“Matthew!” I choked as he filled me completely.
He was not a small man, and it always took a moment to adjust. He waited patiently, bending over my upper body to whisper dirty nothings into my ear, hum lightly, let me feel his warmth through my back, my legs, arms, all parts he touched.
And then he stood straight again and really began to move.
“Oh!” Each moan erupted from me in time with his unforgiving, deliciously harsh thrusts.
“Does that feel good?” he asked as he urged me to brace myself against the rails. Then he took my hand and guided it back around his neck, urging my fingernails to dig into his skin. Matthew loved a little punishment. He loved a little pain when he took me.
When he fucked me, I corrected myself.
I raked down the side of his neck. He hissed, then stood up, and suddenly, his palm met my ass with a slap that echoed off the sides of the buildings behind us and across the street.
I jerked forward, shocked by the sudden arrows of desire that shot through me with each harsh blow.
“Is that what you want?” he demanded as he pummeled forward. He spanked me again. “Just like that?”
“Uhhhh, yesssss!” I hissed back.
But he didn’t give me more. Instead, he fell over me again, insistent on proximity as he pounded into me. His grunts were animalistic, his teeth on my neck carnivorous. Matthew devoured me with every harsh thrust, and I took it, I cried out for it, I shook through every deep, penetrative motion.
My orgasm overtook me with a jolt, forcing my mouth open in a long silent scream as I spasmed in his arms. Matthew slipped an arm around my waist and hauled me up to his chest so I was sheltered over the railing in his arms while we both shook together.
“Oh God,” he muttered over and over again. “Oh God, oh God.”
He started murmuring something else into the back of my hair, something unintelligible, peppered occasionally with words like “grace” and “sinners.” Before I could stop them, tears welled up and just as quickly slipped down my face.
Our bodies seized together as we fell apart completely. And then, maybe a few minutes later, maybe hours, they eventually softened into nothing.
I collapsed against the railing, and Matthew fell too, catching himself only on his arms on either side of me as he slipped out. My skirt fell, no doubt a wrinkled mess. His jacket had long fallen from my shoulders to the ground, but it wasn’t until he stooped to pick it up again that I felt truly cold.
“I need—I need to go,” I stuttered as I stepped away, doing my best to smooth my skirt back into place. Suddenly I felt terrible. This wasn’t me. Or maybe it was—and perhaps that was even worse.
Matthew looked up from where he was trying to redo his tie and vest. When had I torn those off? At some point, I realized vaguely, it had happened. But I had no memory of anything other than my desire.
And now my shame.
My eyes were bleary. His were sharp, yet unfocused.
“What?” he asked as he struggled with a few buttons. “Nina, just wait a goddamn minute, all right?”
But I couldn’t. I shook my head, letting my newly shorn hair tousle around my face like a limp curtain. Heat was rising, an uncomfortable, humiliated flush chasing away all the beautiful pleasure that had been there before.
“No,” I whispered as I backed quickly toward the door. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Chapter Nine
Matthew
The sound of the door slamming behind her jerked me out of the trance I didn’t even know I was in. Two seconds ago I had been whispering Hail Marys just because I had never felt so equally blessed and damned at the same time. Now I was alone under the night sky, my dick all but hanging out in the freezing cold wind. And all from loving and wanting and fucking this woman.
And now, once again, she was running away.
“Not this fucking time,” I growled.
I yanked up my zipper and trotted toward the door, no longer caring that my vest was flapping open or that my shirt was only half tucked in and probably missing a few buttons. Those rich pricks downstairs could see my bare ass for all I cared. I wasn’t letting Nina de Vries get away.
I sprinted back to the main floor, but instead of a party full of New York’s elite, I found the catering staff busy cleaning up. Frankie was gone, along with Xavier and the other hundred or so people who had crowded themselves into the townhouse.
Jesus. How long had we been on the roof?
“A woman,” I said to a girl carrying a tray full of empty glasses. “Just came running down here. Tall, blonde, stunning, in a black and white dress. Did she leave?”
“Ummm…”
The waitress faltered, though through her confusion she still managed to eye my undone shirt and tie. Interest sparked. I huffed and rolled my eyes. Move it along, sweetheart. This ain’t for you.
“She’s downstairs with Eric and Jane,” Tony spoke up behind me. One brow rose as he took in my appearance.
I was too busy to notice. Finally, a break. “Thanks, man.”
He nodded as I dashed around him toward the stairs.
The bottom floor of the townhouse was the last space of the building that hadn’t fully been remodeled. What was once one of the great Gilded Age houses of New York had served as an apartment building for years. Eric and Jane had initially bought the top floor until Eric purchased the rest of it late last spring. At first I’d been surprised they even wanted to stay here after everything that happened—after all, when you shoot the man who’s persecuted your family for years and he bleeds out on your living room floor, maybe you don’t want to stay there anymore. But more and more, I understood. You can’t really run away from your ghosts and demons. You have to
