ma1 The reckless magic of your

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/461209. Rating: Archive Warning: Category: Fandom: Relationship: Character: Stats:

Explicit No Archive Warnings Apply F/M Doctor Who RPF Alex Kingston/Matt Smith Alex Kingston, Matt Smith Published: 2012-07-16 Completed: 2012-10-05 Chapters: 12/12 Words: 57485

The reckless magic of your mouth by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday) Summary

Matt has just met the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, she’s also his new stepmother.

Notes

The long-awaited stepmother fic! Finally. –collapses- I don’t even know what this is. The result of my perverted mind, obviously. Hopefully you all enjoy it. Story title comes from ‘My love is building a building’ by ee cummings. Chapter title from Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel.

Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home Laura calls him just as he’s stepping off the tube and Matt pulls his phone from his trouser pocket while he weaves through the crowded underground. “Hello?”

“Guess who’s married? Again.”

He almost growls into the phone. “You're taking the piss.”

“I wish I was.”

Matt steps around a couple arguing on the stairs. “Isn’t he getting a bit old for this?”

“Please, he’ll be in his seventies and still on the prowl.”

He sighs. “How old is this one? Twelve?”

Laura snorts. “Actually, she's in her forties.”

Laughing, Matt shakes his head. “Now I know you're taking the mickey. Why would he marry someone only ten years younger than him? Shouldn't she be in her twenties with a boob job? Isn’t the whole point to have a trophy wife to parade around?”

“Well this one certainly isn’t his usual. For one, her boobs aren’t fake. At least as far as I can tell, anyway. Maybe I should ask him.” Matt wrinkles his nose in disgust even as Laura continues, sounding intrigued. “She’s actually a decent person. Fabulous hair too. I’ll be sad to see her go in six months.”

“Don’t get attached,” he warns her. "Remember last time you got attached? It wasn't pretty.”

“Shut up,” Laura says, and he can feel her scowling through the phone. "I was twelve, okay? There have been plenty of others since and I’ve learned my lesson. And anyway, you really need to come meet this one. The only one with a brain he’s married so far. Might as well see the show

before it leaves town.”

He shrugs, though his sister can't see him. “Maybe. Could use a break from Daisy and her shite anyway. So what's our new stepmummy's name? I’m guessing it isn’t something like Candy or Pippi like the last two?”

“Alex,” Laura says, rolling the name around on her tongue like it’s a foreign moniker. “Alex Kingston.”

“Kingston,” he muses. “Cool name.”

Laura huffs. “Are you coming or not? Dad’s forcing me to stay for three weeks because he says he never sees me anymore. I cannot handle him without you. Please.”

He groans at her wheedling tone. “Three weeks? How are you even getting away from work for that long?”

“I’m not,” she says with a grumble. “I’m commuting. And you just finished your play – there is no reason why you can’t take a break and support your sister, you prick. And I know you’ll go anywhere if it means you’ll get away from The Slag.”

Matt rolls his eyes – Laura’s pet name for Daisy has gotten him into trouble more than once – but he can’t deny the truth of her words. He doesn’t even know why he stays with Daisy; she drives him mad and not in any sort of enjoyable way. Lately he’s been even more miserable than usual. Maybe it’s time for a break.

“Fine, fine.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll talk to Daisy.”

--

Two days later, Matt stands in the middle of the flower section of the supermarket in his hometown, eyes scanning the selection as he holds his mobile to his ear. “Dais, I never see my father. I’m just spending a bit of time there with him and his new wife --”

“You can’t stand his wives,” Daisy points out, huffing. “You never go home because you hate

dealing with the way he has a new one every six months. Why would you spend three weeks there?”

Because I need to get away from you.

“Because Laura asked me to,” he says, looking around for the roses. Yellow roses are his go-to choice for new stepmothers. They always like yellow roses. “I told you, Daisy. I just need this. We need this.”

Daisy says nothing and he knows she’s silently fuming.

“We’ll talk when I get back, alright?”

“Fine,” she says, and hangs up.

Sighing, Matt makes a face at his phone and tucks it away in his trouser pocket. He’d suggested before he left that a break might be needed in their relationship and she’d still called him not twenty-four hours after he’d left. Three weeks away from her might not help their relationship but it will certainly help his mental health.

Finally spotting the roses in the vast array of flowers, Matt mutters, “Aha,” and walks over to them, reaching out to snatch up a bouquet of yellow ones just as another hand does the same – a small hand, warm and soft. Their fingers brush and he yanks his hand back at the sudden electricity, like lightning in his veins.

A little breathless, he glances up at the owner of the hand and gapes. Warm green eyes dancing with amusement stare back at him, framed by a mass of dark curly hair the likes of which he has never seen. “S-sorry,” he stutters, flexing his still-tingling hand. “Did you want -”

“Well I did,” she smiles, and Matt nearly chokes. “But if you tell me why you need them, I might let you have them. If I like your reason, that is.”

Wide-eyed, Matt watches her pick up the bouquet of yellow roses and hold them to her, inhaling their scent with her eyes still on his. She’s flirting with him – a gorgeous woman in the supermarket is flirting with him and he should not be feeling a distinctive tightening in his trousers just because she’s batting her eyelashes.

But bloody hell is she gorgeous.

Eyes sweeping briefly over her frame, he takes in the petite, shapely hourglass figure and the summer dress that hugs marvelous curves and feels his mouth water. She’s still smiling at him but not as widely as before, just a little smirk playing at her lips and Matt jerks his eyes away when he finds himself staring too long.

“I-uh,” he stops, struggling to get a hold of himself as the woman tilts her head to the side, brow furrowed. He is a natural flirt; what the hell is the matter with him? “They’re for my stepmother, actually. Stepmothers like roses, right?”

“And poisoned apples.” Her smile widens. “I’m rather fond of tulips, myself.” She gestures to the display across the aisle. “She might like them better – shows you made an effort and didn’t just grab something generic.”

He frowns in thought. “Perhaps. What color? I suppose it doesn’t really matter – with my father’s track record she won’t last more than a few months.”

She laughs and the sound is like his favorite melody, though he’s never heard it before. “Might want to try the sweetpea flower then. Means goodbye.”

He snorts, genuinely amused. “Do you think she’d know what it meant?”

“Most people don’t,” she says, glancing down at the yellow roses in her hand. “I’m sure you’d be perfectly safe in giving them to her.”

He picks up a dainty flowerpot overflowing with fragile little sweetpea flowers and smiles. “Well then, you’re welcome to your roses.”

“Thank you,” she says, grinning at him. “They’ll certainly brighten up that dreary old house. Just moved in, you see.”

Thinking of his father’s home – a drafty estate that’s been in the family for years – he knows how she feels. There is never enough sunlight in that house no matter how many curtains are opened or doors flung wide. He spent his childhood summers outside as often as possible and the winters

sitting in his room and imagining he could feel the sun on his skin.

“Glad I could help then,” he says, smile widening as he steps a little closer to her. He can smell the roses in her hand and something else over even that overpowering scent – a strange combination of floral perfume and paint. It’s a strange, heady mix that leaves him a little dizzy as he stares down at her. “Though I’m sure you’re sunlight enough all on your own.”

She laughs, tossing curls over her shoulder. “Well I can liven up a room, honey, I’ll tell you that.”

He grins, utterly charmed and not quite sure why. She’s older than him, much older than the type he usually goes for but it doesn’t seem to matter. She’s gorgeous with an amazing smile and she smells brilliant and he just wants to take her out and listen to her talk. He’s known her all of five minutes and he already wants to pull her in and kiss her senseless.

“Look, I know this might seem a bit forward but --”

At that moment, she reaches up a hand to brush a few red-tinted ringlets away from her eyes and he feels his heart sink as he spots the wedding band glistening on her finger.

Of course, she’s married.

Why wouldn’t she be?

“What is it, dear?”

He blinks, swallowing back the disappointment. “Nothing,” he says, offering her a smile. “Just… thank you for your help.”

She smiles. “You’re welcome.” With one last bat of those eyelashes, she turns on her heel and goes back to her shopping cart, walking away with the yellow roses and a tiny piece of Matt’s heart.

He watches her hips sway as she walks and smiles a little, muttering under his breath, “Goodbye, Flower Lady.”

--

Matt makes one more stop to pick up a box of cigars for his father before driving to the place that never really felt like home, even when he lived there. It’s why he left when he was seventeen, got a job and moved to London, acting on the side and trying to make a name for himself.

He hasn’t been home in almost a year, not since his father divorced Marion. He’d liked Marion – she’d grown tired of his father and left him. His father getting dumped had been a first, and Matt still smiles with pride at the thought of Marion packing her things and throwing her wedding ring at David’s head before marching out. She’d been brilliant, that one.

Pulling into the long driveway leading up to the estate, he wonders if this new wife will have the gumption Marion did. He doubts it – they usually stay until the shine of newly-wedded bliss wears off and David goes on to find someone else. It’s why Matt never really likes or respects any of them – how can he when they let themselves be doormats for a man who won’t hesitate to walk all over them?

As the house comes into view between the trees, Matt sees Laura’s car parked outside the house, along with his father’s and another car he doesn’t recognize – a powder blue vintage 60’s Corvette. He whistles lowly at the sight of it. Must have been a wedding gift for his father’s new bride.

Turning off his car, Matt pulls off his sunglasses and reaches for the little flowerpot in the passenger seat next to him – he’ll never see another sweetpea plant without thinking of curls and the scent of paint. He carries the flowerpot with him to the boot of his car, dragging out his bag and throwing the strap over his shoulder.

When he gets to the front steps and pushes the doorbell, he expects his father or Laura to answer but instead, when the door swings open, he comes face to face with bright green eyes and dark curls. They gasp simultaneously, staring at one another in shock.

“Alex?” His father calls from inside the house. “Is that Matt?”

She swallows and calls back without taking her eyes from Matt, “Yes, David. It’s-it’s your son.”

Matt tears his eyes from hers and glances down at the little flowerpot in his hand. Sweetpeas.

They mean goodbye.

Oh god. He’d told his own stepmother she wouldn’t be around for very long. And he’d flirted with her. He’d watched her arse while she walked away. He’d almost asked out his own stepmother.

Gulping, he holds out the plant tentatively. “Hello, Flower Lady.”

She glares at the plant, obviously remembering her own advice, and Matt thinks she is just about to tell him where he could stick that flowerpot when his father comes up behind her, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her into the house.

“What are you two standing in the doorway for?” He asks, letting go of her to motion Matt inside. “Come on. You’re staying aren’t you?”

Matt nods, tearing his eyes from the dark-haired enigma in front of him to smile stiffly at his father. “If you’ll have me for a few weeks, yes.”

David claps him on the back, obviously uncomfortable but wanting to show that he’d missed him. Being affectionate with his children has never been David’s strong point. “You’re always welcome here, son. You’re the one who stays away so long.”

“Right,” he says, not wanting to argue yet again about why he does, especially not with an extra pair of eyes on them.

As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, David turns back to his new wife with a smile, holding out a hand for her to take. “You haven’t met Alex yet, have you?”

Matt shakes his head, lying through his teeth as he looks at Alex. “No, I haven’t had the pleasure.” He holds out a hand to her and Alex shakes it reluctantly, still eyeing the plant in his other hand. “And this is for you. Someone else took the last of the yellow roses.”

She finally takes the plant, holding it delicately in front of her as she meets his eyes with a cheeky smile. “I’m sure if you would have asked nicely, you could have had them.”

He shrugs. “Thought those might be a bit more appropriate, considering the circumstances.”

Her eyes narrow but she wisely says nothing, considering David is watching them with the slightest hint of confusion. “How thoughtful.” She puts a hand to David’s arm, smiling. “Excuse me while I tend to these.” Her gaze flicks back in his direction briefly. “Lovely to meet you, Matthew.”

“Likewise,” he mutters, watching her walk away for the second time.

His father clears his throat suddenly and Matt quickly looks away, trying to pretend like he hadn’t just been staring at his stepmother’s arse.

Again.

Hello, Freud. Is this sofa free?

He’s going to have to remember to have a mental breakdown about this later. For now, he smiles nervously at his father and pulls out the box of cigars. “Picked these up on the way here,” he says. “Still your favorite, I hope.”

David smiles, taking the box and opening it to sniff appreciatively. “Can’t go wrong with a good cigar.” Selecting one, he pops it into his mouth and begins searching his pockets for a lighter. “Thank you, son. Now, I’ve got to go call the office but you remember where your room is, don’t you?”

Not acknowledging the subtle dig, Matt just nods and waits for David to disappear down the hallway, lighting his cigar as he goes. As soon as his father is out of sight, Matt sags against the nearest antique monstrosity and lets out a sigh. Things have never been easy between him and his father but ever since he moved out, their interactions have been nothing but awkward. It’s part of the reason why he avoids visiting or even calling. He hates feeling so uncomfortable around his own father.

From his spot standing in the foyer, he can hear Alex pottering around in the kitchen – probably systematically smashing that pot of sweetpeas. Wincing again in utter mortification, Matt picks up his bag and starts toward the staircase, wondering if it’s possible to avoid someone for three weeks when they live in the same house.

His room is just as he had left it last time he’d been here – a shrine to his teenage years with posters of Oasis, The Smiths, Radiohead and Gang of Four plastered all over his walls. Vinyl records are still stacked precariously on his nightstand, like he’d only gone out for a day and planned to come back and clean up.

Dropping his bag in the middle of the floor, Matt wanders over to the stack and peers down at the cover of The Strokes first album, wiping away the film of dust. Picking it up, he puts it on the record player and drops the needle, feeling sixteen again as he stands in his room and lets the sound take him back. Instead of feeling nostalgic, he just feels very glad he left.

Before he can get too moody about this, his bedroom door opens and Laura comes in without invitation, shutting the door behind her. “Thank God,” she sighs, leaning heavily against the door. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”

Sighing, Matt falls backwards onto his bed and stays there, staring up at the vintage B-movie poster on his ceiling. “If I had, you’d have just found me and forced me here anyway.”

“You’re right,” she says, crossing the room and curling up next to him, joining him in staring at the ceiling. “This way is much easier.”

He says nothing, letting her hug his arm and just reveling in the quiet moment with his sister. He talks to her frequently but he hardly ever sees her. It almost feels like it used to, when they’d camp out in one another’s rooms and hide from their newest stepmother and a father who didn’t ever really understand how to be one.

Poking him obnoxiously in the side, Laura asks, “So did you meet our new stepmummy?”

Oh did he ever.

“Yep,” he says, hoping his face isn’t giving anything away.

She huffs. “Well. What did you think? Is she a keeper?”

God yes.

“He doesn’t keep anyone. You know that.” He bites his lip, wondering why it seems so much more awful than it usually does. He knows his father’s routine by now – it isn’t anything new. “She’ll be gone before the year is out.”

Laura scoots a little closer, laying her head on his bicep. “I guess so. She’s not as young as the other ones, though. And she’s sweet. Almost feels like having a real mother, you know?”

He can’t say he does, so he swallows heavily and doesn’t reply.

Laura had suffered much more than he did by not having a real mother figure around when they were children and she continues to try to find whatever it is she needs in the women his father marries. Matt keeps telling her not to get attached but this time, he doesn’t know if his warnings will help her.

“I like her,” she says with a soft sigh.

Heart aching for her and the woman downstairs who will be gone from their lives in no time at all, Matt turns to look at his sister, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

Laura might get attached but he’ll be there for her when it all goes to hell. He can’t help but wonder who’s going to be there for Alex.

Mr. Angel, so they say, the devil he turned out to be Chapter Notes

Hey guys! Thanks so much for the lovely reviews! I haven't had time to reply to them with all the traveling I've been doing but I'm so glad you all like this weird little fic of mine:) Chapter title from the Racoon song Mrs. Angel.

He manages to avoid his new stepmother for the remainder of the night, waiting until quiet descends over the house before sneaking from his room with Laura and making a late-night dinner consisting entirely of breakfast food for the both of them. It feels like they were teenagers again and he savors the time spent with his sister.

However, when he wanders downstairs with bedhead, holey jeans and his t-shirt inside out around noon the next day, he peers blearily into the kitchen and finds Alex sitting at the counter, looking as exhausted as he feels, slumped over her coffee with her head in her hands.

After hovering awkwardly for a moment, he clears his throat. Alex starts, jerking her head up to look at him with a wince. “Oh. Hello.”

“Hello,” he offers in return, wondering why he feels so ill at ease in his own home. Well, it’s been his home longer than hers, anyway. “Late night?”

Unbidden, reasons why she might have had a late night flash before his eyes and he closes them briefly in horror, resisting the urge to groan in disgust even while the part of him imagining her naked is intrigued. God, he’s going to need therapy.

“Not exactly,” she says dully, staring into her coffee and offering no further explanation.

Not wanting to pry, he shuffles to the coffee pot and pours himself a mug. He sips at it in silence, wondering how he’s going to get through the day in the same house with her while his father and Laura work until evening. He feels uncomfortable already.

Maybe if he clears the air between them, it’ll be easier. He hardly wants to spend the next three weeks hiding away in his bedroom until his father and sister come home to save him from the awkwardness.

Taking a quick gulp of his coffee for courage, he runs a hand through his mussed hair and says, “Look, about the, uh, supermarket…I didn’t -”

“You didn’t know it was me,” she finishes for him without turning around. “Otherwise you never would have said such a thing.”

“Well,” he flounders, staring at her back. “Yes.”

Turning, she faces him and he suddenly realizes she doesn’t seem to be wearing much more than a short silk robe, her hair piled high on her head and her bare legs right there, begging for him to look. He grits his teeth and refuses to let his eyes stray where they want. “But you did say them,” she says. “And I’m sure your father wouldn’t appreciate you exaggerating his marital history to complete strangers.”

He puts aside his mug and crosses his arms over his chest, regarding her through his hair. “And I’m sure he also wouldn’t appreciate you flirting with strange blokes in the supermarket.”

Her gaze narrows. “I wanted my flowers. I wasn’t above a little flirting to get them. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with flirting with a good-looking man if you don’t intend it to go any further. I’m sure your father does the same.”

“Helluva lot more than that,” he mutters, and then straightens. “Hang on, did you say goodlooking?”

She blushes, glancing away even as she crosses her legs and draws further attention to the tan, shapely calves on display. He finds himself staring openly and hurriedly glances away, rebelliously ignoring the sudden flush to his neck and the tightness in his groin. He is not getting aroused over a bloody pair of nice legs like a damned teenager.

“Wait,” he holds up a hand, playing over their conversation in his head. “Hang on. Did you say I was exaggerating my father’s marital history? How was I in any way exaggerating?”

Alex looks up, meeting his eyes again. “Well I hardly think one previous marriage that ended upon the death of his spouse is a track record worth scoffing over.”

He gapes at her. “Please tell me you’re taking the piss.”

“I’m really not,” she says, sliding from her bar stool to pad barefoot over to the coffee pot, refilling her mug. “And feel free to apologize at your convenience.”

“Like hell I will,” he says, laughing derisively as Alex stiffens and turns to look at him. “Didn’t he tell you, Alex? My father is a serial-marrier. He marries women usually quite a lot younger than you and stays married just long enough for that lovely newly-wedded bliss to wear off. Sometimes that lasts a year or two, maybe even three. But no more than that.” He smiles cynically, remembering the long line of stepmothers that came before her and not even really seeing Alex. “There was even one memorable occasion when the woman didn’t even last six months. So if my father told you he was only ever married to my mother, then he was lying to your face. Those sweetpeas are perfectly suited for you because you are not the first and you certainly won’t be the last. And going by your age, you’ll probably be his newest ex a hell of a lot sooner than you think.”

Breathing heavily, he stops talking and finally really looks at the woman standing in front of him, frozen in place with her coffee mug cradled to her chest and tears welling in her eyes. His heart sinks at the sight, the relief he’d felt at finally speaking his mind vanishing in the face of her heartbreak. He’d been so ready to get everything out in the open and finally tell one of these women what his father is capable of that he hadn’t stopped to think about what he was doing. He’d hurt her. She looks like he’d just torn the bottom out of her whole world. He has never felt like more of a prick.

“You’re lying,” she says quietly. “He would have told me. He -”

Matt shakes his head, anger at himself and his father building up inside him until his hands shake with the effort of restraining his rage. Not only does his father fuck up the lives of all the women he marries, but apparently now Matt is helping him do it. “The only man lying is the one you’re shagging.” Setting his mug down on the counter with a clatter, he says, “May you both have a long and happy six month marriage.”

Leaving her with eyes full of tears and a devastated look on her face, Matt storms from the kitchen and grabs his boots and car keys in the foyer before going out, slamming the front door behind him.

--

As soon as Alex hears the front door slam shut, she makes herself move, placing her coffee mug on the counter and forcing her fingers to lessen their white-knuckled grip around it. Her head spins

with the new information Matt had left her with and her mind scrambles to make all the connections even while a small, desperate part of her still screams in denial.

No.

Not this time.

Not again.

Matt is just a son angry with his father and taking it out on her. He probably just doesn’t take kindly to a woman he doesn’t know coming in and marrying his father, living where his mother used to live. That’s all.

David wouldn’t lie to her about this – how could he look her in the eye and lie? Except…it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a man had no trouble deceiving her. Yet she continues to believe them without question, desperately willing to trust there is someone who will tell her the truth, who will love her without strings attached or skeletons in his closet.

So far, her faith hasn’t been rewarded.

She’d thought David was different. He seemed so genuine, so kind-hearted, and her heart had gone out to him, raising his children alone when his wife passed away and living without real female companionship all these years, aside from the occasional date…

Alex shakes her head frantically, shoving away from the kitchen counter and walking hurriedly toward the direction of David’s study. He keeps it locked at all times, spending hours in there whenever he’s home. She’s never seen the inside of it but she knows where it is.

He’d disappeared inside just after Matt arrived yesterday, leaving Alex alone for hours to do God knows what while she panicked in their bedroom about hitting on his son and loathing herself because even when she found out, it didn’t stop the hunger she felt when she looked at him. Even this afternoon, with him half-asleep and disheveled, telling her horrible things about her husband without a hint of remorse, the desire still lingered faintly.

Reaching David’s study, Alex kneels and stares at the doorknob, an ornate, carved handle that looks impervious to the bobby pin she holds in her hand. No matter – she’s used to getting around locks with two sisters determined to keep her from their diaries and two ex-husbands who liked to

locks with two sisters determined to keep her from their diaries and two ex-husbands who liked to think they could hide things from her.

As she works, crouched there outside her husband’s study, Alex can’t help but wonder what is so important that he feels the need to keep her out – he has to be hiding something because otherwise why would he lock it? What does this room contain that keeps him so preoccupied? She’d waited for him last night but after two hours, she’d grown tired of sitting around and had slipped downstairs and out the back door, trekking across the large backyard to her little art studio – a set of rooms above the garage he’d given her when they married – and taken out her frustrations of the day on a canvas.

David hadn’t come to find her until nearly midnight and she’d been paint-splattered and irritated by that time. He’d tried to get her to come to bed with him but she’d refused, claiming she wanted to finish her painting – why should she be at his beck and call when he ignores her for hours? Her response hadn’t pleased him. They had a row and David had stormed out with angry parting words, leaving her to an empty studio. She hadn’t really felt like painting after that.

She’d started for the house again, determined to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms for the night but when she’d approached the back door, she could see Matt and Laura in the kitchen, cooking and laughing, looking so carefree she couldn’t bring herself to intrude and ruin it. So she’d sat outside until they’d gone to bed, lounging on the back steps and smoking one of the cigars she’d pilfered from David’s secret stash. She wonders if he notices when several turn up missing from their box.

Now, Alex smiles victoriously as the door to her husband’s study swings open and she gets to her feet, peering inside anxiously as she tucks the bobby pin back into her hair. It looks surprisingly normal. She isn’t sure what she’d been expecting but a lavish mahogany desk, plush armchairs and floor to ceiling bookshelves hadn’t been it.

Creeping inside like David might jump out from behind his desk and accuse her of snooping, Alex glances around as she walks, taking everything in. There’s a bottle of brandy and a cup on the desk, so she picks it up and pours herself a drink, taking a deep breath as she prepares herself. This room might look relatively innocent on the surface but looks can be deceiving. She starts with the desk drawers, sinking into the leather seat behind the table and beginning a quick rummage.

It doesn’t take her long to find what she’s looking for. There’s an unmarked folder that contains official looking documents and when Alex pulls it from the drawer and begins to sift through them, she discovers marriage licenses and divorce papers, stacks upon stacks with the names of so many different women she can’t even keep them all straight in her head.

There are also pictures – very few but all of them are pictures of David with a different woman. And they’re all young – curvy and blonde, slender and ginger. They all look to be around Laura’s

age, some a little younger, some a little older.

One picture in particular catches Alex’s eye. A much younger looking David has his arms around a dark-haired woman who looks to be about his age, both of them grinning at the camera like fools. Alex has never seen him look so happy. She puts the picture aside gently and grips her glass of brandy in a tight fist, feeling tears burn her eyes.

He’d lied to her.

She honestly doesn’t know why she still finds it so shocking.

Taking a large gulp of brandy and coughing, Alex sets down her glass and turns to begin putting everything away when a spot of color catches her attention. On the telephone on the desk, a bright pink post-it note sticks to the receiver. Alex snatches it up, scanning it quickly.

It’s a telephone number written in a feminine hand, signed XX. Shutting her eyes against the tears, Alex resists the urge to crumple the note in her hand. Instead, she picks up the phone and dials the number, making sure to press *67. She isn’t surprised when a young woman answers the phone and the minute she does, Alex hangs up.

They’ve been married three months and he’s already bored.

Numb, Alex places the sticky note back where she found it and begins carefully putting away the files and photographs she’d unearthed. She keeps the one of David and the dark-haired woman. For some reason, she feels like it doesn’t belong buried in that drawer with the myriad of other women.

She tucks it into her robe pocket and downs the rest of the brandy just as the doorbell rings. Wiping quickly under her eyes and scanning the room to make sure nothing is out of place, Alex leaves David’s study and shuts the door behind her.

--

Matt stays away for an hour, driving through town and down country lanes until he feels some of the rage ebb away. For the first fifteen minutes, he cranks up his stereo and drives fast, hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles are white. But after a while, he unclenches his jaw, loosens his grip and turns the music down, the anger with himself and his father dissipating and

loosens his grip and turns the music down, the anger with himself and his father dissipating and leaving nothing but sorrow for his actions in its wake.

He has no excuse for talking to Alex like that – it certainly isn’t her fault his father is never happy and Matt is following right in his footsteps. By the time he pulls into the driveway once more, he just wants to find Alex and apologize on behalf of himself and his pillock of a father.

When he steps inside, the house appears to be empty but Alex’s car is still in the driveway so he knows she hasn’t gone far. He checks the kitchen first and through the back door, he can see Alex sitting on the porch steps, still in her robe with her hair up. Breathing out steadily, Matt says a little prayer that he can keep his eyes off her legs long enough to give his apology and opens the door.

Alex doesn’t turn to look and as Matt approaches the steps, he sees the open bottle of wine next to a cigarette butt and what looks like a photograph face down on her lap. Alex seems to be dismantling a flower arrangement, pulling roses from a pretty vase and plucking off the heads only to let them drop to her feet in the yard.

Clearing his throat, Matt asks hopefully, “Mind if I join you?”

“Why not?” She asks without looking at him. “You lived here long before I did and apparently will long after I’m gone.”

He winces, settling onto the step next to her and looking out into the well-manicured backyard. It’s never looked quite so cared for before – colorful flowers in bloom everywhere he looks and not a weed in sight – and he knows she must be the one looking after it. “I’m sorry, Alex,” he sighs, glancing at her. “I was really horrible this afternoon and I shouldn’t have taken my frustration with my father out on you. I had no right to speak to you that way.”

Alex stares at him, obviously stunned at his admission, and Matt uses her shock as an opportunity to study her. She hasn’t a stitch of makeup on, she hasn’t gotten dressed and her eyes are a bit red from crying but he still can’t think of anyone more beautiful than she looks right then.

The problem with being attracted to his stepmother before he found out that she was his stepmother is that the attraction isn’t going to go away now just because he has found out. It was already there and it isn’t leaving, wedding ring from his father on her finger be damned.

“It’s all right,” she finally says, looking away from him, and Matt blinks, forcing himself to stop staring. “You were right anyway.”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

Sighing, she admits, “I broke into his study after you left and found marriage certificates, divorce records, pictures. That sort of thing.” She sniffles, reaching for the wine bottle. “He lied to me.”

Matt watches her take a long swig from the bottle and suddenly hates his father just a little more. “I’m sorry, Alex.”

“Don’t be,” she says, offering him the bottle. “Not your fault, is it, darling?”

Flushing a little at the pet name, he takes the bottle from her and puts his lips over the mouth, right where hers had been. After taking a sip, he hands her the bottle again and nods to the photograph in her lap. “That one of the pictures?”

She nods, picking it up and turning it over. “Yes. I put all the others back but for some reason, I didn’t think this one belonged there.”

Leaning close and ignoring the way that familiar scent of paint and flowers invades his senses, Matt glances down at the picture and feels his breath catch. Reaching out, he takes the picture from Alex’s hands, staring.

“What is it?”

He smiles softly. “That’s my mother.”

Gasping quietly, Alex scoots a little closer to him and peers down at the photograph with him. “She’s beautiful, honey.” She puts a gentle hand on his arm. “You look just like her.”

Running a reverent fingertip over the smiling face of the dark-haired woman he barely remembers, Matt nods. “That’s what dad always used to say.”

Sliding her hand down his arm, Alex curls her hand over his and he glances at her in surprise. “Keep it.”

“What?” He tightens his grip on the picture even as he protests. “No, you need to put it back. If he notices it’s missing -”

“Then he’ll know I snooped,” she shrugs carelessly, her robe slipping down her shoulder slightly with the movement and Matt does his best not to gape outright at the tantalizing bare skin on display. “It shouldn’t be locked away in a drawer somewhere. You should have it.”

“Thank you,” he says, eyes sliding back to the photograph as Alex pulls her hand away. He feels the loss of her touch keenly but he ignores it, tucking the picture away in his pocket. It’s the only picture of his parents together that he’s ever seen outside of their wedding pictures and he can’t explain the relief he feels to know they were happy together. Running a hand through his hair, he glances at the mess of decapitated flowers lying around them and asks, “So what’s all this?”

“An apology from you father for our row last night,” she says, plucking another flower from the vase and picking it apart.

Inside, he feels a sense of relief that her late night hadn’t been the pleasurable sort even while he feels terrible for feeling that way. Pushing the conflicting emotions to the side, he smiles at the destruction Alex is causing to an obviously expensive flower arrangement. “Apology not accepted, I assume.”

“Your assumption would be correct, dear,” she says, and he feels another little shiver at the endearment. He wonders if she talks to everyone that way or just him in particular. “There’s a lot more he needs to be sorry for than just a little argument and something tells me he isn’t really sorry at all.”

He sighs, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as rose petals flutter to the ground. “Maybe it’ll be different this time. You might be the one to make him finally settle down.”

Alex smiles sardonically, shaking her head. “I’ve been through this sort of thing twice before. Men like that don’t change. David seemed different, though. It’s why I married him.” Her smile turns even more scornful. “I thought he was safe.”

Jaw clenched, Matt watches as Alex resolutely ignores the tears in her eyes and yanks the head off another flower. It’s bad enough having to deal with his father but the fact that this doesn’t seem to be the first time a man has treated her like this just makes it even worse. If he’d just met her before his father, if that wedding ring hadn’t been on her finger when she’d first smiled at him, things could be so different.

He could treat her so much better than his father ever will. But that hardly matters now, does it?

Wanting nothing more than to gather the woman next to him into his arms and save her from being hurt anymore than she has been, Matt leans over and steals a flower from the vase, taking it apart petal by petal with a viciousness that makes Alex glance at him and smile.

He pricks his finger on a thorn several times but the giggle he receives from Alex every time he does is entirely worth it.

But for now I'll look so longingly, waiting Chapter Notes

Thank you guys so much for your comments! -squishes you all- I love everyone on this TARDIS. And I promise as soon as I get time, I will start replying to reviews again. Just know that they make me smile like an idiot and make the people around me question what I'm so happy about:D Chapter title from Dashboard Confessional's For You To Notice.

When Laura returns from work that evening, she helps Matt make dinner and Alex hovers nearby, watching them interact fondly and feeling a little useless. Cooking has never been her forte – she sews, she draws and paints, she can keep a plant alive in the frost of December but ask her to cook or bake, and she’s at a loss.

Laura tries to get her to make the pasta sauce going by the recipe written down by their third stepmother but when Alex accidentally puts sugar into the mix instead of salt, Laura had laughed and shooed her away, foisting her off onto Matt. He’d handed her a knife and instructed her to help him cut up vegetables which she’d done easily enough – though Matt had made her a little nervous, wielding a sharp object with flair and totally unaware of when he made a wide, sweeping hand gesture with it still in his grasp.

When he’d nearly sliced off a bit of her hair by accident, he’d sheepishly sent her away with an apology, claiming he worked better without distractions. Alex had decided to take it as a compliment and now she sits watching them from the bar, swinging her legs over the side. They work well together and she knows they must have had to depend on each other a lot, with an everrotating door of women coming in and out of their house throughout their childhood and teenage years.

Matt seems to struggle with his relationship with his father a bit more than Laura but she can’t really tell after such a short amount of time. She has spent a little too much time admiring the man’s cheekbones and that happy grin to really pay attention. Laura, however, seems to be a remarkably self-possessed, wonderful young woman and Alex can’t help but wonder how she’d managed it in the house she had grown up in. It must have had something to do with her little brother.

Across the room, they stand side by side in aprons – Laura had made Matt wear the pink one – and bicker over who has to make dessert. Eventually, Laura whacks Matt with a spoonful of sauce in irritation and Matt wins the argument by default. Apparently they have a rule about resorting to food to win a fight.

Alex watches it all in amusement, trying to contain a giggle as Matt grumbles to himself and tries to scrub pasta sauce from his pink apron. “That’ll never come out you know,” he says. “You’ll be reminded of your cowardly actions every time you see it.”

Laura rolls her eyes. “I’ll survive.” Turning, she motions Alex forward. “Come stir this for me while I make the pie. Please?” When Alex hesitates, she sighs, smiling. “Come on, silly woman. No one can bugger up stirring.”

Hopping from the counter, Alex crosses the room and takes the spoon from her, peering into the pan and sniffing curiously. “You obviously haven’t been around me long enough.”

“Nonsense,” Laura says, moving to gather ingredients. “In any case, you can’t be worse than The Slag.”

Alex frowns in confusion even while Matt swivels to glare at his sister, though the intimidation might have worked better if he weren’t wearing a pink apron stained with pasta sauce. “The what?”

“Slag,” Laura says, smiling mockingly at her brother. “Matt’s girlfriend.”

“Oh.” Alex turns back to the saucepan, avoiding Matt’s eyes and suddenly feeling very silly. Of course he has a girlfriend – a blind woman could see how beautiful he is, and on top of that he seems like a genuine, lovely person. She doesn’t think a man has ever delivered a more heartfelt apology to her in her life and he can even cook for God’s sake. Who wouldn’t want him? And even if he didn’t have a girlfriend, he’s her stepson and she shouldn’t even be thinking of him that way. She has a husband – a pretty rubbish one, it turns out, but it’s still a legal and binding marriage contract.

“We’re on break, actually,” Matt mutters, standing beside Alex to drop a few diced onions into the sauce. Her breath catches at his proximity and his voice in her ear, but it sounds like he’s reassuring her and for some reason, that makes her glance up at him with a shy smile.

He grins back and she looks away quickly, face flushed. “And Laura’s right in any case. No one could be more horrible than Daisy. She once caught a piece of toast on fire.”

From the other side of the room, Laura snorts. “And the toaster wasn’t even plugged in.”

Alex hides a giggle in a well-timed cough; stirring the sauce faithfully and feeling her fondness for Laura grow by the second. “So what sort of pie are you making?” She asks, and sees Matt shoot her a grateful look out of the corner of her eye for changing the subject.

“Chocolate of course,” Laura says. “It’s Matty’s specialty but since he’s being a child, I’m going to make it.”

Alex looks at him in surprise. “You have a specialty?”

He winks at her. “I have a lot of specialties, Kingston.”

God, he should not be able to make her blush like this. She stirs the sauce a little more vigorously, face burning as she bites back a grin and mumbles, “I’m sure you do.” Flirting had been fine in the supermarket when they’d been strangers but now he’s her stepson and they’re right in front of his sister. Flirting is no longer okay, but she doesn’t want to stop.

Matt’s arm brushes hers as he leans forward again, sprinkling a little salt into the sauce and Alex doesn’t breathe until he steps back, hand brushing her elbow as he does. She swallows and suddenly the kitchen is ten degrees hotter than it had been before.

“Well look at you all. Like a proper family in here, isn’t it?”

The sound of David’s voice from the doorway makes her stiffen and Matt instantly draws away from her, jaw tight. She hasn’t spoken to her husband since their row last night and after what she discovered today, she has no desire to speak to him in the near future either.

Unaware of her feelings, David comes up behind her and wraps an arm around her waist, kissing her neck. She forces herself not to push him away, focusing instead on stirring the sauce in front of her.

“Did you get my flowers?”

She nods.

“And?”

Apology not accepted.

“They were lovely,” she says woodenly instead, mentally wishing he would just get away from her. “Thank you.”

David kisses her neck again before peering over her shoulder. “Are you cooking? I thought you couldn’t cook.”

“I’m stirring,” she says, feeling the eyes of his children on them. “No one can bugger up stirring.” Unable to endure his hands on her any longer, Alex pushes away from him. “You can finish here. I’m not very hungry.”

Without another word and giving Laura a brief apologetic look, she strides from the kitchen and retreats upstairs.

--

Matt isn’t shocked when his father doesn’t go after Alex – shrugging after his wife’s retreating form and stirring the sauce instead. The cheery, playful atmosphere present in the kitchen just moments ago is lost and he wishes his father could have just stayed away a little while longer and given them time to finish cooking without him. He hasn’t seen Alex look so happy all day and now she’s upset and obviously no longer in the mood to eat the dinner she helped make – well, perhaps that’s a bit generous. She’d stirred though, and that’s something.

When they sit down at the dining room table – the same god-awful family heirloom that Matt used to eat lonely dinners at as a child – the three of them eat their meals in tense silence, Alex’s absence creating a palpable tension between them. Laura sits with her shoulders slumped, sipping at her wine and occasionally glaring over the rim of her glass at their father.

David remains oblivious, reading the paper and taking the occasional bite of pasta without conversing with them much. Things certainly haven’t changed.

Matt pushes his food around his plate listlessly; chin resting on his open palm and his appetite gone. He just keeps picturing Alex’s face when he told her about David’s previous marriages, the tears in her eyes on the back steps that afternoon and how dull her eyes had been when David

tears in her eyes on the back steps that afternoon and how dull her eyes had been when David kissed her neck in the kitchen. It makes him feel ill. The small voice in his head telling him he could treat Alex so much better is back again in full force, whispering in his ear that he should go to her and check that she’s alright. Her husband certainly isn’t going to.

Excusing himself abruptly with a brief glower in David’s direction, Matt pushes back his chair and deserts the table, squeezing Laura’s shoulder gently as he passes her chair. She shoots him a grateful look, as if she knows exactly where he’s going.

He climbs the stairs quickly, striding down the hallway toward the bedroom Alex shares with his father. Peering inside, he finds it empty and he’s just about to start checking the guest bedrooms when he spots the en suite bathroom light on and the door wide open. He meanders through the bedroom, glancing at the occasional piece of Alex’s clothing strewn about the room and the gardening magazines stacked on the nightstand that must be her side of the bed.

He makes it to the door and steps inside, calling out, “Alex?”

Just as the words leave his mouth, his eyes land on her stepping out of the shower sans towel and he stares openly for a moment before Alex shrieks and jumps backward, scrambling for a towel while Matt claps a hand over his eyes and stutters out, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” while stumbling from the room. In the safety of the bedroom, he uncovers his eyes and paces the room, mortified and limbs flailing. “I just saw the light on and the door was open so I thought – oh god. I was just checking on you, making sure you were all right. I didn’t mean to – oh I’m really sorry. I didn’t see anything, I swear.”

An outright lie – he’d seen everything there was to see, tanned skin wet and glistening, flushed pink from the hot water. Her curly hair made even darker with water and dripping down her shoulders in loose ringlets. Her waist is as tiny as he’d imagined and her breasts look like they’d fit perfectly in his palms. God help him, she is stunning.

Scrubbing a hand over his burning face even while his trousers grow so tight he bites a knuckle to contain a groan, he calls out, “Alex? Are you okay?”

She appears in the doorway, wrapped in a towel, hair still dripping. “Well I suppose that’ll teach me to leave the door open,” she says, and he glances at her briefly to see her face just as red as his.

“I’m really sorry,” he says again, mostly to the carpet. “I just wanted to see if you were okay or if you were hungry. I could bring you up a plate if you want.”

“That’s sweet of you but I’m okay,” she says. “And I’m not hungry at all. I appreciate the offer, though.”

“Right,” he says, wondering if it’s possible to die of mortification.

“You can look at me, you know,” Alex says with a quiet laugh. “Unless you’ve been unimaginably traumatized, in which case I should be the one apologizing.”

He glances up quickly, eyes wide. “No, not traumatized at all. You were – are beautiful. I didn’t mean it like that. I -” He stops, huffing. “I’ll just go, shall I?”

Alex smiles, gesturing to herself. “Well it would certainly allow me to get dressed.”

He pictures her dropping the towel when he leaves the room and bites down hard on his lip, tugging a little at his shirt and hoping she can’t see how uncomfortable his trousers have become. “Oh. Right. Okay. I’ll just…leave you to it, then.”

Backing out of the room and stumbling over a pair of high heels in the middle of the floor, he barely catches himself before hitting the floor and mumbles another apology before fleeing the room, Alex giggling as he retreats.

He walks to his bedroom in a daze, Alex’s naked form the only thing on his mind. She hadn’t seen him right away and that brief glimpse he’d gotten of her body is seared into his mind like a brand. He doubts he’ll ever forget how she looks when she’s stripped of her clothes and vulnerable, skin pink and freshly scrubbed.

He shuts his bedroom door behind him and leans against it with a pained groan. Matt could stare at Daisy all day without a hint of the desire he feels now -- he’s rock hard from a fleeting glance of his stepmother getting out of the shower and the only thing he can think about is what he’d do to her if it weren’t for that wedding ring on her finger.

Before he can even think about what he’s doing and what a bad idea this is, Matt is lying on his bed, hurriedly unzipping his trousers and shoving his hand down his pants, pulling his throbbing cock out with a whimper of relief.

Closing his eyes, he pictures all that golden skin glistening with water and imagines his tongue licking all the moisture from her body, lapping up the water between her breasts and dragging his

licking all the moisture from her body, lapping up the water between her breasts and dragging his tongue downward – down her stomach, over her thighs, delving inside her cunt and tasting her there too.

He bites down on his bottom lip and groans, pumping his length desperately. Wanking off to the image of his stepmother getting out of the shower – he has certainly reached a new low point in life. But he’s past the point of caring, and when his mind conjures an image of all that naked skin pressed against him and Alex’s legs wrapped around his waist, her voice moaning in his ear, he lets himself be pulled under, losing himself in the fantasy as his hips jerk into his own hand in a frantic rhythm.

It doesn’t take long in the state he’s in and the moment he tightens his grip around his cock and imagines his hand is Alex’s tight heat wrapped around him, he comes, spilling over his own fist with her name on his lips.

Panting and more than a little ashamed of himself, Matt stares up at his ceiling and wonders what the hell is happening to him.

--

The next morning, Matt gets up and dresses as silently as possible, hoping to avoid Alex for the time being. After last night, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to look her in the eye again. He’s just about to grab his car keys and head out for the day when he hears a muffled curse from down the hallway followed by a loud thud.

Silently praying that it isn’t Alex, Matt hurries to open his bedroom door and looks out into the hall to see what all the fuss is about. He spots Laura struggling with her suitcase in the doorway of her room, swearing under her breath and shoving her hair out of her eyes.

“Lor, what the bloody hell are you doing?” He asks, coming up behind her and lifting the suitcase for her.

She looks up at him, sheen of tears in her eyes. “I have to leave.”

“What? Why?” He drops the suitcase at their feet and grabs her wrist. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She nods, smiling tearfully and he loosens his grasp but doesn’t let go. “I just – I can’t be here anymore. I thought I could do this but I can’t.”

“Do what?”

“Watch the train wreck in progress,” she says with a choked laugh. “I mean, we’ve done it before. We’ve watched over and over again – they stay for a while and then he gets bored or he finds someone else and they’re gone. It’s always been like that but she’s -” Laura stops, swallowing. “I’m getting attached, Matty. I know you told me not to but I can’t help it. She’s amazing and he’s going to fuck it up.”

Matt shushes her, pulling his sister into his arms and cradling her as she sniffles into his shoulder. Rubbing a hand over her back soothingly, he murmurs, “It’s okay. I know.”

Her shoulders hitch under his hand, her voice watery as she speaks, “I’m sorry, Matt. I know I dragged you out here but I can’t sit here and watch dad hurt her.”

He doesn’t want to watch it either but it’s like a car crash now – he can’t look away no matter how badly he wants to. So instead, he holds Laura as she tries to gather herself and asks, “Where’s Alex? Did you say goodbye already?”

Laura shakes her head, pulling back to wipe at her eyes. “She’s in the pool around back. I can’t say goodbye. I’m a mess – she’ll think I’m a nutter. Just…tell her it was lovely to meet her, okay?”

He nods silently, trying not to picture Alex wading through the water in a tiny bikini, her hair wet and her skin glistening just as it had been last night when she’d stepped out of the shower. He fails utterly and can’t meet his sister’s gaze, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “I’ll tell her.”

Laura pokes at his side playfully, smiling weakly. “Look at it this way. You can leave now, since I’m not here to make you stay.”

Oh, but he can’t. He wishes he could but he’s too involved and he can’t just leave her here, especially now. Now that he’s seen her smile at him and made her laugh – not when she’s such a terrible cook and she’s so bloody gorgeous and his stomach turns over every time he thinks of her. He can’t leave. Not ever.

“Actually,” he says, finally venturing to meet Laura’s eyes. “I think I’ll try to stick it out.”

Laura looks surprised, but then her gaze softens. “You can’t save them, Matt. It’s inevitable – things are going to fall apart. It’s already started.”

He nods, staring at his shoes. “I know.”

He doesn’t want to save their marriage – he just wants to save Alex.

By the time he helps Laura to the car with her suitcase and sees her off, promising to call and come to see her soon, he isn’t in the mood to face Alex and tell her of Laura’s departure so he goes for a walk. Down the long driveway, across the tiny little lane and into the woods he’d played in as a child and hidden in to smoke and get drunk with his mates as a teenager.

He traipses through the foliage with no particular destination in mind, tripping several times because he keeps looking above him at the towering trees. Eventually after stumbling over a tree root, he breaks his fall on a large rock and decides to just stay there, leaning his back against the tree trunk and gazing up at the canopy of leaves above him, nearly blocking the sky from view. He trains his eyes on the tiny sliver of blue peeking through the green and sighs.

Part of him wishes he could just leave like Laura and wait for this whole thing to blow over – his father would get bored and decide to move on and Alex would leave. He could go home and in a few months, she’d be gone. He’d never have to see her again. But the thought of leaving her on her own to face what he knows is coming makes his chest tighten painfully and he knows he can’t do it.

But he can’t just stand by and watch it happen either. He wants to take care of her, he wants to hold her and be there for her. He wants to kiss her and touch her and know how her skin would feel under his hands, what her breathy moans would sound like in his ear.

He wants her.

Matt is already on shaky ground with his relationship with his father but that just makes him all the more determined – how much worse could things possibly get between them? It isn’t like David is going to stay married to Alex for the rest of his life; it’s not in his nature. To him, she’s just another woman in a long line, but to Matt…she’s the one he’s been head over heels for since the moment he touched her hand. And if David doesn’t want Alex, Matt certainly does.

He’ll be the one to pick up the pieces when everything inevitably goes to hell, he’ll be there to make sure she has a soft place to land. He’ll be there to make sure she knows how gorgeous she really is, how much she is wanted and adored.

He just needs to convince Alex to let him.

--

When Alex emerges from the pool she finds the house empty and Laura’s car gone. She assumes that she and her brother went out somewhere together and decides to use the time alone to do a bit of free sketching.

She grabs a pad of paper and a bit of charcoal before sprawling across the living room floor and letting her mind wander while her hand moves across the page. It’s usually a peaceful exercise but inside this oppressive house with no light and only the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner to keep her company, Alex isn’t enjoying the activity as much as she usually does.

When she hears the front door open, she’s a little relieved at the distraction and she glances down at her paper to see what drawing has emerged from her pencil while her thoughts were preoccupied. At the sight that greets her, Alex feels her eyes well up.

“Alex? You in here?”

She dashes a hand quickly under her eyes and shoves the notebook aside. “Yes, the living room,” she calls, tucking her pencil behind her ear. When Matt wanders into the room alone, she frowns. “Where’s your sister?”

He bites his lip, shoving his hands into his pockets and glancing away. “She had to leave.”

“Oh,” she says, watching him curiously. “Will she be back for dinner? Because I was thinking -”

Matt shakes his head and turns away, running a hand through his hair. “She’s not coming back, Alex. She packed her bags and went home.”

Oh. Alex feels her heart sink – she likes Laura and she’d been looking forward to getting to know her a bit more. Laura had wanted to help her in the garden this week and Alex has been trying to coax her into teaching her how to make that pasta without burning it. She’d thought they were getting to be friends of a sort.

After a beat of silence, she looks at her lap and asks, “Was it me? I mean, did I do something -”

“No,” Matt turns to look at her again, eyes pained. “It wasn’t you. She just needed some time to herself. She wanted me to tell you it was lovely to meet you, though.”

Alex frowns. “If it wasn’t me, then why would she leave without telling me?”

Sighing, Matt crosses the room and sinks down onto the floor next to her, mimicking her by pulling his knees up to his chest. “Alright. She left because she’s starting to like you too much and she doesn’t want to see you get hurt.” He scratches at his chin nervously. “Don’t tell her I told you that.”

Alex isn’t quite sure what to say to that so she says nothing for a while, wondering how she got herself into this situation again. Another marriage doomed to fail. Why is she so rubbish at this relationship business? She’s starting to think she was born with some sort of defect that makes it impossible to tell a good man from a bad one.

Matt nudges her and she finally registers just how close they are. She can feel the heat radiating from his body, their arms brushing and their legs practically pressed against each other. Slowly, she slides her eyes from her knees to look at him only to find him staring at the notebook next to her.

“What’s that?” He asks with a teasing smile. “Did I interrupt you in the middle of updating your diary?”

Without thinking, she places a protective hand over the cover. “No.”

His smile grows. “I wonder what it says. ‘Dear diary, met a handsome bloke in the supermarket the other day and he turned out to be my new stepson. My disappointment knows no bounds.’”

She smacks his arm, laughing even while her face flushes. “Oh shove off.”

He grabs her hand, chuckling. “I know. Probably says something like ‘Dear Diary, my stepson walked in on me getting out of the shower last night and now I’m afraid he’s a giant pervert.’”

Giggling, she tugs her hand from his and pushes him away while he grins at her, eyes bright. “It’s not a diary, you daft man. It’s a sketchbook.”

Matt raises an eyebrow, intrigued. “And may I ask what you’re sketching, Ms. Kingston?”

“You may not,” she says, picking up the book and holding it to her chest.

He stares. “Are you drawing porn?”

Choking, Alex thwacks him with the book, feeling satisfied when he yelps. “Is your mind always in the gutter?”

He grins, still holding his arm where the book struck him. “Around you? Yes.” He nudges her again playfully. “Come on. Let me see it. I promise if you’re drawing porn I won’t judge you.”

She shakes her head, smiling a little. “My porn sketchbook is in the studio, I’m afraid. I was just doing a bit of spontaneous sketching – letting my hand move without really thinking about what I was drawing.”

Matt tugs at the book curiously. “And what did you end up with?”

Sighing, she hands it over, knowing she’ll have no peace until she does. “My daughter.”

Eyes flying from the sketchbook to her face and then back again, he asks softly, “You have a daughter?”

She nods, biting her lip to keep it from trembling. “She’s ten.”

If nothing else, this will certainly keep him from flirting with her anymore – most men his age hardly want to flirt with a woman her age and adding a child to the mix will be like a repellent for even Matt. It’s part of the reason she’d been so charmed by David – he’d raised his kids alone too. Or so she thought.

Studying the picture intently, Matt runs his fingers gently over the pencil lines. “She’s lovely. Got your hair, it looks like.”

Alex nods, joining him in staring at the portrait. “Yes. She used to curse me daily for giving it to her.”

Matt glances up quickly. “Used to?”

“She’s with her father in America,” she says, shrugging like it doesn’t matter. Like her heart doesn’t ache for her child every day. “After the divorce, I got a job teaching art classes at a university over here and Salome wanted to stay in school with her friends. I didn’t want her to hate me so I let her stay.”

Matt frowns at the picture. “Do you ever see her?”

“She usually stays with me during the summer,” she says, thinking of big brown eyes and that little grin when her daughter stepped off the plane and threw herself into her mother’s arms. “My ex-husband talked her into going to summer camp this year, though.”

“Why would he do that?” Matt asks, looking contemptuous as he glances up at her.

Alex laughs, tears welling in her eyes. “Because I got married and he wanted to be spiteful and keep Salome away from me and my new husband.” She looks away; down at the drawing of her daughter’s smiling face. “Turns out he was right to be so horrid – I wouldn’t want Salome here. Not now.”

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until Matt tosses the sketchbook aside and pulls her into his arms, shushing her gently. She clings to him, burying her face in his shirt and letting him hold her. He threads his fingers through her hair and presses his lips to her temple, humming softly.

“It’s going to be okay, Alex,” he says. “I promise.”

She can’t say she believes him but the words comfort her anyway and Alex manages to gather herself enough to finally notice Matt’s hand on the small of her back, thumb rubbing soothingly, while his lips brush repeatedly over her hairline – tiny little kisses that send warmth flooding through her. Without bothering to wipe the tears from her face, she slowly raises her head from his chest and looks at him.

He stares right back, his eyes watching her with so much affection and concern that it nearly steals her breath. Smiling gently, he lifts his hand and brushes his knuckles over her cheek and then into her hair, tucking curls behind her ear with careful fingers.

Shivering a little, Alex reaches up and takes his hand, curling her fingers around his. “Matt, I don’t think -”

“Ssh,” he says, lips quirking as he places two fingers over her mouth.

She stops talking, eyes wide and heart hammering madly as he leans forward; grin threatening to overtake his face. He cups her cheek in his hand and brushes his thumb over her cheekbone.

Bumping her nose gently with his own, he whispers, “Don’t talk, Kingston. You’ll ruin the moment.”

And he kisses her.

Alex melts the moment his lips touch hers, and she knows she should push him away, that what they’re doing isn’t right in any sense of the word but his lips are soft and his hand on her cheek is gentle. It feels like the kiss she’s been waiting her whole life to have and she doesn’t dare cut it short. Gripping his shirt tightly in her fist, she presses herself closer to him and willingly opens her mouth when Matt’s tongue presses at her lips. She can taste the salt of her tears in their kiss but it doesn’t matter because Matt is smiling and nipping gently, wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her to his chest.

She moans softly, licking eagerly at the inside of his mouth and ignoring the part of her that screams how wrong this is. Matt slips his hand beneath her shirt, warm palm trailing up her bare back and setting her on fire.

“Alex,” he gasps against her lips, fingers digging into her skin.

“Ssh,” she says, kissing him quickly as his hands find the hem of her shirt and begin to tug it upward. “You’ll ruin the moment.”

He laughs quietly, just about to lift her shirt over her head when they hear the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Alex scrambles away from him, tugging at her shirt and fluffing her hair as Matt climbs to his feet and glances out the window.

His face grim, he says, “David’s here.”

Reality comes crashing down around Alex like a bucket of cold water and her hands begin to shake as she realizes what she had just done. What she’d been about to do. Her marriage is a lie so she’d turned to her stepson instead? Oh god, what kind of a sick person is she?

Flirting is one thing but this…in a haze of lust and self-pity, she would have let him undress her and take her right there on the living room floor and enjoyed every single second of it. She imagines the regret that would have come afterwards and feels like she might be ill.

Staring wide-eyed at Matt, who watches her sadly, like he knows exactly what she’s thinking, she puts a hand to her mouth and shakes her head. “Oh my god. Matt, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have ”

He strides forward, pulling her hand from her mouth roughly just as the front door opens, his face a mask of fury. “Don’t you dare apologize to me. You can be sorry if you want, but I’m not.”

“Alex? Where are you?”

She shuts her eyes at the sound of David calling for her and Matt releases her wrist, turning away to run a hand through his hair in frustration. “In here,” she calls, cringing at the way her voice wavers.

As David greets her with a kiss on the cheek, Alex watches Matt stride from the room without looking back. Her husband begins to talk about his day and she listens half-heartedly, mind racing as she touches a hand to her lips and wonders when they’ll finally stop tingling.

I'm ready to beg and to sing for my sins Chapter Notes

Thank you all so much for you comments! I'm glad you like it so far:) Chapter title from The Fratelli's 'Baby Doll'.

Kissing Alex hadn’t exactly been part of Matt’s plan to slowly persuade her that he cares about her more than his father ever will – at least not so early in the game – but he can’t say he regrets it. She tastes amazing, and she fits against him perfectly. The sounds she makes when he touches her are a high like no other. If anything, kissing Alex has made him all the more determined to call her his.

Unfortunately, he’s starting to think this minor setback in his plans has made Alex more determined to ignore him. At the dining room table during what might be the most awkward dinner Matt has ever had in his life, she refuses to meet his eyes despite the fact that they’re sitting directly across from each other. Pushing his food around listlessly on his plate, he shoots furtive glances at Alex every so often, silently demanding that she look at him.

“Where’s your sister?”

Jerking in surprise, Matt tears his eyes from watching Alex pick dejectedly at her food to see his father looking at him expectantly. “What?”

David sighs, setting down his fork. “Your sister. Why is she not at the dinner table?”

It’s been nearly ten minutes and he’s only just noticed Laura isn’t eating with them. “She left,” he says, turning his eyes back to his plate. “Had to go back to her place but she said she’d phone you later.”

She didn’t, actually, but Matt’s sure she’ll get around to it eventually.

Harrumphing, David turns back to his plate and the stack of files sitting in front of him because even while he’s home, he can’t seem to leave the office behind. How he focuses on work with Alex sitting right next to him, looking the way she does, Matt will never know. “It was so urgent she couldn’t wait until I got back to say goodbye?”

Eyes sliding back to Alex to find her still staring blankly at her uneaten food, he says, “Apparently.”

“Well,” David says, scanning the pages in front of him. “What did you two get up to by yourselves all day?”

At this, Alex turns wide, panicked eyes on her husband, who doesn’t even look up. She looks at Matt – finally – and he shakes his head once, silently trying to convey that she’s being far too obvious.

“Well I tried to get Alex to take a walk with me but she was busy painting so I went on my own,” he says, and the gratitude in Alex’s eyes is at once heart-warming and ridiculous. Honestly, as if he’d come right out and say he’d snogged his stepmother. The woman is on edge.

In the middle of contemplating all the ways he could calm her down, Matt’s head snaps up when David speaks. “You should let Matt show you around, dear. The grounds around the house are beautiful – you might get some ideas for your work out there.”

Sitting back in his seat with a smirk, Matt traces his finger over the rim of his wine glass and meets Alex’s eyes. “Yes, you should come next time.” Her eyes widen at his double-entendre. “You might find yourself inspired.”

Alex glances away, frowning. “I have enough inspiration, thank you.”

“Oh, but you can never have enough inspiration,” he persists, keeping his voice low and enjoying the way she squirms in her seat. “That’s like saying you’ve had too much sleep or too many orgasms.” He swipes a finger over the whipped topping on the dessert plate next to him and licks it away slowly. “No such thing.”

Alex blushes scarlet and narrows her eyes at him while David sends him a brief look of reproof for saying ‘orgasm’ at the dinner table. Matt barely pays him any mind; too busy marveling over the way Alex somehow manages to look even more gorgeous when she’s angry. It adds a certain sparkle to her green eyes, making them glitter under the light of the chandelier above them. He might be imagining things but he thinks even her hair looks cross with him. It’s magnificent.

She is magnificent.

Not even bothering to pretend like he isn’t staring now, Matt watches her pick up her wine glass, her eyes on his as she sips from it, like she’s silently telling him that he isn’t going to ruffle her with a little innuendo. He grins and meets her gaze steadily, unwilling to be the first to look away. Just as she is trying to tell him something, he needs to let her know that he isn’t going to go away just because she’s afraid.

Alex is apparently as stubborn as he is – that or she is coming around to his silent seduction a lot easier than he thought – because she sets down her wine and picks up her fork without breaking eye contact. She slides the fork past her lips, leaving a stain of lipstick around the silverware to match the print on her wine glass.

He licks his lips, wondering it would be like to have her press that mouth to his naked skin and leave her mark there as well, covering him in lipstick prints and letting everyone know he’s been claimed. He wants to spread her out on the dining room table and do a bit of his own claiming, leaving teeth marks wherever he touches.

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat and dropping his napkin to cover his lap when moving around does nothing to alleviate the tightness of his trousers, Matt finally looks away, letting Alex win.

He can sense her triumph from across the table but he’s a little too preoccupied to mind. Usually, he can keep these thoughts at bay but after kissing her, it seems to have unleashed something primal and he wants her more than ever. He knows now what she tastes like, how she feels, the way she whimpers when he kisses her hard, and it changes everything.

The silence around the table is verging on painful and Matt misses Laura more than ever – she’s always been able to keep a lively conversation going and sometimes David would even look up from his paperwork to join in, or at least listen. Matt glances at Alex and sees watching her husband curiously, like she doesn’t know how to talk to him anymore than Matt does.

“David,” she begins tentatively, and Matt knows by the tone of her voice that she hasn’t the faintest clue how she’s going to end that sentence. She just wants to say something. He doesn’t interfere, merely delighting in the fact that she doesn’t call her own husband by the pet names she bestows on him. She picks up the tongs lying next to the plate of chicken and bites her lip hesitantly. “Would you like more chicken?”

David shakes his head, swirling the wine in his glass. “No, I’m fine.”

When Alex starts to put the tongs down, Matt speaks up, asking brightly, “Can I have a breast?”

Startled, Alex drops the tongs and they both watch as the utensil falls into the mashed potatoes. She turns her eyes on him and stares, mouth open.

He smiles serenely. “Two, if you don’t mind.”

Snapping her mouth shut and pursing her lips, Alex picks up the plate of chicken and reaches across the table to hand it to him. He takes it but not before deliberately brushing his fingers against hers, meeting her eyes as he murmurs his thanks.

She says nothing and the minute he grips the plate, she stands up, excusing herself and hurrying away from the table and into the kitchen. Matt watches her go and smiles, putting the chicken aside and enduring the silent atmosphere with his father for the appropriate length of time before getting up to follow her.

This hadn’t exactly been part of his plan, but he would take what he could get.

--

When Alex reaches the sanctuary of the kitchen, she breathes out a sigh of relief and slumps against the counter, elbows resting on the granite and her mind racing. What is happening to her? She’d kissed her stepson today and she probably would have done a helluva lot more with him if David hadn’t come home from the office when he did. And just moments ago, practically fucking Matt with her eyes while her husband sat right next to her, oblivious. What is she doing? This is sick and wrong. It cannot happen. She’s always been so sensible, so levelheaded. She won’t let some bizarre attraction to David’s son ruin that. She’s just going to have to be more careful. It can’t happen again. She won’t let it; no matter what innuendo-laden conversation Matt throws her way.

Just as she’s contemplating stepping outside for a much needed smoke, a large, warm hand on the small of her back sends her jumping backwards into a solid, lanky frame. Another hand settles on her hip to steady her even as the body behind her releases a low chuckle into her hair. Alex stiffens, her heart beginning to hammer madly. She’d know that voice anywhere. It’s been a constant source of desire and frustration ever since he first set foot in this house.

Letting out a steadying breath and closing her eyes, she asks quietly, “What are you doing?”

Matt doesn't answer her, brushing her hair aside and lowering his mouth to the side of her neck, kissing and sucking gently. “Just making sure you’re alright.” Mouth open, Alex shivers against him. “You left so abruptly.”

She should shove him away. Turn around and slap him before marching back into the dining room to join her husband. And she's going to -- any second now. Swallowing, Alex grips the edge of the counter until her knuckles turn white. “I needed some air.”

“If anyone needs air, it’s me.” He bites down hard on her neck. “You’ve done nothing but torment me since we sat down to dinner.”

Her? Tormenting him? He’s the one who has been licking whipped cream off his finger and making innuendos and brushing her hand with his. He has some damned nerve to say such a thing and Alex plans on telling him so. She opens her mouth to do just that but all that comes out is a moan as she arches her back against him and she curses her own traitorous body. She thinks fleetingly of David seeing the teeth marks on her neck and of the explaining she would have to do but Matt’s hands are tight on her hips as he turns her roughly to face him, and suddenly she doesn’t want to think about David anymore – with his previous wives he never bothered to mention and the pink post-it note signed with xx’s on his desk.

Pressing her hard into the counter behind her, Matt lowers his head and catches her lips in a harsh, punishing kiss. Just as before, Alex clings to him, opening her mouth under his and letting him in. Tongue battling fiercely with hers, Matt plunders her mouth like he can’t get enough, like he wants to open her up and climb inside. She probably shouldn’t find that such a turn-on.

He doesn’t even pause to let her breathe, relentless in his passion as he slides a hand down her thigh. His fingers dip beneath her skirt and he trails them back up her bare thigh, dragging her skirt up with him while Alex bites down on his lip. Growling softly, Matt hitches her leg up and she instantly wraps it around his slender waist. He grinds his hips into hers and she throws her head back into the cupboards behind her, gasping. Matt smiles, kissing the corner of her mouth. He looks sort of sweet like that, she thinks fleetingly. And then his hand slips inside her knickers and she doesn’t think at all anymore.

Long, clever fingers skate over her slick heat and they both moan quietly at how wet she is from their brief encounter. No other man has ever made her feel like this, like he’s never met anyone quite so alluring. It’s exhilarating and intoxicating. She can’t seem to get enough. His very presence in the room is enough to make her knickers damp and it’s been like that since the moment she met him, though she has always done her best to ignore the affect he has on her.

But Matt is starting to make it impossible to ignore anything about him.

He swipes his thumb over her clit once very briefly and her hips jerk toward him without her consent. She bites down hard on her bottom lip as Matt’s hazel eyes meet hers with obvious intent. Quivering and desperate, she nods quickly and he pushes two slender fingers inside her.

Alex breathes out shakily, and he steps closer to her, his breath hot on her face. She raises her eyes from the collar of his shirt and his gaze catches hers again -- intense and purposeful as he watches her. He doesn’t look like the sweet, ridiculous man who trips over his own feet, who held her earlier as she cried -- his eyes are serious and dark, his jaw tight with concentration as he tries to get her off quickly. He slowly draws his fingers out and slams them back in again. She keens and he hurriedly covers her mouth with his own, muffling her cries in a frenzied kiss. She returns it with wild fervor, drawing his fingers deeper into her with a hand around his wrist as she tightens her leg around his waist. Matt slips his free hand into her hair and fists a handful of curls around his fingers. He pulls just hard enough to sting, and this combined with his bruising kiss and his fingers steadily fucking her, Alex feels her orgasm approaching like a freight train.

She can feel herself soaking Matt's fingers as he slips a third inside her easily, and he circles his thumb over her clit, a feather-light touch that leaves her shaking. Clutching at his shoulder, nails digging into his skin, Alex lifts her hips against him frantically; hungry for release, for more friction, for him and all too aware that David could walk into the kitchen at any time. And it just goes to show what kind of sick person she is that the thought of being caught makes her whimper and tighten ever so slightly around Matt’s fingers.

“So beautiful, Alex,” he breathes into her ear, and she shudders. “He’s sitting out there sipping his bloody wine and all I could think about was bending you over the table and fucking you.” Her breath hitches and he nips at her ear. “I might still, just to hear you scream. Bet you’re a screamer, aren’t you, Alex?”

She whines into his neck, hot all over and right on the edge, teetering precariously on the brink of release. So bloody close...

With one last press of his thumb into her clit, Matt curls his fingers inside her just so and Alex flies apart, her cunt tightening violently around Matt’s thrusting fingers and drenching them anew while she screams silently into his neck, lights dancing in front of her eyes and her heart pounding. He slows his thrusts, pressing a line of feverish kisses across her forehead, suddenly the tender, sweet Matt she is familiar with once again. Panting, she slowly comes back to herself, blinking dazedly at his Adam's apple.

Breathless and unable to believe what she just let happen after she promised herself she wouldn’t let it, Alex pulls back to stare up at Matt, bewildered. He smirks down at her, slipping his fingers from her still fluttering heat and letting her leg drop back to the floor. Her body continues to clench around nothing in the aftershocks while Matt, with his eyes on hers, slowly draws his fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean, just like he had with the whipped cream at the dinner table. Alex stares open-mouthed, a strangled sound of desire escaping her throat.

“Might want to adjust your skirt, Kingston,” he says softly, and winks. “See you back out there.”

With that, he turns and walks back out into the dining room, adjusting his jacket to cover his erection as he goes. Alex watches him leave with her mouth still open and her skirt bunched around her hips. Smug bastard. She leans back against the counter, boneless and probably glowing from that mind-shattering orgasm. Damn that man, he has reason to be a smug bastard. Alex closes her eyes, biting her lip and wondering what he looks like beneath those t-shirts and tight trousers. She wonders what his skin tastes like, if he'd pound her into the mattress and satisfy her thoroughly, the way David has never quite managed. Alex whimpers softly at the thought of finding out, and when her head lolls back and hits the cupboards behind her, her eyes fly open in realization.

She is in such deep shit.

She wants him.

And with David off shagging some other woman, there’s nothing to stop her from having him.

Well, besides her moral principles.

If she closes her eyes and concentrates, she can still feel Matt’s breath on her cheek and his fingers moving inside her. Oh god. She swallows hard and reaches with a shaking hand for the spot where she hides her cigarettes.

Perhaps she needs that fresh air after all.

--

Alex doesn’t come back to the dinner table, and Matt goes to find her again after his father retreats to his office, concerned that he has somehow ruined everything with his rash actions. Wishing the whole time that he had just stuck to his original plan of gradually wooing her rather than bringing her off against the kitchen counter – like she means nothing, like he doesn’t want anything more from her than sex – Matt ventures into the kitchen again and finds it empty.

To his relief, he sees her through the French doors leading into the back yard, sitting there on the stone steps and blowing out a ring of smoke into the night air. Leaning against the doors, Matt watches as she stares blankly out into the yard and wonders if he’s buggered everything up by being too impetuous. He’ll never forgive himself if she backs away now, but oh, she had been so glorious coming apart at the touch of his hands. He can’t regret getting to see that.

Heart beating a frantic rhythm against the confines of his ribcage, Matt slowly opens the door and slips out into the warm summer night. Not moving from the door, he stands there uncertainly, wondering if maybe he should have stayed inside.

While he contemplates what to say, Alex takes another drag of her cigarette and breathes out the smoke on a sigh. “I know you’re there. The shame radiating off you is tangible.”

He frowns at the back of her curly head. “I’m not ashamed, Alex. You’re the one hiding out here and chain-smoking.”

She holds up her hand and flicks the ash off the end of her fag. “One cigarette does not a chain make, Matthew. I’m thinking.”

Swallowing, he asks, “Would you prefer to think alone?”

Alex still hasn’t turned to look at him but she nods. “I think I would. Kind of difficult to think properly with you projecting your own thoughts so bloody loudly.”

He smiles slightly, hand on the doorknob. “Yeah? What am I thinking about right now?”

“Me,” she answers easily, finally turning to glance at him over her shoulder, a soft smile on her face.

He shrugs. “Beginner’s luck.”

“Maybe,” she agrees, returning her attention to the yard.

Turning the doorknob, he takes one step inside before glancing back again. “Just so you know,” he says softly, “What we did today might have seemed impulsive to you but I’ve been thinking

about it since the moment I met you.”

The line of her back straightens slightly but Matt doesn’t wait for her to turn around, slipping back inside the house and shutting the door behind him. As much as it pains him, he turns from the sight of her sitting alone out there and walks away, giving her the time she needs.

He’ll talk to her properly tomorrow. He’ll make her understand that he’s serious, that he cares about her. Tomorrow, he’ll tell her everything. With that thought in mind, he climbs the stairs to his room and falls into bed, sleep claiming him within minutes.

--

When she hears the door shut behind Matt, Alex sighs and leans back, resting her elbows on the steps behind her and tipping her head back to look up at the sky. The stars are much brighter out here than they’d been in London and while she has come to hate residing permanently in the country with David, she can’t deny the beauty that exists out here. She probably could find a lot of inspiration out here, if she started paying attention.

Unfortunately, she can’t seem to pay much attention to anything but Matt lately and he seems determined to keep it that way.

If only she’d known flirting with the handsome man in the supermarket would result in the predicament she’s in. She wonders if she would have done it anyway, knowing what she does now. She thinks of David and how much he’s changed from the man she thought she knew when she married him – his long hours at work, the way he can be in the same room with her for hours without even looking at her or speaking to her, and of the drawer full of marriage certificates and divorce papers. She would certainly feel more alone and miserable without Matt around.

But loneliness isn’t the reason she let Matt kiss her or touch her – Alex knows what it feels like to be with someone out of loneliness and this isn’t it. She just likes Matt, with his kind eyes and his wide grin; the way he touches her with reverence even when he’s pushing her against the kitchen cabinets, the way her whole body just hums with contentedness whenever he’s in the room.

She wants Matt just because she does, because he’s wonderful and he makes her laugh and why shouldn’t she have him?

David isn’t going to keep her around forever and Alex quit her university job to live here with him; she left her whole life in London for a man who cares no more for her than he does a stranger

down the street. He already has a tart he’s seeing on the side after three months of marriage – who knows how much longer it’ll be before he asks her to leave. And leave she must, since she was idiotic enough to sign a pre-nup.

God, she was so stupid.

It turns out her previous failings in the marriage department have taught her nothing at all. But this thing with Matt isn’t about marriage or love or anything really but lust. She wants him – desperately. And for some bizarre reason she still doesn’t understand, Matt wants her too. And why shouldn’t they have what they want if David is going to have what he wants, without regard to his wife or the son who has watched him make all the wrong decisions his whole life?

Squaring her shoulders, Alex stubs out her cigarette on the step next to her. If David can cheat, then so can she.

With his son?

She slouches miserably back against the steps and glares at her stubbed out cigarette.

Okay, so that part is bad.

But does the person she’s cheating with really matter in the moral scheme of things? Cheating is cheating.

Isn’t it?

And what David doesn’t know won’t hurt him…

All the secrets and nobody else to tell Chapter Notes

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments:) Chapter title from the Jack White cover of Love Is Blindness.

Matt slowly drifts toward consciousness far earlier than he would have liked – he’d been dreaming of what might have happened if he’d stayed out there to talk to Alex, imagining spreading her out on the grass under the stars. But there’s something not quite right...something...

Blinking sleepily, Matt shifts and realizes he’s hard as a rock. Bloody hell, the dream hadn’t been that explicit. And then, there’s movement out of the corner of his eye just as he feels a soft hand pump his cock. Gasping as his hips twitch, he jerks his gaze toward the movement and sees Alex sitting on the edge of his bed in a nightie, that magnificent hair falling around her shoulders and a wicked smirk tugging at her lips as she strokes him.

He’s dreaming. He has to be dreaming.

“Oh god,” he chokes, torn between jerking away and lifting his hips for more contact. “What the hell -”

Alex cuts him off with a finger to his lips. “Sshh. No talking, Matthew,” she whispers, and he glances quickly at his alarm clock. Six in the morning. His father will be up and preparing to leave for the office in half an hour. He looks at Alex again and nods once, eyes wide. She pulls her finger away while her other hand wraps firmly around his length. “Unless you don't want...” She trails off, looking suddenly unsure of herself.

As if Matt hadn't cornered her in the kitchen earlier and shoved his hand in her knickers while his father sipped wine in the dining room. As if he hasn’t wanted her since they met. Alex begins to slide her hand from his pants and Matt whimpers at the loss of contact. “Don't stop,” he whispers. “Please.”

Alex hesitates only a moment before she smiles again and crawls fully onto the bed, straddling his thighs. Cleavage spilling out of her black negligee and green eyes glittering as she bends to lick his neck, Alex looks like not only every man’s wet dream, but Matt’s in particular. Groaning, he places his hands on her hips and tries to bring her mouth to his but Alex wriggles from his grasp and continues to plant kisses down his neck, across his collarbones while nipping with her teeth,

and then down his chest, biting hard enough to leave marks. Throbbing and straining against his boxers, Matt makes a noise of frustration and tries to touch her again, only to be rebuffed once more.

Alex sucks and bites at his nipple with particular enthusiasm as her hands trail down his sides. Soothing her vicious teeth marks with her tongue, she continues down his stomach until she finally reaches his groin. Smirking a little while Matt swallows in anticipation, she slips her fingers beneath the waistband of his boxers and tugs them down his legs, tossing them away. Suddenly, her face is right in front of his erection. She breathes softly across the head and he whimpers, hands fisting in the sheets.

The ends of her hair brush against him and he lifts his hips, desperate for the delicious heat of her mouth. Alex smiles and with deliberate slowness, she licks the length of him from root to tip in one long stripe. Matt bites back a groan. She kisses the tip; licking up the moisture gathered there and then tongues at his slit. He muffles a shout into his fist and feels her smile widen against him before the warmth of her hot mouth envelopes him completely. Gasping at the sudden shock of it, Matt sits bolt upright and fists his hands in her wild curls. He’s so hard he thinks he’ll explode but he still feels himself swelling inside Alex’s mouth and he wonders how she doesn't choke. He probably shouldn’t find being sucked off by his stepmother in his childhood bedroom so hot but he tugs sharply at her hair and pants, resisting the urge to thrust into her mouth or hold her down by the neck until she takes him all the way in.

Swirling her tongue around his length like she's lapping at a bloody lolly, Alex bobs her head up and down, her lips bright red as they stretch around his cock. Matt has a sudden and overwhelming desire to touch her but she doesn't seem to want his reciprocation right now. Instead, Alex takes him all the way into her mouth quite suddenly, not stopping until the head hits the back of her throat. And then she hums.

“Holy fuck,” he hisses, and his mind is blank of everything but Alex. Her hair tickling his skin, her hands drawing soothing circles on his thighs, her hot, brilliant mouth around him. “God, Alex...yes.”

His father is just down the hall sleeping, completely unaware that his new wife is giving his son a blowjob like she was bloody well born to do it but Matt can’t muffle the noises he’s making. He can’t do anything but gasp and moan as a raging fire begins to build in his abdomen.

Alex moves her hands from his thighs to fondle his testicles, cupping them and rubbing gently with her thumbs while her mouth slides up his length with a soft scrape of her teeth. Matt chokes back a sob, reduced to a desperate, gibbering mess who just wants to come. He wants to pull her away from his groin, shove her beneath him on the bed and fuck her. He wants to come inside her until he can't see straight.

Then, Alex's intense green eyes fly up to meet his and still holding his gaze, she hollows her cheeks and sucks hard on the tip of his cock, as if she's trying to draw out his very essence through his prick. “Yes, Alex. So fucking -” Heedless of his father down the hall, Matt comes with a shout, hands tight in Alex’s hair as he spills into her mouth. She swallows everything with her eyes still on his and Matt has never seen anything so sexy in his life. When he’s spent, Alex slowly slides him from her mouth with a wet pop and he collapses against the mattress, mind blank and chest heaving.

He watches through hooded eyes as Alex sits up and licks her lips, staring at him warily. He holds out a hand to her and she takes it, letting him pull her into his side. He kisses her softly -- too exhausted to be as passionate as he'd like -- and he can taste himself on her tongue. He moans quietly and licks at the roof of her mouth. Alex whimpers, pulling away to rest her forehead against his.

“What happened?” He asks, watching her seriously.

Lips twitching, she says, “I believe it’s called a blowjob, darling.”

He snorts. “I meant what happened to change your mind. Have you finished thinking?”

She shrugs, eyes sparkling. “If David’s track record holds true, I’ll be gone before the year is out. Shagging you can’t possibly make things any worse.”

The answer is vaguely troubling but Matt is too tired to pinpoint why. Deciding he’ll think about it in the morning, he wraps his arms around her and falls back into dreams once more.

When he wakes again, the sun is high in the sky and his arms are empty. For a horrible moment, he thinks maybe last night had been a dream – an erotic, wonderful dream – and that Alex hadn’t really slipped into his bedroom last night. Just as Matt’s heart begins to sink with the likely possibility, he turns over in bed and buries his face in his pillow.

It smells like Alex – this flowery, earthen scent with traces of perfume and charcoal. He smiles into his pillow and breathes deeply, stretching. Not a dream at all, then.

Glancing at his alarm clock and wondering if it’s too soon to go find Alex and snog her senseless, Matt drags himself out of bed and pulls on his clothes, running his fingers through his hair and brushing his teeth. He decides to give Alex a little time to herself but when he enters the kitchen to grab something for breakfast and finds her in the same sundress she wore the day he met her,

barefoot and bent over with her head in the refrigerator, Matt knows he won’t be able to just grab an apple and leave.

Stealing up behind her quietly, he runs a deliberate hand over her bum, giving it a brief squeeze. Alex starts, smacking her head as she jumps away and turns to look at him, glare fixed firmly in place. He grins, raising his eyebrows at her. “Good morning.”

“Oh god,” she says, dropping her glower as her shoulders slump. “You’re one of those obnoxious morning people, aren’t you?”

He really isn’t but something about coming downstairs and seeing her face first thing after waking puts him in a cheerful mood. He isn’t about to admit that to her, though. Grabbing an apple from the bowl on the counter, he says, “And you’re one of those people who hates everything until after your second cup of coffee?”

She smiles and turns back to the open fridge. “I suppose you’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?”

“I plan to,” he says, and instead of biting into his apple, he comes up behind her and rests his chin on her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Throwing out all the expired food,” she says, pulling a package of shredded cheese from a shelf with her nose wrinkled. She tosses it into the trash bin next to her, wriggling out of Matt’s grasp with a laugh when he tries to kiss her neck. “Go find something to do. Just because we’re having sex doesn’t mean you can bother me all day.”

“You wound me, Kingston,” he says, taking a bite of his apple and speaking around it. “I thought you liked it when I bothered you.”

Without turning around, she says, “You were mistaken.”

He smiles but the comment niggles at him worryingly. Just because we’re having sex…

And then he remembers suddenly the explanation she’d given him early this morning.

Shagging you can’t make it any worse.

Matt is starting to think Alex has misinterpreted his intentions and he means to correct her erroneous assumption. He watches her silently for a few moments, turning over the problem in his mind as he leans against the counter and munches on his apple. She bends over quite frequently and the view from his spot is lovely. When he finishes the last bite, he tosses the apple into the trash bin and says, “Come for a walk with me.”

“Can’t,” she says. “I’m painting this afternoon.”

He sighs, pushing away from the counter and coming up behind her, snaking an arm around her waist. She leans into him automatically, hand resting on his over her stomach. “Please? Maybe you’ll see something you want to paint while we’re out.” He brushes her hair aside, pressing his lips to the side of her neck and inwardly grinning like a madman because he can do such a thing now. “How can you call yourself an artist if you’re going to say no to potential inspiration?”

Tilting her head to the side and giving him better access to her throat, Alex huffs in exasperation. “Are you always so persuasive or I am just particularly susceptible?”

He smiles as he turns her to face him, letting his lips brush briefly over hers and feeling utterly pleased with himself when her eyes flutter shut. Grabbing her hand, he tugs her along through the house, eager to get outside and talk to her, even if the day has turned out to be clouded and gray. She makes him stop in the foyer, grabbing a pair of lavender wellies and stepping into them and he can’t help but tease her as they begin the long trek down the driveway.

“Loving your ensemble, Kingston,” he says, watching the hem of her sundress swish around the top of her boots. “What do you think they’d call that in London? Country chic?”

She shoves him with a laugh but he refuses to relinquish her hand, merely grinning and holding on tighter. “You’re treading on thin ice for someone who wants to get laid, darling.”

Matt says nothing but the remark tells him what needs to know – Alex thinks he wants her for sex and nothing else. It’s his own fault, he thinks. He never told her otherwise, just assumed she understood. No matter, he’ll make her understand now. He raises her hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles, enjoying the way she blushes as they near the end of the driveway. They cross the little lane and break through the trees into the woods, the overcast sky above them hidden by the canopy of tree leaves.

They traipse through the foliage hand-in-hand in comfortable silence while Matt tries to think of

the best way to bring up the subject weighing heavily on his mind. It isn’t until they reach a clearing in the woods that they finally come to a stop. The grass here is overgrown and nearly reaches his hip but the wildness of it has been something he’s been fond of since childhood. Alex seems to love it just as much as he does, and he watches with amusement as she bends down and removes her boots, holding them in her hand as she wiggles her bare toes in the grass. He wants to kiss her, wants to pick her up and twirl her around in the meadow until neither of them can breathe from laughing. Instead, he watches her look around them with a smile on his face and keeps his hands to himself.

“Used to come here all the time when I was younger,” he says, walking out into the middle of the clearing with Alex trailing behind him. “Perfect place to hide with my mates.”

“Or your stepmum,” she murmurs, sliding a hand up his arm and making him shiver at her touch. She smirks and moves away, head tilted toward the gray sky above them as she moves further into the meadow. “Does your father own these woods? He never mentioned them.”

Matt nods, watching her bend down to pick a dandelion. “He doesn’t bother much with it but it’s our property until the end of that line of trees out there.”

Alex looks out into the distance when he points and smiles. “You could build another five houses on this land.”

Striding out into the middle of the field, Matt finds a spot that looks particularly cushy and drops down, reclining on his back. “Dad used to say Laura and I could build our own houses over here if we wanted. I don’t think he ever understood our burning desire to get as far away from that house and him as possible.”

Alex snorts, turning from studying her flower to look at him. “I know the feeling.”

It’s the perfect opening and Matt seizes it before it’s gone. “You could leave, you know.”

The smile drops from her face instantly. “And go where? I was stupid enough to sign a prenup and quit my job in London to be with your father.”

He swallows hard. “Live with me.”

Her eyes widen and the dandelion drops from her fingers. “What?”

Her eyes widen and the dandelion drops from her fingers. “What?”

Sitting up quickly, Matt crosses his legs in front of him and hurries to explain. “You could leave him, Alex. Come live with me in London.”

“And mooch off you instead of your father?”

“No, just let me take care of you until you can find another job. Then you could move out.” He rubs at his chin nervously. “Or you could, I don’t know, just stay. Pay half the rent and I’ll cook dinner every night -”

Alex shakes her head frantically, looking at him like he has lost his mind.

If he has, it’s her fault entirely.

“Matt, do you hear yourself?” She asks, incredulous. “We’ve just decided to start shagging each other and you’re talking about moving in together! I’m your stepmother for god’s sake! This is not a long term relationship!”

Scrambling to his feet but making no effort to move toward her, he says, “Is that what you think? That I’ve been following you around and doing everything but standing on my bloody head to catch your attention all because I wanted to shag you and that’s it?”

Alex throws her hands up just as thunder rumbles faintly in the distance and a soft breeze ruffles her hair, sending curls tumbling in front of her eyes. “What else could you possibly want from me?”

“Everything!” He shouts across the meadow, and she takes a step away from him but it’s too late for anything but honesty.

She shakes her head. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

He can’t help but release a soft laugh of incredulity because he’s never heard anything so ridiculous in his life. “Are you serious? You’re amazing and gorgeous and funny, and you can’t cook worth a damn but I don’t care! You make me want to take care of you and make you laugh, kiss you until you can’t breathe.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “All I ask is that you

let me.”

Alex stares at him silently, mouth slightly agape and her arms hanging at her sides, boots dangling from her fingertips. As they stare at each other, Alex in disbelief and Matt ever hopeful, the gray skies above them open up and a light rain begins to fall. Neither of them pays it any mind.

“You don’t mean any of that,” she finally says, meeting his eyes. “It’s the sex talking.”

Mouth twitching, he points out, “Technically, we haven’t had sex yet. I haven’t even seen you naked – unless walking in on you getting out of the shower counts.”

“It does,” she says, turning her face away from him, but he detects the note of tears in her voice and rushes forward, crossing the distance between them quickly. He catches her wrist and she drops her boots at their feet, tilting her head to look up at him. The rain is slowly soaking them both but the tears in her eyes are obvious. “Your father -”

“I don’t care about him,” he growls, curling his hand tighter around her wrist. “He’s not going to want you forever. He doesn’t know how to be in a relationship that long.” He swallows, meeting her gaze steadily. “But I do, Alex. I will always want you.”

She shakes her head, blinking away rain droplets and sending a tear rolling down her cheek. “You can’t promise that.”

“I can,” he insists softly, pressing his forehead to hers.

She bites her lip. “You barely know me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “You’ve had me ensnared from the moment I laid eyes on you and that isn’t going to change.” He leans forward just a fraction and touches her lips with his. “I will always want you.”

Eyes tightly shut, Alex breathes, “Alright. I was wrong. Shagging you could make things worse.”

Matt laughs softly, cupping her rain-damp cheek in his palm. “Or it could make things so much better.”

Smiling reluctantly, she lifts her eyes to meet his and Matt is suddenly struck by how stunning she is – he’s known it from the moment he met her but now, in this moment, he’s nearly speechless with it. Green eyes sparkling, wet curls plastered to her head and water droplets clinging to her skin, she looks utterly enchanting.

Slowly, he slides his other hand from her wrist, interlacing his fingers with hers. Alex stops smiling and licks her lips, tilting her head just a little as she watches him. Matt lowers his head until he’s close enough to see the blue flecks in her eyes and their breath mingles together. He brushes his nose against her soft cheek and knows that even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t have the strength to back away now. He’s all in at this point and there’s no going back. His eyelashes flutter against her temple and he feels Alex squeeze his hand and release a hitching sigh.

Smiling, he turns his head and catches her lips with his in a soft kiss that belies the aching desire he feels. She gives a faint little moan and opens her mouth, letting him slip his tongue inside. She lets him have control for only a moment before sucking lightly on his tongue and licking the roof of his mouth, kissing him harder. Matt groans and releases her hand to grip her hip, pulling her into him. Alex pulls away from his mouth with a gasp, hands moving to his hips to hold him against her.

“Matt,” she whispers, pressing her forehead to his chest and breathing deeply.

He nuzzles his nose into her wet hair and says tightly, “Want you. Want you so bleeding much.”

She whimpers, clutching his t-shirt. “We could go back to the house,” she starts hesitantly, and he chuckles.

“We’re on private property and surrounded by trees. I don’t think anyone’s going to see us, Kingston.” He almost smiles, hiding the twitching of his mouth in her hair. “And I want brand new memories for this meadow. Much better than the ones I have of getting pissed and passing out.”

She laughs. “Well, I would like to get a closer look at this grass. Might paint it later.”

“Love the way your mind works,” he says, thumb caressing the curve of her waist through her damp sundress and feeling inordinately pleased when Alex shivers against him. He begins to press wet, open-mouthed kisses down the side of her face, down her neck and across her chest. Alex wiggles against him, fingers digging into his hips as she leans into him. He bites at the skin of her

collarbone, hands sliding down her curves and bunching the skirt of her dress in his fists.

Alex pushes him away, cheeks flushed as she walks him backwards until he trips over his own feet and falls flat on his bum in the overgrown grass. She smiles down at him and Matt stares up at her through the rain in his eyes and thinks he’s never seen anything quite so lovely. She raises the skirt of her dress slightly and he watches with wide eyes as she slides her knickers down her legs and tosses them aside.

They’re actually going to – right here in the woods and – oh yes.

Mind going into overdrive, Matt scrambles to unbutton his jeans as Alex starts toward him, dropping down and straddling him, knees on either side of his thighs. She pushes his hands away and takes over, hands surprisingly steady as she leans forward and kisses him.

It's fierce, searing and bone-meltingly hot. Matt is a goner the second her lips touch his and he moans into her mouth as Alex reaches between them and pulls his throbbing cock from his pants. Without breaking their kiss, she reaches into his pocket, searching until she finds a condom and pulls it out. She rolls it over him and then strokes his latex-covered length with soft fingers until he whimpers and pushes her away, sitting up to wrap his arms around her back, steadying her as she sinks down on him, eyes on his.

And the world around him is suddenly deafeningly quiet. He can’t hear or see anything that doesn’t involve her.

“Fuck,” he chokes out in a strangled voice as Alex’s hands settle on his shoulders. She pants into his neck, pausing to give herself time to adjust and Matt uses the brief moment of respite to get himself under control. She feels incredible, tight, warm perfection all around him and if he doesn’t get a hold of himself, he’s going to come before they even get started. He wants nothing more than to hold her down by the hips and thrust up into her pulsing heat until his head is spinning and Alex is screaming in his ear. He manages to rein himself in until she nips at his earlobe and rolls her hips. He grunts and rocks against her, making her gasp.

Her inner muscles clutch at his cock and they both hiss as she takes him deeper inside her. Nails digging into his skin through his t-shirt, Alex begins to raise herself up and down over his length and for a moment, Matt experiences a surreal moment of realization -- he is fucking his father’s wife, rock hard inside her while she twists around on his lap and moans. But then Alex’s chest brushes against his, the soaking wet material of her dress brushing against him, and who they are to each other doesn’t matter. He surges forward and latches his mouth onto the supple skin of her breast just over the neckline of her dress.

Alex moans, pushing out her chest and encouraging him to continue. He wonders how sensitive her nipples are and just how hard he could make her come just by sucking on them and toying with her clit. He wants to find out and he vows that next time, he's going to get her completely naked and study her like a priceless work of art. He’ll find out what she likes, what makes her cheeks pink from pleasure, where she’s ticklish, and what makes her shout until she’s hoarse.

Next time...will there be a next time?

He wonders if he’s actually convinced Alex of anything or if she still thinks he’s quite mad. Above him, she begins to move faster, her curls clinging to her face and her skin glistening with rainwater, and Matt really hopes there is a next time.

The waist-high grass around them trembles and sways with their every move as he helps her lift herself over him and Matt doesn't think he’ll ever enter these woods again without thinking of her -- her slick skin, her hair, her sighs of pleasure in his ear. He can feel his orgasm approaching quickly and he knows Alex is close -- her thighs quiver and her moans are increasingly highpitched and breathy. Slipping a hand under her dress and between her legs, he finds her clit and rubs the sensitive bundle of nerves frantically with his thumb.

Throwing her head back, Alex gasps out, “Yes, Matt. Yes, yes, there...”

Still working her clit, he leans up and attaches his mouth to her throat, sucking hard and not giving a damn that his father will see. He wants to taste her; he wants to leave his mark on her skin. If they never do this again, he wants her to have a reminder of this moment, of his hands and his mouth and the way he made her feel so that every time she looks in the mirror for days afterward, she’ll remember.

Tightening around him, Alex digs her nails into his shoulders and shouts as her release washes over her. Her slick walls clench and unclench around his cock and Matt feels his own climax rushing through him with a powerful force. He yanks Alex’s mouth down to his as he comes, kissing her roughly.

She stills against him and the sounds of the world come back into focus with a vengeance. He can finally hear the pounding rain and the rumbling of thunder, the wind caressing the grass around them.

Tossing the condom aside, Matt holds Alex to him and reclines back in the grass, letting her head fall to his shoulder as he stares up at the dark clouds above them. Alex runs her fingers over his rain-soaked t-shirt and presses a lazy kiss to his neck, closing her eyes.

Pushing one hand into her tangled hair, Matt reaches out beside them and plucks a dandelion from the earth, tucking it behind her ear in a fit of whimsy. Alex rests her chin on his chest and looks at him, unamused. “What?” He asks, raising his head weakly to kiss her nose. “You look good in flowers, Kingston.”

She stretches out her arm and picks another, placing it behind his ear and giggling. “So do you, darling.”

Leaving the dandelion where it is, he holds her close and leans his head back, smiling as he listens to the rain hitting the tree leaves all around them.

Your name is pounding through my veins Chapter Notes

-waves- Hey guys! Back from my trip so comment replies should be less sporadic now. Thank you all so much for your feedback! Chapter title from Dashboard Confessional’s The Secret’s in the Telling.

It’s been four days and they haven’t spoken of their confrontation in the meadow. Alex prefers it that way – she doesn’t know what to think of the things Matt said out there and she likes to tell herself that he hadn’t really meant any of it, that forbidden lust had just clouded his thoughts. Because if she lets herself believe that the look in his eyes as he’d shouted at her over the sound of the rain had been anything other than desire, it’ll only hurt both of them. Matt doesn’t bring it up again either, so she hopes he’s too mortified that he’d said things he didn’t really mean to bring it up again.

So they both skirt around the issue of the words spoken between them in that meadow and return to what they know, what they understand – sex and flirting. Alex has gotten quite good at silently seducing Matt from across the dinner table and seeking him out after David has gone to bed is an adventure. A dangerous, stupid one, but Alex has always enjoyed a challenge.

She likes Matt, and he touches and handles her in a way no man ever has before, but more than that, she enjoys his company even when they’re not in bed together. It’s a good way to pass the time while she tries her best to ignore her latest failed marriage in the making. She’s starting to think she could go on like this forever, sneaking kisses with Matt in darkened corridors and still managing to smile at her husband over breakfast in the morning.

And of course, that’s when things begin to change.

Alex had been in Matt’s bedroom until three in the morning and when David wakes her at six – thirty, she’s bleary-eyed and less than pleased to be conscious. She follows him sleepily to the kitchen and makes the coffee while he pours himself a bowl of cereal, promising herself that as soon as he leaves, she’ll go curl up under the blankets with Matt and fall back asleep.

“I’ve got a party to go to tonight,” David says, frowning at the morning paper in front of him.

“Oh?” She asks, not really listening as she sets about getting two mugs from a cupboard.

“A client of mine is celebrating the opening of his new business.” He looks up from his paper and watches her pour two cups, carrying them to the table. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

Oh please no.

Spending the evening at a party with David and one of his arrogant clients sounds like the most horrible form of punishment Alex can think of.

“Why would I need to come?” She asks, resisting the urge to tell him to bring Pink Post-it Note Girl instead and taking a seat next to him. “Isn’t it just business?”

“It’s not just business. A lot of people from work will be there with their families and it would look a lot better if I had my family there as well.”

“Ah, of course. For appearance’s sake.” She sips at her coffee and refuses to look at him.

David sighs, placing a hand on her bare knee beneath her robe and Alex fights to keep from shoving it off. “I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. Would you just pick out a nice dress and be ready by seven tonight? And tell Matt to be ready too. It’ll do him good to mingle with people who aren’t actors.”

She bristles. “I might be a little more inclined to go if you asked nicely rather than just demanding it of me, like I’m your bloody escort service.” She cups her hands around her mug, letting it warm her cold fingers. “And stop looking down your nose at your son just because he doesn’t wear a suit to work every day. Not everyone wants to spend their day cooped up in an office.”

“That office,” David says, putting down his mug with a thunk, “is the reason you have the option of staying home and painting all bloody day. And maybe if my wife treated me with a bit more affection at night, I might be willing to ask nicely.”

Alex grips her mug tightly and purses her lips, sitting through the remainder of their breakfast silently fuming. When David gets up to leave for work with a squeeze to her knee and a kiss on her cheek, she barely acknowledges him, glaring at his back the moment he turns around.

When she hears the sound of his car pulling away from the house and down the driveway, she

tosses her coffee mug into the sink and breathes deeply, blinking back tears of frustration and climbing the stairs. She stops outside Matt’s bedroom door and turns the knob quietly, peering into the dark room.

She can just make out Matt lying on his stomach, hugging his pillow and sleeping soundly. Smiling, she pads over to his bed and slips beneath the covers, curling into him. He frowns in his sleep, twisting around until he’s lying on his side before slinging an arm around her waist.

Sometimes it unsettles her, how much more comfortable and safe she feels in Matt’s arms than she feels in her husband’s but she doesn’t want to dwell on that now. So instead, Alex buries her face in Matt’s neck, breathing in the scent of the soap he uses and falling asleep, leaving thoughts of David and business parties behind.

When she wakes, it’s to Matt running his fingers through her hair and his hand working to untie her robe. She smiles without opening her eyes, saying, “I hope you were planning to wake me up first. Not really into Somnophilia.”

“Spoilsport,” he says, kissing her temple. “And I sort of planned on you waking up before I even got my hand in your hair. But now I’m working on this robe and the bloody damned thing won’t ”

She laughs, opening her eyes and pushing his hand away. “You’re very uncoordinated, darling. How you’ve managed to get anyone into bed at all, I’ll never know.”

“Oh didn’t I tell you, Kingston?” He asks, mouth moving to her neck. “You were my first.”

Smacking him and huffing when he begins to laugh, Alex stares up at the ceiling and grins. “Idiot.”

Nipping at her throat despite how many times she has warned him that leaving marks will only cause trouble for them both, he insists, “You like it when I’m an idiot.”

She snorts. “And what on earth has led you to such a conclusion?”

“Because if you only liked me when I wasn’t being an idiot, I would never have gotten past first base.”

“True,” she says musingly. “There must be something about your idiocy that I like. How unfortunate for me.”

“Unfortunate, extraordinarily lucky,” he says, hands back at the tie on her robe. “Tomato, tomahto.”

He looks so confident and Alex can’t think of a better way to wipe that look off his face than to say, “You and I are going with your father to a business party tonight.”

His hands freeze on the belt of her robe and he lifts wide hazel eyes to stare at her, that look of confidence gone and replaced by something that can only be called crestfallen. Alex feels inordinately smug. “Wait, what?”

She shrugs, sitting up and untying her robe, tossing it to the floor. “Apparently it will look better if we’re there.”

“Ah,” he says knowingly, still looking glum. “The ol’ Family Gambit. Nothing looks better to potential clients.”

He sounds like he’s been through it before and Alex suddenly pictures a much younger Matt and Laura dressed in uncomfortable clothes and forced to stand next to their father at parties and smile at strangers, looking picture perfect to further along David’s business. Some things never change.

Suddenly not feeling quite so victorious, she scoots over to him and climbs into his lap. “Well, I’ll be there to keep you company. We can keep each other from being bored to tears. I’ll bring a flask and you can bring a deck of cards.”

He chuckles, wrapping his arms around her and sliding his hands over the material of her camisole. “It’ll certainly be a step up from lurking in a corner with Laura and wishing I was invisible.”

Heart seizing at the words and the picture it conjures in her mind; Alex loops her arms around his neck and leans forward, kissing him softly.

When she pulls away, Matt follows her lips eagerly, mumbling against them, “Can’t say I would

mind hiding in a corner with you, though.”

She grins, taking his hand in hers and guiding it until he cups her breast through her shirt, she says, “In the meantime, I would hate for this nice warm bed to go to waste.”

“That would be a tragedy,” he agrees, and pushes her backwards, grinning when she shrieks and falls against his pillows.

They spend the afternoon in his bed, only climbing out to take a shower. Alex is still feeling vindictive enough after her disagreement with David this morning to take Matt into the master suite bathroom, pushing him against the tiled wall of the shower she shares with her husband and dropping to her knees under the spray of water.

Afterwards, he lies on her bed with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair damp as she sorts through her closet, trying to find something suitable to wear. He vetoes two of her choices – one a slinky red dress that he claimed would give him a permanent hard-on and the other a white sundress with a hem just below her knees that he complained meant he couldn’t see enough of her legs. She is just about to kick him out and choose something without his input when something in the back of her closet catches her eye.

It’s sparkly and black and shows far too much cleavage.

Smiling, she holds it up for inspection and watches Matt’s eyes light up and a silly grin spread across his face. Definitely this dress then. She looks forward to feeling his eyes on her all night – it’ll at least give her something to do. She knows she should be dressing for her husband, but the only person’s approval she really cares about is his son’s. When had that happened? It’s been four days since they started sleeping together and she already finds herself wading in far too deep. If she doesn’t stop soon, she fears she’ll drown.

--

When David arrives home to change, he says nothing when he sees Alex and while Matt would prefer that he keeps his hands off her regardless, even a blind man could see how gorgeous she looks in that dress, her dark curls voluminous and her lips red. She wouldn’t let him touch her after their shower because she hadn’t wanted to smell of him or sex when David came home but Matt has been itching to press her against a wall ever since he watched her apply her lipstick in the mirror.

Probably best not to think about that, though. Not with his father in the car.

They drive to the party in relative silence and Alex doesn’t even wait until they’re down the driveway before turning up the radio so the quiet isn’t so uncomfortable. Matt sits in the backseat, tapping his fingers against his knee to Suffragette City and watching David take one hand from the steering wheel to rest it on Alex’s thigh. Jaw clenched, he turns from the sight to stare out his window and watch the country lanes roll past and the lights of London nightlife come into view.

The car slows to a stop on Upper Belgravia Street and Matt glares at the grand house lit up from within; silently wishing he could be anywhere else. He remembers these parties all too well and as soon as he talks to Laura, he’s going to tell her how much he hates her for making him go to one without her.

He watches David walk around to the other side of the car and open Alex’s car door and sighs, climbing out after her. She catches his eye as they walk up to the door and the sound of the party inside the house begins to reach their ears. She winks at him and Matt wishes he could pull her from his father and escort her into this party himself – he wants to take her out and introduce her to people as his Alex. Not his stepmother, or David’s latest wife.

The moment the man at the door takes their coats; David is escorting Alex through the throng of people and motioning for Matt to follow. He doesn’t, of course, because it’ll only be shaking hands with people his father wants him to work for and Matt doesn’t feel like rowing with David about his career choices again – not tonight.

As soon as they’re out of sight, Matt heads for the drinks and is disappointed to find only champagne. What kind of a rubbish party only has champagne?

Grabbing two flutes, Matt heads for the balcony and wonders how long it will take before his father finds him and drags him back inside. He skirts around the various topiaries decorating the little spot and leans against the railing on the balcony to watches partygoers pass by the windows. He spots Alex a couple of times, looking as bored as he feels as David parades her around on his arm. She sees him once through a window and glares at him when he waggles his fingers but she doesn’t give his location away.

Just as he expected, it isn’t long before she slips out onto the balcony, joining him in leaning against the railing. “I thought you were going to keep me company,” she complains.

“You looked pretty busy,” he says, thinking of her arm linked with David’s and trying not to sound jealous. “I’ll keep you company as long as you’re away from him. He’ll just surround me with businessmen who want to give me their cards and ask me about my career plans.”

She sighs, placing a comforting hand on his arm. “You have a career, darling. Don’t let him vex you.”

He doesn’t know why Alex is always so supportive of him – he doubts she’s seen any of the small movies he’s been in or the plays he’s worked on – but he appreciates it all the same. He offers her the other flute of champagne but she waves it away, smiling as she opens her tiny handbag and reaches inside, producing a small silver flask with a flourish.

Staring at her in awe as she takes a nip and pushes it into his hand, he says, “You are even more fantastic than I thought you were, Kingston.”

She shrugs modestly. “A girl should never go to a swanky party without a flask.”

Taking a sip and grimacing at the unexpected taste of vodka, he hands it back to her, wiping his mouth. “Anything interesting happening in there?”

Wrapping one arm around herself, Alex turns from the view of the party to stare out into the street below. “Besides your father getting smashed with the only bottle of whiskey and getting a bit handsy, no.”

Matt tightens his grip on the railing and scowls. “Just tell him to sod off until he’s sober.”

No, tell him to sod off and never touch you again – sober or not.

Alex laughs quietly, looking at him with pained eyes. “Not handsy with me, darling.”

“What?” Frowning, he turns from the view of London to the windows again, searching out his father with rage clawing up his throat like bile. “Who is he touching besides his damned wife?”

Closing a hand around his wrist, she shakes her head and maneuvers him back toward the view of the street. “Don’t worry about it – I don’t care. He’s just drunk.”

“Drunk or not,” he spits, “Who the hell does he think he is?”

Drawing comforting circles on the inside of his wrist with her finger, Alex watches him fondly. “It’s fine, honestly. If anything I’m rather happy about it – means he isn’t paying attention to me and I can be with you out here rather than in there with the other younger trophy wives.”

He snorts, oddly soothed by the touch of her fingers. “Yeah, saw them. They’ve definitely got nothing on you.”

Alex scoffs, elbowing him and shooting him a sideways grin. “Did you see me standing with them earlier? All of them tiny, blonde and young? It was like a game of ‘One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others’.”

Laughing quietly, Matt watches her take another sip from her flask and desperately wishes he was free to pull her into him, to kiss her and tell her how ridiculous she’s being and how beautiful she is. She passes the flask to him and looking down, he notices for the first time the print of red lipstick left behind. It sends a thrill straight through him and he grips the flask tightly, lifting his eyes to see her smirking at him, brushing curls from her eyes.

Sliding his hand across the railing to cover her warm fingers with his own, he takes pride in the way she freezes in place, waiting for his next move. Her eyes, sparkling from the alcohol, have never looked so green and her hair is just calling for him to run his hands through it, to feel curls wind around his fingers as he tilts her head up.

“I wish I could kiss you,” he breathes, chest aching with the yearning he feels to do just that.

Breath catching in surprise and eyes darkened, Alex steps a little closer to him, a smirk twisting her lips. “Well that wouldn’t do at all. You’d smear my lipstick, dear.”

The image of her red lipstick smeared across her mouth and all over his skin is not an unappealing one and he swallows hard, coming to a rather rash decision as he watches her blink up at him like she has no idea what she does to him. Moving swiftly behind her and closing his hands over hers on the railing, he whispers into her ear, “Stand very still and try to look fascinated.”

She squirms against him. “Fascinated with what? What are you doing?”

“I don’t care what, just look at something down in the street,” he says, pointing down there

“I don’t care what, just look at something down in the street,” he says, pointing down there randomly just in case anyone happens to glance through the balcony doors and see them. He slides his hand over the silky fabric of Alex’s black dress, bunching it in his fingers and dragging it up.

Alex gasps as the cool night air hits her bare thighs, beginning to struggle. “Matt, no, what are you -”

“Ssh,” he hushes her, smiling against her neck. “No one’s paying attention – they’re too busy dancing and getting sloshed. And even if they did look out, it’s dark. They would probably see the topiaries lining the bloody place before they’d see us.”

“But if they did see -”

“They won’t. I promise.” He smoothes his palm over her thigh and up her bum, biting back a groan at the feel of smooth skin under his hand. “No knickers? Are you deliberately trying to kill me? Bloody hell!”

Despite her protestations, Alex laughs softly, dropping her head. He fights back the urge to press his lips to the line of her shoulders. “Lucky for you, this dress is too clingy to wear knickers.”

Giving her cheek soft pinch that makes her yelp and push that lovely arse back against him, Matt slides his hand between her thighs and parts her folds with his fingers. Alex arches against him as he circles her already swollen labia, grinding against his prick. He hisses and pushes back, brushing his fingers against her clit as he does. It earns him a sharp gasp and he smiles, darting away from the little nub and teasing at her entrance again. She’s more than ready for him, soaking his fingers as he taunts her with soft strokes but he can’t resist touching her, feeling what he does to her and the way she trembles under his touch.

“Matt,” she whispers, pushing against him desperately. “Now. Please.”

The desperation in her voice has him undoing his trousers with shaking fingers, just enough to free his cock from his pants. He pulls out a condom and rolls it on hurriedly. He brushes the head of his length teasingly over Alex’s slick entrance and against her clit, biting his lip when she moans and spreads her legs a little further apart, leaning over the balcony until she’s looking directly down into the street. Watching all the people below pass by on the pavement while she waits for Matt to fuck her.

The thought has him biting back a groan and he shifts closer, lining himself up and pushing into

her. His breath catches as it always does the moment his length is wrapped in her tight velvet heat, the different angle sending him deeper inside her than he’s ever been. Alex pushes back against him with a low moan and Matt sends a silent thank you to whoever had turned the music up inside the flat.

He thrusts into her and Alex pushes back fervently, her gorgeous arse curving against him as she does. The sounds of the party and the bustle of the street below are nothing compared to the way her soft moans and breathy cries reverberate in his ears. Nothing else seems to matter but her and how they make each other feel. He thinks if someone walked out onto the balcony right now and saw them, he wouldn’t care. Alex makes him feel like he could deal with just about anything, as long as her hand is in his.

“Alex,” he murmurs, hands gripping her hips tightly as he plunges into her. “Alex…”

She grinds her arse against him shamelessly as she grips the railing in front of her and he can feel her climax approaching in the way her whole body tightens and coils like a spring. “Matt,” she whimpers.

Reaching around to touch her clit and reveling in the way her thighs quiver as he presses down hard, Matt lowers his head and says softly, “You like this, don’t you, Alex? Being fucked in front of all these people while they’re totally oblivious? Drinking their champagne and dancing. People in the street could look up right now and see your face as you come.”

She moans.

“What if everyone in there all turned around and saw you right now, hmm?” His lips brush her ear as he rubs his fingers over her clit frantically. “Bent over the balcony with your dress around your waist and your stepson inside you while you begged for it?”

Grip on the railing white-knuckled, Alex gasps out, “God, yes,” and clenches around him, her whole body jolting with the force of her release.

Her legs seem to give out from under her but Matt holds her up, pushing her harder against the railing as he pounds into her and Alex urges him on with soft little moans while her heat continues to flutter around him. It only takes a few more thrusts before he’s coming hard, gasping her name into her hair.

When their heart rates have slowed and Alex can stand without his support, he pulls away from

her, tucking himself back into his trousers and stashing the used condom into one of the potted plants. Smoothing down her dress, Alex turns to him with his favorite, soft-eyed smile. The one she usually gives him when they’re lying in bed afterward and he loves that she still has it now, in the middle of a party on a little balcony.

She glances nervously through the doors and relaxes when she doesn’t see anyone gaping at them. “You are so lucky no one saw that.”

“You like it.” Twisting a curl around his finger, he brushes his lips over her forehead and whispers, “My lovely exhibitionist.”

Just then the doors to the balcony open and David steps out, fiddling with the cufflinks on his suit. Matt and Alex spring apart, hoping they don’t look too guilty as David glances up. “There you are,” he says, his words a little slurred. “Have you been out here the entire time? I’ve been searching the whole bloody place for you.”

Alex steps forward and takes his proffered arm, cheeks flushed as she mutters, “I just needed some air.”

“Well I need you with me.” David begins to pull her back inside. “Matt, you too. There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

Matt isn’t sure if he’s just grateful for the time he did get away from his father and his friends or if he’s still high on the rush of orgasm but he follows David and Alex back inside without complaint. He accepts business cards with polite smiles and silently vows to toss them in the trash the first chance he gets. David continues to drink, his arm around Alex’s shoulders as she leans into him uncomfortably, her smile bright and frozen. A tall, thin woman with short dark hair lingers close to them, touching David’s arm frequently and looking up at him through her eyelashes.

Matt spends a lot of time glowering at her and his father, since David does absolutely nothing to deter her. It’s not an unusual sight but with Alex standing right there, trying her best to ignore them and looking alone even with David’s arm around her, Matt finds it a lot harder to bear. How can his pillock of a father stand there with his beautiful wife – the most fantastic, amazing woman Matt has ever met – at his side and openly flirt with another woman?

How?

He’ll never understand his father.

From what he gathers of their conversation, the woman works in the same building David does and Matt would be shocked if they weren’t already shagging. His father is buggering up this marriage at an alarming rate and Matt can’t help but wonder why. It’s like he’s getting more belligerent with each wedding ceremony.

When a slower song begins to blast from the speakers in the house, David pushes his drink into Matt’s hand and pulls Alex out onto the designated dance floor with other couples. Standing awkwardly with a glass of whiskey and the tart his father is probably shagging, Matt shifts from foot to foot and tries not to glare out onto the dance floor. It should be him dancing with Alex – and not at this terrible party. He’d take her somewhere with better music and better alcohol, hold her close and hum in her ear…

The dark-haired woman leans against the wall next to him, crossing her arms over her chest and smiling up at him. “I don’t think your father introduced us. I’m Cynthia.”

On the dance floor, David is showing obvious signs of having had too much to drink. He holds Alex to him like a prop, his hands wandering places they shouldn’t be in public as Alex tries to discreetly fend him off. Grip tight on the glass in his hand; Matt bites out a hello to the woman next to him.

She doesn’t take the hint, nudging him playfully. “It’s funny; you don’t look like David at all.” She laughs. “Sure he’s your dad?”

“Unfortunately,” he mutters under his breath, watching David’s hand slide down to cup Alex’s bum. Forcing his eyes from the scene, he turns Cynthia. “I look more like my mother. Though she was just the first in a long line of women who all thought they were special.” He smiles thinly. “Just so you know, Cynthia, you aren’t any different than they are.”

Cynthia stares at him, eyes wide. “What -”

“Just fair warning,” he says, pushing the drink into her hands and striding toward his father and Alex.

Alex shoots him a grateful look as he reaches them, pushing David away and steadying him with a hand on his arm. “I think we’re ready to leave now. Would you be a dear and grab my handbag, Matt? I’m going to help your father to the car.”

“Damn it, Alex,” David says, pushing her away. “I’m fine. I still have a few rounds to make here and when we do leave, I won’t need help to the car. I’m not a child.”

She levels him with a glare that might have alarmed David if he hadn’t been so drunk. “You may not be a child but you have the balance of a toddler at the moment and I’m not going to be your crutch all evening. So say goodbye to your friends and let’s go.”

David’s cheeks flush with anger and Matt decides to step in before things get too heated. Placing a hand on his father’s chest, he looks at Alex and says, “I’ll help him. Go get your bag, Kingston.”

Irritation dissipating, she smiles at him in thanks and disappears into the crowd without a backwards glance as Matt maneuvers his father toward the door. He isn’t totally sloshed and thankfully all Matt has to do is guide him along and nod as he grumbles under his breath about being treated like a kid.

He helps David into the back seat because no way in hell is he driving and Matt certainly isn’t going to make Alex sit in the back. David waves him away with a growl when he tries to help him with his seatbelt and Matt sighs, shutting the car door and sliding into the driver’s seat. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel as they wait for Alex, just to be annoying.

After a beat of silence, he asks, “You work with Cynthia?”

“Mm.”

“Just work with her?”

David glances up sharply, glaring at him as Matt stares him down through the rearview mirror. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” Matt says quietly, eyes narrowed.

Without responding, David turns to stare out the window.

Unwilling to let it go, Matt grips the steering wheel tightly and says, “She deserves so much better than you.”

Surprised, David looks at him just as the passenger door opens and Alex climbs in, handbag tucked under her arm. “All settled?” She asks, turning to look at David.

He nods, speechless.

Alex smiles and buckles her seatbelt as Matt starts the car, enjoying his father’s temporary silence. The quiet lasts all the way back to the house and Matt spends most of the ride wishing he could reach over and touch Alex, lace their fingers together and kiss her knuckles. Instead, he steals the occasional glance in her direction and keeps his hands on the steering wheel.

When they arrive home, David climbs out of the car without assistance and after shooting a pointed look at Matt, wraps his arm around Alex’s waist and begins to lead her away. Alex squirms against him but he holds her closer and eventually she gives in, leaning into him as they walk toward the house and through the front door. As they start up the stairs, David takes her hand and leans in, beginning to kiss her neck ardently.

Standing at the bottom of the staircase with the memory of Alex beneath him still fresh in his mind, Matt looks away, feeling sick to his stomach.

Right or wrong, don't it turn you on? Chapter Notes

-hugs you all for your lovely commentsChapter title from Joan Jett's Do You Want To Touch Me.

The next morning David wakes up in a bad mood – excessive drinking is not kind to him. Besides handing him some paracetamol when he wakes up, Alex doesn’t tend to him and he spends a majority of his morning cooped up in his study. She’s so relieved to be rid of him and his sour mood that she doesn’t complain. Perhaps he and Cynthia – Post-it Girl finally has a name – can commiserate together on the phone about their hangovers.

She sits at the breakfast table in cutoff shorts and a tank top, planning on spending the day cleaning the house as soon as she can gather up the energy. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep last night. With her husband’s arm around her waist, she’d stared into the darkness of their bedroom and wished she were lying next to someone else. It hadn’t made for a pleasant night’s sleep.

Now, it’s nearly noon and she hasn’t seen Matt once.

Alex is just finishing the lunch she made for herself when he finally makes an appearance. He doesn’t look like he just got out of bed but she knows for a fact that he hasn’t left his bedroom all morning. She wonders how long he’s been sitting in his room, avoiding David.

“Sorry,” she says as he pours himself some tea. “I should have gone up and told you your father was hiding away in his study.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, not looking at her. “I was asleep anyway.”

It’s a lie. She knows what Matt looks like when he just wakes up and this isn’t it. He usually terribly chipper for one thing – he’s such a morning person and it drives her mad. Right now, he looks like he doesn’t want to talk to anybody. Not even her.

Pushing away from the kitchen sink and touching his arm, she asks, “Are you feeling alright, dear?”

Sipping at his tea, he nods and subtly moves away from her touch. “Fine. Just tired.”

She frowns. “I thought you just got up?”

“And I had a rubbish night’s sleep, Kingston,” he snaps. “Is that an acceptable answer? Can I drink my tea without the Spanish Inquisition now?”

A little stunned, Alex nods, glancing away. “Right. Sorry.” She turns to continue cleaning up the kitchen, biting her lip.

She doesn’t know why she continues to let herself believe she will eventually find a man who doesn’t talk to her like she’s an idiot – it hasn’t happened yet. She’d thought Matt was different but obviously he spent a little too much time with his father growing up. Maybe he’s just tired of her – she can hardly blame him. A man like him, young and gorgeous, stuck in this drafty old house all day with a middle-aged woman who always has charcoal or paint on her hands. She’s surprised he wanted her to begin with.

It’s stupid anyway, this thing between them. Best to end it now before she winds up with two men in the same house who barely tolerate her. Busying herself with scrubbing vigorously at the countertop with a sponge, she blinks back tears and begins to plan the best way to avoid Matt for the next two weeks until he goes back to London.

Matt, who has been watching her silently, says softly, “Alex.”

She ignores him.

“Alex, please. Stop that and look at me.” His voice is soft and contrite and she can sense the return of her Matt – and when had she started thinking of him that way? – rather than the copy of David who first came into the kitchen. It makes her pause but she still doesn’t turn around.

“What is it?”

He sighs and she hears him setting down his mug of tea before walking over to her, resting his hand on her shoulder gently. “I’m sorry. I’m in an awful temper this morning but that doesn’t

mean I’ve got to be such an arse to everyone else. Especially you.”

She nods stiffly, resisting the urge to lean into the touch of his hand and staring at the sponge still clenched in her fist. “True. I think I deal with enough rubbish behavior from your father. Certainly don’t need any extra from you.”

His thumb rubs across her shoulder blade soothingly just as he lowers his head and kisses the back of her neck. “I know. That was uncalled for and I really am sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Bloody hell, how does he always manage to apologize so graciously? No sane person could ever say no to him, with that sincere voice and she’s sure if she turned around, those hazel eyes would be wide and guileless, making her weak-kneed in the process. Sighing in defeat but inwardly utterly relieved that he hasn’t tired of her after all, Alex turns to face him, finding herself pinned to the kitchen counter. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this, dear.”

He smiles widely, relief flashing in his eyes at her forgiveness. “You’ll never hear me complain.”

She laughs, resting a hand on his chest. “Well, out with it, please. Why so horrid this afternoon?”

The smile drops instantly and he shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Just a bad night’s sleep.” He leans down, brushing his lips over her forehead. “Probably because you weren’t next to me.”

“Matt,” she says, looking up into his eyes. “Your father has lied to me every single day of our marriage, and before that, I had two ex-husbands, one who lied right to my face about an affair for three years and another who bottled all his feelings until suddenly he couldn’t even be around me anymore. Please don’t make me add you to the list of men who can’t be honest with me.”

Matt squares his jaw, eyes solemn as he gazes down at her. He seems to be debating with himself and she lets him, waiting silently. Finally, he blows out a quiet breath and says, “I don’t like seeing you with him. I don’t like standing across the room and watching him touch you and I don’t like the way he treats you. And last night, with that Cynthia woman.” He huffs, running a hand through his hair agitatedly. “And then he just pulled you upstairs like he hadn’t been a total arse all evening. And he was touching you and kissing you and I can’t -”

Alex leans up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to his just long enough to shut him up. When she pulls away, Matt blinks at her, silent. Under his scrutiny, she fumbles her words a little, struggling to convey her meaning. “He didn’t…we didn’t…last night.”

Thankfully, Matt catches on to her meaning quickly and she watches fondly as the relief transforms his face into something wonderfully adorable. “Oh. Really?”

She shakes her head, smiling a little. She doesn’t know why, but she thinks she would have felt guilty if they had. David is her husband for God’s sake but sleeping with him now would somehow feel like a betrayal to Matt. She knows it’s twisted, but she can’t help it.

Matt beams at her, and then takes her face in his hands and kisses her enthusiastically. Alex laughs against his mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck. He snakes his tongue past her lips and brushes it against hers and she moans quietly, lifting one hand to rake through his hair as Matt pushes his fingers into her curls.

He pins her in place with his hips, letting her feel him against her thigh as he breaks away from her mouth to trail hot, rough kisses along the line of her jaw. “Promise me,” he says, breathless and Alex whinges into his neck as he grinds his hips against hers. “Promise me you won’t let him touch you.”

Oh, this is dangerous territory they’re venturing into. She can’t promise him that – David is her husband and she can’t stop him from touching her ever again. But Matt’s mouth is warm over her skin, his tongue darting out to taste her while they rock their hips together and moan, and Alex wants nothing more than to agree.

And she might have, if not for the sound of footsteps coming from down the hall. She and Matt spring apart, flushed and panting. Matt hurriedly turns to face the counter to hide his erection and Alex runs a hand self-consciously over her red face, picking up the sponge lying on the counter.

Despite how much she really doesn’t want to see her husband, she can’t help but be grateful for David’s arrival. Who knows what she would have agreed to otherwise. He strolls into the kitchen dressed in the clothes he usually wears when he goes golfing and she smiles at the thought of a few hours without him this weekend.

“Feeling better?” She asks, scrubbing at a nonexistent spot on the counter.

“Thanks to you,” he says, leaning down and kissing her cheek.

Alex tries not to stiffen and refuses to let her eyes wander to Matt. Seeing the look on his face

won’t help anything. David doesn’t notice the sudden tension in her frame, pressing another kiss into her hair before backing away. She relaxes instantly, letting out a quiet breath and closing her eyes. She’s uncomfortable around her own husband and she knows things can’t continue on like this. Something needs to change.

Grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, David takes a bite and looks at Matt. “I’m golfing this afternoon with some of the blokes I introduced you to at the party last night. If you’re not busy today, I’d like you to come.”

Matt eyes him suspiciously. “Why?”

David sighs. “I’m not going to force you into a corporate job, Matthew. Is it a crime to want to spend time with the son I never see anymore?”

Alex can see Matt softening despite himself. From what she gathers, his relationship with his father has never been very strong and with good reason. But even adults are susceptible to guilt when it comes to their parents, and Matt is no exception.

After a moment of silence, he nods, rubbing the back of his neck uncertainly. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll go.”

David smiles. “Good. Grab a change of clothes and get your clubs. Meet me at the car.” He pauses on his way out to kiss Alex goodbye, and then he disappears down the hall once more.

For a moment, Matt and Alex say nothing, listening for the sound of the front door shutting. When it does, Matt crosses the room in three long strides and gathers her into his arms, kissing her thoroughly. She moans, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting his tongue sweep through her mouth like he wants to erase every last trace of David from her lips. He nips with his teeth, biting down on her lip and making her whimper.

“We are definitely finishing this when I get back,” he breathes against her lips and she smiles.

“Going to think about it on the golf course?”

“I doubt I’ll think of anything else.” Matt kisses her again, sliding his hand beneath her tank top and smoothing over the bare skin of her stomach. She wants to pull off her shirt and guide his head to her breast, wants to feel his hot mouth around her. She wants to tug him onto the kitchen

head to her breast, wants to feel his hot mouth around her. She wants to tug him onto the kitchen counter with her and sweep everything to the floor so she can feel his body against hers. But David is waiting outside and he really has to go.

Pushing weakly at him as Matt’s hand trails up her stomach with intent, Alex mumbles against his lips, “No, Matt. You have to go. Your father is waiting.”

He growls softly as she removes his hand from her shirt and takes a step back. “When we get back, he is going to bed early if I have to drug his bloody evening brandy.”

Grinning, Alex shoos him away with a playful swat. “Oh, go on. Play golf with your father and his friends and be bored out of your mind while I stay here and get very hot cleaning this big old house.”

He glares, kissing her again quickly before turning and starting for the door. “You’re horrible,” he calls over his shoulder.

“You love it,” she replies, and smiles as he leaves.

--

When the front door opens hours later, Alex doesn’t turn from wiping down the dining room table, scrubbing a little too vigorously. She hates this damn table -- dark mahogany wood that isn’t her taste at all but David insists on keeping it because it’s been in the family for generations. The only room she’s really allowed to decorate as she pleases is her art studio. At the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor, she glances up from her work and tugs at her denim shorts. Matt peers around the doorway and lifts an eyebrow. She smiles. “Hello stranger.”

“You're a sight for sore eyes,” he says, running a hand through his hair and looking weary. She laughs, eyeing his crisp polo and neatly pressed black trousers, that cap crumpled in his hand -not his style at all. The dress code for David's club must have been painful for him to adhere to. “Still cleaning?”

“Got the second floor done,” she sighs. “The whole bloody damn house is a dust collector.”

He smiles fondly, patting the doorframe. “Laura used to say the same thing when we had to clean it.”

At the mention of his sister, Alex deflates a little – she really does miss that girl. “How was golf with your father?”

“Rubbish,” he says, crossing the room quickly and pulling her into his arms. He kisses her fiercely, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her close.

Alex wants to give in, wants to wrap herself around him and forget everything. She wishes she could. “Matt,” she says breathlessly, pulling away and glancing around nervously. “Where's David?”

“The office,” he rumbles, kissing her again as his hands roam over her body. “Forgot some paperwork.”

Relieved, Alex bunches his t-shirt in her fist, pressing closer to him. “Did he beat you?”

“Horribly,” he admits, cheerfully and without shame.

Alex toys with the hair at the back of his neck and smiles. “Poor baby. Want me to kiss your bruised ego all better?”

“Maybe later,” he laughs, and reaches for the button on her shorts.

Quite through with small talk, Alex hurriedly helps him push her shorts down her legs and kicks them aside. She’s been aching for him since he left this afternoon, throbbing between her thighs even as she cleaned the dust from the picture of her wedding day with David. Matt kisses her again, biting at her lips as he grips her waist and lifts her onto the dining room table, standing between her legs.

She reaches for the bottom of his shirt to lift it over his head but he pushes her away, pulling back from her mouth and settling into the chair at the head of the table. He slouches against the stiffbacked chair like a king lounging on his throne and eyes her up and down speculatively. Alex can see the noticeable bulge in his trousers as he studies her and it makes the ache between her legs all the more unbearable. It's amazing, the reaction she can bring out in a man so much younger than her. Surely he's been with women sexier and more beautiful than she, and yet he looks at her and reacts to her like she's twenty years younger and without the start of wrinkles around her eyes.

"Take your top off," he orders softly, his eyes dark and intent as he watches her.

She almost moans, tugging her tank top over her head and tossing it away. She isn't wearing a bra and her nipples pebble instantly in the chilly air of the dining room. Matt's eyes narrow and he licks his lips as she trails a hand up her stomach and cups a breast in her palm, rolling her nipple between her fingers.

Swearing, Matt gives up the pretense of aloofness, standing abruptly and kissing her hard. He pushes her hand away and replaces it with his own as he guides her back onto the table. He doesn't linger long, unfortunately, kissing and nipping his way down her naked body spread out for him and arching toward his touch. He bites his way down her stomach, stopping briefly to dip his tongue into her belly button and make her giggle. He smiles briefly, kisses her abdomen, and continues down.

Without warning, his mouth sucks at her clit through her damp knickers and Alex yelps in shock, shooting up to clutch at his hair.

Smirking, Matt pulls away, extracting her hands from his hair and urging her back down. "Hands to yourself, Kingston."

Heat pooling rapidly in her belly and her body screaming for his hands on her, Alex glares but lies back down, thumping her head against the wood.

Settling into the chair again, Matt tugs her knickers down her legs and throws them carelessly over his shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about tasting you all day,” he whispers, and she shudders in anticipation. Spreading her legs, fingers tapping a gentle rhythm against her thighs, Matt places a soft kiss to the side of her knee and despite the way her body throbs with want and thrums with expectation, Alex smiles up at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Ridiculous man.

Then, he spreads her folds with his fingers and presses his face into her heat. Alex arches toward him as his nose bumps her clit, struggling not to reach for him. Slowly, Matt licks the length of her, gathering her wetness on his hot tongue. She curls her hands into fists at her sides and bites down hard on her lip, stifling a whimper.

Matt hums softly and presses a kiss to her entrance before his tongue darts out again, tasting her. He avoids her clit, lapping at her with the flat of his tongue and Alex moans, lifting her hips restlessly in a desperate attempt for friction, for penetration, anything.

And that's the moment he pulls away. Of course.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be thinking about the way you taste when my father is criticizing my bloody swing?” He asks. “Ever tried to concentrate on golf with a hard on, Kingston?”

Oh god, he is not seriously going to go off on one of his tirades now?

“Matt, please,” she pleads, gasping and lifting her hips into the empty air. “Please, Matt. Your tongue, god, please -”

“So impatient,” he tsks, nipping once at the inside of her thigh. “Can’t a man complain about his day?”

“No,” she growls. “Not with your face between my legs.”

He looks contemplative, his eyes dark. “True. Don’t have much to complain about now, do I?”

She huffs. “You will in a moment if you don’t -”

Without another word or further exploration, Matt delves his tongue into her entrance as far as it will go and the words die in her throat. He alternates between thrusting and licking at her inner walls, devouring her with his mouth like he hasn’t had a proper meal in months. She rocks her hips against his thrusts, the sounds coming from her mouth unable to be classified as anything other than shrieks.

Lost in mindless pleasure as Matt maps her insides with his tongue, Alex scratches at the hated antique table beneath her without a thought to how she’ll explain away the marks. She’s been doing a lot of explaining lately. Lying to her husband so she can go on shagging his son behind his back. “Oh god, Matt. Yes, yes, god.”

Matt slips his tongue from her, replacing it quickly with two long fingers. He presses them into her relentlessly, knuckle-deep over and over while his teeth tug at her clit. Helpless to do anything but scream as he pleasures her tirelessly, bringing her closer and closer to the edge, Alex shouts his name until it echoes through the house, shattering spectacularly under his attentions and soaking Matt’s fingers with her release. He laps it up with an eagerness that never fails to make her quiver.

Chest heaving, Alex laughs softly up at the ceiling as Matt slides his fingers from her and wipes smugly at his mouth. Before her dazed mind can come up with anything to say, he stands quickly and pulls Alex with him. She’s face down with her bare breasts pressed into the wood and staring at her own fingernail marks scratched into the dining room table before she can so much as protest, but she’s far too blissed out to even grumble about the rough handling. Behind her, she hears Matt unzip his trousers and fumble around with a condom packet, then feels the blunt head of his erection nudging insistently at her entrance. She presses back against him encouragingly and Matt pushes inside, sheathing himself inside her and filling her to the hilt.

From this angle, his length hits that delightful spot inside that makes her see stars and Alex moans loudly, her oversensitive heat clenching around him. Hands bruising on her hips, Matt pulls out and then thrusts back in forcefully, nearly shoving her up the table.

“Fuck, Alex,” he grunts. “You feel so amazing, love.”

She whimpers, wanting to make some kind of smart remark about the feeling being mutual but nothing but a strangled sound of pleasure escapes her throat. Matt’s shirt scratches at her bare back and she just wants to turn over and clutch at him. She wants to wrap her legs around that narrow waist and push his mouth to her breasts; she wants to rock her hips against him while he marks her skin with his teeth and tongue. Instead, she can only claw futilely at the table and push back against his furiously moving hips.

In the quiet of the dining room, she hears only the ticking of the grandfather clock, their grunts and moans, and the filthy sound of their bodies slapping together in their frantic coupling. Matt is so hard inside her, filling her up entirely with every inward thrust and as Alex begins to surge toward her second climax, she hears herself chanting mindlessly, “Yes, fuck me, yes, there....”

Behind her, Matt growls and shoves harder, deeper inside her. Alex keens, feeling a trickle of her own warm liquid slide down the crease of her thigh. So much for polishing the table, she thinks. “Come on, Alex,” he says through gritted teeth. “Scream for me.”

She moans, tightening around him -- right there, just a little more...

Holding her hips down, he pounds into her roughly. “Every time I sit down at this table, I want to remember fucking you on top of it. I want to remember making you come all over this bloody family antique.” He thrusts hard and she slides further up the table, her cheek burning from sliding against the wood. “Scream for me, Alex.”

And beneath him, she comes undone.

With a strangled shout that might have been his name, she comes violently, tightening around him as she presses her face into the table and falls apart. The orgasm leaves her a quivering, shaking mess, limp as a rag doll and spread out on the table as Matt presses his chest to her back and continues to fuck her wildly. Alex can only blink dazedly at the table top and tremble until he sinks his teeth into the back of her neck and bites out a ragged, “Alex” before falling over the edge of his release. Alex twitches with the aftershocks of her powerful climax, her heat fluttering around his spent cock. Matt collapses against her back, panting into her neck and she welcomes his warm weight. “Bloody hell.”

She hums her agreement, feeling oddly content considering they just desecrated a priceless family heirloom.

Running his hands over her sweat-slicked skin, he pants, “Know what’s going to be awkward?”

“What?”

“Sitting down to dinner at this table from now on and trying not to think about fucking you over it,” he says, kissing her hair.

Alex laughs quietly. “Who says you should try not to?”

“Mm,” he says, “you’re right. Best memory ever.”

She always hated this table before today but from then on, whenever she cleans it or sits down to dinner, Alex smiles.

I wish you were a stranger I could disengage Chapter Notes

Chapter title from The Fray's Over My Head.

When the weekend is over and David goes back to work, Matt drags Alex out of house and into the weak English sunlight. He knows what it’s like to be cooped up in that house with David, and the fresh air of the English countryside had been the only thing keeping him sane. Well, that and Laura. Carrying books and sketchpads, they pick a large tree halfway down the long driveway and settle under its shade. Alex presses her back against the tree trunk and Matt promptly collapses onto the grass, spread out carelessly with his head on her lap.

She rolls her eyes at him but her hand immediately settles in his hair, raking her nails over his scalp in a way that makes him want to purr contentedly. “You’re very good at that.”

“Salome likes it when I do this too,” she says, and the affection in her voice is obvious.

He can’t help but be curious about this little girl he’s never met, who’s part Alex. “Tell me about her,” he says, looking up at her pleadingly. “What’s she like?”

For a moment, Alex says nothing and the fingers in his hair still. He’s afraid that maybe she doesn’t want talk about it – he can’t imagine being away from his child for so long but then her fingers begin to rake through his hair once more and she says quietly, “She’s my little miracle. I wanted children for so long but nothing ever worked. Even tried adoption but it always fell through. And then Salome came along and made all the struggles worth it.”

Matt thinks of Alex finally cradling the baby she’d always wanted to her chest and can’t help but smile. “I bet she’s brilliant.” He tilts his head up and sees her looking down at him fondly. “Like her mum.”

“Charmer,” she says, and trails a finger over his forehead, laughing when he scrunches up his nose.

“Will I ever get to meet her?” He asks, swatting at her hand.

Alex sobers immediately and he almost regrets asking. “I don’t know, darling. I don’t even know when I’ll see her again. I always have to fight for time with her. Florian doesn’t make it easy.”

He scowls, catching her hand in his and studying her fingers. Soft hands; always smudged with charcoal or paint. He loves her hands. “It’s not fair. You’re her mother – and probably a brilliant one. What right does he have to keep her away from you?”

Alex shrugs but doesn’t reply, her eyes watery.

Matt presses his lips to her open palm in apology. “My turn, anyway. What do you want to ask?”

She chuckles, brushing her hand over his jaw. “Are we playing a game?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Do you really want that to be your question?”

Sighing, she pokes at him and ignores him when he squirms. “Tell me about Daisy. Why does Laura hate her so much?”

“Well I’m not particularly fond of her either,” he points out. “We’re on break, remember?”

“Do you think you’ll start seeing her again when you get back to London?” He isn’t sure if he hears the tinge of jealousy in her words because it’s there or because he wants so badly to hear it.

“I don’t think so,” he sighs. “We’re too different. All we do is fight and I can’t remember the last time we had an actual conversation about something other than her nail polish.”

Alex laughs quietly. “And Laura?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. She says healthy couples have at least one thing in common. Well, that and she just thinks Daisy is a slag.”

“That poor girl,” she laughs. “I can only imagine the way Laura must treat her.”

“Oh no,” he says. “She’s always perfectly polite to her face. And anything mean she might say usually goes right over Daisy’s head anyway.” He rubs his hands together thoughtfully. “Alright, my turn…most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?”

“What?” She laughs and shakes her head. “This is not a sleepover, Matthew.”

“Come on,” he whinges. “Please? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

She almost growls at him in irritation and he would be lying if he said the sound didn’t go right through him. He shivers and waits for her reply.

“I might have…” She trails off, sighing. “Promise not to laugh?”

He nods eagerly, desperate to know the woman he’s sleeping with a little more.

All in one breath, she says, “I-might-have-done-naked-interpretive-dance.” Matt can’t help it. He laughs, clutching his stomach and cackling until tears spring to his eyes while Alex smacks at him and complains, “You promised!”

“Yes, I promised,” he chuckles, trying to catch his breath. “Before you mentioned the words ‘naked’ and ‘interpretive dance’.”

“You are such a prick,” she says, shoving at him. “I was young!”

Wiping at his eyes, he asks, “So what did you do? Dance about to wind chimes or something?”

She glares. “Or something.”

“Like what?”

She mumbles and he strains to hear.

“What was that?”

She huffs. “Babbling brooks.” Matt bursts into laughter again and Alex hits him. “I hate you.”

“You don’t,” he says, grinning. “Was it for a class?”

Alex nods warily. “It was an art class. I’d dance and they’d draw it.”

“Lucky bastards,” he sighs. “I’d like to take a class like that. I bet it was terribly sexy.” Tracing his finger over the soft material of her dress, he smirks. “If I’d been in that class, I probably wouldn’t have gotten a bit of work done. Too busy staring at you.”

“Too busy giggling, more like,” she says, scoffing.

“I would not have giggled,” he protests, looking up at her with wide eyes. “You just took me by surprise. I was expecting a story about running about someone’s front yard in your knickers at a slumber party.”

Alex looks smug. “You should know better than to expect the norm with me, darling.”

“I’ll never make that mistake again,” he laughs. “Want to hear mine now?”

“It would certainly make me feel better.”

He snorts. “Alright. Laura used to make me put on a wig and lipstick and have tea with her.”

“Well that’s not so bad,” she says. “All siblings -”

“I was sixteen, Alex,” he admits with a sigh, and can only shake his head when she starts to laugh. “It’s not funny! I was scarred for life, Kingston! Mentally and emotional scarred.”

“You poor darling,” she says, still giggling breathlessly. “Tell me. Does the makeup aisle reduce you to tears? Do you shudder at the sight of a lipstick tube?”

“Yes,” he huffs, glowering up at her. “I have nightmares about powder compacts. It’s no joking matter, thank you.”

This only makes Alex laugh harder but the sound is so wonderful to his ears that Matt can’t regret sharing the story. She doesn’t laugh often enough, his Alex. He should really do something about that. When she finally calms down and they decide that they’ve asked enough questions for the time being, they lie in silence for a while, Alex humming softly and Matt trying to make shapes out of the clouds.

When he grows tired of that, he opens the book he’d stolen from Alex’s collection – a book of poetry by ee cummings – and starts somewhere in the middle, feeling blissfully content. Above him, Alex does not reach for her sketchbook and pencils, leaning her head back instead and commanding softly, “Read to me.”

So he does.

He reads about thirty pages of poetry out loud while Alex runs her fingers through his hair and listens. It’s quite possibly the most relaxing afternoon he’s had in his life, and his voice slows with every poem, becoming more languid as he rests beneath the sun and Alex’s hands. He almost drifts off to sleep mid-sentence until Alex scratches her nails under his chin and giggles.

“Wake up, darling,” she says. “You’re falling asleep on the job.”

Yawning, he thrusts the book toward her face and says, “You read then, Kingston. My voice is tired.”

She sighs and takes the book from him, tossing it aside. “That’s probably enough poetry for one afternoon.”

“I’m feeling inspired,” he mumbles, shutting his eyes sleepily. “I think I might write you a sonnet and recite it under your window later. Something outrageously scandalous and full of metaphors about orgasms.”

She snorts. “Yes, I’m sure your father would love that.”

He bristles and turns his face toward her, pressing his lips against her inner thigh and making her breath hitch. “Could we please not talk about my father while we’re discussing orgasms?”

“Yes, I’m growing tired of talking about them as well,” she says, walking her fingers down his arm invitingly.

With those words, he really can’t be blamed for taking her hand and brushing his lips over her knuckles, or sitting up to continue kissing up her arm and across her chest. And if he happens to suck at that spot on her neck that makes Alex gasp and clutch at his head, well, it isn’t really his fault. She smells delicious and she looks so gorgeous in a thin green dress that brings out her eyes, and she’d just said the word ‘orgasm’. He really can’t help himself.

He kisses her softly and Alex pushes her fingers into his hair and deepens it instantly, moaning. Pushing against her until she settles back onto the grass, he hovers over her, still kissing her fiercely. Sliding her hands under his shirt, Alex clutches at him and lifts her hips against his with a quiet little whine that goes straight to his groin. With shaking hands, he lifts her dress around her waist and hooks his fingers into her knickers, sliding them hurriedly down her legs.

He pushes into her slowly and Alex clings to him, nails digging into his back and her soft moans in his ear as they rock against each other in the shade of the tree. When they’re through, Alex has grass in her hair and Matt lies next to her, smiling goofily at it and refusing to tell her because he quite likes the look of it there, amongst all those perfectly dark ringlets.

“Have you fucked all your stepmothers?”

Surprised by the sudden question, Matt shakes himself from his post-orgasm afterglow and gapes at her. “What?!”

Alex shrugs. “They were all younger than me, after all. Just wondering.”

Sputtering and unable to reply right away, he shakes his head, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at her. “No! That’s – no. I think it’s safe to say you’re the only one I’ve wanted to sleep with.”

She laughs softly, looking up at him with a playful light dancing in her eyes. “Well don’t I feel special?”

Leaning down, he brushes his lips over hers and feels her smile against his mouth as he murmurs, “You are special.” Pulling back, he taps her nose. “And I’m not fucking you, Kingston.”

Raising an eyebrow, she asks, “Oh? And what would you call what we just did?”

He shakes his head and trails his finger down her cheek. “It’s more than that. Better.”

She smirks. “It certainly is.”

Grinning, he leans down and kisses her again languidly. Alex wraps her arms around his neck and sighs. Neither of them really tries to dominate the kiss and as such, it ends up being rather slow and soft, lazy like the afternoon they’re having. With one last gentle nip to her bottom lip, Matt rests his head on her chest and shuts his heavy eyes.

When he wakes again, he’s lying on his own, the sun warm on his skin and Alex leaning against the tree, sketchbook in her lap. Her eyes flick to him occasionally and when she finally notices that he’s awake, she smiles. “Hello sleepyhead.”

He stretches, wiggling his bare toes against the grass and asking in a voice rough with sleep, “Are you drawing me, Kingston?”

She glances down at the sketchbook, pencil poised above the paper. “Your cheekbones interest me,” she says, as if it’s the only reason.

Smiling, he turns his face to the sky once more and lets her finish.

--

The next day, Alex drags Matt out of bed just before lunch, making him dress and practically manhandling him into her little vintage convertible. While Matt is still trying to understand what’s happening, sleepy-eyed behind his sunglasses, Alex drives them even farther out into the country than they already are until there’s nothing but dirt lanes and fields.

Then, she pulls off to the side of the road and turns off the car. Matt blinks at their surroundings. “Did you bring me out here to kill me? Because I think you should know Laura is expecting a phone call from me tonight and if she doesn’t get it, she’ll be very suspicious.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “We’re having a picnic.”

“Oh.” He frowns. “I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“It’s past breakfast, darling,” she sighs, getting out of the car and walking around to the boot. “You slept too late.”

“Yes, but I can’t just immediately start eating lunch just because it’s lunchtime. I need time to adjust!” He turns in his seat and watches her get out a blanket and a basket.

She walks to the bonnet and spreads out the blanket over it before putting the basket on top and patting it invitingly. “Come on. Be a good boy and eat all your food.” She smirks. “And then you can have dessert.”

He doesn’t even bother opening the car door, climbing over the side and joining her on the bonnet of the car eagerly, ignoring her triumphant laugh. Opening the basket, he peers inside and finds fruit, bagels, a container full of cereal, two spoons, and a little carton of milk. Breakfast.

He glances up at Alex in surprise and sees her grinning smugly. “You are brilliant,” he says, leaning forward and kissing her soundly.

“I know,” she says, and steals a bagel.

They spend several hours there on that deserted lane, sitting on the bonnet of Alex’s car. They turn the radio on at one point and leaning back to stare up at the sky, curled around each other, they sing along and laugh when they don’t get the words right.

When Matt can’t take it any longer, he presses Alex into the car and kisses her until neither of them can breathe, his hand sneaking up beneath her sundress.

Eventually, the time comes to pack up their things and drive home before David returns from work. They do so reluctantly, putting the blanket and the basket into the boot and sharing one last snog against the car before climbing in and driving home. Alex keeps the top down and the wind blows through their hair, getting into their eyes and tickling their cheeks.

She turns up the radio and Matt smiles, reaching between them to take her hand. He doesn’t let go until they pull into the driveway.

--

The next morning, Alex wakes him again – he still isn’t sure how he feels about this new habit of hers, he’s rather fond of sleep – climbing under the blankets with him and kissing his neck until he opens his eyes.

“Is this going to happen often?” He asks, slipping an arm around her waist. “Because if it is, I’m going to have to start going to bed earlier. Or taking vitamins.”

Alex ignores him, smiling so widely that it’s impossible to actually be cross with her. “Your sister just called me. She wants to go shopping.”

He frowns, confused. That just defeats the whole purpose of going away so she doesn’t get hurt when Alex inevitably leaves. He may have mentioned on the phone last night that Alex missed having her around but he hadn’t expected anything to actually come of it.

Flopping back onto his pillow and shutting his eyes, he says, “Well have fun. Bring me back a nice hat.” He flinches when he feels her finger jab into his side and opens one eye again in annoyance. “What now?”

Alex blinks down at him innocently and slips her hand beneath his shirt, rubbing his chest and trailing her fingers down his stomach. “I want you to come with us.”

Squirming under her touch and trying not to let it affect him, he licks his lips and asks, “Why would I do that?”

“Well what else will you do here all day?” She asks, lifting his shirt over his head and bending to

press her lips to his skin. He shivers and rests his fluttering hands on her shoulders. “Besides, it’ll be nice. Bonding time with the stepchildren.”

He snorts. “We’ve bonded plenty, I think.”

The remark earns him a sharp nip of her teeth and he yelps. “Hush. Don’t be crude.”

“Says the woman biting her way down her stepson’s stomach,” he points out, and then she palms him through his pants and he gasps.

It doesn’t take him long to agree to go shopping after that.

Laura picks them up an hour later, honking the horn outside and grinning at them from the driver’s seat. “Hop in, darlings. So much money to spend and so little time before Papa Bear comes back!”

Alex gets into the passenger seat and throws her arms around Laura, and Matt climbs into the backseat while the two women hug. “No one wants to hug me, then?”

“Of course I do,” Laura says, pulling away from Alex to put the car into drive. “But you’re so far away and I don’t care enough to reach all the way back there.”

“Oh charming,” he says, snorting. Then, just to be cheeky, “What about you, Kingston?”

“I see you all day, darling,” Alex says, turning slightly in her seat to give him a look that says she’s thinking about the last time she hugged him five minutes ago. “I haven’t had a chance to miss you yet.”

He swallows hard, sliding on his sunglasses and wishing he’d remembered to bring cigarettes. He adores them both but it’s far too early to deal with them at the same time. “Anyone got a fag?”

“No smoking in my car,” Laura glares at him through the rearview mirror and he makes a face at her. “How did you get him to agree to come with us, Alex? Is he under a spell? Did you promise him a lolly for good behavior?”

Alex doesn’t turn to look at him but he can hear the smirk in her voice as she replies, “Something like that.”

He spends the next two hours following after Laura and Alex while they shop, carrying bags and doing quite a lot of whinging. He tries on a few hats but they veto every single one of them and when he starts peering at the bowties curiously, they drag him away by the arms. He pouts for a while but then they start trying on dresses and suddenly the afternoon looks a lot brighter.

Waiting outside the dressing rooms with bags all around him, he sits impatiently and waits for Alex to emerge. Laura comes out first, looks at herself critically in the mirror and then turns to him, eyebrow raised. “What do you think of this?”

He shrugs. “Very yellow.”

She huffs. “Is that good or bad?”

“Dunno,” he says, smiling a little. “Depends on whether or not you like yellow.”

“Well that’s helpful,” she sighs.

When she starts to walk back into the dressing room, he calls out, “You look lovely, Lor.”

“Oh shut up,” she says and he grins when he hears her dressing room door shut. No matter how old he gets, he’ll never grow tired of irritating his sister. When she comes out again, holding the dress, she sits on the arm of his chair and says, “I like yellow.”

“Good,” he says. “Then you’ll both be very happy together.”

She rolls her eyes at him but then the door to Alex’s dressing room opens and she steps out in a green dress that shimmers a bit in the light. It hugs all of her curves in all the right ways and the neckline shows enough of her cleavage to get his heart racing. She stands in front of them and glances down at herself, biting her lip. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“Bloody hell.” Laura whistles but Matt can’t unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth long

enough to form words. “That is a must. I can only imagine the look on dad’s face.”

Matt flinches at that and glances at Alex. She smiles weakly, watching him encouragingly. “What about you, darling? What do you think?”

Because it doesn’t matter what David would think of her dress. She cares what Matt thinks. And the knowledge of that floods him with warmth and makes him hide a smile behind his hand. “You -” He stops and clears his throat. “You look beautiful.”

Alex beams at him, turns to look into the mirror behind her for a moment, and nods once. “Alright. I think I might get this one.”

Laura shoots Matt a look he chooses to ignore, and then smiles at Alex. “You better. And don’t tell David how much it cost until I can be there to see his face.”

Laughing, Alex says, “I’ll let you tell him yourself, dear. You’ll have a front row view.” And then she’s gone, slipping back into her dressing room to change again.

Laura turns on him immediately, smirking. “Are you alright?”

Matt shifts uncomfortably. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because I saw your face when she walked out,” she crosses her arms over her chest. “There were practically hearts coming out of your eyes.”

“What? There were not!” He says, flushing.

“Oh, and you’re blushing,” Laura puts a hand to her chest and looks at him like he’s an adorable puppy. “Are you crushing on your stepmother, Matthew? Because that is precious. Creepy, but precious.”

“Oh bugger off,” he huffs, and shoves her off the arm of his chair, his heart pounding and his cheeks red.

She laughs but doesn’t bring it up again.

They go to a pub for lunch and while he and Laura set off to find a suitable table, Alex heads to the bar to get their drinks. She takes more than a few minutes and Matt eventually gets up to see if she needs helping carrying drinks to their table. He finds her standing at the bar, their drinks in front of her and a tall, broad-shouldered man leaning close to her, smiling. He puts a hand on her arm and squeezes slightly.

Instantly, Matt feels his blood boil at the sight and he clenches his fists at his sides, jaw tight. Alex is nodding to whatever the man is saying but her smile is forced and when she spots him striding toward them, her eyes light up.

“Darling, there you are,” she says, sounding relieved. “I was just telling this gentleman that I didn’t need help and you’d be along at any moment.”

Matt reaches her and puts a possessive hand on her arm, but he keeps his gaze focused on the man in front of them. “And here I am,” he says, barely managing to keep from growling. “Looks like she won’t be needing you after all, mate.”

Alex smiles at him kindly. “But thank you very much for the offer.”

The man holds up his hands and backs away, still feeling cheeky enough to wink at Alex. “Any time, beautiful.”

Matt fights the urge to bare his teeth. When the man walks away, he grabs two of the drinks on the bar and guides Alex back to their table without a word, his jaw clenched. Alex shoots him worried looks all through lunch but he can’t shake the horrible feeling he’d gotten seeing her with that bloke. It had only served to remind him think of the other man in her life. His father.

Men want her – he certainly can’t blame them for that – and Matt is powerless to do a damn thing about it because he’s her stepson. He has no claim. Is it wrong of him to want Alex all to himself? He doesn’t want to share her with anyone; he doesn’t want another man touching her. Ever. He doesn’t know what has come over him – he’s never been the jealous type. Daisy has a whole group of straight male friends and he isn’t bothered by it in the slightest but something about Alex brings out his possessive side.

He remains quiet through their meal, slightly contemplative but mostly just waiting to be alone with Alex again. He wants to mark her exquisite skin and reassure himself that it’s his bed she

climbs into in the mornings when her husband goes to work. It’s him she chooses to be with and no random bloke at a pub is going to change that.

He keeps telling himself that while he eyes Alex across the table as she talks animatedly with his sister, licking his lips and imagining what he’ll do to her when Laura drops them off again.

Laura waves a hand in front of his face, giggling. “Anyone home in there?”

He blinks and glares at her. “Quite.”

“Well stop brooding or whatever you’re doing and tell Alex about the time dad took us with him to that business conference in Texas as a family vacation.”

“Oh god,” he says with a soft laugh, rubbing a hand over his face. “Why would you remind me of that? I could almost think of Stetsons without feeling queasy again.”

Alex looks intrigued and he spends the rest of their meal telling her about how he and Laura had sneaked off to a rodeo when David was in a business meeting, with Laura cutting in occasionally to mention something he left out – usually something mortifying he’d done. By the time they’re ready to leave, they’re laughing so hard tears blur their eyes and Alex’s face is flushed from cackling at their teenage antics.

Matt has almost completely forgotten about the man from the bar as they get up to leave, until that very same man walks up to them and hands Alex a napkin with his phone number written on it, smiling and telling her to ring him when she can get away from her children.

Fuming, Matt leaves the pub before he does something really stupid that he’ll just regret. He waits at the car with his hands balled into shaking fists and his vision tainted red. That horrible, powerless feeling is back and his chest aches with it. Laura and Alex come out only moments later and as soon as the car is unlocked, Matt climbs into the backseat and stares out the window for the duration of the drive home, barely speaking.

When Laura pulls up outside the house, he practically leaps out of the car, helping Alex gather her shopping bags and thanking his sister for the afternoon. She promises to keep in touch and as soon as Alex has finished hugging her again, Matt ushers her inside the house. He intends to show her that some broad-shouldered bloke at the pub has nothing on him.

--

As soon as the front door shuts behind them, Matt is on her, slamming her back into the door and kissing her hotly, tongue plundering her mouth. Alex melts into him with a moan, dropping her shopping bags and gripping the belt loops of his tight jeans, tugging him closer. He'd stared intently at her all through lunch with Laura, and then when that man had approached her afterward, Matt had looked ready to punch him. Thankfully he managed to control himself but he's been brusque and tense ever since.

Now, behind closed doors, his kiss is almost violent and his hands are bruising on her hips as he grinds his erection into her. Alex throws her head back against the door and Matt seizes the opportunity to bite his way down the column of her throat, marking her.

It seems dear Matt is a bit possessive. Alex quite likes it.

“What did you do with it?” he asks, practically growling into her throat.

She presses a hand to the back of his head and urges him to continue his ministrations. “What did I do with what?”

“His number,” he spits, contemptuous.

Alex smiles faintly, stroking his neck. “Well after you sulked off muttering to yourself, I gave it back to him.”

“Really?” Matt kisses her neck a little gentler.

“Mhm. I told him I was married.”

He stills against her for a tense moment, lips still pressed to her throat, and she knows he doesn't appreciate the reminder. “Yes,” he says softly. “I suppose you are.” For a moment, she thinks he might pull away from her and she silently chastises herself for the tart remark, but it seems to have only fueled the fire in Matt because he hoists her up suddenly and she wraps her legs around his waist automatically. He lifts his head and fierce hazel eyes meet hers. Leaning close, he brushes her nose with his own, his lips hovering just over hers. “Sometimes I forget.” He licks his lips. “That I'm shagging my stepmother...what would people think?”

She raises her chin, defiant. “I don't give a toss what other people think.”

It’s a lie and they both know it, but there’s no denying by now a little exhibitionism is one of her kinks.

“Oh really,” he says, like he knows exactly what she’s thinking. He adjusts his hold on her and his hardness is suddenly pressing right against her core through his jeans and her rapidly dampening knickers. She opens her mouth in a silent moan, arching away from the door. “You wouldn't care if anyone found out you're shagging your stepson? That you've sucked him off in his bedroom while your husband slept?” Matt rocks his hips against her and she moans out loud this time. “That you've let him fuck you in almost every room of this house? The kitchen, over the dining room table, even in the pool?”

Alex rolls her hips against his next thrust and his jean clad erection presses right against her clit. They both hiss, clinging to each other and continuing to rock together.

Voice ragged, Matt goes on, “What if he saw us, Alex? What if he walked in while I was inside you, while you were shouting my name to shake the heavens? Does that turn you on, you naughty girl?”

“Oh god,” she chokes, moving frantically against him and already so close to the edge without either of them removing a stitch of clothing. Matt grunts into her clavicle and for a moment, she thinks they're both going to come in their pants like horny teenagers but he stops abruptly, face red as he drops her back to her feet and steps away, breathing hard through his nose, jaw clenched tight as he tries to rein himself in.

Everything about his body language tells her to stay away but Alex is too far gone to listen and she reaches for him again, unsatisfied and aching. In her haste, she lunges at him, shoving him into the wall opposite with a thump hard enough to jar them both but neither minds, tongues and teeth clashing as they each fight for dominance. Matt holds her tightly against him and begins to stumble with her toward the stairs. They shed their clothes as they go, a shirt tossed over the banister, a bra abandoned in the corner of the hallway. By the time they reach Matt's bedroom, they're naked, breathless and desperate for each other.

Alex runs her tongue over his nipples, trailing her hands over his chest and down his flat stomach, outlining prominent hipbones with her fingertips until she reaches his erection. Matt moans as she wraps her hand around him, reaching up to cup her breasts in his palms, squeezing and brushing his thumbs across her nipples. She arches into his touch but refuses to let him distract her, pumping his hot length in her fist and dragging her thumb over the tip. She swipes up the wetness gathered there and meets Matt's intent gaze as she lifts her finger to her mouth. He catches her

wrist, however, and redirects her hand, wrapping his mouth around her thumb and sucking it clean.

She whimpers, grabbing him by the neck and kissing him, determined to lick away every trace of his taste from his mouth. Matt presses his hands to her bare back and stumbles with her over to his bed, pushing her onto the mattress and tumbling after her gracelessly. She spreads her legs and he settles between them, licking and biting at her breasts even as his hand dips between her thighs to stroke her.

She's slick and ready for him, and he groans quietly, pressing a finger into her tight heat. “You're so wet, Alex,” he whispers and she whinges in acknowledgement, contracting around the invasion of his finger. It isn't enough, not nearly enough.

“More, please,” she pleads, spreading her legs wider.

Like the utter tease he is, Matt does the opposite of what she begs for, withdrawing his finger and she wants to cry at the loss. He reaches over to his bedside table, pulling open a drawer and taking out a condom. As he rolls it on, he asks, “What do you want, Alex?”

She bites her lip. “You.”

“Just me?”

She hesitates, not because it isn’t true but because encouraging his possessiveness probably isn’t a good idea. Sensing her reluctance, Matt growls and nips at the curve of her waist. Huffing in frustration and nearly writhing beneath him for his touch, Alex snaps, “Yes. Just you.”

His fingers caress her nipples so lightly that it barely even feels like a touch at all and she bites back a whinge. “No one else?”

“That is generally what ‘just you’ means,” she retorts.

He tsks. “So tetchy.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” She glares up at him. “Just you wait, Matthew. When you’re least expecting

it, I’m going to get you so hard you can’t even move and then I’m just going to leave you there -”

Alex chokes on the rest of the words as Matt surges forward, his grin infuriatingly smug. She’s positively dripping now and he slides in smoothly, buried to the hilt and she tosses her head back, letting out a sob of relief at finally being filled. They slide against each other with easy familiarity that shouldn't be there, and she relishes the feel of his cool skin caressing her overheated body.

“Alex,” he says breathlessly into her neck. “So incredible, love. No one else…” She clenches around him and he swears, pumping his hips furiously.

Within minutes, their bodies are sweat-slicked and their chests heaving with exertion. They’re already so wound up that she knows it won’t take long. With every lift of his hips over hers, Matt's abdomen strikes against her neglected clit and she moans, raking her nails across his back. He hisses, lifting her legs over his shoulders and bending her in half. When he moves again, the new angle drives him deeper inside her than before and her head slams against the headboard as she gasps, “Oh yes, there.” Matt latches his mouth onto her neck and thrusts wildly. The headboard hits the wall repeatedly as they rock together, both too lost in each other to pay the sound any mind.

Her leg muscles are burning but it’s nothing compared to the familiar burn swelling in her abdomen. “So close darling, harder.”

He surges forward with renewed vigor and her head smacks against the headboard again. Heedless of the pain, she slips her hand between her legs and presses down hard on her swollen clit, rubbing frantically. She’s teetering on the brink and when Matt leans down, capturing her lips with his, she clenches around him, coming so hard she cries out into his mouth. Before her swimming vision can clear, he breaks their kiss and sinks his teeth into the swell of her breast as he comes, hips twitching twice more before he stills, collapsing against her breathlessly.

Drawing in large gulps of air, Alex runs her fingers through his sweat-damp hair and settles further into the nest of pillows on his bed as Matt helps her slide her legs from his shoulders. The muscles in her thighs ache pleasantly and she stretches out, feeling and probably looking thoroughly shagged. It’s so cliché to smoke after sex but as Matt moves off her body and settles in beside her, getting rid of the condom before slinging an arm around her waist, she longs for a drag. She just doesn’t have the energy to get up and get one.

“I meant it, you know,” he mumbles after a while, sounding half asleep.

Alex is beginning to feel a bit drowsy too and she asks blearily, “What?”

“Don’t want anyone else but you.”

It reminds her of the meadow and of the words he’d spoken there. She’d hoped he hadn’t meant it but to say it twice…Telling herself it’s just the afterglow talking, Alex forces herself to relax in the curve of Matt’s arm and doesn’t respond. He trails his fingers up and down her back in a light caress and her eyes begin to drift shut.

The ringing of Matt's mobile outside his room -- probably with the pile of clothes in the hall -- jars her from her half-slumber and she starts to sit up but Matt shushes her, urging her to lie back down. Lulled by his soft touch and the murmur of his voice, Alex presses her face into his pillow and breathes in his scent. Matt pulls the sheet over her and kisses her head before padding off to find his phone. Wrapped up in his familiar smell and blissfully tired, Alex is asleep in seconds.

I know you get me so I let my walls come down Chapter Notes

Chapter title from Katy Perry's Teenage Dream

Matt finds his phone in his trouser pocket just down the hallway and he manages to fish it out before whoever it is stops calling. “Hello?” Tucking his phone between his ear and his shoulder, he begins pulling on his trousers, tugging them up his legs but not bothering to button them.

“Okay. What’s going on with you?”

He sighs, running a hand through his hair and leaning against the wall. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Laura scoffs. “Please. I saw your face when Alex tried on that dress and I seriously thought I was going to have to bail you out of the nick for a pub brawl when that bloke was hitting her up. And on top of that, you kept watching her during lunch like you’d rather be eating her instead. I’m going to have nightmares for weeks! You like her.”

There is no point in lying to his sister. She knows him far too well and she can always tell when he’s lying to her. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he sighs. “What of it?”

Laura makes a triumphant noise in the back of her throat and then immediately turns serious again, her voice pleading. “Just please tell me you’re not going to do anything stupid.”

“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” he reiterates dully.

I already have.

“Liar.” Even when they were kids, Laura could always see right through him. He never got away with anything around her. “God Matty, what the hell are you thinking? Crushing on your own stepmother? Freud would have a field day!”

“Bloody hell, Laura,” he snaps. “Have you seen the woman? You can hardly blame me for being attracted to her. And you already know how fantastic she is.”

“Of course I know. She’s beautiful and a lovely person but I don’t want to bloody well shag her!” Laura sighs and he hates that he’s causing her stress – he worried her enough as a teenager. “Just promise me you won’t take it any further than a crush. Please. This family is fucked up enough as it is.”

He swallows. “I can’t promise you that.”

“Matt.”

Frustrated, he shoves off the wall and begins to pace the length of the hallway, doing his best to keep his voice down so as not to wake Alex. “So what if I do want her? What does it matter in the long run? He’ll be divorcing her by the end of the year and you know it!”

“But she’s still your stepmother!” Laura insists, incredulous. “And our father is shagging her, for God’s sake. Doesn’t that squick you out even a bit?”

He clenches his jaw, pausing in the middle of the hallway. “They’re not…Alex isn’t sleeping with him right now.”

Skeptical, Laura asks, “And how would you know that?”

Matt says nothing, biting his lip.

Finally, she gets it and gasps. “Oh my god. Please tell me you’re not.”

He remains silent; worrying his lip so hard he’s on the verge of drawing blood.

“Matt. Tell me this minute that you are not shagging our bloody stepmother.”

He frowns. “It’s not shagging. Well, not just that. I…I care about her, Lor.”

She groans and he hears a thud like she just banged her head against a hard surface. “I cannot believe this is actually happening. You have finally lost the plot. I knew it would happen but oh my god, I never thought it would be quite so extreme. I thought maybe you’d just actually marry the Slag or I don’t know, live out in the woods and knit horrible jumpers in exchange for money. It never occurred to me that you’d resort to having sex with your father’s bloody wife!”

He huffs, gripping the phone to his ear and wincing at her shrill tone. “Lor, would you calm down and listen to me for a minute?”

“And Alex!” Laura shouts. “I cannot believe that Alex is doing this to dad -”

“Stop it, Lor,” he says, voice hard and his sister quiets immediately. “Nothing happened between us until after Alex found out he lied to her about all his other wives. And she found out he’s seeing someone else. Cynthia from his office.”

“Already?” Laura sighs, and he hears the faint tremble in her voice. “God, he’s never going to change, is he?”

Matt shakes his head and leans against the wall again, sliding down to the floor and drawing his knees up to his chest. “It’s over between them.”

“Then why is she still living there?”

“Because right now she has nowhere else to go. She left her job to be with him.”

“Bastard.”

He hums his agreement and tilts his head back, continuing softly, “I could treat her so much better than he can, Lor. She deserves more than him and I can give that to her.”

“Matt,” Laura starts gently and he prepares himself for a lecture. “This is crazy. Would you just think about what you’re doing? This is not the way to start off a real relationship. It’s twisted!”

“It’s not,” he insists. “Did I ever tell you how we met?”

“When you came to visit, obviously.”

“No,” he smiles. “I met her in the supermarket before I even showed up here. We were both looking at the flowers and the second she touched my hand when we were reaching for the same bouquet, I knew. I didn’t know her name or who she was to me but I knew she was important. Just because I found out later she was my new stepmother didn’t change the way I felt.”

After a moment of silence in which Matt waits nervously and pokes a finger through a hole in his jeans, Laura finally makes an irritated noise that says he’s getting through to her and she doesn’t like it one bit. “Okay. Fine. Let’s just say you’re bloody head over heels for her, all right? And maybe you are. Maybe you’re going to want her for the rest of your life. And I know you, Matt, when you fall, you fall hard. But what about Alex? What makes you think she’s going to feel the same way? She’s twice your age and far more mature than you -”

“Oi!”

Laura ignores him. “You’re a struggling actor, darling, and she’s a painter. What sort of stability could you provide when she’s got a daughter to look after?” Matt has nothing to say to that and Laura sighs quietly. “I just don’t want you to get hurt or ruin what little relationship you have with dad over something that won’t last.”

He hates it when his sister talks sense. She always makes him feel like such a child. But he refuses to believe this thing with Alex won’t last. They’re perfect together and the past weeks have proven that. They get along brilliantly, they have fun together and they actually talk about things that matter. And the sex is amazing. What they have is more than Laura is making it out to be. Alex wants to be with him just as much as Matt wants to be with her – no one else, she’d said. It’ll last. It has to.

Clearing his throat, he says, “I can’t walk away. Whatever happens, I’m in this too far now.” He swallows around the lump in his throat, thinking of Alex fast sleep in his bed. “She means too much to me.”

“Okay,” Laura says softly. “Thank you for at least being honest with me. I just wanted you to know how I felt.”

“I know.”

“And I want you to know that even though I think you’re mad, I’m still here for you. And Alex.” She blows out a quiet breath. “I hope she does feel the same about you, Matty. She’s told me things about her past and I just…she deserves someone like you. Someone who’ll be good to her. And you deserve better than what you’ve got waiting for you in London.”

Matt chokes out a laugh, feeling tears well in his eyes. He rubs them furiously with his free hand and says, “Thanks, Lor. I love you.”

“I love you too, idiot,” she says. “Just be careful.”

He hangs up with his sister but he doesn’t move from his spot on the floor for a long while, staring at the opposite wall and playing over their conversation in his head until he feels dizzy trying to understand what the right thing is anymore.

Eventually, he gets up and pads back to his bedroom, picking up their discarded clothes as he goes. He puts his mobile on the bedside table and sheds his trousers again, crawling beneath the sheets with a still slumbering Alex, pressing his naked skin against hers. She makes a soft sound in her sleep and snuggles into him, curling around his body and slipping a leg over his.

Holding her close, Matt lies awake watching her sleep until it’s time for David to come home from the office, Laura’s words still echoing in his head.

--

He tries not to think about his conversation with his sister in the coming days, forcing it from his mind and focusing instead on the time he gets to spend with Alex before he has to go back to London and face his life again. David leaves town for a few days and while he says he has a business conference to attend, Matt can’t help but suspect that his trip has more to do with Cynthia than business. And if the way Alex stands at the front door, watching him drive away with her arms crossed and her jaw set is any indication, then she thinks so too.

She turns to him the moment David’s car disappears, smiling faintly. “Looks like we’re on our own for a while. What should we do?”

He smiles and settles against the doorframe next to her. “Rent a bouncy house? Prank call Laura? Bake cookies and don’t clean up after ourselves? Slumber party?”

“Oh god, I’m sleeping with a twelve year old,” she laughs and he leans in to press his lips to hers briefly, grinning. “Although, I certainly wouldn’t mind a three day long slumber party with you, dear.”

And that’s when it hits him. David is going to be gone for three days. Three days in which Matt will have Alex all to himself, not just from six in the morning until five o’clock in the evening when David arrives from the office. They’ll sleep all night in the same bed; wake up next to each other in the morning. It’s almost everything he wants with Alex and though it’s just for a short time, he’s suddenly determined to make the most of it.

Slipping an arm around her waist, he draws her close and says, “And will you wear your prettiest nightgown for me?”

She nods, smiling up at him. “We’ll have pillow fights and play Truth or Dare.”

He snorts. “I think I’d much rather play a very crude version of Hide and Seek, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh that’s terrible,” she laughs, slipping from his grasp. “Really. You deserve an award for that one.”

“Oh come on,” he says, shutting the front door and trailing after her as she strides from the room. “It wasn’t that bad. In fact, I think you’ve -”

A pillow smacking him squarely in the face cuts him off midsentence and he blinks in surprise as Alex giggles and bites her lip. “Did you just hit me with a pillow?”

“It would seem so,” she says, looking unrepentant.

“And you call me twelve,” he mutters, before lurching forward to snatch up his own pillow from the sofa. “Alright, Kingston. You asked for it.”

Alex shrieks as he starts after her, and still clutching her pillow, she runs from the room and into the kitchen, laughing. He chases her around the island in the kitchen, around the dining room

table, up the stairs and down the corridor. He finally catches up with her in her bedroom, where she tosses the pillow aside, falls back onto the bed and declares her surrender.

Matt drops his own pillow and pounces on her, kissing her eagerly. Alex sighs into his mouth and wraps her arms around his neck, her contentedness evident. He can’t help but feel like she planned it this way all along.

Not that he’s complaining.

--

When he wakes in the morning, Alex is there. Curled up around him in his bed, her curls wild and her mouth slightly open. Her hand rests on the pillow next to her cheek, fingers curled in just so, and as Matt watches her breathe steadily in the weak morning light, he thinks he could wake up like this for the rest of his life and never need anything else.

Unwilling to get up just yet despite his empty stomach, he slides closer to Alex and slips an arm around her waist, dropping a kiss into her hair and closing his eyes again. She murmurs faintly, stirring in his arms, before settling against him again with a soft sigh. Matt falls asleep with a grin on his face.

The second time he wakes up that morning, Alex is gone. He frowns sleepily at the empty half of the bed until he hears the clatter of rattling pans in the kitchen downstairs. Matt jumps out of bed immediately at the racket because as much as he adores Alex, he doesn’t want her left alone in the kitchen.

He pulls on a pair of boxers and takes the stairs two at a time, skidding into the kitchen to find Alex cracking eggs over the stove, her curls piled on top of her head and a sheer robe the only thing covering all that perfect skin he spent last night running his hands over.

When she spots him, she looks up with a smile. “Good morning, dear.”

Inching into the room cautiously, he looks around scanning for damage. “What are you doing?”

As if detecting the suspicion in his voice, she rolls her eyes and cracks another egg over the pan. “I’m not totally useless, you know. I can make eggs and put bread in the toaster.”

He shrugs, sidling up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. She leans into him and he rests his chin on her shoulder, watching her work. “Of course you’re not useless. I just can’t help the terror that comes over me when I realize you’re in the kitchen without adult supervision.”

Alex gasps and elbows him and he just manages to dodge the blow, releasing her waist and dancing backward. “You are a prick, Matthew. And for that you will starve.”

He puts a hand to his chest, wounded. “You’d starve your own stepson?”

“They don’t call them wicked stepmothers for nothing,” she says, glancing at him over her shoulder with a smirk. “No mercy, darling.”

Matt risks her wrath by approaching her again, wrapping an arm around her and slipping his hand beneath her robe. “Mm, you are very wicked.” He slides his palm up her smooth stomach, enjoying the way her breath hitches as his fingers brush her bare breasts. “Good thing I like bad girls,” he whispers.

Alex shivers, eyes fluttering shut briefly before she gathers herself and swats him away with a spatula. “Stop distracting me and set the table.”

“Does that mean I’m permitted to eat now?” He asks wryly, moving to do as she asks.

“Only if you finish your eggs first,” she says glibly, throwing a wink over her shoulder that is purely naughty.

Matt chokes and almost drops the silverware.

He doesn’t remember ever scarfing down food so quickly in his life.

--

Alex spends the afternoon puttering about in the back garden, dressed in cutoff shorts and one of Matt’s t-shirts. He’d tried to convince her that gardening could be clothing optional but even his

impressive powers of persuasion weren’t enough to convince her to traipse about in her rosebushes naked.

On her hands and knees, she pulls weeds from the flowerbed while Matt sits behind her and doesn’t even try to pretend he isn’t staring at her arse. She can’t find it in herself to feel anything other than secretly pleased and considering she’d banned him from touching her flowers after he fell into a clustering of peonies, she supposes he needs something to occupy his time.

Bless him, she’s never seen anyone quite so lacking in a green thumb before. She doesn’t even know how he has managed to keep himself alive; making him responsible for a plant would just be negligence. He does seem to enjoy digging about in the dirt though, so she uses him when she needs to plant something and gives him a garden shovel to muck about with when she doesn’t.

“Alex?”

“Mm?”

“I’m bored.”

She rolls her eyes, swiping her hair from her eyes with the back of her hand and probably smearing dirt across her face in the process. “No one is making you sit out here, dear.”

“I know,” he says, sounding reluctant and adorably shy. “I like being with you. I just wish you would do something less boring to watch.”

“You mean my arse isn’t entertaining enough for you anymore?” She snorts.

“I had to stop watching,” he grumbles. “It was giving me a…problem.”

Alex bites back a laugh, turning to look over her shoulder at his sullen face as he sprawls across the ground. “Poor darling, having to lie there in the sun and do sod all. It must be so hard, oops sorry, difficult for you.”

He raises his head from the grass long enough to glare at her. “Whoever said you were funny was lying to you, Kingston. You’re a horrible wench and I don’t know what I see in you.”

Standing up, she dusts herself off and drops her gardening tools back into their basket. Smirking down at him, she says, “What a shame. I suppose I’ll have to find someone else to help me scrub off all this dirt in the shower.”

Without giving him a chance to respond, she steps over his inert form and starts walking toward the house. When she hears Matt scrambling to get to his feet and follow after her, she smiles and holds out her hand, waiting for him to take it.

--

They sit on the back steps that night and smoke David’s cigars, leaning against each other and alternating between watching the stars and trying to judge who is better at blowing out smoke rings. It’s a quiet night, the sort where only the sound of the wind through the trees and crickets can be heard. Normally, it’s quite peaceful to listen to but tonight the quiet only gives her time to think.

After tomorrow, David will come home again and things will go back to the way they were. Alex just wishes they could stay like this forever, this small little bubble she and Matt have made for themselves where no one will bother them or judge them. She laughs more in this little world they’ve created, she feels like someone cares about her. Like she’s more than just the newest wife. Matt has always made her feel like she’s more than she is.

“I got a call today.”

Head on Matt’s shoulder, Alex flicks the ash off her cigar and tilts her face up to look at him. “What sort of call?”

He licks his lips nervously. “From my agent. About a job.”

Smiling brightly, she reaches up a hand and strokes his cheek. “That’s brilliant, darling! Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

Shrugging, he turns his cheek into her touch like a cat begging for attention. “It’s a television show. The part is…” He trails off, eyes bright. “The part is amazing. I mean, it’s just an audition and the chances of me actually getting it are slim to none but -”

Alex promptly sticks her cigar in his mouth to shut him up and straightens, taking his hand in hers and looking him in the eye. “Stop that. You’re brilliant and talented and whatever the part is, they’d be damned lucky to have you play it, alright?”

He nods, frowning around the cigar in his mouth.

She smiles. “Good. Now be a good boy and go get the champagne so we can celebrate.”

Matt whips the cigar from his mouth and stubs it out before tucking it behind his ear. “I haven’t got the part yet, Kingston. Aren’t you jumping the gun?”

“We’re celebrating your audition,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “If you get the part, the celebration will be much more private.”

He grins, somehow managing to look adorably eager and still sexy enough to send heat pooling to her stomach – it’s a strictly Matt talent that no one else could ever pull off. She licks her suddenly dry lips and leans in close, brushing her mouth against his and smiling when he wraps her in his arms and pulls her closer.

“Now,” she murmurs against his lips. “Champagne please, darling.”

Kissing her again quickly, Matt jumps to his feet and climbs the steps to the house, disappearing inside. Alex sighs and leans back against the stone steps, hands behind her head as she stares up into the night sky.

Her husband is coming home after tomorrow, but as she waits for Matt to return with that smile and a kiss, Alex finds that she really really wishes he wasn’t.

--

It’s the last day before David comes home. Matt had held Alex through the night; a possessive arm around her waist, knowing it would be a long time before he could fall asleep with her like that again. He’s going to miss it – waking up in the middle of the night and looking over to see her face. He knows his bed is going to be infinitely lonely without her warm body curled against his beneath the sheets.

He makes sure they spend the morning lying in bed and doing nothing but exchanging kisses and talking, but by mid-morning, he makes the mistake of drifting off to sleep again. When he wakes up, it’s afternoon and Alex is gone.

The blankets are tucked in around him and she’d written in ink on the back of his hand ‘in studio, xx’. Rolling his eyes, Matt stares at her handwriting on his skin and admires the way it still manages to look neat despite its canvas.

Kicking the blankets away, he throws his feet over the side of the bed and stands, stretching. He roots around on the floor for some clothes to pull on and finally decides to just yank on his jeans since his boxers and shirt are missing – he has a feeling the culprit is currently painting in her studio and probably not sorry at all for her petty theft.

He pads down the stairs and into the kitchen, grabbing an orange from the counter before heading into the backyard. Peeling it as he walks, he steps through the dewy grass, enjoying the cold beneath his bare feet as he makes his way to the old building that used to be nothing but storage.

Climbing the rickety stairs, he pauses just outside the door and peers through the slightly smudged glass, glimpsing Alex standing in front of a broad canvas, her paintbrush in her mouth and her attention entirely focused on her work. He loves watching her work – she gets in this mode where nothing else registers. He could sit next to her and describe in filthy detail exactly what he wanted to do to her and she wouldn’t even blink – he knows because he’d tried it. It’s a focus that he both admires and is slightly jealous of; he doesn’t think Alex has ever concentrated on him quite the way she does a new painting.

From his spot just outside the door, he can see what she’s working on. It’s the meadow. Looking closer, he sees gray, overcast skies heavy with the promise of rain and knows that she’s painting the meadow on a very particular, special day. The first time they made love.

Warmth blooming in his chest, Matt pops an orange slice into his mouth and raps his knuckles once against the glass pane to get her attention, opening the door as she turns to him, paintbrush still held between her teeth. As he steps inside the room, he can’t help but notice the pot of sweetpeas on her windowsill, soft pink and overflowing. She’d kept them.

He doesn’t know why, but it makes him beam as he turns his attention back to her. Hair pulled back away from her face, Alex is wearing his boxers and button down shirt; though she hadn’t bothered buttoning it up and he can see the flat plane of her stomach and the fullness of her breasts. He swallows hard and clamps down on the urge to touch her – she probably wouldn’t appreciate the distraction from her work.

Mumbling around her paintbrush, she asks, “Got my message then?”

He holds up his hand, showing her that he hadn’t even bothered to wash the ink off. “Only wish I could have been awake. Writing on me like that – must have been the most attention I’ve ever gotten from you.”

She laughs, tucking her paintbrush behind her ear. “Jealous?”

He quirks an eyebrow and looks at her through his fringe. “If I am?”

Her smile turns predatory. “Well then…want to be my canvas, darling?”

Thinking of Alex giving him that same concentrated look she gives her artwork, sliding a brush cold with fresh paint across his naked skin, Matt shudders. He nods, mouth dry.

She smirks, walking across the room and pulling a white sheet from an armchair in the corner. Spreading it out on the floor in front of her easel, she says, “Take off your trousers and lie down, then.”

Trying not to show just how eager he is, Matt puts aside the remainder of his orange and sheds his jeans, tossing them aside before dropping down to the sheet and lying back. He watches as Alex walks around the room, collecting supplies. She empties a few tubes of paint onto a palette – a deep red, a dark blue, and a rusty orange. She leaves her paintbrush behind her ear and grabs another, setting it all down on the sheet next to him. Then, he watches with rapt attention as she slides his boxers down her legs and kicks them away, leaving her in his open button down shirt.

Rolling up the sleeves, she kneels next to him and busies herself with selecting a paint color and dipping her brush in it. She hums quietly under her breath and Matt is suddenly struck with how beautiful she is. He’s always known it, of course. From the second he’d met her, he’d known. But now, here in her element and looking at him like he’s a particularly interesting blank canvas, she has never been lovelier.

First, she traces her brush over his collarbones in a blue the color of the night sky and he inhales sharply at the shock of cold paint on his skin, goosebumps prickling his flesh. She distracts him with the sound of her voice, soft and mesmerizing. “I’ve never had a space this big to paint in before. An entire room for nothing but art.”

He watches her purse her lips, drawing a line down his chest and stomach. “Where did you paint? Before you married my father?”

She smiles faintly as she reaches the top of his groin and he feels her beginning to write something but no matter which way he turns his head, he can’t quite make out the letters. “I used to spread out my supplies on the living room floor of this tiny apartment I stayed in with my daughter.”

Moving away to admire her work so far, tongue caught between her teeth, Alex hums thoughtfully. Finally getting a clear view, Matt reads the word upside down. Mine.

He suppresses a shiver of agreement and rasps out, “Must have been difficult, trying to get anything done that way.”

She nods, beginning to sketch out his ribs in a shade of orange that reminds him of leaves in autumn. “It certainly sapped the creativity,” she agrees quietly. “It was one of the reasons I was so eager to leave the city and live here with David. I’d never had a studio before, and it appealed to me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Alex, did you marry my father so you’d have somewhere to paint?”

“No,” she laughs, and uses the dark red to paint a pair of lips on his chest, just over his heart. “I’d already agreed to marry him by the time he mentioned I would have a studio.”

They’re quiet after that, Alex too focused on her work and Matt too entranced watching her to speak. She draws swirling patterns on his hipbones and snatches of poetry down the length of his arms in the same deep red as the lips she’d painted. She uses the rusty orange to paint a heart on the sole of his foot, grinning when he laughs as it tickles.

She paints constellations, dotting his whole left side with stars in deep blue. Some of the paint is beginning to dry on his skin, leaving it feeling strangely but not unpleasantly tight. He likes it – Alex marking him, making him her own personal work of art.

Spreading his legs, she settles between them and writes something on the inside of his thigh. The entire process has been unbelievably arousing and he’s had an erection since almost the start. He squirms a bit uncomfortably, part of him wishing she would just stroke him with her palm. She doesn’t though, and Matt strains to see her curling script, but when he does, the word is in what

looks like German - Geliebte. “What does it mean?” He asks quietly, feeling a little regret for breaking the peaceful silence between them.

Alex pauses, green eyes lifting to meet his, dark ringlets framing her face. “Beloved,” she whispers, and his breath catches.

“Alex…”

Licking her lips, she says, “Give me your hands.” He holds them out automatically, and she uses her paintbrush to coat the palms of each of his hands in dark blue. She discards his shirt, leaving her entirely naked and he takes in the sight greedily. “Touch me.”

His hands are on her instantly, smearing paint over her stomach and up her chest. He leaves handprints on her breasts, the marks of his fingers against the delicate skin of her throat and down her arms. Alex leans into his touches like a woman starved, looking down at him like he’s the most important thing in her world – her finest masterpiece.

He pulls her down to him, brushing his lips softly over hers at first and then harder, plundering her mouth with his tongue. While she’s distracted, cupping his face in her hands and moaning into his mouth, Matt reaches for the paintbrush behind her ear. She doesn’t even notice and he slips his hand down between their bodies, sliding his fingers over her wet, swollen flesh.

She bites down on his bottom lip, whimpering softly and bucking into his hand. He grins against her mouth and pushes the handle of the paintbrush inside her. Alex gasps, her hands moving to find purchase on his shoulders as he works it inside her.

“Oh god,” she breathes against his neck, her hips moving in time with his thrusts. “Darling…”

Matt uses his free hand to tuck curls behind her ears, rubbing his thumb over her cheekbone. “So beautiful,” he says, and tilts the brush inside her just so, and it simultaneously pushes against that wonderful spot that makes her cry out, and brushes across her clit. Alex moans and shudders, clenching around the paintbrush.

Panting, she raises herself up and takes his wrist, guiding the brush from inside her and then tossing it away. She scrambles away from him and crawls to his discarded trousers, pulling a condom from the back pocket before moving back over him. With careful, deliberate movements, she rolls the condom on, her eyes on his. Then, bending to kiss him, she sinks down on his erection with a soft cry. He groans, his hands flying to her hips as her body envelopes him, searing

heat that still spasms around him from her last orgasm.

She runs her hands over his chest, smearing paint in her wake as she moves slowly above him. She pauses just long enough to press her mouth over the pair of lips she’d drawn over his heart, leaving a kiss there. Her body covered in blue fingerprints – his fingerprints – Alex looks gorgeous, like some strange metaphor about the artist and the art, although he’s too distracted to fully formulate the idea by the way her breasts bounce as she rides him.

Her hands are speckled with paint and she gets it in his hair as she runs her fingers through it but Matt couldn’t care less, lost in the way she feels, in the way she looks at him and how her body wraps around his cock – soaking and hot – every time she sinks down on him.

Head tilted back and her hands on his chest as she rocks against him, Alex murmurs the poem she’d written earlier, and it’s like she’s embedding the words on his mind, searing them there like a brand – the way she’d written them on his skin. Long after the paint has been washed away, he’ll still have the words in his head and he’ll remember this. His gorgeous Alex and the fire in her eyes as she’d looked at him, rolling her hips and moaning between every other word that escapes from her lips – his own goddess marked in blue fingerprints.

She curls her fingers against his ribs as she comes, crying out while she trembles around him. She doesn’t stop moving, sprawling across his chest and dragging herself up and down the length of his cock, her pace slow and unhurried. She runs her hands up and down his sides, catching his earlobe between her teeth and nibbling briefly. Matt can feel his orgasm approaching, drawing up his testicles and tightening everything within him until the room starts to spin and his only point of focus is the slide of Alex’s cunt around him.

Then, she releases his earlobe and whispers the last words of the poem, breathing them hotly against his skin, “He’ll not my tower, laborious, casual where the surrounded smile hangs-” She licks a stripe along his throat “ – breathless.”

He comes with a shout, his hands knotted in her hair and her smile smug against his neck. It takes him a while to get his bearings but Alex is patient, lying across his heaving chest and planting stray kisses wherever she can reach. Their skin sticks together in the mess of paint they’ve made and Matt has never loved art more.

“Can I always be your canvas?” He finally asks, and she giggles, raising her head to kiss his chin.

“I would love that, darling,” she says quietly. “But it would be rather difficult to take you to galleries and show you off. Besides, I prefer that you remain in my…private collection.”

Matt snorts, wrapping his arms around her and leaning up to brush his lips over hers as he remembers what she’d written across his skin earlier.

Mine.

Yes. He likes that.

You take your heart and walk away Chapter Notes

Chapter title from The Mess I Made by Parachute.

They walk hand in hand back to the house, covered in paint and grinning at each other. Stumbling up the stairs and down the hall to the bathroom with their mouths attached isn’t easy but they manage. In the shower, they scrub each other clean of paint and Alex is a little sad to see all her work sliding off Matt’s body and pooling at their feet in a mixture of red, blue and orange.

She watches it swirl around the drain before disappearing in the flood of shower water and presses her lips to Matt’s newly clean skin, sliding her hands up his slick back and telling herself that it doesn’t matter. All visible traces of the things she’d written are gone, but the memory will always linger.

When she hears her mobile ringing over the sound of the shower, Alex slips from Matt’s arms and leaves him to scrub the paint out of his hair. He snags her wrist, trying to pull her back with him under the spray. “Don’t answer it,” he says, kissing her neck.

“It might be Salome, darling,” she says, wriggling from his grasp again. “I can’t miss her call. They’re few and far between as it is.”

“Fine,” he grumbles, giving her a little smile when she kisses his cheek. She grabs a towel and wraps it around herself, dripping water everywhere as she scurries from the bathroom to pick up her ringing phone. “But if it isn’t, I expect you to come back here and help me. The last thing I need is David wondering why there are streaks of blue all through my hair!”

“You murdered a smurf and it put up a fight,” she calls back, giggling. Alex finds her phone on the bedside table and picks it up, checking the screen. Salome. Smiling widely, she pushes wet curls over her shoulder and answers it, pressing the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Mom!”

She frowns into the phone. “I’m sorry, do I know you? I vaguely remember a little girl who used to call me by that name, but I haven’t heard from her in ages.”

Salome giggles. “Mo-om. It’s me.”

“What was her name?” She continues, pretending to think. “Oh goodness, it’s just on the tip of my tongue. Sally? No. Salmon?”

“Salome!”

“Oh,” Alex laughs, warmth filling her chest at the sound of her daughter’s amusement in her ear. “Salome. Yes, I remember now. My beautiful little girl – it’s been so long I barely recognized you. You sound terribly grownup.”

“I am,” she says solemnly. “Had a beer with lunch and everything.”

Alex snorts. “Very funny, young lady. How’s camp life treating you? Killed a bear with your bare hands yet?”

“No, that’s on Tuesday.”

“Ah.” Alex grins widely, so overwhelmed with happiness to be talking to her daughter that she can’t seem to control her own facial expressions. “Well have you at least been swimming in sharkinfested waters? I hate to think of all your father’s hard earned money going to waste.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then she hears the unmistakable sound of sniffling.

Alarmed, Alex grips her phone tighter and asks, “Salome, darling? What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“No,” she answers, voice watery. “Just homesick.”

Relieved that it isn’t something more serious, yet aching for her little girl, Alex sighs. “Well, sweetheart, if it’s that bad, you should call your father and tell him to come get you.”

“No mommy,” she says, and it’s been so long since Salome called her that. It makes Alex’s chest ache and she rubs at her sternum with her free hand. “I mean homesick for you.”

“Oh darling,” Alex breathes, tears filling her eyes. “I miss you too. So very much.”

“I want to stay with you.”

Alex swallows. “For the rest of the summer?”

“No…”

She doesn’t dare even breathe, clutching her phone tightly until her knuckles turn white with the strain. “How long, Salome?”

She sniffles. “Could…could you and dad switch? I could stay with him in the summer and be with you all the rest?”

Alex wants to jump up and down, she wants to laugh and dance and stick her tongue out at Florian and hope he senses it even an ocean apart. Instead, she clears her throat and replies like an adult. “That’s a big decision, Salome. And it can’t be easily undone. Are you absolutely sure? You’d have to live here, go to school here, and leave your friends. Is that something you’re willing to do?”

There’s a brief pause and Alex sinks down onto the bed, heedless of the water soaking through the sheets as she closes her eyes and wills the answer to be yes. Please, please say yes. I’ll never ask for anything else ever again.

“I’m sure.”

Alex opens her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks as she beams. “Then I would love to have you here, sweetheart. Nothing would make me happier. I’m a bit lost without you, I’m afraid.”

“Me too,” Salome says, sounding a bit cheerier now that Alex has agreed. “Dad doesn’t do the voices in the stories like you do. And his girlfriend is a worse cook than you are.”

“Oi, you cheeky little heathen,” Alex laughs. “Not even here yet and already on my case.”

Salome giggles and Alex lies back on the bed, grinning and suddenly euphorically happy. Her little girl is going to come home.

They talk for a while longer, Salome agreeing to tell her father the decision she’s made, and then Florian will call her about arranging the legal details. She tells her daughter how much she loves her and Salome blows a kiss through the phone before they hang up.

It doesn’t hit Alex until she hears the shower turn off in the bathroom, and she sits up, drawing her towel tighter around her. She can’t stay here. She can’t bring her daughter into this house – with a man who doesn’t love her and doesn’t plan on keeping her around. She has to leave, find her own place, and get a job so she can support her child.

This changes everything.

Alex drops her towel and finds some clothes to put on, mind racing as she listens to Matt hum in the other room. She’ll have to start on the divorce paperwork as soon as she can, and in the meantime, if she wants to walk away with any of David’s money, she’s going to have to prove he violated the fidelity clause in their prenuptial agreement. It shouldn’t be too difficult, and Alex could walk away with half of everything.

But there’s another problem now, one she isn’t quite ready to face even as said problem strolls out of the en suite bathroom in a towel, his damp hair all over the place as he grins at her. “Do you see any more paint?” He asks, bending his head a little. “I think I got it all, but I can’t tell.”

With suddenly trembling fingers, Alex reaches out and runs her fingers through his hair. “I don’t see anything,” she says, voice shaking.

Matt catches it and looks up sharply, eyes concerned. “Alex? You alright, love?”

She nods but when he wraps his arms around her, she clings to him and shuts her eyes because this thing between them can’t go on any longer. Salome is coming to be with her and she can’t carry on an affair with a man half her age, no matter how much she cares about him.

Nothing in her life is more important than her daughter, and providing a stable environment for her can’t include the stepson she’s been sleeping with. She’ll have to let him go – in spite of how much it’s going to hurt them both. Alex presses her lips to Matt’s bare chest and tells herself that it would never have lasted anyway.

David is pulling up in the driveway forty-five minutes later, and she extricates herself from Matt’s arms where they sit together on the sofa, her eyes scanning the room quickly to make sure nothing gives away the fact that they’ve been shagging like rabbits in every room of the house while he’s been gone.

Seeing nothing, she relaxes and goes to the door to greet him, shooting Matt one last longing look. If she’d known these last few days with him were her last, she would have paid more attention, clung to him a little tighter at night. Let him eat those Jammie Dodgers in bed.

She forces a smile as David strides up the walkway with his suitcase, knowing she won’t have to endure him much longer. Just until she has the evidence she’ll need. It makes it easier to accept the kiss he bestows on her and she tries not to think of Matt watching them as she accompanies David up the stairs to help him unpack.

David tosses his suitcase onto the bed, digs out his bag of toiletries and crosses to the bathroom to unpack them, all without a word. It isn’t even about how distant Alex had been from him before he left, how they lie in bed next to each other every night and don’t touch – not that David doesn’t try, but Alex is quick to rebuff him, either feigning a headache or pretending she has some things to work on in her studio and she’ll be along later. She always sits outside smoking until she’s sure he’s asleep. The silence between them now isn’t even about David not calling once for the three days he’d been gone.

They simply don’t have anything to say to each other.

That all changes as Alex sorts through her husband’s things, placing the dirty clothes in one pile to be washed later and forming another pile with things like pens, his laptop, unused socks and files from the office that he probably hadn’t opened once. The suitcase is nearly empty when she spots it. Tucked away in a corner, entwined with a crumpled tie, is a silk scarf. Feminine, with a bold flower pattern, it definitely isn’t David’s – unless he’s hiding a fondness of women’s clothes along with everything else.

Nose scrunched, Alex picks up the scrap of silk between her thumb and forefinger, holding it out as David exits the bathroom. She turns to him, eyebrow raised, and the minute he sees the scarf, he stops dead in his tracks.

“Care to explain?”

He frowns. “Where’d you get that?”

“I was unpacking your suitcase,” she says, still holding the offending item up between them with distaste. “Found it at the bottom.”

After a moment, he huffs. “Well, do you like it?”

“Like it?” If possible, her eyebrow climbs even higher.

David nods. “I picked that up at a little boutique for you. I thought you’d make it look beautiful.”

Oh, he was good.

If Alex didn’t already know what a lying prick she married, she might have been swayed. But Matt had shown her his true colors and there is no forgetting that desk full of photographs and marriage licenses, or the way he’d flirted blatantly with another woman right in front of her at a business party.

Eyes narrowing, Alex puts one hand on her cocked hip. “Really? You bought it for me?”

David nods, smiling.

“Then why does it smell like some other woman’s cheap perfume?” Alex drops the scarf and it flutters to the floor at their feet. She resists the urge to stomp on it.

His smile falters around the edges, just a little. If Alex hadn’t been watching closely, she might have missed it. “Because the boutique where I bought it was secondhand. The woman who worked there said it was made in the 1950’s – probably belonged to some sweet little old lady.”

Oh, he was very good.

She nods slowly, pursing her lips. “So it doesn’t have anything to do with the woman you spent your three day “business trip” with?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Whom, dear,” she says. “It isn’t polite to refer to your mistress as a ‘what’.”

David stares, unblinking. “I don’t have a mistress, Alex.”

“Oh, do you call her something else?” She taps her finger against her chin, frowning. “I want to say ‘trollop’ but I don’t think that’s right. Princess Ride-My-Way-To-The-Top-Of-The-CorporateLadder?” She shrugs, waving her hand. “Well anyway, you know the one I’m referring to. Unless there are several.”

David is gaping at her and Alex takes a moment to appreciate the look on his face, fighting back a smile. She’d never be so flippant if she really cared. If she’d found that scarf in the beginning of their marriage, she would have either ignored it out of fear or burst into tears but things have changed and she doesn’t feel like the old Alex, weak and insecure when it comes to her relationships. She realizes with a pang that it probably has something to do with Matt, and how wanted he always makes her feel. Like she’s worth something.

Finally, David snaps his mouth shut and scowls at her, cheeks reddening. “Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can accuse me of infidelity with no proof?”

“I’m your wife,” she spits. “And I think your bullshit excuse for a scarf is evidence enough.”

“I bought that for you,” he snaps. “Thought maybe it might thaw you out, you frigid -”

“Don’t you dare,” she cuts in, eyes flashing dangerously.

David steps closer, nostrils flared, but Alex doesn’t back down, staring up at him defiantly. “When my wife won’t let me near her, I think I’m entitled to call her what I like. All these years raising Matt and Laura, doing my best to be a father to them and dating whenever I could find the time… and when I finally decide to remarry again, my wife thinks I’m cheating on her because I bought her a scarf.” He scoffs. “I’ve never met anyone so insecure and paranoid. It’s pathetic.”

That’s what her first husband used to say, a long time ago. And he’d been seeing someone else behind her back for years. The painful memory still stings and Alex wonders if she’ll ever find someone who won’t need to go looking elsewhere for something she can’t seem to provide. Tears filling her eyes, she ignores the small voice inside that tells her she already has.

“And even if I was cheating,” David continues, watching her scornfully. “Would anyone blame me when my wife acts like my touch is poison?”

“It might as well be,” she says, glaring.

“Then leave!” He shouts. “Go back to your postage-stamp sized flat and your rubbish job.”

“I can’t!” She cries, wiping at her cheeks. “I left everything to be here with you, and look where it got me!”

“What?” David asks, voice loud and echoing in their bedroom. “A big house in the country? Your own studio? Yes, sweetheart, you made a big mistake marrying me!”

“You think I care about any of that? You’re not the man I married, and I don’t think you ever were.”

“I didn’t exactly get what I signed on for either,” he snaps. “You’re not quite the sweet, funny woman I proposed to who couldn’t seem to get enough of me.”

“I’ve had quite enough of you,” she replies.

Eyes enraged and face flushed, David says, “Then get the hell out of my bedroom and sleep on the sodding floor for all I care.”

“Gladly,” Alex snaps, turning and grabbing a change of clothes from her dresser, hands shaking in her anger. “Don’t forget the scarf. You’ll need that when you jack off tonight.”

“Fuck off,” he calls after her as she storms out of the bedroom.

“You wish,” she growls, and slams the door shut behind her.

In the hallway, she finds Matt standing at the top of the staircase, frozen and pale, his eyes wide. It’s obvious he’s heard everything and at the sight of him, Alex drops her clothes and bursts into tears. He’s at her side in an instant, picking her clothes up off the floor and putting his arms around her. Shushing her gently, he guides her to the stairs and leads her down, his embrace warm and his lips against her temple the whole time.

By the time they reach the bottom, Alex has managed to compose herself and she stops him at the foot of the stairs, pulling away to wipe at her eyes and take a deep breath. It isn’t so much about David but the fact that she’d married another man who ended up being a mistake while Matt, who is bloody perfect and wants her, is her stepson and too young and just not a long-term option. Sometimes the world just isn’t fair.

“You alright?” He asks, watching her closely.

She nods, mustering a smile for him. “I’m fine, darling. Sorry about that.”

He shakes his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. He’s a bastard, Alex.”

“I’m used to it,” she says, taking her clothes from him and turning to head into the kitchen. She’s going to need tea, and lots of it.

“At least sleep in my room tonight,” he says, following behind her.

“I can’t do that,” she says, though she wants nothing more than to have some tea and then go curl up in his arms and fall asleep. It sounds heavenly.

“Why not?” He asks, reaching out and grasping her wrist, turning her to face him. “Who gives a damn about him? Just…” He stops, eyes suddenly pleading. “Just leave with me.”

Breath catching in her throat, she stares at him. “What?”

Grip tightening on her wrist, Matt strokes his thumb over her rapid pulse point; gaze soft but desperate. “We could go tonight and be at my flat in a few hours.”

Heart pounding erratically against her chest until it feels like she just might burst, Alex shakes her head slowly and pulls her hand from his grasp. “Matt…we need to talk.”

He frowns. “What’s wrong?”

She swallows, wishing more than anything that she didn’t have to say it. “This has been nice, darling. Wonderful, actually. And I wouldn’t trade my time with you for anything but we both know it can’t go on.”

“Of course it can,” he insists, and she knows he isn’t really hearing her. Not yet. “It can go on forever, Alex. Just leave him. I’ll be here for you, I promise. I won’t ever treat you the way he does. I’ll take care of you.” He licks his lips, meeting her eyes with deliberate intent. “I’ll love you.”

Eyes filling up again, Alex chokes back a sob and turns, walking quickly into the kitchen. In other circumstances, she thinks she might have wanted nothing more than she wanted to hear those words from his mouth. She would have fallen into his arms and agreed to go anywhere but not now – never now. “You can’t love someone after three weeks,” she insists, searching frantically for a tea bag and the kettle.

“Then call the ruddy papers because we’ve got a new phenomenon on our hands,” he snaps, and then pauses when she jumps. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to shout.”

She nods and wants to tell him it’s just the argument with David that has her on edge, that she knows he’d never frighten her on purpose. He’s better than that. But she says nothing, kettle clutched tightly in her hand as she stares at him. He’s standing on the other side of the kitchen, looking a bit lost as he runs his hand through his hair, but it feels like he’s miles away, the chasm between them widening already. She wants to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and tell him she doesn’t mean it, that she feels more for him than she ever felt for David or anyone else.

She doesn’t move.

Finally, Matt looks up at her, eyes pained. “What about today? Beloved. You wrote beloved,

Alex.”

She swallows hard; remembering the feel of the paintbrush in her hand and the warm, smooth skin of his thigh under her palm. It was only hours ago, but it feels like lifetimes. “It was just a word, darling,” she rasps, hating herself. “It didn’t mean anything.”

He flinches like she’d slapped him, his face paling. “You mean to tell me that none of this has meant anything to you? In the meadow – I thought you were agreeing with me. And you kept the sweetpeas. Are you telling me I’ve been misreading you this whole time?”

She could say yes. Make him believe he was nothing but a distraction, a lovely young man to pay attention to her because her marriage was a sham. But she just can’t bring herself to cause him that much pain. She couldn’t live with herself. “Of course not! Matt, I care about you but -”

“Then let’s go,” he says, eyes brightening as he rushes toward her. “I get it if you don’t want to live with me or you don’t love me. It’s too soon for all that for you, I understand. But I want to leave, Alex, and I want you to come with me.”

She shakes her head as he gently pulls the kettle from her death-grip, setting it aside before taking her hand. “We could never have anything together. We’re –”

“We’re perfect for each other,” he insists, leaning closer to her until she can smell his soap and the faint scent of paint that still lingers on him. “I don’t give a damn how old we are or who you’re married to. We’re supposed to be together and nothing you say will ever convince me otherwise.”

Alex closes her eyes as he kisses her knuckles reverently.

“Come with me,” he says again, voice soft and enticing. “We’ll go to bloody America and kidnap your daughter if we have to. She’s a part of your life and I want to meet her. I want her with us.”

Eyes fluttering open, she pulls her hand from his gently. “She is coming here, Matt. When we talked on the phone today, she said she wants to live with me.”

He grins, despite the tension between them, obviously so happy for her. It makes her chest ache. “That’s fantastic, Alex.”

She nods, biting her lip as she meets his eyes. “But I can’t continue this thing between us. Not now. She’s so important, Matt, and I won’t bugger this up. She needs stability -”

“And my father can give that but I can’t?” He asks incredulously.

“No, that’s not it at all.” Alex sighs shakily. “Matt, you’re my stepson. What we’re doing is wrong -”

“It’s not,” he says fiercely, and she ignores him.

“And you’re so young. There’s too much against us and it would never work out. I can’t bring Salome into an unsteady relationship, not after my divorce from her father -”

“That’s rubbish,” Matt scowls, looking wounded and ready to lash out. “I don’t want anyone but you and you know it. This is about money, isn’t it? I don’t have any and my father’s loaded.”

“How dare you,” she says, shoving at his chest. “Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds? I don’t care about that!”

“What else could it be?” He asks. “You know I want you, Alex. I want a life with you. I’ve made that perfectly clear. I may not be able to give you a big house with your own studio, but at least I would love you the way you deserve to be loved. At least I wouldn’t call you names and shout and go away on three-day business trips to have sex with another woman.” Matt swallows audibly, eyes wet as he looks down at her. “I could make you happy. Call me naïve, but to me, that should mean a hell of a lot more than what’s in our sodding bank account.”

She shakes her head, too overcome to even protest. Her whole body is shaking and she curls her quivering hands into fists, fighting back the tears.

Matt runs a hand over his face, jaw clenched. “I can’t stay and watch you with him anymore. It’s killing me.” He meets her eyes and she feels her knees tremble. “I’m going home.”

He leans in, pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth – so warm and soft, so gentle with her even now – and her breath hitches on a sob as he pulls away.

“Goodbye, Alex.”

No.

She watches with detached desolation as he turns from her and leaves the room. The minute he’s out of sight, she sinks to the floor in tears, the high-charged emotion of the day leaving her weak and shaking like a leaf as she sobs into the expensive stone floor. An indeterminate amount of time passes as she sits there on her knees, hunched over and watching tears fall from her chin and splash to the floor. She hears footsteps on the stairs and sits up, heart in her throat.

The front door slams shut moments later, and then it’s only a minute before she hears the sound of Matt’s car starting and the gravel under his tires as he begins the long journey down the driveway and away from her. Alex puts a hand over her mouth and sniffles, telling herself she’d done the right thing. She wipes at her cheeks and squares her shoulders. She needs to focus on catching David in the act and getting her evidence. She needs to find a job and a flat in London to give her daughter the nourishing, secure environment she’ll need when she finally arrives.

She’d done the right thing.

Repeating it like a mantra in her head, Alex pulls herself up from the floor and out of the house. She walks like a zombie across the backyard, empty and hollow. When David finds her in her studio in the morning, curled up in an armchair and staring blankly at her half-finished painting of the meadow, he apologizes for his harsh words.

Alex does not.

Neither of them mentions the scarf again and that night, with no one else to turn to, Alex sleeps in their bedroom once more.

--

When Matt gets back into London in the wee hours of the morning, he walks into his flat in a haze, broken-hearted and bone-weary, only to find Daisy asleep on his bed. He stops in the doorway, staring at her curled up beneath his sheets, wearing one of his shirts and pushes back the annoyance. He’d asked for a break and she has a place of her own, but apparently she’s been staying here.

Well, at least someone wants to be with him.

Swallowing around the horrible lump that’s been lodged in his throat since he kissed Alex goodbye, Matt silently drops his bag to the floor and sheds his clothes. Clad in his boxers, he moves slowly to the bed and joins his girlfriend beneath the sheets. He remains on the opposite side of the bed, staring at her as she sleeps.

She’s just as beautiful as she’s always been, with long straight locks and a slender body he’s become pretty familiar with, always smelling of martinis and expensive perfume. But he’s spent the last few weeks growing accustomed to wild curls and curves, the smell of paint and flowers. Nothing can compare to that and nothing will make any of this any better.

He’s not the same man he was when he left and there’s no denying that. Being with Alex has changed him, changed his priorities and his whole outlook. He looks back on the man who’d pulled into his father’s driveway three weeks ago worried about how awkward things might be and whether or not the beautiful woman in the flower section of the supermarket had led him astray in her flower choice and wishes he that was still all he had to stress about. He knows what love feels like now, in a way he never had before.

Three glorious weeks of falling in love with this gorgeous, brilliant, amazing woman and now nothing will ever be the same again. He misses Alex already; just staring at Daisy makes him ache for her.

He wonders if he’ll ever see her again.

He couldn’t stay. Alex refuses to leave and continuing to watch the woman he loves endure a sham of a marriage with his father just isn’t an option. He’d walked around with a miserable, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach all the time, this nauseating mix of guilt and lust and jealousy, and he couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t healthy. And as much as it pains him to admit it, he can’t help Alex. She can only help herself.

Settling more comfortably beneath the sheets, Matt tries to block out thoughts of Alex fighting with David, her face crumpling the moment she’d seen him standing outside their bedroom waiting for her. He wonders what she’s going to do now, without him there to turn to. The thought of her being alone makes his chest ache, but she hadn’t wanted to leave with him and there was nothing he could do. Why wouldn’t she go with him?

Next to him, Daisy stirs, her sleep disturbed by his constant fidgeting. Blinking groggily, her eyes focus on him and widen. She gasps, sitting up in bed to gape down at him. “You’re home.”

He nods, wondering if that lump in his throat is ever going to leave and if Alex had ever really cared about him at all. “I’m home.”

The next few weeks pass by in a blur as he reconciles with Daisy the best he can, slowly training himself not to ache for someone else every time he looks at her. He doesn’t hear from his father but Laura calls, telling him of David’s annoyance that he’d left without a word in the middle of the night and that he and Alex seem to be doing fine. Well, as fine as can be expected considering neither of them seems to want to be married anymore, but both of them refuse to be the one to end things.

Laura tries to ask him what had happened between him and Alex and why he’d left so abruptly but Matt just isn’t ready to talk about it.

“Oh come on,” she whinges. “You’ve already told me you’re shagging her. If you can’t tell me why you broke up, what’s the point of me knowing everything?”

Matt sighs gustily. “I’m just not ready, alright? It…it hurts.”

Laura makes a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat. “I’m sorry, honey. I tried to tell you – the two of you are just too different.”

“That wasn’t the problem,” he says. “We were…perfect. I’m just not stable enough for her.”

“Can you blame her though?” Laura asks, voice soft. “You’re her stepson. I wouldn’t have a lot of faith in a lasting relationship with you either, if I were her.”

“Thanks so much, Lor.”

“You know what I mean,” she says, and he can hear her scowl through the phone. “If it’s any consolation, she seemed sad when I talked to her. I mean, she doesn’t know I know anything so she tried to hide it but…she’s not happy.”

He feels tears sting his eyes and he grips his phone tighter, blinking them away. “That doesn’t make me feel better, Lor.”

“I know, honey.” She sighs. “I’m sorry.”

Matt tries to keep his mind off of Alex, spending time with friends and going to his audition in hopes of becoming the next Doctor. It goes fairly well and they’d all seemed pleased with his performance but then he’d spilled coffee all over Steven Moffat. The man had brushed it off, laughing and telling him that it was fine but Matt sincerely doubts he’ll ever hear from them again. Just as well. He hears they were looking for someone older anyway. Everyone wants someone older than him, it seems. He looks forward to being in his forties, when he won’t be too young for anyone or anything.

Two days after his audition, he’s on the sofa watching one of those mind-numbing shows where viewers just watch an artist paint landscapes because it reminds him of Alex, when the phone rings. He doesn’t get up to answer it because the paintbrush the artist is using looks like the one Alex had. He remembers cold paint against his skin and then the warmth of Alex straddling his lap, the look on her face as he moved the handle of her paintbrush inside her.

“Baby, someone’s on the phone for you.”

Startled, Matt glances up from staring blankly at the telly and sees Daisy standing over him, holding out the telephone. Shaking off thoughts of Alex for the thousandth time in the span of a few short weeks of trying valiantly not to think of her, he takes the phone from his girlfriend and presses it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hullo, Matt,” a cheerful Scottish brogue comes over the line and Matt feels his heart rate climb. “Steven Moffat, here. How does it feel to be the Eleventh Doctor?”

Matt looks up at Daisy, biting her lip anxiously, and beams.

He texts Laura about it before bed that night, putting the phone on his bedside table and swallowing back the sigh of disappointment as Daisy sheds her clothes and crawls toward him, draping herself over him and kissing his neck as she murmurs about celebrating his achievement. He remembers sitting on the back steps of his father’s house with Alex, wrapped in her arms under the night sky as she’d smiled up at him and promised he would have a private celebration if he got the part. He doubts this is what she had in mind.

Wrapping his arms around Daisy, he focuses on the part he’s just gotten in order to maintain his enthusiasm and when he kisses her, he tells himself that eventually, it will get easier.

In the morning, there’s a text from Laura waiting for him. ‘Congrats, honey! Knew you could do it. Bad news, though. Called dad and told him. He wants to throw you a dinner party. Apparently he’s proud that you finally achieved something. Oops.’

Groaning, Matt tosses his phone away and buries his head beneath his pillow. Next to him, Daisy sits up, pulling the sheet around her. “What’s wrong?”

“My father is trying to make up for being a crap parent when I was younger by throwing me a party now,” he says, voice muffled by the pillow.

“That’s…nice.” She rubs his back and her fingers are too soft against his skin. “Well, at least I’ll finally get to meet one of your stepmothers, huh?”

Matt squeezes his eyes shut and silently hates his life.

This is how we settle our scores Chapter Notes

Chapter title from The Good China's A Million Little Pieces

The three weeks she had with Matt were amazing – he made her feel like she deserved more than the way she continued to be treated by the men in her life. He made her happier, more confident. The three weeks after Matt have been a different story entirely. She still carries that confidence and strength that he gave her just by loving her, but she feels emptier without him there, like nothing she does means quite as much because he isn’t there to share it with.

She misses his company, his laugh and the way he’d kissed her – always with this single-minded focus that told her that when she was in his arms, he was thinking of nothing else. She keeps herself busy, though, contacting her lawyer and sending him all the evidence she’d compiled against David – text messages, emails and recorded phone calls. She’d honestly enjoyed her foray into spying. If art weren’t her calling, she’d have another career to fall back on. As she’d hoped, David is in direct violation of their pre-nup and Alex is entitled to half of everything. She’s just so thankful that she’d thought to insist on such a clause – even though David had seemed perfect, she’d been wary with her track record. She can only marvel at David’s arrogance when he signed it, obviously thinking he could violate the clause and Alex would be too dim to find out.

At any rate, she’ll have plenty of money to be able to get a place for herself and Salome and support her daughter until she can find a job again. She has already applied for a position at several universities and is waiting to hear back from one of them. The only thing left to do is inform David that she has started the process for divorce and that he should really get himself an attorney.

Cutting up vegetables at the kitchen counter, Alex smiles as she thinks of the look on his face when she serves him the papers. Oh, it’s going to be delicious.

“What are you looking so devious about?”

Alex glances over at Laura, who has been doing a majority of the cooking this evening and shakes her head. “Nothing. I just spent a bit too much on this dress and I’m wondering when your father is going to figure it out.”

Laura snorts, eyeing the grey dress, cinched tight at the waist and then flowing to her knees.

“Money well spent, if you ask me.”

“Not that he pays attention,” she says, as if it bothers her. She hadn’t bought the dress for David. Matt’s dinner party is tonight and she’d wanted to look nice. She misses him terribly, and while she knows she’d made the right decision in letting him walk out, she just wants to see him. Maybe it will help the ever –present itch under her skin, like a drug addict needing a fix.

“He’s a man,” Laura says with a consoling look. “And a business man at that. It would probably take you walking around naked to make him look up from his bloody phone.”

And there’s another difference between the period of during Matt and after Matt. She’d never had to worry about being noticed when she wore something nice. Matt always noticed when she made an effort. What she really loved was when she was wrapped in nothing but his shirt without a stitch of makeup and her hair a mess, and he would make her feel like she was dressed for a ball. He just had that affect her on – one look told her how much he adored her and while she’d always been terrified to see it while he was here, she aches with missing it now.

“Alex? You okay?”

Jerking out of her trance, Alex manages a smile and returns to the vegetables. “Fine. So what time is Matt supposed to be here?”

“Well, he said six but he has to wait for the Slag and she’s always late so probably seven.”

Alex freezes, the knife mid-way through a carrot stick. “Daisy’s coming?”

“Yup.” Laura sounds just as disappointed as Alex feels.

Shutting her eyes for a moment, she gives herself time to feel stupid and sentimental and foolish, thinking that Matt could possibly seriously want someone like her when he has a young, lovely girlfriend at home who is his age and who can actually be with him. He’s better off and she doesn’t know why she expected him to pine – she pushed him away and he got on with his life. She knew he couldn’t love her after three weeks, and she was right. A little time away from her and some distance from the situation, and he’s perfectly fine – bringing his girlfriend home for dinner certainly signifies moving on. She knew it, but she still can’t help but feel a little (alright, very) betrayed.

She’d just thought…

Well, it doesn’t matter what she thought. She’d been wrong, obviously.

“That will be nice,” she says, attempting a cheery tone.

Laura throws her a look. “Nice and that girl do not belong in the same sentence together. Unless we’re talking about her tits, maybe. And even those probably aren’t even really hers.”

“Laura,” Alex hisses, secretly pleased. “Honestly.”

Giggling, Laura adjusts the bodice on her dress and does a little shimmy.

Alex tosses a carrot stick at her. “Oh get out, hussy.”

One thing she is definitely going to miss when she divorces David is Laura – the girl has become a close friend and Alex hates to lose her.

They manage to cook the rest of the dinner and set the table in the dining room without incident and when Matt pulls up in the driveway, Alex calls for David to come out of his study. He greets his son at the door but she stays behind, fiddling nervously with the cutlery in the dining room and adjusting the tablecloth. She listens to Matt and Daisy greet David and Laura, smoothing out her dress with damp palms. The sound of Matt’s voice after three weeks is like balm on a wound and she listens closely, drinking in her fill before she’s cut off again.

The party makes their way slowly into the dining room and Alex straightens, moving forward to greet them with a smile. The moment Matt sees her he looks at her the way he has always looked at her, this combination of hunger and warm affection that makes her stomach turn over and flutter. Except this time the look is mixed with sadness and regret, and Alex can’t bear to see it. She averts her eyes as she leans forward to greet him with a kiss on the cheek and a murmured, “Hello, darling. Congratulations.”

He catches her wrist and her eyes dart to his in surprise before he pulls her in and brushes his lips over her cheek chastely. “Thank you,” he says softly. “You always did believe in me, didn’t you?”

Hot all over from the brief but intimate touches, Alex pulls away from him nervously, her knees trembling. “Of course, dear. And who’s this?”

“Daisy,” he mutters, gesturing to the unfamiliar girl standing next to him. “My…girlfriend.”

Daisy beams at her, reaching out a hand to shake Alex’s delicately. “I love your dress.”

“Thank you,” Alex smiles kindly because the pain in her chest right now isn’t really Daisy’s fault.

“I saw it in a magazine last week,” she continues as David moves past them all to the table. “It was just so out of my price range -”

Alex makes a frantic motion with her hands, shaking her head with wide eyes. Catching on, Daisy stops midsentence and giggles.

“I’m poor of course,” she says a little louder, glancing at David. “So anything is out of my price range.”

David snorts.

“Sorry.” Daisy winces.

Alex shrugs, patting her shoulder. “Thanks for trying, dear.”

They sit down to dinner and Alex feels horrible for sneaking glances at Matt whenever she can because no matter how Laura seems to despise her, Daisy seems like a sweet girl, if a little dense – doesn’t seem like Matt’s type at all and she doesn’t quite understand what they’re doing together. But however bad she feels, whenever she sneaks a glance at Matt, he’s already looking back, watching her from across the table with those same dark, hungry eyes and it’s impossible to resist.

She’s gotten used to silently flirting with him in front of David after weeks of doing so, and it’s easy to fall back into the habit now – sipping at her wine and exposing her throat so he can see it flex as she swallows, or leaning across the table to reach for something and giving him a clear view down her dress. She doesn’t even know why she’s doing it – nothing has changed and being

with him ever again isn’t an option but he’s here and she’s been starved for him since the moment he left.

They talk about when Matt is going to start filming and his costars, whom he has already met – a lovely girl named Karen and a friend of Matt’s from a previous film. Alex doesn’t pay much attention, too busy remembering the time Matt had bent her over the very table they’re eating around and fucked her until she was nothing but an incoherent, shuddering mess beneath him. There are still scratch marks in the wood. She’d hidden them with a well-placed tablecloth but knowing they’re under there even now, proof of how much he wanted her, while he sits with his girlfriend across the table makes her feel oddly smug and heartbroken all at once. She looks up from the table and sees Matt watching her, and his face tells her he’s thinking exactly what she is.

Best memory ever, he’d told her then, his face buried in her hair.

And suddenly there are tears in her eyes and she glances quickly away from him before he can see them. This is ridiculous – she sits at this table every day and it shouldn’t affect her so strongly now just because he’s here, sitting across from her and looking at her like that. She blinks hard, staring resolutely at the mashed potato bowl until she can see clearly again. The conversation around the table comes slowly back into focus and she starts paying attention to what’s going on around her once more just in time to hear Daisy say, “Well, we’re practically living together now. I think I might just sell my place and move in altogether.”

Feeling her heart squeeze her in chest and hating herself for it, she looks at Matt to see him glancing sharply at Daisy, frowning. “We haven’t discussed that.”

Daisy shrugs, cheeks a little pink. “I know, but I mean, I just assumed….”

Across the table, Laura smirks. “You know what they say about people who assume.” Matt turns to glare at her and Laura smiles serenely, spearing a carrot and sliding it into her mouth.

“Matt?”

He turns to look at Daisy again, wearing an expression of exaggerated patience. “What?”

“We’re practically living together already. Why wouldn’t you want me to sell my place?”

“Because there’s a big difference between sleeping over -” His eyes dart to Alex fleetingly and

“Because there’s a big difference between sleeping over -” His eyes dart to Alex fleetingly and she flinches, “ – and making a commitment. Do we have to discuss this now?”

“Yes,” Daisy sets her jaw, looking obstinate. “I think this would be a great time to discuss it. Maybe with your family here you’ll actually be honest. You’ve been holding back from me ever since you got back from this place and I want to know why. It’s like you’re constantly somewhere else.”

Alex quickly averts her eyes from the scene in front of her, heart pounding. Everyone else seems to be trying to ignore the drama taking place at the table as well, Laura fiddling with her phone and hiding a smile, and David looking curiously at Alex, his expression contemplative. She frowns at him, raising an eyebrow. He shakes his head, as if to dismiss whatever he’s thinking of, picking up his wine glass and downing half.

“This is ridiculous, I don’t even know what you’re talking about -”

“You don’t know? You won’t even touch me unless I initiate it first and before you left, I could never get you to stop! Perhaps someone here can tell me what’s the matter with you.”

“Leave my family out of this, Dais,” Matt snaps.

Trembling all over and unwilling to hear anything else, Alex stands from the table, mumbling, “I’m just going to go check on the dessert.”

Laura glances up from her phone to scowl at Daisy. “Oh bloody hell, did you ever think that maybe he’s just tired of you, you whining cow?”

“Laura!”

“What?

Alex flees the room quickly, heading for the quiet of her studio instead of the kitchen but she doubts anyone even notices.

--

In the middle of rowing with Daisy, Matt almost doesn’t see Alex get up and leave, mumbling something about dessert, but the moment she does, he wants to go after her. Just a moment later, his mobile vibrates in his pocket. He ignores Daisy, pulling it out to see a text from Laura.

‘The dessert is already finished. Go after her.’

It’s all the encouragement he needs, and he shoves his mobile back into his pocket, muttering to Daisy, “I need a fag.”

She huffs, picking up her wine glass and ignoring him as he hurries from the room. The minute he’s away from the dining room, all thoughts of Daisy and their argument are gone from his mind. The only thing he cares about is finding Alex. He doesn’t bother checking the kitchen or her bedroom, and if he knows her as well as he thinks he does, she probably retreated to her studio to get away from them all.

He’s on his way there when he passes his father’s study. The door is open and light spills out into the hallway. He frowns; peering around the doorframe to find Alex perched on the edge of David’s desk, a glass of brandy in one hand and a cigar in the other.

“Thought I’d find you in your studio,” he says softly, turning his attention to anywhere but her because looking at her makes him want to go to her and that’s not an option anymore.

“It’s where I was headed,” she says. “But the idea of alcohol and a smoke first was too enticing. Picked the lock.”

Amused, he closes the door around and steps further into the room. “Using what?”

“Hairpin.”

He sighs, missing the smug grin that would have accompanied that word just a few weeks ago. Now, she won’t even look at him as she blows out a ring of smoke and taps the cigar against the edge of the desk.

“Are you alright?”

She smiles at that, finally looking at him. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the one who just had a row at the dinner table with his girlfriend.”

Matt grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, not my best memory of that table.”

The moment the words are out, he realizes what he just said and blushes scarlet while Alex smirks around a sip of brandy. Hating the way he can never seem to fluster her the way he so easily flusters himself, he forces back his embarrassment and walks a little closer, until he’s perched on the desk next to her and she’s straight-backed and stiff at his side, her fingers tight around her glass.

Leaning close, he says softly, “My best memories of this house all seem to involve you.” She inhales sharply, turning her head to look at him. Their eyes meet and he gives her a tentative smile. “I miss you, Alex.”

She looks away, bringing the cigar to her mouth. “That’s sweet, darling but you don’t have to say that. I know you’ve moved on -”

“Did you not just hear Daisy complaining that I haven’t been myself?” He frowns, nicking her brandy and ignoring her annoyed hum as he downs it. “All I can think about is you. I don’t call that moving on.”

She breathes out a puff of smoke and stubs out the cigar on the desk. “Then why are you with her?”

He shrugs.

“Matt.”

“Because she wants me.” He sighs, reaching around behind them for his father’s crystal decanter and pouring himself another drink. “It’s sort of a nice feeling after you’ve been rejected.”

“I didn’t reject you, Matt,” she says softly.

“You did,” he snaps, and if bitterness leaks into his words, he feels he’s entitled. “Do you know why I wanted to be the Doctor so bloody badly, Alex?”

“It’s your big break, dear.” She turns to look at him with a wobbly smile. “You’re in.”

“In a way, yes.” He puts his drink aside, taking her hand and gripping tight when she tries to pull away from the touch. “I wanted it because I thought maybe you might look at me less like a child and more like someone who can take care of you and your daughter, who can contribute. I can be stable, Alex.”

Eyes watery, she tugs her hand free of his and hops off the desk, pacing away from him, her dress swishing around her knees as she moves. “I never looked at you like a child. You’re younger than me, yes, but that isn’t what bothers me about us.”

He swallows. “Is it money?”

She swivels on her heel with a growl. “I don’t give a damn about money, Matthew.”

“Then what the hell is it?”

“You’re my stepson!” She cries. “We shouldn’t be together. It’s wrong.”

“That’s rubbish,” he snaps. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, and I had no bloody idea who you were then.”

She stares. “What?”

“In the supermarket,” he says, lowering his voice. “I was going to ask you out but I saw the ring on your finger.”

Standing there in the middle of his father’s study, tears in her eyes and her hands clenched into the skirts of her dress, Matt has never seen Alex look so lost and afraid. He just wants to go to her, to kiss her trembling mouth and wrap her in his arms until she realizes they could work, if she would just give them a chance. “Why?”

He licks his lips, meeting her eyes carefully. “Because the moment you touched my hand, I knew we could be amazing.”

Tears slip down her cheeks and she wraps her arms around herself comfortingly but Matt doesn’t move, too afraid to break the spell. Voice shaking, she says quietly, “I filed for divorce. David doesn’t know yet.”

Heart leaping into his throat, Matt jumps from the desk and crosses the room in three long strides, taking her hands in his and looking down at her with hope shining in his eyes like a beacon. “You’re leaving?”

She nods, staring down at their joined hands. “It doesn’t change anything. We can’t be -”

“Alex,” he says softly, and waits for her to look up at him. “I know you’re scared and I can’t promise you that everything is going to be perfect but I can promise that I love you and that if you would just say yes, I would try my damnedest to make this work.”

“But your father -”

“Our relationship is a bit crap anyway, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Laura -”

“Sort of already knows.” At her shocked look, he winces. “Sorry.”

Alex blinks, breathing out steadily. “Well, she didn’t hit me.”

“Course not.” He scoffs. “She loves you.”

“Well what about Daisy?”

“What about her?”

“She’s your girlfriend. You can’t just -”

“Oh don’t pretend like you care if I chuck her,” he says, raising his eyebrows in amusement.

“She’s a lovely girl,” Alex says stubbornly, biting her lip and glancing away. “I just hate her anyway.”

He grins, a strange warmth filling his chest. “Jealous, Kingston?”

She doesn’t answer, still not looking at him.

Stepping closer, he presses himself against her, one hand on her hip and the other on her jaw and forcing her to look at him as he says gruffly, “Now you know how I felt every sodding day I was here and had to watch you with him.”

Her green eyes darken and he sees something shift and change in her expression, the hesitation vanishing either because she isn’t feeling it anymore or because she’s hiding it well. In its place is unabashed desire, the way she used to look at him before this whole mess began. Bringing her hand up to the back of his neck, she pulls him down to her mouth and kisses him.

Flooded with elation and heat, Matt moves his mouth over hers, catching her bottom lip between his teeth and then sucking on it gently. She whimpers and he takes the opportunity to slide his tongue past her parted lips, deepening the kiss. She tastes like brandy and cigar smoke as her tongue meets his own, sliding against him eagerly, curling the same way it does when she’s lavishing attention on other parts of him. Groaning, Matt begins to walk them backwards blindly, his hands tight on her hips. Alex stumbles in her heels but he keeps her upright until her back hits the tall row of bookshelves behind her.

She moans as the book spines press into her back, arching against him and turning the kiss into something else entirely, desperate and messy. She slides a hand into the hair at the back of his neck, tugging, and Matt growls softly against her lips, nipping at her as he slips his hands over her hips and down, bunching her dress up in his fists.

Her hands roam over his shoulders and down his arms to grasp his biceps, her fingers digging into his skin through his shirt. Kissing her neck, Matt slides his hands under her thighs and lifts her,

his skin through his shirt. Kissing her neck, Matt slides his hands under her thighs and lifts her, pinning her to the bookshelf until the spines of his father’s old books are digging into her back. She doesn’t seem to notice, wrapping one leg around his hip and perching the heel of her other foot on one of the lower bookshelves for leverage. She rolls her hips, and his erection presses right against her center. He makes a guttural sound in his throat and Alex throws her head back with a gasp, her eyes dark and her cheeks flushed.

Shaking with how much he wants her, how much he has missed her and the soft noises she makes, how she seems to come alive under his fingertips, Matt runs his hands up the inside of her thighs, biting his lip against a moan at her soft skin and the head radiating from her core.

Working desperately to get his trousers open, Alex curses softly under her breath, brow furrowed in concentration, but the moment he brushes his fingers over her through her lacy knickers, she gasps out a moan and her fingers curl into the belt loops of his trousers to tug him closer. He bends his head, pressing rough, heated kisses to her décolletage as her chest heaves under his mouth.

“God, darling, please,” she whispers, her hand snaking between them to press over his, trying to force his hand beneath her knickers but he resists, merely stroking his fingers lightly over her clit through the fabric.

She huffs in frustration and begins working on his trousers again in her impatience. Successful this time, she slips her hand into his pants and wraps it around his length just at the moment he presses hard against her clit. She cries out, bucking her hips and tightening her grip on him. He groans, suddenly quite finished with teasing her.

Hurriedly, he reaches around to his back pocket for his wallet but Alex doesn’t wait for him, stroking his cock with one hand and using the other to dip inside her knickers and rub against her slick flesh. He stares, hot all over, while she bites her lip against the soft sounds of need that want to escape.

“Fucking hell, Alex,” he chokes out, and fumbles quickly for the condom, tossing his wallet aside. He rips it open, batting her hand away from his length and rolling it on.

She writhes against him and he pushes her hands from her knickers, shoving the lace aside and lining himself up at her entrance. Pressing his face against hers, he pushes inside her and all the air leaves his lungs at the feel of her around him once again, so tight and warm, as welcoming as any homecoming. Alex sighs out against his cheek as he fills her, her hands in his hair and her back arched.

“So beautiful,” he whispers, watching her intently.

She looks at him through half-lidded eyes, the green nearly eclipsed by the dark of her pupils. “I wasn’t rejecting you, you know.”

He bites at her throat and then laves his tongue over the teeth marks soothingly. “What were you doing?”

“Pushing you away,” she whispers, her fingers raking through his hair and he tries to focus on something other than the burning need to move. “You scare me to death. Things with you are so…uncertain. I hate it – had enough uncertainty in my life.”

“Life is nothing but uncertainty, Kingston,” he says, nuzzling his nose against her cheek. “No such thing as a guarantee.” He presses a soft kiss to her cheek and then trails his mouth up to her temple. “Sometimes you just have to go on faith.”

Alex turns her head and kisses him hard, her hands cupping his face. He takes it as permission to move and pulls out, pushing back in again with a muffled groan. Alex gasps quietly against his mouth as he sets a slow, hard pace, forcing her repeatedly into the bookshelves behind her until he thinks she’ll have the titles on the spines embossed on her skin for days – The Great Gatsby and Plato’s philosophy a reminder of the way they moved together as one.

“Fuck, Alex,” he hisses as she grasps the bookshelf behind her for more leverage and rolls her hips against his thrusts, her mouth open and her eyes glazed. “You feel so good, love. Missed you.”

The books on the shelves shudder as his pace quickens, his hips snapping frantically as Alex curls her hands into his shoulders and her whole body tightens, the bodice of her dress straining against her breasts as she cries out softly, little needy moans that send heat coiling in the pit of his stomach. As she slips her hand into her knickers and strokes deft, capable fingers over her clit, Matt feels everything within him tighten and center on the burning in his groin and he thrusts faster, harder, desperate to see Alex come before he does.

He hitches her leg up higher on his hip, sending him deeper than before and Alex throws her head back, hitting it hard against the shelf behind her as she cries out and shatters around him. The feel of her muscles tightening and fluttering around him and the sight of her coming apart against his father’s bookshelves is enough to send Matt over the edge with her and he buries his face in her neck and bites down hard on her skin to muffle the sound of her name as he rides out his orgasm.

When he comes back to himself, still trembling in the afterglow, Alex is clinging to him and

breathing heavily, running gentle fingers through his hair. He kisses her softly before helping her stand on her own two feet again, making sure she’s steady before disposing of the condom in a wastebasket by his father’s desk. When he turns back to her, Alex still hasn’t moved, her skirts around her waist and her hair mussed, her lips red and swollen. He can see the bite marks he’d left on her beginning to darken and bruise, and she looks so ravished he feels warmth steal up his spine, like fondness and smug satisfaction all rolled into one. He grins at her and when she smiles slowly back, he hopes that maybe everything will be okay after all.

“You know, I always knew there was someone else.”

The familiar voice in the doorway startles them, and Matt looks to Alex, finding her staring back equally wide-eyed, her face ashen.

“I just didn’t know it was my own son.”

Without thinking, Matt crosses to Alex’s side instantly, covering her as she attempts to right her dress and make herself presentable. Turning to his father, leaning in the doorway, he asks, “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to realize what’s been going on under my nose this whole time,” David says, eyes burning and jaw clenched. “Your own stepmother? What hell is the matter with you?”

“If I had to stay away from all the women you’ve touched I would have to eliminate half the London population,” he snaps, and behind him, Alex puts a hand on his arm.

“And that doesn’t bother you?” David asks, but he’s looking behind Matt’s shoulder at Alex. “Sharing a woman with your father?”

Jaw flexing as Alex’s fingers tighten their grip on his arm, he says, “I wouldn’t call it sharing when she won’t even touch you.”

“Stop it,” Alex says, voice shaking. “Both of you.”

Before another word can be said, the sound of clicking heels echoes in the hallway outside as Laura hisses loudly, “Matt, Alex, put your clothes on because I do not want to see that and dad is looking for you!”

Matt doesn’t know whether to groan in mortification or laugh as his sister stumbles into the room with her hand over her eyes. Digging the heel of his hand into his forehead, he uses the other to reach for Alex, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze. “Open your eyes, Lor.”

She does, blinking at the sudden light and grinning when she sees them fully clothed. “Oh good.”

“You knew about this?”

Jumping, she turns wide eyes on her father, a hand to her chest. “Oh my god, have you been there the whole time? Bloody hell.”

“Laura,” David grits out, face red. “You knew about this and you didn’t say anything?”

“Course I did,” she says, frowning. “He’s my brother. He tells me everything. And I didn’t tell you because it’s about time someone gave you a taste of your own medicine. Being cheated on is a bit rubbish, isn’t it, dad?”

David stares at her, mouth agape and looking so enraged Matt takes a step back, pulling Alex with him.

“What’s going on?”

Daisy stands in the doorway, looking between them all with a frown.

Matt glares at Laura, who looks entirely too gleeful. “Matt’s been shagging our stepmother.”

“Laura,” he hisses as Daisy turns a particularly interesting shade of green. “Shut up, for god’s sake.”

Daisy looks at him, disgust evident in the curl of her mouth. “Matt?”

As much as he wasn’t with Daisy for the right reasons and as much as she drove him bloody mad, he wishes she could have found out some other way because finding out like this is just cruel. “I’m sorry, Dais,” he says softly, and watches her eyes fill up.

“You’re shagging her?” She glances between them and puts a hand over her mouth like she might be ill. “You’re sick. Both of you.” Backing slowly out of the room, she says, “Stay away from me, Matt.”

As she turns on her heel and flees, Matt sighs and lets her go. He can’t go after her right now – he’s needed here. But he promises himself he’ll talk to Daisy later, try to explain and at least apologize properly. Listening to the sound of her striding quickly down the corridor and out of the house, slamming the front door shut behind her, he knows she’d most likely nicked the keys to his car on her way out but no matter. He and Alex can just take her car when they leave. Alone in the study with David glaring at them and Laura looking anywhere but at them, Matt wants nothing more than to leave with Alex right now but he knows this is a conversation they can’t avoid and he wants to get it over with sooner rather than later.

Behind him, Alex clears her throat. “David, I know you’re upset but if we could just sit down and talk about this -”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he snaps. “You’re violating the prenup and I am completely within my rights to throw you out on your arse without a bloody pound to your name.”

Alex steps around Matt, a smile quirking her lips. “Oh but see, that’s where you’re wrong, dear. Does the name Cynthia Richards ring any bells? You know, Scarf Girl? You’ve been shagging her since practically our wedding day and I can prove it.”

Matt hides a smile, pride and smugness warring for a spot in his chest.

“You were in violation of our terms first, husband. And that means half of what’s yours is mine.”

David has never looked more furious – his face blood red and his eyes glittering darkly. Matt has the strongest urge to shield Alex from whatever wrath he might unleash but he stays put, ready to jump in if he has to.

“You think you’ll get five bloody pence out of me when I just caught you shagging my son?” He laughs and the sound puts Matt’s teeth on edge. “You’re mad, Alex. But just for fun, let’s say you did get my money. What would you do then? Go live with your stepson? I don’t know if he’s

mentioned it to you, dear but he has the fickleness of a three year old. You wouldn’t last long – about as long as it took for my money to run out, I imagine.”

Curling his hands into fists, Matt clenches his jaw and sees nothing but red. He opens his mouth to defend himself, but Alex beats him to it. “Who are you to talk about fickle,” she sneers, waving a hand in the direction of his desk. “You think I don’t know about your drawer full of wives?”

David glares at her. “Snooping doesn’t become you, Alex.”

“Neither does that lonely widower persona you’ve been trying to feed me,” she counters, eyebrow raised.

Turning livid eyes to Matt, he says, “Do you really think you’ll get anywhere as an actor when everyone finds out the woman the new Doctor has been parading around at awards ceremonies and snogging is actually his stepmother? Walk away from her now Matt, and save yourself a lot of embarrassment.”

“Alex is more important than a bloody job,” he says lowly, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees her turn and look at him, eyes wide. “I don’t care what other people think of me and anyone who thinks they can tell me who I’m going to fall in love with or how I’m going to feel can go fuck themselves – whether it be Steven Moffat or you, dad.”

Laura, who up until this point has been doing her best to become invisible, beams at him. He doesn’t look at Alex, too afraid he just scared her away with how little everything else matters to him compared to her.

“We’ll just see if you’re saying that when no one in the industry will give you a job because of her,” he says, looking at Alex, who is staring at the floor. “See how much you love her when she’s ruined your career.”

Alex visibly flinches and seeing red, Matt strides across the room before he even knows what he’s doing, heading right for his father. His expression must be something to behold because while David holds his ground, Laura cries out and steps between them, her hands on Matt’s shoulders.

“Matt, stop it,” she says, her voice muffled over the blood rushing in his ears. “It’s not worth it. Calm down.”

He struggles against her for a moment, his hands balled into fists and his teeth grinding together. He wants more than anything to just land one good punch – for his childhood, for his sister’s childhood, for all the women his father has treated like nothing more than toys to toss out when he’s bored, but mostly for Alex, who deserves so much more than anyone has ever given her.

Laura tightens her hold on his arms, pushing him backwards with all her strength and shouting, “Matt! Stop it!”

The words finally register and he blinks away the red haze clouding his vision, shaking his head and stepping away from his sister. He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his temple as he realizes how close he just came to hitting his own father – he would have deserved it, but Matt has never been one for violence. Taking a deep breath, he opens his eyes and says, “I’m fine.”

Laura hovers anyway, uncertain.

David stands with his arms crossed over his chest, looking a little shocked.

Brow furrowed, Matt raises his head, belatedly realizing someone important is missing. “Where’s Alex?” Laura’s eyes widen and she glances around the room at the same time they hear a car starting outside. “Fuck,” Matt jumps into action, throwing himself across the room and past his father, careening into the hall and barreling through the front door and down the steps at full speed. “Alex, wait!”

She turns her head away the moment she sees him, throwing the car into drive and hitting the gas even as he sprints toward her, calling her name. But it’s too late to stop her. Laura stumbles down the steps and joins him, teetering in high heels as she clings to his arm and watches with him as Alex’s little vintage car speeds down the long driveway and out onto the street.

She’s gone.

The last decree, the guarantee Chapter Notes

Last chapter! Thank you all for your wonderful comments and encouragement, and just for being your lovely selves:) Chapter title from Vintage Red by Jay Jay Pistolet.

Alex drives for a long time and when she finally stops, it’s after midnight and she’s somewhere in Cardiff, her eyes red and her mind no clearer than it had been when she left. She parks her car and gets out with her handbag – the one thing she’d managed to grab on her way out. She has just enough money with her to get a decent hotel room and when she walks into her room, she falls onto the double bed and buries her face in the freshly laundered pillow.

She had been so, so stupid.

Absolutely nothing had changed but the moment she saw him, every lie she has been comforting herself with flew out the window and she was left bare, defenseless against his eyes and his kisses, his pretty words. And that’s all they are, no matter how much he may mean them now – empty, pretty words. He’s still her stepson, he’s still too young for her and she still has Salome to think of. And she’d known all of that. But he’d come after her, told her he loved her and she’d let it sway her like some flighty teenage girl.

And now everyone knows what she and Matt have been doing.

The right decision had been to let him walk away and she’d done it once, but she hadn’t been able to do it again. So she left instead.

Not even bothering to pull back the blankets, Alex closes her tired eyes and tries to sleep, hoping that in the morning, the answer to her problems will be evident.

When she wakes still in her wrinkled dress from dinner, the sun is shining into her room through the thin curtains hanging from the windows and she scrunches her face, automatically turning away from the light before opening her eyes. The first thing she sees is her mobile sitting on the nightstand. Sighing, she reaches out for it to check the time – nearly eleven – and sees five missed calls and four text messages. Sitting up in bed, she runs a hand through her hair and wills away the last remnants of sleep, rubbing at her eyes. Everything hurts this morning, and she’s not delusional enough to think it has anything to do with the rubbish hotel mattress.

With nervous fingers, she unlocks her phone and scrolls through her call log. Three of her missed calls are from Matt and two are from Laura. One text message is from Laura as well, saying ‘Answer your bloody phone, woman.’

The other three are from Matt.

‘Alex, come back.’

‘Please call me.’

‘I love you.’

She shuts her eyes against the sudden onslaught of tears and takes a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. She needs to think today, and that means keeping her emotions in check. If she falls apart again like she had in the car last night, she won’t be doing anyone any good. She opens her eyes again and the first thing she notices is the blinking icon in the right hand corner of her phone screen. She has a voicemail.

For a moment, she contemplates erasing it without listening to it but the desire to hear his voice is too great and there’s no denying it is Matt who left a message. Steeling herself, Alex presses a button, lifts the phone to her ear, and listens.

“Alex, it’s me.”

The tears are already forming at just the sound of his voice but she wills them away, pursing her lips and gripping her mobile tightly.

“Please answer your phone, love. It’s going to be fine, I promise. Nothing he said changes the way I feel about you.” There’s a sigh, soft and ragged. “Just let me know you’re alright. Please.”

She saves the message. Then, pulling up his name on her phone, she types out two brief sentences. ‘I’m okay. Don’t call.’ She hits send and puts her phone aside, determined to ignore anything else he sends her. Pulling herself out of bed, she stretches and walks to the mini-fridge in the corner, delighted to find it stocked with bottled water and a few apples.

Taking a water bottle, she ambles over to the window and pulls back the curtain, squinting into the morning sun. Her car is parked across the street, that vintage blue sticking out like a soar thumb on a street lined with modern vehicles, boring black and white. Sipping at her water, Alex presses her forehead to the glass and contemplates the state of her own mind. Everything feels clearer today, the world in sharp focus all around her. Maybe today, she can start figuring out what the hell she has done to her life and how to fix it.

On the bed, her mobile rings.

She ignores it; letting it go to voicemail and hoping Matt will give up. There is blessed silence for about ten seconds before it rings again. Growling at his persistence, Alex crosses the room and snatches up her phone from the nest of blankets on the bed, intent on turning it off and giving herself some quiet to think.

Except it isn’t Matt calling her.

It’s Laura.

Without thinking, she answers it. “Hello?”

“Oh thank god,” Laura sighs and it feels good to hear a familiar voice in the midst of the turmoil in her head and the strange hotel room she’s standing in. “Where the hell are you?”

“A hotel,” she says evasively, not sure if she can trust Laura with any details yet. “I’m fine, dear. Don’t worry.”

“You walk out after dad finds out you’re shagging Matt, no one hears from you for over twelve hours and I’m not supposed to worry?”

“I am a grown woman, you know,” Alex scowls into the phone. “I’ve been taking care of myself since before you were born, young lady.” Laura makes a noise that seems to indicate she thinks otherwise and Alex rolls her eyes. “Do you need anything else?”

“Yes. I need you to call Matt. Or go to him.”

“I can’t do that, honey.”

“Why not? You care about him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” she sighs, sinking down onto the edge of the bed. “But it doesn’t matter what I want.”

“What? Alex, this is your life,” Laura says, voice suddenly impassioned. “What you want matters more than anything.”

“Not when I have a daughter to think of. She is more important than anything I might want and this, this thing with Matt cannot happen with her around.” Alex lifts her legs up onto the bed, folding her them to her chest and hugging her knees. “What would I even say to her?”

“The truth. That you fell in love with someone under shitty circumstances but you made things work because he mattered to you.”

Alex stares at her knees until her vision blurs and it’s only when she answers Laura with a shaking voice that she realizes she can’t see because she’s crying. “I can’t.”

“You can, Alex,” Laura says softly. “You think you’ll be doing Salome any favors by denying yourself happiness? You think she would thank you for that? What that little girl needs more than anything is a mother who is happy with her life and with herself. And kids can sense these things, I know that better than anyone – she’ll know when you’re faking it. And if you aren’t happy, she won’t be. How long do you think it’ll be before she’s back on a plane to daddy because at least he was honest about who he was?”

Alex shakes her head, despite no one being around to witness it and wipes her tear-streaked cheeks against the fabric of her dress covering her knees. “But it’s wrong.”

“That’s rubbish – you’re not actually related, you know. And as soon as the divorce is finalized, you’ll have no ties to him at all. There’s nothing wrong with loving him, Alex.”

“But everyone would know -”

Laura makes an annoyed sound in the back of her throat, as though fed up with Alex and her excuses. “Do you honestly give a bloody damn what anyone else thinks? Matt certainly doesn’t so you can stop worrying about him. Don’t let anyone else control what you do and whether or not you find happiness.”

Alex sniffles and Laura makes a sympathetic noise, muttering about mobile chats being bad for hugs. It makes Alex smile as she drops her legs to the floor, wiping at her eyes.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, dear,” she says, and her voice is still shaky but she really does feel better. “Thank you.”

“Any time.” Laura hesitates. “I…I love you, you know? You’re the best.”

Alex beams. “Thank you, darling. I love you too.”

Hanging up, Alex gently places her phone aside and stands, moving to the window again. Her mind is racing but suddenly everything is so much clearer. Matt had said there were no real guarantees in life, but that he could promise to love her. She thinks of him, of those first oblivious but memorable moments with him over a bunch of flowers, of the way he’d looked at her in the meadow through the pouring rain. She thinks of the clumsy way he dealt with her garden, and cooking and just about everything else but her. With her, he is different. Careful. She thinks of the way he holds her hand, the way he reaches for her in the middle of the night and the way the sight of his grin makes her light as air, warmth blooming in her chest and a smile on her face before she can help herself.

She loves him. But is it enough?

Sometimes you just have to go on faith.

--

It’s been two days of pacing around his flat, not eating and thinking of not much else but Alex, waiting for her to contact him again. He hasn’t shaved but Laura had come round yesterday and forced him into a shower, with the promise of a drink afterwards.

One text message – one – with two measly sentences. He supposes he should be grateful he even got that, but it isn’t enough. He needs to talk to her, to hear her voice, and maybe he can convince her to forget everything David said and give them a chance.

Laura had spoken to her – he tries not to be insulted that Alex will take her calls but not his. She won’t say what they talked about and it makes Matt nervous. His sister doesn’t mince words and he’s afraid she might have accidentally buggered up everything just by trying to help – if he hasn’t done that himself already.

She needs time, Laura had said. She’ll be in touch when she’s ready.

Well that was yesterday, and Matt is starting to get antsy again. As he goes about making something small for lunch – if he doesn’t eat, Laura will just come back and he’d rather not deal with his sister right now – he decides that if he doesn’t hear from Alex today, he’ll try to call her again. She probably won’t pick up, but at least he’ll be doing something. All this sitting around and waiting is not his forte.

A knock at the door interrupts him brooding over his untouched peanut butter sandwich and he welcomes the distraction, abandoning his food and scrambling for the door. In his haste, he trips over a discarded boot in the middle of the floor, catches himself on an umbrella stand, kicks the boot aside and straightens, tugging at his t-shirt as he swings open his front door. As soon as he does, he has to grip the doorframe to keep himself upright, his legs suddenly useless.

Alex stands in front of him, looking anxious but lovely. She isn’t wearing her grey cocktail dress, so he assumes she must have gone out and bought new clothes because according to Laura, she hasn’t been back to David’s to pick up her things. Her dark hair falls in perfect ringlets around her shoulders, wild as ever. He can’t help but beam at the sight of her because there is nothing like finally seeing the person you’ve been missing like a phantom limb.

“Alex.”

She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders, as if gathering strength. “I’m not living with you.”

He stares, trying to stamp down the hope welling up in his chest because he doesn’t know anything yet. “…Alright.”

“I got a call from a university nearby,” she says, looking at him tentatively. “They’re offering me a job in their art department. So I’ll get my own flat and if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it properly.”

There is no pushing away the hope now, and it floods through his whole being, rushing through his very veins and lighting him up from within. “You-you mean…you want to try?”

Alex bites her lip. “I talked to your sister two days ago. We had a chat and I realized that you’re rather wonderful and I don’t want to lose you, guarantee or no guarantee.” She swallows audibly. “I love you.”

Eyes wet and smiling so wide his cheeks ache, he reaches for her but stops, pulling his hand back. “Then why did you wait two days to come to me?”

“I was giving you a chance,” she says softly.

“Chance?”

“To change your mind.”

“Oh Alex,” he breathes, taking her hand and pulling her into his arms, so relieved when she leans into him. “Never.”

Pulling back to look up at him, she says tearfully, “I don’t have any money. I was caught cheating too. I mean, I got a little something since I could prove your father was unfaithful first but it’s nothing -”

He shakes his head, frustrated. “I don’t care. I never cared about money, Alex. What are you going on about?”

She bites her lip. “Matt, you’re taking a very high profile job. What about the press? They’ll find out about this and it will be everywhere. What if you lose your job or -”

“Shh,” he says. “Not going to happen.” He slides his hand down her spine, settling on the small of her back and tugging her against him. Alex tries to protest but he doesn’t let her, bending his head and capturing her mouth with his. She doesn’t struggle, parting her lips under his and sliding her arms around his neck, melting against him like snow under the loving gaze of the spring sun. Matt smiles against her mouth and nothing has ever felt more right.

“It’s going to be alright,” he says, kissing the corner of her lips. “You’ll see.”

She slides her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, meeting his eyes with a shake of her head. “Sometimes love isn’t enough, Matthew.”

“It will be for us.” He presses his forehead to hers and smiles. “Take a leap of faith with me?”

Tracing a hand over his cheekbone and under his jaw line, her fingers brushing over two day old stubble, Alex smiles. “I think I’d leap anywhere with you.”

“Does that include a bed?” He asks nuzzling his nose against her cheek and he just can’t stop smiling. “Because my god, I have missed you.”

She laughs, pulling away to look at him with wet eyes. “I said anywhere, didn’t I?”

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