Page 36 of Our Secrets and Scars

He clears his throat, looking so ashamed it makes me want to cry. “I had a girlfriend for a while, but she wasn’t ready. And then I had to go away and it just never happened.”

I blink at him.

The mention of his old girlfriend makes me sick. I can’t help the question that falls from my mouth. “Is she the one you still have feelings for?”

Surprise momentarily crosses his features at the undisguised jealousy in my tone, but it disappears when he shakes his head. “No.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?” I demand. “I never would have done that if I knew.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t think it was relevant.” But his expression says otherwise, as if he was scared to tell me for fear of being rejected. And hell, if that isn’t a feeling that I’m all too familiar with.

And then I realize my reaction is exactly what he feared. It must look as if I’d have turned my nose up at him if I knew the truth and never gone near him again.

But that’s not what I mean. That’s not what I mean at all.

“I don’t mean that I never would have slept with you,” I reassure him gently. “I just wouldn’t have stolen your virginity in the front seat of your truck.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d probably have suggested a bed.”

He laughs quietly, and although it’s only a small sound, relief fills my heart that the laid-back, confident Holden with dimples in his cheeks and sweetness in his smile is back.

“Come on,” he says, buckling his seat belt and throwing the truck into reverse. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

The smile he gives me is wicked. It’s a silent promise of things to come, and I shudder instinctively at the thought of them.

“You wanted a bed,” he grins, “and that’s what you’re going to get.”

Eight

Kinsley

Atsomepointduringthe drive, the gentle smile that had tugged at the corners of Holden’s lips twisted into something else. Something a hell of a lot less playful. Something dark, serious, carnal.

He grips the steering wheel with white knuckles, his mouth a rigid line, and the angles of his face sharp and severe. Staring ahead at the road beyond, an expression of utter determination falls upon his features as we tear through the streets of Salt Lake City like he’s a man with a point to prove.

The tension between us is thick but not uncomfortable. Though, I can’t say the same for the steady thudding between my legs and the dampness staining my underwear. My heart beats too fast, and my breaths come short and labored to the point that it’s almost painful.

It’s been twenty minutes or so since Holden came shaking and shuddering inside me, and yet, I still feel like a woman on the very brink of orgasm. Just the smallest friction could cause me to detonate like a hand grenade.

I think he knows it too.

That’s probably why he’s wound so tight, as if he’s angry. He’s not though, not at me anyway, but he’s an alpha-type whose sole purpose right now is proving that he can make me come.

I’ve given up trying to reassure him. At first, he’d just grunt when I told him it isn’t a big deal, but now he says nothing. So I’ve given up trying, and now I sit with my feet up on the dash as Holden drives us silently through town. Finally, the truck slams to a stop outside the studio where Isla and I got our tattoos last month.

I look to Holden quizzically, and he mumbles, “I live upstairs,” before climbing out of the truck and striding around to open my door. But I’ve barely even managed to unbuckle my seat belt before I feel myself being lifted from my seat and cradled against a hard chest. He’s got one arm hooked under my legs, the other supporting my back, as he holds me the way a husband would carry his new wife across the threshold of their marital home.

“I can walk, you know.”

Holden ignores me, but he keeps me held in his strong arms as he takes long, purposeful steps to a side door I hadn’t noticed the first time I was here. He still doesn’t put me down, even as he takes out his keys and lets us in, even as he takes the stairs to his apartment over the tattoo shop, he keeps me tight to his body.

I pretend to be annoyed, but I don’t mind it, really.

I like it, actually. Maybe too much.

---