Text Me, Maybe

by Jolyse Barnett

  “I didn’t mean that you’re not welcome, just that—”

  “Hey, you guys.” Isabella called from the slider. “It’s getting cold out there. Come inside.”

  With his hand warm on her lower back, Lexie stepped into the suite with him. They began to follow Isabella through the crowd toward the exit when Matthew stopped short. His hand gripped her waist.

  She glanced up to meet Mrs. Hennessey’s frigid stare. This time she didn’t flinch. “Happy birthday, ma’am.”

  The older woman ignored her greeting, instead giving Matthew a slight nod and even slighter smile. “Thanks for stopping by.” The woman spoke to her son as if he were a bellhop carrying her bags.

  Matthew muttered, “C’mon, let’s go,” and he resumed walking toward the door.

  Lexie scrunched her nose. “Sure you don’t want to stay? Your mother seems angry.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “Oh, no. It’s because you brought us, isn’t it? I don’t want to be the reason—”

  “You’re not, and Judith isn’t upset. That’s just…her. It’s not you, believe me.”

  “Oh.” The fact that he called his mother by her first name spoke volumes. Poor guy. Another similarity between him and Steel.

  “For chrissakes.”

  She followed Matthew’s gaze. Seemed Mr. Hennessey had found a young woman more receptive than Isabella to ply with drinks and his dubious charm.

  Isabella rolled her eyes as they stepped into the hall together. “Stupid girl.”

  “Sorry for putting you two in that position,” Matthew apologized.

  “You’re not to blame for his behavior.” Lexie squeezed his hand.

  “He’s my father. I love him. I doubt he ever goes any further than flirting, but that doesn’t make it right. My mother won’t be happy about it, but not for the reason you might guess. She’s all about appearances. They’ve lived separate lives pretty much since I was born, maybe earlier.” He scrubbed his face.

  “That’s horrible. Why’d they marry?”

  “Not a friggin’ clue. Not close enough to either one of them to ask.”

  She reached up and touched his face. You’re not alone.

  He leaned into her, pulled her close, and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For listening and not judging. For being there.”

  The gratitude in his eyes had her pulling on his shirt, bringing him close for a—

  “Elevator’s here,” Isabella announced.

  “Her timing sucks,” he whispered, nipping Lexie’s bottom lip before allowing her to drag him inside the car.

  “I heard that.” Isabella grinned. “Oh, and if she’s too shy to tell you, I think you two are adorable together.”

  He leaned close. “She’s forgiven.”

  So are you.

  When they stepped out of the elevator on the floor for the Ides, Lexie’s phone vibrated. She pulled it out and read the message from Sam. “My roommate isn’t coming home tonight. I’ll have the place to myself.”

  “You asking what I think?” He stopped next to her at the entrance to the Ides’ Blue Room.

  Lexie nodded. The art deco space was filled to the gills with twenty-somethings drinking and singing along to a live band playing nineties pop. Mirrors highlighted the night views beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass walls. Nice place, but not where she wanted to be.

  All she could think about was getting Matthew alone.

  “My girls are over there.” Isabella pointed.

  Lexie peered through the crowd and saw a group of women her age crowded around one of the small tables. “I think we’re going to head out, maybe eat a late dinner in Chinatown,” she said.

  “I thought you two looked hungry.” Isabella smiled. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “We’re getting takeout.”

  And then I’m getting a whole night with Matthew. Yes!

  A perfect night…assuming she could keep her boundaries in place and he didn’t run hot and cold again.

  Isabella pulled her close for a quick hug. “Be safe.” Then she turned to Matthew. “Thanks for the sunset. And treat her well. Ta-ta.” With a queen’s wave, she wound her way through the crowd.

  Matthew crushed Lexie against his chest then pulled back to meet her eyes. “We’re getting takeout?”

  She held his gaze. “You got a problem with that?”

  A slow grin spread across his face. “Not at all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Stop.” Lexie swatted at him. “I’ll never get this door open.” Matthew ignored her command and continued to run wet, tantalizing kisses along the sensitive slope of her neck. She tried to concentrate, but she fumbled with the key in the lock and cursed when he added hands to the sweet distraction—kneading her shoulders with deep, pulsing strokes. “I’ll fall through the trapdoor in the floor, like Elphaba,” she warned. But he still didn’t listen. Finally, she managed to unlatch the deadbolt. Whipping around to face him, she smiled. “I’m getting you back now, you cruel, cruel man.”

  But he was up to the task, his mouth searing her lips and tongue, his questing hands bringing her to flames as they caressed and stroked and teased.

  Kneading her through her top.

  Under her top.

  “Inside,” she breathed, heated and wiggling in response to his eager assault, her only conscious thought the need to get her hazel-eyed god into her lair. She reached behind her back, feeling for that elusive doorknob.

  “Soon, baby. Let me—”

  The door flew open with their weight, and—eep!—she fell backward into the apartment, his mouth slipping from hers while a hand still wrapped over her breast.

  But his Mighty Thor strength halted her rapid descent and reversed their direction, returning them upright and back to safety.

  “Oh.” He chuckled. “This inside.” Then a moment later. “Where were we?”

  She reached for his shirt. “Right here.”

  “Ah, Lexie…” He groaned, closing the distance between them, lifting her flush against him, one hand on the back of her head, the other around her waist. “You have no idea. Touching you is all I’ve thought about for three weeks. It was all I could do to keep my hands off you, waiting, hoping you’d want me, too.” His eyes searched hers. “I intend to make this the best night of your life, because you’ve already made it mine.”

  How could this be?

  But then he was kissing her, running his hands up and down her rib cage, grinning at her before slipping his head under her top to pleasure her breasts through the silk of her bra, rolling and tweaking her nipples.

  Molten pleasure shot throughout her middle, and she panted, rubbing up against him, eager to get closer. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

  He lifted his head and nuzzled her neck. “Where’s your bed?”

  I thought you’d never ask.

  “Here.” She stumbled back, then turned, throwing cushions and jerking the mattress up and out while he pushed the coffee table out of the way.

  “Mad skills,” he acknowledged, dropping onto the bed with her.

  “A record.” She lifted a leg over his hips and slid over and up, onto the tops of his thighs to straddle him.

  Ready to ride.

  “You like the power seat, huh?”

  His tone was light, but his eyes shone with an intensity that made her want a closer look.

  She leaned forward, creating a silky curtain around them with her hair.

  His gaze fell to her mouth as he grazed a work-roughened thumb across her bottom lip. “I’ve waited so long, eons before we met.”

  “You are a poet,” she whispered, her heart filled with awe.

  His eyes hooded, he rolled her over, pinning her beneath his delicious length, and she surrendered to his kiss, grabbing his hair and locking him to her. Then she gave it all back and more, her mouth moving against his, telling him all she wanted him to do with her tongue. “I want you so mu
ch,” she breathed against his mouth, tilting her hips up.

  I want more.

  He lifted his weight off her.

  Racy thoughts of him sliding and sinking inside her, deep and full, punctuated by the real-time yank of his belt and rasp of his zipper somewhere in the darkness beside her bed had her jumping up in an impromptu competition to dress the floor with her clothes, too. She’d wiggled out of her boots and jeans when she glimpsed him stealing around behind the sofa bed. “What’re you doing?”

  With a soft whooshing sound, the curtains parted, and the glow of streetlights shone across the room in pale, revealing stripes.

  “Oh, I see.” She grinned, unable to take her eyes off his frame—lip-smackingly nude except for his sexy silk boxers in black. “Going camping?”

  “Lot of tent raising in recent weeks, and all because of you,” he mused. He moved toward her and lifted a hand as if to caress her face, but then stopped. “Maybe that’s why.”

  “Why what?”

  He scrubbed his jaw and sank onto the bed. “There’s something important I have to tell you.”

  Uh, no. He didn’t. She just wanted this moment. “Are you married? Living with someone?”

  “No!”

  She sank onto the bed beside him. “Gay?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I were.”

  “Then whatever it is can wait. I’ve wanted you for three long weeks, too, and I refuse to wait any longer.” She ran a hand along his bare thigh.

  “You’re too much, Lexie Bloom.” Turning toward her, he laughed softly and pushed her gently onto her back.

  Oomph—Oh. My.

  She bit back a moan of pleasure when he slid up and over her, straddling her like she’d done him, her system on happiness overload as he leaned forward, his length pressed intimately against her abdomen.

  He fondled her through the silk of her bra, caressing and rubbing, then, as if unwrapping a gift meant just for him, he lifted her breasts from their confines. “So beautiful,” he rasped. Dipping his head, he took one breast in his mouth, his tongue laving and circling, his lips pulling and sucking, his hands squeezing and molding. He went from one to the other, as if he couldn’t get enough of either.

  Take me there.

  Like he had begun to before.

  Like she wanted him to now.

  “I’m greedy for you,” he husked, trailing wet kisses up the column of her throat. Can’t get enough.” He nibbled her earlobe. “Have to taste you.” He nipped her neck. “Everywhere.” He dipped a hand between them.

  She bucked as he slid knowing fingers inside her, and she bit his shoulder.

  “Oh, yes. You feel so good, so wet.”

  His fingers moved rhythmically inside her, his breath hot on her neck.

  So good. So good. A humming started in the back of her brain, and her hips began to rock. “Oh yes, yes.”

  A click and a whoosh had her snapping her eyes open, and suddenly she was blinking against the harsh overhead light.

  “Lex?”

  Having shifted at lightning speed, Matthew protected her from view.

  She slowly peeked around his bicep. “Hi.”

  Sam moved to the middle of the room, her eyes wide, before she lifted a hand in an embarrassed wave. “Hi,” she mumbled, then trudged to the fridge to yank open the freezer door.

  “You okay?” Unable to locate her top, Lexie clutched one of her pillows over her disheveled bra.

  A fresh pint of ice cream in hand, Sam sighed. “I will be now.” She grabbed a spoon from a drawer and walked over to her bedroom door. “Sorry for, ah…never mind. I’m going to bed. It’s been a really up-and-down day. Night.”

  They were alone again, and Matthew turned to her, concern etched on his face. “Do you want me to go?”

  No, I want you to stay here, dammit. Lexie glanced at the closed door. “I’m sorry. She’s upset.”

  He nodded, rose, and grabbed his jeans and shirt off the floor without a word.

  She jumped up, unable to bear watching him dress. Sam wasn’t the only one out-of-sorts. She threw on one of her nightshirts and a pair of sweats, then muttered a few choice obscenities under her breath as she grabbed a carton of chocolate for herself.

  “Hey.”

  The compassion in Matthew’s voice lodged the lump even farther into her throat. Her back to him, she slammed the freezer door and ripped opened the drawer next to the fridge to grab a spoon. Not. Happy.

  He walked up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and rested his chin on top of her head. “Come home with me.”

  The need was raw in his voice, and he felt so damned good wrapped around her. She wanted him so badly, and so wanted to say yes.

  But she couldn’t. Heaving a deep sigh, she leaned back into his strength. “I can’t leave her like this, no matter how much I wish I could. Maybe it makes me a terrible person, but I’m so disappointed,” she whispered, then turned in his arms to gaze up at him.

  “Me, too.” He bent his head, and his lips sought hers.

  Stretching onto her tiptoes, she gripped his biceps and pulled him closer. Still kissing her, he lifted her onto the counter. Her spoon clattered to the floor, but all that mattered was his tongue plunging into her mouth and his hands in her hair.

  With him, she was hot and sexy.

  Wanted.

  She couldn’t get enough.

  She reached for his belt.

  He groaned and tore his mouth from hers, his breath hot against her ear. “We will finish this. Later.”

  Lexie watched his Adam’s apple work as he lifted her from the counter to stand her on the floor beside him.

  Hours later, after she and Sam had each eaten a pint of ice cream, and she was left alone and wide awake watching Rocky 3, Lexie still couldn’t recall much of what she’d said to him as he left, or if she’d said anything at all.

  All she knew for sure was that she was eager to see him again, as soon as possible. That must’ve been the reason she’d given him her cell number when he’d asked.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Matthew entered the final score for his Brit Lit 103 class’s essay exam and hit save. Yes. One more chore out of the way until he could be with Lexie again. He leaned back in his office chair and focused on his wall of books, but that did little to take his mind off her.

  He turned to his monitor and pulled up his schedule. Being a professor at an elite private institution was challenging. Not because of the academic load or the students, but the holier-than-thou attitude of some of his department colleagues. He snorted. Judgmental, dismissive pricks. So he’d busted his ass, published articles in respected journals, toed the line, and after years of work, had earned this probationary position.

  Don’t go there. That’s not why you worked so hard.

  But maybe some of the stuffed shirts here at Manhattan U were part of the reason he worked at the gym. He could always be himself there…at least until his little deception to get to know Lexie.

  Little deception? You changed your phone number so she’d never find out.

  He swallowed. Time to man up. He picked up his cell and called. “Miss you,” he said when she picked up. “How’s Sam?”

  “Hi. Wow. You called.”

  “I said I would.” What kind of jerks had she dated in the past?

  “Yeah, you did.”

  He heard the smile in her voice, and gripped the phone tight. How could he erase his mistake?

  “She’s better. Threw herself into work to distract herself.”

  Listen to her. She’s talking about her roommate, opening up to you.

  “I wonder if that’s the deal with my boss. I mean, she had this incredible date all lined up, and she barely gave it a second thought when a project came up.”

  “So, it’s over?” He had to stop the charade, but needed to know that he hadn’t also unwittingly hurt Swann’s feelings with his selfish act.

  “Yep.”

  “Ever find out who the guy
was?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Her tone was matter-of-fact.

  A glowing light entered his world. “No?”

  “It’s a big city. He’ll find another woman.”

  “Hmm. Maybe he already has.” Matthew smiled.

  “I’d like to think so. He was sweet.”

  He rose from his chair and moved to stare out his office window. “What would you say if I told you I was the guy you’ve been texting?”

  She was quiet on the other end.

  “Lexie?”

  “Sure, and I’m Ms. Swann.”

  Why would she think he’d joke about something like that? “Why couldn’t it be me?”

  “First of all, okay…so, maybe it could be you.”

  He could almost see her biting her bottom lip as she worked through the problem.

  “You’re a trainer. You’re cultured, smart, uh, and you’re an only child of uninvolved parents.”

  He snorted at the last one. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  “Sorry.”

  He heard her slight intake of breath, and he ached to hug her and show her how much he appreciated her compassion and acceptance.

  “Matthew?”

  “Mmm?” She thought he was sweet, but he’d lied to her.

  “He’s not a threat to you. I know I was a little confused there a few weeks ago, and it took me a while to warm up to you, but I’m over whatever that infatuation was. But I like you, only you. I don’t play around, so don’t feel you have to compete with him or anything like that.”

  “No?” He’d wanted her to open up to him, but now that she was, he felt even worse about what he’d done. She was taking a risk and reassuring him that she wanted him. And they hadn’t even hooked up yet. Did she care more than she wanted to admit?

  “Although, it’s kind of funny, you being a little jealous of another guy, even though he had no idea it was me texting him instead of my boss.”

  “I’m not jealous.”

  Nah, just feeling like a complete jackass here.

  “Okay. Whatever you say.”

  There was that smile in Lexie’s voice again, and he couldn’t bear the thought of taking away her happiness. Still, he’d screwed up. Maybe if he led her to the natural conclusion? Would that take away the sting? “You have to admit, there are a lot of similarities between the two of us.”