Flying Read online

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody died,” she said quietly.

  “That should make it better, shouldn’t it?” His laugh sounded more like a bark, harsh and without humor. “Nobody died.”

  She understood, or at least thought she did, how coming so close to what might’ve been could have affected him so much. What she did not understand was something altogether different. “Why didn’t you just tell me this, instead of letting me think you’d actually come to see me?”

  “I wanted to come see you, Stella. I tried. I booked the flight. I went to the airport. And when the time came, I just...could not get on that plane. I know I wasn’t going to be the one flying it, but even that, not being in control... I couldn’t. I can’t.” He sounded broken.

  She tried to find sympathy for him, and found only more of the same numbness that had covered her for weeks. “The first night we met, I told you my pain. I don’t know why. Why you. Why any of it. But I did, so you’ve known since that first night what makes me who I am. Why I do what I do. And all this time, you couldn’t tell me this?”

  Matthew made a low noise. “It’s shameful. I’m embarrassed. You’re right. Nobody died. How could what happened to me possibly compare to what happened to you?”

  “My pain,” she said slowly, “doesn’t mean that I can’t understand someone else’s.”

  “You weren’t too nice to that guy in the airport,” Matthew said. “And I didn’t forget what you told me. ‘Even when you’re terrified that you can’t take one more step or deal with one more thing, there’s never an excuse for behaving like a prick.’ That’s what you told me. I didn’t want you to think I was being a prick.”

  She laughed sadly. “But that’s what you were.”

  “I was embarrassed,” Matthew said sharply. “It was intimate, Stella.”

  “Too intimate? You could put your penis in me, but you couldn’t be honest with me?” The words choked out of her, and finally she got up on shaking legs. She needed to move.

  When he said nothing, Stella let out a small, wounded sigh. She swallowed her bitter words, though the taste of them made her gag. She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to be calm.

  “Is that why your marriage ended?”

  “She accused me of pulling away from her. Then of cheating. Which I didn’t do, ever,” Matthew said. “She didn’t understand why I was spending so much time in the airport bar. The drinking...got out of hand. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. Or the girls. I missed school plays. I missed holiday dinners, trying to get on a goddamn plane, just once. And I couldn’t do it. My marriage ended because I was an idiot.”

  “The question of whether or not your marriage actually ended is still up in the air,” Stella said coldly. “Do you want to get back together with her?”

  “No.” He sounded stunned. “No, God. Never. We went to counseling. It didn’t help. A lot of shit came up, stuff that might not have made a difference if not for what happened, but it did. Sometimes things don’t work out. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel like shit for the way I behaved toward the end of our marriage. But I don’t want to be with her. I want to be with you.”

  “I told you everything. Every fucking thing about me. And now I find out that I don’t really know you at all. Do I?”

  “You know me better than anyone ever has,” he said in a low voice. “I’m sorry if you can’t believe me.”

  She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Breath after breath, until she could keep herself calm. When she could speak without sounding like a raging bitch, she said, “Why did you tell me this now?”

  “Because I missed you so much I couldn’t stand it anymore,” Matthew said.

  Stella’s breath caught in her throat. Despite everything, despite all the pain he’d caused her, that water had seeped into every crack and crevice. There was no denying it.

  “Please come to Chicago,” he said quietly. “I can’t come to you, but I miss you. I know it’s a lot to ask of you to come here. But I want to make it up to you. Please, Stella. I want to try.”

  And what answer could she give him, Stella thought, other than yes?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Matthew greeted her at the door with a bunch of flowers that ought to have made all the pain of what had happened between them go away. Stella took them. Smelled them. They were mostly lilies, the smell of which always made her want to gag, but she found a smile for him anyway.

  A kiss too.

  “I should put these in water,” she murmured against his mouth, not moving out of his arms as his fingers went to the special spots on her hips that still felt as though they’d been made to fit him. Always would, she imagined.

  Matthew backed her up against the wall. Slowly, not rushing. The press of it against her back echoed the similar press of him against her front, and laughing, Stella turned her face to hold out the flowers to keep them from getting crushed.

  “This,” Matthew said against her neck. “This neck. This is what I want.”

  The press of his teeth. The hiss of breath. His fingers, tightening. Stella closed her eyes. The flowers fell. Matthew kissed her neck, her throat, then skimmed his mouth along her jaw to finally get at her mouth again, and his hand was between her legs. Under her skirt, inside her panties. His fingers were inside her a moment after that, and all she could do was arch into the touch.

  She found the back of his head and held him against her. “Bite me.”

  He did.

  “Harder,” she said.

  He did that too.

  It felt so good. It always did. And so she let herself sink into that place where pleasure and pain were indistinguishable. Later, she thought when his teeth scraped her skin, later the memory of this pleasure might make the pain easier to bear.

  Something would have to.

  Matthew pulled away, dark eyes gleaming, breathing hard. He pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes closed. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Stella turned her face so she could nuzzle against him for a moment. “I think I ruined the flowers.”

  “I can buy you more.”

  She laughed, not because it was funny but because her throat had gone suddenly tight and the burning prick of emotion was stabbing her eyes. “You don’t have to.”

  Matthew pushed the bulge of his cock against her. Made her breathless. She turned her head again, and he bent back to her neck. Nuzzling. Licking. Kissing gently while she tensed, waiting for him to use his teeth again.

  Waiting, always waiting.

  When he bit her, Stella cried out, low. His fingers moved again inside her, then on her clit. His touch shifted, too fast. Too slow. Teasing, though not on purpose, and she moved against him in frustration. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. The hand not moving between her thighs hooked beneath her knee, lifting her leg to hook around him. The pictures on the wall rattled in their frames as he pushed against her.

  She could’ve reached for his belt. Unzipped him. Pulled out his beautiful cock and touched him the way he was touching her. She would have, in the past. She always did. But she didn’t now. She put a hand between them to cup him, to rub him, but she didn’t do more than that.

  Matthew shuddered against her. Moaned her name. The sound of it, those two syllables broken in the middle by the hitch of his breath, the soft rasp of desire making it rough, echoed inside her. She pressed her knee to his hip and pushed herself against his fucking fingers.

  “Make me come,” Stella murmured. “I want to come for you.”

  He went to his knees in front of her and pushed her skirt up past her hips, then pressed his face against the lace of her panties, his hot breath caressing her hotter flesh beneath. Matthew hooked his fingers in the lacy fabric and pulled it over her thighs, exposing her to the rapid, flat stroke of his to