“Nichole—”
“Matt, I’m sorry,” she said, cutting him off. “I thought if I made it happen, I’d finally be able to stop acting so crazy. That we wouldn’t have this…this…tension between us. I know it’s because of me.”
She peered up into his eyes and saw the change. His rage was gone, but the intensity remained.
“We’re friends, Nichole,” he said. “That’s it.”
“I know you don’t love me. I know it wouldn’t have been—”
“I do love you,” he countered, his gaze steady.
She shook her head. “You know what I mean. It would have been just sex. One night of fabulous—”
“Shut up.” Matt tightened his grip on her arms and stared into her face, his shuttered expression unreadable. Then he pushed in on her, his gaze fixed on her mouth as his chest inched closer. Responding to his proximity, she held her breath.
He unclamped his hands from her arms, planted them on the wall at either side of her head and closed the distance between them, pressing the full length of his body against her.
“Is this what you want?” he asked, his voice low, rasping over every nerve in her body.
Her heart slammed against her ribs and the surface of her skin heated with a tingling charge.
His mouth lingered near her ear, his warm breath teasing the tender skin beneath it. “Tell me, Nichole.”
“I want you,” she whispered. “So much.”
“Just tonight, and then it’s over? We’re friends.”
“Just tonight.” Oh, God, was this real?
His mouth crushed down over hers, forcing her lips open. His tongue thrust deep, retreated, and then thrust again. She groaned around him, throwing her arms around his neck, and molded her body to his.
Pleasure raced through her system, melting the icy fear that had settled into her core. His hands were on her, rough and commanding. They gripped her thighs and jerked her off the ground, demanding she lock her legs around his waist.
“How do you want it, Nichole?” he growled against the side of her neck, rubbing himself between her spread thighs. “Do you want me to fuck you? Hard and fast?”
He clamped one hand around her breast, squeezing it as he pushed it up. He bit her through the filmy fabric around her tight nipple until she cried out and arched her back, offering him more.
“Or do you want me to love you slowly?” He eased his grasp, cupping her breast and circling her nipple with the pad of his thumb. “I can make you wait all night…until you beg me to let you come.”
Moist heat flooded Nichole’s sex. She pulsed with the need to be filled. She was so close to coming right now, there was no way she’d make it all night. It wouldn’t take more than one thrust of Matt inside her body, and she’d be over the edge.
He braced her groin to groin, pressing her shoulders to the wall, and slid his hands down her ribs, circling the curves of her hips and hooking his fingers in the waistband of her panties. He pulled his head back against the confines of her arms and, for one paralyzing moment, she thought he might stop. But then his eyes met hers, and she couldn’t deny the hunger and heat reflected in them. He wanted her. Finally.
Something deep in Nichole’s chest broke free, and she struggled to rein in the fugitive emotion before it screamed its existence through her eyes. This was about sex, about relief and satisfying a rogue need that threatened everything she loved. This was about tonight, and tonight only. Matt wouldn’t have it any other way. She wouldn’t let him see anything else.
With his fingers wrapped in the band of her panties, he rocked his hips against her. “This has been a long time coming, Nichole,” He scraped his
teeth over her bare shoulder. “I’m going to make it worth the wait. So how do you want it? Hard?”
She gasped at the bite of elastic and silk as he snapped the band of her panties with a quick jerk of his wrist, making her clench and throb against him. Then, ever so lightly, he traced his fingertips down her abdomen and slowly tugged the torn fabric from between them, letting the friction of sodden silk heighten her arousal. “Or do you want it soft?”
Nichole couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She locked her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips, and all she could do was feel. The sensations ripping through her were like nothing she’d ever experienced.
“Yes,” she answered desperately.
Matt’s gruff laugh rumbled against her neck. He wrapped his hands around her hips, eased her away from the wall, and raised one eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Anything.” She met his hot stare with no reservations. “So long as it’s you.”