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She handed Matt a dish towel to dry his hands. “Why are you being so nice?” she inquired.
Taking the towel, he dried his hands, then left the towel on the counter. “Why do you always have to question everything? Just accept what’s happening.”
Natalie folded the towel and put it back in its place. “I did that once and had my heart ripped out of my chest. I’m a little more cautious these days.”
His eyes were drawn to her hands. “You’re not married.” It was a rhetorical statement. He already knew that.
Her first instinct was to hide her hands behind her back, but she didn’t. Instead, she took out a handful of napkins from a supply she kept in the pantry.
“No.”
“Were you?” he pressed, watching her move about the kitchen. “Ever?”
She shot him an impatient look. “Did you bring dinner or a questionnaire?” And then she sighed as she took out two tall glasses from the cupboard. “No,” she answered stiffly. “I’ve never been married. I decided that the male species was just too unstable to build a relationship with or to trust.”
He had the good grace to wince. “Ouch.”
Moving Matt aside, she opened the bag he had brought and saw that there were two large covered containers inside it instead of just one. Natalie raised her eyes to his face.
“There’re two portions here.”
His expression was the soul of innocence. “I didn’t eat, either.”
Removing first one container, then the other, she placed them both on the table.
“And they’re still warm.”
He nodded interceptively. “They do some pretty magical things in that Rainbow kitchen.”
“The waitress was bringing these out eight hours ago—when I left,” she reminded him. Natalie opened the containers one at a time, and a small cloud of steam emerged from each.
He spread his hands wide, adding a little shrug at the end. “Like I said, magical.”
Yeah, right. “You ordered fresh portions, didn’t you?”
Why was he going through all this trouble for someone he’d walked out on? Someone he made no effort to contact in the last eight years? Why was he messing with her like this?
Matt held his hands up in front of her, his wrists touching as if he expected to be led off in handcuffs. “I always loved that steel-trap mind of yours. Take me away, Officer Rothchild.”
She had a very real urge to double up her fist and punch him in the arm.
“That’s Detective Rothchild,” she corrected, then shook her head and blew out a loud sigh, hoping that it would sufficiently distract him from seeing the involuntary smile on her lips. But Natalie could see by his grin that he hadn’t missed it. “Idiot,” she pronounced.
There was no arguing with that. “In more ways than one,” he assured her.
This time, her sigh was weary. “Why are you talking in riddles?”
The serious lapse was gone. “I thought women liked men of mystery.”
Oh no, he wasn’t going to suck her into an exchange of banter. She wanted some kind of answers.
“We were way past the ‘liking’ stage once, Schaffer.” Taking out two forks and steak knives, she deposited them on the table, then took down two dinner plates to join them. “You were the one who left, not me.”
He watched her move around, taking in every fluid motion. A deep-seated longing took root. “We can still be friends.”
“No,” she replied emphatically, “we can’t. I’m not one of those broad-minded women who thinks that turning her exes into ‘pals’ is the adult thing to do.”
He looked confused. “Then why did you ask me to help you?”
Natalie deposited the contents of one container onto a plate, then followed suit with the other. She flung the empty containers into the lined garbage pail beneath her sink before answering.
“Because, whether I liked it or not, I needed your help. You got me the tapes—thank you,” she tagged on as an afterthought, the two words all but burning her tongue as she uttered them.
He knew that cost her, and he couldn’t help being amused. “You’re welcome.”
“And having you there got me an ‘audience’ with your boss.” She needed to rule her father’s chief rival out. “I can bluff my way through this, but the fact of the matter is, I’m a pariah as far as investigating my sister’s murder goes.”
“You are too close,” he pointed out.
So much for his taking her side in this, she thought bitterly.
“No one else is close enough,” she countered. “It’s a high-profile case, but let’s face it, we’re not exactly without dead bodies in this town. This isn’t Parker and Davidson’s only homicide.”
“And it is yours?” Matt questioned. He was well aware of the fact that the LVPD’s homicide division was understaffed.
There were open cases on her desk but none that mattered to her as much as this one. Besides, she couldn’t work on them off the job.
“I’m on bereavement leave,” she reminded him, “so, yes, right now it is.” Moving from the table, she crossed to the refrigerator to get a diet cola for herself. “You want a soda? Or something a little stronger?” she added, recalling that he didn’t much care for diet drinks and that was all she stocked in the way of soda.
He opted for the latter. “A little stronger.”
She waited for him to follow up his choice with something more specific. “What?”
You.
Matt wondered how she’d respond if he’d said that out loud. Probably tell him to go to hell. But he was there already, because seeing Natalie and not having her was much harder on him than he’d ever thought it would be. “Vodka, if you have it. Or beer,” he amended. From where he sat, he could see into the refrigerator. There were a couple of bottles in the door. “Anything, really. I’m easy.”
She turned around, holding two bottles of beer in her hands.
“No,” she replied. “You’re not.” Taking a bottle opener out of the drawer, she flipped the cap off one bottle and then the other. Natalie handed him the first one and rather 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 you leave is still there, still a reality that you’re dealing with.”
He thought of the phone call from his brother, the frantic one that demanded he “do something. Make it right.” Those were always Scott’s words when he asked—demanded really—that he come to his rescue. Pointing out that if Scott had behaved, if he’d kept his pants on to begin with, there’d be no need for his brother to put him on the spot and “make it right.”
He’d resigned himself to the fact that Scott would always be Scott. A leopard whose spots didn’t change with time.
But, like it or not, Scott was family. His family and he couldn’t just stand by and let something happen to Scott, no matter how tempted he was to hit his older brother upside the head in hopes of knocking some kind of sense into him.
Not likely, Matt thought.
Scott’s world revolved around Scott and no one else—until he feared retaliation because of some stupid transgression on his part. Like the time his brother bedded Candace.
“Yes,” he told her quietly, “nothing changed.”
She really was an idiot, wasn’t she? And now Matt knew it as well as she did. Doing her damndest to keep her tears in check, Natalie began to rise.
She was surprised when he wouldn’t let her. Matt tightened his hold on her, making her stay put. She raised her arm to push him away when he stopped her cold with his words.
