“This isn’t feelings,” she gasped without conviction as she rolled her hips again, chasing that brutal friction. “It’s just fucking.”
But the way his mouth parted when he looked at her likeworshipandruinlived in the same breath? Like he’d trade his name, his career, his whole damn soul just to stay inside her a second longer?
Yeah. She was fucked. Not in the fun, orgasm-counting way. In theI’m scared this man is about to change the architecture of my heartway.
When it was over, she didn't let him pull her close or touch her in that dangerous, lingering way that might make her do something irreversible. Instead, she slid off him with practiced ease, already reaching for her clothes, fingers shaky but moving with speed, like if she dressed quickly enough, she could zip her walls back up before he saw the damage.
Nate watched her from his bed, chest still heaving, curls a mess, eyes too dark, as though he was about to say something honest enough to detonate her defenses all over again. She didn’t give him the chance. She yanked her shirt over her head,forced a smirk she didn’t mean, and tossed him a casual glance over her shoulder before pulling on her shirt like this was no big deal.
Like this hadn’t cracked her open in ways she wasn’t ready to look at.
“Good,” she said brightly, voice brittle around the edges. “Tension burned off. Night.” Then she turned and walked toward the door. Spine straight, steps steady as if leaving had always been the plan. Her heart was already screaming, and as she closed his door behind herself Holly knew for sure that she was completely, catastrophically fucked.
23
WOKE UP WITH BLUE BALLS AND SALTY REGRET
Nate
“Do I look okay? No. Because my heart’s in a blender and TMZ is playing our fake relationship on a 24-hour loop.”
Nate woke up hard and alone. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that unusual. Whatwasunusual was thatthis timehe wasn’t okay with it.
The sheets still smelled like her. Sweat and perfume and whatever thefuckshe used on her hair that made it smell like citrus and sin. His body was sore in ways he liked, and his brain was sore in ways he didn’t. He dragged a hand down his face, then over his chest, half-hoping it would wipe away the memory of her mouth, her thighs, the tiny cracked sound she’d made when he’d said her name like it meant something.
Which,fuck. It had. Ithadmeant something, at least to him. And that was the problem.
She hadn’t slipped out while he was asleep. She’d looked him in the eye, pulled on her shirt with trembling hands, and tossed him a too-bright smile like she hadn’t just shattered into a hundred quiet pieces in his lap.
‘Tension burned off. Night.’
She’d said it as though they hadn’t just crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed, and then she walked out of his apartment like it hadn’t meant anything. Likehedidn’t mean anything. So when he sat up in the silence she left behind, the sheets still warm and her scent still lingering like a bruise, his first thought wasn’tI wonder where she is.
It was,did I just watch her walk away from the best thing we’ve ever accidentally built?
His second thought was that he needed coffee. STAT.
He got up, yanked on yesterday’s hoodie, and shuffled barefoot to the Nespresso machine like a man being punished by God and George Clooney at once. He pressed a button. Waited for salvation. Got brown sadness in a paper cup instead. He wandered over to the window with it and stared out at the skyline like it might give him answers. Or at least a personality transplant.
She’d kissed him like she was drowning. She’d fucked him as though using him to punish herself. But she hadn’t let him kiss her soft. Meaningful.Real. Which meant she’dknown. She’d felt that tiny crack in her armor, and she ran.
Coward.
… smart coward.
Nate took a sip of his sad excuse for espresso and flipped on the TV just to hear something other than the inside of his own skull. Unfortunately, the inside of his own skull was also apparently playing onevery news channel.
"Ballroom Darling & Hockey Himbo: Are Holly & Nate Heating Up?"
"WATCH: The Quickstep That BROKE THE INTERNET (and maybe our ovaries)"
"Do You Believe In Love at First Shimmy?"
He groaned.
Every outlet had a clip on loop. Their final pose, the smirks, the eye-fucking, the slow-motion soul-wreckage that definitely looked like it came with a soundtrack and a sponsorship deal. One anchor was full-on narrating it like David Attenborough dissecting a mating ritual. Another panel had a segment titled“Will They or Won’t They (They Will)”with a fuckingpoll.
Nate threw a pillow at the TV.
