Ariel spread eagerly, roving her hands across his biceps. “Touch me, Matt,” she whispered breathily, again arching against him.
He scraped his knuckle against her clit again, and she cried out, “Yes. More.”
“I asked you a question,” he said, hovering his lips against hers but keeping his hand still.
“What?” she said, passion-confused eyes fluttering open.
“You missed me touching you like this? You have been thinking about it, haven’t you?”
A breath passed, and he stroked her once more. “I’m waiting.”
She nodded.
“I didn’t hear you,” Matt said. He didn’t know why he needed to hear her say it; her passion was proof enough, but he wanted the words.
“Yes,” she said on a huffed-out breath. “So much I could barely sleep.”
The words, the tight, needy voice she’d said them with, had Matt’s already hard cock turning to stone.
He pulled against her clit and worked it between his thumb and forefinger and was rewarded with a high moan. Then he moved his fingers down her plump lips and spread them, and was rewarded further with a rush of hot moisture. Probing her opening, Matt trailed kisses along Ariel’s jaw and then sucked her earlobe into his mouth as he pushed two fingers inside her.
Ariel was warm and very much ready for him, but he wanted to make this moment last. As he circled her clit with his thumb, he pushed his fingers deep inside her, the wet walls spreading for him easily. He curved his fingers and moved, hard but slow, and soon Ariel gripped his wrist tight, an unspoken demand for more.
She groaned her disapproval when he removed his fingers. He turned them so that Ariel’s back was against the door, finished unbuckling his pants, and freed himself from the tight confines. The brush of cool air against his shaft was almost immediately replaced by the sensation of Ariel’s warm hands as she grasped him.
“Ariel…” he said, half plea, half warning, when she stroked him from root to tip and then used her thumb to capture the pearls of precum that seeped from him. If he let her continue, he’d lose it right here, so he pulled her hand away and, gripping her full hips, pulled her until his cock nestled between her slick lips, her distended clit hot against him. He rocked, once, twice, both of them crying out.
He moved again, and, as if guided, his cockhead breached her, barely, but enough he could feel the heat and wetness of her, could imagine the pleasure that being fully seated inside her would bring. She arched and clenched, and he was pulled a little deeper. One thrust and he’d be inside her, feeling her snug walls gripping him in the most intimate embrace. He squeezed her hips, prepared to fully bring them together.
Fuck!
He peered down, stared at the curve of her mound, his erection pressed between her lips, saw that he was bare. Moving away when he was so close to being fully joined with her that the slightest nudge would bring him inside, giving them what they both wanted, was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But, teeth gritted, he backed up and fumbled in his pockets until he found a condom.
The loss of her closeness and her warmth made him shiver, but he quickly sheathed himself and then pushed inside her, not stopping until he was completely buried.
He looked into Ariel’s eyes then, saw passion, desire and something else in those brown depths, and then he captured her mouth with his, breaching her mouth with his tongue in the same way that he breached her pussy with his cock. She grasped him, cried out as he moved inside her and retreated, each breathy moan, sigh, spasm of her tight walls around him making him want even more.
As he pushed and pulled, he strummed her clit, used a finger to circle her opening, feel the place where they were connected, and though he’d intended to tease her, he was also teasing himself, and soon, he was close to the edge. He’d take her with him, though, so he concentrated on her clit, stroking it in irregular patterns, soft, hard, fast, slow, until, when she was a panting writhing mass, he tugged it hard.
“Ah!” she cried, and then her body went taut and then lax, her walls clenching tight and then releasing with the strength of her climax.
Then he let himself go, and his orgasm stole through him like electricity. He wrapped his arms around Ariel, pulled her even closer, and rode out the pleasure, staying buried inside her as long as he could, Ariel’s kisses and touches only intensifying the pleasure.
He came down slowly, soul-deep satisfied, but not yet ready to end this.
“I think we should move this to the bedroom. How much time do you have?” Matt asked when he could finally speak.
“Don’t tempt me. I have two catalytic converters to change today.”
Matt nipped at her shoulder. “Have I told you how sexy it is when you talk cars?”
“No, but if I let you tell me, I’ll never make it to work.”
“Me either,” he said, knowing he had his work to attend to but still letting his lips trail down her arm, loving the way her hair stood on end where he caressed her.
“We’ll pick this conversation up later?” he asked, moving up to kiss her jaw.
“Count on it,” was Ariel’s breathy reply.
Chapter Ten
“So things are going well with Dr. Poole,” Mandy said about a week after school had started.
“Why do you say that?” Ariel asked innocently.
Mandy smiled lightly, and while she didn’t speak, Ariel knew she could see right through the facade.
“What, Mandy?”
“Ariel, I’m a master of ferreting out a faux-innocent act, so that’s not going to work on me.”
“Fine, but why do you think things are going well, or at all for that matter?”
“He came to school with Dani and was beaming like a proud papa.”
“So maybe he was just proud of Dani.”
“Maybe, and maybe it had just a little bit to do with you?”
“Maybe, but it’s no big deal.”
“It is. You guys looked really happy,” she said softly.
Ariel heaved out a sigh. They had been happy and that morning and the time after had marked a turning point for them. They hadn’t had the talk Matt had mentioned, but she’d felt better, her time with him more meaningful. But still…
“It’s going okay,” Ariel finally said.
Mandy, who’d been reclining in her spot on Ariel’s couch sat up straight. “Then why do you sound like someone just kicked your dog?”
“I don’t have a dog, and don’t let Dani even hear you mention one.”
“Ariel, talk to me. I have papers to grade, but I will sit here all night if I need to.”
Ariel lifted her mouth into a smile but knew it was a grim one at best with the way Mandy’s eyes darkened.
“Is this right, Mandy?” she asked.
Her friend’s brows bunched with confusion. “Is what right?”
“This. You know, dating, or whatever you want to call it.”
“It is if you’re ready and when we talked about it, you seemed to be.”
“I was. I am, but I guess I just never thought…I mean, Dani loves him, Mandy. Is over the moon about him.”
“That’s a good thing,” Mandy said.
“But she doesn’t really understand what it means, but she will soon enough and then what will she think?”
Mandy blinked and then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Matilda brainwashed you or something because you sound exactly like her. Come on, Ariel, you know better.”
“Do I? I mean, maybe she has a point. I have to set an example,” Ariel said.
She’d said and thought those words so many times in the weeks since she’d been seeing Matt, she was sick of them. That fact didn’t make them any less true though.
“And what, being a responsible adult woman who’s seeing an equally responsible adult man is not setting a good example?”
“But she doesn’t need to see me like that,” Ariel said. The words lacked conviction, but she voiced them, the little worry that had wormed itself into her brain unwilling to rest.
“And the alternative?”
“I could end it,” Ariel said, surprised by the shard of pain that speared her stomach when she voiced the thought.
“And that would be a better example? Instead of showing your daughter a strong woman who moved on after a loss and lives a full, happy life, you’ll just be stuck waiting until you think it’s okay and then realize that you’ve let way too much time pass you by? Things might not work out with Matt, but if they don’t, you’ll manage. And I trust you enough to know that you won’t do anything to harm your daughter. You should trust yourself, too.”
“And Daniel? His memory?” Ariel couldn’t help but say.
“Honor it by living the way he would have wanted you to,” Mandy said.
••••
“So tell me about yourself, Matt,” Ariel said a couple of days later.
Dani was with her grandparents, so she’d taken the opportunity to have dinner with Matt.
He glanced across the table at her and smiled, looking slightly confused.
“You pretty much know all there is to know, I think,” he replied.
“Nope. I disagree. I know what you do, where you’re from, but I don’t know
you
,” Ariel said.
“Where’s this going, Ariel?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter, eyes clouding.
She paused, wanting to kick herself for opening the topic, and so ham-fistedly no less. “Why aren’t you married?”
He waved nonchalantly, but Ariel could see his discomfort with this conversation. “Haven’t found the right person,” he said.
“Matt…”
“What?” he said shortly.
“Let me in,” she said softly.
He pulled his lips tight, and then he relented. “To be honest, I never considered it.”
“Why?”
“After my mom… My dad, he was broken. He completely fell apart, couldn’t take care of himself or me.”
“I understand. And I can’t even explain how hard it is to pick yourself back up after something like that.”
“You seemed to do it.”
“I got there, but that was luck more than anything. Some days, I didn’t think I would,” Ariel said.
“But you did. And he didn’t. Didn’t keep up the house, couldn’t hold down a job, he just fell into a pit so deep I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to get out.”
“You hate him for it?”
Matt shook his head and shrugged, his big, muscled body relaxed, almost nonchalant, but his face tight. “Not anymore. I still get pissed when I think about it, and I get so frustrated by him, I can’t even bring myself to talk to him sometimes. It was really bad last year, right around the time Blake came home. He’d been gone a couple years and eventually drifted back, I guess after he heard I’d bought the house.” Matt looked off for a moment before turning his gaze back to her. “Working on this place dredged up a lot of crap that I thought I was over, so much so I couldn’t stand to look at him for a while.”
He exhaled and shrugged again. “But I don’t hate him, and I forgave him a long time ago. It took some work, some serious work, but I’d be just like him if I dragged around the stuff I can never change.”
“So what about family?” Ariel asked.
A humorless laugh escaped him. “When I was a kid, I got it in my head that if I never loved someone, then they couldn’t die and leave me.”
Ariel felt herself frowning, but Matt didn’t seem to notice and continued, “And when I got older, I saw how tough marriage was, how many of the guys ended up divorced anyway, so I just put it aside.”
“And now?” she asked quietly.
He turned his eyes to her then, but they were unreadable. “Honestly, Ariel, I don’t know.”
Chapter Eleven
Ariel stared, first settling on the misshapen soap dish Dani had made in some art class, then moving to the toothbrush holder that held her purple one and Matt’s green one, a new development she couldn’t even remember happening. It was probably an accident, him needing a toothbrush, though he’d never actually slept over. A small point, especially with how much time he’d been spending at her house, which would probably be so much more soon.
Heaving out a sigh, Ariel turned her gaze down and centered it on the piece of plastic in her hand. She was struck by the incongruous urge to laugh. There was nothing funny about this situation, any of it, but the urge was there all the same, and she gave in to it.
She stared down at the plastic again, disbelieving. The plastic stared back at her, unchanging, practically daring her to deny the truth in front of her. There was no way for her to do so.
It was unavoidable, undeniable.
She was carrying Mathias Poole’s baby.
She slumped on the toilet seat, her shoulders heavy with the weight of that knowledge. She suddenly felt tired, really tired, but even more she was happy, felt a joy that was as undeniable as her condition. And for a moment, she let her mind fill with that, her and Matt and Dani and the new baby together, making a new family.
It was a pretty picture, them all happy together.
It was also a fantasy.
The picture died in her mind.