Free A Case For Trust by Gracie MacGregor Page B

aggressive, or maudlin, or silly. They’d danced, and Matt had held her and looked at her like he wasn’t angry at her anymore. Two champagnes? Maybe three. But no more than three. For sure.
    Best. Wedding. Ever.
    She slid her hand over Matt’s resting on the gear, giggled a little as she felt him start at her touch. There were fine dark hairs at his wrist. When she smoothed them backwards they gleamed in the amber light from the console. Fascinated, she watched them spring back, one by one, as she moved her fingers on his skin. ‘You have beautiful hands.’
    She thought she heard a low rumble of laughter. ‘You’re drunk, Philippa Lloyd.’
    â€˜Am not. Only had two.’
    â€˜You had four.’
    â€˜Two.’
    â€˜Suit yourself.’
    She hadn’t had four, she knew she hadn’t. If she’d had four, she’d be drunk. And she wasn’t drunk. Just a little sleepy, a little … sexy. And soooo happy.
    ***
    Matt rose from the bed and shucked on his boxers, then his trousers; his shirt was in a rumpled heap near the door and he pulled that on, too, then cast about the room for his shoes. One was under the bedside table, socks shoved into the toe—at least his fastidiousness hadn’t deserted him that far. The other he eventually found under a pile of her clothes. Jacket, wallet, keys, phone, and he was at the bedroom door having managed to not so much as glance at the soft-breathing woman asleep in the bed.
    He let himself out of her house, grimacing as the insubstantial lock rattled in the front door behind him. Not his business. None of it was his business. Not any more. He’d proved his point, and that was the end of Philippa Lloyd’s messing with his family, with Justin.
    The early morning suburban streets were empty of life and it took only fifteen minutes before he slung the Audi into the subterranean garage below his apartment. Slick acceptance of his keycard at elevator and his own front door reinforced the differences between her world and his. She didn’t belong with the Masons. He’d said that all along.
    His thoughts were an echo of her muzzy words a few hours before. In the moonlight slanting through her shutters, her coppery hair had been golden on the pillow. He’d tugged on it to wake her. ‘You’re not having an affair with Justin.’
    She’d smiled at him sleepily—‘I’ve said that all along,’—before the slumbrous eyes closed and she drifted off again.
    She was no virgin—if there’d been any saving grace to the whole sorry incident, at least there was that—but she wasn’t one of Justin’s regular types either. Seductive, certainly. Responsive. Even demanding. His lip curled a little in recollection, though he certainly hadn’t been complaining at the time. She was all of those things in bed, as she’d never appeared to be when out of it. But while she wasn’t inexperienced, neither was she the sophisticated sex siren he’d first imagined. He was damned sure he’d given her an orgasm she’d never imagined possible, for a start, and he hadn’t been trying all that hard.
    If Philippa was involved with Justin—assuming the cringe-inducing stories of Justin’s prowess were true, and no woman Matt knew of had given evidence to the contrary—roof-clutching orgasms would have been part of her daily routine.
    And if she hadn’t been with Justin, what the hell was her game?
    She surely couldn’t be keeping his younger brother dangling simply on a promise of sex. Justin didn’t have, didn’t need to have, that kind of patience. There was always another willing woman throwing herself in his path.
    In that case, it must really be love this time for Justin. For Philippa, too? Was this unlikely, unwanted relationship between Justin and Philippa Lloyd for real? Were they really in love?
    At that thought, Matt felt his first