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Feeling as if she could just be…
CHAPTER THREE (#ud80f8b98-2ec8-53f7-8612-86c8be602872)
TORI WOKE UP with a massive erection pushing into her lower back and she sighed with pleasure. Keeping her eyes closed, she stretched and wiggled her butt into that thick, hard long length of him. The hand on her breast tightened in response and a masculine thumb flicked over her nipple, pulling it into a hard peak, the cotton fabric adding to the pleasure.
Cotton fabric, T-shirt…Matt’s T-shirt. Dear God, she was in bed with Matt, the sexy stranger from last night who’d held her, for the longest time, while she’d cried.
She’d cried? God, no.
She could cope with people thinking she was a diva, a bitch, a crazoid, but fragile? No bloody way! Dammit, she seldom cried and she never, ever, ever cried in front of anyone, she thought as her body tightened with tension. She’d never felt safe enough, especially not as a child, and that habit had carried over into her adult life. No, it was a lot easier, safer to put a smile on her face and fire off a joke…
She couldn’t believe that she had blubbed all over Matt, all over a stranger! She’d had a couple of one-night stands over the years but the walk of shame was nothing to how mortified she felt right now; this was like doing the walk of shame naked, across broken glass and hot coals.
He must think she was weak and helpless and…wimpy.
She was Tori Phillips and she didn’t do wimpy…and there was no way that she could let this man, this gorgeous, sexy über-masculine man think that she was delicate, helpless…vulnerable. She wasn’t any of those things…and, if she was, she didn’t want him realising that she was.
She’d prefer to poke her eye out with a hot stick.
‘Bad idea, Cross,’ she thought she heard him mutter as his hand left her breast. Tori felt him kiss the top of her head; it was a placating, gentle, there-there kiss and it raised every hackle she had. She didn’t need his pity or his sympathy…and she’d make damn sure that when he thought of her he wouldn’t think of the snivelling, pathetic creature that had fallen asleep in his arms.
And there was only one way she knew of that would burn that image out of his head…
Sitting up, she whipped the T-shirt over her head and swung her leg over his hips and straddled him, her feminine core pressed into his erection. Tori cursed the fabric of his sweatpants and wished she’d yanked them down before positioning herself. Now she’d have to get off him, pull his pants down…
Matt’s huge hands on her hips kept her from wiggling and he looked up into that part-angel, part-devil face and sighed. Her eyes radiated determination but he could still see mortification lingering there. Yep, there was too much of her brain involved in this decision. She wanted him, it seemed that they were instantaneously, fiercely attracted to each other, but there was something else in her eyes, in her expression that hinted at an emotion other than ‘let me lick you from top to toe’.
‘What are you doing, Tori?’
Tori lifted her perfectly arched eyebrow and sent him a naughty smile as her hands skimmed over his stomach. Pity her eyes didn’t echo it. She wiggled against him and he couldn’t help pushing up into her. Damn, she felt hot and wet and so amazingly wonderful.
‘You seem bright enough, you figure it out.’ Tori leaned forward and nibbled his bottom lip with her teeth. His tongue shot out to taste her mouth and he pulled it back at the last minute. If he kissed her, if he moved his hands off her hips, he wouldn’t be able to stop rolling her over and plunging inside her.
She was perfect: long neck, slim shoulders, perky breasts that filled his hands and topped with blush pink, ultra-responsive nipples. A flat, flat stomach and a meticulously groomed strip of light brown hair that hinted at her natural colour. And the heat and moisture between her legs suggested warm, wet honey…
‘This isn’t a good idea.’ he muttered against her lips. It so is, Mr Long and Strong protested. ‘Not. A. Good. Idea.’
‘You saying no?’ Tori teased, her pointed tongue licking the dent in his cheek that his mum used to call a dimple but he called a pain-in-his-shaving-ass.
Was he saying no? Well, he was trying to…He had no moral objection to making love to a gorgeous woman but he wasn’t sure of her motives, of why she was doing this. If it was only about pure sex he’d be all over her like a rash but he could still feel the tension in her, could see the flickers of emotion in her eyes that told him that there was a whole bunch of this puzzle he was missing.
He knew what pure lust looked like and there was nothing like it in her eyes. Mortification, determination, a little crazy maybe…pure lust, not so much.
Matt didn’t like puzzles and he didn’t like uncertainty and false motives.
‘I’m saying no.’ They were the hardest words he’d ever said but he forced them between his teeth, made his lips spit them out. Tori sat up slowly, her face utterly confused.
‘What?’
Matt gripped her hips, bunched his muscles and with a grunt lifted her off him and onto the mattress next to him. He rolled his legs out of the bed, stood up and walked towards the door and scooped up her dressing gown, which he threw in her direction.
His mobile chirruped that he had a message and he glanced at the screen. A client, of course. He ignored the message, thinking that he should deal with one problem at a time.
‘You’re saying no?’ Tori demanded.
Matt winced.
It wasn’t even seven o’clock and he needed an aspirin. Actually he needed sex but since he’d just shot that in the foot, he’d settle for aspirin. His mobile chirped that he had another message.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Tori demanded, finally pulling on her dressing gown and covering up that take-me-now body. Long and Strong sighed and began to settle down. Thank God for small, or, in his case, not so small mercies.
Matt kept his voice calm. ‘Look, I just don’t think it’s a good idea…It’s never a good idea to nail someone else just after you were dumped.’
‘I wasn’t dumped!’ Tori’s face scrunched up in fury as she scrambled out of his bed. ‘I left him!’
‘Whatever. And you’re in someone else’s bed not twelve hours later. You’re vulnerable and sad and it’s a recipe for a disaster.’
‘It was a recipe for a mutual orgasm!’ Tori howled. ‘What are you, the male equivalent of a prick tease?’
Whoah, that wasn’t fair. His eyes narrowed in warning. ‘I never led you on—you were the one crawling all over me. Look, Tori, we’re going to be living in the same flat for the foreseeable future…and all we’re going to do is complicate the situation. Alex will rip my head off if I sleep with you when you are feeling vulnerable and hurt and I’m just a rebound screw for you.’
‘I am not vulnerable. I am fine,’ Tori said through gritted teeth.
He didn’t believe her and wanted to call her on it, but thought he’d just inflame the situation more. Instead he just motioned to the door. ‘Why don’t you get going before the rest of the flat gets wind of this…if they haven’t already?’
‘I don’t care if—’
‘You should,’ Matt interrupted. ‘You should care what the people who love you think.’
Tori tightened the sash of her dressing gown and pushed her messy hair away from her face. Her chin lifted as she gave him a look that was meant to eviscerate all his internal organs. ‘You’ll regret this.’
Matt scrubbed his face with his hands and then placed them on his hips. He watched as Tori stalked over to the bedroom door, yanked it open and slammed it so hard that the entire building shook. Well, if their flatmates weren’t awake yet they would be now…
Matt crossed over to the window, yanked the sash window up, placed his hands on the sill and breathed in the chilly morning air. It was a good substitute for a cold shower and he felt himself shrink to everyday proportions. He’d done the right thing, he assured himself. He didn’t need any complications in his life—and Tori had complications graffitied all over her in DayGlo spray paint—and sleeping with his brand-new flatmate would cause complications he didn’t need.
He especially didn’t need the protective Alex beating the snot out of him for taking advantage of her.
Okay, so…interesting start to his month in London.
She wasn’t his type? Seriously?
His words reverberated around her brain as Tori sat at the kitchen table later that morning, scowling into the mug of coffee cradled in her hands. How could he say that when she had the proof that she was exactly his type pressed hot and flush and throbbing against her, begging to slide on in?
Not her type? She was old enough to know that men thought that any naked woman floated their boat.
As God was her witness he was so going to regret those words. It was the second time she’d been verbally, emotionally slapped by a man in two days and she was sick of it. She was Tori Phillips, the life and soul of any party, champion flirt; she made people laugh and people liked her, dammit. Men loved her…
And he would too. Tori narrowed her bright blue eyes, deep in thought. Her pride demanded that she take some sort of action to bring him down a peg or two—or sixty thousand—and she was just the girl to show him the error of his ways. She tapped her French-manicured nail against her coffee mug; she could unleash the full power of her charm on him and when she had him at her feet and begging, she’d watch him squirm as she walked away.
Poppy might be smart, Iz ambitious but, by God, she was the most charming and, undoubtedly, the most stubborn and…and…and unforgiving of the bunch.
And, also the most screwed up of all of them. Why couldn’t she just shrug off his words and let it go? Was she that insecure, that crazy? Yeah, she was. She wasn’t book smart like Poppy, who was her stable rock, calm and in control. She wasn’t like Iz, ambitious and driven. Iz had recently given up her high-flying career to work as a fund-raiser for charities, she had found Harry and was deliciously happy, but she knew what she wanted and how to get it.
No, Tori was the clown of the group, the emotional firecracker, the one they worried about, talked about and tried to keep grounded. She was capricious—she worked in PR, could anything be more flighty than that?—and she was emotional and high-maintenance. Or so they kept telling her.
Her friends loved her, dearly, but she knew they despaired of her. She knew that they desperately wanted to say ‘I told you so’ about Mark. Poppy, the mother hen, wanted to scoop her up and wrap her in cotton wool.
She would be fine…She’d pick herself up and dust herself down.
Tori smelt Poppy’s scent before she even heard her and sighed with pleasure when Poppy’s slim arms wrapped around her chest from behind. Poppy rested her temple against hers while Tori held her arms. Her best friend, her oldest friend. It was so good to be home…
‘You okay, Toz?’
‘I’m fine,’ Tori replied as Poppy let her go. She looked up into Poppy’s doubtful face. ‘I’m fine, Popsicle. I promise. I’m bruised, not heartbroken. I’m considering sending Mark a thank you note…something along the lines of “thanks for waiting until I’d spent so much time with you and done so much with you to show me that you are, actually, a sex-addict sociopath”.’
Poppy smiled. ‘We knew that already.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ Tori grumbled.
‘You wouldn’t have listened to it,’ Poppy replied.
Tori waved her hand in the air. ‘It doesn’t matter—all men suck.’
Poppy put the kettle on the gas and shook her head. ‘When are you going to start making better choices when it comes to men, Tori?’
‘I have no idea,’ Tori replied honestly.
Poppy shoved a tea bag into her mug and poured water on top. She prodded the bag with her finger and Tori winced, resisting the urge to hand her a spoon. Poppy lifted her amazing eyes and Tori saw that they were filled with worry…again. ‘Something has got to change, Tori.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Tori pushed her cup away. ‘I should’ve listened to you…’
‘Will you listen to me now?’ Poppy leaned against the counter and sipped her tea while she waited for her response.
‘Maybe.’ She wished she could say yes but she didn’t want to promise Poppy anything she couldn’t deliver. She took her promises seriously.
‘Take some time before you hurtle into the next crazy relationship. Stop confusing sex with love…Have sex if you have to but stop looking for love and investing in the man too soon. And you have to start choosing men who aren’t complete idiots, Toz. You can’t shake the asshat tree and expect a good man to fall out.’
Did she do that? Did she fall too hard and too fast, getting all her hopes up on something she deep down knew wouldn’t last? Did she deliberately choose men who she knew were going to disappoint her? Hurt her? Was she a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Tori dredged up a smile. ‘I hereby hand over my right to pick my own boyfriend because I obviously don’t know what I am doing.’
‘I’d do a happy dance if I actually believed that,’ Poppy retorted. ‘I just wish your heart would learn that it doesn’t have to get involved in every situation. Its job is to pump blood, that’s it.’
Tori, thinking that they’d spent far too much time talking about her obviously ridiculous love life, nodded at Poppy’s white coat. ‘Are you working today?’
Poppy grimaced. ‘Yeah, sorry. How was your night in the boxroom?’
Interesting. Tori wrinkled her nose. ‘Horrible. I want my room back!’
‘I know and I’m sorry. But hang in there—Lara and Alex have been talking about taking a holiday soon, they want some sun…and some alone time, I suspect. When they go you can temporarily move back into your, their, room. And Isaac is away, by the way.’
Yeah, well, she’d found that out the hard way! Tori heard the twitch in Poppy’s voice and her antennae picked up. She might be the one who was always in a crisis of one sort or the other and she did have a…ahem, colourful romantic history but she was emotionally intuitive and had always wondered why Poppy was so anti-relationships. They could talk about everything and did, except Poppy’s personal life, which was a no-go, never-discuss area. Poppy, fun and self-effacing, was so universally adored that it was sometimes hard to remember that she hadn’t ever—that Tori could remember—brought a man home…
But whenever Isaac’s name was mentioned, whenever Isaac was around, Poppy vibrated with an energy that was weird and, if she wasn’t mistaken, sexual. Isaac pushed Poppy’s buttons and Tori was just glad that someone did.
‘Oh, and Isaac offered his room for the month to Matt Cross, an old friend of his.’ Poppy glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go; introduce yourself to Matt when you see him.’
She had. Matt had seen all of her.
Poppy banged her cup into the sink, whirled around and cupped Tori’s face in her cool hands. ‘I love you and I’m glad you’re home. And you deserve to be in the boxroom for making me worry about you.’
‘I think the punishment is a bit too harsh for the crime,’ Tori grumbled as Poppy grabbed her bag and flew out of the kitchen. ‘Love you!’
‘Isn’t it a bit early in our relationship to start throwing the L-word around?’
Tori whirled around to see Matt standing in the doorway, dressed in an old pair of jeans and a button-down black shirt, the cuffs rolled back from his wrists, his mobile in his hand. His damp hair was pushed off his face but he hadn’t shaved, black stubble shadowing his jaw. He was magnificent naked and, in the weak early winter light pouring in from the kitchen windows, almost as sexy dressed.
Tori swallowed down a snarky retort and ignored his amused smirk. Resisting the urge to throw something at him, she pulled out a wide, fake smile and gestured towards the kettle. ‘Morning. Would you like some coffee?’
A quick frown pulled his brows together. ‘Sure.’
‘Milk, sugar?’
‘Black. Why are you being charming? Are you planning to throw something into it while I’m not looking?’ Matt sat down in the chair she’d vacated and stretched out his long, long legs.
Don’t tempt me, buster. But losing my temper again will only show you what a shrew I can be and you will never make another move on me if I act like a Macbeth witch. And I need you to invite me back into your bed so that I can shove the offer so far down your throat that your toes will bulge.
Tori smiled. ‘I had a rough day yesterday and wasn’t at my best.’ That was an understatement. ‘I misjudged the situation this morning so no harm, no foul.’ Tori glossed over her epic temper tantrum and ignored his raised eyebrow. ‘You are…obviously…unaccustomed to strange women rocking up in your bed and reacted badly.’
Matt’s mouth quirked up. ‘Not so unaccustomed,’ he said under his breath. His mobile rang and he glanced down at it, twisting his lips. ‘Excuse me while I take this.’
Tori listened with half an ear to his brief conversation, before turning away. Oh, taking him down was going to be such fun. She dumped coffee granules into his mug and threw some water into the cup. She placed the coffee mug on the table, deliberately leaning over his shoulder and allowing her arm to brush his. His body tightened in reaction and Tori saw—sensed—the shiver of attraction that ran through him. Not trusting her instincts, she walked to the chair opposite him, sat down and watched as his eyes, jade green this morning, drifted down her throat and flicked over her breasts as he wound up his call. She leaned back in her chair, draping an arm over the back, and knew that the action lifted her breasts against her tight purple long-sleeved T-shirt.
Yeah, take a good look at what you can’t touch, dude.
Tori’s mobile chirping from the table broke their eye contact and she picked it up and glanced at the text message. She frowned when she saw her mum’s name on the display. Her mum never sent text messages and called even less frequently. Acknowledging that she had a daughter who was twenty-five-plus would mean admitting that she wasn’t actually thirty-five herself, something Kay wasn’t prepared to do.
Planning to meet up with your father at the end of the month in London. I suppose we should have lunch with you.
Suppose we should have lunch? Jeez, Mother, sound a little enthusiastic, won’t you? I am your only child…
Matt lifted his cup and gestured with it. ‘You okay?’
Tori sent him a cool look. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Apart from the fact that I have parents who suck?
‘Your eyes…they went flat. Message from your creepy ex?’
‘No,’ Tori replied. ‘But those should start up as soon as he is awake.’ Tori saw his eyes drift down her chest and stop in the area she was pretty sure her nipples were lazing around.
