Page 59 of Hold Me Today

Delicious. Men like Nick are delicious.

He tastes better than in every one of my fantasies combined. For years, I’ve pictured him as the consummate gentle lover with a warm but unassuming embrace. Classical music might provide background noise to an otherwise romantic joining. He proved me wrong. Nick’s kiss, his touch, the way his erection hardened unapologetically in my hand, was the very antithesis of unassuming. He took and he pushed and he bit and he sucked, and he almost had an orgasm knocking on my door without removing a stitch of fabric off me.

His body, tailored from years of hard, physical labor, left me breathless.

Leaves me breathless still, even as I fight to keep this kiss one of playful flirtation and not dirty hand jobs and dry-humping sessions against a wall. I kiss Nick long enough to distract him while I reach down and return The Great One to the confines of his briefs. Steel wrapped in velvet—all the authors of the romance novels I listen to would be pleased to know that Nick Stamos not only fits the description, he exceeds it.

I zip up his torn jeans and pat his ridged lower abdomen.

“We’ve got to keep him safe,” I say with a grin.

Nick looks like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or shove the rest of his body through the broken slat.

Taking the decision out of his hands, I pop a quick peck on his mouth and spy the staircase over his shoulder. Stairs that now taunt me like a deathtrap in the waiting. Ten minutes ago, my only concern was my condom-less apartment. A tragic ending to a hot, PG-13 groping session, but one easily solved with a run to the corner store down the block. Now these stairs are just one more thing to add to my never-ending list of Shit-That-Needs-Fixing around here. It’s not as if my bank account can cry anymore at this point.

Carefully, I step over Nick’s extended arm. “Hang tight, will you?”

“Mina.”

“Too soon?” I deadpan, trying not to laugh at his expense. Clearly, the two of us together were too much for this old stairwell to handle. But I’ve gone up and down these flights tens of times on my own, and I’m confident they won’t buckle under my weight alone. Hopefully. “I’ve got to get the guys.”

“Ermione. No. Absolutely not.” I glance over my shoulder in time to see him struggling to yank his leg out from the hole. He freezes within seconds. The broken wood is gnarly. One wrong move and it’ll slice right through his skin. Something he must realize, too, because he blows out a long-suffering sigh. “I’m going to regret this.”

* * *

In the end,Nick doesn’t live to regret anything.

“No mean jokes,” I warn the guys after I’ve filled them in downstairs.

Affronted, Vince plants a hand over his heart. “Mean?You’ve got the wrong guy, Mina. I’ve never been mean a day in my life.”

I point a finger at him. “Or stupid jokes. Nothing that’ll make Nick feel . . . embarrassed.” Not that I don’t think he can’t handle any and all smack talk from his employees. I’m sure Nick can dish it with the best of them.

“Now you’re just taking away my fun.”

“You missed your opportunity,” I say with a loose shrug. “The position has already been filled.”

Vince’s espresso-coffee eyes glimmer with humor. “Yeah? By who?”

“This girl.” I flash him a quick grin, then circle my finger in the air in alet’s gogesture. “Remember, no trash-talking of any kind. Bring me Mr. Stamos and not only will you three be eating more pizza than you can handle this week, but I’ll also throw in a free haircut. You can thank me later when I make you look like the rock star you were born to be.”

Bribery, my friends. It’s a game-changer.

Bill slips me a proper side-eye. “All I want to know is if any of the pointy bits got stuck in his—”

Mark playfully swats him over the head. “Pizza, dude. Shut up and walk.”

Holding back a laugh, I follow the trio to the stairwell where we can hear Nick cursing loud enough for his mother to overhear from the other side of town. Four-letter words. Accented words. He gives them all his devout attention, and I holler, “Your rescuers have arrived!”

Vince leads the pack, Mark and Bill flanking him.

Within twenty minutes, after a fair bit of sawing and more than a handful of colorful phrases I’ll never be able to bleach from my memory, Nick is extracted and doing a poor job of disguising a limp as he takes to the stairs.

When I stare a little too long at his roughed-up leg, he irritably grumbles, “I look worse than I feel.”

I’m sure he’s telling the truth. Even so, guilt sloshes around in my belly like I’ve downed one too many shots of Tito’s as I touch a finger to his ripped jeans. They hang open from his right hip, exposing his navy briefs and the tiny scratches that are now etched into his muscled thigh. Most are pink but a few bleed red, and I force Nick to sit down while I rush out in the cold to the Stamos Restoration company van. It doesn’t take me long to find the First Aid kit tucked away in the spare duffel bag he mentioned would be behind the driver’s seat.

Back inAgape, I stomp the snow from my shoes and shake the flakes from my hair. After announcing, “You should go to the doctor,” I drop the duffel at his feet. It hits the concrete flooring with a dullthud.

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