The view from the back is as stunning as I imagined earlier. Even though it’s dark, he has hanging lights on the back, illuminating a neat and well-maintained backyard by the water.
Why am I picturing my girls and me here having a good time with him? Swimming in the lake while he grills for us, or making s’mores by the fireplace on the back patio?
I shake myself out of these thoughts, focusing on anything but this potential future. Across from the kitchen, there’s a stone fireplace and a large couch, where I can imagine watching movies or playing board games on Friday nights while pizza is in the oven. It’s so easy to picture a life with Holden for more than a date, and I don’t really know what to do with those feelings.
On each side of the fireplace, there are giant bookshelves full of…wine? My wine? What?
Each bottle is carefully placed as decoration, the labels facing forward, none of them touched. I count them, which ends up being an easy task, since they’re in rows of four. Twelve rows. Forty-eight bottles.
“Twenty-four times I went to your store and left with two bottles,” he says from behind me, rendering me speechless.
“And you, what? Kept them all?”
“Well, I don’t drink,” he shrugs. Of course, he doesn’t drink. His father is an alcoholic, Natalie. How did you not put two and two together?
I’m sure confusion is written all over my face. “So then, um, why did you buy them?”
He steps forward, closing the space between us, a soft smile on his face as he looks at me like I hold the answer to all his problems. “Well, on one of the darkest days of my life, a beautiful, kind girl made me smile, and her wine was the one excuse I had to keep coming back to her.”
He brushes my cheek with his thumb. “I guess I could’ve done flowers, but I would’ve given everything I own and more to hear you talk to me about—well, anything really—and wine kinda stuck.”
“Holden.” My voice is a whispered plea for something. Anything.
“And I can’t get rid of them because each one reminds me of something specific.” He drops my face as he walks to hold one of the peach wines. “This one you told me was the town’s favorite, but you didn’t say it wasyourfavorite, so every time I look at it, I try to figure out which one is.”
He holds another one, a blueberry wine my mom loves. “You handed me this one the day I caught you dancing. Still one of my favorite memories, so it stays front and center.”
He puts it back in its place then grabs a bottle of a red blend,bloody red,and Cara’s favorite. “This one, you handed me the day I came to you in pieces over my life, after you singlehandedly helped me put it back together by listening and being there for me.”
He returns the bottle, coming back to me and drying my tears with both his thumbs as he holds my face tenderly, as if I’m delicate and special and everything in between. "I want to have as many reminders of you in every space I’m in, until hopefully, one day, I don’t have to, because we’ll share them all.”
“Holden.”
He shakes his head and closes his eyes, his long lashes kissing his stubbled cheeks. “I know. Baby steps. Trust me.” He chuckles. “I know, but I can’t stop myself from dreaming, Natalie. I lost all my dreams when my family died, and until that afternoon on a sad Sunday in June, I’ve never dared to dream again.Until you.”
I can’t take it anymore, all these hard-to-name feelings about to burst from me. His words wash over me in a wave of pleasureI don’t try to make sense of. Not now, because I want him so badly, I can’t think straight. I can’t form words. I can barely breathe.
The centimeters between us are erased as soon as my lips touch his. He’s not expecting how deep I take the kiss, because he’s frozen in place. His hands don’t move from my face as our tongues dance together.
I, on the other hand, am not holding back. My hands roam up his arms until his heart is drumming strongly under my fingertips on his neck, and then my fingers snake up to pull at his hair. He groans, and I want to do everything in my power to get him to groan like that again.
And again.
And again.
He’s been holding back. I know he has, out of respect for me, but I’m done with this invisible line I’ve drawn between us. I want him to eviscerate it tonight.
I bite his lower lip, drawing it between my teeth. I often catch him staring at my mouth when I do the same to mine. I’ve been secretly hoping he wants to do exactly what I’m doing now.
His control snaps the minute I moan into his mouth, and he wraps my hair around his fist, pulling it back gently, kissing my jaw, my neck, my collarbone. My chest is pressed against him, heaving, matching his erratic heartbeat.
“Yes,” I whisper in a moan, holding on to his neck as if he’s my lifeline. I don’t even know what I’m saying yes to. To his lips over my collarbone, craftily closing after he licks my skin, or to his hands resting on the curve of my ass. I don’t know if I’m saying yes to whatever will happen after or to whatever I want to happen. To any of those things, yes, a million times, yes.
Until he lowers the spaghetti strap of my dress and his tongue crosses over my breast—my very stretch mark-covered breast.
I gasp, taking a step back. “Um, I’m sorry. I have to run to the bathroom.” My never-ending excuse.
“Natalie.” My name on his lips does everything it always does: grabs me tenderly, soothes all my worries. Well, most of them.
