Her inner cavegirl?
Whatever the motivation, Mels put her lips against his. Briefly, chastely. Powerfully.
When she pulled back, he appeared stunned. “More out of control, huh,” she said quietly.
“You have a knack for…yeah.”
Well, she had shocked herself, too. But she simply couldn’t think of a reason to fight the pull she had toward him. Life was finite…and after the last couple of years, she was more afraid of not taking chances in this moment than of flying for a while and crashing in a fireball to earth—
“Mind if I finish what you started?” he said on a growl.
“Hell…no.”
On that ladylike note, Matthias’s hand slid around the back of her neck and pulled her forward, taking over, taking control. And in the second before he had her mouth on his, she thought it was amazing how they were relative strangers, and yet his essence was better than context or time: she felt safe with this mystery man of hers, in spite of all his rhetoric to the contrary.
And holy crap, she wanted him.
Seemed like that was mutual.
Matthias kissed her hard and let her go; then came back at her, like that hadn’t been nearly enough. As his tongue entered her, he kept the liplock going, holding her against his mouth, tilting his head, tilting hers. With heat pooling where it hadn’t been for so long, she was soaring, crazy and wild—and thought, this was exactly what she needed. This was it, right here, with him.
Sex here in this room, on this bed. With him.
Abruptly, Matthias pulled back, like he needed to catch his breath.
“You in a habit of kissing your stories?” he asked in a husky voice.
“You’re not a story. We’re off the record, remember.”
“Good point.” His eyes raked down her body. “I want you naked.”
Mels smiled slowly. “Not exactly a newsflash considering the way you just kissed me.”
With a groan, he came back at her again, maneuvering her down on the mattress, rolling over on top of her. Man, before his “accident,” he must have been really physically dominant with women—not in a violating manner; there was no coercion or sense of being trapped for her. Animalistic was the best way to describe it.
Especially as his leg parted hers, and his thigh pushed into her sex.
Mels surged up against the weight of his chest, and put her arms around him—
With a subtle shift, he held her off, and then stopped altogether. As he pulled away, moved away, there was tension in his face and his body—and not the I’m-about-to-jump-you variety.
“What,” she said hoarsely. “What’s wrong?”
As Matthias shuffled over to the edge of the bed, his lungs were burning and he wanted to put his head through a wall. Goddamn him, but here he was, with this beautiful, vital woman who had all the signs of serious sexual arousal going for her, and he was…willing, but not able.
He wanted her. But there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Thinking back to that nurse, to that hand job he hadn’t been into, it seemed like some cruel f**king joke that his problem had returned in this circumstance: The distance between him and his reporter was one that no amount of kissing was going to solve. Same with touching or grinding or full-back naked. They were on opposite sides of a grave again; she in the land of the living, he in a cemetery.
For some reason, it made him even more desperate to have her. And with sudden clarity, he knew that in the past, he’d taken whoever he wanted—and had not suffered from a lack of volunteers. But that hadn’t meant he had cared about the females.
Mels, on the other hand? This was different. She was different.
Except he could never have her properly, not with the way his body was.
“What’s wrong?” she said again.
He didn’t want her to know. Even if she found out later, he wanted to preserve the illusion he was a real man for a little longer. Assuming he saw her again.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he hedged. Which was the truth. So much of this whole thing—from waking up at the foot of Heron’s headstone to the accident with her—didn’t feel right. It was almost as if things were being lined up for him, as if his memory had been taken from him for a purpose.
“Neither can I,” she replied, focusing on his mouth like she wanted some more.
She didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who was into random hookups. She didn’t dress like a whore, move like one, act like one. And she was giving off a hesitant but open vibe, like it might have been a while for her, but she really wanted things to happen.
Tell her to go, he thought. Impotence aside, there were so many other reasons they shouldn’t be together tonight. Or ever.
Stretching out next to her again, he tucked his hand around her waist and pulled her to him—but not too close. Not against his hips.
God, she smelled good.
And the feelings were all there in his body, the heat coiling at his pelvis, his heartbeat going urgent, his arms and legs seeming even stronger than they had been. His c**k was not with the program, however.
But maybe that was better because he needed to tell her—
“Can I make you feel good?” he blurted.
Okay, that was supposed to have come out as “good night.”
“You already have.”
“I’m damn sure I can do better.”
“Well, far be it from me to stand in the way of excellence.”
As he went in and kissed her again, he wondered what she would look like with her shirt open and her bra off, her br**sts ready for his mouth, the smooth skin of her stomach leading him down to other territory.
This was incredibly good, all of it, and it seemed so new to him—and not just because he’d never been with Mels before. It felt like he’d never been with anyone. Then again, as far as his memory was concerned…there hadn’t been anybody before her—
From out of nowhere, an image sliced through his senses. Him and a woman with smooth, dark skin, up against a wall. He had his hand around her throat and her legs around his hips, and he was banging the ever-loving shit out of her—
Matthias jerked back. All at once images flooded his mind, a chronological lineup of every woman he’d been with—young ones, when he’d been young; older, racier ones as he had grown up; then a series of extremely edgy, highly aggressive females.
He saw himself with them all, his body strong and whole, his emotions clear and uncluttered, his heart cold as stone. He saw the women, naked, or half-clothed, armed and unarmed, coming in great bursts of contortion.