by Nicole Snow
I pull the sheets closer against my chest. “I’m just...picturing you in bed with other women. Lovely, I know.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a grown man actually go pale.
“Oh, shit,” he says, slipping his fingers out of my hair and pushing himself up on one elbow to look down at me with his brows furrowed into an almost comically deep line. “Am I in trouble already?”
I can’t help but laugh, turning to muffle it in the pillow.
He’s like a little boy in a grown man’s body, sometimes.
It’s ridiculous and cute as hell.
“What?” He actually sounds worried. “What’d I say that’s so funny?”
“That.” I hide another snicker against the pillow, then clear my throat and turn my head to rest my cheek to the cool pillowcase again, looking up at him. “I’m not mad. I was just wondering if you were like this with other girls.”
Holt looks straight-up confused. Then he sinks back down on the bed slowly.
“Like what?” he asks.
“Making them feel...”
I frown, trying to find the words for it. For the way I felt when he looked at me like I was the only woman in the world, touching me like he knew me better than I know myself.
Yeah. That.
Every bit of that.
“...special. Treasured. That’s why they hated you, because they realized after it was over it was all fake.” I bite my lip. “A dream. One that made them wish they could never wake up—only you’re already gone, leaving them dreaming away all by their lonesome.”
Something I can’t quite figure out flickers in his eyes.
It’s dark, strange, and it might almost be sad.
“Is that how you’re feeling now?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know.” I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t like lying, either.
I’ve had e-damn-nough of that for a lifetime.
“I don’t know if you’re really here with me,” I say.
“Oh, I’m here, honey,” he promises, his voice deep and hot. “If you’re dreaming, then I’m dreaming right the fuck with you, woman. And I’m not keen on waking up.”
The way his words come out kills me.
This rough, heartfelt thing, hitting that much harder when his gritty voice has this sensuous quality that just makes my knees butter.
About as weak as the roughness of his palm gets me.
He presses it to my cheek and strokes down my jaw, holding me captive with those eyes.
I’m back to thinking they must be the devil’s again.
He’s got me that spellbound.
“Truth be told, I’ve never been like this with any woman in my life. That’s not just pretty talk to make you believe me, either. It’s...fuck.” He makes a low sound in his throat, brows lowering. “Women always wanted me to be dirty. So I was. You’re the first woman who wanted something else.”
He stops.
Dead stops, staring at me like I’m something he’s never seen before in his life, something that confuses and enchants him all at once. My heart trips over wild beats.
“You wanted me to be real,” he finishes in a whisper. “So I was real for you, Libby.”
God, it almost pisses me off, the way I flutter up when he talks like that.
I want to believe him, instead of thinking it’s just some slick act so I won’t put him out on his ass before he’s gotten a good night’s sleep out of the deal.
But something about what he said bugs me.
I actually hurt for him instead of bracing for him to hurt me.
“What about for you?” I ask.
His mouth quirks quizzically. “What do you mean?”
“You were dirty for them and real for me. I mean, you were plenty dirty, too, but you know what I mean.” I press my hand to that huge, rough hand against my cheek, turning my head to kiss his palm and inhale his scent.
He smells like hot summer days and the mountains and a hint of raw, wild sex.
“What do you ever do that’s for you, Holt?” I ask.
“Tough question.” Holt smiles, and there’s that completely disarming boyish sweetness coming out again. “A whole lot of what I used to do was tied up in my ego. So even if I was being filthy for those girls, I was also doing it for me. To prove something. That I could make them crave me, make them want me. So in a way, doing what they wanted was all for me. I wasn’t some martyr.”
“Yeah?” I whisper.
He lingers on me, stroking his thumb against my cheek, tracing just beneath my eye.
“Being real for you, that was all about you. About wanting to make sure that if you were gonna give me a shot, actually be with me...” The more he talks, the more that Heart’s Edge drawl comes out, lazy and purring. “That you wouldn’t regret shit. Even if we never do this again, I don’t want you to regret tonight.”
God, I want to believe him.
Hard not to when he touches me like this is his only chance, and he’s making sure he remembers it for the rest of his life.
Making sure I remember it, too.
Even if he walks out that door in the morning, I don’t think I’ll ever forget Holt Silverton.
“And if we do it again?” I ask tentatively.
Uh-oh. This cocky bastard grins.
Dark, wicked, a slow smile that tells me exactly what’s on his mind.
“If we do it again, I’ll show you what dirty really means,” he rumbles.
Everything inside me quivers. “Like what you did to me already wasn’t filthy.”
“Honey,” he says, “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” He leans in close, and I think he’s about to kiss me, but instead he brings that dark, dirty voice right up against my ear, making me shiver. “If you’ll let me, I can...”
What he says next makes heat, then chills, then fire blast rip through me so roughly my whole body snaps tight. With a gasp, I shove at his chest, my face on goddamn fire.
“Holt Silverton!”
He lets himself be pushed back, smirking wickedly. “There’s the small-town girl. What happened to the tiger who clawed my back up?”
I freeze. “Oh—oh, crap. I didn’t even realize—are you bleeding?”
The smirk on his face and the light in his eyes makes me want to crawl under the bed from sheer mortification.
I can’t believe I lost myself so much that I left marks on his back.
Now he’s never gonna stop being smug about being that good.
And he sure as hell sounds smug now as he purrs, “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Nope.
I’m checking out of here before his head gets too big for the room.
I should put something on his back, anyway, since human nails are dirtier than any animal claws.
I gather the sheet up as a makeshift robe and sit up, starting to swing my legs over the side of the bed. “Let me—”
“Libby.” He stops me with a hand curled around my wrist, that smug look softening into a warm smile, a lingering gaze. “It’s fine. Stay here with me. Talk.”
I’m tempted to yank loose and run.
I could. He’s not holding me too hard.
That touch isn’t a demand. It’s a question. A request.
But I think that’s why I stay.
Because it’s like he knows me that well already.
Try to pin me down, try to push me, and I’ll just kick back, shake him off, and fly away.
Ask me, though, give me a choice...
I’ll choose to stay.
And I stay now, even if it’s giving me the shakes, settling back against the pillows and letting go of my death grip on the sheet.
“O-okay.” I don’t think I’ve ever sounded so nervous in my life. “About what?”
“You. Me. Us,” he says, still looking at me like he can’t see anything else. “And if you want this to mean anything.”
I kind of hate him right now.
Just because it was a hell of a lot easier to
hate him when he was smarmy in that stupid suit, smirking at me and saying dirty things that curled my toes.
When he’s like this, it’s not so easy.
His eyes reach down inside me so deep, reminding me how he can make me feel with a single kiss.
I look away, folding my arms over my chest and curling up against the pillows.
“Do you want it to?” I ask.
“Nice deflection.” He makes an amused sound. “What if I do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what that means.”
“Well, for starters...”
I hear his body moving against the sheets, his skin hissing against fabric, like its roughness is a whisper reminding me how it felt against my flesh.
His warmth presses against my side. One hot, heavy arm drapes around my shoulders.
“For starters, you can try not shutting down and hiding from me,” he finishes in a low rumble.
Some stubborn part of me wants to resist. To pull away.
I’m a little tired of being stubborn, though.
Uncurling myself, I tuck in against him, burying my face against his chest so I can be close to him without having to meet his eyes.
“There,” he growls, both arms around me now. “You feel damn good, Libby.”
“Um, okay,” I mutter, but then after a moment, my face burning, I add, “so do you.”
He chuckles. “Don’t know about you, but I think we got a chance at something real here. I don’t know what else to call it...if you want to give it a shot, I’m game.”
“I...yeah. I think I could.”
It’s hard to say, hard to admit, but I’m so tired of fighting everything.
I feel like the whole world’s against me, trying to take everything I love.
Right now, Holt’s the only one trying to give anything back.
Trying to be here for me.
Trying to cherish me.
“Honestly, it scares me to trust you,” I whisper. “It feels like all the people I’ve ever trusted turned out to be awful.”
“Not true,” he soothes, stroking his hand down my arm. “Your father wasn’t awful. We’ll get that cleared up. I bet your mom wasn’t awful, either. Sierra, well, she’s a mess, but she’s got her own pain to deal with. The problem is, she’s making it your problem, too.”
I smile faintly and shift my head to his shoulder, curling my fingers against the taut, honed strength of his upper arm. “I just barely agreed to let you be my sort-of person. Now you’re stepping up to be my therapist?”
“I’m not your shrink, just your listener.” He kisses the top of my head, his beard a lovely rasp. “How often does anyone ever listen to you instead of expecting you to take care of shit by yourself?”
That hits harder than I expect.
So hard it’s like someone punched me right in the sternum, socking the breath right out of me.
I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to, but it’s prickling my eyes, and it makes me realize I never really mourned Dad.
Not for real.
Not when his death came with so many other things to deal with, too many responsibilities that couldn’t be ignored. Other than that first burst of tears, I’ve been too busy running.
“Dad used to listen,” I whisper. “Before he got sick and just disappeared into himself, he’d...he’d listen to me. We’d talk about everything.” I swallow, but it won’t make the tightness in my throat go away. “It was us against the world sometimes. Family. We could always lean on each other.”
“And,” Holt whispers, “you feel like he betrayed you by leaving you alone.”
“You’re not supposed to know that!” I gasp, curling up tighter.
But this time, when I try to retreat into myself, he’s right there.
Sheltering me with this quiet strength it’s taken me too long to figure out he has.
There’s a lot with Holt that’s just surface deep.
Not real.
But you scratch past that, underneath?
There’s a loyal, kind, powerful man who’s a bit of a lunk, sure.
But a lunk who’ll hold me while I fall apart and put me back together in one solid piece until I feel like I can hold myself up again.
No denying it.
Not exactly the sexiest pillow talk ever, but here we are.
It’s not just Dad I’m mourning.
It’s me.
Because I want to be able to lean on Holt, to have something where we trust and hold ourselves up and take care of each other.
But what if I have that with him, what if I want that with him...
...and something just snatches it away from me again?
For now, he stays where he is.
Holding me while I have the ugliest of ugly cries ever, until I can finally breathe again and I’m not just making a mess of myself all over him.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I don’t think this is how you imagined tonight ending.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he answers lightly. “Thought it’d end with you in my arms. It did. And I’m hoping me being here made that easier for you to deal with. If it did, sounds like a win for me.”
“I—you—” I scrub at my nose, then scowl up at him. “Quit being so nice.”
He just grins unapologetically, gold-brown eyes nearly glowing with satisfaction.
“You really want that, honey? Because I can be plenty mean.”
“Goddammit, Holt.” There’s no winning, especially when that wicked grin just makes me want to smile right back.
I compress my lips, trying to hold it in, but it doesn’t work.
After a second, I sputter out a tired laugh and thunk my head on his chest.
“I still hate you. A little less, maybe,” I tease.
“I know you do, sweetheart. I know.” He kisses my hair again. “You want to shoot the shit some more?”
“I don’t even know.” With a sigh, I let myself go lax against him. “I just wish I knew more. The first time I went down that road and saw that guy’s body, suddenly it made sense why Dad always kept us away from Nowhere Lane. But realizing that means he was hiding it all this time...it makes me look at my whole life with him in a different light.”
“Should it?”
“How can it not?” I ask. “All this time, knowing he was lying, hiding it from me...”
“Protecting you,” Holt adds. “Listen, I don’t think the love he gave you growing up was a lie. His love doesn’t have to be different just because you know something new about him.”
“It’d help if I knew more.” I lean my head on Holt’s shoulder, letting my eyes drift to the window, a little arcing bay thing that gives me a perfect view of the stars.
I’ve been tracking the whirl of the constellations through that window for years. It hurts to think that gift Dad gave me is tainted.
“I can’t see it,” I whisper. “No matter how I turn it over in my head, I just can’t see him as this cold-blooded killer.”
“We’ll find answers, Libby,” Holt promises, his hand stroking up my spine, soothing and soft. “And when we do, you’ll rest easy again.”
I want to believe him.
But right now, there’s only the darkness and silence.
Too many unanswered questions between me, Holt, and Dad’s secrets.
They’re there, haunting us like a ghost I can feel in every floorboard and rafter of this house.
Falling asleep next to Holt shouldn’t be this nice.
It took me a while to drift off with my brain going in circles, but the nice thing is that Holt knows just how to let a girl be.
He didn’t pry at me, didn’t push me.
He just held on and let me tire myself out.
It felt safer, somehow, to do that in his arms.
Knowing he was lying there awake with me, guarding me from my own bad thoughts.
Maybe he was having bad thoughts, too. But at least we were having them together, and I kinda hope being so
close helped him the same way he helped me.
Still, it took far too long to fall asleep last night.
I’m a sleepy wreck come morning.
A little too sore to be riding much today. I swear, it’s with complete disgust that I crack one eye open and watch him roll out of bed like it ain’t nothing.
He’s full of energy, moving with this sinuous grace that makes him as impressive as he is gorgeous.
“Oh, nooo. Don’t tell me,” I groan, dragging a pillow over my face against the rising rays of the sun flitting through the window. I can’t resist peeking at him, watching how the light flows over his body. “If I’d known you were a morning person, I’d have kicked you out.”
“As opposed to fucking?” Holt snorts back a laugh as he steps into his boxers and jeans, hoisting them up around those delicious V-hip crests designed to make a girl insane.
“Why you gotta say it like that?” I snag the other pillow and toss it at him.
He ducks, still laughing, and rakes a hand back through that sin-black hair, smirking at me.
“’Cause that’s exactly what happened. We fucked real hard, honey. Your legs wrapped around my waist, and...” He turns his head, glancing at his own shoulder, where a fading red mark digs into his skin in two neat oval-shaped arcs. “Yep. Sure enough, you bit me.”
“Oh my God.” I scrunch down, pulling the covers up over my head. “Get out. Get outta my house, you dick.”
Mortified, I’m still laughing.
“Kind of have to. I’ve got work. We’ve got a shipment of new equipment coming in today so we can pick up clearing the Paradise Hotel site.”
His weight pushes the bed down then, and he catches the covers and drags them down.
Then he kisses me, kneeling over me until all I can see is him and the light and then nothing at all. I close my eyes and sink into it with a soft, hungry sigh.
He makes me feel too good.
Like I’m just liquid in a lady-shaped skin, slowly heating up until I’m ready to boil over with every caress of his mouth, every slow taste he takes of my lips.
He knows how to kiss a girl, all right.
That perfect mix of sweet and naughty that makes me tingle in all the right places.
He uses his tongue in soft suggestion, slipping into me until I’m moaning, going loose, forgetting I even meant to hide from him and kick his stupid, arrogant, sexy ass out of my house.
