James’s finger remains outstretched before something in him deflates.He slowly lowers his hand.A smirk, forced and ugly, twists his lips.He gives his blazer another ostentatious adjustment, a peacock preening after a near miss.Then, without another word, he turns on his heel and strides back to his stunned entourage.
Matthew doesn’t move for a beat.His back is rigid.When he finally turns to face me, the icy control he showed James has vanished.It is replaced by a turbulent storm.In his eyes, I see a possessiveness tangled with an aching vulnerability that seizes the air from my lungs.
His chest rises and falls in harsh, heavy waves.
“Let’s go.”The command is a low growl, wrapped in a fierce urgency.
Before I can respond, his hand captures mine, fingers lacing through my own with a desperate strength that sends a raw current straight up my arm.He’s moving before I am, pulling me with him.
“Matt, where—?”My words are lost as he pulls me deeper into the club, away from the exit, toward the back hallway.
I know this stretch of wall.
How could I forget?
The exact spot where I watched my world burn down on the screen of my phone.
He stops just short of it, spinning me around.His free hand slams against the wall beside my head, caging me in.His eyes burn into mine, wild and searching.For a heart-stopping moment, he just stares, his breath coming in ragged bursts that ghost across my face.My pulse hammers against my ribs, every nerve ending screaming with anticipation.
“Fuck it,” he mutters.
And then his mouth crashes down on mine.
Fierce.
Starved.
A release of every ounce of pent-up need he possesses.His hand clamps around my waist, yanking me against the hard length of his body.
There’s no hesitation.No performance.
This is pure, unvarnished Matthew.
Under the dizzying onslaught of his taste, his scent, and the sheer force of his need, something inside me that has been coiled tight for weeks finally snaps.My own carefully constructed walls, already battered, just…
Give.
My hands, braced against his chest, fist the fabric of his T-shirt before sliding up to wind around his neck, pulling him impossibly closer.The fight drains out of me, replaced by a matching, desperate hunger.My fingers tangle in the soft hair at his nape, urging him on.With the hard wall at my back, the unyielding heat of Matthew’s body against my front…
His name is a silent scream in my mind.A litany of confusion, desperation, and an exhilarating, all-consuming want.
The kiss deepens, then devours.
A pure whirlwind.
The scrape of his stubble against my skin.The taste of him mingling with the vodka’s lingering fire.The possessive slide of his tongue claiming mine.
All thought evaporates, replaced by unadulterated sensation.
The club’s thumping bass recedes to a distant pulse, a counterpoint to my heart hammering against his.
His hand at my waist slides lower, fingers splaying possessively over the curve of my hip, pulling me tighter still.A low groan rumbles from his chest, and I answer with a broken sound of my own, lost in the onslaught.My other hand traces the strong column of his neck, slipping under the collar of his leather jacket to the hard muscle beneath.
Matthew tears his mouth from mine with a rough grown, burying his face in the curve of my neck as he fights for air.My eyes flutter open, dazed, trying to orient myself in the sudden stillness.
And that’s when I see him.
Standing a few steps away at the mouth of the hallway, half-obscured by the flickering lights.
