“Holden, focus. Your girlfriend is out there probably plotting ten thousand ways to take me down.”
"She's not my girlfriend. She never was.”
I jerk my gaze up to his, a thousand unanswered questions float between us, charging the air. “Then why did you lie? Why fake it?” Why hurt me?
“It’s a long story,” Holden sighs. “But Missy knew things that could ruin everything we’d worked for.”
As I gulp, it goes down like a fireball. “The Dorsey name. I should have known it had something to do with protecting your image.”
His gaze crushes me as he locks his stormy blue eyes with mine, steadfast and unwavering. "Please, Katherine. Can you just trust me... for once."
“Trust you?” The words come out as a sob. “You expect me to trust you when all you’ve done this entire time is lie to me?”
“I’m not lying. I swear to you Kate.”
My heart thuds against my ribcage as I search for the truth in his expression.
He holds out his pinky to me. “I promise,” he whispers. “Please, just this once, trust me. Trust that everything with Missy was done in our—yours and my—best interests.”
Trust him. Can I ever trust this man again? Does he deserve a second chance?
My breath lodges in my throat as I reach out and slowly link my pinky to his.
He exhales, breathing a sigh of relief. Then with a little tug of my pinky, he pulls me flush to him, chest to chest, we’re panting as though we’d just run a marathon.
He bends closer until a mere breath away and our noses brush together in a whisper of intimacy. “Holden,” I start to object.
My words are cut off as he silences me by pressing his lips against mine in a blistering kiss.
I should push away – this isn’t the time nor place for a romantic interlude – yet my body betrays me and I melt into his embrace as if we were two pieces of puzzle that fit together perfectly.
With his kiss, all the pent up desire of the last several weeks explodes out of us. My breath stalls as Holden slides his hands up my back, pressing me closer. "I've missed your lips," he whispers as he deepens the kiss, his tongue gliding along the seam of my lips. I open for him with a gasp, knees trembling, I worry I might melt at his feet.
Desire claims me, shimmying down my spine as he slides a hand down my hip, caressing it, and his fingertips dip underneath the hem of my dress teasingly exploring the softness of the skin there.
Clutching his shoulders, I moan his name—both a warning to stop and a plea to keep going. He holds the last shred of my self-control in his hands right now.
"Katherine," he groans. “More.”
As his fingers dip inside of me, I let loose a gasp that is so primal, it's entirely beyond my control. But he doesn’t stop there, he sinks deeper, curving those wicked fingers inside of me as his thumb circles lightly against my clit. My whole body tingles with pleasure as he traces those wicked circles on me, my hips canting with every single calloused stroke. His touch drives me to the brink of insanity.
Delirious with desire, I thrash against him, but his other arm holds me locked in place. Arousal pools between my legs, coating his fingers. "Please," I moan.
He lifts me off my feet, our lips fused together in passionate exploration, his hands gripping my ass as he walks me to the bed of coats and drops me on top of them. His tongue laps and swirls around mine creating an incendiary fire between us that spreads until I'm scorching from head to toe.
He lets out a low moan deep from within his throat—a sound so sexy I feel it in my core. It pushes me over the edge into an intimate bliss like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
I claw at his waistband, unzipping his pants, he falls thick and heavy into my hand.
I sigh and stare at him. It's been years since I've seen him like this. Since I've touched him. A wave of shivers skitters across my skin, tightening my sex. Just the sight of him pushes me almost to the edge of orgasm. I squeeze his erection, stroking him slowly from root to tip, gathering the glistening dot of moisture at the tip on my thumb and gliding it around his head.
I'm rewarded with his hiss of pleasure and then his hands are on me again, sinking inside of me.
We move in rhythm, nothing but moaning, pulsing needy pleasure until finally… finally… my release shudders through me, clenching and spasming around his blunt fingers. I squeeze his shaft tighter, his lips on mine and I swallow his groan of satisfaction as he comes. A sticky stream jets across my fist, landing on my upper thigh and coating my panties, still pushed aside.
Just as the last wave of pleasure fades, the world around us slowly starts to come back into focus.
The muffled conversation and laughter from downstairs echoes toward us.