“Then she went to work. She had to work on goddamn Christmas Day. And Dad got drunk. And he didn’t mean to, I really don’t think he did, but he broke it. Sent it flying when he fell into a table, and—and Mom had worked so hard. She was so excited she was able to get it for me, and he broke it. I got so mad, and screamed at him. Sometimes I’m just like him.” She had been. Couldn’t keep a lid on her temper, couldn’t stop being so fucking angry all the time.
And. Fuck. She dug in her pockets for a tissue, but then Sam was pressing one of the napkins from before into her palm. She wiped her nose and her eyes, but it wouldn’t stop.
She heaved in a deep breath and let it out as slowly as she could. “He…” He’d kicked her ass, is what he’d done. “He got mad. Really mad.” She hadn’t been able to sit without it hurting for a week. “And, um. Violent. Which wasn’t how things always were.”
Every line of Sam’s body was filled with tension, but he never let her go, and she could have kissed him for it, if her face hadn’t been such a mess. If she could have gotten herself under control.
She tried to steel herself to tell the rest. “He didn’t apologize. Didn’t seem to care, and it wasn’t even that he’d broken something I’d wanted. It was that he’d broken something Mom got for me, and then pushed me around when I got upset about it. And I just—I realized it was never going to stop.”
“That was when you left?”
Nodding, she crumpled the napkin in her palm. “Mom came home, and I was completely freaking out, and black and blue, and I told her I couldn’t do this anymore, and she had to choose. Him or me.” God, this part still hurt. “She told me she couldn’t leave him. That she wouldn’t ever, and that it wasn’t that bad, and if I didn’t provoke him…”
She could still see her mother. She’d had a ghost of a bruise herself, a smudged-over echo of pain that had wrapped around her wrist, and Holly had seen her whole life stretched out in front of her. She’d seen the hurt never stopping. The fear. The never knowing if you were going to be okay that day or if it was going to be a war again.
“I packed a bag. I left. On Christmas fucking Day.”
She’d begged her mother to come, too. They could make it on their own. It would be all right, and they wouldn’t have to be afraid. Wouldn’t have to hurt anymore.
“I didn’t have many friends, but one of them took me in. Didn’t report it to social services. I just had the one semester left, and then between my grades and how broke we were, I had a full ride for college.”
Rubbing soothing circles into her back, he waited until she’d caught her breath before asking, “Did you ever talk to either of them again?”
“I called my mom. A couple of times. The first time about a week after I left, and then again before I headed here. Both times, she—she was glad I was safe. She said she didn’t blame me. But she’d made her choice, and I’d made mine.”
And that was when she’d started to get angry.
Her ribs tightened like a fist around her lungs, and she swiped hard at her eyes as she pushed up, moving to sit. The air beyond their little cocoon had gotten even colder, but her face was flushed, and she couldn’t get a deep breath. “Our family was broken, from the very first day. Messed up and awful, and…” Her voice cracked. “And I never wanted anything more. Than a family. Like the ones you see on TV.”
The ones that sat around in their pajamas, opening presents together on Christmas Eve, eating giant turkeys and playing games together.
Families like the one Sam had walked away from. And that was terrible and unfair to even think. She didn’t know the half of it. But she would have given anything for what Sam had had. For a father who cared so much about who his son became that he pushed him harder.
Instead of the life of a daughter who was never enough, and so had to push herself, just to survive. Just to not give up.
“Not that you would ever know it, looking at me. That I wanted that,” she said, scrubbing with the napkin beneath her nose. God, she was such a disaster. “I push everyone away. Never let anyone close, because I didn’t deserve…” I don’t deserve…Fuck, fuck, fuck. These thoughts she never let herself entertain. Never let herself so much as imagine giving space to, and they were falling out of her now, fast as rain and hot as truth, and it hurt. She choked with the force of her sob. “I left,” she forced out. “I left her there. I left my mom—”
Then Sam was sitting up right next to her, his hand on her face and those beautiful eyes of his dead level with hers. And he held her so tenderly. The way she’d always wanted to be held but had never allowed herself to be, because she’d never believed…never trusted…
“You saved yourself.” He grasped her cheeks in both his hands, and there wasn’t a single thing about him that didn’t radiate sincerity. “You tried to save her.”
“Not enough.”
“Some people…” His breath hitched. “Some people can’t be saved until they’re ready to be.”
And it was in that moment that she saw it, written all over his mouth and eyes. In the lines across his brow. He hadn’t been ready to be saved. Hadn’t been ready to tell the truth about his life.
He was reaching out now. And she was holding on to him like a lifeline she could use to pull herself to shore. After three long years of treading water…maybe. Maybe she was ready, too.
To be saved in an entirely different way.
She blinked and blinked and dragged her hands across her face until the haze cleared from her eyes. All she could see was him. And instead of keeping him out, she’d let him in. Given him more than what he’d asked of her. Given him everything.
For the first time in ages, she set her feet down on dry land.
She lifted her hand to rest it on his jaw, and she didn’t think she’d ever seen anything with so much clarity. Not in the entirety of her life.
A whole other kind of warmth bloomed inside of her.
And it was with barely a breath, barely a whisper. The air just passed her lips on its way to his as she said, “I’m ready.”
Chapter Seven
“Holly.” His hands had drifted to her shoulders, and his eyes widened as his fingers dug in. “You don’t have to—”
And sure, maybe this was an abrupt change in mood. Maybe three seconds ago she’d been a mess, but she knew her own damn mind, knew what she was feeling both physically and mentally. She didn’t need him giving her an out. Shaking her head, she put her palm to his throat, feeling the jagged rhythm of the pulse there, vital and alive and everything she wanted.
Connected. She’d never been able to connect before, and now it seemed she’d crack apart if the contact flagged, if she didn’t get her hands on his skin and his mouth on hers. She wanted him inside her and over her, without a molecule between them to break the live-wire circuit between their bodies.
She needed everything.
She pushed up onto her knees. Something had come unstuck in her chest, and the words that came out sounded crazy to her own ears as she breathed them against his mouth. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
A fraction of the trepidation in his gaze softened. “Never?”
“Never.”
There were people who knew bits and pieces, but the sum total of the saga was a burden she’d always kept close to her breast, guarded jealously. He’d made her feel like she didn’t need to carry it anymore.
With his guard dropped, she leaned in, tilting her head to the side, transcribing her intentions, and he didn’t protest or hold himself back this time. Whispering his name between kisses, she brushed her lips against his, once and then again, a hundred glancing touches, and with each, she pressed in closer, deeper, until there wasn’t space for words or air or doubt. It was all the wet push and pull and the strokes of his tongue as he let her take what she needed in the wake of all she’d given away.
He cupped his hands around her hips, spanning the very breadth of her. Pulling her in so her nipples dragged against his chest w
ith every inhalation. Fire crackled down her spine, and her center pulsed with a heat that made her feel like she was losing her mind.
One shift forward and then another, and then her thighs were straddling his lap. When her hips met his, it was a shower of sparks set alight, glowing hotly, and as easy as that, they were back in the office, spread out on that couch without a thought to consequences, bent only to the sheer, thrilling pleasure of contact, all of her fears washed away. It was better, though. Right in a way it never could have been before she’d shown him her heart, before she’d let him earn her trust. Before she’d known she’d earned so much of his.
She ground down on him, raking her fingers through the plush of his hair and swallowing the sound of want he breathed against her lips. She grabbed his hand from her hip and dragged it up, settling it on the curve of her breast and groaning at the pressure. “Touch me,” she urged.
“Fuck.” His thumb stroked over her peak as he cupped her, squeezing in a way that was both too hard and not hard enough. As if he knew it, he shoved her sweater off her shoulders, then tugged at her top, pushing it up, and she reached to help him, getting it off and over her head.
His gaze dropped to her breasts as he shoved the cup of her bra down, and God, yes, just like that. Kissing down her throat, to her collarbone and her nipple, he licked and sucked, and she dug her nails into his spine when he scraped delicate skin with his teeth. Releasing her bud, he buried his whole face in the valley of her cleavage and breathed in deep. “Shit,” he swore against her flesh, rolling her other nipple between his finger and his thumb. “These have been teasing me for months.”
And, yeah, she’d known her tits were magic, but there was a reverence to the way he held them, a perfect kind of friction to the rasp of his palm against all of that softness.
She laughed, less insane and more delirious, because this was happening. Maybe not the way she’d imagined it the few (hundred) times she’d dared to, but it was. He was here and hers and not fucking Rebecca, and just the idea of it made her light-headed. “Kind of like your ass has been teasing me?”
“Knew you liked the button-fly jeans.”
She rolled her eyes. “And here I thought I was being subtle when I was ogling you.”
“About as subtle as I was, looking at you.”
He tipped his head up, resting his chin against her chest, those bright blue eyes boring into her. It made her feel vulnerable and achy, but in a way that didn’t make her want to run. She rubbed her fingers through his close-cropped hair, pushing the front of it back, away from his face, and watching it pop right into place. “Never knew what you saw,” she admitted.
“Neither did I.” He straightened up, sitting tall and smoothing a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Don’t hide from me anymore, beautiful.”
The instinctive part of her that always wanted to do exactly that bristled, but she pushed it down. This was safe. He’d proven himself to be safe. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
With that, he leaned forward into another kiss, deeper and wetter, an intensity building in her breasts and between her legs, and in a part of her that had never been touched before. Not like this.
A part she’d never let anyone see.
She rubbed herself against him harder, already melting into the way her vision was blanking around the edges at how good it was, the rough pulses of his hips and the warmth of his palms and the taste of his mouth. The noises he made and the ones he was pulling out of her as they moved. Big fingers slipped along her spine and then set to work on the clasp of her bra. She tugged it off as soon as he got it free, fighting with the way he clambered to get his mouth on her again as she undid the buttons on his shirt, desperate to get at the skin beneath. They parted long enough to pull the fabric off, and fuck. Just, fuck.
His chest was even better than she’d imagined, muscular and broad, his pecs and abdominals defined. A dusting of hair spread out across the center of his ribs and down toward the buttons of his jeans, and she licked her lips just looking at it. But looking wasn’t all she could do. His flesh sizzled beneath her palms, and she didn’t waste any time getting her hands on all of it as he reeled her back in close. He pulled the tip of one breast and then the other between his lips, sending licks of lightning straight to her clit with every nip and suck, and God. She needed to get him in her already.
Refusing to be distracted by the pleasure arching through her nerves, she dipped her hands lower, tracing the lines of muscle and hair across his stomach until she hit the waistband of his jeans. She tucked her fingers into the denim and pulled, but as he ran his teeth across her nipple, she tightened her grip, moaning loudly and trying desperately to hang on.
Dammit, she needed to focus.
When she managed to wrench his fly open, he grunted out a sound that felt like dying and living and fucking all at once, but she didn’t stop—just shoved a hand inside and got her palm around hot, hard flesh, leaky and messy at the head. He was huge in her hand, and something clenched deep inside. She wanted it, needed it, and she needed it now.
Cursing against her throat, he got his hands on her hips, and then before she could so much as brace herself, they were moving. Her spine hit the floor with an impact that would have taken the breath from her, if she’d had any left.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, and she rocked her head side to side.
She’d never really let herself get pushed around in bed, not with any of her one-night stands, and not with the few boys who had been more than that. It sent a jolt of sheer need screaming through her body when he did it, though, and for a second she wondered why she’d always tried to keep such tight control. “It’s fine,” she mumbled through the haze of pleasure. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “God, do it again.”
Laughing into her skin, he shook his head. He took hold of her wrist and held it to the ground as he leaned forward, possessing her mouth again, while with his other hand he opened her jeans.
“Can I?” he asked, parting wetly from the kiss to stroke his nose across her cheek. The rush of his breath over her ear threw shivers up and down her body, and she closed her thighs more tightly around his body.
“Yeah.” She shoved at his waistband, getting her first handful of the firm curve of his ass. It fit too perfectly in her hand, and she grasped it hard.
He gave the spot beneath her ear a growling nip, then lifted up, and holy hell, but he looked even better with a little distance through which to appreciate him. Rising to kneel between her legs, and wrestling to strip her. Sliding fingertips and thumbs against her skin.
She arched her back as he slowly, carefully dragged her jeans and panties down her thighs. When he reached her feet, her socks came off, too.
And then she was naked on the floor in the middle of a bookstore. And she didn’t care.
As he dropped the wad of her clothes to the side, his gaze traveled the length of her body, hungry and dark. He drew a circle with two fingers around her breast, then trailed them down and down, over the plane of her abdomen to ring her navel. Along the crease of her thigh and back up the other side, skipping over where she was hot and aching and desperate for him to touch.
“Sam…”
A whisper of a shhing sound passed his lips. He spread her thighs wider, pressing her open with his palms. With one hand on her heart and the other beside her head, she lay there, breathing in and out, feeling ready to combust as his thumbs slid higher, just skirting the edges of her sex. She had to be dripping with how wet she felt, how swollen. She let out her own little whine of a choked-off plea, but he shook his head minutely.
God, she was like a butterfly, pinned down beneath his gaze. He knew everything, and here she was, ripe for the taking, practically begging for it.
And then his thumbs drifted inward, and the glide was so smooth, so easy with her liquid as he parted the lips of her, dipping ever so slightly inside. When the tip of a finger grazed her clit, she threw her head back, l
etting out a noise of need that should have been mortifying. He rubbed a little harder, and all thought left her mind, all self-consciousness.
“You like that, don’t you?”
“Yes. God, yes.” A finger slipped inside, and fuck, she was ready. “Please, just—” His fingers or his cock, she didn’t care, she just needed it. Needed to be full and to come and— “Jesus—”
God, she’d been so ready, but nothing had prepared her for the way he pressed her thigh up, fit his whole hand to that task of holding her open. For the way he leaned in, for the hot wash of breath against the very center of her need. The soft kiss against her clit and the warm curl of tongue.
No, she wanted to pant at him. It was too much—too much gentle pleasure and too much vulnerability, but all she could do was grasp at his hair. Wrap a hand around the nape of his neck and not let go.
Every sucking kiss and rough lick spiraled her higher and higher, ratcheting up the coiling feeling in her abdomen that demanded release, until there was nothing to do but give in to the plunge. She whispered his name and curled her fingers against his scalp, focused on nothing but the laving strokes across her clit, the perfect pressure from where he curled his fingers deep inside, building and growing and—
Then all at once it was gone, and the precipice turned to rock beneath her feet. “What—?”
He chuckled against her pubic bone, dancing his lips along her belly, then over to kiss at the crest of her hip.
“You,” she sputtered. “You’re—” Killing me, she wanted to say.
“Going to be inside you in less than a minute,” he finished, voice gone rough and dark. He skated his mouth all the way to her breast, and his lips were shining with her need, slick and obscene, and she was going to lick herself from his tongue. Scrape her teeth against his lip and fuck him until that smirk didn’t even know how to cross his face again. But he laughed again and refused to let himself be moved, working at his pants as he gazed at her, stubble rasping her skin. “And I want you just like this when I am.”
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