Page 13 of If We Were Young

“Okay. I’ve got to work though.”

“You’re so frickin dull.”

“Go back to sleep, Ange.”

She rolled over; her face shoved into one of Ma’s rose-pink velvet cushions.

Standing from the sofa, I pulled at a throw folded along the back of the cushions and draped it over her. She’d be asleep for hours, which was good because I needed to think about anything that wasn’t Matthew Carling and that expression of complete surprise as he’d looked at me from within that lift.

Ange was right. I needed to let it go.

Grafitti

He smelled of all things divine and I leant close to skim my nose across his throat, inhaling so deep my lungs almost screamed.

“Stop smelling me.”

“Stop smelling so good.”

“That’s like asking the sun not to come up.”

I snorted and pressed myself into him. He felt different, broader. His arms that circled around my back, as his thumbs pressed into the grooves at the base of my spine, seemed stronger, like they contained a strength I didn’t yet grasp. “Your ego is huge.”

“Not just my ego.” He pressed into me and a firm prod pushed against my thigh.

Okay, this was different. He’d never done this before.

“Oh.”

His gaze kept mine steady and I watched, transfixed, as he leant down and brushed a light kiss across my mouth.

He’d never done that before either.

My legs ached with heaviness and his arms tightened around my back.

“Ronnie,” he murmured, and I shivered down to my toes.

“What are we doing here?” My question brushed over his skin. “What’s happening?”

His kiss this time detonated like a bomb. His lips, sugar sweet, fit against mine, and his tongue stole into my mouth. Hot and slick, it made me groan so low and so wild it set me apart with a pack of wild wolves.

Kissing. I liked kissing.

I lifted my hand and ran it through his hair. The strands weren’t as long as I expected and soon my fingers clutched air, before weaving them back into the inky silk and knotting them tight.

Our bodies moved on a silent command and I pressed myself tight against his erection. My insides hollowed until I became a single match against a forest of dry trees.

“Matthew?” I breathed hard against his mouth, my lips still lingering, my breath still in his mouth. “What’s happening here?”

He shifted back, his gaze black and sharp. “I’m going to fuck you into oblivion.”

I opened my mouth to ask all my questions, millions of them, but his lips were back on mine, harder, faster, and his hands were on my clothes, pulling and tugging.

I melted until everything I contained lifted from my soul in a moan. His hand cupped my face, his thumb pulling down my bottom lip, so I sighed with every molecule of air.

My gaze swept over his face and hesitation ran through me. The smile had gone, the laughter and the fine lined crinkles it traced had evaporated. Matthew no longer looked like the boy I loved. The one I craved.

A man had taken his place.