Hold Me Today

by Maria Luis

  29

  Mina

  “Biggest pet peeve about Lord of the Rings—go, don’t think about your answer!” On my laptop, which is propped up on Nick’s office desk, the rolling credits for The Two Towers start playing.

  My head bobs along to the soundtrack. I’ve watched the trilogy more times than I can count since they released, but watching them with Nick on a Saturday night is a completely new experience. One that makes me feel positively giddy as I dig into the bowl of popcorn in my lap.

  One bowl of popcorn, mind you.

  To my left, Nick sits on a low stool, a sharp knife in hand as he carves a divot into the work-in-progress church spire. His dark, curly hair flops boyishly over his forehead, which he blows out of his eyes before answering. “Samwise not letting Frodo die.”

  I throw a popcorn kernel at him. “You can’t just kill Frodo! He’s a leading character.”

  Because Nick is Nick, he manages to catch the flying kernel in his mouth right before it would have bopped him in the cheek. “He’s a maláka, koukla. He should have just stayed in the shire.”

  “You’ve said that before, and I’m here to play devil’s advocate.” Cupping the bowl with both hands, I swivel the office chair to face him head-on. “Frodo’s character arc is by far the best in all three films. He’s the heart of the fellowship, and the one forced to overcome the most obstacles while everyone and their mama wants his head on a pike.”

  “I thought the saying was ‘head on a platter’?”

  Maybe. Probably. “I’m going for the more violent option, considering that Frodo almost died twenty-two times.”

  Nick grins, slowly. “Is that an accurate count?”

  I grin right back. “I’ve got no idea. I’m rounding up and hoping for the best.”

  He shakes his head, laughing, that curly hair flopping right back over again, and then hunches his shoulders to stare at the miniature sculpture, a mask of concentration pulling at his handsome features.

  Deftly, I snag another popcorn kernel and pop it into my mouth. I spent the full three hours of The Fellowship of the Ring watching Nick instead of the movie. I watched as his nimble fingers, roughened from his daily job, skimmed the intricate lines of the half-completed spire. I watched as he sharpened the knife on a whetstone like some woodworker from days of yore. I finished half a bowl of popcorn, existing on the euphoria of seeing Nick in action and hearing my favorite movie play in the background.

  Is this even real life?

  I’ve gone right off the deep end.

  “How did you get into this?” I ask.

  Pewter eyes lift to my face. “The woodworking?”

  “Yeah.”

  If I focus hard enough, I can hear the sharp-edged blade of the knife swoosh against the wood as Nick severs a stray knot he apparently doesn’t like. “I took a class for it in college. One of the projects was creating a sculpture from a four-by-four block of Butternut, one of the easier woods to manipulate.” The strokes of the blade are mesmerizing, making it hard to look away as he works. “Some people chose to carve animals, which is difficult in its own right. Feathers are tedious. Rounded limbs make me want to break out the scotch.”

  “I’m guessing carving birds isn’t a favorite pastime of yours,” I tease.

  “Definitely not.” His mouth curves upward, but his eyes remain focused on the task at hand. “I carved the Parthenon because it was always one of my favorite places we went to when we visited Greece, and it seemed only right that I have one in my own house.”

  A Greek carving only the most famous architectural feature in the country? I don’t feel a lick of surprise. “How’d it turn out? Will I find any replicas in the gift shop on our next visit?”

  Dark, smoky laughter drowns out the sound of Frodo begging loyal Sam to help him—again. “It was awful.”

  “Your brand of awful, which is still pretty perfect, or the rest of society’s awful?”

  “I got a D-plus, koukla.” The stool beneath his butt creaks as he shifts it a few inches over, to reach another side of the sculpture. “I was too ambitious on my first go-round. But even though I came this close to failing, I didn’t really care. I loved the way woodworking stole away my stress. I could work for hours and never feel my eyes start to strain or my fingers grow sore.”

  Earlier, when I asked if he wanted to hang out tonight—thus ruining any lies I’ve been telling myself about not wanting anything more from this fake relationship of ours—Nick suggested coming over to his office. He asked me to bring my laptop but that he’d cover everything else. And he had.

  He was the one to bring the three Lord of the Rings movies, as though suspecting I might want to binge-watch them all. (I never turn down Orlando Bloom as Legolas—ever.) He brought the popcorn, going so far as to purchase a ticket at the movies just so he could hit up the concession stands for buttery, movie-theater popcorn. All before he confessed that woodworking was a solitude endeavor for him, something he did when no one else was around and the office was silent, save for the sound of the blade meeting the grain of the wood.

  Except, for tonight, he made it into a date. Something we could enjoy together.

  Nick Stamos, my best friend’s older brother, is tearing down my life-long determination to keep my eyes on the dream—Agape—and leave dating and men and love to other people more cut out for relationships.

  I want to hate him for it, but I’m having way too much fun to even consider pumping the breaks. He makes me feel special, and it should be noted that I’ve grown rather addicted to the way Greek peppers his English and when he really wants to turn me on, he knows that a kiss to the delicate skin at the base of my neck gets me revved up from one to one-hundred in no time at all.

  “Can I try?” The question leaves me before I can talk myself out of it. Nerves flare in the pit of my belly, making my fingers dig into the cardboard popcorn container. The worst he can say is no. Don’t freak out. Flexing my fingers to keep them from tapping, I tack on, “I mean, not on that one. The church spire. You’ve been working on it for years and God knows I’ll—”

  “Éla édo,” comes his low command. “I’ll guide you.”

  Oh. Oh.

  I practically throw the popcorn onto the desk in my excitement. “Wait, hold on—don’t go anywhere!” Darting from the room, I head straight to the tiny bathroom tucked between Nick’s office and the conference room at the far end of the hall. I don’t bother to lock the door as I wash the butter and salt from my fingers, giving them a good scrub before I dry off and hurry back to where he’s waiting. “Sorry,” I tell him when I return, “I didn’t want to ruin the wood with AMC’s delicious butter.”

  Nick’s mouth twitches. “Get over here, butter fingers. Let me show you how this is done.”

  He doesn’t have to tell me twice, though I do roll my eyes at the silly nickname.

  Spotting an extra footstool, I pull it over to where Nick sits. With the heels of his heavy boots, he scrapes his stool back, leaving me room to place mine closest to the spire. Threads of anticipation circle my heart, quickening its rhythm as I sit down and keep my knees wide to avoid touching the wood.

  “Is this okay?” I ask.

  Nick hums his approval, a throaty, masculine sound that twines the thread just a little tighter. “Perfect. Here, let me show you exactly what we’re doing.”

  “You aren’t worried I’ll mess it up?”

  “If you do, I’ll fix it. The key is to make sure that you don’t hack into the wood—that’s an irreversible mistake.” His bulky arms fold around me, and his chest gently collides with my back. I watch as he maneuvers the blade of the knife over the straight edge of the bell tower. “You always want to go with the grain of the wood,” he husks out, his warm breath against my neck as he whittles the wood. “Go against it and the wood will peel or splinter. I don’t work with an image. Never really have, which means it all comes down to instinct. A lot like when you work on a client’s hair.”

  The com
parison between our chosen mediums has never been lost on me. We work with our hands, day-in and day-out. We create beauty out of nothing, testing the boundaries, relying on the basics to guide our way: the grain of the wood or the texture of the hair, the softness or coarseness of them both.

  I find myself leaning back into his chest, absorbing his warmth, my forearms resting on his muscular thighs as he shows me the correct technique to use. “The sharper the blade, the more the wood feels like butter,” he tells me. “Here, want to try the detail work? I’ll help you.”

  He hands me the knife, wood-handle first. It’s light in my grip, lighter than I expected, to be honest. I eye the detail work he’s already begun, along with the shallow groove that sits a few centimeters from the edge. Angling the blade as he showed me, I scoot forward on the stool and try to recreate the gentle motions he executed so naturally.

  “A little harder,” Nick encourages.

  I try again, deepening the way I angle the blade down through the grain. The thinnest slice of wood curls free.

  Excitement cuts right through me. “Look!”

  “Ómorfi.” Beautiful. Full lips find the space behind my ear, over my soaring wings. “Now let me show you how to make it look more Gothic.”

  We work together in companionable silence. The Two Towers exists as pure background noise as I carve the tiniest circles into the wood, using another one of Nick’s whittling knives, this one for curves and rounded edges. He never moves from behind me, but his hands, when they aren’t guiding mine, touch me instead.

  His palm settles in the curve of my waist.

  The other splays flat over my thigh, his fingers inches from my sex.

  He holds me more possessively than he ever has, touching me like we’re in this together. Like we’re together. And I can’t deny that every time his chest lifts with an in-drawn breath, I feel myself breathe in time with him too.

  Meanwhile, warm encouragements slip off his tongue.

  “Yeah, just like that, koukla.”

  “Go a little deeper there, but otherwise it’s perfect.”

  “Slowly . . . don’t rush it.”

  Everything he says sounds downright sexual.

  I refrain from squirming, even though the pressure between my legs is at an all-time high, and oh, God, how does he do this to me? Focus, girl. Focus on the wood!

  Except that I want to be focusing on his wood. Pun so very much intended. Is he hard right now? Is he fighting the good fight, too, trying to keep the moment light and not steaming with sex now please vibes? I can’t be the only one on the verge of losing the battle.

  His palm, the one resting on my thigh, skims higher as he readjusts himself behind me.

  Curious minds want to know exactly what he’s readjusting.

  The thought yanks a whimper from me.

  Nick goes still, tension seeping into his hand and arms where there wasn’t any before. I hear his breath hitch, then a deep pull in through his nose. The air fairly crackles with a time-old throw-down: who will make the first move?

  Me.

  I lower the knife, closing the switch blade, and deliberately place it on the floor at our feet.

  The white flag of surrender. Throwing down the gauntlet. However you want to put it, I make it clear that the next move belongs to him.

  He doesn’t disappoint.

  His lips wordlessly find my neck, in that spot I love so much. My skin flares with heat, and I allow my head to fall to the side in complete submission. Yes, more of that. His nose rasps up, up, up, until he’s turning my head to the side and claiming my mouth with his. Whereas his hands were patient while whittling the wood, his kiss is not. It pulls me under like that long-ago wave crashing down over his head, and I go, willingly, moaning into his mouth.

  One broad hand fits over my stomach, dragging me back until there’s no space between us. His legs are splayed, his jean-covered cock thrusting against my back without a hint of shame, and I rock back and forth, trying to alleviate the pressure, my clit already pulsing.

  “Keep your legs spread.”

  His rough timbre reverberates through me as his big hand moves between my legs, clasping me boldly through my fleece-lined leggings. As though I’m having an out-of-body experience, I watch, transfixed, as he rubs my clit through the material. He uses three fingers, the pressure he keeps relentlessly steady.

  My head falls back on his chest. My hips rise, again and again, to meet the circling of those fingers. My eyes never once leave from ground zero.

  “Nick,” I pant, “that feels so good.”

  He chuckles against my back. Tears his fingers away, leaving me to protest with an attempt to grab his hand, before I realize he’s aiming for exactly where I want him. He slides his hand under the band of my leggings. Under my underwear, too.

  Yes, please.

  Nick glides his fingers over my pubic bone, his other hand coming around me to hook a thumb under the waistband to give him more room without the elastic snapping back into place. I feel the first touch of his fingertip to the hood of my sex like a junkie feels the first prick of the needle, my body jolting upward. His ankles hook around mine, keeping my legs from curling inward at the pleasure rioting through me.

  We haven’t even had sex more than a handful of times, and yet it’s like he can already predict my every move.

  Every need.

  Every damn thought that enters my head.

  Harsh breathing echoes alongside Gollum being Creepy Gollum on my laptop, and then I can’t focus on anything else because Nick sinks two fingers into my pussy and steals every last thought that isn’t give me more of that.

  “C’mon, koukla,” he grinds out roughly, “ride my fingers the way you ride my cock.”

  Dirty-talking Nick is my favorite Nick.

  My hips swivel down, curling upward, before doing it all over again. He thrusts those fingers up, curling them on every pass. His thumb glosses over my clit, circling in time to the tempo of his magical fingers. Pleasure spikes through me like a ping-pong ball gone rogue. I strain against his legs, my fingers digging into his muscled, jean-clad thighs.

  Those two fingers pull out of me, delving through my folds, leaving wetness in their path. And then they’re pressing flat on my clit, rubbing and circling and driving me absolutely mad, and not the least bit concerned that it’s Nick of all people seeing me come undone.

  I cry out his name as the orgasm rips through me.

  I’m aware of my legs quivering.

  I’m aware of how he doesn’t stop touching me until he’s wrung out every drop that he can.

  I’m aware of the hard-on against my spine, the way it twitches in Nick’s jeans when I come.

  I push Nick’s hands away, then slip off the stool to my knees. Shoving my empty stool to the side, I don’t waste time in reaching forward to the brass button separating me from Nick’s very large bulge.

  His hand lands on the back of my head. “Ermione, you don’t need to—”

  I pull his cock free from the confines of his jeans, zipper tugged down. One glance up at Nick’s face shows me what he wants, what he needs, and I sink my fingers down to his base. His mercurial pewter eyes blaze with desire, and I don’t look away as I lean forward, balancing my weight on his thigh, and then lick the crown of his dick.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  English profanity—success strums through me.

  I do it again, my tongue swirling over the head, before taking him fully into my mouth. That hand in my hair flexes as Nick emits a needy groan. Again, my heart whispers, make him do that again. I grip the root of him, bringing my hand up as I swallow him down. I work him in tandem, listening to every sound that leaves his mouth as guidance for exactly what he likes. Problem is, he likes it all.

  Scratch that. It’s totally not a problem.

  His hips lift off the stool; his hand in my hair keeps me grounded in place as he thrusts upward. I relax my mouth, fisting his hard-on faster, tighter, until his hips are churni
ng to match the very same rhythm I’ve set to drive him off the deep end.

  “Shit, Mina.” Flicking my gaze up, I watch the veins in his throat leap as he throws back his head. I wish I could see us together now: Nick losing control as he fucks my mouth, me on my knees, the root of all his pleasure.

  I cup his balls with my free hand, tugging slightly.

  But it’s enough to—

  He rips himself free from my mouth, his hands locking on my shoulders to haul me up to my feet. “Take off your pants or I’ll tear them off,” he growls, pushing his jeans down to his feet.

  It’s a tough decision to make. I have other leggings. I really don’t need this pair.

  But, ultimately, I strip them off myself because it’s got to be quicker than the whole alpha-ripping-thing I’ve only heard about in my audiobooks. Without waiting for another order, I hop on his desk, legs dangling over the edge.

  I fixate everything that I am on Nick.

  He destroys the distance between us with three long-legged strides. Reaches behind me to close my laptop, leaving only the sounds of us breathing hard, and pushes it roughly aside. The popcorn scatters to the floor, victim to the cause, kernels flying every which way.

  Nick grasps my right leg, drawing it up until my heel is planted on the desk and I’m completely exposed. Only, instead of slamming right into me, he drops to his haunches and flicks his tongue right over me without a single head’s up.

  My head drops back. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

  “Correction,” he drawls, voice thick with lust, “Saint Nick.”

  I want to laugh and I want to cry out and it only seems natural that I do a little bit of both when he clamps a hand down on my thigh and sweeps his tongue around my clit, spreading my wetness, adding his own. It’s messy and raw and I’ve never, never, experienced such toe-curling pleasure in my life.