Authors: K Carr
I arched one eyebrow at him, gaze dropping, then slowly traced my lower lip with the tip of my tongue. Matt inhaled sharply and let the towel fall to the floor. It was my turn to inhale sharply and the only word I could think of was exquisite. When I finally dragged my eyes back to his face, the smug smirk on his mouth confirmed I had been drooling—figuratively, of course. I wiped the corner of my mouth, just in case.
“Black girls—” I started.
“—don’t blush,” Matt finished as he got on the bed with the agility of a panther in search of its prey. “I know. Come here, let me make you not blush.”
I reached out for him, letting the covers slip. He inhaled deeply, closing the small distance between us in the blink of an eye. I gasped—part pleasure, part giggle—at the sensation of him kissing my shoulder. I was definitely enjoying the added texture on my skin. A picture was needed, I might never see him with stubble again. But, first, I needed to make good on my threat to break him…
“Give up?” I raised my head to look at Matt. He had a death grip on the headboard. His face was strained with tension, but I could see that spark of defiance in his eyes, even though the clear grey had darkened with desire. I let out an exaggerated sigh and lowered my head. With my free hand, I lightly traced the fingers over his flat stomach and I felt the muscles clench beneath my touch as he let out a breathless moan. My other hand was busy, as was my mouth. I could taste he was getting close, and I moaned around his hardness which caused him to jerk upwards. Slowly I dragged my lips over him, and sat back on my legs, holding on to him.
“I can keep doing this all night,” I warned with a little smile. “Concede defeat and you can go to sleep a happy man.”
“Never,” he said gruffly. My little smile became full blown. I was enjoying this battle of wills. “A Bradley”—The movement of my hand caused the hitch in his words. He took a shaky breath and grinned at me—“never admits defeat.”
“I’ve already broken you. Have the guts to accept it,” I drawled, stroking him slowly. I had been trying to get him to admit I’d broken him for the past hour. Bringing him close to orgasm, then pulling him back from the brink of complete pleasure. Matt was stubborn if not anything else. I didn’t think he would hold out this long, and we’d spent the three hours before that sexing like bunnies. Normally you wouldn’t expect someone to keep going after three hours of intense love making, but Matt was a sex machine. I swear, a few times in our relationship I had contemplated feigning sleep to get him to take a break.
“Why don’t you put your sweet mouth back where it belongs?” he cajoled, arching his hips upwards. I chuckled low in my throat.
“I broke you,” I said with confidence.
Matt caught his lower lip between his teeth and nodded once. Good. I lowered my head, tongue swirling over the tip of his hardness.
“God. Poppet, please don’t tease me anymore.” He sounded desperate and I wasn’t a cruel person. I stopped teasing him. There were only two sounds to be heard in the bedroom. The sound of me having a delightful time going down on my knight, and his hoarse cries of pleasure as his body gained release.
“I—you—uhnhrg.” He groaned incoherently as the spasms of his climax slowed down. Wiping my mouth, I went back to my sitting position and stared at him. I loved him like this. Spent and satisfied, with that almost dreamy expression on his features.
Matt rolled his head to the side, peering at me through thick lashes. “I should go away more often,” he murmured.
I shook my head in mock anger, and he crooked his index finger at me. Seconds later, I was nestled in the curve of his arm, cheek pressed against his heaving chest. We stayed silent, cocooned in each other’s arms and basking in the glow of mutual fulfilment. With the back of his hand he stroked along my jaw; once, twice, then sank his hand into my hair with an audible sound of contentment.
“Poppet.”
“Mhmm.” I pressed a kiss to his warm flesh and inhaled deeply. There was something about the way he smelt, his scent triggered something inside me, something that turned me into a besotted fool.
“What time are you due in the studio?” he asked, fingers massaging my scalp.
I buried my face in his chest. “I should be in for around seven-ish.”
“It’s gone four am. Why don’t you go in later? I’m not in the office today, and we could have a lazy morning.”
As enticing as that sounded I had work. “I can’t, Matt. Things are manic at the studio, and I’m already down a week because I have to go home for Thanksgiving.”
“We have to go for Thanksgiving,” Matt corrected. “Have you decided what day you want us to fly out? I need to let my pilot know.”
I flicked my tongue over his taut nipple and his hand tightened in my curls. I did it again, and Matt let out a low chuckle that had me glancing up at him.
“What?” he drawled.
“You’re sexy with a beard.”
Matt arched an eyebrow at me. “It’s stubble and what are you trying to imply? That I’m unsexy without one?”
I rested my chin on his chest and blinked a few times. “No, a different kind of sexy.”
Matt narrowed his eyes. “It’s going, poppet. Don’t try giving me those puppy dog eyes. Now, when do you want us to fly out?”
I thought about it for a moment. “This Saturday?”
Matt grimaced. “Nathan’s and Bella’s engagement party. They’ll never forgive me if we fail to attend.”
I grimaced, too. “Sunday, then. We leave on the 23rd and come back on the 29th. Do those dates work for you?”
He gave me a quick nod of his head. “I’ll sort it later today. Hannah and Stuart own a condo in Central Park West. They hate staying in hotels when they travel to the States with the twins. Do you want us to stay there or at a hotel—”
“I’ll be expected to stay at Aunt Cleo’s,” I advised with reticence, forget the fact his sister owned a place in the upscale Central Park West area. Matt’s eyebrows shot up, and I tried to smile at him. It was more a sickly sort of pout. I continued. “I don’t have my apartment back home anymore, and she’ll expect me to stay with them.”
Matt rubbed his temple while exhaling slowly. “I see. You have told your family I’ll be accompanying you?”
I avoided his wary gaze.
Matt’s eyes widened. “Madison. Have you not told them?”
I sat up, clutching the covers to my chest. “I was thinking of it being a surprise…” My voice trailed off weakly as Matt’s stubble-covered jaw tightened. He did not look happy. I sighed and twisted over to grab my cell from where I’d left it on the bedside table. “I’ll call Aunt Cleo. It’s around eleven thirty pm there. Someone should still be awake.”
“Good,” Matt said in exasperation. He shot me a disappointed look and slid off the bed. He picked up his discarded towel and wrapped it around his trim waist. “I’m going to get something to drink. Would you like anything, Madison?”
I shook my head, trying not to focus on the substitution of my Christian name for his usual “poppet”. Matt was mad, and he had reason to be. It had been weeks since the invitation to accompany me home had been extended to him in my quest to show the man I loved that I actually did love him. Weeks of me finding a reason to avoid notifying my aunt that I would be bringing company. Weeks of me visualizing the many ways things could go terribly wrong.
With trembling fingers I tapped the screen and made the call. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Answering machine. Deliberating over the wisdom of leaving the message took half a second. I might be a coward, but it was better to let her assimilate the fact via message I was bringing my decade older, white boyfriend home for Thanksgiving. Definitely better.
I hung up the call, put my phone on the bedside table and slumped against the pillows, head covered by my arms as I groaned in frustration. Matt found me in that position fifteen minutes later.
“I take it the news didn’t go over well,” he mused, shutting the bedroom door with his foot while balancing a tray of orange juice and croissants.
I was peeking at him from under my arms as he came over to the bed and placed the tray next to me.
“It’s fine,” I mumbled. “I left a message.”
“A message?” he asked, and a quick check confirmed the twin eyebrows of doom were lowered.
“I guess they must be sleeping,” I said, uncovering my face and smiling at him. “Are those croissants for me?”
Matt nodded.
“The orange juice, too?”
He nodded. “To replenish the energy you lavished upon me.”
I grinned and reached over for the orange juice. “What are you going to do with your day off, hon?”
Matt got back in bed, minding the tray with a cautious eye. He was a bit undecided when it came to eating in bed, but he let me do so without complaint.
“Work,” he said blandly.
I frowned, knowing he would be doing exactly that and not liking the thought. Matt took extremely good care of himself. The man had a physique that would make a Greek warrior weep with envy. He ate well and worked out.
But he worked hard, and it was a stressful job he had. Being co-president of his family’s empire was consuming. Constant and consuming. Maintaining their wealth and power was a mantle that had been passed to him and Adam from the hands of their father and, of course, Grumps.
He worked hard and it worried me immensely. Stressed out business tycoons had strokes all the time, even if he was only thirty-seven.
“No, you’re not.” I put the juice back down and scowled at him.
Matt arched an eyebrow at me. “I’m not?”
I shook my head vehemently, tangled curls whipping about my face. Matt reached out to finger my hair.
“You work too hard, Matt.”
“And you don’t?” he shot back with a teasing glint in his piercing eyes.
“It’s different,” I said quietly, and he snorted under his breath. I could already see it: Matt on some hospital bed, hooked up to machines. “I don’t want you to have a stroke,” I blurted out, then looked away immediately. A few charged seconds followed my outburst before Matt started chuckling. I twisted my head back to glare at him.
“It’s not funny.”
He laughed harder.
“Stop laughing at me. I’m worried about you and all you can do is laugh. You’re so immature.”
He fell back against the pillows, clutching his washboard stomach, and his deep laughter continued to fill the room, while I steadied the tray to avoid a mess. After another five minutes of him laughing his ass off and me fuming, he took a few deep breaths and rubbed his eyes.
“Oh, poppet. I do love you so,” he choked out. “I’m not going to have a stroke.”
I gave him a sceptical stare and his mouth quivered.
“I promise not to have a stroke for at least twenty years,” he assured me with a wink. “By then, you’ll probably be glad to get rid of me.”
I huffed at him, secretly pleased he thought we would be together in twenty years and, at the same time, worried he was working himself into an early grave. I couldn’t imagine my life without my crazy gazillionaire.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I warned, before picking up a croissant and nibbling the edge. Matt’s eyes zoned in on my lips, and I knew from the gleam in them he was thinking naughty things.
He rubbed his chin, then rubbed it a bit harder with an irritated expression on his features. My new, rugged Matt wouldn’t last the day. I was certain the moment I left for work he would shave it off.
“Are we okay?” he asked abruptly.
I stopped chewing and swallowed, unsure of what he was referring to. Matt saw the confusion on my face and gave me a twisted smile.
“We’ve not discussed last Tuesday,” he said.
The Skype tiff. I shrugged my shoulders, forcing a lightness to my voice that I didn’t feel. “We’re fine, Matt. Forget about it.”
Matt scrutinized my face for a full minute. It felt like the longest minute of my life. I resented when he did this. Resented it immensely because he always seemed to figure out exactly how I felt. I couldn’t win against this calculating stare of his. If I broke the shared gaze, he would know something was up. If I held his gaze, like I was doing now, he would still know something was up.
I couldn’t win.
“Don’t do that,” he said softly. “No secrets. Remember? Let’s clear the air over what happened.”
Damned mind reader. I sighed and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“Honestly?”
Matt nodded at my question.
I pulled my knees up and rested my arms over them. “I was annoyed, Matt. Really annoyed but, like I told you, if you don’t want me speaking to Dougie,” I narrowed my eyes at him, “who, by the way, is a nice person, I won’t do it.”
“I’m glad we’re now in agreement,” he said with a forgiving smile.
My blood started to boil. This was why I had pushed our heated argument to the back of my mind. Now he was looking at me like that. Like some great lord who had granted clemency to a misbehaving subject.
“Are you?” I asked casually. “You’re glad?”
Matt nodded slowly, eyes searching my face. He chewed his lower lip and sat up a bit straighter. Obviously he’d picked up on the simmering vibes I was giving off, and he was getting ready, going into battle mode. He was an ace at reading me.