He was gone.
She forced herself to sit there another few moments. He hadn’t seen her, she told herself. Because if he had, he’d have come over. He wasn’t a coward like her. She inhaled a deep breath, found her backbone, packed up her things, and headed to the building. “Is Matt Bowers busy?” she asked the ranger at the front desk.
The guy laughed. “Always. But his office is the last on the right, go on back.”
She found him standing before his desk, hands on hips, jaw dark with stubble, looking down at a mountain of paperwork like he was facing a firing squad. He seemed impossibly imposing, and a little pissed off. His eyes tracked directly to her and though nothing in his tough-guy stance changed, his eyes warmed.
In response, everything within her warmed. She didn’t really understand that, how it could still be this way, how it felt stronger each and every time she saw him. He’d hurt her. She’d hurt him-though he didn’t even know it yet. And still, she wanted him. She wanted his hands on her, his mouth on her, him on her, making her forget everything in the way only he could. “Am I interrupting?” she asked.
“Not even a little bit.”
Given the stacks on his desk, this was an obvious lie. His gaze roamed over her. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Truth, Amy.”
Truth… The truth was that his shoulders were so wide they practically blocked out the light, plenty wide enough for her to set her head down and lose herself in him for a few. Only a few.
Not that she would. “I’m managing.”
“I drove by your place last night. Everything looked dark and quiet. You sleep okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I came by again about an hour ago to talk to Riley. She wasn’t there.”
“She had things to do.”
Their eyes met and held for a long beat.
“You’re not okay,” he finally said. “You’re flushed.”
“Sunburn. I forgot sunscreen.”
He didn’t say anything to that, and the silence just about did her in. “It’s not just sex,” she said. “Not to me.”
He still didn’t speak, but she knew by his absolute stillness that she had his undivided attention.
“I’m sorry I let you think it,” she said. “And okay, maybe some of it is about the sex, but that’s because it’s the best sex that I’ve ever had. But it’s not all about the sex.”
Matt might be laid-back and easygoing but he wasn’t slow. In three steps he closed the distance between them and pulled her in, right up against him. He felt so good she actually moaned, a sound he silenced with a kiss.
She had no idea how a man could be so terrifyingly gentle in the way he held her and yet at the same time plunder her mouth so roughly. But that’s exactly what he was, both gentle and rough.
It was exactly what she needed.
“Don’t let me hurt you,” he said, lips on her jaw, making their way to her ear.
Too late, far too late. To share the pain, she turned her head and nipped his lower lip. Sucking in a breath, he laughed softly. “Tough girl,” he murmured, and cupping her face, kissed her again. There was nothing controlled about him now as his tongue tangled with hers, his hands wandering madly from her face to her hips, ending up back in her hair to hold her head still. She pressed even closer, needing him in a way she couldn’t even fathom. She wanted him, wanted him to pull off her clothes, wanted to pull off his, now. She glanced at his overloaded desk.
Matt followed her gaze, his own darkening. “I like the way you think,” he said, and shoved all the stacks of paperwork to the floor. “Lock the door.”
Her nipples tightened into two ball bearings. “Will anyone hear us?” she whispered.
His smile was lethal and filled with nefarious, bad boy intent. “Us?”
She flushed, and he laughed softly. “You’re going to have to be quiet. Very quiet,” he said.
She quivered and went damp. “I can do quiet.”
“The door, Amy.”
She turned to do just that, but it opened before she could and Ty strode in. He had a bag from Eat Me in one hand and two long-necked soda bottles dangling from the other. He wore dark, reflective sunglasses and the navy blue coverall of a paramedic with FLIGHT CARE across his back in white letters.
He dipped his head and eyeballed them over the top of his glasses, taking in Matt’s hair standing up on end from Amy’s fingers and then her disheveled appearance as well. His lips quirked. “I take it you forgot I was bringing lunch,” he said. “Since it looks like you’re already in the middle of yours.”
“It’s not what you think,” Amy said.
“No?” Ty asked, amused. “What do I think?”
Amy opened her mouth, then sighed. It was exactly what he thought.
Matt came forward, grabbed the bag and both drinks from Ty, then pushed his friend backward over the threshold and shut the door in his face. “I’m going to pay for that in the gym in the morning,” Matt said, handing Amy the sodas and food. “So we should probably enjoy this.”
“What if he’s hungry?”
“He’s always hungry. And on second thought, so am I.” Matt took the stuff back out of her hands and set them on a chair, then hauled her up against him. “Where were we?”
Amy slid her fingers back into his hair. “You had your tongue down my throat. And your hands up my shirt.”
He nodded and slid his hands up her shirt again, fingertips resting just beneath her breasts, which were tingling from his touch.
“And you?” he asked, voice husky. His bedroom voice. “Where were you?”
She bit her lower lip. They both knew exactly where she’d been. Her fingers had been heading for his zipper.
He laughed softly at her, kissed her long and deep, then tore his mouth from hers. Grabbing her hand, he tugged her to the door. “Change of plans. I’ve got fifty-five minutes left on my lunch break.”
“That’s enough for lunch and dessert.”
He smiled. “Yeah, and we’re going to have dessert first. But not here. It’s not nearly private enough for what I want to do to you.”
Her knees wobbled as she followed him out, having no idea where they were going and not caring. She’d probably follow him anywhere.
And if that wasn’t unsettling, he walked them down the hallway past several coworkers, moving with unconscious confidence that spoke of a man on a mission. And he was on a mission-to do her. At the thought, she cracked up, and he looked back questioningly.
“Nothing,” she said.
As if he could read her naughty thoughts, he gave her a heated look. “We’re doing this.”
“Yes, please.”
He smiled. “I like the ‘please.’ More of that.”
And she laughed again. It wasn’t often that she wanted to laugh and jump someone’s bones in the space of a few seconds. But then again, it wasn’t often that she wanted to both run like hell from someone and hold on tight to him either.
Normally Matt could make the drive from work to home in eleven minutes, allowing for the occasional deer crossing or traffic if he got behind someone not used to the narrow, two-lane, curvy highway.
Today, with Amy next to him practically vibrating with sexual tension, he made it in seven. He pulled up to his cabin with a screech of tires, then turned to her with some half-baked, Neanderthal idea of dragging her into his house. But she beat him to it, crawling over the console to straddle him before covering his mouth with hers.
His first response was a resounding oh, hell yeah. This was what he’d needed. Amy in his arms like a tempting, forbidden treat, her dark eyes full of wanting.
And then there was her mouth. God, that mouth, it could give a full-grown man a wet dream. He staggered out of his truck, pulling her out with him, careful to protect her injury.
At his front porch, they stopped to kiss. “Matt,” she whispered, and God, how he loved the sound of his name on her lips. He pressed her against his door. Take, his body demanded. Instead, forcing himself to be gentle, he leaned in and nibbled at her throat.