“What did you want to talk about?” he asked, and snaked a hand under her T-shirt, which was actually his, and hell if that wasn’t the most arousing thing ever. He fanned a palm across her bare back, gradually working it around to the front where her breast fell into his eager fingers.
She moaned and arched against him. “Monte Carlo.”
He paused, thumb and forefinger wrapped firmly around her nipple. “What about it?”
The end of things now had definition. She was going to Monte Carlo, and he did not want to think about all the implications.
“There’s a party.” She gasped. “Don’t stop. Whatever you’re doing, it feels amazing.”
“You mean this?” Tweaking her nipple again, he shoved her up against his erection because maybe they were going to talk and have sex. It would be the first time in several days they’d connected outside of bed.
“Yes. That.” She writhed against him, igniting his flesh. His eyes crossed. “I didn’t bring a condom. Fair warning.”
“Well, now. That sounds like a challenge. Hmm. What can I do that doesn’t require a condom?” He yanked the T-shirt up and closed a nipple between his lips, sucking for all he was worth. Her warm skin felt like velvet in his mouth and she moaned his name, bucking against him.
He loved her responses, loved that he could do that to her.
He slipped a thumb down her shorts and inside her panties to circle her trigger-point, and relentlessly pleasured her until she came apart. Beautiful. He could watch that over and over.
Boneless, she slumped against him, and he breathed through his nose until his erection subsided to merely painful instead of excruciating.
“You were telling me about a party?” he prompted when her breathing slowed.
This was it. She was taking off. Maybe later today. This might be their last time together.
He did not want to give her up.
“I was?” She rolled her head to nuzzle his neck, nearly sending him off the edge of the chair.
“In Monte Carlo. Talk fast because we’re finishing this in about four seconds downstairs.” He stood with her in his arms, sad it was over.
No, not sad. Devastated.
“Um...” She met his gaze and smiled, but it never reached her eyes. “Never mind. We can talk about it later. Take me downstairs.”
Swallowing, he nodded. She didn’t want to ruin their last time together with unpleasant reminders of what was about to happen. Neither did he.
Evangeline was the best thing that had ever happened to him, enlivening him, encouraging him—but also encouraging him to keep hiding. To keep being a runaway.
It was best to go their separate ways, like they’d always planned. Lucas needed him, and the sting of reentering his old life without Amber had mellowed. When he went home, Matt would disappear forever, and there’d be no more wild and crazy, totally-un-Matthew-like Venetian affairs. He’d have his identity back. A plan. Security.
Evangeline would be free to fly off wherever she chose to go next, chasing the wind to the ends of the Earth.
The thought should have made him happier.
Venice was a transitory interlude, and now it was done. He only wished that truth eased the tightness in his lungs. And in his heart.
If only....well, life didn’t give anyone the luxury of “if only.”
When he picked up his phone to follow Evangeline back to the lower level, he saw another text from Lucas.
I’m handling Richards. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.
Eleven
Evangeline stared at the half-packed suitcase blindly and gnawed on a fingernail. Not one of her previously manicured-within-an-inch-of-their-lives fingernails remained.
Matt had gone for a walk. By himself. She didn’t blame him for dealing with reality in his own way. Venice, the temporary fix, was over. It just didn’t feel like it should be, and if things went the way she hoped, it wouldn’t have to be.
She’d almost asked him to go to Monte Carlo. It had been right there on the tip of her tongue, but at the last moment, she couldn’t chance a “no,” not after he so cleverly steered her away from talking about it. He didn’t want to talk about it.
But she had a hunch they’d be doing nothing but talking by the time he came back from his walk, because something huge and frightening and momentous might have happened and it sat right in the middle of her consciousness, screaming its presence. All she had to do was verify it.
The doorbell chimed.
Evangeline bolted downstairs and grabbed the package from the delivery guy, slammed the door in his face and only remembered she’d forgotten to tip him after she locked herself in the bathroom.
Hands shaking, she pulled the pregnancy test from the brown wrapper. It was pretty much a formality. Icing on a cake that had already been baking for over a month, since the no-condom roof incident. The fatigue, the slight nausea, the way she sometimes couldn’t get enough of Matt’s hands on her overly sensitized body and other times, couldn’t stand for him to touch her at all—it meant something much more weighty than a need to move on.