Page 44 of Hold Me Today

Thank God for below-freezing temperatures or I’d be facing the same predicament now.

Standing in the cold, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and jeans, it’s Mina’s warmth that chases the shivers away. Her nails digging into either side of my spine is the only sign that she might not be as confident as she’d have me believe.

The smart thing to do would be to haul ass back to the family dinner we’re missing.

Except, for reasons I don’t care to deliberate on, I can’t find it in myself to walk away.

Obviously the chill in the air has turned my good sense into nothing but frozen blocks ofyou’re-an-idiot.Something I confirm tenfold when I roughly mutter, “Don’t knee me in the balls for this.”

“Don’twhat? Nick—”

I cup her ass. Under her coat but over her soft skirt. I cup her ass like it belongs to me, like it’s always belonged to me. Fingers pressing in, palms downright greedy. I block out every protest springing to life inside my head, starting with who she is and ending with I-don’t-give-a-fuck because I’ve thought of nothing else butthis fordays.

“Your tattoo,” I growl the words into the crook of her neck. “You want to know why I was hard? The ink you’ve got right here.” I squeeze her right cheek, and my cock twitches at the moan she releases. Jesus, that sound. Feminine and throaty and so damn sexy. The latter isn’t a word I’d have attributed to Mina Pappas in our youth. She’d been frustrating, always there, always pushing my restraint to the brink.

My restraint feels tangible now, ready to snap.

Distantly aware of the fact that we’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, I brush Mina’s hair to the side and breathe life into the insane lust that’s plagued me all week. “You in that thong”—my nose glides up along her throat, taking note of the quickening pulse just below her jawline—“is the thing of fantasies.”

She arches her neck, giving me more room to play. “It’s big,” she whispers, squeezing my ass to let me know what she’s referring to exactly.

“I like big.”

“T-the women in my family . . . we call it the Pappas butt.”

My lips graze her smooth cheek. “Passed down through the family?”

“Never skips a generation—oh, wow, that feels good.”

I nip again at her earlobe, then soothe the sting with my tongue. She tastes sweet. Smells even sweeter, especially here near her hairline. Perfume, maybe? Or maybe it’s her natural scent. Either way, it’s addictive. Fingers tangling in her hair, I sweep the strands back from her face and pose the question that’s nagged me for days: “Any other tattoos?”

“There,” she says breathlessly, “behind my ear.”

“Why?” I have two myself, both from my early twenties when I thought having tattoos made me somehow more of a man and less like a kid playing at being an adult. But getting ink didn’t magically mature me—life took care of that all on its own. Most days I forget I have them until I see my reflection. Hearing about Mina’s, though, feels like I’m uncovering something new about her. Like I’m opening a box that’s long since sat on a shelf, the key poking out of the lock. Except that the key didn’t belong to me, and I’ve never been one to push where I’m not wanted. Right now, right here, I feel wanted. It’s a fucking heady sensation, and I pull back to meet her gaze. “It’s my temporary longing,” I rasp, “to know why you love tattoos so much.”

Her laughter greets my ears. “I love when art takes shape. No one tattoo is the same as any other—they all take on the slightest deviation.” She shrugs in my hold, stepping back. I miss her warmth immediately, but there’s something in her expression that steals my attention away from the activity below my belt. Raw honesty lingers there, furrowing her brow as she rocks back on her heels. “Tattoos are like people. We’re all unique. We all have our own temporary longings”—here, she flashes me a grin—“but whereas relationships can be fleeting, tattoos are an imprint of a memory marked in the skin. A snapshot of emotion or a moment forgotten to time and distance.”

In twenty-four years, Mina has never opened up to me like this.

It’s . . . humbling.

A wisp of black hair swoops across her forehead, and I itch to tuck it behind her ear. But the sexually-charged moment is gone, and it feels awkward—no, not awkward but inappropriate—to touch her. Towantto touch her.

Temporary insanity.

This walk has been nothing but temporary insanity specifically designed to send my brain cells scattering like marbles on a downhill slope. Inevitable, perhaps, given how we’ve circled around each other for decades, but insanity nonetheless.

And yet I can’t tear my gaze away from her.

“They’re going to be wondering where we are,” she says.

Let them wonder.

Squashing the thought into nothingness, I shove my hands into my jeans’ pockets. “Your favorite one.”

“What?”

I tilt my head toward my parent’s house, then clarify, “Before we go back inside, I want to know your favorite tattoo.” It’s not my place, not my business, but I throw down the gauntlet anyway.

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