CHAPTER NINE
Havoc
I’m calling myself a ton of words, none of them good, as I all but agree to her plan. I’m not disagreeing, but maybe that’s worse. If I were disagreeing, at least I would be putting up a fight and not just letting this happen. I’ve wanted her for too long, and I’m starting to lose the fight.
Fact of the matter is though, I feel awful, and if the only way she’s going to let me take a shower is with her, then I’ll do what needs to be done. I’m sore, tired, achy, and perpetually horny. Any one of those things would be enough to put someone in a bad mood, but all of them at once? Shit, I’m gonna need the patience of a saint.
Another cough rattles my chest, pulling against the not-yet-healed bruised tissue. It might be time to face the music and admit that I’m sick. Sick isn’t a word I have in my vocabulary – I don’t have time for that. But when it happens, it’s awful and it takes the wind out of all my sails. I don’t suffer from man flu like some of my friends do; when I’m sick, it’s bad. And this right here? Feels really fucking bad.
“Are you okay?” Leighton asks as she puts an arm around my waist.
Apparently I stumbled. Knowing she won’t be able to handle my weight on her own, I put the palm of my hand against the wall and do my best to help her. I’m not used to being an invalid, and this fucking sucks.
“I’m fine.” I try to nod, but the room swims in my vision.
“Holden, you’re shivering, are you sure you want a shower? Do you want to lie down instead?”
“Shower,” I croak out. I want it so bad, because I know the warm water will feel amazing on my aching body. “Need to.” My teeth chatter as she helps me into the bathroom.
As we enter the room, she points to the toilet, and I gratefully sink onto the closed lid. Leaning forward, I put my elbows on my knees, and close my eyes. The room spins and I feel hungover. Fuck, I haven’t felt hungover in at least the last two years. I’ve been a damn boy scout, doing what I’m supposed to do, taking care of my guys, and living the life of a monk. My mind wanders, and I wish like hell I didn’t take responsibility so seriously. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be carrying around this second ache in my pants. With my eyes closed, my hearing overcompensates. Leighton is moving around, cranking the water on. Hot because I can feel the steam starting to come from the shower. That’s when the nightmare really starts. She’s now taking her clothes off, and even in the state I’m in, I notice the sound her shirt makes as it goes over her head.
“Stand up, Holden.” She places her hands under my underarms and helps me stand. “Let’s get these clothes off you,” she mumbles pushing her hands underneath my shirt. I can feel her palms against my skin, her touch warm and caressing, against my aching muscles.
With quick efficiency, she strips me, and I’m standing naked in front of her. Finally, I barely open my eyes, inhaling deeply when I see she’s as naked as I am. My eyes travel from her feet, straight up to the top of her head, and then I go back to her face. It’s pink, with either embarrassment or the heat from the shower. I’m not sure which. I close my eyes and let my head tilt to the side on my neck. When I lift my lids, I can’t help but stare openly at her chest. There’s a little more than a handful there, the tips tight against the cool air in the shower, and they look like they’re swelling for my touch.
“You’re gorgeous.” The words slip from my lips before I can stop them.
She laughs softly, ducking her head. “You’re feverish.”
I lick my dry lips and lean in, grasping her hips with my hands. “Maybe for the first time with you, I’m being one-hundred percent honest.”
Leighton
Dear God, why does a sick and feverish Holden have to be so damn irresistible? His eyes are glassy, his face is flushed, and I’ve watched him stumble his way to the bathroom with my arms wrapped around his waist. I know he’s not faking the sickness, but who’s to say he realizes what he’s saying right now.
Even as I touch his skin, it’s burning up. He’s definitely spiked a high fever, and I’m waiting for the spray from the shower to cool down a bit. I don’t want to shock his system, lukewarm will hopefully bring his core temperature down. Instead, as I glance over his naked body, mine’s heating up.
“C’mon, Holden.” I lead us into the shower, turning him around so that the water is flowing over his neck and back muscles. I watch as he lifts his face up, tilting his head back, letting it wash over him. Rivulets of water snake down his head, past the short beard, making a track through the dark ink on his chest, to where I can’t see anymore. “You okay?” I grab his shoulders, holding on tight.
He sways slightly as he brings his head back forward, regarding me with those dark eyes. “I hurt so bad,” he admits, rolling his head around on his neck. He wipes a hand over his face to remove some of the water. “I feel like shit.”
Bringing him in for a hug, because that’s what I need most in this world when I feel like shit, I bury his face in my neck. We haven’t ever been this vulnerable with one another, and I let my hands travel over the buzzcut on his head, before moving down to grasp his shoulder with one hand, his waist with the other. After what I think is an eternity, he lets his body relax and wraps his arms around my waist. Closing my eyes, I let myself enjoy the complete satisfaction I get from the two of us being wrapped up in one another.
“You smell good,” I mumble against his shoulder, kissing the wet skin on a whim. Every inch of our bodies is touching, and I would give my life to push us toward the bedroom right now, let him lay me down, and have his way with me. Holden is all man and would show me what I’ve been missing in that department, I’m sure.
He grunts deep in his throat, the sound made even more manly by the scratchiness I heard there earlier. “You always smell fucking delectable. I don’t know what it is you wear, but I smell that shit in my dreams at night.”
Those words please me to no end, and when he turns his head further into my neck, dropping a kiss, the same way I did, I’m done for. I want to do a fist pump, give a shout, and maybe dance a jig. But I can’t, I can’t let Holden know how much he affects me, how often I daydream about us being truly together and where our future may take us. Right now though, I can enjoy the hell out of this.
Tilting my head to the side to give him better access, I bite my bottom lip, releasing a pleased moan, as he uses his tongue along my jawline before he dips down and takes a nip at my flesh. “Havoc,” I breathe out, unsure of why I choose this moment to use his call sign.
“What’d you say?” He stops, grasping my chin between his thumb and forefinger, leveling our gazes at one another. His eyes burn hot, darker than I’ve ever seen them before. Arousal rides high on his cheeks, and I wonder if I’ve done something good or bad.
“I called you Havoc, I’m sorry.” Why I’m apologizing I’m not sure, but I feel like I need to. He stares at me for an eternity before he shakes his head.
“No, don’t apologize. I’ve never heard a woman say that name before. At least not in that breathy, aroused voice you just used.” He takes my hand in his and lazily moves it down to what I’ve been trying to ignore. “Can’t you feel how hard it got me?”
It did get him hard, and that’s a good thing to know in the back of my mind. He moans as I grasp him in my hand, using my fingers to caress the hard length. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” I whisper in his ear before I take the lobe in between my teeth, running my tongue along the diamond earring he wears. I can’t seem to help myself. Now that I’ve started, I don’t ever want to stop. The ring he wears on his left hand gives me rights, ones I’ve never used before, and even as I’m saying we shouldn’t, I fucking really want to.
“Why?” he uses his weight to push me back against the tile, to hold me while he moves one hand up to the curve of my breast, then sneaks his thumb to the peak of my nipple. He’s not pressing hard though, I know what it’s like to be crushed to this man. The way he’s moving me around is almost tender. “Why shouldn’t we do this?” His voice is strained, deep, and needy. I’m sure mine sounds the same way. My body is humming, skin tight from where he’s been touching me, and I want nothing more than to try out the shower sex that I’ve heard people talking about, but my conscious is telling my body to slow down.
He teeters again, and I drop his cock to help him get his balance. “That’s exactly why – you’re sick.”
“Not dead.” He shoves his mouth into my neck again, having already figured out that’s an extremely erogenous zone for me. “Maybe not in tiptop shape.”
I forcibly remove his mouth from my neck, meeting his eyes with mine. “Maybe I want you in tiptop shape, and maybe I want to make sure you aren’t going to pass out on me.”
“Trust me; I’ve wanted you long enough not to pass out. At night I lie in bed thinking about this, wondering how long we’re going to be able to hold back from one another. It’s so thick between us; you can cut it with a knife. These feelings aren’t going anywhere, Leigh.”
Suddenly, I feel like I’ve stepped into another dimension. I’m not sure how we got from where we were this afternoon to here. Part of me knows it’s mutual sexual attraction between us, the other part of me wonders if we’re just sick of fighting it. Lord, I’ve been fighting it for so long, and I don’t want to give in, just to have our relationship be over. “No they aren’t, and if that’s the case, I think we should finish the shower and get you in bed.”
And those are the hardest words I’ve ever spoken in my life. Please don’t pull away from me, I beg in my head. I like this Holden, like that he’s willing to show me a part of himself he never has before. Sitting with him in the booth earlier today and being with him tonight have made this whole situation I’ve been thrown into almost worth it.
He clears his throat. “Maybe you’re right.”
The coldness I feel when he leaves me is like the frigid temperature of Antarctica, and this time my teeth begin to chatter. Gone is the warm fuzzy feeling I’d had a few minutes ago, and in its place is the coolness I’ve felt most of my life. I know he doesn’t mean it, but it’s like we’ve thrown ice-cold water on one another.
Without any of the playfulness we’d had minutes ago, we finish the shower, and I help him dry off and get dressed. In the end, his eyes are droopy and I know it was for the best that I called off whatever was going to happen between us. He’s done for, and I think we both know it.
“Are you going to lie down with me?” he asks quietly as we walk into the bedroom we’ve shared since I moved in. Tonight, I’m wondering how in the hell we’ve kept our hands off one another every night. How have we been so successful in avoiding the way both of us feel? What changed? Maybe that’s the question I should be asking. What the hell changed? Why do I feel so close to him tonight?
“Do you want me to?”
I don’t want to pressure him, especially after what happened in the bathroom. Neither one of us needs the temptation or honestly the frustration.
“I hate being alone when I’m sick,” he admits.
“Which is totally different from how you are all the rest of the time.” I wink.
“It’s true, normally I love my alone time. I’ve always been a bit of a loner, but when I’m sick,” he shakes his head as if to say I am who I am, “I like to have company.”
“Then you’ll have company, just let me go make sure everything is turned off and the doors are locked.”
I quickly pad back into the living room, make sure everything is taken care of, and get back to him for the night. At the doorway to our bedroom, I stop quickly. He’s lying on the bed, propped up by some pillows, looking so much like a little kid. Holden barely lets his guard down with anyone, and right now there is nothing in between us. I’ll hold onto this memory forever. It doesn’t take me long to get ready and hop in next to him.
“It’s your turn to the pick the movie,” he tells me as I come back into the room. He’s already got the TV on, Netflix queued up on the screen.
“You sure? You’re sick, maybe I should let you pick it.”
“I can almost guarantee I’ll be out before this movie is an hour in. You pick what you want.”
On impulse, I pick a love story. One I’ve seen a million times. “I always wanted someone to dance with me like this.” I snuggle in next to him, allowing him to wrap me in his arms.
As he watches Patrick Swayze shake his hips on the screen, he snorts. “I’m not your dance partner if that’s the kind of dancing you want.”
“We could take lessons,” I suggest, turning my face so that ours are inches apart in the darkness of the room. Only the TV lights the way for us to see one another.
“You want me to take dance lessons with you?”
“I’m sure they offer them in Birmingham.” I’m quick to make a suggestion. The confession had been uttered before I realized what I was saying, and then the invitation to take lessons hadn’t been thought through either.
We’re quiet for a long time, and I wonder if he’s not even going to give me an answer. Maybe this is the time I’ve overstepped my boundaries and I’ve asked too much of him.
“Does it mean something to you?” His question is whispered in the relative silence of the room.
I shrug. “Just something I always wanted to do.”
I’m downplaying it, and I think he knows.
“Leigh, if we want this to work, you have to be honest with me. There’s no other way we can make it if you’re not.”
He’s already done so much for me, I hate to lay this on him as well, but I brought it up, and he’s asking, so I’m going to give him the whole spiel. Doesn’t matter in the end anyway, because I don’t know if this marriage is forever or not anyway.
“When I was ten, I saw that movie for the first time.”
He interrupts me. “Are you shitting me? That’s a sexual movie for a ten-year-old.”
“Remember what family I come from.” I raise an eyebrow and he motions for me to continue. “From that point on, I had it in my head that on my wedding day, my husband and I would do a portion of that last dance, including the lift,” I laugh as I say it now. “Never in my life have I trusted anyone to hold me up like that, and without a doubt, I knew even then that the man I married would have my trust. I’d trust him enough not to drop me, for me to let go, and spread my wings as far as I could.”
I stop, biting my lip, not going any further. I glance at him, giving him a tilt of my mouth. “Stupid, huh?”
“Not stupid.” He grabs my hand in his. “Am I the man to have that trust?” His brown eyes search mine, looking for something I’m not sure I’m ready to give.
“It doesn’t matter why we got married, Holden,” I whisper, because it’s the only way I can get through this. I’m about to lay some truth out, and hope he hears it loud and clear. “I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t trust you.”
He makes a sound in his throat, one I’m not sure of what origin, but I squeal happily as he pulls me into his chest. “Thank you for that gift.”
“Thank you for keeping me safe.”
As we’re both drifting off, I can feel him push my hair back from my forehead, and in that hoarse voice I can hear him speak. “If keeping you safe is the only reason you think I married you, Leigh, you aren’t lookin’ hard enough at what I’m trying to show you.”