A Matter of Heart (56 page)

“You are the best Kellan,” I
sigh happily after taking a tiny bite.

He doesn’t hide the
wistfulness that flashes across his face fast enough. “I’m glad you like it.”

It’s only around five
o’clock, still sunny on the island, but there’s a shadow falling across the
coastline. A set of twinkling Christmas lights flare to life above us. Music
floats over the deck, soft, dreamy, and perfect for dancing.

It’s unbearably romantic.
How can a girl handle such things? First Tahiti, now this?

“I’m really glad I ran into
you today.”

He fiddles with his fork.
“All the girls say just that when I take them out on yachts.”

I know he meant it as a
joke, but I can’t find it funny. Jealousy rears its ugly head once more. “So
you do this often?”

He gives me a look. “No, C.”

Even still, I can’t help but
feel bitter at all the nameless, faceless girls that get his time when I don’t.
“Do you ever bring them anywhere?” When he looks confused, I clarify, “You
know, to any of your exotic homes?”

“No.” He’s clearly
uncomfortable, shifting in his chair. “I never got around to telling any of
them that I own any.”

Got. Not get. It shouldn’t
make a difference to me, but it does. “What about Sophie?”

There’s that look again. “
No
.”

“You told me.”

“That’s different. Besides,”
he murmurs, “technically they’re yours now, too.”

For both our sakes, I need
to change the subject, stat. Thinking about the weird sounds I’d heard earlier,
I ask, “What were you getting in your bedroom?”

He blushes and tugs at his
collar, quadrupling his charming quotient. “Joey always insisted we keep some
local money in each of the houses, just in case it was needed. I don’t have a
lot of dollars on me right now, considering when I left my apartment this
morning, I didn’t know I was coming to Hawaii.”

My fork clinks against the
plate. “You have a box of money in your house? Where anyone could get it?”

“Not anyone.” He refolds his
napkin on his lap. “It’s hidden in a secret compartment. Only my brother and I
know how to get into it. I’ll show you before we leave tonight, just in case
the next time you decide to run away, you won’t starve like the last time.”

Ouch. “I’m too impulsive for
my own good,” I joke.

“I know we agreed to live in
the moment earlier,” he says much more seriously, “but I really hope if you
decide to bolt again, you’ll let me know where you are.”

“I was stupid to run,” I
admit. He doesn’t argue with me. I shove the chicken around my plate. Shave ice
is one thing, poultry is another. Time for another subject changer. I’m on a
roll tonight. “Did you like snorkeling? You said you and Callie snorkeled
here?”

“It was fun.” He chuckles.
“Cal freaked out, though. She thought she was going to drown the whole time.”

It’s seriously hard to
imagine Callie freaking out over something as mundane as snorkeling, especially
since she admitted to also being an adrenaline junkie recently. “Is that
something you guys do a lot?”

“First and last time, I’m
afraid.”

“And you excelled at it,
right?” I give him a winning smile. “Is there anything you don’t automatically
excel at?”

“I haven’t been particularly
good at getting you to love me.”

My heart sinks. I hate that
he thinks this. “That’s not true at all.”

It’s his turn to rearrange
the chicken on his plate.

“Kellan.” I reach out and
cover one his hands. “I love you. You know that.”

It’s heartfelt, but he pulls
away so he can go lean against the railing. After a few minutes, he drops into
one of the lounge chairs on the main deck. “We shouldn’t talk about this.”

I’m a fool. He gives me the
perfect out, and yet, I still come over and sit on the arm of his chair. “Why
not?”

“You know why.”

I do. And he’s absolutely
right. But, as always when it comes to Kellan, I can’t think clearly for an
extended amount of time. I love him, and I’ve missed him, and sometimes it’s
too much of a struggle to stay away, especially when the pull to him feels as
strongly as it does right now.

I wish I were as strong as
he apparently is, but I’m not. Because, as I stare down at him, my heart
squeezes hard, and all my willpower and decisions made over the last few weeks
are hidden in the twilight around us.

When we give in and kiss,
there’s nothing to indicate that just a few minutes earlier, he’d urged
caution. I shift into the chair, bringing a leg on either side of him so that
I’m straddling his torso. He slides back in the chair, bringing me down with
him as we keep kissing. My heart is racing so fast that it’s hard to catch my
breath, but I just don’t care, because each time we kiss, there’s always the
belief it could be the last.

So I kiss him desperately,
like my life depends on it. And it’s thrilling that he kisses me back the exact
same way. His mouth is magic, his hands are bliss, and every inch of me that’s
touching him is buzzing and humming with so much pleasure that it’s astounding
my bones haven’t liquefied yet.

I want him so much that it
feels like I’ll die if I don’t let him consume me.

There are a thousand things
I want to tell him, about how he makes me feel when he touches me, what his
kisses do to my insides, how I get woozy when I smell him, like right now, how
I’m so lightheaded I feel like I’m flying. His hands and body are the only
things grounding me. But I can’t say any of these things because I’m no longer
capable of speech. So I show him, instead.

I love him, need him so much
it hurts.

I’m working on the buttons
to his shorts when he gasps, “Wait.”

Why do men have so many
buttons on their pants? What happened to zippers?

“Maybe,” he murmurs, breath
heavy against my mouth, “we . . . should . . . stop?”

My fingers pause. “Stop?”

He groans, his fingers
gripping my sides underneath my dress. “Maybe . . . slow down?”

But then his mouth is
against mine once more, his tongue stroking mine until I swear I see stars in
my closed eyelids and hear bells around us. Slow down? Yeah, right. His hands
slip under my sundress and up my back until they reach my bra.

Yes, yes, yes, I think. But
his fingers still right as they are about to undo the clasp. “Chloe . . .”

He shifts below me, enough
to leave no doubt in my mind just how turned on he is. I sink down against his
hardness and he closes his eyes and moans quietly. “Less talk,” I whisper
against his neck. I’m so tempted to leave another mark, like the one I gave him
in Costa Rica. “More action.”

But his hands retreat from
my bra until they’re no longer underneath fabric at all.

I sit up. He opens his eyes
and stares up at me; they’re glazed—he’s not hiding his desire from me one bit
in them.

Except, his hands have
stilled. And, I’m not down with that. He wants slow? I’ll give him slow.
Slowly, oh so slowly, I lift my dress over my head and toss it on the ground
next to us.

Now his hands are moving, up
my belly until they skim the bottom of my bra. “You’re killing me here,” he
says, voice hoarse. Thank goodness I wore a matching bra and panty set.

I shiver when his hands
travel higher, curving around the sides of my breasts. “Isn’t that a good
thing?”

He blinks slowly. “You need
to stop moving.” When I arch an eyebrow, he says, blushing for the second time
tonight, “I’m . . . I’m having a hard time controlling myself right now.”

Don’t control yourself, I
want to say. I want to lose myself in this moment, in you. I press down against
him again. Gods, he’s so hard, and it feels so good against me.

He laughs under his breath,
his hands suddenly gripping my hips, fingers teasing the lacy edges of my
panties. “You think I’m joking. I . . . Don’t make me embarrass myself. Please.
I’m begging you.”

I lean down and bite his
earlobe, which makes him groan quietly. I’m more than okay if he so-called
embarrasses himself. Actually, it’d be way sexy and a total turn-on, knowing I
can make him come by just kissing him. So I connect my mouth with his once more
until I’m nearly delirious with wantneedwant.

His fingers slide slowly
into my panties, barely skimming my burning skin. I arch against him, wiggle
even, desperate to get the pressure I need. There’s a build-up threatening to
disintegrate my body, which is crazy, because we’re barely doing much more than
kissing and touching, and he’s still dressed, and I’ve still got my bra and
panties on, and—

Wait. He’s stopped again.

“You’re the one killing me,”
I whisper in his mouth.

He groans again when I
slowly, purposely twist my hips, and then his tongue is back in my mouth,
tracing mine. Gods, kissing this man is so damn addictive. So are his quiet
groans that let me know he’s getting close. I continue gyrating small circles
against him, reveling in these sounds and the way his kisses deepen.

Finally, finally, he
unclasps my bra and slides the purple silk and lace off my shoulders. Cool
ocean air hits my breasts, but with the way he’s looking at me, there’s no part
of my body that isn’t on fire. “Gorgeous,” he whispers, and it sounds like both
a curse and a prayer coming off his lips.

I retaliate by removing his
shirt just as slowly as he removed my bra. He called me gorgeous, but in all
honestly, the man whom I’m touching right now is that and more.

I can only hope that the
crew stays below, since the moan that comes out of me when his mouth closes
around my breast is ridiculously loud. I’m not embarrassed, though. How could I
be? Not with him, not in this moment. My fingers dig into his hair, and the
tension inside me builds-up so strongly that I know I’m going to lose control
and explode any moment. Screw trying to get him to come through just kissing.
We can experiment with that one later. I need him in me right now. I want to
feel this, I want us to be one when it happens.

My hands are back on his
shorts, palming his need until his head drops back. Gods, he’s so beautiful
when he’s like this, totally taken over by what he feels for me. It’s one of
the best rushes in the worlds. What he makes me feel is beautiful.
This
is beauti—

A gasp, followed by a
hoarse, “Wait.”

—ful, and . . . what? Again?
Is he seriously trying to torture me?

But when I open my eyes and
look down at him, I know right away something is wrong. Kellan’s breathing
hard, eyes are closed so tight he looks like he’s in pain.

Which, of course, makes me
pull up again. Kellan’s hands reach out and clamp down around my waist,
effectively stopping me from moving any further.

I don’t know what he wants.
Me closer? Further? Faster? Slower?

“I just . . .” He’s still
gasping. “I’m having a lot of trouble thinking about this logically right now.”

Forget logic. I finally
manage to unbutton his pants, yet just as my hand goes to stroke him, his eyes
open. And I’m nearly bowled over by the amount of ache in them. It’s like a
bucket of ice water, forcing me to be the one to freeze.

“I don’t want you . . . to
do anything you’re going to . . .”

I hunt for my voice to ask,
“Going to?” after he falls silent for too long.

His voice is barely a
whisper. “Regret.”

I choke out, “Are you saying
you’d regret having sex with me?”

His eyes widen dramatically.
“No! I absolutely did not say that.”

“What are you saying then?”
Goddamn him for being so logical at a moment like this. I’m not, though. I’m
completely irrational and know it. “Is that one of your lines, Kellan? Is it
because I’m . . .” Hysterical Chloe, coming right up. “Not as desirable as your
other girls? Like Sophie?”

I didn’t think it possible,
but his eyes widen even further.
“What?”

I jerk out of his grip and
sit up. “Am I to understand that you have no scruples when it comes to having
sex with other women but somehow or other, you . . . you . . .”

“Wait,” he says, reaching
out for me again. But I evade, instead grabbing my bra, fortunately dangling
nearby off the chair arm. “You’re misunderstanding—”

I yank the bra on and
scramble out of the chair to find my dress. I feel so incredibly stupid. “You
could’ve fooled me.”

He’s out of the chair, too,
his loose shorts falling down, still so hard he must be in physical pain.
“Chloe—”

I’m perilously close to
crying as I tug the dress over my head. “Why is it so easy to be with everyone
but me?”

Shorts now partially
buttoned, he clamps a hand over my mouth. “You need to listen to me without
talking, okay? Please, just . . . just let me explain.” I nod and his hand
lowers. “Look. If you somehow think what I’m trying to say to you is that I
don’t want to make love to you, then you’re horribly mistaken. I do, desperately
so. I dream about it every night. I’m not ashamed to admit I fantasize about it
all the time, even when I shouldn’t be. Like at work. And class. And when I’m
out with friends. And when you’re with your goddamn fiancé. I love you. I adore
you. Being with you is everything to me. I want you so much right now that I am
this close,” he holds up two fingers, barely spaced apart, “to throwing
everything we’ve worked hard to build away. But Chloe, when it comes to you, I
have to think about more than just my urges and wants. I have to think about
what’s best for
you.
”