It made her chest tighten, and she couldn’t work out if she was just that fucking affected by him or if she was possibly having a stroke. So, obviously, Holly did the only sensible thing and stepped closer.
“Don’t.”
Nate’s brows knitted. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
His jaw flexed. “I’m not looking at you likeanything.”
Holly’s pulse flickered. She hated him for making her put words to it. For making her feel like she was theonly onewith the problem when she was actually the one holding the line.
She swallows. “You’re looking at me like I’m… something.” Her laugh comes out breathy, disbelieving. “Like I matter.”
“You do.” His eyes searched her face as if he was expecting her to argue back. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.”
The sheer depth of that statement made something inside her snap. It wasn’t the soft, sweet romance of the moment that broke her, either. The instinct behind her heart raced.Survival.It was her body screaming,shut this down before it gets into your bloodstream.
Holly grabbed his shirt to stage a one-woman intervention with her mouth. She kissed him like she was trying to cauterize something, as though she could seal up the wound thatmaybe-loving him was slowly starting to create for her.
Nate made a sound that was half shock, half sin, and then he was kissing her back like he’d been holding his breath since the day they met. His hands found her waist, steady and warm, and her whole body, that absolutetraitor, melted like it had been waiting for him this whole damn time.
“This is just…” she started, voice too breathless to sound like anything but a lie.
Nate’s lips were already on her jaw, hot and hungry. “To burn off tension,” he murmured, voice all gravel and goddamn. “I know.”
Good. Great. Perfect. Yes. Let’s keep it emotionally bankrupt.
Her hands found the buttons of his shirt like she’d been hunting for them all night. She peeled it off, pressing her palm to his abs and pushing as if sheer momentum could outrun the ache clawing up her throat. Nate moved like he was spellbound. As though she’d strung some invisible wire between her desire and his, and he had no choice but to follow.
The backs of his knees hit the bed, and he sat, looking up at her with eyes blown dark and reverent. His hands slid low on her hips like he couldn’tnottouch, like her skin had its own gravity. Holly crawled onto the bed to straddle him in one fluid motion, thighs bracketing his, her breath catching as his palm flexed against her ass like he was trying to ground himself.
Then she rocked forward.
The sound Nate made was a full-body weapon, a sound that should’ve come with a warning label and a five-day recovery period. His grip tightened on her thighs, as if he was trying to memorize the exact way she fit against him. She grinned and leaned forward to kiss him again. Harder this time, trying to outrun the wild, terrible softness blooming in her chest. This didn’t mean anything. It was just a come-down wrapped in sweat and muscle and post-show chaos.
Except for the way his hands swept up her back with such care and devotion that she felt her entire spine light up like a fuse, as if her body had been waiting forever to be touched like this. Not just wanted, butworshipped.
His palm cradled the back of her head, fingers threaded into her hair as if he was holding something precious. His forehead pressed to hers, his breath shuddering.
“Holly.”
He said her name so softly that it ruined her like a punch to the lungs because it wasn’t sexy or playful. He’d offered her the sheer truth of himself in those two syllables. Nate unplugged.
Her entire body went still for half a second, horrified by the warmth spreading through her chest. By the way her eyesstung. Nate’s thumb brushed her cheek, his gaze devastatingly gentle.
Her throat tightened so fast it was almost painful, and she immediately put a stop to it by kissing him hard enough to steal her soul back. She moved faster, rougher, turning tenderness into friction and intimacy into sheer heat. She didn’t speak or let him get a word in either. Nate growled her name this time, and the sheer fucking sexiness of it imprinted in her mind. And that’s what she clung to for dear life.
Lust didn’t look at you like you were everything, or ask you for things you weren’t sure you knew how to give. And lust was where she was going to stay. Within a matter of seconds they’d scrambled to bare themselves, Nate rolling on a condom before the heavy drag of his cock through the silken mess between her legs was enough to tip her into action.
Holly sank down onto him with a breathless, bitten-off moan, tight and wet and already shaking. He wasso deep,and she whimpered because it somehow still wasn’t enough. Her nails bit into his broad shoulders as she angled herself for better leverage to give herself more of him.
Her thighs clamped around his hips, and for a second everything wentwhiteas though she was split open, filled to the brink, and held there like a hostage with Stockholm syndrome and no desire for rescue.
“Fuck, Holly,” Nate rasped through a clenched jaw. She didn’t want him to say anything else, so she braced her hands on his chest and rode him, dragging her scorching heat up his length until he slipped almost free before she slammed down again with enough force to make his head tip back in ecstasy.
He groaned.Filthy. But Holly was relentless and rode him like she was punishing him for looking at her the way he did. Like she could fuck thesoft wantout of herself if she justmoved fast enough. Skin slapped, breath tangled, his name falling from her lips like a prayer she didn't believe in.
Nate tried to sit up, tried to wrap an arm around her waist like he needed more contact, more closeness,more of her. But Holly shoved him back down, hair wild, eyes blazing, grinding hard as his cock hit just right and her vision blurred at the edges.
