Page 77 of Holding Out

Her eyes got big.“You—that’s so great!”

He filled her in on the flashback in Home Depot, then about getting CJ to drive home.

Then he told her exactly what he’d told Jake.All of it.

The grief came back in the retelling.It choked him and filled his eyes, but he kept the words coming.And she listened quietly, the way she always did, absorbing it.She came and stood with him and rested her head against his chest like she was listening to his heartbeat, and that made it easier.

“He’s right, you know,” she murmured, against his shirt.“So easy to think you should have done it differently.And maybe you should have, but you can’t know.”

“I know.”

“I mean, it might not change how bad it feels.”

“It does and it doesn’t.”

“Was it hard, telling Jake?”

“It wasn’t so hard, once the words started coming out.And—I also told him I’d lead the support group sometimes.If he wanted me to.”

She stepped back and looked at him.“You—I’m so—” She inhaled deeply, her eyes bright.“Is it weird to say I’m so proud of you?”

His breath kept threatening to flit away from him, like some wild bird.“No.Not weird at all.I, um—I think I did ittomake you proud of me.”

In the silence that followed,hereyes filled with tears.“You’re going to kill me, Griff Ambrose,” she said.

His chest felt full of light.“You’re going to kill me first, Becca Drake.”

They were both quiet for a little bit.He wondered if her chest ached, too.If she was trying to think about what she wanted to say and how to say it, like he was.If there really was even anything to say.Maybe there was just this, the fact that they made each other feel good and made each other try harder tobegood and would always be able to look back and be grateful for that.

He took a step toward her, which backed her up against the door.He put one hand on each side of her head.Her eyes got big and her lower lip softened, and a little breath slipped out of her.He bent his head to kiss her.Just their lips touched, soft and sweet, but she whimpered.He took a step in and pressed her against the wall, bending his knees and lining the bulge in his jeans up with the seam of her leggings so he could stroke her with the friction he’d learned she liked.

“I’m going to make you come once like this,” he said contemplatively.“And then once more on the bed with my fingers and my tongue.AndthenI’m going to make love to you.”

Her eyes were huge.

He cupped her cheek, feeling so much tenderness for her, for every part of her, that ithurt.Like your toes getting feeling back after being frozen, but he was pretty sure in this case that the thing that had been frozen was his heart.He touched one part of her after another—her hair, her lips, her ear, her throat, and each place he touched her, she made a different sound, like he was playing her.It was the sexiest, most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.

He stroked her nipple, settled his mouth on hers again, and began very gently rubbing himself against the heat between her legs.One slow, sure tilt of his hips, clench of his ass, after another, while he alternated between kissing her and watching her.On a kiss, she bit his lip, gave a sharp cry, and came.He pulled back and cupped her tight in the palm of his hand so he could feel the flutters, like a trapped bird, and she breathed and sobbed into his ear.

His cock surged and for a second, he thought he was going to lose it, too.Like a high school kid.Like a virgin.

What have you done to me, Becca?

He scooped her up, carried her to the bed, laid her down, and stripped her leggings off.She was wearing a barely-there thong—really just strings—and he moved it to the side so he could see her.She was beautiful, every shade of pink God had ever invented, and slick with desire.And when he bent to lick her—she tasted so good.Clean and briny.He took his time, sliding first one finger into her slickness, then another, crooking them to find the spot that made her arch and cry out.

“Come again for me, baby,” he urged.

He looked up to find that she’d propped herself up on pillows and was watching him.She’d pushed her sweater up and her bra down and she was playing with her nipples, toying, pinching, twisting, almost absently, like she couldn’t help herself.Holyfuck.

“Keep doing that,” he said roughly.He hadn’t meant to speed up what his fingers were doing, but he was fucking her now, and she didn’t seem to mind.Quite the opposite.She was fucking back against his hand.

“Feels better when you do it.”Her voice was a low murmur.

Who was he to resist a request like that?His left hand was free, and he let it play over her nipples, which she’d teased to beads.Jesus.He pinched one nipple.She moaned, and reflexively, he grabbed her hand and flattened it over the bulge of his cock in his jeans.She squeezed him.“Griff.Please.”

“I’m supposed to make you come one more time, first.”

“What if I said I really just want you inside me?What if I said I—”

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