time—but what I was protecting you from was me, and lately I’ve started to think I’m redeemable. You see, you asked me that night in London to be a better man, but the better man was in there—it was the part of me protecting you. I reckon there might even be a soul in there somewhere if we get a torch and have a good look. Not all black, either.” He leaned down for a quick, hard kiss. “What do you say? Will you help me look for it?”
“Okay, let me tally this up. I get the heart. I get the soul. But what about the other thing you said you had to offer?”
“Other thing?”
“The very big thing. I’d want that, too, you know.”
He hooted out a laugh. “Oh, hell yeah, you can have the very big cock, that goes without saying—no biting that, though.”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Matt, Matt! I want to kill you and kiss you at the same time.”
“Better get the kiss in first, because I know I keep telling you I’ve done most things, but necrophilia is not on.”
“You are so not as deviant as you pretend,” she said, laughing helplessly.
And then she kissed him, pouring her own heart and soul in there, and maybe she was crazy, but she was sure she could feel them connecting with his.
When she pulled back, he cupped her face in his hands. “You know, Romy, if I could go back in time, I’d kiss you that first night, the night we met, and I’d never stop. I’d tell you I love you and never stop. Never, ever stop.” Another kiss. “Just one thing I want to clarify: Isn’t it customary for the girl to say I love you back to the guy who says it to her? Because that would be you saying it to me, in case you’re in any doubt.”
“I thought you didn’t want to hear it.”
“Ah, hell! Of course I want to hear it.”
“What happened to sex being just sex?”
“I’m too bourgeois for that!” he said, and kissed her yet again. “I want to be able to do that, to press my mouth to yours and know it might end up with me buried inside you...or it might just as easily not. It’s better than sex...and worse than sex, because you can hurt me in so many ways, none of which have anything to do with sinking your teeth into my skin in a moment of kink. But on the subject of kink, and specifically necrophilia, I should just give you a little warning that I might actually keel over and die in a minute if you don’t tell me you love me, and you said something once about the need for sex as a pregnant woman and you won’t want to do it with a dead guy, will you?”
“Fine—I love you!” she said, laughing, laughing, laughing.
“Okay, now I’m going to have to kiss you again,” he said, and drew her into his arms. “But you know that thing I said about being able to kiss you and not have it go any further? I meant that, I really did, but I have one confession to make on behalf of my very big cock. It’s gone rogue on me. It’s refusing to let anyone touch it except you—it won’t even let me take it in hand myself. So you’re going to have to take it in hand for me—well, hand, or mouth, or body, I’m equal opportunity when it comes to my cock. And when I kiss you, it’s going to start clamoring for attention. So just be aware, okay?”
“You’re depraved.”
“And aren’t you the lucky one?”
“Yes,” she said, and snuggled closer, “I guess I am.”
“Okay, one rogue penis coming up,” he said, and he lowered his mouth to hers.
* * * * *
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