Tilting his head, his lips landed flush on hers as his fingers slipped between hers, folding, binding their hands together. She pulled her hand out of the water, wrapping her arm around his neck, and sinking her wet fingers into his hair. His free arm encircled her waist, crushing her against his chest as his tongue traced the seam of their lips. She opened for him, touching her tongue to his and swallowing his groan as he squeezed her fingers, pushing her against the counter with his body.

Releasing her hand, he lifted her onto the countertop beside the sink, reaching back quickly to turn off the water. She parted her knees so he could step between them, and his hands landed on her hips, his fingers kneading her skin through the denim of her jeans. Wrapping her other hand around his neck, she locked her fingers together while sliding her tongue against the velvet heat of his.

He dragged her roughly to the edge of the counter, fitting the softness of her pelvis flush against the hardness of his. She raised her legs and locked her ankles behind his back, whimpering softly as he sucked on her tongue.

His hard chest pushed into hers, every deep and gasping breath crushing her breasts as her fingers broke free from each other and tangled frantically in his hair, trying to push him closer, closer, as close as possible. His fingers slipped beneath her T-shirt, skating up her back to unfasten her bra, as his tongue stroked hers into a frenzy.

Spreading her fingers in the silk of his hair, she leaned her head to the side, guiding his mouth to her jaw, letting her neck bend back as he kissed a path from her lips to her throat. His palm curved around her ribs, the pad of his thumb stroking the pillow of her breast, finding her nipple and massaging it into a tight, aching point. His other hand followed, cupping her breast and rolling her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“Holden,” she moaned, arching her back to slam her hips into his and whimpering when his fingers increased their pressure on her overaroused skin. He pushed her shirt and bra up over her breasts, baring them, and Griselda raised her arms so that he could lift them over her head.

Panting with want, her hands dropped to the hem of his T-shirt, shoving it up over the ridges of muscle until he grabbed the shirt at the back of his neck and whipped it over his head, throwing it to the floor.

For just a moment, half naked with each other for the first time ever, they were still, his bare chest a shadow away from hers, grazing her sensitive, straining nipples with every breath. With his hands at his sides, he held his breath and stared into her eyes, searching them, waiting for something.

And then she knew—somehow she knew. He was waiting for her. For permission.

“Yes,” she gasped, her palms landing flush on his cheeks as she jerked his face to hers, their teeth clashing together as his tongue tangled with hers, the heat of his chest slamming into the heat of hers.

His hands were suddenly under her bottom, and he lifted her effortlessly into his arms, kissing her deeply, madly, blindly, like the world would end if he stopped, and she wound her hands in his hair, the past and the present colliding into a moment she’d dreamed of since she was a child. Keeping her legs locked firmly around his waist, he carried her from the kitchen into the back bedroom and lowered her onto the bed, following her down, covering her body with his.

Her hands slid down his body, tracing the angles of his collarbone, the deep groove of his spine, the tight band of muscle at his waist that flexed under her touch. She felt the texture of a hundred scars crisscrossing his flesh, evidence of Caleb Foster’s fury and Holden’s willingness to protect her time after time. Tears blurred her vision as she slipped her hand into the waistband of his unbuttoned jeans and under the elastic of his underwear, her palm landing on the hard, hot skin of his ass. Her fingers flexed on the taut skin, and he gasped, stealing the air from her lungs and making him laugh softly.

“Gris,” he said, leaning back from her, his elbows on either side of her head, his hands gently cupping her cheeks. His face was a mixture of emotions: tenderness, surprise, arousal . . . and concern. His smile faded as his brows knitted in worry. “Are you sure about this? Oh G-God, Gris, I w-want . . . I want you so much, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

She knew the truth of his words because, in all her life, the only person who’d never hurt her, never let her down, was Holden. And yet, time and again, she had hurt him. And here she was, lying beneath him, tempting him to cheat on his girlfriend when he’d been trying so hard to be good.

She pulled her hand out of his pants, holding it suspended awkwardly in the air for a moment before letting it land tentatively on his back. The tears in her eyes trickled down her cheeks as she turned her face to the side, away from his trusting, searching eyes.

“G-Gris? What is it? Gris?”

His fingers brushed her damp cheeks tenderly, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, clenching her eyes shut.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.

“Are you afraid you will?”

She turned back to him, opening her eyes. “I want you too, Holden. I want you so much. It feels like I’ve wanted you forever.”

His lips quirked up a little, and his worried eyes softened. “Then . . .”

“But you have a life. You have a girlfriend you love.”

He looked confused for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “Gemma?”

She swallowed, nodding miserably. “Gemma.”

He stared down at her chin before capturing her eyes again. “You think I love her?”

She wet her lips, willing herself to stop crying, because she didn’t want to make this more difficult for him. “You’ve been with her for six months. She sleeps in your bed. She has a key to your apartment. You’re . . . together. I don’t want to ruin that for you. I’ve already done so much to hurt you. I couldn’t bear it if . . .”

Holden’s eyes closed slowly, and he dropped his hands from her face, rolling off her chest to lie beside her. He released a loud, low, barely controlled sigh.

She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, because she was so desperately emotional about him, and this rejection—even though she’d suggested and encouraged it—was more painful than she’d anticipated. They streamed down her cheeks as she stared up at the rough wood ceiling, feeling miserable.

Then, when she least expected it, she felt his fingers touch hers, reach for hers, effortlessly weaving between hers, his palm adjusting and readjusting until it was flush with hers, joined between them.

“Griselda,” he said, “I don’t love Gemma. I don’t even like her that much.”

Her relief was so visceral, the dam of warmth pooled in her belly broke forth, flooding her insides with heavenly release. She sighed, taking a slow, deep breath, and letting her bunched muscles relax.

“You don’t love her,” she breathed, exhaling with a small sound of pleasure.

“No.”

“But you’ve been together for months.”

“We’ve been fucking for months. That’s all.”

“Ah,” she sighed, her relief changing from a warm and soothing feeling of deliverance to a gathering, like a seed of anticipation that grew rapidly, making her heart speed up and her sex ache, throbbing to be filled by his.

“I don’t . . .,” he paused, his body rigid beside her. “G-Gris, I’m not sure I know how to love someone. Sometimes I feel like that part of me is . . . b-broken.”

“It’s not,” she said with certainty, rolling onto her side and resting her cheek on her arm to stare at his face in profile. Her need to touch him, to continue where they’d left off a moment before, made shivers of want break out across her skin, changing her breathing, further quickening her galloping heart.

“How do you know?” he asked, hope breaking his voice.

“Because I know. Because I know you. Because I know your heart. Because that part of you might be hidden, but it isn’t gone.”

It was his turn to flinch, before scrubbing his hand over his forehead. “What about you? You’re with someone too. Jonah. You’re living with him.”

“I don’t like him either,” she said without thinking, licking her lips as she focused solely on Holden.

“We’re both with people we don’t even like,” said Holden, reading her mind. “Do you have any idea how fucked-up that is?”

Yes. But we can change that. Starting right now.

“I’m not with Jonah anymore,” she said, her voice soft and even. “And I’ll never be with Jonah again.”

“Why not?” asked Holden, his voice low and his eyes fierce as he rolled onto his side to face her.

“Because for the rest of my life,” she said, dropping his eyes to gather her courage before lifting her chin and spearing him with her gaze, “I only want to be with you.”

***

Her words knocked the wind out of Holden’s lungs, and he inhaled sharply, staring at her in shock, and realizing that she was right: he was still capable of loving someone. Some deep and hidden part of him recognized this was true because the feeling that welled up inside him was so much bigger than love, so much wider and stronger, and filled with so much grateful, intense wonder, there wasn’t another word to describe it.

Kissing her for the first time a few minutes ago, touching her breasts and sliding his hands along the warm softness of her skin, had felt glorious, but it had also felt like stealing something. He’d been aroused beyond belief, but he’d felt guilty too—like he was taking something that she hadn’t offered. And now, here she was, the girl of his dreams, telling him that she belonged to him. Telling him that what he was taking was already his. Telling him that she wanted only him. Forever.

“Oh God, Gris. M-me too,” he said. “I’ll break up with Gemma as soon as we go back to Charles Town. It’s over. It was over the second you walked back into my life.”

“I’m ruined for anyone but you, Holden. I always have been.”

He thought of the marks on his back and the marks on his arm, the countless nights spent looking for an antidote to Griselda’s iron hold on his heart, even from the grave. “M-me too. I’m ruined for anyone but you.”

“So we’ll try this?” she asked, her eyes searching his with a heartbreaking, hopeful uncertainty that made him desperate to reassure her, to let her know how deeply and irrevocably he would love her for the rest of his life if she would only give him the chance—the honor—of being with her. “Being together?”

“We’ve always been together,” he whispered reverently, reaching for her, his fingers landing on the bare skin of her waist and pulling her close. She was soft, so soft and warm, and his heart thundered in anticipation of finally having her. “Even when we were apart, we were still together. Even when I thought you were gone, you still lived inside my heart.”

“I never gave up hoping that I’d find you,” she said, flattening her hand over that heart, which beat wildly for her. “There were times . . .” She winced, swallowing painfully. “There were times it was the only thing keeping me alive.”

Her admission crushed him because he was no stranger to that desperation, and he exhaled the breath he was holding, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers, nuzzling her nose with his as his lips brushed hers tenderly.

“Is this real?” he whispered, his eyes glassy and burning. “Is this finally real?”

“This is real,” she said, reaching for his cheek to pull him closer and kiss him more deeply.

She rolled onto her back, and he followed her, pressing her into the mattress and swallowing her moan as he moved their locked palms over her head. Plunging his tongue into her mouth, he stroked hers with increasing urgency, and she arched her body against his, her breasts flattening under his chest muscles as he surged against her, pushing his erection into the softness between her thighs. His free hand skimmed down her side to cover her breast, and she gasped. Sliding down her body to take the rigid point between his lips, he swirled his tongue around her nipple before sucking it into his mouth.

“Holden,” she moaned, burying her hand roughly in his hair, her fingers pulling the strands, curling into his scalp to keep him in place.

Grazing her sensitive skin with his teeth, she cried out, and he released her hand, covering her slick breast with his palm as his mouth drifted over the valley of warm skin to find its twin. As he teased it with his tongue, Gris whimpered again, her little noises of pleasure making him hotter and harder, his dick throbbing with the need to bury itself inside her.

“Are you wet, Gris?” he growled, blowing on her nipple and watching as goose bumps rose on her pink, flushed skin. “Are you wet for me?”

She whimpered as he slid his hand over the soft skin of her belly, opening the button of her fly with a quick flick of his fingers and smoothing his flat palm under the elastic of her panties. His fingers skimmed over her trimmed, curly hair, unable to keep himself from anticipating the way she would tease and tickle him as he moved in and out of her body. Clenching his jaw, he slid his middle finger between the slickened folds of her clit, finding the erect nub of hot flesh and loving the way her hips rose off the bed to meet his touch.

“Jesus,” he murmured, his thumb pressing her bundle of nerves like a button as he slipped two fingers inside her slippery sex. She was soaked and ready for him, and they’d only just gotten started.

He didn’t want to go fast with her—he wanted to savor every moment—but the way she writhed under him, and the way his dick pulsed with every movement, made him rethink his plan. She needed him and he needed her. Romance could wait. Right now, he just needed to be inside her.

“Gris, I want you,” he said, stroking her intimately and looking up to watch the play of pleasure and emotion on her beautiful face. She was so fucking perfect, the muscles in his stomach clenched and his chest hurt, hurt, with how much he felt for her.

With his fingers still lodged inside her, she leaned up, reaching for his jeans and pushing them down to his hips. His dick—long, thick, and hard as a rock—caught on his boxers, and he slipped his fingers out of her to reach down and release himself from his clothing.

She gasped, either from the loss of his fingers pleasuring her, or because he was finally naked before her. His raised his eyes to hers, watching her lips drop open as she stared down at him.

“Holden. Oh my God . . .”

He was big. He knew this not because he’d seen a lot of naked men with whom to compare himself, but because her reaction was fairly commonplace for him. The follow-up ranged from delight to fear, but the initial reaction was always one of mouth-dropping surprise.

He watched her face as she stared at him, trying to read her reaction, his heart throbbing with hope, then swelling with relief as she looked up at him with dark blue eyes. She licked her lips and demanded, “Get my jeans off. Now.”

She lay back, and he reached for her fly, yanking it down. Slipping his fingers into the waistband of her jeans and panties, he pulled both down her legs with a jerk, throwing them to the floor.

Settling back over her body, naked together for the first time in their lives, he lined up his heart over hers, his hands sliding down the sheets to find and bind their fingers together. He looked deeply into her eyes, and she parted her legs so he could settle between them.

“I was tested six months ago,” he said, hating that he had to mention it, but anxious for her to know that he was careful.

“Gemma?” asked Gris.

“We use condoms. But I . . .” He paused, feeling a little like a selfish prick without knowing her birth control situation. “I don’t want to use one with you. We c-can . . . but, I just—”

“I don’t want to either. I have an IUD,” she said, raising her knees and locking her ankles on the back of his ass. “I want to feel you.”

“Are you sure, Gris? I fucking w-want you right now more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But unless you’re sure . . .”

“I don’t know what will happen after this,” she said, her dark eyes full of tenderness and uncertainty. “What happens after this?”

“I’ll make you come. I’ll hold you while you sleep. I’ll change for you. I’ll live for you. I’ll never let you go,” he promised, capturing her top lip between his and kissing her.

Her eyes glistened with tears when he drew back, and she squeezed his hands. “Promise me?”

“I p-promise, Gris.”

“Breathe,” she said, arching her pelvis into him to let him know she was ready.

He braced himself over her, positioning himself at the slick, pulsing opening of her sex, then paused, holding her eyes. “Gris, ask me if I’m whole or broken.”

She gasped as he pushed slowly, inch by inch, into the heaven of her hot, wet sex. She panted softly, “Holden, are you . . . whole . . . or broken?”

He clenched his eyes shut, his arms shaking as he tried to control himself. The sensation of her sucking him forward was fucking unbelievable, but he moved as slowly as he could, savoring every moment of their joining, of the moment he became one with Griselda in every possible way. And finally the tip of his erection could move no farther. He was fully lodged inside her. He was one with the only woman he’d ever loved, could ever love, would ever love.

His dick pulsing, his heart throbbing, he opened his eyes and found her dark blue ones staring back at him with such trust and tenderness, he flinched and almost wept.

“I’m whole,” he whispered. “You make me whole.”

Tears filled her eyes, spilling out of the corners and into her hair as she palmed his cheeks, frantically pulling his face down to hers. He pulled out to the entrance of her sex, then plunged forward again, moving slowly and gently, anxious not to hurt her, reveling in the tender nerve endings of their bodies, stroking and kissing as his lips devoured hers.

Her palms smoothed over his rough back, and he felt her fingers curl into his skin, her fingernails making him flinch as he pulled back slowly then pushed carefully into her again with a groan of pleasure, a sheen of sweat breaking out across his brow.

“It’s okay,” she panted, releasing his lips and bending her neck so her head strained back into the pillow. Her dark eyes owned him. “I won’t break. I want you, Holden. I need you. Take me home.”

He bent his head, his damp forehead landing on her shoulder as he moved faster, the friction from his movements and the hot fucking noises from the back of her throat making him swell inside her. Her legs locked around his waist, and her arched body took him deeper and tighter with every thrust. He felt the swirling beneath his abs, the way every muscle bunched and tightened, the way his dick started vibrating inside her, and then she screamed his name, the walls of her sex pulsating around him like fucking heaven.

Staring at her beloved face, contorted in ecstasy, he felt it—the marriage of past and present, the walk on a country road, fairy tales told on a crowded cot, her eyes in the sunshine, her parted lips, stubborn heart, gentle soul. He paused at the precipice for only a moment before stepping forward into forever, letting go, opening his heart and releasing his body as her name passed his lips and he surrendered to the inevitability that was his deep and eternal love for Griselda.