Tiffany had organised they meet here at nine am for breakfast. Because Matilda had to be everywhere additionally early in San Fran, she was fifteen minutes early, so she ordered a coffee to get her through until Tiffany arrived.
Upon waking this morning, it was no surprise her first thought was of Mitch, especially after the way he had kissed her. That kiss, with the undertone of hungry desire, had charred her bones. She was lucky to have made it out of the car, let alone walk upright to her front door.
So far, she ignored the abrupt end to that kiss. Mitch had his reasons for cutting it short, and she was mature enough to respect his boundaries.
Her mobile dinged with a message. A surge of excited anticipation moved through her, tightening her belly and chest.
She looked at the screen and smiled when Mitch’s name appeared.
MITCH: I managed to restrain texting you this time until the next morning. Thank you for a great day yesterday!
MATILDA: A great day ended with an even more amazing kiss. We have to do it again soon.
MITCH: The kissing or the dating?
Again a grin commandeered her lips.
MATILDA: Both.
She wanted to write ‘more’. But how fast this moved between them would be left solely up to Mitch. Sure, she’d give him every reason to want to take it further, but she would not pressure him. She had to admit, putting the brakes on like this had left her mindless with want.
Whoever came up with the adage ‘you want what you can’t have’ was a bit of a know-it-all arsehole.
MITCH: I’m sure we can arrange something. How does Friday night, my place, dinner and a few drinks, sound? I’ll organise a sitter for Soph.
Her stomach squeezed. Just the two of them. His place. Did that mean? She shook her head. No, it did not indicate sex was on the cards.
Maybe.
But she was really in the mood for sex with Mitch Mathews. Even at a young age with their relative inexperience, he was a great lover—attentive, patient, passionate. She still recalled the way he used to kiss her as though every trace of pleasure and every ounce of passion he possessed was injected into those kisses.
For a long while, she couldn’t pinpoint what made Mitch so great in bed until one day she finally realised what it was. He worshipped her sexuality—never tried to nullify, deny, or condemn it, nor think his was more important. He always put her sexual needs on par with his, never below. And that made for mind-blowing experiences.
Experiences her lovers over the years could never quite replicate.
She recalled how Mitch had pulled away from their kiss last night, the confused expression that overcame his features. Sex was definitely not on the cards anytime soon, no matter how much she wanted it to be.
Patience. She would need lots and lots of patience. It had been fifteen years since she last slept with Mitch, a little more time shouldn’t be too difficult.
Except it was.
MATILDA: Sounds like fun!
MITCH: What are you up to today?
MATILDA: Catching up with an old school friend for coffee.
MITCH: Enjoy your day. I’ll see you Monday morning.
‘Oooh, that type of grin can only mean one thing.’
Matilda lifted her head to see Tiffany standing in front of her, her red hair blowing gently in the cool breeze.
‘You’ve been back in town five minutes and you’ve already reeled in a man. Half your luck.’
Matilda got to her feet, grinning. ‘Good morning. So good to see you.’ She cuddled Tiffany.
‘Good morning to you too. You haven’t been waiting long?’
Matilda shook her head. ‘Not at all.’
Tiffany plonked her handbag on the table and sat across from Matilda. ‘So, anyone I know?’
Matilda’s forehead crumpled. ‘Anyone you’d know?’
Tiffany laughed and pointed to Matilda’s mobile. ‘The guy you were just texting.’
‘Oh.’ She giggled. ‘It was my boss.’ She wasn’t quite ready to let it out of the bag that she and Mitch were dating again.
‘Now where did I hear you were working?’
‘At the Mathews Family Vineyard.’
Tiffany’s eyes widened. Her eyebrows were nearly lost in her hairline they shot up so high. ‘Really?’
Matilda nodded.
‘How very interesting. What’s that like?’
Matilda shrugged. ‘It’s great so far.’
‘Not weird at all considering your history with Mitch?’
‘Not really.’
Tiffany’s mouth twisted into a scowl. ‘What’s it like working for Sam?’
‘He’s great.’
‘The town’s biggest player, that one,’ Tiffany said with a scathing tone.
Matilda shifted in her seat. ‘I did hear that you and Sam had a bit of a fling a while back.’
Tiffany rolled her eyes as she flicked her hair behind her shoulder. ‘Nice to see the Alpine Ridge rumour mill is still as strong as ever. Who told you that? Let me guess, Little Miss Florist?’
Matilda cleared her throat, wishing they hadn’t ventured towards this topic now. Tiffany obviously held strong feelings about Sam. ‘Um … maybe, I can’t really remember.’
Tiffany waved her manicured hand in the air as if to say, ‘forget it, it’s not worth the energy’. ‘She’s one, so far, who’s managed to keep him for longer than a few months. Good luck to her. Sam’s got a daughter now, so I really dodged a bullet. The last thing I want is a ready-made family.’
Matilda’s stomach churned. She was finding it difficult to understand how she and Tiffany were ever friends. Was this how it was when she was in high school?
It explained why she wanted to run away from all the small-town judgement.
Tiffany’s eyes narrowed as her gaze flickered back to Matilda’s phone. ‘So when you said you were talking to your boss, you meant Mitch?’
With concerted nonchalance, she nodded.
Tiffany clapped her hands together and cackled. ‘Oh my god, you and Mitch are back together?’
Matilda drew a deep breath to calm her increasing exasperation. ‘I wouldn’t say we’re back together. We’ve had a couple of dates.’
‘Blerg!’ Tiffany groaned while pretending to shove her finger down her throat as if to make herself vomit. ‘Really, Mati? I thought you’d leave well alone from something that obviously didn’t work the first time.’
She opened her mouth to defend herself, to say that it had worked with Mitch. It had worked really well, but she was young and indecisive and wanted to get as far away from girls like Tiffany that she gave up on a fantastic relationship in order to do it.
But she wasn’t going to waste her breath, so, instead, she simply said, ‘It’s nothing serious. We’re seeing if there’s still a spark.’
‘Good luck with that. I couldn’t think of anything worse. Gah, and he’s so stuck on his wife that died. He’s unbearable to even talk to these days. And he has that little girl. He’s like a walking suitcase of baggage and drama.’
Matilda bit her tongue, tried to calm her racing heart. Her legs were tensing beneath the table as she contemplated leaving. She didn’t want to be a part of this nasty gossip, especially about a family she cared so much about, had a long history with, and that did so much good for Alpine Ridge.
But she also knew how suffocating it could be when you made enemies in small towns. It wasn’t worth making a rift so soon after returning home. So, instead, she gritted her teeth and changed the topic.
‘So what have you been up to since high school, Tiffany?’
Matilda barely got a word in after that as Tiffany recounted the history of nearly everyone they knew for the last fifteen years. Jeffrey married Grace. Markus and Linda divorced. Julie had a baby to Antony and then had an affair with Antony’s best friend.
By the time Matilda got back in her car to go home, she felt dirty, like her good sense had been violated.
Note to self: next t
ime Tiffany asks to catch up, come up with an excuse not to.
When she arrived home, she called Amy.
‘Matilda. Good to hear from you,’ Amy said when she answered.
Matilda grinned. ‘You too.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I had a breakfast date with Tiffany and now I feel like I either need to throw myself off a cliff or meet up with people that have a sense of decency.’
Amy laughed. ‘You were warned.’
‘I know. Big mistake. Lesson well and truly learned. So, I was thinking maybe we could grab Ellie and have lunch, followed by the movies, then maybe end the afternoon with cocktails.’
‘I couldn’t think of anything better. But you do know we’ll want all the details about you and Mitch, and we won’t give up until you’ve spilled everything?’
Matilda grinned. ‘After the morning I’ve had, that sounds like Heaven.’ In fact, she would like to talk with non-judgemental friends about Mitch. At the end of the day, that’s what girlfriends were for.
Monday morning, Matilda arrived at work with a splitting headache. Self-inflicted. Yesterday afternoon’s ‘few’ cocktails ended up being redefined as ‘heaps of cocktails deep into the night’.
She was paying for it now along with a big dose of guilt. Not since she was twenty-one had she come into work hung over.
Thankfully, the brothers were in a meeting when she arrived, so she was able to sneak into her office and down a couple of paracetamol before forcing herself to concentrate on the tasks she had to complete.
Mid-morning, Mitch strolled into her office, grinning. He had a coffee in one hand and a container of Berocca in the other. He handed both to her. ‘Good morning. I thought you might need this.’
She smiled meekly as she clawed for the coffee and the Berocca. ‘What Heaven have you fallen from to do this for me?’
Mitch laughed as he took the spare seat across from her at her desk.
‘You obviously were told about last night’s …’
‘Drink fest, gossip session, Mitch-tell-all as Amy eloquently put it to Tom when she crawled into bed at twelve o’clock last night.’
Again the meek smile made an appearance.
‘Sam seems to think that the three of you together can only lead to trouble.’ He was smiling and his voice was taunting. ‘He said Ellie was loud and chatty and laughing about all the stories you were telling each other … about the three of us.’
Matilda’s lips twisted into an apologetic grin, but she was also trying to stop herself giggling as some of the night’s anecdotes came back to her.
‘Really funny stuff, I see?’ Mitch said.
She shrugged. ‘What can I say? When three women with similar interests get together, it’s bound to be a great night.’
‘Sure sounds like it.’
Mitch stood, that taunting grin still on his face. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Have a good day. We’ll try not to be too loud.’
‘I’d really appreciate that.’
He chuckled as he strode out of her office.
She’d learnt two lessons this weekend: Don’t catch up with Tiffany again, and don’t go out with Amy and Ellie on a Sunday night when she had work the next day.
That afternoon, she stopped in to see Mitch before leaving for the night. She knocked on his office door.
He lifted his gaze from the paperwork he was trawling through. A smile curled his lips. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m good now. A little tired, though.’
His smile grew. ‘I’m sure Ellie and Amy aren’t much better.’
She lowered her eyes, feeling the heat grow in her cheeks. ‘I apologise. It was really unprofessional to turn up for work like that. I will not do it again.’ Yes, the dynamics were a little weird now that they were dating, but, at the end of the day, she did work for him and she needed to respect his position.
He shook his head. ‘We’ve all been there.’ Something flickered in his eyes then, a deep sadness, and she knew he was thinking about the past. Her stomach roiled with empathy.
Once the drinks had loosened their lips last night, Amy had admitted to Matilda about the horrible place Mitch was in after Rachel had died. She explained how he drank too much, didn’t come into work for nearly six months, and most shocking of all, almost gave Sophie to Rachel’s parents to raise.
It was hard to listen to and difficult to believe that Mitch could ever have been so broken.
‘Everything okay?’ she asked.
He forced a smile and nodded. ‘Yeah. Fine.’
She walked deeper into his office, around to his side of the desk. He gazed up at her, his eyes expectant. With a hand under his chin, she tilted his face up and leaned down until their lips met.
With both her hands holding his face, the texture of stubble beneath her palms, she kissed him deeply. She wanted to say that she could see every part of him, even those broken parts. She wanted to say that she thought he was strong and capable. She wanted to say that for all those reasons, she really really really liked him. But words didn’t seem enough.
‘Oh, please, is this what we’re doing now?’ Came a mocking deep voice from the open doorway.
Matilda smiled against Mitch’s lips before drawing her face back and standing upright. She turned to see Tom in the doorway and Sam close beside him. They were grinning.
‘I was saying goodnight,’ she said heading to the door and carving a path between them. ‘I’ll see you three tomorrow.’
She cast a quick glance back at them, then to Mitch. He was smiling and gone was that sadness she saw earlier. Present in his eyes was something intensely powerful: lust, so strong it was blazing like fire. A thrill of arousal pulsed deep inside in response.
Not a bad perk to finish her workday with a kiss and a look like that from the boss.
Chapter 18
The first thing I notice are her hazel eyes staring up at me in the darkness, then I feel the warmth of her body beneath me.
‘Matilda,’ I breathe against her neck then suck that flesh into my mouth, tasting salt on my tongue.
Her scent is all around me, not only her perfume but that warm intimate place between her thighs that I’m aching to fill.
‘Mitch,’ she whispers in my ear.
I push inside her, can’t wait any longer, and groan.
How can I remember the feel of her, the taste of her so well?
It’s as though she has been imprinted on my memory, perhaps even on my soul.
I missed this so much.
Pleasure swells, deepens. She rolls her hips to meet me, thrust for thrust.
God, she feels so good, I could explode already.
I need to slow it down or it will be over too soon. I lift up onto my elbow to take in her beautiful face, to look deep into those exquisite eyes.
She grins up at me with such unabashed hunger, she almost takes me under.
‘Matilda,’ I growl.
Her face changes.
It’s not Matilda looking up at me, but Rachel.
Her eyes are wide with shock, with hurt.
‘Who’s Matilda?’ she asks.
I keep thrusting. ‘No-one, sweetie.’ I feel the tears of guilt fall down my face, but I can’t tell her the truth, that I’ve found someone else.
I groan as I come, and rest my face in her neck, panting, hoping she won’t realise that it wasn’t her I had begun making love to.
But a smell of rotting meat fills my nostrils, curdles in my guts. I dry-retch as I lift my head only to find Rachel’s blackened, foetid body beneath me. Her eyes are white, lifeless, as they stare up at me.
I scream.
Mitch woke with a gasp. The scent of decay still lingered in his memory. Something warm and wet was all over his lap, stomach, the sheets.
He peeled the covers back, flicked on the bedside lamp.
‘Fucking come,’ he mumbled. He hadn’t had a wet dream since he was a teenager. Some state he must be in if this kind of shit was h
appening.
What a horrible dream.
As he climbed out of bed, a layer of goosebumps sprung up along his arms and the back of his neck.
He pulled his shorts off and found a clean pair in his drawers. Since Rachel had passed, he had all types of dreams about her. Some were completely insane.
His subconscious had made him see her decaying body over and over again. Sometimes, he would have to kill her in all different ways with many different objects.
Other dreams were pleasant, where they would see each other in the distance and smile or they would talk for a while. He’d usually wake crying from those.
But this dream. He shuddered.
With a wet face washer from the bathroom, he wiped at the residue left on his skin, rinsed the washer then sponged the sheets. He would change them in the morning when he wasn’t dead on his feet.
Crawling onto Rachel’s side to avoid the wet patch, he cuddled into his pillows and tried to go back to sleep.
A little before seven thirty that evening, a knock came at the front door.
‘I’m sorry, I’m early. Force of habit,’ Matilda said when Mitch greeted her.
She was stunning in a pair of tight leather pants and a long sleeve, off-one-shoulder knit jumper, paired with black, high wedges. Her hair was down and curled in big loose waves. But he nearly lost his mind over the red lipstick highlighting the very mouth he hadn’t stopped daydreaming about.
‘Do not apologise. You look unbelievably gorgeous,’ he said opening the door.
She smiled. ‘Thank you.’ Reaching up on her tiptoes, a hand to his face, she kissed him on the lips. Her floral powdery scent drifted around him. ‘You look fantastic yourself.’
Now he was the one grinning. Little intimacies like that worked at filling the gaping hole that had long occupied his body. ‘Thank you. Come on through. We can take a seat outside. I’ve the heater on because it’s a little cool tonight, but if it gets too cold, we can settle back in here.’
He ducked into the kitchen to collect a bottle of wine and two glasses, then led Matilda out to the back patio. A warm glow of heat from the two big lamps set a romantic mood.
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