“What thing?”
“Your mouth does this little twitch.”
“It does not, and no I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
I should be laughing, but I’m not. It scares me how easily Holt can see me. Not just the parts others see walking down the street or at work, but the pieces of myself I swear I keep hidden. Somehow, he sees it all. Can he tell I’ve been keeping Julianna’s secret from him? I hope not.
His hand effortlessly moves from my mouth to the back of my neck. His nose nudges mine gently. “Tell me your secrets, Wallflower.”
His whisper sends shivers down to my toes. If he weren’t holding me, I swear I’d be floating into orbit, getting lost amongst the moon and stars.
His eyes harden, the lights from outside catching his deep blue eyes.
I stare at him, knowing I’ve never believed anything as strongly as I do this. “I don’t believe love is all encompassing.”
His lips part with my declaration. I can tell he wasn’t expecting those words to fall from my mouth. “How do you know?” he asks, his fingers working the base of my neck. They get tangled in my hair and make it hard to concentrate on the words coming out of my mouth.
“I’ve literally witnessed the unravelling of love and all its lies. I’ve seen how love has boundaries and limits.”
“Hmm,” he hums, his eyes dancing across my face, and for amoment, I think I’ve scared him away. I’m surprised when he scoffs, following it up with a smirk. “Says the romance novelist.”
“I’m not a romance novelist,” I correct. “I haven’t even published my book yet. And I wrote a love story because it’s the only world in which true love exists. It’s reliable. It doesn’t lie in fairy tales.”
“It’s fiction, Selene,” he argues. “Doesn’t that make all romance novels lies?”
“Exactly,” I agree proudly.
“Mmhmm.” He hums again, amused with my comeback.
I give him a challenging stare, daring him to argue back. But he doesn’t.
He steals the breath from my lungs when he smooths his hand over the curve of my ass. It’s slightly sore from where he spanked me earlier, but I haven’t stopped thinking about how it felt, how it intensified everything. Every nerve in me awakened, the blood in my veins raced, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My arms and legs tingled, humming with life. It was as if the combination of his touch and the excitement from it brought light into a dark room.
Everything lit up and filled with warmth. I’m dying to feel that again.
I slide my hand over his smooth, rock-hard chest. The subtle planes of his abs contract beneath my touch while our conversation weighs heavy in the air, lingering and suffocating. I get this sudden sensation of losing control.
His hand is still gripping the back of my neck. He pulls me forward, pressing my mouth to his, and breathes me in, savoring our kiss, deepening it with every breath. A vibration hums across my body that I want to get rid of before it becomes too much. The anticipation of his mouth and his touch are almost too much.
“I want you again.” My voice cracks against his mouth, and Imove my hand over Holt’s chest to his shoulder. I gently push him back onto the bed and climb over him. Straddling him, I drag my nails over his chest. I need a distraction from my own mind and the dark memories haunting me.
His hands wander from my thighs to my hips to my waist. I drop my head back and breathe a sigh of relief, closing my eyes to revel in this moment. His large hands roaming over my skin, like he’s making a point to touch every inch.
“Before we go any further,” he says, slipping his hand between us, “I need to make one final point.”
I gasp as his hand slips inside me, rubbing my wetness all over myself.
“You wrote a book. Published or not. That makes you a romance novelist.”
“What?” I pant, grating my nails across his chest. My entire body burns for him.
“Don’t ever fucking dilute yourself for anyone else. Especially not me.” He removes his hand, grips the base of his cock, then lifts me up. The crown of it teases my entrance. He slides it against me, coating himself with my wetness but doesn’t yet give me the satisfaction of sinking into me. “Understood, Wallflower?”
My breathing is labored, heavy, passionate, and scorching. I stare into his heated gaze, feeling myself eating my own words from earlier. The vulnerability he offered up to me earlier, the story of his mother’s terrible death, is gone. All that’s left is desire. Same could be said for me. I think back to the secret I confessed about my belief in love, or lack of it. I’m thankful Holt didn’t press me to reveal more to him. Perhaps he senses how deep my emotions run and how hiding them has become a literal skill. A skill of survival.
He does call meWallflower, after all.
