Staking His Claim

He took a deep breath and removed his touch from her skin, wanting to feel the shifting warmth again instantaneously. Green eyes watched him curiously, as if she wanted to say something, but she held out her hand for the key instead. When he followed her inside, it was a struggle not to drag her down to the floor and erase that curiosity once and for all.

Donovan, you’re losing it. Reel it back.

Sasha set her purse down on the bed and picked up the telephone. “Pepperoni and black olives?”

He hated black olives. “Your choice.” As she placed the order, Matt was painfully aware that he paced the motel room like a starved lion. When she finished her call and flopped back on the bed, he came to a standstill. Jesus, he needed a distraction. Something to keep his mind off her exposed stomach. “So how do you know Lucy?”

She sat up slowly. “Right, Lucy. Um, we met skinny-dipping, actually.”

Perfect. Just the distraction he needed. “How’s that?”

“A group of my friends sneaked in after hours to the college pool. Illegally, I should add. We thought we were total badasses. Until we walked in and saw Lucy already swimming a naked breast stroke.”

Matt felt a tug at the corner of his mouth, even as his body reacted to the image of Sasha, dripping wet, emerging from a pool. “Sounds like the Lucy I’ve heard about.”

In what seemed like an absent gesture, she ran a hand over the comforter. “How come you’ve never met her? From what Lucy told me, it sounds like you’ve been friends with her brother for a while.”

He leaned back against the table and crossed his arms. “I’m not big on family barbecues.”

“No sightseeing, no barbecues. Are you sure you’re American?”

This girl made him want to smile and snarl all at the same time. If that had ever happened before, he sure as hell couldn’t recall it. Since her question didn’t require an answer, he used the opportunity to ask something that had been weighing on his mind since his car had broken down. “Where am I dropping you off tomorrow?”

A long pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when we reach the city, who are you staying with?”

“A friend,” she answered too quickly.

Something dense and dangerous settled in Matt’s belly. The arrival of jealousy was unwelcome and inappropriate. They didn’t have a relationship beyond driver and passenger. He knew that, but rationalizing with the feeling didn’t make it go away. “Male or female?”

“Marsupial.”

“Sasha.”

She visibly winced and the feeling only increased. This girl he was lusting after, feeling territorial over, had a boyfriend. “Female,” she answered finally. Matt wasn’t sure he believed her, but her softly spoken word calmed him relatively. At least enough to keep at bay the images of her with another man. Delivering her to that other man.

He nodded toward the remote control attached to the bedside table with Velcro. “Why don’t you find something to watch? I’m going to rinse off.” In the ice-cold shower.

Looking relieved that he hadn’t pursued the subject of where she’d be staying, she nodded, flipping on the television as he passed. Matt walked into the bathroom, turned on the light, and pressed his forehead against the door. Without hesitation, he dropped his hand to the front of his jeans to massage his weighty erection. He had to bite his lip to keep from moaning. Since he’d walked into the damn coffee shop, he’d needed to relieve the pressure and now he’d finally get his chance. He couldn’t stop himself from picturing Sasha’s teacup-sized br**sts. The way her ni**les had beaded in the air-conditioning of his car. The pale smoothness of her inner thighs. How he’d like to mark them with his teeth.

When he heard a gasp, followed by a groan, outside the bathroom door, it took Matt a moment to realize the sound hadn’t come from his fevered imagination. He held his breath and listened, frowning when he heard it again. Before he even registered his own movement, his hand closed around the doorknob and flung the bathroom door open.

Sasha squealed and dropped the remote control like it was on fire. He realized then, the sounds were coming from the television. A man and a woman, in the throes of orgasm, writhed and bucked on a four-poster bed, cheap art hanging in the background. Porn? She was watching  p**n ?

He pinned Sasha with a look, but she was too busy searching for the remote underneath the bed, ass pointed straight up in the air. “It was the first channel that came on, I swear.” Her voice was muffled, but he could just about make out her rambling words over the screams of ecstasy coming from the television. “And it’s the weirdest thing because I don’t even watch  p**n , but it came up this morning over coffee with a friend. Crazy how things work, isn’t it? No  p**n  for years, not a hint of it, then bam, it’s everywhere.”

Matt stood very still, trying his best to find humor in the situation, because she was so clearly lying. Porn definitely got her motor running. But at the end of the day, he was a man. When a gorgeous girl in jean shorts is waving her ass at you, an ass that has been haunting you all day, against a backdrop of moaning and slapping flesh, any attempt at maintaining control is compromised. Desire, thick and urgent, arm wrestled with his willpower as his feet started to move. Toward her? Toward the door? He didn’t know.

Finally, she sat up on her knees, face flushed from embarrassment and exertion. Her lips were parted and chewed-on. Beautiful. So f**king beautiful. And clean. He shouldn’t.

With his control hanging by a string, Matt strode for the door. Just before he reached it, he felt her push up behind him. Hand frozen on the knob, he sucked in a breath as her hands coasted over his ribs and ran up his pectorals with just enough pressure to make his eyes close.

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

The leash inside him snapped.

…

Lucy’s breath got trapped in her lungs when Matt reversed their positions and threw her up against the door. It shook behind her on its hinges, but she didn’t feel any pain or alarm. How could she when the man in front of her captured every ounce of her focus? When she’d looked up at him from her kneeling position between the beds, she’d been startled by his expression. Torment had greeted her and she’d known that somehow she was partly responsible. He’d wanted her, too. There had been no mistaking that, thanks to the unmistakable bulge behind his partially unbuttoned jeans, his dilated pupils. She could feel his arousal now, rigid against her belly. He pressed their bodies together, head to toe, his mouth drawing oxygen from hers. Her wrists were manacled by his hands, held against the door at her sides.

Between her thighs, dampness spread. This incredible show of dominance…she liked it. A lot. It was what she’d been sensing under his cool surface all day, even if she hadn’t recognized it at the time. It’s what she’d been responding to in the coffee shop, during the drive. What she’d unconsciously been craving since they’d locked eyes that afternoon. Possibly even before.

Layered beneath the longing, the overwhelming stretch and buildup in her stomach, existed a need to calm whatever she’d seen raging inside him. It felt like a responsibility. One she wanted. One she’d be damned if anyone else got before her.

She attempted to search Matt’s eyes, but they were closed tight, the lines between his eyebrows deeply furrowed. His body felt ruthlessly taut, like the string of a guitar. All his strength, held back with firm resolve. “Matt, what’s wrong?”