She ducked in behind him and pulled the door with a click as the darkness enveloped them. Nate fumbled, then flicked on a light. A single bulb burst into life above their heads. It made everything look illicit, as though they'd stumbled into someone else’s sin and decided to borrow it for a while and see how it fit.
There’d been something about the way he’d looked at her after hearing the voicemail that made her want to claw her own skin off. Not pity, thank God. But it was soft in that way that told her he wanted tohelpand fuck, that was the kicker, wasn’t it?
Because no one could. No matter how hard she worked, no matter how much money she made, good people got screwed over every damn day. She couldn’t fight off death with her bare hands, even if it was on the cards. There was so much about this situation she’d had to just accept, and it was the hardest lesson she had ever had to learn.
Your mom is going to die. Maybe not today or tomorrow. Maybe not a month from now. But she’s going to. And when she does, you’re going to lose the only person who actually gets you.
He’d seen the crack,she warned herself. The place where the light shouldn’t get in, and instead of backing off like a decent man, he’d just... been there.Still.Like he could hold space for her without asking for anything in return. Theaudacity. He could have deliberately tanked himself. Gone home, back to familiar people and run-of-the-mill habits.
But he fucking hadn’t.And it terrified and thrilled her in equal measure.
“Right,” she murmured in a low voice, more to get out of her own head than anything else. “Probably have about ten minutes tops before security does their next walk-through.” She looked at him. “What’s the plan?”
Nate shrugged. “Find that hideous shirt. Fuck it up royally.”
“Athletic simplicity at its finest,” Holly said, with a breath of laughter and a shake of her head that was part amused, partfrustrated they even had to sneak about like this in the first place.
They started flipping through costume bags, tension humming just under the surface, the rack groaning as hangers scraped and spun in search of a miracle. She caught a flash of glitter, feathers, and what looked suspiciously like bondage straps. Nate yanked open another bag with a frown, then immediately recoiled.
“Oh,hellno.”
He held up a costume bearing a name tag.Lars.White satin, gold embroidery, and a strategically deep V that threatened to plummet straight intolawsuitterritory. There werechainsinvolved. Literal chains.
Holly snorted. “Please tell me that’s for a magic trick where he disappears forever.”
“Why does this look like Liberace got into a fistfight with a Bond villain?” Nate asked, holding it at arm’s length like it might bite him.
“Because God has a sense of humor,” she said, already elbow-deep in another bag.
And then, “Ugh.”
Holly turned just as Nate winced at the garment bag he’d just unzipped. And there it was, in all its deranged glory.
Baby blue. Velvet. Fucking. Ruffles.
The stuff of high school musical nightmares. It unfurled from the bag like a Regency ghost reaching for salvation. Holly clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughingout loud as he held it up by the hanger, the sleeves dangling like it had perished from shame.
“There it is,” she teased, her words holding a wheezy edge from restrained laughter. “The shirt they’ll bury you in.”
“It’s giving deceased children’s choir director,” Nate muttered.
Holly snorted. “It’s givingBridgerton,but make it male anguish.”
He looked at her then, as though he were tracing the outline of an idea in his head and wasn’t sure if it would ruin them or remake them. And then he glanced pointedly at the pair of scissors someone had left on the tiny sewing table in the corner, before smirking back at Holly over his shoulder.
There was obviously just something about the over-the-shoulder-smirk and backwards baseball cap combo that did it for her, because in that instant Holly felt a familiar heat licking up the innermost part of her thighs. Her jokes simmered as she watched him act without hesitation, taking the scissors and hacking up the Shirt of Doom. The ill-fated garment bag didn’t survive the attack either, as Nate snipped away like he was exorcising the ghosts of fashion fuck-ups past.
Andallshe could think about while he went full barbarian mode was how he’d told Sophie to fuck off. Not in so many words. He was Danish, not clinically unhinged. But it was the way he stepped out of her reach. The way his voice went glacier-cold, and he’d made it clear he wouldn‘t play that game. Holly suddenly understood what it might feel like to bedefended. Protected.Chosen.
Which, obviously, wascompletelyfucking unacceptable. Which, also obviously, was why she was innocently wonderingwhat his stubble would feel like between her thighs. Almost as if he could read her mind, Nate tilted his head to one side in contemplation, presumably trying not to hack into one of his giant fingers, when his tongue darted out to press to the corner of his mouth in concentration.
Sir.No.
Holly’s lips parted and a soft breath escaped her before she could eventhinkabout swallowing the need back down again. And once a teensy little bit of her desire for him had breached the surface, it was a slippery fucking slope all the way down to Whoreville, USA.
He turned to crow triumphantly at her, smug grin in place… until he saw her face. His expression shifted faster than he did on a penalty kill, jaw clenching, and nostrils flaring ever so slightly. His gaze coasted down her neck, clocking the way her pulse fluttered faster than it had been before. And she fuckingknewhe knew why, because she sure as shit on crackers wasn’t turned on by the thought of Lars pulling off some kind of tragic Torvill and Dean rip-off.
He dragged his gaze back up her body, lingering as if he needed to watch every second of her undoing.
