Your Bed or Mine?

‘I got to see a gorgeous naked girl. No need to apologise.’

Ignoring the flare of heat that she knew was still staining her cheekbones, Tori pushed her hand through her hair and smiled her patented I’m-a-girl-of-the-world smile. He didn’t need to know that she was feeling anything but and her spirit was, well, not broken…cracked, dented, bruised? Bruised. That was the perfect word for how she was feeling…along with battered, drained and a healthy dose of smarting.

But since she had many years of practice of hiding her feelings she just kept that stupid smile on her face and carried on bluffing. ‘So, I guess the question is, who are you and what are you doing in Iz’s bed?’

‘Matt Cross and I’m renting the room for the month while Isaac is away. And that raises the question, what are you doing in Izzy’s, Isaac’s, temporarily my bed?’

‘I heard there was a good-looking guy in it and thought I’d check you out.’ Tori regretted the words before they even left her mouth.

‘If that was true then you wouldn’t have spent the first five minutes burrowing under the covers whimpering with embarrassment,’ Matt calmly stated.

So the guy wasn’t afraid to call BS. Good to know.

‘So, give me another explanation,’ Matt asked, after bunching up a pillow and placing it between his head and Iz’s iron headboard.

‘I’ve just had a really bad day and I wanted a decent night’s sleep. The bed in the boxroom is a torture device and I knew that Isaac was away so here I am.’

‘Here you are,’ Matt agreed. ‘So, I’m presuming you’re Tori of the bad boyfriend and the Frantic Fairy story of earlier?’

‘How on earth do you know about that?’ Tori demanded.

‘I was in the hall when you were concocting the story for Izzy and Poppy. That has got to hurt like hell.’

Concocting? That was an interesting, very truthful, turn of phrase. Tori cursed silently and bit her lip. She was sitting in bed, naked, with the hottest man she’d—literally—stumbled across in her life and he knew that her boyfriend had brought home another woman for a threesome. And he was sympathising with her…

Could this evening, possibly, get any worse? ‘Oh, I was about to kick him into touch anyway so I don’t really care,’ she said, lying her head off. She did not need his sympathy or, worse, his pity. God.

‘You have piggy eyes from crying. And your words and body are stiff with tension. Oh, yeah, you talk a good game but it hurts. How can it not?’

Tori sighed. She was not one of those women who cried well…She didn’t have gentle tears that rolled out in perfect droplets and didn’t wreck her make-up. She gushed and she was obviously violently allergic to her own tears because her eyes swelled up and turned blood red, her face blotched and Rudolf envied her nose. As a result, she generally avoided meeting flame-hot men until she looked normal again. No wonder Green Eyes was looking at her as if she were an alien species…not generally the reaction she normally got when she found herself naked in a man’s bed. She’d never been particularly vain but she knew that men generally found her attractive. It was mortifying to be the object of pity, of concern, of zero sexual interest.

Focus, Tori, and start thinking of a way that you can get out of here with your dignity and pride intact. Actually, she’d settle for just getting out; pride and dignity were on their own.

I could seduce him…

Whoa, whoa, what? The words popped into her head and her eyes widened. Bad, bad idea, terrible idea, are you nuts?

He’s a good-looking guy…

He’s every gorgeous male celebrity wrapped up in one delicious package but that doesn’t mean that you should make a play for him. You’re upset, feeling emotionally beaten up and you never make good decisions when you’re in this frame of mind…so keep your big mouth shut! Dear God, you are a basket case, Phillips.

Great sex—he looked the type who knew what he was doing in the sack—and a soft bed, a body to curl up around afterwards…

‘Down, Tiger.’ That dark-chocolate voice broke into her chaotic thoughts and she bristled at the undisguised amusement she saw in his eyes, in the tilt of that sexy mouth.

‘Excuse me?’

‘That mind of yours is working the angles; flipping through your options.’

Tori licked her lips and looked for and found her coolest expression. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ he drawled. ‘But, okay, let’s spell it out…you’re running through scenarios; you’re not happy that I know that you had a horrid experience at the hands of a man who, frankly, needs someone to teach him how to treat a woman. I’d be happy to oblige. You’re also telling yourself that you don’t want to go back to that bed or, if you were honest, admitting that you don’t want to be alone.’

He’d be happy to beat Mark up for her? Now there was an idea…concentrate Tori! As nice as his statement made her feel, he was still looking past her breeziness to the truth below and she didn’t like it and she wanted him to stop. She scowled at him. ‘Nonsense.’

‘Honey, if you weren’t scared of being on your own you wouldn’t still be in this bed, you would’ve hightailed it out of here the minute you realised you made a mistake. Instead, you’re lying there looking like a wet dream thinking about making a play for me, thinking about whether you could seduce me or not.’

Dammit, this guy was perceptive.

‘You probably could; I’m a man and you’re…’ his eyes flicked up and down her body ‘…you’re seriously hot.’

Dark blue eyes collided with green and that lightning rod of attraction arced between them. Tori could see herself writhing over that body, her hair trailing along his chest, across his stomach. As if he knew what she was thinking, his Mr Get It On tented the bedclothes. Oh…oh, wow.

‘You need to stop looking at me like that or else you’re going to be flat on your back in ten seconds and I’m not going to able to stop what comes next.’ Matt growled. Tori pulled her eyes back up to his and saw that his gaze could melt her panties…if she were wearing any. Dear Lord, if she scooted over just a bit she could have those big hands on her body, that mouth on hers…

‘You’re killing me, woman,’ Matt muttered, his thumb lifting to press her bottom lip. ‘But sleeping with me isn’t the antidote for whatever happened tonight.’

Tori swallowed and looked at her hands. ‘I told you, I was about to kick him into touch anyway.’

‘No, you weren’t. You know it and I know it,’ Matt said, his voice gentle. God, she could cope with attraction and lust and flirting but she couldn’t cope with this stunningly attractive man looking past her brave girl façade and seeing the mess she was inside.

Matt leaned sideways, dropped his arm and when he straightened again, he clutched a navy T-shirt in his fist. Shaking it out, he draped the hole over her head and the big shirt fell over her chest. She slipped her arms into the shirt and allowed the duvet to drop. She hauled in the masculine scent of his deodorant and aftershave and that essence of masculinity that made her girly stuff hum. ‘Thanks.’

Matt grunted, shoved the covers off and in one fluid movement stood up and stalked naked across the room. Tori’s eyes followed the most excellent back and butt and long, muscled legs to the chest of drawers and sighed with frustration when he yanked out a pair of sweatpants and covered all that lusciousness up. Damn, damn, damn…she wasn’t finished perving yet. Then Matt grabbed another T-shirt and pulled it on.

She thought she heard him mutter something about being a saint and stupid before he turned back and resumed his place next to her on the bed. He sat up so that his back was against the headboard and crossed his legs at the ankles.

Serious eyes met hers and Tori licked her lips at the compassion she saw within them. Then she yelped when he leaned forward, snuck an arm around her waist and hauled her up to him. His big hand forced her head onto his shoulder and his other hand rested on her lower back.

Tori lay in his embrace, her body radiating tension. What did this mean? Was he actually going to try and seduce her after all? And if he was, where was the kissing, the touching? Instead, Matt just switched off the light and they lay in the darkness and Tori felt his chest rise and fall beneath her cheek, heard the solid, reassuring thump-thump of his heart.

Inexplicably, tears started to build again and before she could stop them, they rolled down her face and dropped onto the material of his shirt. Matt’s hand tensed and relaxed on her back and then he patted the top of her butt. That little tap was like the secret code that opened the gates to waterworks hell and her tears started to fall, thick and fast.

Matt didn’t say anything, but just held her and allowed her to cry. Silent, long, scary tears that didn’t seem to want to stop…tears that sucked her energy out of her, making her feel bone-deep tired. She closed her eyes against the burning sensation and it felt so good that she just kept them closed.

Tori sniffed, thought about lifting her head off his chest, decided she was too comfortable and stayed where she was. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me that it will get better and that worse things in the world happen to good people every day?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t those the platitudes people dish out at times like these?’

‘It will get better and worse things do happen but that’s not what you need to hear right now.’

Tori looked up at him, his profile strong in the room full of shadows. ‘What do I need to hear?’

‘You need to hear that it hurts because it matters, that he treated you badly and that was wrong. You have a right to cry, to feel sad, to feel used.’ Matt stroked her hair. ‘You are allowed to feel miserable and you are allowed to show people that you feel miserable.’

Tori turned his words over in her mind, knowing that there was a fundamental truth within them but not able to grasp it, believe it. It was as if it were a finger of fog drifting past and her fingers kept sliding through it. Eventually she gave up trying to capture that nugget of truth and just listened to the thump-thump of Matt’s heart.

Tori had no idea when she fell asleep…just that she did and it felt good and right. For the first time in a long time, in a stranger’s arms, she felt safe.

Accepted. Enough.