Boy, did he ever. Matt had spent the past three years searching for the right woman. For his woman. His mate.
Someone he could have hot, wild sex with and talk to.
The way he was talking with Shay Briggs right now.
He nixed the last thought. He wasn’t talking to Shay. It wasn’t real talk, the deep, meaningful kind shared between two people who were friends, as well as lovers. He and Shay were nowhere near that close. He hardly knew her and she hardly knew him. Even more, she never would.
“That probably sounds lame to a guy like you.”
“A guy like me?”
“A bad boy. A player. You know, the kind of man who is only interested sex.”
“What makes you think I’m only interested in sex?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about settling down myself.” He wasn’t sure why, but her perception of him bothered him and he had the sudden urge to prove her wrong.
She gave him a skeptical glance. “Is that so?”
“What? A bad boy can’t settle down?”
“Bad boys never settle down.”
“How do you know?”
“Eye-witness account. My mother was married four times before Fred and they were all bad boys.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the men. Maybe it was your mom.”
“And maybe you should mind your own business.”
Because he was right. Matt read that truth in her eyes. Shay had wondered the very same thing more than once, but then she’d quickly dismissed the notion. She was the spitting image of her mother. To consider that her mom might have commitment issues meant that she might have her own, as well.
She didn’t. She believed in love. He didn’t just see that truth, he felt it. In the hope bubbling inside her. The determination to steer clear of him. Because she didn’t want another night of sex.
She wanted the perfect man.
Just as much as he wanted the perfect woman.
A woman who smelled like peach pie.
“How long am I supposed to wear this?” her voice slid into his ears and distracted him from the dangerous thought.
He glanced at his watch. “Time’s just about up anyway. Let’s get you rinsed off. Then I’ll show you how to do a hanging sit-up.”
She grinned. “Or maybe I’ll show you.” When he looked surprised, she added, “You’re talking to a woman who owns an ab buster, a thigh master, a glute toner and a biceps builder. There isn’t a work-out device I haven’t tried.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why you have such a great body.” He didn’t mean to say it, but he couldn’t help himself.
“You obviously didn’t see a thing last night.”
“Says you.”
She gave him a sharp look and he grinned.
“You’re beautiful, Shay.”
The words whispered through Shay’s head, feeding her fragile ego, making her think that peeling away her clothes right here, right now, in the bright light of day, wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
But she was through clinging to the here and now. She wanted a future. A nice guy.
Matt Keller with his wicked green eyes and his sinful smile looked anything but nice. Fierce? Yes. Dangerous? Amen. Sexy-as-hell? Straight up.
She stiffened and did her best to avoid contact as she scooted past him and pulled the towel off her head. She concentrated on adjusting the warm water and then leaned over the kitchen sink.
“I’ll do it,” she blurted the minute his hand touched the back of her neck. She shoved her head deeper beneath the spray and washed out the gunky egg.
Last night was over and done with. Ancient history.
Her head knew that, even if her body didn’t seem to be getting the message. Her skin tingled to feel the rasp of his fingertips. Her nipples ached for his mouth. The slick folds between her legs throbbed to feel his body pushing harder and deeper and—
Water sloshed onto the cabinet and the floor, and she forced a deep breath.
Distance. That was the key. To keep her distance and learn as much as possible from him. Then she would say goodbye, do a thorough and knowledgeable write-up in the newspaper and add the specialty services to her menu back at the shop. She would stick to her vow—nice guys only—and he could go back to playing the field like every other bad boy she’d ever met.
In the meantime, all she had to do was steer clear of any physical contact. As long as he didn’t touch her again, she would be fine.
“What’s next?” she asked, grabbing the fresh towel from the counter and blotting at her drenched hair.
His grin was slow and tantalizing. “Full body massage.”
Uh, oh.
7
“ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T need a demonstration?” Matt followed Shay out onto his front porch and watched her haul ass down the steps toward her car.
“What’s to demonstrate? Full body. Massage. Pretty self explanatory.”
“But I’ve still got a few more tried and true tricks after that.”
“I’ve already got plenty to keep me busy. Thanks for everything. I’ll call you if I need you.”
She wouldn’t call. He knew it just as surely as he knew his hard-on had returned full-force.
Forty-eight hours, he reminded himself. Until then, he was satisfied. Hunger completely and totally sated.
So why did he have the crazy urge to run down the steps, hoist her over his shoulder, tote her back into the cabin and plunge hard and deep into her voluptuous body?
Because Garret had been wrong. Dead wrong. Matt had barely lasted forty-eight minutes, let alone forty-eight hours.
He needed to feed again. No way was he this hard up because of Shay. Because he wanted her.
She could have been any woman and he would have reacted the same way. Any woman. Every woman.
He watched her pull out of the driveway, swing the car around and head back down the road. Once she disappeared, he walked back into the cabin and headed straight for the kitchen. He pulled out the bag of blood Viviana had given him.
And then he started to drink.
SHE WASN’T GOING TO CALL.
That’s what Shay told herself for the rest of the week as she tried to forget Matt Keller and their one night of hot, wild sex. She did her damndest not to think about the desperate way he’d kissed her. Or the reverent way he’d stroked her body. Or the hunger in his gaze when she’d walked away from him.
As if their one night together hadn’t been nearly enough for him.
Right.
They’d spent a full hour together going over the different hair-growth techniques. Ample time for him to make another move if he’d still felt something for her. Something that went beyond lust.
She shook the notion away and finished spreading one of the oil mixtures Matt had told her about onto her long hair. It was late Friday afternoon. Usually one of her busiest at the salon. But other than a brief visit by Sue Ann who’d stopped by to pick up some of Shay’s homemade cucumber cleanser, she’d had not one customer.
“Give it time,” Sue Ann had told her. “You’re just in a funk. Believe me, I know the feeling. I tried to interview the Whites yesterday—they’ve been married fifty-five years. Five minutes into the interview, they started arguing about denture cream. The next thing I know, they’re spraying each other with Fixodent and I’m caught in the middle. Needless to say, they’re now at the bottom of my happily-ever-after list and I’m back to searching for a front page feature for the Valentine’s issue. I think I’ll try the Humphreys next.”
“Didn’t they separate last year because she wanted to spend their retirement funds on Botox and he wanted a new tractor?”
“Christ, I think you’re right. Still,” she told Shay, “there has to be at least one successful love story in this town.”
But the fact that she couldn’t seem to find one was fast confirming Shay’s worst fear—that true love
didn’t really exist. That the reason Shay herself hadn’t found it wasn’t because she constantly hooked up with non-committal, sex-only, bad boy types, but because there was no such emotion in the first place.
Love was a pipe dream. A fairy tale.
Which was why Matt Keller had made zero effort to stop her when she’d high-tailed it to her car. No running after her, hauling her into his arms, kissing her passionately and begging her to stay.
He’d wanted sex, he’d gotten sex, and now it was over as far as he was concerned.
As far as she was concerned, too, she reminded herself. She had no designs on him. No expectations. It was all about business.
Speaking of which…She finished smoothing on the oil mixture, wrapped her hair in a warm towel and walked back to the reception area. Pulling up her daily schedule on the computer screen, she stared at the empty spreadsheet. Nothing for today, or tomorrow. Her Saturday was empty. Void of even a footbath for old man Wexxler’s cracked heels.
Despair rushed through her and she spent the next fifteen minutes nursing a pint of Chunky Monkey. But the sweet cream did little to ease the anxiety knotting her insides. It was a feeling that grew as she unwrapped her hair, combed and dried the long strands and measured her progress.
Not even a measly quarter inch.
Which meant the eucalyptus and lavender hadn’t worked any better than the protein wrap. Or the upside down sit-ups. Or the pound of bacon she’d been scarfing every morning to feed the hair follicles. While she hadn’t tried the full body massage recently, she’d had a few over the years and none had resulted in any notable hair growth.
Which meant that after four days and as many ideas, she was SOL. Unless…
Drawing a deep, steadying breath, she picked up the phone.
“It’s Shay,” she murmured when Matt’s deep voice rumbled over the line. “I need you. Meet me at my place in two hours.”
Plenty of time for her to close up shop and give herself a great big mental pep talk about priorities.
Her biggest? Hair growth techniques to boost her business.
That’s the only reason she’d called him for help. Not because she wanted to see him again. Or talk to him.
No sirree. The last thing, the very last thing she wanted was to talk to Matt Keller again. Talking would lead to liking and liking would lead to a big, fat waste of time because he didn’t like her back.
Even if he did show up at her place an hour early.
Faded Wranglers clung to his muscular thighs and a soft white cotton T-shirt hugged his broad shoulders. He smelled of fresh air and leather and a rugged sensuality that filled her nostrils and did dangerous things to her common sense. A straw Resistol sat tipped back on his head. Concern glittered in the green depths of his eyes. “You sounded desperate,” he said by way of explanation.
“I was. I mean, I am.” He stood there staring at her for a long moment and she shrugged. “Well, don’t just stand there.”
A strange expression lit his gaze. “Are you inviting me in?”
She had the sudden thought that she should shut the door and get as far as possible while she had the chance.
Before she gave in to the sudden urge to lean forward and press her lips to the pulse beat at the base of his throat. To feel the steady thump against her lips. To taste the salty sweetness of his skin.
“Are you?” His deep voice shattered the spell and the alarm clanging in her head faded as she stared deep into his eyes. “Inviting me in?”
“Of course,” she murmured. “Come in.”
Relief gleamed in his eyes as he followed her inside the living room.
“I didn’t expect you so soon.” She started snatching up the spa magazines littering her coffee table, suddenly desperate to ignore his presence and pretend that her heart wasn’t pounding ninety miles an hour. “Or I would have cleaned up.”
He watched her for a few seconds before turning his attention to the fireplace mantel and the assortment of trophies and pictures.
He eyed the row of pictures before shifting his attention to a small trophy shaped like a typewriter. “Did you win this?”
“A long, long time ago. I wrote a short story about a beauty pageant queen who stumbles onto the dead body of one of the judges.”
“Based on an actual experience?”
“I’m afraid not. The closest I’ve ever gotten to a crime scene is watching CSI.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Not really. Fiction is always a hundred times better than real life and I’ve got stacks of journals to prove it.”
“These journals?” One minute he stood in front of the mantel and the next, he was reaching for one of her spirals.
“How did you do that—” she started, but then he flipped open one of the journals and she blurted, “Don’t read that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” Because there was just something about seeing him holding the spiral and reading something she’d written that seemed so intimate. Too intimate considering she wasn’t the least bit interested in him and he wasn’t the least bit interested in her.
Her heart gave a double thump and she shook away the strange feeling. “Read it,” she blurted. “What do I care?” She didn’t. Not about him or her writing.
“So you like to write,” he said after a few silent moments.
“I used to.” Shay started straightening sofa cushions, determined to ignore the strange expectancy sitting in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t really have time for it anymore.”
“You’re good,” he stated after reading a few more pages. “What made you change career paths?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you ditch the writing for facials and mineral waxes?”
She wasn’t sure why she answered him. There was just something about the intent way that he looked at her that made her think that he actually cared what she had to say. That he cared about her.
She shrugged. “Writing was a hobby. It’s not like I could actually pay the bills with it.”
“Why not?”
Yeah, why not? The question struck, niggling at her the way it had so many years ago when she’d been dividing her time between her writing and the pageant circuit.
“Play to your strengths,” her mother had told her time and time again. “You’re too beautiful to waste yourself on something that may or may not pay off. Go for the sure thing, dear.”
She’d done just that. She’d entered pageant after pageant until she’d had enough money to open her own business.
A business that was now failing.
She ignored the last thought and fluffed a seat cushion. “How many working writers do you know?”
“None.”
“My point exactly. I needed something practical.”
“And writing for a living isn’t nearly as practical as spreading peanut butter on someone’s feet.” At the mention of her latest menu offering, she couldn’t help but grin.
“That’s crunchy peanut butter. It sloughs off the dead cells and leaves the skin silky smooth. I know it seems unconventional, but it works.”
“If you say so.” His gaze zeroed in on the journal page and silence stretched around them for several long moments. “This is what works,” he finally said. “It’s good, Shay. Really good.”
A tiny thrill went through her. A crazy reaction considering she didn’t care about Matt or his opinion. She stiffened. “I really think we should pick up where we left off with the hair growth techniques?”
He closed the journal and slid it back onto the shelf. “Full body massage?”
She had a quick image of herself stretched out on the bed, his strong hands roaming her body. “After that,” she blurted. “You just tell me what comes next and I’ll write everything down.”
Disappointment flashed in his gaze before he seemed to remember something. His mouth settled into a serious line and he nodded. “Sounds good.” He settled himself on the sofa and Shay
sank down next to him.
A bad move, she realized, over the next half hour as she wrote down several more recipes rumored to stimulate hair growth—everything from a castor oil hair mask to a milk and honey bath—and did her best to ignore the man who sat just inches away. So close she could cuddle up next to him if she scooted just a tad to the right.
Cuddle? She didn’t want to cuddle with Matt. Even if he did like her writing.
Because he liked her writing.
It would be too easy to fall for him, to start hoping and dreaming and—No.
He wasn’t her type. And she wasn’t his. That much was obvious by the way he held his body so stiff. As if he wanted to be anywhere but sitting next to her.
That truth echoed home when they finished and he all but jumped up and ran out the door.
“Thanks,” she called after him as she watched him head for his Jeep.
He gave her a husky “Don’t mention it,” climbed behind the wheel and then he was gone.
No, he didn’t like her and she didn’t like him.
And if you believe that, I’ve got some really nice beachfront property just a few miles outside of town…
Shay forced aside the notion, turned on her heel and headed for her kitchen. Time to stop thinking about Matt and start growing some hair.
The sooner, the better.
8
MATT HEADED BACK TO HIS CABIN and straight into an ice cold shower. The freezing spray pelted him but it did little to cool his burning skin or his throbbing cock.
He’d drunk himself into a blood stupor over the past few days, but it hadn’t been enough to satisfy the hunger. He wanted sex. He needed it. It was all he’d been able to think about since that night with Shay. That, and the morning after.
He’d liked cooking bacon for her and talking to her. Being with her. He’d liked it way too much. That’s why he’d raced over when she’d called.
Blazing Bedtime Stories Page 6