“What?” His arm loosened, and he started to push himself away from her.
She grabbed onto his waist and buried herself tight against him again. “I actually came here to get my life more under control. To find my feet. Not get swept up like a piece of flotsam in a flash flood.”
Both his arms closed around her now, one hand rubbing gently through her hair. “You want me to build us a raft?” he finally asked.
She laughed a little and tilted her head back. “I want you to kiss me again. That’s all I really want.”
He brought a hand to her face, his thumb tugging gently at her lip. His mouth was…tender. Curving gently, as his fingers petted again through that bane of her existence, those corkscrew curls. She wanted to kiss the scar on his chin. No, she wanted to nibble on it. Bite and lick. “It’s not all I want. But yeah—let’s do it some more.”
Oh, yes, that hungry, thorough heat of him as he kissed her again. The energy and gorgeousness of it. The way his mouth shaped and took and gave. That rose-brushed scent of sun-warmed human man. She gasped and fell back again, bringing up her hand to touch her damp lips. “I think I could kiss you like this forever.”
An intense kick of pleasure ran through his body and leapt in his eyes. “I couldn’t,” he admitted, half-laughing. “I’ll have to go get in a fight with one of my cousins soon.”
That much energy to vent? She petted one of those straining arms, loving that arousal so much. It made her feel hot. Hungry. Happy to be her. Vibrating like her own guitar, as if she’d been turned into pure, eager music.
“But let’s not stop yet,” he breathed, lowering his head. Tongues tangled, her hands digging into big shoulders, and her body lifting, his hands gripping her butt to help her up, pull her in, and—
The door opened behind her and she fall backward, franticly clutching him as he fell with her.
Matt managed to catch them both, a hand grabbing the doorjamb and the other arm yanking her in tight, before they fell all the way. He righted her in a flustered tangle.
“Tante Colette,” he said reproachfully. “You picked a fine time to start answering your door.”
Tante Colette? Meaning—? Layla twisted to see an old woman standing straight and tall, in a long skirt, her white hair neatly pinned on the back of her head. She gave no indication that two hot-blooded young people had nearly fallen into her home. This woman was ninety-six? Holy crap, this family had good genes.
“It was making unusual noises,” the old woman said coolly, even as her eyes flicked over Layla, intense and searching. “After they didn’t stop for some time, I thought I should perhaps check on it.”
Layla flushed. Her body against the door knocker must have occasionally sent a sound echoing through the house that she hadn’t even noticed.
“We were polishing your door knocker.” Matt grinned at his aunt, entirely full of himself. “Tante Colette, may I introduce the woman to whom you gave part of my valley?” A little flash of his eyes on that last, a press of his lips together.
For a moment, the old woman just stared at her, eyes widening and searching. Layla held out a hand tentatively. “Layla Dubois.”
She felt shy suddenly, before this old Resistance hero who had given her a house, and she found herself easing back toward Matt, so that her free hand grazed the back of his. A little brush of reassurance came with the contact, a kiss of warmth.
Without looking down at her, Matt turned his hand and simply engulfed hers. One big hand. Callused and warm. Fingers linking. Here. You need my hand? It’s right here.
She looked up at him, on a sparkle of happiness.
“Well, you’re certainly in a better mood than the last time I saw you,” Colette Delatour told Matt coolly. “Are you resigning yourself to your new neighbor or trying to seduce the property from her?”
Wait, what? Layla turned her head fast to look up at him.
For one second, he just stared at his aunt. Then he dropped Layla’s hand and folded his arms across his chest, his jaw thrusting. “Whatever you think the most asshole thing to do is, that’s probably what I’m doing. Of course.” His arms tightened over his chest, and he angled his head away, his scowl firmly back in place.
“Stop being so touchy,” his aunt said, turning to lead the way down the hall to the kitchen, and Layla looked curiously from her as she disappeared to Matt again, as his scowl grew even fiercer and his biceps bulged with the frustration he was compressing. Did people in his family often do that to him? Slap him with something they said, then blame him for being hurt by it?
“Hey,” she whispered, wiggling her fingers under his good arm, trying to fit between it and his chest.