Tempted by the Billionaire(11)

Willow felt a sharp stab of something in her ribcage. “What are you asking me for then?”

His laugh was a husky sound in the balmy night air. “A chance.” He’d been at the frontline of a high-risk war for years. He’d battled his way across the desert, and led men to face a foe that was fearless and gruesome, and yet he felt a lurching sense of foreboding now. He had to take it, though. He had to see if this weird connection he’d sensed from the first moment they’d met was as strong as he hoped. He pressed his lips to hers, lightly at first. Just enough to show her his intention, nothing more.

She didn’t pull away. Instead, she let out a small puff of warm air, and her hands lifted to his chest, her fingers splayed across his muscled abs. He deepened the kiss, separating her lips and teasing her tongue. They meshed as one, and passion tore through him like a river of volcanic lava. Impossible to stem, it burst within his body.

He pushed his body closer, and at the same time, cupped her rear with his hands, pulling her forward on the bench, so that their bodies were almost fused. She moaned softly as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and her hands tore to his hair.

Matt needed more; so much more. But instinctively, he knew that pushing his advantage now would get him nowhere. Willow was cautious, and she had every right to be. She’d been in the middle of one marriage, and he wasn’t about to drag her into his own marriage breakup. He would stop kissing her. He would. Eventually.

But for now, the feeling of her warm, slender body in his arms was too good to resist. He let his fingertips glide over her back, softly hinting at what pleasures he wanted to bring her body. They tangled in the dark mane of her hair, pulling at it, releasing it from the topknot she habitually wore, and encouraging it to tumble down her back.

He would stop.

He must.

He lifted her shirt, allowing his fingers to tease the soft, warm flesh at the side of her body. His will-power was taking a battering, as his body began to march to the beat of an ancient, all-powerful drum. Desire and desperate hunger warred inside of him, churning his gut and storming his reserves with a total need for possession.

But he had to stop.

His will-power, always something he valued, was hammering through his conscience. He wanted her, but not like this. Not when the strength of their mutual attraction had washed away her valid arguments. He wanted her when she was begging for him. When she was absolutely certain that she wouldn’t regret pursuing this.

Gently, he eased his mouth from hers, and disentangled his fingers from her body. He straightened her shirt, and stepped back. The look on her face was like a deer that had been caught in headlights. Shock, complete and absorbing, made her stare at him in blank confusion.

It only took a second for indignant fury to take over. She glared at him with slightly more warmth than an eskimo’s igloo. “What the hell was that?” She demanded, swinging her long legs off the bench and pacing away from him, towards the lounge.

Matt had to fight the urge to smile, and he couldn’t have explained why if asked. “I do not want this!” She spun around and scowled at him darkly. “I don’t care if you think you’re separated. You still have a wife, and I’m not prepared to be a rebound thing.” She stiffened her shoulders, and tried to slow the frantic racing of her heart. “I mean it, Matt. This isn’t funny, so I don’t know why you’re smiling like that.”

He didn’t mean to, but he laughed. “Because you’re adorable when you’re angry.”

Willow groaned inwardly. What was she doing? She closed her eyes for strength, but it just brought the memory of their kiss slamming back into her. The parallels between Matt’s behaviour and Ashton’s were too obvious. Both had kept their marriage statuses from her intentionally; and both had overpowered all of her senses with their powers of seduction. Except the way Matt had made her body sing was completely different to how she’d felt with Ashton. Completely different to anything she’d ever known.

She formed her hands into fists by her side. “I don’t want this.”

“Liar,” he grinned, and he surprised her by settling down comfortably in her sofa, as though he belonged there. It brought a frown to her face. Her sofa was a hand-crafted Scandinavian piece she’d bought at a furniture expo a year or so earlier. The finest timber, polished to a walnut sheen, was graced with restored vintage leather. It was elegant and fine, yet Matt’s burly form sat perfectly against it. The juxtaposition shouldn’t have worked, and yet it did.

“Don’t sit down,” she said with genuine frustration. “You need to go.”

He laughed again, and this time, it sent small arrows of pleasure and desire shooting down her spine. “Not until we’ve talked. Don’t fight me on this, Willow. I know how to get through to you now, and I’ll kiss you all night if I have to.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she said with a huff, but she took up the seat beside him, and lifted her legs, crossing them beneath her.

His eyes dropped to her lips, and he made a small tsking sound. “Pity.”

Her heart turned over in her chest, and secretly she agreed with him. She stared into his bright blue eyes and felt like she was falling into the deepest ocean imaginable. “What do we have to talk about?” She whispered thickly. “I just met you.”

He nodded, his handsome eyes mocking her. “Yeah, and you’ve been thinking about me ever since then, too.”

The flush of pink in her cheeks gave him all the answer he needed.

He reached out and put his hand lightly on hers. It felt so right. He couldn’t explain it, but sitting like that was some kind of magic. He frowned. He didn’t believe in that kind of sentimentalism. At least, not usually. “Meghan left me fairly recently, it’s true, but really I left our marriage just after it began.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “I shipped out a month or so after. I stayed away a long time. Can’t say I gave her much say in the matter.”

“It’s really not any of my business.” Willow’s fingers were tingling beneath his, but she didn’t move.

He squeezed her hand. “It is, Willow. Because I’m hoping that you’ll agree to go on a date with me.” He frowned. His plans were so loose they were like spaghetti, but he heard himself speaking, and knew his suggestion was genuine. “That you’ll understand that I haven’t considered myself married in anything but name for a long time.”

Her eyes flashed as they met his. “And your wife?”

“Soon to be ex wife,” he corrected with a small smile. “Meghan isn’t a part of this picture.”

Willow felt her stomach fill with butterflies. She stood, taking hold of her own hand to relieve the emptiness that flooded through her when she lost his touch. “It’s too complicated, Matt.” Her smile was tight, reminding him of the first time he’d met her. It was incredible, but she seemed to be erecting mental barriers before his very eyes. It was as though she was shrugging back into that cloak of coldness, and putting him at a distance to her. Incredible, and infuriating. “I’m sorry about your wife, but I’m not interested in distracting you, or whatever.” She moved away from him, back to the kitchen, without giving him another glance. Discarded on the bench, her coffee was still warm. She lifted it to her lips and drank it moodily.

“I’m trying to explain that the way I feel about you has nothing to do with Meghan.” He said quietly, leaning against the kitchen door.

Willow jumped. “God, you scared me half to death. I didn’t hear you come in here.”

He nodded sardonically.

He was so handsome. His looks were the kind that movie stars emulated but could never quite perfect. Rugged, outdoorsy, with an air of strength and fire. But his personal life was too messy. Too complicated. “I just don’t have any interest in getting in the middle of something like your marriage. Sorry.”

He compressed his lips, trying to tamp down on his powerful sense of frustration. “And I’m telling you you’re not. That you won’t be. Meghan and I are completely over. From both sides, it’s done. Do you need to see divorce papers to grasp that?”

She bit down on her lip. “No. It wouldn’t help.” She flashed him another tight, terse smile. “I think you should go now, Matt. I really don’t want Anna getting the wrong idea about us. Somehow I don’t think she’d approve of any of this.”

He breathed out an angry sigh. “Can’t say I much care, right now.”

“Maybe not, but I do. Ike and Anna have been really great to me.”

“So? They’re nothing to do with how you and I feel.”

Willow’s laugh was shaky. “How we feel? We hardly know each other! You’re on the rebound, Matt. You’re seeing romance ghosts that aren’t there. I’m just the girl next door to the place you’ve come to mend a broken heart. You need to wake up and realise that there’s nothing between us except the Berries’ fence.”

“Damn it, Willow, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“Huh?” She had no clue what he was about to do. Until his lips touched hers, she couldn’t have guessed at his intention. But the second they connected, she groaned, as her whole body began to vibrate in time with a different beat. She had a fleeting sense that she was allowing something very, very stupid to happen, but it felt too good to resist.