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“You still watch this?” I asked in complete surprise. This six feet five inches of raw, sometimes scary, biker maleness watched people go house hunting?
“All the time,” he answered with a deadpan expression. “Every time I see a house on here I know you would like, I record it.”
“Y-you do?”
He hit the menu on the remote, and the DVR list came up. It showed twenty recorded episodes of House Hunters. And right below that was a stash of porn, the titles alone telling me that they belonged to Tanner. The first made tears blur my eyes, while the latter had me biting back a laugh.
“Damn it, Tanner!” Matt groaned when he realized the reason for the weird expression on my face. “I told him two weeks ago to delete Cougars Like Threesomes Two.”
I gave up trying to hold back the laugh. As it left me, only then did I realized I hadn’t made that sound in years. Not since before my mother’s death. “I figured it was his. I remember how much he was into older women.”
“Yeah, well, he hasn’t changed since you last saw him.” Matt angled his long body so that he was facing me once the menu was off the TV screen, replaced with the show he had originally turned it to. Blue eyes scanned over my face, then lower. I watched as he reluctantly lifted his gaze from my bare legs. “Eat, Rory.”
Knowing it was useless to argue with him on that score, I picked up my burger and took a small bite. He watched me eat a quarter of it before he even picked up his own.
“Tanner hasn’t changed, and from what I can see, you haven’t either. At least, not in appearance,” I amended. He looked exactly the same as the last time I had set eyes on him, but that didn’t mean the things I couldn’t see had stayed the same too. “Has anything changed since I left?”
He seemed to think my question over while he chewed his second bite of burger. Wiping his mouth, he finally shrugged. “A few things. Raven married my cousin, Bash. They have a son together now, and she adopted his daughter.”
“It’s hard for me to think of Raven as someone’s mom.”
He grinned. “Once you see her with Lexa and Max, you won’t think that.”
“What else has changed?”
“Spider got married. Uncle Jack met his long-lost granddaughter, and Hannigans?
? burned down.”
It took me a moment to absorb all of that. I knew both Spider and the man Matt and his brother affectionately called Uncle Jack, but the news that both of them had life-changing experiences didn’t surprise me nearly as much as what he said about Hannigans’.
“Oh my God, Matt. I’m so sorry. I know how much Hannigans’ meant to you. Crap, I bet Raven and her brothers are devastated.”
“It was a blow to everyone. But the place was insured, and they were able to rebuild. The bar is even bigger now, and we were able to save the old Originals’ Booth.” He finished his burger in two more bites then started in on his fries.
We were both quiet for a few minutes, our gazes going to the TV, but our minds weren’t on what was happening on screen. Instead, I couldn’t stop thinking about what else could have changed after I had left. Not with his family and friends, but with him. I wanted to know—needed to fucking know—if his feelings had changed.
But I was too much of a coward to ask, so I remained quiet. I picked at what was left of my burger, moving my fries around and picking out the crispy ones. A small pile had gradually grown on the corner of my burger wrapper. Matt had picked out his little crispy ones for me.
My throat tightened with emotion, making it hard to so much as swallow. If he could remember small things like that and record all the episodes of a show he knew I would like, how much could his feelings for me have actually changed?
“You’re thinking awfully hard over there, girl.”
“Mm-hm,” was all I could get out through my tight throat.
“Hey.” He grasped my waist, his cast making it hard for his fingers to flex, but he was still able to hold on to me tight. He pulled me onto his lap so that I was straddling him. Instinctively, I put my hands on his shoulders to make sure he didn’t suddenly push me away, even though I knew he wasn’t going to let me go. I could feel how much he wanted me, his cock rock-hard as it pushed up against my pussy.
For a moment, all I could think about was the fact that I was wearing a dress and my panties were already damp. Only a few thin layers separated us, and more importantly, I wasn’t seventeen anymore. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with doing what I had only imagined doing with him from the night we had met.
What he had probably done hundreds of times before and after I had come into his life.
Jealousy tried to ruin the experience of being in Matt’s arms again. I knew that when he had been with me, he’d been loyal—I would never question that. But after I had left, how many women had he been with? How many sheep had he fucked? I didn’t know—didn’t want to know—but just thinking about it was tearing me apart, and I quickly looked away before he could see what I was thinking.
“Rory,” he said with a low growl and caught my chin with his casted hand, turning my head so that I had to look at him. But I couldn’t do this. Not now, maybe not ever. I wanted so much to be the only woman Matt Reid loved, but that was only wishful thinking. I clenched my eyes shut, refusing to let him see. “Baby, don’t do this to me. Look at me. Give me your eyes.”
“M-maybe you should just take me home,” I muttered, fighting back the lump as I held myself stiffly over his lap.
“No fucking way.” He dropped his hold on my chin and grabbed my ass in both hands. He pressed me down against him, his breath hissing out between clenched teeth when he felt just how strongly my need mirrored his own. His fingers contracted around the flesh he was gripping. “I’m not letting you go anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going through that head of yours.”
