He was so fucking hard.Sickeninglyhard in sweatpants that weren’t doing him any favors. Either she hadn’t noticed, or she had and was pretending she didn’t… which honestly might’ve been worse. Because if she was pretending, it meant she’d seen it and filed it away, but was still standing there taunting him with that mouth, that fire, that perfectly sinful curve of hip.
Did she know how he couldn’t stop thinking about her? How many nights he’d gotten himself off replaying the way shelooked in rehearsal shorts with sweat-slick hair? Wondering if she waswet for himwhen she danced like that?
If she ever touched herself after practice the same way he did?
He swallowed hard. His jaw clenched. And when he looked up at her and saw the heat in her eyes as she looked at him… he knew he was gone.
Fuck it.
He moved before he could think better of it, catching her wrist like lightning with just enough pressure to tell her he wasn’t bluffing. His other hand slid to her waist, fingers sinking into her soft curves. A low, feral groan rumbled in the back of his throat, like he’d been dying to touch her like this—with hands full ofwant—and it’d taken everything he had to hold back.
Holly reacted on instinct. She shoved him hard, palms planted against his chest, aiming to create space between them. But Nate caught her waist with a grip that was all muscle and control, turned with the force of her momentum, and drove her backward. She hit the mirror with a sharp, startled smack, breath catching as the cold glass kissed her spine. Nate braced himself over her, one forearm planted beside her head, his other hand still anchoring her hip like a man claiming territory he had no right to.
And she didn’t pull away.
It undid him.The fact that she met his gaze, fire-forged and furious, even with his body caging hers. Even with his cock, thick and hard, pressed shamelessly against her hip through the unforgiving cling of his sweats. She had to feel it.She had to know.And still, she stood her ground with no fear, no flinch.Just the tense, electric silence of someone who might be one breath away from dragging him under with her.
He didn’t move. Couldn’t. Not with his cock digging into her like that, not with the scent of sweat and lemon cleaner andherclinging to the space between them. His blood was boiling, his restraint hanging on by a thread, but it wasn’t just lust. It was the fact that she didn’t run. That she wanted this fight as much as he did. That she wasstill here, holding her line, even as his control went up in flames.
“I don’t care if he wants you,” Nate said, voice ragged with heat and honesty, every word pulled straight from his chest like it cost him. “I care that you still react.”
Holly’s chest rose and fell in a shallow, shaken rhythm, her fists tangled in his hoodie. Not pushing now, just holding on. Her lips were parted and moved with the barest quiver, but her voice came steady and sharp. “You don’t get to care.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth like it was instinct.Destiny.
“Too late,” he said hoarsely.
Holly was already leaning into him, caught between fury and something far, far more dangerous. Her words didn’t match the tension in her hands as she pulled him closer, angling her devastating hips to grind into his aching cock as she tilted her chin up like a dare.
“Then do something about it.”
For half a second, Nate froze, as if she’d just pressed a match into his palm and he was deciding whether to light it or crush it. His gaze dropped to her mouth, to the curve of it when she breathed, to the defiant tilt of her chin like she was daring him to make the first move. He was already gone anyway.
Already too fucking hard, past the point of no return. His cock throbbed painfully in his sweats where it had been pressed against her for long enough to make him light-headed. He could feel himself leaking, heat and want bleeding into the fabric, humiliation and hunger twisted so tightly together he couldn’t tell which one was driving him anymore. The only thing he knew was that she hadn’t backed away. She’d held her ground, all fury and fire, and that made himferal.
Then his mouth hit hers. It wasn’t tentative or sweet. It was hard and hot and inevitable, the kind of kiss that didn’t ask permission because it already had it. It tasted like adrenaline and restraint snapping, like every unsaid argument turning molten. Nate’s huge hands bracketed her hips, dragging her closer with brutal precision, fucking into her hip with a groan that betrayed how fucking close he was to coming in his pants.
Holly answered with a sound that wasn’t quite a gasp and wasn’t quite a moan, but which filled his mouth and drove him crazy anyway. The mirror fogged behind her almost instantly, their joint breath ghosting over the glass as the room filled with the sound of two desperate people losing control on purpose.
“I knew you were a fight-fucker,” she growled against his mouth, the words wicked and breathless.
“Fuck,Holly.”
The last thread of Nate’s self-control burned clean through. He kissed her again, like punishment and confession at once. His cock pulsed again, thick and insistent, the damp heat of him unmistakable now, and he didn’t even pretend to care that she could feel it.He wanted her to.He wanted her toknow exactly what she did to him. How undone he was for her. How ready he was to show her.
His hands roamed like he was mapping territory. Hips,that ass,up until his fingers curled possessively around her throat, thumb nudging her chin as if he couldn’t stand not having her exactly where he wanted her. Holly let out a snarl of pure defiance and hunger, then grabbed the front of his hoodie and yanked it up over his head in one impatient motion.
Nate shuddered, breath catching hard. It was almost obscene how fast he came undone for her. He let himself fall apart, like she was the only thing anchoring him to the present moment and he wasdone pretendinghe didn’t want to be owned by her.
Then he spun her around. Fluid. Intentional. No wasted motion. Her perfect breasts were pressed up against the mirror now. Her hands were splayed against the cool glass and she moaned, breath fogging across it instantly. Holly’s reflection stared back at them both with wild hair, smeared mascara, eyes wide, and lips parted in pure, unfiltered need.
Fuck if he didn’t want to know what those lips would feel like wrapped around his cock.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” Nate growled into her neck, his voice dark and close and already half-drunk on her. His cock throbbed against her, still trapped between them, leaking against her skin like a man halfway to losing his mind. It was torture, the kind he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want relief. He wanted to drag her over the edge first, wanted to feel her fall apartknowinghe’d barely touched her.
“Nate,” she growled, panting. “Don’t youdarefucking stop.”
Holy shit, that was it.
