by Noelle Adams
His lips moved hungrily. And then she could feel his tongue. She opened for him without hesitation, and a pressure began to throb between her legs as his tongue slid into her mouth.
She wanted him. So much. She always had.
And now—at last—he finally seemed to want her back.
She wasn’t sure what finally broke through the haze of need and emotion she was lost in, but something did. She remembered who she was. What she was doing. And who she was supposed to be doing it with.
She jerked away from Matthew’s mouth and arms. His big hot body. She stumbled back a step and stared up at him, panting.
He was panting too. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were still needy. Ravenous.
“I’m sorry,” she choked.
“I’m so sorry,” he said at the same time.
They might have said more. They might have apologized to each other endlessly. But a motion nearby distracted Skye enough for her to turn her head.
Fitz was at the door to the school, frozen halfway through walking out. “Whoops,” he said when she became aware of her presence. “Bad timing, I guess. Should I make myself scarce?”
“Nope,” she said quickly, flustered and embarrassed and still throbbing with involuntary pleasure. “It was good timing. I was just leaving.”
“Okay.” Fitz glanced over to Matthew, who was standing like a statue. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah,” he said in a choked voice. “Fine. I was...”
Before he could say anymore, the dog made a dart toward the door Fitz was holding open with his body. The cord slipped out of Matthew’s distracted hand, and the dog escaped into the high school full of dressed-up people and refreshments.
The three of them stared at each other in shock for a moment before they realized what had happened. The dog was free. In the school. With tables full of fancy food.
They all went racing after the dog.
The doors to the auditorium were propped open, and the scent of food had led the dog there with pinpoint accuracy. When Skye reached the big room with Matthew and Fitz, the dog was already running gleeful laps, darting in and out between the legs of astonished guests and grabbing every piece of food within reach of his mouth.
“Oh my God,” Matthew muttered. “This is a nightmare.”
“It’s a massacre,” Fitz drawled from behind Skye, laughter in his voice. “All those poor innocent meatballs.”
Skye couldn’t help it. She started to laugh.
Four
SKYE PROBABLY SHOULD have been distracted by the best kiss of her entire life. She should have been capable of nothing except pulsing with residual pleasure. She shouldn’t have had the emotional bandwidth to think anything was funny at the moment. But the sight of the stray dog—ears pressed low against his head and tongue lolling—zooming through the well-shod feet of her former classmates was the funniest thing she could remember.
She told herself it wasn’t amusing. Some of the attendants were genuinely scared. Some had an authentic fear of dogs and others were unsettled by having one out of control in a completely inappropriate environment. Plus someone had paid a lot of money to have these refreshments catered—snacks currently being enthusiastically wolfed down as the dog made round after round through the room—and Ria had spent hours designing the flower arrangements, one of which just toppled to the floor.
It was heartless to laugh, and Skye didn’t like to think of herself as a heartless person.
If only the scene weren’t quite so funny.
A few people with quicker reflexes were making an attempt to round up the canine intruder. Ken Harley, the sheriff and Madeline’s fiancé, had snapped into action, calling out brisk instructions to Ria, Madeline, and Jacob with a strategy to corner the dog. Matthew was already on the hunt, twice getting close enough to get his hands on the fur. Belinda was loudly lecturing anyone who would listen, telling them to calm down and get out of the way so they could round up the dog. It was just an accident, and they’d have the situation under control soon. Fitz had moved to the middle of the floor and was ostensibly directing traffic to help miscellaneous guests get out of the line of fire, but since he was nearly doubled over with hilarity, he wasn’t a particularly effective traffic cop.
Skye wanted to help, but she had no idea what to do. And she couldn’t seem to stop laughing, all the more when the dog jumped up to grab three meatballs off the plate of the snottiest girl in her class.
That gave Skye an idea.
She ran over to the refreshments table, which was being guarded by three or four former football players who clearly had their priorities in order. She pushed through two of them and filled a plate with meatballs. Then she moved to an open space in the middle of the room and leaned down to set the plate on the floor.
The dog spotted the easy bounty and ran over, Matthew on his heels. As the dog gobbled up his feast, Matthew was able to grab the dog by the collar and then haul him up into his arms.
The dog didn’t appear to mind. His mouth was full of the last meatballs on the plates.
“Sorry,” Matthew said to the room at large. He was slightly flushed. Hot and breathless. Both his hair and his clothes were rumpled. He was the sexiest thing Skye had ever seen. “Sorry. I’ve got him. I’ll take him out. It’s all clear now. Sorry about this.”
He carried the dog out of the gym. Without thinking, Skye went with him.
When she saw the bungee cord on the hallway floor, she picked it up so they could hook the dog again. They stood outside the main entrance to the school, panting breathlessly and staring at each other.
“He’s a complete disaster,” Matthew muttered, giving the dog’s head a caress that belied the words.
“He was hungry.” Skye smoothed her dress, sighing when she saw there was a streak of the sauce from the meatballs on it. “He’s probably never been around that much food before. Don’t be mad at him.”
Matthew didn’t look angry. He looked sheepish. Embarrassed. Almost helpless. “I’m not mad.”
“The poor dog doesn’t know any better,” Ken said, coming out of the main doors with Madeline, Ria, and Jacob. He was an attractive, laid-back man in his midthirties, and he’d always come across to Skye as efficient and in control. “He just needs some training. I can recommend some good classes, if you want.”
Matthew shook his head. “I can’t keep him. I’ve got to find a good rescue center or something for him.”
Skye didn’t know why she was disappointed by the reluctant decisiveness of the response, but she was.
There was no reason Matthew needed to keep a random stray dog. It wasn’t his responsibility. Just because the animal was leaning against his legs and gazing up at him adoringly didn’t mean Matthew was compelled to adopt him. As long as he ensured the dog would be taken care of, he would have done his duty as a decent human being.
Skye shouldn’t want or expect anything more than that. It wasn’t her business anyway.
“Aww,” Madeline said, giving her a brother’s arm a quick squeeze. “You should keep him. He loves you.”
Matthew gave her a narrow-eyed look. “I have no idea why. The dog should have better instincts. I’m not a loveable person.” His tone was ironic, self-deprecating. Like he was teasing.
But Skye suddenly wondered if he was.
She’d kissed him not very long ago. Standing almost where they were right now. It had been earth-shattering. Body-rocking. Heart-stopping. But she shouldn’t have done it.
Now it would always be between her and Matthew—an ill-advised kiss that went nowhere. She hated having things lingering like that, never mentioned, always lurking. She didn’t want it to happen with Matthew.
She wondered if she could be brave enough to bring it up with him, talk about it, dispel the tension, and get it out of the way for good.
She didn’t know why he’d kissed her. Maybe he’d realized he was attracted to her after all these years. It didn’t matter. Her feelings for him might have se
emed real, but they were obviously a childish infatuation based in nothing.
She would never again keep throwing herself toward a man who didn’t want her.
She needed a man who appreciated her for real. Like Jon.
Jon.
Jon.
Skye’s date tonight.
Where the hell had he been for the past half hour?
Skye looked back into the hallway, searching for any sign of him, and then she turned toward the parking lot.
There he was, walking back from his car, lowering his phone. He’d evidently been on the work call this entire time. He smiled as he approached Skye and slid an arm around her. “Hey, babe. Sorry it took so long. What’s been going on?”
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, Matthew got out of the shower, feeling tired and ridiculously discouraged as he dried off and pulled on a pair of old pajama pants.
The dog was stretched out across the bottom of the bed. He’d been snoozing, but his head popped up when Matthew reappeared.
“Don’t give me that innocent look,” Matthew told him. “You’ve been a very bad boy tonight.”
The dog’s whole demeanor drooped at the words.
“Oh shit. I didn’t mean it,” Matthew hurried on, stepping over to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “You’re a good boy at heart. You just don’t know how to behave, and it ended up as a mess of an evening.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, stroking the coarse fur as the dog scooted closer. He could still feel the surge of heat and ownership at kissing Skye. He could also feel the slice of outraged jealousy at Skye’s date putting his arm around her and calling her “babe.”
She wasn’t his. The kiss was obviously a fluke. She’d pulled out of it with another “nope.”
Nope.
That was clearly her final conclusion when it came to Matthew.
And he didn’t even understand why.
“I guess she’s outgrown me,” he murmured. “It was a silly crush, and she’s over it now. Doesn’t want me anymore.”
The dog cocked his head, like he was trying to understand.
Strangely comforted by a safe, receptive audience, Matthew went on. “I had my chance with her. I ignored her for years. No reason she needed to wait around for me forever. She’s moved on. Good for her. It’s not like I really want her. It’s just a temporary attraction.”
At this, the dog looked eminently unimpressed.
“Yeah. I don’t much believe me either.”
He might have said more. He might have poured out his heart to the dog in a way he’d never done with anyone. But the sound of the buzzer from the street entrance distracted him. He got up to answer it, his heart leaping when he discovered it was Skye.
He let her up and waited for her to get to the apartment door, his pulse throbbing through his entire body.
What the hell was she doing here? Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe she wasn’t over him after all.
Maybe he actually had one more chance with her.
He went to meet her at the door. She smiled as she saw him in the entrance, but she pulled to a sudden stop, her eyes lowering from his face.
Glancing down, Matthew realized what the problem was. “Sorry,” he said, stepping out of the way so she could enter. “Come on in. I’ll get a shirt.”
“Okay. Thanks. Sorry to just bust in like this.” She still wore the sexy little dress she’d worn to the reunion, a little worse for wear from the evening’s dramatics.
The dog raced over to greet Skye like an old friend as Matthew grabbed a T-shirt out of the bedroom and pulled it on as he returned to the main room.
She’d perched on the edge of a couch cushion, idly petting the dog’s head and neck.
Matthew sat beside her, being sure to leave appropriate space between them. “What’s up?”
She took a slightly ragged breath. “We kissed.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe people like him would never bring up awkward, intimate topics like this one. Maybe people like him kept all their deepest feelings and uncertainties buried deep where the world would never see.
But Skye wasn’t like him. Skye had always been braver. More honest. More real.
He gave a huff that was half surprise and half dry laughter. “Uh, yeah.”
“I thought we should talk about it.”
He shot a quick look at her. Saw her cheeks were pink and her thick eyelashes lowered delectably. The wave of pure want that overtook him in that moment was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
It shook him. It took a full minute before he was able to mutter, “Okay.”
She clearly misunderstood his reaction. Her brows pulled together in concern. “I’m sorry if I’m making it awkward. I know you’re not much of a talker or sharer. But we’ve known each other a long time, and we’re kind of intertwined by our families. I don’t want things to be weird and uncomfortable between us, so I thought it would be better to talk about what happened.”
“You’re right,” he said, her long ramble giving him time to pull himself together. “It’s a good idea.”
“Yeah. Good.” She kept darting him little glances, as if she were afraid to stare too much. “So we kissed.”
“True. I think we covered that much.” He wished he didn’t sound quite so distanced, but he was feeling way too much, and the only way to handle it was to keep it safely reined in.
“I know that. But, I mean, what are we supposed to do with it?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do with it?” Maybe she’d say she wanted to try it again. Maybe she’d say it was what she always wanted.
“I don’t have an answer to that. It really shouldn’t have happened. I’m not sure why it did. I mean, I was on a date with someone else.”
And that felt like a punch to the gut. “Right. Sorry. Pretty bad behavior on my part to kiss you when you were out with someone else.” He should have left it there. A respectable apology. But little trickles of the intense swell of emotion balled up inside him kept leaking out. “So you really like that guy?”
Skye groaned and collapsed back against the couch cushions. “I thought I did.”
Matthew’s spine stiffened. “So you don’t really like him?”
“I do like him. But if I really liked him the way I should have, I wouldn’t have gone and kissed someone else while he was on the phone for a few minutes.”
“I heard...” Matthew cleared his throat. “I heard he was your boyfriend.”
“You heard wrong. He’s not my boyfriend. I’ve just gone out with him a few times. And now I’m not sure... I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to treat him unfairly, and I feel like I did this evening.”
“Did you tell him?” The shock must have been clear in Matthew’s tone.
“No. That would have been mean. But I told him I wasn’t sure I was in the right place for going out with him again for a while. I don’t want him to hold out hope if I can’t even make it through a date focused on him.” She looked small and lush and gorgeous and vivid in her green dress and reddish hair and blue eyes. Full of light and color and vibrant life.
A vibrancy that Matthew desperately wanted.
“I hate that about myself,” she murmured, sounding exhausted.
“Hate what?” Matthew was having to hold himself back from touching her.
“Hate that I can never really want the things that are good for me and keep chasing the things that aren’t.”
He understood something then—something that made sense of the way he’d felt like he’d been losing her for the past month. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you? I’m one of the things that aren’t good for you?” It hurt more than he’d expected to shape the words.
Her eyes opened and shifted to search his face. “Not because you aren’t good,” she said hurriedly. “Not like that. Just that I spent half my life on a ridiculous, embarrassing crush on you, and it’s not good for someone to want something they can’t have, to feel like they’r
e not... good enough for someone to want them back.”
He’d never known anyone to share something with him so deep, naked, authentic. It left him breathless. But when the words penetrated through the throb of feeling, they hurt him as much as they shook him. He reached out to cup her face. “Skye, please tell me that you don’t feel like you’re not good enough for someone to want.”
She smiled, the full curve of her lips turning her expression into something that shone. “It’s not like that. It’s not that I don’t think anyone could want me. But it does something to your heart—to want someone for so long who doesn’t want you back. It’s not good for... for your soul. I feel like we—humans—were somehow made to be loved. And when we’re not, it breaks us a little.” A tear slipped out of her eyes without warning. She brushed it away like it didn’t bother her.
Matthew’s throat ached. His chest ached. His eyes ached. “Y-yeah. I’m so sorry, Skye, if I made you feel that way.”
“You didn’t. It wasn’t you. You had absolutely no obligation to care about me at all. The thing is, I’ve always had tons of people who love me. But when you’re focused so long on the one person who doesn’t, it affects you. That’s what I’ve been thinking about a lot for a while. That’s what I’m trying to do better about. So it felt like I fell back into my old habits this evening when I kissed you. I didn’t mean to do it.”
Matthew licked his lips slowly, turning his eyes to the floor because the sight of her sprawled on the couch beside him was so irresistible. “I didn’t mean to do it either.”
“Okay. Then I guess we’re both on the same page.” She sounded relieved.
He wasn’t. He wasn’t on anything close to the same page as her. She wanted to put the kiss behind them and never think of it again, and there was no way in the world he’d ever be able to do that.
He wanted to relive it. Over and over again for the rest of his life.
“Thanks for talking to me about it,” Skye said, straightening up like she was thinking about leaving. “I feel better now. I didn’t want this big awkward thing to be lingering between us forever.”