One Week Three Hearts: (10 page)

Warm breath on Rose's inner thigh indicated Matt's mouth was dangerously close to her slit, and her muscles reflexively tensed. After using all her strength to lift her head, Matt's piercing dark eyes glared at her from between her legs. His tongue extended to its full length, and she was mesmerized by how his gaze never left hers as Matt slowly lowered his head until the coverlet stopped his chin. Rose dropped her head back when his tongue's tip swirled around her hole, while his thumbs slowly parted her.

Clenching her hands into fists, anticipation for his tongue's final destination drove Rose to moan, "Fuck me."

Did he just stop and whisper, "I love you," or did I imagine it? Did he really say that? Oh, he is licking my clit…. I can't… his teeth… his lips… oh, his tongue…

Matt's teasing tongue abruptly vanished and his weight disappeared from the bed. Rose looked up to see him quickly slide off his shorts, then he grabbed her hips and leveraged them to slide her to the edge of the bed. An insatiable need for him drove Rose to wrap her legs around Matt's waist while he freed one hand to guide the tip of his cock into her.

He let go of her legs, and raised his hands as if to say
take it if you want it
. Rose had no choice but to dig her heels into the small of his back, or her legs would drop to dangle over the bed's edge. Matt towered over her; the intense glare returned, and even his intermittent blinks seemed to be calculated and planned. Still breathing heavily, Matt appeared to wait for some unknown action or reaction from her.

The tip of his cock halfway buried inside her briefly pulsed, and that was enough to snap Rose into using her legs to pull him deep inside her. Matt's seething halted, and the white replaced the static intense glare as his eyes rolled back. Rose gasped at either his raw, unfiltered reaction to being inside her, or finally experiencing what she wanted since she arrived two days ago.

The irregular thrusts came at her slow and hard; Rose couldn't discern a rhythm behind it, but it added yet another layer of sensations that increased Rose's moan volume and frequency. Sweat plastered Matt's close cropped hair to his head; his body shook until he settled on a deliberate and more predictable pattern. Matt lifted her hips to catch his deep plunge, while Rose did her best to tighten herself around him, and Matt marked her successes with pronounced grunts.

Completely overwhelmed by Matt's potency, Rose barely managed to keep a pinch of the coverlet in each hand as her legs trembled uncontrollably around his waist. His sharp fingernails dug into her soft thighs like razor blades; she imagined she'd find the small red lines decorating her skin in some abstract pattern later. Matt's crushing thrusts spread her legs to the widest painful point, but it was the way the bottom of his spine rebounded off her heels that demonstrated the depth of his sheer physical force.

The cracking sound created by his skin slamming against hers evoked a desperate need in Rose to feel that same shock against her cheek — the one that would rattle her building climax loose.

Ignoring the nagging shame, Rose begged Matt to hit her. The crisp vocal plead betrayed any remaining sense of composure she retained.
 

"Not yet," he breathlessly whispered.

The denial stung as much as his hand would have.

Rose felt cheated and denied; it was all there ready to spill over and he blatantly refused her honesty to remain in control. In a desperate attempt to change his mind, Rose softly repeated "please" like a mantra. Matt bit his lip after a massive thrust, brought his finger to his mouth, wet it, and then used it to rub her clit as he pulled out. The constant sideways movement silenced her pleas.

Oh, fuck me…

Panting but not slowing his teasing motions on her clit, Matt motioned for Rose to back up on the bed. With great effort using her arms to propel herself backwards, Rose couldn't help glancing longingly at his hard shaft. She was so very close to those waves breaking through her, but the sudden empty void almost cut them off completely. Rose realized Matt dictated every single one of her emotions, and she allowed him to do it. He deliberately timed all of them in a logical pattern to elevate or diminish them. When he wanted her to feel shame or need, then he decided that — not her.
 

Matt's bare chest felt slicked with oil as he climbed on her, and Rose was grateful for the sense of completeness when he easily slid into her again. One drop of sweat slowly dripped off his forehead inches from her own, and she couldn't avoid Matt's laser-like focus on her.

A fraction of Rose's prior fear returned as she realized his hands crept up her neck to grip each side of her face. Matt's heavy breathing and grunts mixed into a sound reminiscent of a revving engine, and his face painfully contorted. Rose's legs were spread apart at their widest point, and he leveraged their position to repeatedly almost pull out before slamming himself back into her. She cried out each time his hips collided with her thighs. Matt's aggressive pounding barely allowed her to lift her pelvis to catch his, nor could she wrap her arms around him because Matt managed to pin them down with the weight of his arms.

If everything Matt did before that point was considered restraint, then the present was the pure unleashing of whatever he previously held back. Rose's hands started to tingle from his arm's forward weight almost cutting off the blood flow, and every bit of energy within her flowed between her legs. Matt's teeth clenched tight, yet his louder grunts escaped to fill her ears partially covered by his hands.

This is too much. No more. I can't take anymore. This is the real Matt. This right here. The wall is gone.

Matt's cock hit somewhere inside her, and Rose didn't even bother stifling the resulting scream. Her legs trembled and became weak while her muscles pulsed around his throbbing, driven shaft. Stomach muscles involuntarily convulsed as Rose tensed everything she could manage to keep his cock in her.

"Come now," Matt commanded through his groans. "Come. Right now."

Rose desperately wanted to turn her head away from his piercing, fixated gaze, but the consuming waves within her crested to the surface. Matt's lips momentarily touched hers, and her mouth went completely dry. She didn't realize his right hand released its grip on her face until after the searing jolt radiated from her cheek, and then quickly traveled to the bundle of exploding nerves surrounding him. Everything built up within her instantly doubled its magnitude — including the forceful release and her screams' volume. The coverlet in her hands pulled loose from the bed's edges and Rose pulled each side closer to her body as Matt squeezed his eyes shut.
 

With one arm freed and regaining feeling, Rose wrapped it around Matt's back and let her fingers travel up to his neck's back until Matt lightly kissed her inflamed cheek after his final plunge filled her. Matt collapsed on her still gasping for air, and this somehow reminded her of
 
Jason.

Staring at the camera's glowing red light over Matt's shoulder, Rose emphatically mouthed, "I love you, Jason."

***

Matt looked at her like she had two heads. "See what happens when you try something different beyond chicken teriyaki? It's like tuna in a can but much better," he said. "I couldn't let you leave this island without at least trying one piece of sushi. It's better than the stuff you get on the mainland, but nowhere near as good as what I get when I'm in Japan."

Okay, the sushi didn't taste that bad. I get it.

After Rose returned from the bathroom, she noted Matt turned off all the cameras before digging around the kitchen for their makeshift dinner. Climbing into the bed beside him proved to be slightly intimidating; she half expected Matt to tell her to sleep in her own room. Matt didn't protest and Rose felt silly about her doubts. They finished the meal he coaxed her to try, and then Matt snagged one of his laptops to busy himself with work while Rose tried to figure out what his earlier actions meant in the grander scheme going forward.

The temptation to touch him in some reassuring way monopolized her, but the return of Matt's studiously cold demeanor that matched the room's temperature suggested she refrain. Instead, Rose propped up her pillow so she could arrange herself on her side and watch the LED screen's reflection in his eyes.

"Ten years," Matt said. The laptop screen flipped through slides on a presentation filled with figures and charts. "Damn. They want to change the materials again."
 

"What do you mean?"

Nervously chewing her lower lip, Rose wanted a firm declaration of his feelings, but instead expected an indirect and confusing answer. Positive whatever lurked beneath the surface to prompt all his past confirmations still existed, Rose wished he would just definitively say it one more time. Loving someone she sometimes feared and rarely saw proved to be a tough challenge.

A blank email form popped up, and Matt pecked out one brief sentence. "The product marketing team wants me to approve cheaper materials so the company makes more profit on what I designed. Now I have to tell them to raise the price instead. It's the same discussion every time; they want me to compromise."

Matt lacked any signs of introspection as he pulled up another presentation file to flip through. "They only recognized my designs when I demonstrated I knew when to compromise," he said. "Now they do whatever they can to keep me because I'm constantly producing; they know eventually I'll hit it out of the park with one out of a hundred ideas I come up with. It's a hard road to grow success after you initially achieve it. When others cashed their stock options and moved on, I stayed and became an asset."

Acrimony laced his last word and widened the few inches of space between them. Rose fought off the instinct to reach for him, and kept her arms under the covers. He revealed a part of his life and character she wasn't privy to before. She could prod him to reveal more, but the casual mention of a decade stuck out like a flashing red sign.

"No, I meant the ten years thing you said."

A sinking feeling churned her stomach over squandering such a ripe opportunity to turn the conversation's focus to Matt. There would be a price for that, but she need a confirmation, anything to explain what passed between them.

His attention remained locked on the screen. "Do you remember the day you met me?" Matt asked. "You told me you weren't going to wear panties on your wedding day so you two could quickly start the wedding night."
 

She nodded. The memory flushed her cheeks with embarrassment at the carefree attitude she used to drape herself in, and caused her to blurt out statements before thinking about their impact. Why did she say that to him all those years ago? Did her subconscious reveal some desire to escape, or a need for some validation she could still tempt another man before committing to Jason? A psychoanalyst would have a field day trying to figure that out.

No, there was something about Matt that provoked honesty she immediately recognized. And he picked up on that recognition, stowing it away for the right moment to foster and nurture.

Matt turned to face her head on, half illuminated by the laptop screen's blue glow. "I honestly can't stand weak women," he said. "I spent ten years wondering what kind of woman makes a remark like that to her husband's best friend the day before she married him. Tonight… I figured it out."

Rose reminded herself to breathe, but the air refused to travel through her lungs as Matt turned back to his laptop. His admission caused her grip to tighten on the pillow cradling her head. The blanket didn't prevent a cold shudder to course through her body, and Rose wondered about the man she would sleep beside that night.

Ten years… all of that restrained for ten years. Is that love or something else? Because sometimes I feel it, and now… well, I don't know who or what he is.

Still flipping through slides, emails, and other documents, Matt exhaled with an impatient air. "Rose, I researched IVF," he said. "You have to learn how to deal with loss, failures, injections, and the invasive procedures. It looks like a lot of pain and hard decisions. You must find the strength to get through it."

A remorseful pang hit Rose's heart. This was the first time since arriving where she thought about what happened several months ago. Matt's cool tone offered comprehension without a trace of comfort. The well long dry, no tears pooled in her eyes.

He raked his hand through his hair. Her silence frustrated him, but there was nothing she could say that he didn't know already. Escalating his irritation was the last thing she wanted; he might exile her back to the lonely bedroom across the house. The stark blue light disappeared when the laptop clicked closed; he stowed it on the bedside table before turning to face her. Silver moonlit discs replaced his dark eyes. He understood. If he did all that research, then she's have to trust that he understood what she went through.

"One day, you'll realize none of this is your fault," Matt said. His voice and eyes seemed truthful. Pure. A contrast from the deceit that danced around the edges of her marriage.

I want to believe you.

Matt's sigh summed it up before his words did. "Look, Jason will be here tomorrow, so listen carefully," Matt said. "I'm not your husband. You and Jason have a marriage. He is my best friend. You and I… it's something different. Whatever 'it' is, we don't have to define it right away. Okay?"

The frigid exterior that matched the room's temperature disappeared, and Matt traced his thumb along her reddened cheekbone. That one sincere gesture melted away all her doubts.

He turned away, settled in to sleep, and didn't see Rose's silent nod at his spine's stark outline. Maybe witnessing her acceptance wasn't necessary.

Matt already knew.

###

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