than sit down, she remained standing over him. “What are you doing here, Matt?”
He avoided her eyes. He’d gotten good at lying, but he never could to her. Which was why he’d left a note in his wake rather than stay to talk to her.
“I told you, I wanted to bring you dinner.”
Liar. “Is that the only reason you’re here?” she pressed. “To make sure I eat?”
This time he did raise his eyes to hers. “That, and because I still like looking at you, Natalie. You are still one of the most beautiful creatures God ever created.”
Wow…he sure did know how to press her buttons. How to torture her.
“I can’t do this,” she told him suddenly. “I can’t do this.”
He didn’t follow her. “Do what?”
“I can’t sit here opposite you and pretend I don’t feel anything, that I don’t still—”
She didn’t get to finish.
Pushing his chair back, Matt was on his feet, sinking his hands into her hair, tilting her face up to his. Immobilizing her lips by feverishly pressing his own against them.
The explosion that occurred within her came just as suddenly. The bottle slipped from her fingers, hitting the floor. It didn’t break, but sent up an amber wave that managed to christen both her bare legs and the legs of his slacks.
The splash barely registered on the perimeter of her mind. She was otherwise occupied.
The heat that flared between them swiftly mushroomed in depth and intensity.
Eight years.
Eight years she’d gone without making love. Without feeling like a woman. Everything within her rallied forward to rekindle that old, familiar feeling of sheer ecstasy.
Logically, Natalie knew she should be pushing him away. Knew she should be calling him names and accusing him of all sorts of things, of using her vulnerability to satisfy some inner selfish need of his to see that she still wanted him. Right now, he had all the proof he could want—and didn’t that go a long way toward feeding his ego?
But even so, she couldn’t make herself stop, couldn’t pull back. Couldn’t even get her hands to stop their frantic movements as she yanked away at his clothing, stripping him of his shirt, his slacks, his underwear, anything and everything that could get in the way of what she so desperately needed.
And she was thrilled to feel his hands on her, doing the exact same thing. Making her clothes vanish and her body sizzle.
Within seconds, Matt had her on the kitchen floor, his hands and mouth making love to every inch of her with the enthusiasm and zeal of a dying man in the desert who had stumbled onto an oasis filled with water and fig trees.
His mouth was everywhere, setting her skin on fire.
Natalie moaned and twisted beneath his lips, eagerly scrambling toward the light, toward that supreme burst of incredible sensation that she hadn’t experienced for so long.
For forever.
It was weak of her and she knew it, but she didn’t care. All she wanted in this moment in time was to stop feeling like a member of the living dead. And only Matt could do that for her. Could make her feel, however briefly, alive again. He was the only man she had ever wanted. The only man she had ever loved.
How had he managed? Noble intentions or not, how had he been able to stay away from her for so long when she was life itself to him? Not to mention that kissing Natalie’s lips was the single biggest turn-on he’d ever experienced.
The more he kissed her, the more he wanted her.
He’d known it would come to this. The second he had agreed to return to Vegas to oversee the overhauling of the security system at The Janus, he’d known that somehow, some way, he would end up here, making passionate love with Natalie.
And feeling whole again.
He hadn’t fully realized the extent of just how diminished he’d felt all these years without her until just now.
He didn’t want this to ever end.
He didn’t want to live another day without having her in it. Nothing had changed, but he so fervently wanted it to.
Unable to hold back, pivoting on his elbows, Matt slid into her. He caught his breath, feeling her quicken around him as he entered.
Matt groaned, struggling to hold back for just a few more moments. He was determined to bring Natalie up with him, determined to have her share the moment. Because it had never been about self-satisfaction, not even the first time. It had always been about her, about them, about the magic they created together.
Feeling Natalie begin to frantically move beneath him, Matt locked into a rhythm, going faster and faster as the ever evolving sensation urged him on to race to the top of the mountain, then seized him in its grip.
He heard Natalie cry out his name, felt her arching beneath him to absorb every nuance of the climax he’d brought to her.
His heart surged.
With every fiber in his being, Matt struggled to prolong the feeling, to postpone, as long as humanly possible, the dizzying descent back to earth. And to reality.
But even as the euphoria began to softly loosen its hold on him and slip away, Matt held her tightly to him. Just glorying in the feel of her beside him.
“You tip every delivery boy this way?” he murmured the question against her temple, his lips brushing against her hair. “Because if you do, you might be onto something.”
Her heart still hammering the last stanza of the “Anvil Chorus,” Natalie turned her body into his. His playful mood was infectious. “I was a born-again virgin until just now.”
One eyebrow arched as he looked at her quizzically. “Born-again virgin?”
That was the way she’d come to think of herself. “I haven’t been with anyone in eight years. So I figured that pretty much qualifies me as a beginner if not born-again virgin altogether. So I figured…” She let her voice trail off as she shrugged.
The sound of Matt’s laughter echoed around the room and brought a burst of sunshine into her soul. The way it always had in the past. There was something about the sound that lifted her spirits and coaxed a smile from her lips. Even on those occasions when she didn’t think there was anything to smile about.
Matt laced his hands together around her shoulders, holding her close to him. Content to remain like that all night long. He didn’t have to be anywhere until nine the next morning, and there was nowhere else he wanted to be than here.
“So where does this put us, other than the floor?”
She drew in a breath. This was where she could reclaim her dignity. But the only thing she resorted to was the truth.
“Nowhere,” she answered. “I’m assuming that whatever made
