According to Matthew Read online

  And however much I loathed Lincoln Davies for taking my place in Casey's life, I'd be a worse bastard than he was if I blackmailed her into being unfaithful to him. Which was exactly what I'd been on the verge of doing. Oh, sure, the idea had an appealing ring to it in the abstract, but the reality of doing it looked pretty damned ugly.

  I set my beer bottle down on the counter with a solid clank, deliberately keeping my back turned. "You're right.

  Forget I said it. I'm an ass."

  I was worse than ass. I was an idiot. I'd let my anger and my cock do my thinking and talking for me. But maybe that 16

  According to Matthew [The Gospel of Love 2]

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  was to be expected after five months of simmering resentment and self-imposed celibacy.

  I grabbed my keys off the counter and let out a sigh. "Let's go bail—"

  I damned near jumped out of my skin when her arms wrapped around my waist. The hard peaks of her nipples rubbed against my back just below my shoulder blades, and her lips brushed against my neck.

  "You're not an ass, Matty." Casey's voice had that husky, low-in-the-throat quality I knew meant she was ready for some serious, sweaty up-and-down action. "I've missed you, too."

  I shuddered, unable to suppress my body's instantaneous reaction as she slid her hands down to the waist of my Dockers and fumbled for my belt buckle. My cock stiffened again despite my best efforts. Enclosing her hands with one of mine, I stilled her motions, determined not to let this go any further.

  "What about Lincoln?" I asked in my most bruisingly sarcastic tone.

  Her nipples tickled my back with a small up-and-down motion as she shrugged. "He's not going anywhere."

  That wasn't what I meant, of course, but before I could form a suitably scathing response to her lack of concern over the fact that she was about to cheat on her lover, she managed to free her fingers from mine and slip her hands down over my dick and balls. I sucked air through my teeth, shocked by the intensity of the pleasure I got from her familiar touch.

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  Words escaped me as she kneaded and fondled my flesh with a skill born of years of experience. She knew exactly how to touch me to make me hard and breathless, and she was doing a damn fine job of both.

  Frustrated by my inability to resist, I yanked away and spun to face her. She looked up at me. Her lips were parted, her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, and her dark eyes were huge with the same longings I knew were reflected in my own. It took every ounce of my willpower not to throw my pride and my principles out the window and give her exactly what she wanted.

  "I can't do this."

  Her gaze darted toward the distinctly capable bulge in my pants, a skeptical smile curving her lips.

  All right, I could. But that didn't mean I would.

  "I can't do this with you, Casey. You're Lincoln's girl now, not mine." As I spoke, a sudden, acid thought occurred to me. If she would cheat on Lincoln with me, had she cheated on me? Was that why she'd refused to marry? Because she wasn't a one-man woman and never had been?

  She blinked slowly, as though the observation took her by surprise. As if she didn't know perfectly well she'd started appearing on Lincoln Davies' arm just weeks after our break-up. Then her shoulders relaxed, and she reached up to brush her smooth palm across my stubble-roughened cheek.

  "I'm not dating him, Matty." She frowned and sighed. "It's all just for show. For Daddy's campaign."

  I took a step backward, simultaneously pleased and furious. Pleased that she hadn't fallen into bed with Lincoln 18

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  right after we'd called it quits. Furious that I'd been harboring so much resentment toward a man I'd once called a friend for no reason at all. And madder than hell at the man who, I was sure, had caused it all.

  "I suppose that was your father's idea."

  She nodded, her frown deepening. "I never thought you'd take it seriously. I thought you'd know..." She shook her head and looked down at the slate-tiled floor. "I'm sorry," she added on a whisper.

  I admit it. I'm the world's biggest sucker. But she seemed so forlorn standing there, head down, shoulders slumped, that I did what came naturally. I pulled her into my arms and let her nestle into the curve of my shoulder. Her scent—

  Givenchy, coffee, and woman—permeated my nostrils, igniting instant memories of happier times. I remembered leisurely afternoons wandering the Art Institute, picnics beside Lake Michigan and, most of all, making love for hours on end until we were too weak and sated to get out of bed.

  "I should have guessed," I murmured against her hair.

  She tipped her head back and looked up at me. Her wide, almond-shaped eyes glistened with threatening tears. "I should have known you wouldn't."

  After everything that had passed between us, I should curtly accept her apology, pick up my damned car keys, and head for the door. Instead, relief that she hadn't been sleeping with Davies combined with the pent-up lust I'd been nursing ever since I'd found her, braless and sleep-rumpled, on my couch got the better of me. A man is a creature of habit, and my habit when in Casey's presence was to kiss her.

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  And then to fuck her until she didn't know her own name.

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  According to Matthew [The Gospel of Love 2]

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  Chapter Three

  As soon as my lips touched hers, I knew just how big of a mistake I was making. After months of self-denial, I was like a recovering alcoholic faced with a fully-stocked wet bar. I didn't know where to start, and I didn't know how to stop.

  Didn't want to stop.

  Her mouth opened beneath mine, and she melted into me like warm syrup over pancakes. She tasted just as good, too—sweet and savory and more than a little bit sinful. Our tongues tangled in an erotic dance as I worked my hands up under her shirt to the naked mounds of her breasts. The nipples, already stiff, grew even more prominent beneath my palms. I rolled them between my fingers, eliciting a sensual moan from her throat.

  My cock thickened and strained to escape my briefs, an unachievable feat so long as my pants stayed shut. As if reading my mind, Casey's hands slipped from where they rested on my shoulders to my belt buckle. This time I didn't object. I'd abandoned reason the second I pulled her into my arms—hell, probably before that, when I'd let her stay and say her piece.

  Now, all I wanted was a piece, and I was damned well going to have it.

  At the same time Casey's fingers found their way through buckles and buttons and zippers and wrapped around my dick, I slid my hands from her tits to her jeans. She wore the stretchy kind that hugged her ass without being tight. Since 21

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  she wasn't wearing a belt, all it took to get them and her panties down to her knees was a good, solid tug.

  I closed my eyes against a punishing wave of heat as she pumped me expertly, grazing the head of my cock in the way that brought me to the edge of orgasm but never quite sent me over.

  "Enough," I ordered gruffly, afraid I might actually spill in her hand at the rate I was going. She knew exactly how to keep me from coming under normal circumstances, but this was hardly normal.

  With a sultry Mona Lisa smile, she released me and wound her arms around my neck. "What now?"

  In answer, I lifted her by the waist and spun her around, depositing her bare-assed on the granite counter. She gasped, probably because the stone was cold and she was hotter than a heat wave in August, and kicked her pants off over her feet to a heap on the floor.

  Using them as a cushion, I kneeled and pushed her thighs apart to reveal her rosy, wet center. Her pu
ssy was as beautiful as I remembered—the sensitive bud of her clit nestled between the soft, pink folds and the tight slit below glistening in the fluorescent light with evidence of her arousal.

  No need for preliminaries. I dove in, tongue first, fingers next, swirling over her flesh with firm, even strokes while I worked my fingers in and out. She mewled, her hands gripping my head in an implicit directive.

  Don't stop.

  The muscles of her thighs clenched and released, clenched and released, and her cunt grew tighter around my fingers.

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  My cock swelled with lust, desperate to get into that hot, moist passage, but I held off, instead pushing Casey further and further toward the orgasm that built beneath my relentless assault. I'd almost forgotten how good it felt to touch her, to taste her, to torment her.

  Grabbing her hips, I buried my face deeper into the tender skin, knowing the midnight shadow on my chin would scrape and mark her. I wanted to mark her. To make her mine again and, this time, to keep her that way. I worried her clit with my lips and tongue and gentle scrapes of my teeth.

  She sobbed, her back arching, and let go of my head to brace herself on her arms. My keys fell to the floor as she pushed them out of the way. The clatter and clang as they slid across the counter and then bounced several times mingled with the erotic sounds of her pleasure.

  The staccato rhythm of her breath and the taut muscles of her belly told me she was going to break. I scrambled to my feet, lined up, and plunged into her steamy, pulsing core. My eyes rolled back in my head as she came around me. I gritted my teeth and held still while her pussy clamped down on my cock. If I gave into the impulse to fuck her now, I'd be pumping cum into her in five seconds flat.

  I had no intention of allowing this to be over that quickly.

  Instead, I worked my hands back up under her shirt to her breasts and rolled the nipples between my fingers, tearing a broken whimper from her throat. She reached down and grabbed my ass, wiggling against me where my pelvic bone rested against her clit.

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  "Fuck me, Matty. Please." Her voice was thick and a little slurred.

  I smiled and shook my head. "Not yet, sugar. You're in for a long, hard ride."

  She punched my chest in mock irritation, but didn't object to my threat-promise.

  At last, her orgasm waned from full-blown tremors to tiny aftershocks. Sliding my hands from her tits up under her arms, I drew her blouse off over her head, and she wriggled to assist me. The movement transferred down to her cunt and from there to my cock. I sucked in air as though I'd been gut-punched.

  At this rate, I'd be lucky to keep at least half that promise.

  Long looked increasingly unlikely.

  Hard, however, I could definitely do.

  I tossed her shirt on the floor and leaned down to draw one of her chocolate-cherry sweet nipples into my mouth. She gasped and dug her fingers into the tense muscles of my ass.

  That was my cue, and I took it.

  I started with steady, controlled thrusts, trying to draw this out as long as possible, but she was hot and wet, tight and yielding. Before long, I was fucking her rotten, balls-out and balls-deep, fast and fierce. She was with me all the way, her throaty sounds of encouragement assuring me she wanted this every bit as much as I did.

  Her hands never stayed still. They skimmed over my shoulders, skipped along my spine, and skittered down my abdomen. I released her nipple with a soft pop and straightened up, never breaking the pace. Her eyes were 24

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  closed, her head dropped back, her exotic features etched with pleasure. The inky black of her eyelashes fluttered above her cheek, and her breath came in short, uneven pants.

  She was as close as I was.

  I had permission to let go. Thank God for small blessings.

  She broke just seconds before I did. My orgasm burst outward and inward at the same time, the way a demolished building explodes and falls in on itself. The sensation spread everywhere, then settled the one place I didn't want it.

  My heart.

  "Shit," I muttered into her sweet, sweat-dampened neck.

  I was in it again. Deep.

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  Chapter Four

  "What are we doing here, Casey?" I asked the question while I grabbed a couple of paper towels from the rack near the sink.

  Her feet thumped lightly to the floor behind me. "It hasn't been that long, has it?" she asked on a chuckle. "I thought it was pretty obvious what we were doing."

  "You know that's not what I mean." I handed her the wad of towels but didn't turn to look at her. Looking at her would only lead to one thing—making the same mistake twice.

  She sighed. "Can't we worry about this later?"

  "How much later? A month? A year? Thirty years?" I finished cleaning up and putting my clothes back together.

  She pressed against my back, wrapping her arms around my waist. Knowing she was still naked did nothing for my sanity and everything for the libido I was trying desperately to keep in check.

  "I don't know," she whispered. "But I do know I've been miserable without you."

  That makes two of us.

  A treacherous streak of warmth snaked through my chest, but I had to stand my ground. I shook my head and removed her arms from around my middle.

  I spun around, and after allowing myself a brief eyeful of her lithe, curvaceous body, I raised my gaze to her wide, brown eyes and kept it there. "I can't keep banging you until 26

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  you make up your mind, Casey. You know what I want. It's your call."

  She caught her lower lip with her teeth and worried it.

  "Oh, Matty, I want to say yes. You know I do. But..." Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, and she blinked to clear them.

  I sighed. "I know ... you're just not ready."

  She shrugged in answer.

  I clenched my fist and turned away. I wanted to punch the wall, but I wasn't about to damage my own house. Not to mention that breaking my fingers would put all my design projects on hold for the foreseeable future. Bad idea.

  Reaching down, I grabbed her clothes from the floor and thrust them at her. "Get dressed and let's go bust Lincoln out of jail."

  * * * *

  "Whew!" Lincoln dragged the back of his hand across his forehead in an exaggerated motion while we both watched Casey enter the lobby of her Hyde Park apartment building.

  "That's a relief."

  I gave him the evil eye, though I doubted he could see my expression in the faint light of the car's cabin. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "You could have cut the tension in here with a knife. I sure hope you're planning to come back here later and work some of that off."

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  Casey disappeared into the elevator, and I thrust the Audi into first gear a little too roughly. "It's over between Casey and me."

  Lincoln let out a rough chuckle. "You two are about as over as winter in Chicago at the end of March. Just because the calendar says it's spring doesn't mean it stops snowing."

  I let out the clutch, squealing the tires as I pulled away from the curb. I didn't want to acknowledge how apt Lincoln's analogy was. "Seems to me like you should be worrying more about keeping your own ass out of jail than whether I'm getting any."

  "Nah. All my attorney needs to do is show that the coke could've gotten into my car a thousand different ways. And since the neighborhood I park in has a d
rug dealer on every corner, I doubt it'll be a hard sell." He shook his head. "I just hope it wasn't one of my kids. The whole point is to keep them out of that shit."

  "You seem pretty confident for a guy who needed a three hundred thousand dollar bond." I grimaced, thinking of the lien on my house. Not that I worried about Lincoln skipping bail. The idea just bugged me.

  He shrugged. "The judge didn't have much of a choice. It's a class A felony, and I have a record, even if it was fifteen years ago. The amount will probably be reduced at arraignment."

  Silence fell as I negotiated the narrow streets that separated Casey's modern high-rise building overlooking the lake from Lincoln's brick four-story walk-up at the southwest boundary of the neighborhood. By the time I pulled over 28

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  beneath the canopy of street trees, the silvery glow of dawn tinged the eastern sky.

  "Thanks for your help," Lincoln said. He reached for the door handle.

  "Wait."

  He looked at me. "Yeah?"

  "Why did you ask me to do this for you? Casey said you were trying to keep the arrest under wraps, but I don't believe it. You'll be lucky if it doesn't hit the papers by tomorrow morning."

  "I had my reasons. Starting with giving Casey an excuse to go and see you." Lincoln grinned, an expression that made his ageless features appear downright boyish. "And judging by the undercurrents, it worked."

  My blood thundered in my ears. "What? You were matchmaking?" Of all the lowdown, dirty, manipulative things...

  He shrugged. "You're both too stubborn to admit you made a mistake when you broke up. Somebody had to do something."

  I clenched my hands around the steering wheel. "If she made a mistake, why is she still refusing to marry me? Tell me that."

  "You're asking the wrong person. Ask her."

  "Believe me, I tried. She won't tell me except to say she's not ready, whatever the hell that means."