had recently moved into a new house with the husband she so needed to get away from but didn’t know how to because he watched her every move. She poured out stories of horrific verbal and physical abuse and Matthew had sat and patiently listened. Who could have predicted what she would be doing to the rest of his body, so soon after he’d offered up his shoulder?
Despite being flattered by her attention, at first, he really had only genuinely wanted to help her escape Adam MacLean before the big Scot went too far one day and killed her. He had told Stevie all about her at the beginning, when it had been innocent, and, horrified that someone could be treated so badly, that she had offered herself as a friend to Jo too. Stevie just couldn’t bear to see anyone being unhappy, especially when she was so happy herself, planning her wedding to the man of her dreams.
It hadn’t felt right to keep bringing Jo into his home when he knew he was falling in love with her, but Matt couldn’t help himself–he just had to see her whenever he could. Then, when Jo admitted she felt the same about him, he had almost exploded with Pools-winning pleasure. Jo and Stevie got on so well, which made it both harder and easier, but either way messier. The longer it went on,the more hurt people were going to get, but he couldn’t give Jo up–it was not an option. Jo was a drug and he was hooked.
They hot-footed it to the sun to plan how he would finally leave Stevie and little Danny, and orchestrate how Jo could escape the Incredible McHulk. Matthew would have to make sure that he watched his back there. There was no telling what MacLean would do to Matthew, if he had no reservations about hitting a woman as fragile as Jo.
Propping himself up to look at the vision on the sun-bed next to his, Matthew knew it was all going to be worth it though. He couldn’t feel any guilt because there was no room for it in his heart, which was just too full of desire for this gorgeous being. She was perfect –well, except for the scar on the top of her leg where Adam’s kicking boot went in once. He had always hit her where the bruises didn’t show, she said, although she looked pretty undamaged now, and in fantastic shape. And all the sex with that fantastic shape had almost succeeded in blowing his head clean off his shoulders. Sex that was long and languorous in bed, like this week. Sex that was fast and furious as it had had to be back home, like the time in the back of Stevie’s car, which he’d felt a bit bad about, but it still hadn’t stopped him. Obviously, Stevie hadn’t been there to witness it; he had merely borrowed the car to take Jo home the night when she had come up to see the wedding dress. It had been quick, steamy, and very erotic. Sex that was dangerous and exciting, like when they did it up against a wall of an unfinished house on Jo’s estate, her long slim legs around his back, pulling him further and deeper into her. She hadbeen very noisy but he wouldn’t have cared if the whole British Army and the Pope had come around the corner at that moment; it would just have given it all an extra edge and he would have carried on even more enthusiastically. As he came, he remembered that Stevie would be washing up the pans and dishes in which she had just cooked them all supper. He realized then how much his feelings for Stevie paled in the face of this beautiful, long-limbed, washboard-stomached woman who needed his love and protection so much. She made him feel like he’d never felt before: a giant, a hero, a prince, Robin Hood crossed with Shrek–after the latter had taken the magic potion, obviously.
At first it crossed Matt’s mind that Jo was so desperate to get away from Adam that she might be using him as a stepping stone, until she had suggested the two of them fly away abroad in order to plan the final logistics of partner-leaving, wedding-cancelling and moving in together. Then she had gone down on him in a staff