“Sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “Really. It’s okay.”
He leaned in to kiss her.
Her phone chimed.
“Cock-blocked by technology,” Stella said.
Both of them burst into laughter. It was cathartic, a release of sorts, kind of like orgasm in the way it built and built, then crashed. The bed shook with it, they gasped with it, it stole their breath the way good sex would have. It felt as intimate as sex. It felt real.
“You’d better check it.”
She did. It was from Cynthia, of course, telling Stella not to worry. Jeff would pick Tristan up at the house whenever he got home and bring him to their place. She’d added a *hugs* at the end of the message, totally irrelevant and useless and also annoying. Cynthia added it to almost every message. It was probably her sig line.
“Important?” Matthew asked.
Stella tossed her phone into her bag and put it on the floor. “No.”
Then they were kissing again, and his hands were moving over her. He pulled her tank top over her head and pushed her onto the bed at the same time. He covered her with his body, his mouth moving on hers, down her jaw and throat and finally to her breasts. Stella moaned when he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked gently. Then the other.
He moved off her just long enough to pull his shirt off too, revealing a chest and belly as nicely muscled as his arms. And hair, oh, she did like a man’s chest to have hair. Not too much, not like a pelt or anything, but a nice pattern of it on his pecs and then a bit more down lower on his belly.
“What?” He’d stopped kissing her, noticing her looking.
“Just enjoying the view.” She arched upward to take his mouth again, her hands moving over his skin. She tugged at the button on his jeans and slid her hand inside, remembering how it had felt when he’d done the same to her in the hall. Her fingers encountered cotton and hot, hard flesh.
His groan, muffled inside her mouth, sent a shiver through her. It seemed as if they’d been at this for hours and now neither one of them wanted to risk another interruption. Clothes came off. The golden lamplight hid a lot of flaws, but it wouldn’t totally hide the scars.
And it didn’t. Matthew traced the longest one, the ugliest one, from side to side across her belly but said nothing about it.
He bent back to kissing her as his hand moved between her legs. His cock was hard against her thigh, and when she stroked it, his hips pushed forward in that involuntary way most men seemed to have. She loved that helpless thrust, as though they couldn’t stop themselves from fucking into her fist.
“Shit,” he said under his breath, and sat up to look down at her. “I don’t have anything.”
Stella had been riding a lovely wave of arousal, but now she blinked. At least he was assuming she’d want him to use something. “Um...let me check my bag.”
She rolled to hook it with her finger and pull it toward her. She found the small plastic zipper case she used to store feminine supplies, not sure if she’d actually stuck a condom or two in there or if she was remembering wrong. This wasn’t the purse she usually took on her turnarounds.
Matthew looked sheepish when he took it from her. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting this.”
She thought of the way he’d tossed back his drinks and the way he’d looked her over, up and down. He’d hit on her pretty hard in the bar. He’d invited her back to his apartment. She had a hard time believing he had no idea this was where things were going to go. Then again, he’d been so hesitant to make a move when they finally got here. And she hadn’t intended to go home with anyone on this trip either. Strange shit happened all the time when sex got involved, and she of all people should know that.
“Don’t worry about it.” On her back but propped on her elbows, she let her toes slide up his thigh to his belly. “We’re good.”
He fumbled with the condom wrapper, ducking his head in a way she found incredibly endearing. When it looked as though he might also falter putting it on, though, she pushed up onto her knees to take it from him. “Let me.”
She sheathed him and looked up to find him watching her with an expression she couldn’t read. His cock, nicely thick and full in her hand, bobbed. She kissed his mouth and nipped at his chin. Nuzzled his ear. Stella pushed him gently until he lay back, and she straddled him with his cock in her hand. Only his fingers moved, squeezing her hips gently.
She loved the look in their eyes when she put them inside her for the first time. Matthew’s eyes fluttered closed as his back arched a bit. He bit his bottom lip too, but while all of those things were enough to melt her butter, none were what made her gasp aloud. She did that when he put his arms over his head, one hand gripping the other wrist.
Every. Button. Pushed.
She settled onto his cock until he filled her, all the way. When she leaned forward, she could kiss him and rub her clit against his muscled belly with every rocking thrust. She gripped his shoulders, letting her nails dig in the tiniest amount. He thrust a little harder at that, his teeth denting his lip, eyes closed, brow furrowed. But not in pain. No, not that.
She moved on him, slow and then a little faster. She’d been with men who tried to control everything about this. The pace, the rhythm, the depth of the thrusts. That could be fun, though usually it was so much harder for her to come that way she ended up giving up and just enjoying the fucking for what it was, finding her own pleasure later with her hand and her memories. But this...oh, this was so much sweeter. So much sexier. She rolled her hips, moving on his cock, her cunt slick and hot and her clit tight and aching with lust. Every time she rubbed herself against his belly, the pleasure spiked until she shuddered with it.
Mouth open, eyes closed, fingers digging deep into his skin, so hard it had to hurt him but he didn’t tell her to stop. Her hair fell in her face, sticking to her skin with the sweat that came from really great fucking. Everything became pleasure; nothing else mattered. All she wanted to do was move with it. All she could do was let it overtake her.
She was kissing him when she came. Matthew breathed in her cry. His hands went around her, unexpected but welcome. His fingers pressed a line of demand down her spine until he settled again on her hips to move her a little faster. A little harder. He fucked into her so hard it hurt, but it was a small pain and overshadowed by the pleasure. She moved a hand from his shoulder and pressed it flat over his racing, pounding heart. He came with a shudder and a low shout.
With a low sigh of satisfaction, Stella leaned to press her face against the side of his neck for a moment while she timed the slowing pulse of both their hearts. He softened slowly inside her, which was nice because he didn’t slip out right away. She got to spend a few precious seconds snuggled up against him before she reached between them to keep the condom in place as she rolled onto her back.
Stella yawned with the back of her hand against her mouth. She was sleepy now, though it couldn’t be much past ten or eleven. She wasn’t looking forward to heading back out into the icy weather and finding a hotel room.
Matthew went into the bathroom. The toilet flushed. He got back into bed and switched off the light, which was enough to make her at least shift in the covers even though she hadn’t quite managed to rouse herself enough to move.
She hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet, so blinked rapidly to focus on him. “I should get going.”
He was silent for a heartbeat. “Oh. If you want to?”
There’d been many awkward moments in her life, but the men she picked up in her turnarounds generally knew what was what. But this was not a usual turnaround.
“Sorry,” Matthew said before she could say anything. “It’s just...I haven’t, um... Well, I don’t usually do this. Haven’t done this, I mean.”
He paused, as if he was waiting for her to say the same thing,
but she couldn’t very well tell him that, could she? Even if he didn’t know it as a lie, she would, and just because her turnarounds weren’t something she liked to brag about, it didn’t mean she was ashamed.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”
The bed dipped as he shifted his weight. “No, I do. I just wanted you to know that this isn’t something I do all the time or anything.”
“I’m not judging you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Stella pressed her head into the pillow and let her hands slide down her body to rest on her stomach. She could feel her hipbones, her belly concave between them, but the skin not smooth. The scale and the size of her jeans might show her to be “skinny,” but she’d never have a flat, unblemished stomach again.
His low chuckle sounded a little embarrassed, and it was still charming. “I’ve been divorced for just over a year. I haven’t been with anyone since then.”
“I could take that one of two ways.” Stella kept her voice light. “Either you just couldn’t stand it anymore and you took the first thing that came along—”
He snorted laughter. “God. No.”
“Or,” she added, “I should feel special.”
“I’d say definitely special.”
She went a little tingly at the answer, even as she told herself it was all just talk. He could even be lying, though...she didn’t think so. Or she didn’t want to think so, at any rate.
“So, why me?” The only light in the room came from his alarm clock, so she couldn’t see his face very well. That was fine. It was easier to ask things like this in the dark. She wasn’t even sure where the question had come from, or why she cared.
“It was the way you talked to that asshole giving the gate agent a hard time.”
Stella was more awake now, but that statement seemed garbled and nonsensical, the kind you’d hear in a dream. It meant he’d been aware of her before she went into the bar. It meant that maybe he’d been watching her, which made even less sense if, as he was saying, he wasn’t the sort to pick up women and take them home.
“People treat airline staff like crap all the time,” Matthew said. “Guys like him get away with it because they can. I liked what you said to him. She couldn’t say it, but you did. And you were right.”
Stella cleared her throat a little, thinking of what she’d told that irate man and why his situation had resonated with her so strongly. “I should’ve had more sympathy for him.”
“No, you were right.”
She thought of the man’s fury, and his explanation, and how hearing it had only made her all the more angry herself. “He shouldn’t have used his grief as a reason to be a prick.”
Matthew didn’t answer, not at first, though in the silence she could hear him thinking how to respond.
She kept on, the words slipping out of her, one after another, aided by the dark. “Even in the middle of dealing with the worst thing that has ever happened to you, even when you think there is no possible way you can get through another minute, not another second, even if you’re dealing with the most incompetent of idiots... Well.” She cleared her throat, memories rushing to the surface on a wave of emotions. “Even when you’re terrified that you can’t take one more step or deal with one more thing, there’s never an excuse for behaving like that. Because when you do, you make all of those fears come true.”
His hands pulled her closer, till he was spooning her. His mouth found her shoulder, his breath her ear. He put his hand flat on her belly and held her, just held her without speaking for a few minutes. He’d ask her now. About the scars. She knew he would.
What surprised her was that she answered.
“We were coming home from a Christmas party. The weather had turned bad. It was an accident,” Stella told him. “Just a stupid accident. Icy roads, someone going too fast. I woke up in the hospital with a broken collarbone and internal injuries. My husband and younger son were fine. They both walked away. My older son...”
“You lost him?” Matthew asked quietly when she didn’t continue.
“Yes,” Stella said. “But not for another half a year.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
After that, there wasn’t much to say. She really should rouse herself, but moving would destroy this quiet that had fallen between them. Force her to acknowledge that she’d told him the most awful truth about herself, and worse, she would have to force herself to wonder, why him? Dozens of strangers. Why now?
Maybe she’d just close her eyes for a minute or two. Just a few seconds. No more than that.
She woke with a start from a dream of falling, and sat up in a strange bed. A darkness she didn’t recognize. Lumps and shapes of shadow loomed, but there was no familiar crack of light around the bathroom door to tell her anything else. No familiar anything, and she panicked for a couple moments until the bed creaked next to her, and warmth nudged at her bare skin. Breathing. The brush of a hand on her hip.
“You okay?”
Matthew. She’d fallen asleep; he’d turned off the lights; there was nothing to worry about. Stella pressed a hand to her chest, her pounding heart an echo of earlier in the night. “What time is it?”
“Almost four.”
She sat up to push her back against the wall since there was no headboard. She drew her knees up, blinking as her vision adjusted a bit to the dark. She felt sticky with sweat and sex. Her mouth cotton-dry. Her head whirled a little bit. Exhaustion and the drinks she wasn’t used to, which might’ve been the reason she’d allowed herself to stay so long in the first place. At least it was an excuse she could use.
“I have to go.”
“Right.” Matthew sat up. “Let me call you a cab?”
“I have the number in my phone. Thanks, though.” She rubbed her eyes, trying to get the energy and motivation to move off the bed.
“Let me at least make you breakfast.... Cup of coffee?” He shifted.
Charming, totally. She laughed a bit. “I’ll grab something in the airport. I’ll have plenty of time. Thanks.”
“I’ll walk you out. At least let me do that.”
She laughed again. “Okay. You can walk me out.”
Neither of them moved at first, and then he kissed her. Soft, sweet. Brief. “Thank you for this, Stella. I told you, it’s been a while. I really...needed. Someone. I’m glad it was you.”
It was horrifying to weep in the bed of a man she’d just met. Fucking aside, they were strangers. Yet the tears welled up, emotions overwhelming her though she fought to hold them back.
“Hey. Shhh.” Matthew put an arm around her, pulling her against him. He stroked her hair.
Warm skin. Hot breath. She buried her face into the curve of his neck and shoulder, her own shoulders shaking as she tried to keep herself from completely dissolving. He would think she was crazy. He would think she was a mess.
Well.
Wasn’t she?
“I haven’t told anyone about Gage in a long, long time.” Her voice was thick with tears, and she swallowed hard to keep them from flowing. “I’m sorry, it’s not something I share with people I know really well, much less strangers.”
“It’s okay.” His hand smoothed over her bare back. He kissed the top of her head. “Everyone has scars.”
Stella said nothing to that, working hard to get herself under control. She breathed. In, out. She put her hand flat on his chest to feel the beat of his heart. It soothed her. They sat that way for some long minutes until her twisted position started to hurt and she had to sit back.
“I really should go.”
“Stay,” Matthew said. “What time’s your flight?”
“Ten-thirty.”
“And you’re going to sit in the airport that whole time?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” sh
e told him. “I usually find a nice spot in the preferred customer lounge. I’ll be fine.”
It was the perfect time for him to ask her why she flew so often, but he didn’t. He nuzzled against her for a moment, then said into her ear, “You can sleep here, Stella. In the morning I’ll make you coffee and maybe pancakes, if you’re lucky. And you can take a cab to the airport with a few hours’ sleep and something in your stomach. It’ll be a lot nicer than sitting in the lounge.”
She shook her head, but didn’t say no. Matthew huffed quiet laughter against her. She wiped at her eyes, burning with exhaustion and emotion. The scene with the man in the airport had left her hurting and vulnerable; sharing the story about Gage had been a surprise and hadn’t helped.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
He laughed too, softly. “I don’t mind. In fact, I insist. Does that make me kind of a jerk?”
“No. Not at all.” Stella tilted her head, looking him over. “You’re being unexpectedly kind.”
Matthew moved closer then. His mouth found hers. His voice whispered over her lips, “I’m sorry that kindness is unexpected.”
They clung together for a moment, less a hug than two people on a raft in a storm-tossed ocean holding on for fear of being swept away. She wanted to let go of him. Needed to, as a matter of fact, because clinging like this went against everything Stella had ever sought while flying. But she held on to him for just a few minutes longer anyway.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Stella had no idea what to wear.
Not for a real date. With Craig, no less. She pushed through her racks of clothes, setting aside dresses and skirts in favor of a pair of well-worn jeans that hugged her in all the right places and a tunic-style shirt.
She called Jen for moral support. “I hate what I’m wearing.”
“So change. What do you have on?”
Stella described her outfit, adding, “And a pair of Converse.”