Pregnant by Morning by Kat Cantrell Page B

underneath her thighs. Matt was hard all over, had a nicely defined torso and a wicked smile. She’d won the man sweepstakes and had been daft enough to miss out on watching him last night.
    Eyes stormy with dark desire, he lifted his chin. “Your turn to fetch the condoms.”
    She stretched to pull one off the bedside table and ripped it open with her teeth. “Done.”
    “Then saddle up, sweetheart.” He shoved his hands under his head with a mischievous wink. “You don’t have to tie me up this time.”
    Which she’d only done to ratchet down the emotion of the moment. It had failed miserably.
    “Liked that, did you?”
    The flippant response almost caught in her throat. Because she didn’t want to be flippant. Didn’t want fun and games. She wanted the tender, profound Matt of last night who made her feel cherished.
    When had she turned into such a girl ? Five minutes ago, she was halfway out the door—mentally, at least—and here she was wishing for the opposite. Matt had her completely messed up.
    “I have yet to discover something about you I don’t like,” he said.
    “I’ve got you good and fooled then.”
    He pierced her with the force of all that depth behind his eyes. “I don’t think so.”
    She looked away, letting the condom fall to the bed. “You don’t know me. Not really.”
    No one did—by design. How much worse would rejection hurt if someone dug through all the protective layers and exposed her core? Well, she already knew. It would feel an awful lot like when her dad hadn’t wanted her.
    “That’s not true.” He sat up, resettled her against his thighs and cupped her chin. “I recognized you as soon as you took off your mask.”
    Her heart plunged to the floor and tried to keep going. “You did?”
    Why hadn’t he said anything? Duh. He hadn’t because he’d wanted to score with Eva. Of course. Disappointment nearly wrenched a sob from her frozen chest. He wasn’t special. Big surprise.
    “Something inside me did, as if I’d always known you.” He shook his head with a half laugh. “Sorry. I’m no good at this, and to top it off I sound like a starry-eyed teenager. They must put romance in the water here.”
    “What are you saying?”
    He huffed out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know. I mean, it wasn’t like, hey didn’t we go to the same high school? It was an elemental recognition. Inside. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.” Matt’s fathomless eyes begged her to understand, but she couldn’t sort through the panic in her abdomen to put definition around his words. “I thought you felt it, too.”
    He meant that indefinable swirl between them. The connection .
    Cautiously, slowly, her heart started beating again.
    “The first time I kissed you. It didn’t feel like the first time. Is that what you mean?”
    He lit up, zinging her in the stomach. “Yes. That’s it exactly. Everything between us...it’s just right. We’re sitting here naked having a conversation, and it’s not strange.”
    The smile cracked before she registered that he’d pulled it from her. “Feels pretty good to me.”
    “Me, too. I know as much about you as I need to. You’re my butterfly.”
    His lips claimed hers in a kiss full of promise. And like that, he turned the tables on her again, making her yearn for things she shouldn’t, such as another night of absolving her loneliness in the arms of a man who wasn’t eager to get rid of her. A man who made her feel valued.
    If she stayed, how long could that possibly last?
    The sooner she left, the sooner that yearning could dry up and blow away. But the second she walked out the door, she’d be back in the real world, lost and alone, with only the thin layer of Eva for protection—and that didn’t go very far anymore.
    Rock. Hard place.
    With Matt, she was simply an anonymous woman enjoying the uncomplicated company of a man, and it gave her room to breathe she hadn’t known she needed. One night hadn’t