Rapture (Fallen Angels #4)(30)
Author: J.R. Ward

Except she wasn’t looking for an affair with a stranger, and he couldn’t perform anyway.

As he walked over and closed the drapes, Mels turned on the bathroom light and leaned inside. “You’ve got a nice tub.”

Without meaning to, his eyes did an up-and-down on her, and yeah, he really liked the way she filled out those slacks of hers.

Shit. He wanted her—bad. Wanted her naked and underneath him, her legs spread wide, her sex taking him inside as he pounded, hard.

Clearing his throat, he said roughly, “Can I buy you dinner? I know it’s a little early, but I’m hungry.”

For her. Screw the food.

Straightening, she glanced at him, and he was glad he had those glasses of hers on. Nothing good could come out of what was no doubt in his eyes. Lust wasn’t appropriate, not in this circumstance—

Hey, check him out. He might be a casual killer, but at least he had some sense of decency.

“Yeah.” She smiled a little. “Sure. I could eat something.”

As Matthias went over to the built-in desk and rooted around for the room service menu, he told himself he was just doing what Jim Heron had suggested: As long as he was with her, he knew she was okay.

Because he might not know his past, but he was sure about one thing.

He would die to protect this smart, kind woman…and her perfect ass.

17

Mels finally got to finish an order of French fries.

They came with a hamburger that was done to a perfect medium, a sliver of a pickle with enough bite in it to make her sinuses hum, and an ice-cold Coke that was right out of a commercial, frosted glass and everything.

Over in the mahogany console, the television was on WCLD, the local NBC affiliate, the five o’clock news anchor just starting his reports.

“I have to say,” she murmured, picking up the last fry and dragging it through a smudge of ketchup, “these are much better than the ones at the Riverside.”

Over on the bed, Matthias was working on his club sandwich, but she could tell he was looking at her. Even through the sunglasses.

He did that a lot, his eyes staying on her as if he liked the way she moved, even when she was sitting down—and for some reason, that made him even sexier…to the point where she found herself wondering what it would be like to have that without any barriers.

The looking, that was.

Without the Ray-Bans, she meant—

Shoot, she was making herself flustered.

“You know, you can take those off,” she said softly. “The sunglasses.”

He froze. And then resumed chewing. After he swallowed, he said, “I’m more comfortable with them on.”

“Okay, suit yourself.”

He hadn’t said a thing about his search for Jim Heron, or how he’d found the address they’d met at. He’d just gotten in Tony’s car and let her drive him here.

She wasn’t about to argue with the change of heart.

“Don’t you have someone waiting at home for you,” he said casually.

“Ah, not really. Not much of a personal life, I’m afraid.”

“I know how that is—” He stopped himself. “Shit, I actually do…know that part.”

She waited for him to finish. Instead, he just sat there staring at his plate of half-eaten food like the thing was a TV set.

“Tell me,” she said.

He shrugged. “No wife. No kids. No one permanent. Which is why nobody’s looking for me—well, at least not in a family sense.”

“I’m sorry. What about your parents?”

Matthias winced and then seemed to catch himself.

“No?” she prompted.

“I have nothing on them.”

In the silence that followed, she made work out of picking up her tray and putting it out in the hall. Back inside, she knew that it was time to go.

Probably time to let go, too.

Jim Heron was dead—at least according to the not-so-distant archives of the CCJ, if not that damn headstone-on-a-grave routine. She’d found his home address through one of the sources that had commented on the story—but of course, he hadn’t been there—

A headache cramped her temples, but the pain didn’t last as she switched her thinking to Matthias Hault. He was safe here, and recovering well, and when it came to his memory, he was the only one who could get to the bottom of that. She’d done what she was able to in terms of getting him the basics; other than that…she could pay up if he sued her, although it didn’t look like that was in the cards.

Sure, there was something strange about that house that was supposedly “his,” and some things that didn’t add up, like who exactly had been at that garage, but if she wasn’t going to put it in the paper, those particulars really weren’t her business.

Mels approached the bed and sat on the foot of it. As he put his tray aside and looked at her, that shaft went through her again.

She was definitely attracted.

Especially here in this room, where they were alone. Except she really wasn’t looking for that kind of complication.

“I’d better go,” she said, searching his face.

“So go,” he whispered, meeting her eye-to-eye through her sunglasses.

Neither of them moved, his long, lean body as still as hers was.

God…she wanted him to kiss her. Which was insane—

“You make me…” Matthias took a deep breath.

“What?”

Easing forward, he reached up and brushed her face. “You make me wish I were different.”

The touch stopped her heart; then sped it up. “I think you’re a better man than you know.”

“And that’s what terrifies me.”

“The idea that you’re okay?”

“No, that you think I am.”

Mels looked away briefly and wondered what the hell she was doing in this hotel room with him…feeling like she wanted them both to lose their clothes along with their inhibitions. But damn it, they were both adults, and she was really frickin’ tired of living a halfway life, of wanting things she didn’t have, of skimping on her dreams and getting little, if anything, in return.

She wanted to be loud, again. The way she’d been before things had changed and she’d come to Caldwell and cut short…herself.

With a frown, she wondered just how long she’d felt this way.

And then…

She wasn’t sure what made her act—his voice? His eyes, which she couldn’t see but could feel? His ingrained pride mixing with that churning self-doubt?