Chapter 7
Conleigh
For the past week, I have felt like I am in a dream, a nightmare really. I gave in to my attraction for Holden. Every second I was with him felt like the I was seeing butterflies for the first time. All the magic…it was there…for a moment it was real. Then it was ripped away from me. That’s the thing about magic…it never lasts.
I wish I would have said screw it and let Ezra see me with his best friend but as much as he deserved it, I still couldn’t bring myself to hurt him in that way. I was afraid. But that is the funny thing about fear…it’s never rational. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s right and what is real anymore. I’ve allowed fear to rule me. I’ve given Ezra what he wanted, we aren’t back together but we aren’t exactly not together either.
Last night when he finished what he was working on, he came to bed. I was laying there reading and he kissed my forehead as he had so many times and for a few fleeting moments it felt right and we kissed. It wasn’t all consuming or all together passionate. It was…familiar.
He caressed my cheeks and I let my guard down for one minute and he found his way in. His tongue slid between my lips and I allowed him to explore what we once shared. Those feelings we spent two years building came rushing back. It wasn’t fair of me but I was still keyed up from my encounter with Holden in the kitchen. Then I saw him last night with her. His wife. I was going to see if he was in his shop. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I got the idea quickly when his finger was in her mouth. I didn’t hang out on the stairs any longer and went back inside before either of them noticed me. I used Ezra and let him touch me, all the while knowing it was wrong but he knows my body and he fingered me and kissed me until I got off. Then he jacked off next to me without any help from me.
I told him I would give him a chance, but deep down I’m not trying. I figure he will fuck up again sooner or later. Go fuck Judy again, though he says he fired her. I guess that makes me a coward.
It’s the next morning and I feel like a shitty person.
Holden tugs on my hair as he goes to the fridge. Electricity shoots through my body. Ezra is in the shower. I hear the refrigerator door opening then closing, and I don’t dare turn around. I keep my attention locked on the bacon frying in the pan.
I can’t crack. I can’t break. I have a plan to let Ezra fuck up again so I can get out of my promise to him and I have to stick to it. But Holden isn’t making it easy on me.
I can feel his breath on my neck as chills fan across my chest and a shiver escapes me, giving my reaction away.
“I’ll see you in a few,” he whispers, his breath hot, sticky even, as it clings to the shell of my ear. We’re supposed to go look at a car I have been eyeing.
I feel frozen in place, unable to speak let alone breathe. His hand cups my jaw, his finger pressing between my lips before traveling down my arm, over the curve of my hip and to my butt. I gasp as he cups my cheek, firm, full of possession.
Ezra will be out of the shower any second now. He could walk in right now. What would he see? Holden standing close to my back? Would he know he has me on the brink of insanity, trapped between desire and stupidity?
“Don’t kiss him goodbye. Don’t be long. Wear the red shirt, I love you in red.” His words are still reaching my brain when I realize he has already exited the room.
“Hey, you’re burning the bacon.” Ezra.
Snapping from Holden’s spell, I look down as black smoke begins wisp up to my nose. Curling my lips, I remove the skillet from the burner before it chars. “Sorry.”
I turn around and see Ezra with a towel secured around his trim but fit waist. It hits me—guilt…realization that seeing him does nothing to me. Not even a morsel of the response Holden just awakened in me moments ago. I’m in deep shit. Why did I tell Ezra I would give him a chance when I know we are so over? Because I had a moment of jealousy and wanted to get Holden back for being with his wife. God, I am so fucked in the head.
Holden is only fucking with me. I can’t let my feelings for him cloud what I need to do. I shake my head and return my attention to preparing Ezra’s bacon sandwich.
“What’s your schedule look like today?” I ask, as I slather his wheat toast with mayonnaise.
“Meeting with the design team for the cat litter account at eight, conference calls until lunch, then a game of golf with the old man and his banker.”
“So, a late night then?”
“Probably will stay at the clubhouse, so I can go to the airport from there with dad.”
I nod. Excitement floods me. I’m a terrible person. I completely forgot he will be gone for the next four days.
“You working the split shift at the bar?”
I smile as Holden flashes to the front of my mind. “Yeah, I get off around seven. I may catch a movie with Bailey after.”
“That’s good. I’m glad you have her to keep you company while I’m away.”
“I could come to the clubhouse and stay with you, that is if you want me too?” I offer knowing he will decline. He never wants me there. He probably has a bitch on the side there as well.
“Go, enjoy the movie. I’ll be turning in early. The car will be there at four-thirty in the morning. I’ll be sleeping as soon as I get in.”
“Makes sense.” I am surprised he is being so agreeable. After our fight, he has gone back to being his usual workaholic-self, acting as though nothing happened, as though he didn’t cheat on me.
Ezra eats his sandwich and gets ready for work. I can hear Holden downstairs working in his shop. I wish he wasn’t married, but he doesn’t seem to care. Why should I? Maybe I will start thinking like a guy and having my side piece too. Why shouldn’t I get the best of both worlds like Ezra and Holden.
In the bedroom, I start getting ready for my shift at the bar later and to hopefully get a car. My fingers brush across the red shirt Holden asked me to wear. As much as I want to make him happy, I shouldn’t encourage him. I should let both of them go, but this is too good of real material for my book.
Ezra comes up behind me as I take the black bar shirt from the hanger. His arms go around me and I shiver (not in a good way either). “I’m going to miss you while I’m gone. I don’t like you working at the bar.” His chin dips down on my shoulder and his cologne that I used to love the scent of makes my stomach churn as much as his touch does. “But at least I know Holden will keep an eye on you and keep any customers from attempting to steal you away from me. I love you in black, Snookems, it makes me so damn hard.”
I freeze and decide I never want to wear black again.
Ezra leaves and I grab the red shirt.
————
In the cab of his truck, Holden grips the wheel tightly. Tension surrounds us so damn thick that I have to crack my damn window. “Why ya sitting over there?”
I don’t know why I say it but I guess it’s eating at me. “Because I’m not your wife.”
His eyes darken as he swerves into the next lane and pulls into a car wash stall. He shuts the truck off.
“What are you doing?” I ask as he unbuckles his seatbelt.
He turns to face me. “Come here,” he growls.
“No.” I fold my arms over my chest. The chilly air seeps through my cracked window, filling the truck quickly. The windows begin to sweat and fog as the warmth from the heater mixes with it.
Holden reaches over and undoes my seatbelt. His eyes never leave mine as I glare at him. I reluctantly meet him in the middle of the bench seat. “Wipe that fucking snarky look from your face, Con. Reese and me been over for years. I don’t have to explain myself to you. I don’t see you telling me shit all about you getting back with Ezra.”
He has me there and I pout.
“You’re jealous.” He brushes his thumb over my lips. “Did you kiss him?”
I look away and he sighs. “You going back to him?”
“Does it matter? I saw you with her last night.”
He sucks in a breath. “Don’t know what you saw, but I asked you a question?”
“Not this morning,” I answer him.
He pinches my bottom lip between his fingers on the verge of being painful. He whispers, “Good.” Then he kisses me softly.
His mouth on mine ignites me and I push his shoulders back, pressing him into the door, deepening our kiss. His hands grip my hips as I work on pulling his shirt over his head. His thumb brushes over my hip bone while his other hand cups my ass. “We could go back to the apartment ya know,” he says with a smirk.
“Wren’s there,” I tell him like it matters.
“We can get a room and say fuck the world today,” he says and it is so damn tempting.
“We have time. Ezra will be gone for the next three or four days,” I inform him.
His hands stop touching me and he goes rigid. “What’s that have to do with anything?”
“I only meant we won’t have to worry about him being around. Holden, are you seriously mad at me right now?”
“Forget it,” he says but I can’t.
I wrap my arms around his neck and he rolls his eyes and tries to pry me off him.
His cock is steely beneath me and I rock into him. “Holden.”
“We should go before someone sees us.”
I rest my forehead on his. “We should but I don’t want to,” I confess and unbutton his jeans. I wink at him and bite my swollen lip.
His head thumps back on the glass and he holds my hands still. “Not here like this. Tonight, after the bar closes we’ll talk.”
“Suit yourself,” I grumble and slide back to the passenger side sexually frustrated.