Page 52 of Caught Stealing

“I’m not talking about this with you.” It feels like that’s all I ever say to this guy. But avoidance is the only weapon I have in my arsenal anymore. The only thing keeping me from fucking things up and giving into whatever is happening between us.

“Like hell, you’re not.” He sits up in his float, causing ripples in the water to splash against my shins like a mini tsunami. Fitting, since it feels like I’m being drowned by one made of emotions right now.

“Hold—”

“No,” he says, cutting me off. “You might hate me, and that’s fine. I’ve never been the kind of person who needs to be liked by everyone. But if Theo wasn’t just screwing with me, and we really do have history, then I should damn well know what it is.”

Nausea hits me as I war internally, knowing that telling him is the only option. No matter how much I don’t want to.

“Theo wasn’t lying,” I utter.

“Then tell me everything.”

“I don’t know what you know, all right?”

“Nothing!” he shouts, the water beneath him rippling some more. “I don’t know anything except something happened between us that night, only for me to wake up alone. And I’ve been going crazy since Theo said something, trying to find the missing pieces. But I can’t. So, please, I’m fucking begging you to just put me out of my misery and tell me.”

Swallowing, I shake my head. “The details aren’t important anymore. The fact that it happened at all is bad enough—replaying it now isn’t going to change anything.”

His eyes darken as he leans back against the flamingo’s neck, seemingly dropping the subject per my request. But from the frown etched at the corners of his lips and the way his eyes gaze up at the stars above, he seems lost in thought. Once again, attempting to pull the pieces together without my help.

Silence falls between us, the only sound coming from the crashing waves and the wind rustling the palm trees. It’s peaceful enough to lull me to sleep, if I wasn’t so attuned to Holden’s dissatisfaction with my answer.

Which he makes apparent when he just won’t let it go.

“You’re not the only one holding onto secrets, you know,” he says, his raspy voice slicing through the quiet.

A quick glance at him reveals he’s still staring up at the stars, his hand swishing back and forth in the water absently.

“Is that supposed to hold some kind of allure?”

“Maybe. Or you can think of it as an offer.” Dark eyes shift to me, and I sense unease in them for what might be the first time ever. “Tit-for-tat. My secret for yours. I’ll even go first.”

I mull it over for a second, knowing even if I don’t agree, there’s a huge possibility he’ll only keep pressing. Stubborn and tenacious as he is.

Though, sharing secrets—alone and in the darkness—feels awfully…intimate. More so than anything else that has happened between us.

I grab the bottle of tequila I’ve been nursing since we got back and take a long swig, needing all the liquid courage I can get before I nod in agreement.

Holden’s gaze burns the side of my face as he watches me intently, setting me even more on edge. But it’s his words that might as well have shoved me off a cliff.

“I knew it was you.”

I lick my lips—drowning in tequila and his gaze—before asking, “Knew it was me?”

“The night you left me chained to my bed.”

Just the mention of that moment sends a bolt of lust rushing straight to my cock, and the way his voice drips with sex and sin as he slides off the float to swim closer has the appendage pitching a tent behind my trunks altogether.

“Of course you did,” I say with a scoff. “I flipped the lights on afterward. We had an entire conversation. Or did I traumatize you into blacking out again?”

A sardonic smirk lifts his lips as he shakes his head. “I meant while it was happening.”

Despite the warmth of the breeze and the water, my blood freezes the instant his words register. Because once again, Holden has a way of throwing me for a loop with a single sentence—flipping my world on its axis in the process.

“Bullshit,” I whisper through the knot in my throat.

“The only one full of bullshit here is you,” he murmurs as he continues closing the distance between us. And he does, not stopping until he’s standing directly between my legs. “Because the second your lips landed on mine, I knew damn well it wasn’t Kason in my room. Wasn’t him kissing me, touching me…” He trails off, his palms land on the edge of the pool on the outside of my thighs—the heat of them scorching me more than the Gulf Coast sun ever could. It’s searing, his proximity when he’s close enough to touch, yet contact isn’t made.

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