Something shifts in my chest. Desire, surely, rampant and uncontainable. I look straight ahead, needing her as an addict needs their next fix.
My en suite bathroom is big—the kind of place I could never have imagined, growing up as I did. It’s at least twice the size of most bedrooms I knew as a kid and it’s covered in marble tiles. A spa bath is at its centre and to the side, with frosted windows that overlook the Thames, there is a shower. I like to shower. I like the feel of water on my skin and I have an overhead nozzle as well as one from either wall.
Holly lifts a brow with amusement. ‘You don’t think this is kind of overkill?’
It’s impossible for someone like her to understand. You grow up with nothing and it does things to you. Trust me, I know about this stuff.
‘You haven’t felt the shower.’ I grin, making light of it, not wanting to open the door to my reasons for living as I do. My bathroom is a palace and the rest of my home is like a loft—there’s nothing luxurious nor expensive, nothing particularly personal, anywhere in this place. As though I’m expecting to pick up a rucksack at any point and walk right out that door. Like I’ve done so many times. I guess old habits really do die hard.
‘I don’t know if my feelings can take anything else wonderful tonight...’ she says, teasing me, reaching out and curling her fingers in my hair in a gesture of such simple intimacy that my heart stalls with ice and rejection immediately.
Intimacy—other than physical—is a lie. A lie people tell themselves, a benign lie, but one with the power to rip your soul out.
‘Let’s test that theory.’
I designed a home app that runs this place—I can control everything from my watch or phone, or from within my car, where I have an audio transceiver hooked up. I programmed the shower with seventeen settings. I go for number five now. All the jets turn on and the water is warm, just warm.
I don’t put Holly down, though. Instead, I lower her onto my cock—my ever-hard cock, right now, thanks to her—and she moans as I do so, her body covered in water, her hair slicked back, her eyes almost panicked when they meet mine. As though she can’t quite believe how good it is between us. How much she wants me.
She tips her head back, her eyes on the ceiling, a cascade of water dousing her.
I’m not wearing a condom. I just want to feel her like that first time, when she climbed on top of me and took me without a single thought for anything other than assuaging her needs, for slaking this desire.
‘I’m on the Pill,’ she says, the words higher in pitch, which I now know means she’s close. Her words drill into me. Is she saying what I think she is? ‘Are you...’ Her eyes drop to mine for a moment and, despite the pink in her cheeks, the tautness of her nipples, she seems to find sanity for a moment. ‘I mean, I presume you’re...safe?’
As it happens, I had to get a full raft of tests a couple of weeks ago—my life insurance is worth enough to buy a country and they like to keep an eye on me. I suppose I’m one of their higher risk clients.
She nods. ‘I don’t want you to use a condom.’ She tilts her head back again and the way she said that, what she’s giving me, is just about the biggest turn-on I can imagine.
I make a primal sound of assent and pull her away from me. She’s so small, I seem to have forgotten she has free will and I’m moving her according to my own desires. One look at her face, though, and I see that she doesn’t mind. That she wants this. That she feels all the good feels right here with me.
I spin her around, facing her towards the windows that overlook the river, bracing her hands on the window ledge.
‘It’s a nice view, but I kind of liked what we were doing,’ she says.
I don’t answer. Not verbally. I push into her from behind and her legs spread wider for me, her body tilting forward so I have complete access to everything I want and need. This! This is how I need to feel her.
I cup her breasts possessively as I push into her and my mouth drops to her shoulder, my teeth pressing against her flesh. She whimpers, her body throbbing around me already. But I’m not going to give her time to absorb each orgasm; I’m going to deluge her with them. I drop one hand to her clit, finding the sensitive cluster of nerves and teasing them with my fingers as my cock moves hard within her. I torment her nipple, rolling it between my thumb and forefinger, plucking it, pulling it until she’s crying out and I am addicted to the sound of that, her raspy, broken moans of surrender.
I know what Holly has been through and from the moment she told me I have felt protective towards her, have thought I should treat her with kid gloves. But what I want, and what I am realising she wants, is for me to simply fuck her, hard.
I do that now, pushing into her as deep as she’ll take me, and the harder I move the more she cries out, begging me over and over, ‘Please, Noah, please.’
My name on her lips is heaven. I will never stop, so long as she keeps calling to me like that. ‘No—ahhhhh...’ She pushes backwards, giving me better access, and I grip her hips with both my hands, holding her hard against me as I slam into her. Her body shakes and quivers and her voice is a primal, feral cry that reverberates around the bathroom as she comes.
I hold her still, steadying her, reassuring her, and my dick throbs inside her as Holly’s warm, wet muscles squeeze me tight, whispering at me to join her, to find my own ecstatic release. But I don’t want this to end yet. I am high on what I can do to her, what she can do to me.
I am high on this feeling.
It takes all my willpower, but I stay hard inside her, refusing to give in to the waves of euphoria that are running through me.
She stays as she is, staring out of the window, or perhaps not seeing, I don’t know. She is shaking all over, her body physically changed by what we just did. I remember then that I didn’t want to give her time to recover.
I run my hand around to her beautiful pussy, brushing against the base of my cock in my quest to touch her. I rub my fingers against her and she moans; I feel her muscles clench anew, wrapping around my cock. Hell, I feel my own ministrations as I massage her into another climax and grit my teeth together, holding off, wanting her to come again, needing her to.
‘What are you doing to me?’ she whimpers, right before she explodes and now I hold her breasts tight, cupping her with both hands, thinking they are the most perfect breasts I’ve ever felt. Thinking she is perfect.
It’s a stray thought and I dismiss it, but then Holly does what I could never have expected. She pulls away from me, a moan of emptiness escapes her as she removes my cock. She turns around to face me and she looks just what she is—a woman who has been fucked. Thoroughly.
I wonder what she’ll say or do. My dick is hard and huge between us and her eyes drop to it. I see her swallow as she takes in my length, perhaps wondering how the hell I fit inside her in the first place.
And then, slowly, fatalistically, she drops to her knees, right in front of me, her hair a wet pelt against her head, her eyes locked to mine.
Is she going to do what I think? What I am now hoping against hope?
Her lips, always painted a bright red, have been kissed free of cosmetics and are simply pale pink, full and perfect. My fingers find their way to her hair, stroking it gently at first.
Then she opens her mouth and takes my tip—just my tip—inside, encircling me with her tongue, testing herself and me, and I find my fingers curling tighter, fisting around her hair, and I’m trying not to hold her still and push myself farther forward. It should be at her pace; she’s tentative and I gather this is new for her too, that she hasn’t done this often, maybe never. Power is an aphrodisiac.
I want to roll my hips and claim her mouth; I want to feel the back of her throat, hitch myself in deep and far. I don’t, but I do hold her hair tightly, as though it alone will save me. I am drowning in this—in her.
And then, out of n
owhere, she moves her mouth along my shaft, and my tip hits the softness at the back of her mouth. I cry out, a hoarse sound that might be her name or might be a curse, and I throw my head back for a second, letting my body feel everything. But only for a second because I want to watch her. Her on her knees, her hair drenched by the shower, her body pale and creamy except for the pale pink patches I’ve left with my stubble and my touch.
She draws back, rocking on her knees a little, and then swallows me again, making a little sucking noise that is hotter than I can say.
My breath hitches in my throat and she pulls away, looking up at me, removing her mouth. ‘Show me what you want,’ she says.
‘You’re doing it,’ I promise throatily.
‘No—’ And she knows me so well, knows what I want. ‘Show me.’ She lifts a finger to my hands that are curled in her hair, her eyes challenging me. ‘I’m not made of glass,’ she whispers.
God, she’s in my head. She hears my thoughts. It terrifies me. But she’s right. I am treating her more gently than I want to, and she doesn’t want that.
‘Show me,’ she says again.
‘Because you haven’t done this before?’ I ask, needing to hear it. Getting off on the admission.
She shakes her head. ‘Never.’
Fuck. I’m done for. I’m fucking done for.
The darkness within me consumes me then, the need to possess her and own her and fill her up with me takes over. Almost against my will, my hands push her head forward, bringing her back to my cock. A thread of concern runs through me and I hear myself say, ‘Tell me if I’m too much for you...’
‘You’re definitely too much for me,’ she says, a small laugh on her face that is taken away when I throb into her. I push her head all the way forward; my cock fills her mouth and I jerk my hips back and forth, fucking her lips, my fingers digging into her scalp. Her eyes hold mine and then, as I move her, she drops a hand between her legs and touches herself.
It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever done.
Her mouth is so moist and I’m so far back, her tongue flattened by me. I know I need to look after her, and I pull back out to let her recover before taking her mouth once more.
She makes a moaning noise and I see that she’s climaxing again, her body quivering.
And I can hold off no longer. ‘I’m coming,’ I grunt, letting go of her hair, giving her a chance to pull away, but she catches my wrist and lifts it back, her eyes warring with mine.
Fuck.
I hold her right against me, so deep her lips encircle the base of my cock, and I thrust twice more into her mouth, releasing myself with a guttural oath, giving her my seed and holding her there while I shake with the power of my release.
I am weakened and strengthened by this. I reach down for her, grabbing her under her arms and lifting her, her wet body sliding along mine as I cradle her against me. I step out of the shower, using the voice command to turn it off. I have a stack of freshly laundered towels on the bench—not my work, obviously, so much as the cleaners who come and look after this place—and I wrap one around her as best I can, without relinquishing our bodies’ contact. Her eyes are heavy, dropping shut as though weighted with cement.
But as we reach the bed and I lay her down gently she smiles at me, her lips curving upwards and her eyes holding mine. There is a silent question we each pose the other: Are you okay? She smiles and I return it.
We’re better than okay.
She is asleep almost the second her head hits the pillow. I towel her dry gently, squeezing water out of her hair so that she doesn’t feel uncomfortable, and then I pull a sheet up around her.
She smiles in her sleep and rolls onto her side, facing the emptiness of the bed. I look at her for a moment and think of going downstairs, of having a Scotch or a coffee or a fucking sandwich. But instead I peel back the sheet and lie in bed beside her, staring at her, watching her sleep, envying the ease with which she’s found peace.
I watch her and, the next thing I know, she is watching me and it’s morning.
The sun is reaching in through the windows, though it is wintry and weak.
‘Hi.’ She smiles at me and my gut twists, like her hands have reached inside me and toyed with my organs.
‘Hi.’ My voice is gruff.
‘You slept.’ She reaches a finger out and touches my lip, tracing it in a way that tickles.
I frown. She’s right. I did sleep, and the whole night through. When was the last time that happened? Before she died. But I don’t want to think about Julianne now.
I don’t want to think about the way I treated her. About the impossibility of making amends, changing my actions, mending her heart.
Holly has this thing she does, when she’s trying to work out what to say to me. She bites on her lip and pinches her eyes together, just a little, just enough to make me know she’s worried she’s going to offend me or push me away.
It gives me enough time to prepare for whatever is coming. How long has she been watching me? And what has she been thinking about? An unfamiliar—no, not unfamiliar—a long-forgotten vulnerability creeps along my spine. A sense of being exposed and weak.
I swallow. Ignoring the feeling. Telling myself it doesn’t apply here.
‘Why don’t you talk about your family?’
Jesus. I wasn’t prepared for that. We were talking about this last night, though. In the kitchen. Before. Before everything.
‘Why do we have to?’
Her frown is infinitesimal...and instantly unpalatable. I don’t want to make Holly frown. I want to make her smile and laugh, to make her face contort with pleasure in a way that is evidence of her mind being blown.
‘We don’t have to. I’m just curious...’
Of course she is. A normal woman would be curious by now and Holly is no normal woman. ‘It’s family,’ I say with a roll of my eyes. It’s an act I’ve perfected over the years. A pretence that I’m long-suffering, like everyone else. Like I have a raft of aunts and uncles and siblings and cousins who drive me crazy instead of the paralyzing loneliness I have known almost my entire life. ‘Do you want to talk about your family?’
She frowns. ‘My family is...nothing special.’
I sense a reprieve, and also curiosity sparks inside me. Both push me to ask, ‘They must be to have made you.’
The compliment shivers across her flesh, goosebumps spreading before my eyes. Power thrills in my gut. ‘Tell me about them.’ I drag the sheet down, exposing her nakedness to me, my gesture possessive and unapologetically so.
‘I thought you didn’t want to talk about family.’
‘My family.’ Or lack thereof.
She rolls her eyes. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘Isn’t it?’ I grin, my fingers finding the curve of her hip and drawing invisible circles there, running figures of eight over her silky flesh until she exhales softly.
‘My parents are very conservative, both in the armed forces. My mother has an administrative role—it’s how they met. My brothers signed up as soon as they were eighteen. I don’t think my dad’s ever forgiven me for not doing the same.’
‘He must be proud of what you do.’
‘He hates shrinks,’ she says with a shrug.
‘Why?’
‘Does he need a reason?’
‘In my experience, there’s usually a reason.’
‘Like with you?’ she prompts.
‘Nice try, Doc, but I asked first.’
She rolls her eyes, such a sexy gesture that I want to pin her back against the bed and kiss her until she whimpers. My dick jerks.
‘Let’s just say there’s a reason I specialise in PTSD. Particularly with returned military personnel.’
‘Your dad?’
‘My dad and my older brother. But I was already practising by the
time Logan came back from Iraq.’ She sighs. ‘My dad was in the first Gulf War. He was...changed by it. Irrevocably. Not so you’d notice if you didn’t know him well. It was just...little things around the house. A temper that would come out of nowhere, whereas he’d never been like that. Paralysing panic attacks that made it impossible for him to go out, and a weird anger whenever Mum tried to organise normal stuff, like family holidays.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Young. Seven...eight. I saw the way he’d changed and I wanted to fix him.’
‘And did you?’
‘Not me, but he did get help.’ Her lips form a lopsided smile.
‘And now you help other people.’
She looks at me meaningfully for a long moment. ‘Yeah, if they’ll let me.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOU TOLD ME you’re not close to your mother.’
Noah looks like I’m digging into his flesh with a knife. He is recalcitrant, closed off and apparently kicking himself for agreeing to this. But he did agree to it. I reach for a slice of cheese and taste it, waiting with the appearance of patience for him to speak.
Finally, his voice gruff, he says, ‘I did.’
‘And that you weren’t raised by your parents. So, who did you grow up with?’
A muscle flexes in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, but I’m done waiting for him to open up to me. This is for both our sakes. This is important.
‘Noah?’ I lean forward, pressing my hand over his. ‘I want to help you. Not as a doctor but as a...’ I search for a word that encompasses all that we are. ‘A friend.’ It’s manifestly unsuitable, but it’s the best I can do.
His eyes hold mine and there is hopelessness and pain in them, like he wants, so badly, to believe me. I ache for him then, and I swear I will make him whole again, no matter what.
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