Chapter Sixteen
“So, what do we do?” she asked.
She shivered in a way that was not entirely from the cold. It was about the heat of their bodies, the electricity that seemed to bounce between them. She knew what he wanted—knew that he wanted it just as much as she did—but she didn’t know how to start.
Luckily, Holden made the choice for her. Slowly, he circled his arms around her waist and helped her to stand until her body was flush with his. As he began walking her backward toward the wall, she knew she’d never wanted him more than in that moment.
“Please,” she murmured.
Her heart hitched as he released her wrists. Instead of appeasing her, he focused his talented fingers on her lower back, the curve of her thigh. His nails dug into the skin, lifting her up so that her clit was grinding with every motion against his taut erection.
She licked her lips, greedy with lust.
He laid her down on the plastic kitchen table. Normally, she might have flinched away from the chill of the surface or focused on her next action. But there were no thoughts. There were no words.
She tried, but her breath caught in her throat as she lay prone, watching him strip off his clothes, one piece at a time—his jeans, the tight red boxer briefs, the T-shirt. They all vanished to reveal his impeccable frame.
His abs were like chiseled stone, the muscles around his hips leading a delectable trail to the part she longed to see most. And he was ready for her. Flawless, and prepared for action.
Her walls quaked at the sight of him, and it was all she could do not to jump off the table and pounce on him, pushing him down to the floor so she could have her own naughty way with him.
But she was prone to his every command. It was as if he’d cast some kind of spell on her as his hands roved her body, softly kneaded her breasts, trailed down her ribs, gripped the insides of her thighs until his finger found her wet center.
She tried to bite the moan back, but she couldn’t. It erupted, loud and long as he stroked her, dipping inside her slowly before traveling back up to tease her tight bud.
“God, you’re so wet,” he said, kneeling down so that his head was level with her pussy.
“God, you’re perfect.” She’d said it without thinking, and she looked down at him to gauge his reaction. She couldn’t see much. Just his green irises and the brim of his Grecian nose, but the crinkle around his eyes told her he was smiling.
“You would give up all this?” He kissed her bud gently before deepening the intimacy. His tongue lapped her center, spurring louder, longer moans of appreciation. The teasing felt perfect, beautifully endless as he pleasured her with his mouth.
Then, without warning, he plunged two fingers deep inside of her, working her until her back arched from the table, begging for more. For him.
She gasped.
Every muscle in her body tensed, her thighs shook, the very world seemed to rock on its axis. Her toes curled around the plastic legs of the table as she spread her knees wider for him, accepting his caress with more than a little appreciation.
A climax suddenly rolled over her, tingling even the follicles of her hair as waves of pleasure rushed in soft at first, then crashed down harder.
“Oh, baby, I love it when you come.” His voice was deep and husky, and she felt the vibrations of his low voice against her clit. The combination of his sultry tone and the feeling of him was enough to bring her to the brink again.
She slammed her hands against the table hard enough to make her palms sting, but she didn’t care. She just wanted him, needed him inside her.
One thing was for certain. If she was going to come again, it would be with him.
“Please, please.” She bit her lip, ashamed of the desperation in her voice, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was already on his feet and bending over her, wrapping his arms around her body as he flicked his tongue over her nipples.
“That’s so hot. I can’t take any more. Please.”
“And pass up the chance at these babies? Have you seen them?” He smiled up at her before ducking his head down to nibble along the swell of her breasts.
“That’s it. You can’t be trusted.” She wrapped her legs around his back and poised to pull herself up. It forced his head away from her chest until they were face-to-face.
His lips were still red from his previous exertions, but she didn’t care. She took his warm, lower lip into her mouth and enjoyed the full, soft feeling of him.
“On the floor, then.” He nipped at her lip, but she shook her head.
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“The hell I’m not.” He grasped her bottom and pulled her from the table, laying her down on the cool linoleum with a loud thunk, his warm body still brushing against her pert nipples.
“Fine, you win.” She faked a huff and lay back on the linoleum kitchen floor. Avery stared up at him, mesmerized by the way his stomach muscles rippled a little with every breath, in and out. His tan skin even made her kitchen floor look pretty damn white by comparison.
Surrendering to him wasn’t her strong suit, though. She’d need a plan B.
“I get to be on top.” She latched her legs around him and rolled, straddling him with easy grace. Lowering herself against him, she began grinding gently against his thickness.
The grittiness of the ground, the cold against her shins, the pull of her stockings—none of it mattered. Hell, it was an effort to feel anything at all besides her palms pressed into Holden’s pecs.
Or the aching, all-consuming need to ride him until she couldn’t take another breath.
“I don’t know if you’re ready for it.” She smiled and gave him her most winning “come hither” hair flip.
He seized her hips, and in an instant, he’d lifted her up and slid himself inside. He felt so good, so big, and so impossibly hard.
“I’m pretty sure I’m ready for it.” He worked her hips against him, taking command of her every move. She tensed her thighs against his firm legs, but there was no relief from her pulsating need.
Her chest ached as she bounced up and down, but he, almost instinctively, released her hips and grasped her nipples, pinching them between thumb and forefinger, first lightly and then harder as she ground him deeper and deeper inside of her.
“Oh God, you feel so good.” Her fingers clutched his abdomen, his sides, his shoulders, but there was nothing to cling to. Just hard, hot muscles, straining as they worked together for release.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. He filled her so totally, so perfectly, that she was sure nothing in her life from this point forward would ever make her feel so complete. He sensed her needs before she mentioned them.
And he wouldn’t leave. Not tonight.
“Mmm.” She moaned as his hot lips met her throat in a tirade of swift, warm kisses planted from her ear to her collarbone.
In another shock, she heard a soft slap and then a sting on her backside. As soon as the pain began, he was there to massage it, to compound the sting with even more searing desire.
He’d never spanked her before.
And God had she been missing out.
“Do it again,” she breathed, biting gently against his neck as he smacked her again, this time harder and with a more determined aim. Again, he massaged her, hurting and healing her, opening the door to a whole other plain of ecstasy.
“Fuck, yeah,” he growled.
With every touch, her body responded with a gratified grind against his cock, and each movement came faster and harder than the one before.
“Oh God,” she cried, as she tensed again and the roaring tide of her climax swept over her. It was stronger than the last one. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and every nerve ending sparked to life, stretching out into infinity.
On and on, the waves of her orgasm crashed, and she worked him, hoping he could share even a fraction of her own mind-boggling pleasure.
“Fuck, that’s so good.” His fingers dragged across the length of her back, and he joined her in release, coming in desperate, heated spurts until finally, she rested her head on his chest, spent.
She had no intention of getting up any time soon.
She wanted to stay here, straddling him for the rest of the night. As she thought over the not-at-all-terrible prospect of eating pastrami sandwiches and watching daytime talk shows with him still inside of her, she felt a hand brushing hair out of her eyes and tucking it behind her ear. Gently.
Until that moment, she hadn’t realized she’d been kissing his chest.
“So, what do we do now?”
Rodrigo strolled into the room and curled himself up at their feet, apparently just as expectant for her answer as Holden himself.
“We…be together. I guess.” She shrugged and allowed a piece of hair to fall over her face as she tilted her chin to look up into his eyes.
“We be together.” He nodded. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me, too.” She considered it for a moment, then ran her fingers through his hair. “I guess that makes you my boyfriend.”
“I guess it does.” He grinned. “But you know what I think?”
“What’s that?”
“My girlfriend needs some actual food in her house. Come on. Put some clothes on. I’m taking you shopping.”
…
The whole way to the store, Holden didn’t know what to do with himself. Whether it was because he simply couldn’t understand how—in the space of a single trip—everything he’d wanted had come true, or because he still hadn’t brought himself to check his phone, he didn’t know.
His heart was racing just as quickly as his mind, going beat for beat with the questions whirring through his head. Should he extend his trip? Should he move here? Should he get food for himself to keep in her house? Was that too fast?
He chanced a glance at Avery, but she was only staring out the window, smiling to herself, clearly lost in a world of her own.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Huh?” She shook her hair back and faced him, looking just as serene and beautiful as she always did.
“What’s going on in your head?”
“Oh…nothing.” She bit her bottom lip. “I’m just glad. You know, to have you here.”
“Yeah, me, too.” With another jolt of terror, he thought of the cell phone lying in wait in his back pocket. In addition to his voicemails and texts, he hadn’t checked his emails. The odds that his superiors had gotten back to him were good, and if he did…
Well, giving up on another tour wasn’t part of the ten-year plan. He’d told Avery that before, though it was in a different context. And now that she knew his contract was up?
He pulled the smartphone from his pocket and flicked his thumb over the screen.
“What’s the matter? Another message from your mother? She needs you to run to her hotel room?” Avery raised her eyebrows.
He shook his head. “Probably, but I’m not looking at that. I want to spend my day with you.”
“Really? Because far be it for me to upset your mother.” Avery rolled her eyes. “Any more than I already do.”
“You know I don’t care about that.” He pulled up in front of the run-down-looking grocery store and popped the car into park. “I should probably call Tom, though. He’s called about a dozen times.”
Avery shrugged. “If you want to. I’ll head in and get started. I’ve got to get some food for Rodrigo, anyway.”
“And some vegetables. And fruit,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, yeah.” She stalked off toward the entrance of the store, and he glanced down at the phone screen again. Another slew of missed calls waited for him, and a little red dot in the corner of his mailbox let him know that he’d missed a few messages there, too.
“Probably junk mail,” he mumbled, though he knew better than to believe that. He opened the window and flicked his thumb over the messages until he found the one he knew would be there waiting.
The message line was simple, not even a response to the message he’d already sent. It simply read “Deployment Instructions.”
Gritting his teeth, he opened the message and scanned the words. They wanted him to go on another tour. They were going to pay him more—substantially more—to go. He’d get a promotion. And if he didn’t go? Then odds were that he’d never go again.
His life as a soldier would be over. For good.
Breathing a low sigh through his nose, he thumbed into his contacts. He already knew what Avery and his parents would say. His brothers and Marine buddies would be no use, either. Which only left one person.
He dialed the number, and then waited for her to pick up. When she did, she sounded almost breathless.
“Holden,” Myla said. “What a surprise.”
“Hey, Myla. What’s going on?”
“Oh, um.” There was a slight pause, then she said, “Look, I’m going to have to cancel lunch plans with you and Avery for tomorrow. Something came up.”
“That’s totally fine. That’s actually not what I was calling about—”
“Oh, I—” she said, but he glanced toward the store, unsure when Avery might reappear.
“I need your advice,” he said.
“Oh?” Another long silence stretched between them. “What’s going on? Avery acting weird?”
“No, no. She just…we’ve made it official.”
Myla gasped. “No way.”
“Yeah, yeah, we did.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “But I haven’t been completely up front with her about my plans. I mean, I have, but I think she thinks—”
“Well, whatever it is, I think you’ve just got to set clear expectations, you know? That’s the most you can do. Especially with someone like Avery.”
He considered this. “Okay, I think you have a point.”
“But Holden—”
His breath caught in his throat. Avery was practically jogging toward the truck with nothing but a magazine in her hand.
“Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back.” He thumbed the phone off then shoved it back in his pocket as Avery climbed into the car again.
“I stole this.” She looked down at the magazine, as if surprised to see it in her hand.
“I see.”
“I didn’t mean to…I just…” She slapped the front cover. “Did you see this?”
Holden followed her gaze and found a familiar face staring back at him from the glossy cover. Oliver Masters—soap opera darling and love of Myla’s life—French-kissing another starlet on the deck of a swanky hotel.
“No,” Holden said. How had Myla not mentioned that? He’d only just been on the phone with her.
“I need to go to her. I’m really sorry, but can our trip wait? I need to make sure she’s okay. She hasn’t even called me. I mean, she has to know, right? If I saw it on the newsstand—”
“It’ll be okay.” Holden put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and soothed her. “It’ll all be all right. I’ll drive you there and drop you off. You guys can have some girl time.”
Maybe that way he could have some alone time, too, time to reflect on exactly what he wanted in his life. Who he wanted in his life. And how he was going to get all of it.
It shouldn’t be more than an hour’s work.
So, without another word, he gripped the steering wheel tighter and started off for Myla’s.
…
When Avery got to Myla’s house, it was to find her friend sitting on the sun-bleached steps, her head in her hands. Avery approached cautiously, hoping not to spook her. She knew how Myla was after a breakup, delicate and sullen. She’d pretend to be strong, like it didn’t bother her, but then in the next instant, the onslaught of tears would begin, and they wouldn’t stop until the next guy came along to fill the hole that had been left.
Silently, Avery sat down beside her friend and waited for her to speak.
When she didn’t, Avery asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Myla’s voice was strained, and she didn’t bother to look up.
“Myla.”
“I couldn’t… You were with Holden. I didn’t want to bother you when you never get to see him.”
“Not even for this? You know I would have come—”
“I do. And that’s why I couldn’t tell you.” Myla leaned back on her elbows, her eyes closed as her chin tilted toward the sky. “How did you find out?” Myla asked, almost too quietly for Avery to hear.
“I saw it in the paper at the grocery store. You must have known for—”
Myla shook her head. “Soap News Today?”
“Yeah.”
“You found out the same way I did.”
“You can’t mean—”
“I was in the store trying to buy some groceries, and there it was, right on the front page. Oliver and that woman from his show. You know, the worst part was that the hotel in the picture is only a block from my house. It’s like he wanted to get caught. Like…” Myla shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know why men do anything they do.”
Avery scooted toward her friend and put an arm around her shoulder. She waited for the tears to come, but when they didn’t, she said, “Maybe you should just be single for a while now. It might not be a bad idea to play the field.”
Myla let out a humorless laugh. “It’s the only option I’ve got. I don’t have someone waiting around for me like you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got Holden.”
“Only sometimes. Then he goes off and—”
“Waits for you. And you wait for him. You both keep playing this game like you can’t handle being in a relationship, but—”
“I thought this was about you,” Avery interrupted, and Myla sighed.
“I’d just like to have what you guys have, you know? I want to know what it’s like to have someone love me as much as Holden loves you.”
“Holden doesn’t love me.” Avery let out a breathy laugh, but inside she wanted to scream. All she’d agreed to was that she didn’t just want to be his fuck buddy. Why wasn’t that enough for the universe? Why did it have to keep throwing words like “love” and “commitment” her way before she could even take a breath?
Why did everything have to be so serious?
“He does, though,” Myla said, her tone matter-of-fact. “I’ve watched you both since we were in high school together. I’m telling you, that boy loves you.”
“Well, Oliver said he loved you, too,” Avery said as delicately as she could manage.
“He said a lot of things. Whether he meant them or not was another matter entirely.” Myla waved her hand in the air. “But what you have with Holden is special.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? He was just on the phone with me, telling me about his big deployment plans, and about how he doesn’t want to leave you behind. That doesn’t sound like love to you?”
Avery blinked. “His what?”
“You didn’t—”
“His contract is up. Why would he deploy again?” Her heart froze in her chest. “He said his contract was up.”
“It is, but…” Myla shook her head. “Look, forget I said anything. You don’t have to answer to me, but I do think you have to figure out what it is about being committed to Holden that scares you so much.”
“I’m not scared of anything.”
“Avery—”
“You know what we need? Ice cream. Let’s have some, and then I’m going to get to that gallery for my opening tonight. Sound good?”
Myla surveyed her for a long moment, then gave her a shaky nod.