by HELEN HARDT
Good. I wanted them on. He could take them off when we got into a dark bedroom. But here? In the light? He’d see… He’d see my secret. I closed my eyes and whispered, “Please…”
“Please what.” His breath was hot against my neck.
“Please. Let me keep them on. I want to look sexy for you.”
“God,” he rasped. “You’re so beautiful. So damned beautiful.”
I opened my eyes and met his gaze. “I want to see you. Please, Matt.”
He smiled. “Undress me, then.”
Undress me, princess.
No!
Fucking no!
Not now. You will not ruin this beautiful moment for me!
I hurled the unwanted images from my mind.
I trailed my fingers over Matt’s broad shoulders. I wanted to see what was underneath his T-shirt, but something stopped me.
“Riley?”
I inhaled, gathering every sliver of courage I could find, and I slid my fingers down to the bottom of his T-shirt and inched it up.
His skin was so warm. So warm against my tingling fingers.
Slowly I moved it farther upward, concentrating on how much I desired him. And with each new inch of flesh I exposed, my heart beat faster.
His lighter skin contrasted with mine. I was tan, of course. Spray tanned. Part of the job.
Matt’s chest was nearly bare but for a few blond hairs scattered over his pectorals. His nipples were dark pink, and when I slid my finger over one, it hardened under my touch as he sucked in a breath.
I had power over him.
Power I never knew I could wield.
It was thrilling.
I pushed the T-shirt over his head, and he lifted his arms to help me along. Soon it joined my clothes on the floor.
He kicked off his sneakers.
Now only his jeans separated me from that part of him. The part that both scared and excited me.
It bulged, and I stared.
Though I knew it was my imagination, I saw it beating in time with my heart.
Faster, faster, faster…
Until finally Matt took the reins from me. He unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and removed them.
And he was naked.
Naked before me.
I averted my eyes.
I was used to it, always averting my eyes, until he forced me to look. Forced me to touch…
“Riley.” Matt’s voice. “Look at me.”
I can’t. Just can’t.
Until finally, his warm fingers touched my chin.
“Please,” he said. “Look at me, Riley.”
Something in his voice made me obey, and I looked at him. Truly saw him. Indeed, truly saw any man for the first time.
His beauty astounded me. A god from Mt. Olympus couldn’t look better than Matteo Rossi. He took my hand, then, and led it to his cock. “Feel this. Feel me. Feel what you do to me.”
I gripped him, as if shaking his hand. He was warm and hard, yet his skin was like silk under my touch.
He closed his eyes and let out a low growl. “God, what you do to me. One touch from you is better than a homerun with anyone else. I swear to God.”
I dropped his cock.
He opened his eyes and tilted his head.
He was questioning something, and I knew exactly what it was.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sorry for what? What’s going on, Riley?”
“I’m…frightened.” True words. The last time I had sex was with…
God, I couldn’t go there right now. I just couldn’t.
Matt reached toward me. “Baby?”
I forced myself not to cower backward.
He had hated it when I cowered. In his mind, I was supposed to want him as much as he wanted me. He never understood the two-way street of sex.
Fuck. What we had wasn’t sex. It was abuse. Molestation. Fucking incest.
I was forever tainted by Derek Wolfe.
He wasn’t the only one. Some of his friends fucked their daughters and sons. Sometimes he made me watch.
I supposed he deserved a little credit. He never let any of them touch me. Some of them passed their children around like the newest toy.
“Baby,” Matt said again.
I wanted to answer him. Truly, I did. But my mind was now polluted with images and memories that I could never erase, no matter how hard I tried.
I wanted so much to be with this man. This beautiful man.
I was leaving tomorrow, and I’d never see him again.
Can’t I have just one night? One beautiful night that isn’t marred by my father?
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Okay,” Matt said. “I get it.”
Clothes rustled.
He was getting dressed.
My eyes pop open. “Matt…”
“It’s okay. We have the rest of the week. I won’t rush you.”
Except we didn’t have the rest of the week. If I wanted this—and I did—I had to act now.
I forced the unwanted garbage from my mind, advanced toward him, grabbed both his cheeks, and pulled him toward me.
I kissed him.
I melded our mouths together and kissed him—all tongue, teeth, and lips.
A glorious kiss.
A kiss not just of passion but of need. Of my need for redemption.
For that was what I truly wanted—to be redeemed for my part in my father’s madness. Once I turned eighteen, I could have stopped it all. I could have run.
But I didn’t, and by everything I believed in, I had no idea why I hadn’t.
Perhaps I couldn’t have controlled what he did to me when I was young and weak. My brother had tried to stop him and had been sent away, never to return.
At the time, I didn’t even know what was happening to me. I knew only that my father was hurting me, but he was still my daddy, and Rock was trying to hurt him.
If only I could turn time backward and relive those precious moments. Somehow get away and help Rock complete his task.
I could have saved myself the next two decades of horror. I could have saved my brother.
You were six, Riley. Six. A child. A child doesn’t need redemption.
But an adult did.
Could Matteo Rossi offer me redemption? No. But he could make me forget for a few precious hours.
Except he couldn’t.
Even as I kissed him, these thoughts pervaded my psyche.
I pulled away.
20
Matteo
“Riley?”
“I’m sorry, Matt. I’m just…”
“Just what, baby?” I cupped her cheek, her skin so smooth beneath my rough fingers.
“I want this,” she said.
“God, so do I. So what’s the matter?”
She stepped backward, away from me, averting her gaze. Her cheeks reddened.
“Riley, please. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I told you. I’m…frightened.”
“Of what? Me?”
“No. Not you. I trust you, Matt.”
“I’m glad. I promise not to harm you.”
“I know you won’t. It’s just… It’s been a long time.”
A long time? She must have been kidding. This woman was the most gorgeous creature I’d ever laid eyes on. Surely men crawled out of the woodwork to bed her.
“We’ll go slow, then,” I said. “Let’s just go out to the hot tub. That’s all we have to do for now.”
She met my gaze and nodded.
“Tell me how to put that beautiful smile back on your face, Riley.”
She closed the distance between us and melted into my arms. “Hold me. Please.”
I could do that. Holding her was no hardship. Except on my dick, no pun intended. If she was truly out of practice—and I had a hard time believing that—my big-ass cock might be intimidating her. One way to deal with that. I hoisted her into my arms, so my cock wasn’t burrowing against her, carried her
through the cabin, and outside to the deck.
“Matt! We’re naked.”
“Baby, there’s no one around here close enough to see anything.”
“I can see your cabin.”
“That’s all you see, and I’m here.”
“True.” She laughed. Kind of nervously, but it was a start.
“I’m going to put you down so I can get the cover off the tub,” I said.
“Okay.”
I set her down gently, my cock still hard as marble. I walked a little stiffly to the tub and got the cover off. I checked the temperature. Ninety-eight. Perfect. Anything over a hundred and we wouldn’t be able to stay in for long.
I’d stay in the tub all night if I had to. Anything to get Riley relaxed.
“Go ahead and get in,” I said. “I’m going to get us some water. And by the way, you may want to take those panties off now or I may have to rip them off you.”
She nodded, looking slightly nervous. I walked back into the cabin, grabbed a seltzer for me and a bottle of water for her, and returned.
She’d gotten into the tub, and her perfect breasts were floating on top of the bubbly water.
My dick reacted instantly. I set the drinks in the drink holders and stepped into the tub.
The water whisked around me, warming me. Not that I needed warming. I was hot as blazes for Riley. This woman had a profound effect on me, and I was beginning to realize her physical beauty wasn’t the cause.
Yeah, she was gorgeous with a rocking body, but Riley Mansfield was so much more than a pretty face.
Something hid inside her—something that disturbed her. Something that disturbed her so much that she pretended to be something she so clearly wasn’t.
A teacher from Pittsburgh?
Not so much.
My goal tonight wasn’t to make her tell me her backstory. No. My goal tonight was to make love to her. To show her some beauty in this world. Okay, so I wasn’t completely altruistic. I wanted the sex for my own prurient reasons. But it would be good for her too, in more ways than one. Tomorrow we could talk about her real story.
I sat down next to her, a jet massaging my back. I didn’t try to touch her, though I wanted to very badly. I simply sat. I’d let her make the first move. If we ended up just sitting in the hot tub all night, that’d be okay. We still had several days together.
Maybe I could talk her into staying longer.
Damn!
I didn’t want my time with this woman to end.
Talk about scary.
Except not so scary, at least not in a bad way.
I wasn’t in love with her. No one fell in love in two days. But I was definitely interested in pursuing something with her that I’d never pursued.
A relationship.
I wanted a bona fide relationship with this enigmatic woman I barely knew.
Yeah, scary.
We sat quietly for about fifteen minutes. At least I thought it was fifteen minutes. I didn’t have my phone or a watch to check. Once I’d drained my seltzer, I rose. “I’m going to get another. You want one?”
She shook her head. “I’m still good. Thanks.”
I was good as well, but I also had to pee, so I didn’t have the option of staying. I walked back into the cabin and hit the can. While I was pissing, I zeroed in on a wallet sitting on top of the toilet tank. Hmm. Why was her wallet in the bathroom?
I had no idea. I finished my piss and washed my hands, ready to get back to the tub, when my gaze darted to the wallet again.
Don’t do it, Matt. None of your business.
I did it anyway. I picked up the wallet and opened it. A Pennsylvania driver’s license was tucked into the plastic-covered window.
Chloe L. Mansfield, with an address in Pittsburgh.
My eyebrows shot up.
Chloe L. Mansfield? She’d said her middle name was Riley.
I dug further. An American Express platinum card in the same name. And—
“What the fuck?”
Hundred-dollar bills. Fifteen of them, to be exact. Who the hell carried around fifteen hundred dollars in cash?
Not a schoolteacher.
I eased my rage. I already knew she wasn’t who she claimed to be. No reason to be angry, and I was snooping anyway. This was on me, not on her.
Well, on her too. She shouldn’t have lied to me, though I’d already figured it out. Knowing for sure that I was right, though… That was a bummer.
I sighed and placed the wallet back on the toilet tank. I’d continue as planned. I’d make love to her tonight, show her some beauty in whatever fucked-up world she came from, and then tomorrow…
Tomorrow I’d get her to tell me the truth.
21
Riley
Matt returned with another seltzer for himself. I took the last drink of my bottle of water and set the empty bottle back in the drink holder while Matt got back in the tub.
Darkness had fallen, giving me the cloak I needed for my scars. Relief swept through me, though only a little. Still I was flooded with apprehension. With fear.
How long had we been sitting in here? He wasn’t rushing me, and I appreciated that. Truly.
But I was leaving tomorrow.
If I was going to do this—and I really wanted to do this, despite my apprehension—I had to get out of my own head and let myself go.
Sex could be a beautiful thing. Indeed, it was supposed to be a beautiful thing.
That I’d had a shitty introduction to the act was not going to color my enjoyment of this magnificent man.
I wouldn’t let it. I couldn’t let it.
I was leaving tomorrow, so tonight was my only chance.
He’d go slow. I knew it already. He’d stopped inside to give me the space I needed. I could have asked him to leave, and if I had, he would have. I knew that in my heart.
I had nothing to fear from Matteo Rossi.
Once he sat down in the water, I snuggled up to him, letting our bodies touch. He eased his arm around my shoulders, pulled me close, and kissed the side of my head.
Was he going to kiss me?
He didn’t make any move.
It was up to me. He was letting me go at my own pace.
The problem? I didn’t know what my own pace was. I’d never had sex when I wanted to have sex.
I was truly a virgin in some respects.
Every way except physically.
We’d kissed many times. Seen each other naked—well, almost, in my case. What next? What do I do?
“Matt?”
“Hmm?”
“I… I don’t know what to do.”
His eyes popped open. “What do you mean?”
“This. Sex.”
“You’re not a…virgin, are you?”
“No. I’m just not all that experienced, like I said.”
“Just do what you feel, baby. Do whatever makes you feel good.”
“I need you to… To kind of take the lead. Is that okay?”
He smiled. “I wanted to go slowly. For you.”
“I know that. You’re very sweet, but if you wait for me, I’m not sure anything will happen.”
Right on target there. I had no idea how to seduce a man. No clue.
“Okay, Riley. But you tell me if you want to stop, like you did inside.”
“I will. But I’m not going to want to stop.”
“You did before.”
“I know. Except that I didn’t. Not really. I’m just a little scared.”
“Why?”
Why? What a loaded question. I couldn’t even begin to tell him why. He’d go screaming for the woods, and I wouldn’t blame him.
“Just my inexperience. That’s all.”
“All right.” He cupped my cheek and turned me toward him. “Kiss me.”
I leaned into him and met his lips with my own. I parted, and he gently twirled his tongue around mine.
Very slow and sweet compared to our previous kisses, and soon I was thro
bbing, wanting more.
Unwanted thoughts, unwanted images, tried to force their way in.
No!
I won’t let him destroy this beautiful moment. I won’t!
I deepened the kiss, giving over to Matt. Matt was everything. All of my thoughts, all of my feelings… All Matt.
Matt, and nothing else.
Nothing else except this beautiful moment between us.
We kissed.
And we kissed.
And when he trailed one hand down to cup my breast, instead of dreading the touch, I embraced it.
Enjoyed it.
I wanted Matt to touch me.
And that made all the difference.
I broke the kiss, panting. “Let’s go in,” I said.
“You sure?” He cupped my cheek, skimming his thumb across my lower lip.
Am I?
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Please, let’s go now before I chicken out.
“Good enough.” He helped me out of the water, wrapped me in a towel, and led me inside.
We’d both pulled our hair into messy buns for the tub, and a few strands had come loose, sticking to our necks and shoulders.
Matt pulled the tie out of my hair so it flowed over my shoulders and down my back. “You’re so beautiful,” he said.
“Bed,” I said. “Please.”
“This isn’t a race, Riley.”
No, not a race. But I was so afraid I’d freak out if we didn’t just get to it.
“I know that. I just want you.”
“I want you too.”
“Let me get a condom out of my pocket.”
“Don’t need it. I’m on birth control.”
Shit. Another reminder of my past. My father made sure I was on birth control as soon as I blossomed. He didn’t want any evidence of his transgressions.
“Still, we just met.”
“I’m not very experienced. I told you. So unless you have something you’re hiding—”
“Me? I’m an open book. I don’t hide things.”
I widened my eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know, Riley. What could I possibly mean?”
I cocked my head. Was he…angry with me? “Matt, please. Don’t ruin this.”
“I have no intention of ruining anything.”
“Take me to bed. Please.”
“Fuck.” He pulled the tie out of his own hair, and his locks cascaded over his shoulders like a lion’s mane.