When Joss Met Matt (26 page)

“Please,” I repeated, tone sliding toward begging. “I want you—here, up here.” I raked my fingernails through his hair, urging him to bring his mouth back to mine. “I want you inside me.”

He made a low sound of approval and helped me get his boxer briefs off and on the floor with the rest of our clothes. The pause was almost more than I could stand. Then, he came back to me, and we slid together as easily as two long-lost puzzle pieces. I groaned at the relief that flooded me, and wrapped my arms around him. Every motion sent waves of pleasure through me, until I was dizzy with it.

The room faded as I focused on Matt's face and the sensation of our bodies moving together. He kissed me over and over, our breathing getting louder as we got closer to bliss. He slipped his hands beneath my hips, arching my back and altering the angle of our joining. I gasped at the change, quite suddenly on final approach for ecstasy. He recognized the sound of my breath.

“Take me with you,” he said.

“I—I … uhhnng …” I became incoherent at the last moment, but clamped my thighs tight to his body and dug my fingernails into his back. I couldn't manage more than that, but it seemed to be enough for Matt. He forced me into an almost painful second peak with his last few thrusts and I made some unintelligible sound of delight. The room seemed to brighten, then fade like an explosion and my thighs fell slack.

In the aftermath, we panted and giggled at the involuntary jerks that occasionally rippled through me.

“I'm sorry.” I snickered. “I'm not trying to do that.”

“I know.”

When he'd regained his breath, Matt excused himself to the bathroom and came back with a bottle of water. It wasn't cold, but when he offered it to me, I happily took a long drink.

He settled onto the bed again and ran his fingers through my hair. “You're amazing.”

I smiled and rolled onto my stomach to reach for the water bottle again. “So are you.”

“Your freckles really show in the sunlight,” he observed, letting his hand drift over my back.

“I know.” I wrinkled my nose.

“I don't know why you hate them so much. They're cute.”

“It's part of the chipmunk thing. More cuteness.”

“Well, I like them.” He kissed me between the shoulder blades just before I rolled over again.

“Matty, are we really gonna do this?”

He tried and failed not to look concerned. “I thought that was the plan.”

“Okay. Good.” I got to my knees and straddled his lap. “ 'Cause I could really get used to having full access to you all the time.”

He smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I'll be really glad not to go on crappy dates anymore.” I looped my arms around his neck.

“How soon should I expect you to bust out the ugly underwear?” he asked.

I burst into laughter. “Ooh, I don't know.”

“How ugly are we talking about?”

“It's not ugly. It's just cotton and boring. I wear it to work.”

“Dogs and cats don't appreciate French lingerie, huh?”

“Some of it's Italian. And no. Plus, I get peed and puked on … a lot.”

“Right.” He kissed me lightly, initiating a brief exchange of affection that ended with me on the bottom of a two-person pile, and our legs a tangled pretzel. “I guess we can tear up our contract.”

I laughed. “Even the laminated one I keep in my safe deposit box?”

“Yeah, and have your assistant shred any copies you might have lying around.”

“I'll send her a memo.”

“Okay, good.” He pressed his lips to a ticklish spot on my neck.

I squirmed as goose bumps popped up across my chest. “You're making me cold!” I scratched at the sheets, trying to catch hold of something to cover myself with.

“Mmm, that's no fun,” he complained when I succeeded.

“Why not?”

He paused. “I can't come up with a reason other than wanting you to be naked.”

“It's not good, but it's a reason.”

“Maybe the novelty will wear off after a while.”

“You've been seeing me naked since we were eighteen. There's no novelty left.”

“Only intermittently.”

“True.”

He kissed me—another of his amazing kisses that made me wonder just how necessary oxygen really was for a person. “I love that you came to the observation deck today,” he said.

Automatically, I got butterflies in my stomach. “Yeah?”

“I never thought you'd do it.”

“So you
were
trying to get away from me!” I shoved at him without any success.

“I—” He exhaled, all traces of defensiveness disappearing. “Yes.”

“Very mature, Matt.”

“I was mad at you,” he said.

“I know.” I laid my hand on the side of his face. “Are you still?”

“No.”

“And when I have my clothes on again, are you going to remember that you were mad?”

He just laughed, and kissed me, and laughed some more. “No. Promise. I love you, Joss.”

“I love you, too.”

Our lips came together in slow, simmering kisses. They tasted of promise rather than impermanence—a main course, and dessert, too. Which reminded me …

“How long do we have before the cocktail hour starts?”

Matt lifted his head and squinted at the clock. “It started fifteen minutes ago!”

My eyes flew wide. “Oops!”

He was already on his feet. “To be continued?”

I paused mid-scramble and smiled. “No end in sight.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

And Now …?

We had to hurry, but my hair and makeup might as well have been an advertisement for Afternoon Delight. I had to do repair work. Matt peeked in through the bathroom door. “Are you almost ready? We're so late.”

“I can't get this damn earring in.” I held out the offending jewelry and gave it, then him, a frustrated scowl.

“You can do it in the cab, come on.” He disappeared from the door and I rolled my eyes.

But he was right, so I cupped the earring in one hand and scurried back into the hotel room. The bed was rumpled and my shoulder bag looked like it had gotten sick on the floor, but there was no time to do anything but grab my small purse from the mess still left inside. “Okay, I'm ready.”

“You don't have shoes on.”

I picked them up from the floor. “I'm not putting them on until I have to.”

“Whatever.” He opened the door and gestured for me to go first. We hurried down the hall to the elevator where Matt stabbed at the button repeatedly and I held my shoes between my knees while I tried once more to get my earring in. I almost had it when the elevator arrived, and had to waddle into the car to prevent losing my shoes or my chance for victory over the earring.

“Aha!” I exclaimed when it sank home. I looked in the mirrored panel in the back of the elevator and saw that my ear was bright pink from the effort. Hopefully the swelling would go down by the time we got there. I stepped into my shoes just as the doors opened on the lobby and I gave Matt a final look of triumph. “See? Totally ready to go.”

He smiled, shaking his head.

We pushed through the revolving doors to the street and hailed a cab.

He reached for my hand and threaded our fingers together.

“So, how do you want to play this?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“People are going to want to know what happened to us.” A quick check of my cell phone told me I'd ignored three phone calls from the group at the John Hancock building. I was sure Matt's would be the same.

“You can tell them the truth if you want.” He looked at me from the corners of his eyes, not bothering to hide a smirk.

I held up a staying hand to my imaginary audience. “Sorry, everybody, urgent hotel sex situation.”

The cabbie's eyes looked in the rearview mirror, so I gave him a wide-eyed blink.

Matt laughed. “Look, people, I can only go so long without getting Joss out of her clothes, and it had been a while.”

The cabbie glanced at us in the mirror again, but I was laughing too hard to look innocent that time.

“Aon Center's to your left,” the driver said, pulling to the right of the wide boulevard.

“We'll walk it,” Matt said. We got out of the car and scurried across traffic hand in hand. The sidewalk was a full story above the crashing waterfalls in the entrance courtyard. As we reached the stairs that would take us down to that level, I spotted our friends hurrying toward us from the west.

“I guess we're not the only ones who are late,” I said.

“Jocelyn Kiel, where the hell have you been?!”
came Kerry's shout while they were still fifty yards away.

We waited for them to catch up, still holding hands. I had butterflies again, but they were the good pre-game kind. We were about to go public.

The interrogation began as soon as they were within earshot. “What the hell happened to you guys?”

“You losers ditched us!”

“You know when your phone rings, you're supposed to answer it, right?”

“You missed a kick-ass view!”

“Sorry, guys,” I said. “We, uh—”

“Joss couldn't handle the heights,” Matt cut in.

I elbowed him for giving me the blame.

“You still could have answered your phone,” Annemarie said.

“Sorry.”

“Well, whatever, we're late,” Kurt said. “Let's go.”

The group crowded down the stairs, and just before we went inside, I finally allowed myself to look up at the glass facade. My knees turned to water. The skyscraper reached eighty-three stories toward the clouds, and Jessie and Evan's reception was on the very top floor. I couldn't imagine standing that close to the sky. I was officially going to kick Jessie's butt for failing to mention this in all the times I'd asked her about wedding plans. Not that she would have cared—it was her wedding.

“I can't do it again,” I whispered, gripping Matt's hand.

“You'll be fine,” he assured me.

“Maybe I should just stay down here.”

“Come on, you big wuss,” he teased, giving me a tug toward the entrance.

I made a whimpering sound, but let him lead me through the lobby. There was an attendant outside the elevator who seemed to take a malicious pleasure in using his key to activate the private elevator. When the doors opened, he grinned at us and said, “Next stop, top of the world.”

“Why do they always say that?” I whimpered.

Matt laughed. “You can do it, Alvin.”

The others were chattering, ignoring my oncoming panic attack. It was all back again—the pounding in my ears and chest, the lack of air, the prickling feelings all over my body. The doors closed and I turned my face into Matt's chest.

He kissed the top of my head and rubbed my back while my stomach sank into the region of my ankles. My curiosity got the better of me, and I had to peek at the readout in the corner of the elevator. The numbers were in the forties and climbing.

“I can't do this! I want to go back down! Don't make me get off the elevator!”

Matt took my face in his hands and kissed me soundly for the rest of the ride.

The silence among the other passengers was deafening. The elevator opened on the eighty-third floor, and I allowed Matt to nudge me into the lobby.

“So, uh”—Geena pointed at Matt and me with one swiveling finger—“what's going on here?”

“We're … together,” Matt said.

“Shut up!”

“This isn't, like …” Kerry made an uncertain gesture and face to match.

“No.” I shook my head. “It's … real.”

A slow smile spread across Kerry's face. “I knew you couldn't keep it up.”

By the time we were seated for dinner, I was already convinced that I'd never been to a more spectacular wedding. The club was luxurious, and if I kept my eyes away from the windows, the interior was lush enough that I could pretend I wasn't nearly a thousand feet from the ground. The freely flowing champagne helped keep my nerves at a dull undercurrent. Even the table settings were the most elegant I'd seen.

We listened to the toasts and watched as a flurry of servers hit the floor with the first course. Our table was populated entirely by friends from college, and we were by far the loudest group in the room. The evening was filled with so much laughter that I had to reapply mascara after the video.

When the salad plates had been cleared, the servers returned with small plates.

“That doesn't look like dinner,” Nate groused. “I'm hungry!”

“Maybe it's just really small,” Geena said with a grin.

Our servers arrived to set down the chilled plates and Matt and I locked eyes. It was a sorbet course. I laughed and quickly covered my mouth.

“Is this dessert?” Mitch wanted to know.

“It's the sorbet course, you idiot,” Kurt said.

“Why are we eating ice cream before dinner?”

“Haven't you ever had a sorbet course?” Kerry asked.

“It's supposed to clear your palate,” Matt said.

“All right.” Nate shrugged and dug into the small pink scoop of sorbet on his plate. “Not bad.”

I picked up my spoon, but hesitated. I knew it was stupid, but it seemed wrong to eat it. Looking at Matt, I saw that he wasn't eating either.

“It's ridiculous not to eat this, right?” I said in a low voice.

“Right,” he agreed, but didn't touch his spoon.

I watched everyone else eat, still holding my spoon, until at last Matt reached over and took it from my hand. He set it on the edge of the plate in the international symbol for “I'm done,” and did the same with his own.

“I don't care if it's stupid; I'm not eating it,” he said.

I smiled and leaned close to kiss him. “Me either.”

He sat back in his chair with a contented sigh. “Good.”

“I mean, people can go their entire lives without ever having sorbet again, right?” I asked.

“I intend to.”