Page 57 of Fierce Love
“You’ve said that.” I try to keep the irritation out of my voice. Where she lives is so far from a deal-breaker for me that it’s comical. She could live on Mars, and I’d build a rocket ship. But for some reason, she doesn’t want to hear that. “What do you want this to be, Hols? Because I can’t have it be nothing.”
I don’t say the rest—that it would wreck me all over again, that I’ve made my intentions clear, and if she came for a one-nightstand, I’m not the guy. But I wouldn’t want anyone else to be the guy, which is the real mind-fuck. Don’t treat me like shit, but if you’re going to treat anyone like shit in the way you just did, pick me. Pretty fucked up.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Nate.”
“Just tell me what you want, Hollyn. What you actually want. No filter.”
“I want you,” she says, but I can see the conflict in her eyes, the sense that she shouldn’t have said it with so much certainty. “For as long as I can have you. But I don’t want anyone to know. I just want whatever this is to be for us. No one else.”
“No one else?” I can keep work professional without any problem, but it seems impossible to keep whatever this might be from my family, from her sister.
“No one,” she says. “You have to promise me. Just us.”
I step toward her, and I cradle the back of her head with my palm before pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Just us,” I agree.
Whatever gets me her, whatever gives me a chance for more, I’ll seize it with both hands. She places a soft kiss on my lips, and then she slips out of my grasp, sweeping her robe off the floor before disappearing out the door.
She might see this as ending between us when she goes back to New York, but I don’t. That’s not how I see us at all. I’ll go where she goes—all she has to do is ask. Then there’ll be a ring on her finger. My child inside her—eventually.
And that’s just the beginning of what I see happening, what I know to be true. I just have to hope that these next few months give us enough time for her to see it too. I can’t chase her. I won’t. But I don’t know how I’ll ever let her go either.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Hollyn
Somehow, Nate and I managed to get on the plane and back to the apartment on Sunday without Indy or Kinsley being any the wiser about the shift in our relationship. It helped that the two girls were still absorbed in their concert experience and all the merch they needed to dole out to friends today.
“I’ll see you after school,” Kin says, dropping her breakfast plate in the sink. She breezes out the door, her stuffed backpack over her shoulder. Other than a bit of attitude on Saturday over her coffee shop visit with friends, we had a good weekend.
As much as it pains me to admit it, being in Bellerive has been good for her and for me, and it’s definitely healed our relationship, at least a little bit.
I polish off my second piece of toast and then head back to my bedroom. I tug on a loose cotton dress and run a brush through my hair before gathering it into a ponytail. Even though Nate and I agreed to keep us a secret, I don’t know if I can get my headout of the clouds to sell professionalism. Between going to his apartment and finding him climaxing while obviously thinking about me to receiving two orgasms to having him inside me bare for the first time, the last few days are a lot to process. I never let myself consider I could have any part of Nate again. Because no matter how great this moment is, these last few days have been, the dark clouds of my past are just beyond the horizon. They’re there, waiting to cause a life-altering storm. The only way to keep the storm from ruining everything is to keep Nate and me quiet and, god help me, less serious than last time. Somehow.
We might have unearthed emotions in New York, but so many other things need to stay buried, for both our sakes.
Staring at myself in the mirror, I take a deep breath. We’re filming today, and I was told that hair and makeup would be done once I got there. “Fresh-faced and ready to be primped and pampered” was my directive from Twyla before I left the office on Friday.
The door to the apartment opens. “Kin? Did you forget something?” I ask, coming out of my bedroom. My steps stutter to a stop.
“I thinkyouforgot something,” my mother says, a key dangling from her fingers. “I kept expecting you to change the locks.”
My father wanders into the apartment behind her, and my pulse skyrockets.
I’m a grown adult. They can’t hurt me the way they once did. Keep calm and levelheaded.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, and I cast a furtive glance toward the kitchen. If I was closer, I’d grab a knife.
“We have a key,” my father says with a chuckle. “We’ve got as much right as you. You don’townthis apartment.”
Reasoning with him about rental agreements and my aunt’s will won’t help.
“Where’s my stuff?” my mom asks as she gazes around the space.
“Aunt Verna didn’t leave you anything,” I say. “There’s nothing here for you.”
“We came looking for it a few times—money, papers—she was keeping it safe for me. Where the fuck is it, Hollyn? What’d you do with it?”
“I never found any money, and if you don’t leave, I’m calling the cops.”
