Lovers' Dance

by Carr, K

  “I thought we were doing the dating crap,” I murmured, nibbling on his ear.

  “We’re not doing the dating crap anymore,” Matt said huskily, then twisted me over so I ended up flat on my back with him rising above me. Matt was pushing down the sheets that pooled around his waist and I grinned.

  “Ah, hon,” I started with the sweetest smile on my face. “George is waiting downstairs for me.”

  “Pardon?” Matt paused, lips hovering next to my peaked nipple poking against the t-shirt. He tilted his head to stare at me. “What time is it? Why is he awake? In fact, why are you awake?”

  I ran my hand through his tousled hair, so silky. I’d forgotten how it felt against the skin of my inner thighs when he…

  I squirmed and forced those naughty thoughts out of my head. “I woke up hungry and went downstairs to get something to eat. George must’ve heard me.” I scrunched my face up in puzzlement. “Which is strange. Doesn’t he have the whole loft conversion to himself? Anyway, I made us gnocchi and sauce with pancetta. Are you hungry? I’ve made loads. And then I found the studio. It’s fabulous, Matt. Oh, and it’s probably quarter to three now.”

  Matt rested his head on my chest and sighed softly. “I’ve missed you these past few days, poppet. Missed the way you babble inanely—”

  “Hey.” I smacked him lightly across the shoulder. “I don’t babble. Are you hungry, hon? Because I’m starving.”

  “Quarter to three?” he asked.

  I craned my neck back to look at the bedside alarm clock. “Two fifty-one am.”

  Matt groaned before sliding off me. “Right. I’ll never get back to sleep now. Why don’t you go on downstairs, poppet? I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  I beamed at him and stole a kiss before jumping off the bed and waltzing out of the bedroom.

  <><><>

  Matt watched her walk towards his bedroom door. With her back to him, he could let the confusion he felt show. What in the bloody hell was going on? She seemed…she was acting…she was normal. Back to her usual bubbly self. He sat up in bed, knees raised with arms folded on top where he rested his head, and tried to analyse her current behaviour. He hadn’t believed Dante when he explained what would happen. What were his words? Yes, that she would reset herself. It had sounded bizarre then, and it was bizarre now. She had been distraught yesterday; he believed on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown. Yet here she was, showering him with kisses, smiling. Bloody hell. He had missed her smile. Not the strained, sadly fake smiles she’d been flashing the past couple of days, but her smile. The one he’d fallen completely in love with; the one that, when she bestowed it on him, made his chest swell with such emotion it choked him.

  Matt raised his head, scowling at nothing in particular. Her behaviour was downright alarming.

  “Right,” he muttered to himself, crawling off the bed and stalking over to the walk-in closet to find pants. He wasn’t going to let this slide. He was going to march downstairs and demand an explanation over this abrupt change in her demeanour. He would sit her down and have a serious talk about her way of addressing the tragedy of her parents’ death; more like her avoidance of dealing with it. He would demand she sought help, professional help, to learn how to manage her grief in a healthy manner.

  He would lose the sight of her beautiful smile if he did that. Matt paused in tugging up pants. If he forced the issue, would it harm rather than help her? He wanted his happy poppet back. He finally understood why her friends were the way they were with her. They were scared to push her further; scared that one more forced attempt to make her face this scar on her psyche might irreparably break the person they loved. Matt ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He would speak to Stuart tomorrow. Stuart would be able to recommend someone capable of dealing with a situation like this. Then, with baby steps, he would bring her around. He would fix this, he would fix her. Palmer had said he’d tried to sort her out over the years. Well, where he’d failed, Matt would succeed. He was a Bradley, damn it, and he never failed.

  <><><>

  I smiled at a bare-chested Matt as he walked into the kitchen. George immediately became reserved, never mind he was berating me for not remembering how I’d gotten the purplish bruise on my upper arm.

  Matt arched a delicate eyebrow at his butler. “George.”

  “Mr Bradley,” George responded, putting down his fork.

  I grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the sauce on his chin. George jerked back, startled by my action.

  “Young lady, I am not a child,” he burst out, then remembered Matt was here with us and immediately smoothed the annoyance off his face.

  I gave him a shrug. “You don’t have to tell me that, George. I know you’re nearing the century mark.”

  Matt chuckled and came over to where we stood around the centre island. He eyed the mess I’d left in my wake and shook his head.

  “The maid doesn’t come on a Thursday, poppet. So I’d suggest you and George work out who’s going to tidy this mess.”

  George sighed and moved to start cleaning up. I touched his elbow and shook my head.

  “You know I hate when you clean up after me, George. Finish your gnocchi before it goes cold.” I looked over at Matt. “Do you want me to dish a bowl up for you?”

  He shook his head and stepped closer to me, slipping a hand under my top to rest over my lower back. “Eating at this time is bad for your digestion, poppet,” he chastised, making circles with his thumb across my rapidly heating skin. “But I’ll allow it, seeing as you’re obviously hungry.”

  “Starving,” I clarified, then popped more food in my mouth.

  “Is there anything you would like me to get for you, Mr Bradley?” George asked politely.

  I frowned at him and picked his fork up, holding it out to him as I swallowed to say, “Matt’s fine. Eat, George.”

  George looked at Matt over my head. Matt shrugged and said dryly, “It seems I’m fine for the moment, George. Thank you.”

  The touch on my lower back became insistent, and I couldn’t help the tiny shiver that went through me. Matt noticed and the corners of his mouth turned up while the clear grey of his eyes darkened with desire. I stuck another forkful of gnocchi in my mouth before I could beg him to do me over the island.

  “What would you like to do tomorrow?” Matt shook his head with a wry smirk. “I mean, today, poppet.”

  I chewed, thinking about it. What did I want to do? I had slumbered like the dead earlier, so I felt energized, but I didn’t want to go out. I had missed Matt when my friends were here. In those moments of sobriety, I had missed him terribly.

  I swallowed, saying with surety, “Can we stay home, I mean, here?” I corrected myself. Oh, man. Had I called his place home? It was the studio. It had to be the creation of the studio that caused that slipup. I hoped Matt hadn’t noticed my slip of tongue.

  But, of course, he did. Matt stepped away with a strange look on his face and walked over to the far side of the kitchen. His back was to me and he opened one of the drawers. I could hear it being shut sharply. Damn. He would see it as being presumptuous. This was his space, his bachelor pad, his sanctuary…

  He turned around, dangling a bunch of—keys? I watched silently as he sauntered back and rested them on the counter next to my bowl.

  “What are those for?” I asked, gaze jumping between the bunch of keys and his face. The key ring had crystal ballet shoes hanging from it, identical to the one on my car keys.

  George chewed quietly, becoming one with the background.

  “They’re keys, poppet. You use them to open doors and whatnot.”

  “I know what keys do, Matt,”

  Matt smiled and brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. He was rocking the bed-hair look. Matt splayed the keys open, then started singling them out. “These two are for the front door, poppet. This one here is for the back entrance. This one here is for the side entrance of my Surrey home, and these two, the front door. You probably
won’t need those as I always have staff in Surrey. They’ll be able to open—”

  “You’re giving me keys?” I asked with wide eyes. A dance studio and keys to his place? This was serious shit. I continued with an incredulous, “But—”

  “I’ve got keys to your house,” Matt cut me off. “It’s only fair you have keys to mine. Think of it as part of your birthday present.”

  “Oh, okay,” I murmured, not knowing what else to say. I was shocked.

  Matt ignored the blatant, uneasy surprise on my face and said, “You want to stay home today? That’s fine with me, poppet.”

  “Okay,” I murmured, staring at the bunch of keys. Matt’s hand returned to my lower back and the caresses started.

  George put his fork down and edged away. “I shall excuse myself,” he said quietly. Matt nodded in acknowledgement and, before I could say anything, George was striding out of the kitchen.

  “Now that we’re both up in the early hours of the morning,” Matt drawled slowly, “What should we do? I have a couple of suggestions, poppet.”

  “Watch TV?” I offered. Matt shook his head.

  “Tidy this mess up?” was my next suggestion.

  Matt gave me a look.

  “Talk about our future goals and how to make the world a better place?” I teased.

  “We can do that after,” he said in that deep, sexy voice of his. “My suggestion is to go back to bed so I can shag you senseless.”

  “It’s been a while, Matt. You’re not going to do anything, um, you know…”

  Matt was grinning at me, waiting for me to finish my sentence.

  “Strange to me,” I finally said. “Because the last time, things got a bit out of hand.”

  Matt was grinning, but now he was reaching for my hand and pulling me away from the centre island. As horny as he made me, the glint in his eyes made me a bit nervous.

  “I don’t want George walking in on us if you make me scream. He’s got the hearing of a bat.”

  Matt was pulling me out of the kitchen, down the hallway and up the stairs and, finally, into the master bedroom. He locked the door and pointed to the huge bed.

  “Get in bed, poppet.”

  “I need to brush my teeth,” I said. What was wrong with me? I had been gagging for it for weeks. Now I was nervous? Now? When my sex god was ready to put it down on me. What the hell was that all about? I fled into the ensuite, flicked on the lights and closed the door, breathing heavily.

  What if he didn’t want me the way he used to? He’d seen me. The me that was broken and stupid and scared. He couldn’t possibly want me in the same way. Oh, fuck. I blinked fast. Had my status been lowered in his eyes? I told him I wasn’t perfect. I told him to stay away. Now he had seen me, and I was scared he’d finally see I wasn’t good enough. What if he couldn’t get it up for me? That would be embarrassing as hell. Nothing quite like realizing your girlfriend was messed up. Oh, why hadn’t he stayed away?

  Because I had stupidly invited him over on my birthday, that’s why. I walked over to the double sink and got my toothbrush out, wincing at the state of my hair in the mirror.

  Did he think I was weird? I felt fine today. I was over it, over yesterday. He would think I was a weirdo. I put paste on my brush and scrubbed my teeth clean. It was going to be weird. It was going to be awkward. I was going to have my first dose of awkward sex. What was the protocol?

  “Poppet?” Matt knocked on the door.

  “Coming, Matt,” I replied. But would I be? Coming, that is. What if Matt didn’t climax? What if—

  “What’s taking you so long?” he asked as the door handle turned. I rinsed my mouth and put my toothbrush away. The door swung open, and Matt’s piercing gaze settled on my face.

  “All done,” I said brightly, reaching for the face towel to wipe the moisture off my mouth.

  “Come on then,” he ordered, beckoning me over. Slowly I made my way towards him. I should have brushed my hair. Matt turned the lights off in the ensuite and led me towards the bed. It seemed bigger all of a sudden. Like a stage. A huge stage where all your flaws would be under the spotlight for everyone to see.

  “Matt.” I turned, and his lips crashed into mine. Passionate, almost desperate, it was. I returned his kiss with matched ardour, wanting to drown myself in the sensations of his mouth moving over mine. Tongues duelling, the air between us exchanged from my gasps to his. Matt tipped us onto the bed, eating at my lips as if I was some delicacy he needed to gorge himself on. It was a struggle to pull my pants down with him lying half on top of me. Matt grabbed the waist of my pants and tugged them down as I wriggled them off my legs. He whipped his pants off, all the while keeping his mouth pressed to mine. He slid his hand over my panty-covered heat and groaned at the back of his throat. I arched my lower body into his touch, opened my legs that much wider. Matt rubbed me through the sheer material of the silk undies and my stomach clenched tightly with desire. He bunched the material together between his fingers, from top to crotch, grazing my quivering flesh in the process and yanked. My eyes—they had slid shut during our kiss-fest—flew open. He yanked harder, and I felt a second of tension biting into my hips before an almost inaudible snap and my torn panties went flying over his shoulder. I thought you could only do that with flimsy thongs, not top of the line silk undies. For the price tag, I would’ve expected a bit more sturdiness from them. My brain stuttered as he took advantage of the free access to my nether regions with his fingers. We were kissing, and I swear I was fast losing my mind from the deluge of sensations. His tongue stroking mine, his finger stroking my intimate flesh, the weight of his chest against mine. And then he got down to business. Matt guided himself into my pulsating flesh, easing in bit by bit, until he was deep enough to—

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” I shouted after wrenching my mouth from his. Matt held himself still, fully sheathed inside me.

  “Okay?” he asked, face flushed red and beaded with sweat. He was breathing heavily, as was I.

  I nodded and he gripped my legs, pulling them over his hips before beginning to move inside me. A low moan of pleasure fell from my throbbing lips. Matt echoed it seconds later.

  “Made for me,” he muttered, eyes locked on my mouth. “You were made for me, poppet. Your body was made for mine.”

  “Yes,” I cried out. “Oh, God, yes.” I squeezed my legs tighter around him as he continued with his determined strokes. Matt made love the way he lived life; with complete surety, complete confidence in himself and an animal magnetism that made people love him even though they harboured envious thoughts at his intrinsic brilliance. Matt was the epitome of an alpha male, and said alpha male was about to make me come.

  “Matt.” I could feel my body’s response, quivering on that knife’s edge of intense pleasure laced with strangely sweet pain. “Wait—too soon—ahhh —can’t stop it—wait.”

  He dropped his head into the crook of my neck. “Come for me, poppet,” he ordered in a gruff voice. “I want to feel you coming around me.”

  That was all it took. I orgasmed, wildly thrashing about beneath him as my inner walls spasm violently from release. Matt let out a hoarse shout of pleasure, shuddering over me as he spilled himself deep inside my body. He slumped against me, squishing what little air I had left in my lungs out. But I didn’t care. My arms went around him, stroking his back, running through his hair, smacking his ass.

  “Ow,” he mumbled, raising his head from where it nestled against my neck. Locks of his hair were plastered across his forehead, stuck down by sex sweat. Yeah, I called it sex sweat. A totally different kind of sweat in my mind, much sweeter than normal sweat. Sex sweat was good. You never minded it dripping from your limbs. Hail to the sex sweat.

  “What was that for?” he murmured, leaning down to run his tongue over my lips.

  “Squishing,” I managed to say. “Me.”

  Matt raised up on his arms, peering down at me. I smiled and brushed the hair off his face. He didn’t smile back.<
br />
  “I’m going to clean up,” he said. “Unless you want to go first.”

  I shook my head, immediately noticing the change in him. Matt gave me a brief kiss—I wouldn’t call it a kiss—a light brushing of lips. He eased himself off me, eyes closing for a second at the sensation of pulling out my still quivering flesh, before getting up and heading for the ensuite.

  I laid there, blinking up at the ceiling and thinking: What the fuck? We always cuddled afterwards. He never had an issue with after-sex sticky messiness. I mean he had even gone down on me after sex a few times, which was a shock to my system. The first time he tried that, I had yelled in surprise and accidentally kicked him in the stomach. It freaked me out. He had laughed at me when I said it was gross, saying in his no-nonsense voice, “It’s my come inside you, poppet. What’s the issue?’ But he relented when he saw my face and used the sheets to get me relatively clean before diving in. He called it double standards, seeing as I didn’t have a problem doing it to him right after.

  This hadn’t been awkward sex. This was awkward-after-sex. I wasn’t prepared for this.

  “All yours, Madi,” Matt said, strolling back in. I sat up and got off the bed, doing that fast mincing walk with legs pressed close together, the ‘prevent the jizz from dripping on the floor’ walk. Normally Matt would laugh when I did that; there was no laughter.

  That was all the confirmation I needed. My status had been dropped. I had been relegated to the crazy girlfriend box. Not quite bunny boiler, but one episode shy of it.

  Behind the closed door of the ensuite, I sat on the toilet chewing my lips and fighting the tears. What did I expect? Not acting right in front of him. Of course, he would be different with me. But I was fine now. I was living again. Functioning again.

  I chewed my lips as the minutes ticked by, and I remembered someone once telling me you could get haemorrhoids from sitting too long on the toilet. Damn, didn’t want to add that to my list of problems. I cleaned off, flushed, washed my hands, then paced quietly. I was fine.