One Good Man (10 page)

Occasionally Adam wasn't too big an asshole.

"See ya." Matt hung up and mentally rubbed his hands together. Time to get busy. Things to do today, women to seduce. Well, one woman, anyway. And Matthew figured he'd have his hands full with her—if he was lucky.

Andie awoke to the fragrance of coffee. She peeled one eyelid open and peeked at Matthew's side of the bed. It was empty. Andie let go a sigh of relief. At least she had a bit of a reprieve before she had to face him.

Maybe she shouldn't have spent the night. It seemed such intimate a thing to do, even given last night's gymnastics.

Though he'd asked Andie to give him the rest of the weekend, she had to remember what she and Matthew had was only 91

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sex—albeit great sex. She had to be careful not to let herself forget.

As she shifted under the bedclothes, unfamiliar aches and pains made her wince. Her mouth curved into a self-satisfied grin as she recollected how she'd earned them.

Now what?

She closed her eyes briefly and opened them to see Matthew standing in the doorway, holding a mug of coffee and smiling at her. "Morning."

"Morning." Andie felt a blush rise, but refused to give way to shyness. The way he looked her up and down made Andie's fingers tighten in the bedclothes.

"You 'wake?"

"Yes, just a little slow rising," she told him.

He strolled over and handed her the coffee. She sat up, reaching for it with one hand while holding the sheet over her breasts with the other.

His eyebrows flew up, and he waggled them. "Don't cover up on my account."

Andie smiled and kept the sheet exactly where it was. She took a sip from the mug. "Mmm."

"I took a chance on milk, no sugar," he said.

"It's perfect. Just the way I like it. Thanks."

When she glanced at the bedside clock, Andie's eyebrows flew up. Eleven o'clock? She never slept that late. Suddenly she remembered poor Daisy. "Oh my God!" She struggled to get out of bed. "I've got to let Daisy out!"

"Take it easy. I took care of that a couple hours ago. She's fine. As a matter of fact..."

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As if on cue, the dog entered the bedroom and lumbered onto the bed beside Andie, who clutched her cup tightly to keep the coffee from spilling.

"My God, she never does that at home," Andie marveled.

"She doesn't even try making it up the stairs anymore."

Matthew patted the dog's waggly backside. "Must be a change of scene energized her. Or maybe she's been faking it for sympathy."

"Is that true, Daise?" Daisy smiled at her. "Have you been malingering?"

"She's not saying." Matthew answered. "Well, come on, out of bed. I'm fixing breakfast."

All she had to wear was the T-shirt he'd loaned her last night. After Andie ducked into the bathroom for a quick freshen-up, she found Matthew in the kitchen, whipping something up in a stainless steel bowl.

"Hey," he said. "Coffee's on the counter there. Help yourself to more. I hope you like pancakes."

He was cooking for her? Andie was impressed. He was neat, too. There were no runny eggshells on the counter, no spilled sugar crunching beneath her feet.

"I love pancakes. I love everything," she told him, pouring herself some coffee. "That's my problem."

Andie felt a tingle as Matthew's gaze traveled over her body while he mixed the batter. "You don't have a problem."

She refrained from rolling her eyes. "You make pancakes from scratch?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "I make them so often, I don't even need the recipe." The pan on the stove sizzled when he 93

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tossed chunk of butter into it. Andie winced as she made a mental tally of the calories involved in this breakfast. But she was touched he went to the trouble for her. As she sipped her coffee, she wondered if he made pancakes for other women, and wondered how many there had been.

Don't go there, Andie. Just consider yourself lucky to be
one of them.

"Do you cook a lot?" Once again she felt at a loss, not knowing exactly how to behave on a morning-after. How much small talk was acceptable?

"Simple stuff, mostly." He spooned some of the batter onto the hot pan. The aroma made Andie's mouth water. "My brother's the real cook in the family."

"This is the brother you work with?"

"My brother Adam. When we were kids our mom had to work a couple jobs to take care of us, so we had to take up a lot of the slack at home. Adam did the cooking, and I kept things straightened up."

That explained his neatness. He and his brother had had a lot of responsibility growing up. Andie wondered what the circumstances were that forced his mother to work so much.

Had she been a widow or a divorcee? Had Matthew's father been in the picture at all? But she didn't want to seem nosy, so she didn't ask.

Matthew looked at her. "You're an only child, right?"

"Mmm? Yes. My parents wanted more children, but it didn't happen. My mother had several miscarriages before I was born. I was their miracle baby, they told me."

"Ah." He grinned at her. "I bet you were spoiled."

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She laughed. "Why, do I seem like a brat? A diva?"

"If you were a diva, you wouldn't be here. No, but being the only child..."

"Well, I was definitely coddled. Over-protected." She explained she'd been born six weeks early in her mother's difficult pregnancy. "So not only was I a miracle, but an early bird as well."

Andie suspected her battles with weight began almost from the moment of her birth. As a premature infant she'd been so tiny and fragile, so in need of nourishment to grow healthy and strong. As she grew older, her parents still saw her in that light even as she grew into a sturdy toddler, a chubby grade-schooler. Even as she became the Fat Kid. The one who got teased on the playground, who avoided gym class, who never got invited on dates.

Boo hoo hoo, Andie. Such a tragic tale.

It wasn't fair to blame her parents. Andie knew she was their darling, their beautiful daughter, regardless of her weight. And it wasn't as if they force-fed her cheeseburgers.

They'd fed her balanced meals and made every effort to help her when they realized their little sugar dumpling was turning into a pound cake. By that time, though, food had become Andie's best friend. Sneaking snacks and even snitching quarters from her mom's purse for after-school treats had become the norm.

While Andie was mentally revisiting the past, Matthew was seeing to the pancakes. He flipped three onto a dish and set it before her with a flourish. "Here you are."

"Thank you." She hesitated. "Where are yours?"

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"Ladies get served first." He plunked another piece of butter into the hot pan and it sputtered loudly.

"I'll wait for you."

"No, you won't," he said in a firm voice, giving her a little frown. He gestured with the spatula. "Eat those up before they get cold. Nothing worse than cold pancakes."

She raised her eyebrows at his bossiness and sat at his small table, taking her time adding a thin smear of butter and a drizzle of syrup to her serving. She didn't want to eat alone.

When his pancakes were done, he drowned them in syrup.

He grinned unapologetically as he lifted a big soggy forkful to his mouth. "I like to soak 'em."

Andie did, too. She chewed her lip.

Aw
,
the hell with it. She picked up the syrup bottle and poured a generous amount over her cakes. Matthew nodded his approval.

His gaze fell on her mouth as she took a napkin and wiped her sticky lips. "I want some of that."

"Huh?"

He leaned in and licked the syrupy sweetness from her lips. "Mmm. That's what I like. Maple syrup kisses."

Andie responded, opening her mouth to receive his tongue which was also candied from the syrup. Their mouths melded and played together, coming together and separating, tacky with sugar. Her arms tangled around him, Matthew descended to the floor and brought her with him. They knelt together on the vinyl, her breasts crushed against his hard chest, their mouths fused.

"Lie back," he whispered.

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"What?" Andie's brain was fuzzy.

He urged her down and as she reclined, Andie saw he held the bottle of syrup in his hand. Unhurriedly he inched her T-shirt up her body, tickling her with his fingertips. She giggled as a shivery sensation breezed over her. With the shirt tucked up under her arms, Andie's breath caught as Matthew lifted the bottle and poured a thin stream of the sticky fluid down her sternum, letting a pool of it collect in her belly button.

Setting the bottle aside, Matthew painted her, dragging a finger through the line of syrup on her body. He circled the areola of each breast and dabbed some on her nipples. She hissed in pleasure as he bent to lick around the center of her breast, his tongue wet and supple. Then he engulfed the nipple in his mouth and sucked. Andie writhed on the vinyl as heat sizzled though her.

"Hold on," he murmured when her breasts were clean. He dipped his finger in the syrupy puddle he'd poured into her belly button and drew a sticky line down her stomach.

She craned her neck. "What are you doing?" She realized he was turning the line into an arrow pointing to her pubic hair.

"Oh God." Her head fell back onto the floor and she didn't know whether to laugh or groan. She ended up doing both as Matthew popped his finger into his mouth and sucked. "Mmm.

Tasty."

His finger trailed down the arrow again, this time skipping over the crinkly hair at the V of her thighs and delving between those thighs. Andie's moan was involuntary as she parted her legs and his syrup-coated finger gently circled her 97

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clitoris. He painted it with feather light flicks as her breath grew choppy and her nipples beaded.

"Oh. Don't stop." She bit her lower lip, plumped with arousal. "I'm—"

Her climax hit with the force of a tsunami. Matthew thrust two fingers deep into her pussy making the contractions stretch.

Andie lay back in a daze. There was a wet sucking sound as Matthew pulled his fingers out of her and thrust them into his mouth. "Sweet." He brought them to her lips then. "Taste how sweet you are."

Her eyesight fuzzy, she let her lips fall open as he gently wedged his fingers between them. Sucking his fingers, Andie tasted the sweetness of syrup and the tartness of her own body. She wondered why she wasn't embarrassed or grossed out. She simply had no desire to tell him to stop. She wanted to try everything with him, without self-consciousness or shame.

Matt removed his fingers and bent to press his mouth to hers. Her lips stretched into a lazy smile. "I'm messy."

He circled her nipple, pinching it lightly between pinky and thumb. "You certainly are. Time for a shower."

He drew away and she propped herself up on her elbows, following, wanting another kiss. "Take one with me."

He smiled, kissing her again, then frowned as he looked over her shoulder. "Hey, get away from there!"

The three dogs were at the table. Marilyn had stretched herself tall enough to be licking Andie's plate, her front paws on the tabletop. Angel sat on Matthew's chair, scarfing down 98

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his pancakes, while Daisy stood nearby, lapping up the syrup that had pooled on the floor from the overturned bottle.

At Matthew's shout, the three high-tailed it, Angel pausing long enough to grab the last pancake and run off with it between her teeth.

"Damn it." Matt shook his head in disgust, then had to smile. He helped Andie to her feet. "Looks as if I'll have to whip up another batch of cakes."

"Not now." She curled her fingers in the waistband of his jeans and pulled him close. She nipped at his juicy lower lip as he palmed her butt cheeks. "About that shower..."

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If Andie thought the time spent with Matthew that weekend would be one long sex-a-thon, she was mistaken.

Still, she found she enjoyed the time they spent together.

After their shower, Matthew kindly retrieved some clothing for Andie from her dad's house—although he assured her he'd be happy to keep loaning her T-shirts. Then the two of them spent an hour browsing through the Sunday paper and trading sections. Later they took all three dogs for a walk—

Andie walking Daisy and Matt with his two.

After a late lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese, dogs and humans both lounged in the living room while Matt watched a baseball game and Andie read. There was a bookshelf in a corner of the room and Andie raided it, delighted to discover he enjoyed mysteries. She recognized the names of some of her favorite authors—Crais, Coben, Mosley, and Pellecanos—as well as a few she was not familiar with.

She pulled one featuring a laconic southern California private eye—an oldie but goodie—from the shelf. "Oh, I haven't read this one in a long time."

He glanced at the cover. "Yeah, he's a good author."

They spent a while comparing notes on some of the authors they liked and found they both preferred the hard-boiled mysteries to the cozies. Matt seemed a little surprised.

"Why, because I'm a woman?" she teased.

He shrugged. "I don't know."

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"But don't you know women write some of the toughest mysteries out there? Haven't you read any Patricia Cornwell or Sara Paretski?"

He rolled his eyes. "Eh, women always gotta add some romance to the story."

"Hey, that's sexist," Andie argued. "Men do too, you know."

After the game ended, they caught an airing of
Cool Hand
Luke
, one of Matt's favorites. Matt made them popcorn, and though both had seen the film before, they enjoyed it again, chiming in on some of their favorite lines.