Starting Point (34 page)

“She adores you,” I told him.

“And you.”

“We did the right thing,” I told him. “I think Claude and my mom will get on like a house on fire. And if she really doesn’t like staying there, then we’ll deal with that then.”

“Kira, are you okay?” he asked, looking at me concerned. “You look a little…distracted.”

“I can’t explain it. I just feel…out of balance, or something,” I said, using my mom’s words.

Matt’s eyes were wide with concern. “Babe, what is it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel… I don’t know.”

Matt took my face in his hands and looked me right in the eye. “Tell me what to do, tell me what you need.”

“I need…you.”

“You have me.”

“No, I need
you
. I need to be with you. I need to…have you.”

“Okay,” he agreed, took my hand and climbed the stairs to stand beside the bed. He turned around and pulled off his shirt and bit his bottom lip. “You can have me anytime.”

I shook my head. “I feel a bit stupid. I mean, I can’t really explain it. It’s not just sex. I need to feel you, and I need…”

“You need to feel alive, and validated, and whole,” he said, like he could read me completely. “It’s been an awful few days and you need some balance.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

He cupped my face and kissed me, slowly and perfectly, but then he pulled away. “Shit. I didn’t bring anything with us…”

“I did,” I told him. It was like packing underwear—I never
not
packed condoms and lubricant. “But I don’t want to use it. I want it to be just you and me.”

His eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “Yes. I’ve never been surer of anything. I want it to be skin on skin, no condom, no barrier. Just us.”

Matt kissed me again, pulling my bottom lip in between his. “Just us.”

With my forehead against his, I kissed him one last time before going to my bag to get the lube. I hadn’t even unpacked it. It had been over a week since we’d used it last.

Matt stripped off his cargos and climbed onto the bed. I threw the small bottle beside him, and he quickly poured some onto his fingers while I got undressed. He smeared his hardened cock first, then pressed a finger into his ass. I still hadn’t even got my shorts off.

By the time I was naked and kneeling on the bed, he was adding a second finger. I licked his balls then the length of his cock. “You need to come first,” I told him.

He shook his head quickly, urgently, and sank his fingers in up to the knuckle. “No. You first. In me, please.”

Jesus. He was almost begging. He needed this as much as I did.

Leaning over him, I grabbed the lube and poured a small amount on my fingers, lathering my cock first. I was so hard. I was so turned on by the realisation of what we were about to do.

Slowly, I pulled his fingers out of his hole and taking both his hands in mine, I pinned them over his head. Our bodies pressed together as our mouths and tongues fused. Matt drew his legs up, bringing his knees to our chests, spreading himself open, giving himself completely.

My cock rubbed against his hole, and this was it.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded quickly. “Please.”

I released one of his hands and guided my cock, slowly pressing into him. Matt’s mouth opened with a gasp and he threaded his fingers with mine on one hand, and when I reached up to grab his other hand, he joined our fingers again, holding both my hands so tight.

I covered his mouth with mine and gave him my tongue, while I slowly sank my cock inside him. Matt lifted his hips, rocking us, until every inch of me was buried in him.

When he let go of my hands, he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer, holding me tighter as we thrust and rocked. He was moaning with each push, sounds I had never heard from him.

He felt so hot, and so, so good.

It had never felt so good.

“Matt, I’m close,” I rasped.

He quickly locked his ankles behind me, holding me inside him and he held my face in his hands. His eyes were dark and full of love, and he whispered against my lips, “Come inside me.”

His words set fire to my blood, and I thrust harder, deeper, until my orgasm ripped through me. My cock swelled and surged inside him, filling his ass with my cum.

I’d never felt anything like it.

Still holding my face with his eyes wide, he watched me come. “Oh, fuck,” he ground out, before pulling my mouth to his. And while I was still inside him, while my body jerked with pleasure, he slid one hand between us and gripped his cock, spilling hot cum between us.

I still didn’t pull out of him.

I didn’t have to.

I wanted to stay inside him forever.

When he lazily opened his eyes, I kissed his blissful smirk and reluctantly let my cock slip out of him. I rolled us onto our sides, then I pulled him against me and threw one leg over his thigh. I kissed the side of his head. “Do you feel okay?”

He chuckled and murmured, “Um, I feel so good right now.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “That was… Matt, that was amazing.”

He nestled himself further into my chest and kissed the skin there while we both caught our breath. He ran his hand down my side and over my ass, before pulling my hips into his. My still semi-hard cock pressed against him, and he shivered. “Mmm,” he hummed. “Still hard. Do you want more?”

I chuckled again thinking it was a rhetorical question, but then he pulled my hips to his again, feeling my dick jerk between us. “Definitely more,” he said, then he pulled out of my arms to lay face down on the bed.

“Matt…”

He replied by gripping the sheets above his head, spreading his legs and lifting his ass.

I considered telling him I’d be fine, but he knew me too well, and had to give my dick a squeeze. Then he moaned. And lifted his ass higher. I almost growled as I kneeled between his thighs and leaned over him. I whispered in his left ear, “You’re such a tease.”

“Just fuck me again,” he said.

I laughed low in his ear. “And you’re bossy.”

He waggled his ass, rubbing against my hard-on, so I gave him what he wanted. I pressed the head of my cock against his still-wet hole, and pushed right in.

Still slick from when I was inside him before, I slid into him so easily. Matt threw his head back and grunted, lifting his ass again and again to meet me. Every now and then he would react like this—wanting,
needing
a good, hard fuck.

I covered his hands with mine and drove into him, giving him exactly what he needed. What
I
needed. He needed to be owned, and I needed to claim him. We needed to reconnect.

I kissed and scraped my teeth on his shoulder as I fucked him, making him groan louder and buck his hips back to meet me. Pleasure built with each thrust and it wasn’t long until I came inside him again.

I collapsed on top of him, sweaty and well sated, kissing his skin where I’d marked him with my teeth. I was still inside him, and when I went to move, he stopped me. “Stay in me,” he said.

I kissed the back of his neck. “We’re a mess. We need to get cleaned up.”

We stayed like that for a little while as we caught our breath, and Matt started to laugh underneath me. I slipped out of him and gave him room to roll over only to settle back on top of him. He spread his legs and arms wide, wrapping them around me only to chuckle again. “What’s so funny?” I asked him, pleased to see him so happy.

He kissed me with smiling lips. “I’m such a mess. I am covered in lube and cum and sweat.”

His eyes were shining, and he looked so damn content, I couldn’t help but laugh with him. I dragged him to the shower, and we both stood in the cramped space and scrubbed each other down. I washed the lube out of his hair, and he gave me a bubble beard. I took the hand held showerhead and sprayed the jet at his asshole, trying to make sure he was clean, which ended up as a water fight, which ended with us laughing hysterically, an absolutely drenched bathroom and wet and smiling kisses.

He rubbed his towel over my hair. “I like your hair when it’s a bit long,” he said.

“I thought you liked it short and spiky.”

He looked genuinely perplexed. “I can’t decide.”

I laughed at him and tied the towel around my waist. I grabbed his face and planted another kiss on his lips. “Thank you,” I told him. “I really needed this.”

He looked at me and tilted his head. He was still smiling, but his eyes were questioning.

I explained. “I needed this time with you, just an hour or so. I needed this laugh.”

“Me too.”

“We better get this cleaned up and head back to town,” I told him. Then I remembered that we’d have to plan a funeral for Ruby and my smile faded. “We have some not so nice stuff to deal with back home.”

Matt stood up straighter and took my face in his hands. “Babe, we’ll get through this. You and me, together? We can do anything.”

I turned my face and kissed the palm of his hand. His words, his absolute conviction, warmed me through. “Yes, we can.”

Chapter Seventeen

Two weeks later—the day of the fundraiser

We got to the FC early, because even though Matt and the guys had done so much to be prepared, we still had so much to do. When they closed the street off, the stall vendors and carnival rides moved in and we pulled out heavy wooden picnic tables. We set up the temporary ring and floor mats for the kids to do their exhibition shows, and were still taking the kids through their routines when people started to trickle in.

Then more people came. And more still.

Matt was in his element.

It was an effort to keep up with him. He did the PR rounds of the stall owners, he kept the FC boys organised and busy and he kept Boss from stressing out completely. He even did some interviews for newspapers, a local community magazine and radio. He was really pushing how the gym was fitness-based, community-based and how they focused on teaching kids drug awareness.

Claude was there of course, with Mom and Dad in tow. It hadn’t been an easy two weeks for Claude, or for any of us for that matter. We’d buried Ruby, and it had been a horrible, horrible day.

Watching Claude’s little heart break all over again had been just awful.

But one good thing to come out of the grief and sorrow, was Claude’s relationship with my parents, in particular with my dad. They would spend hours together, in absolute silence—Dad being deaf of course—but it had almost a calming effect on Claude. She needed the quiet to collect her thoughts, and found a peace in being around my dad—someone who offered a huge presence but also a gentle silence.

We’d all had a lot to sort out with taking Claude on, it wasn’t as easy as just taking a kid off the streets and giving her a home. Tamara had explained there would be a lot of adjustment issues, a lot of emotional trauma for Claude to deal with, and it would need to be done one day at a time.

We’d all met with Tamara a few times in those two weeks, over and above our normal sessions. She’d laughed when she’d met my parents, telling me and Matt later that it explained a lot. But she took on Claude as a patient, and it was different to see how Tamara approached a kid, as opposed to me and Matt.

I think Matt developed a newfound respect for Tamara. He’d let go of the resistance, or the animosity he’d felt towards her, and had really shifted in his progress with not only Claude’s development but also his own.

He’d even invited her to come down to the fundraising day, and it wasn’t a polite invitation, but more of an offer for her to see Matt’s personal milestone in just how far he’d come.

At first I’d thought he might have wanted her to come along so she could see the kids, to show that they’re not nameless or faceless, and see the struggles they faced instead of sprouting figures from some psychology text book. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was out of pride—he wanted to show off his hard work and he wanted her to meet the people he talked about because they mattered to him. And he should be proud of his work.

But whatever the reason, and for whoever’s benefit, Tamara was there.

Matt introduced her to the FC boys, and she watched as Matt ran his kids through their routines in front of the gathered crowds. She saw how he’d taken a bunch of street kids, some of which had nothing, all of whom now had a sense of pride. And hope. She saw how he’d given them hope.

I thought Tamara would disappear not long afterwards, but she didn’t. She stayed the whole day, talking to people we knew, people we didn’t know, and I think she really saw why Matt fought so hard for this, why he defended it so much when they’d discussed his work.

Either way, there was a mutual admiration between them. Well, until they locked horns about something else in a few months, and I had no doubt they would. I was pretty sure Matt liked the challenge and Tamara knew it was an effective way to get Matt to communicate.

Whatever it was, and as much resistance as there was between them, they achieved a lot together.

She stood with me and my parents and we watched Matt take the makeshift stage. I guess all those press conferences as the spokesman for the Fab Four paid off, because he took the microphone like he was born to do it. He thanked the people for coming, for showing support in their community. He thanked the sponsors, then he thanked the kids.

He told the audience of the club’s efforts to get street kids back into school, in conjunction with mixed martial arts programmes. Then Matt put his hand to his heart and said, “I’m very proud to announce, the FC with the help of Hillvue Community College, and with a very generous sponsorship deal with Red Dog, we’ve now been fortunate enough to secure funding which will enable us to run a full MMA scholarship programme to get homeless kids back in school.”

A round of applause went through the gathered crowd, then Matt looked over to us. “It is with a very heavy heart, that we announce the Rueben Vaughn Memorial Scholarship.” Matt took a deep breath. “Because no thirteen-year-old kid should think they’re forgotten, not loved or not seen. And they most certainly shouldn’t ever die alone on the streets.”