She blinked rapidly, her words choked by unshed tears. “That’s what you deserve. That’s how it should be. And the way you look at me—I want to be worthy of that. Of you. I promise, I will be.”
“You already are.” He kissed her cheek, her throat, the curve where her neck met her shoulder. Again and again, so she’d never forget, never be afraid. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“Zach,” she murmured, soft and longing. He looked up to find her lashes fluttering, her eyes turned midnight. He wanted to make them darker still. Wanted to feel her come apart for him, to make love honestly and to have her do the same.
He held her, and stood, and carried her to bed.
Zach’s sheets smelled like him. By the time he laid her gently on top of them, Rae was shaking, overwhelmed by need and by breathless relief. He must’ve sensed how surreal this all seemed to her, because he lay by her side and whispered gentle reassurance in her ear until she could believe that this was it. This was her life. This was her love. It really could be so simple, and so good.
When she was calm, he started to take off her clothes.
He was slow, slow, slow, but achingly steady, as if a natural disaster wouldn’t stop him. He stripped off her T-shirt and ran his hands up the curve of her spine, the breadth of her shoulder blades. He pushed down her jeans and underwear, stroking the tender crease where her arse curved into the back of her thigh. When she whimpered, he kissed her throat, hot and wet with an electric flick of tongue.
It broke something in her. She rose up on her knees and snatched at his clothes, and she wasn’t slow or steady at all. But he didn’t seem to mind.
He did, however, take over again when they were both naked. “Let me taste you,” he murmured, his voice rough, his hands insistent. “Let me.”
As if she would argue.
Her pulse leapt as she lay back. He ran a possessive palm over her thigh, spreading her wide for him. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his breath warm against her sex. “Such a pretty cunt.”
She rolled her hips, anticipation thrumming through her clit. “Do something.”
He pressed a chaste kiss to her hip bone.
“Oh my God, Zach, I swear I’ll strangle you.”
His laughter was low and rich. She felt each puff of air, right before she felt his tongue.
Good Lord, that was good, so good she almost sobbed. His tongue laved her swollen flesh, slick and slow, sending sparks through her blood. He moaned against her pussy and the vibrations rolled through her, melting her into a puddle of lust. His thumbs parted her folds, and his next torturous lick massaged her needy clit. She almost flew off the bed.
“Fuck,” she gasped. “Yes. There. Please.”
Countless times in the past, Zach had playfully ignored her wishes just to hear her growl. Thank God he was too sensible to start that shit in bed. He licked her clit like it was his job, swirling his tongue around the sensitive bud, sucking and stroking, making her dizzy—literally dizzy—with heart-racing pleasure. She bit her lip as her vision darkened at the edges. Ignored it. Gasped recklessly, “More.”
He gave it to her, gripping her hips to hold her still and pushing his face into her slippery, aching cunt, making a mess of her. His moans grew louder and the bed bounced a little, until she realised that he was rocking his hips against the mattress—working his cock without hands. As if the taste of her turned him on so much he couldn’t stop himself. Maybe it was that possibility that snapped the band of delicious tension inside her. Maybe it was his open hunger, so rough and needy and unrestrained, that made her come.
She almost screamed, it was so sudden and intense. Shockwaves of pleasure ripped through her until her ears rang, but through it all, she felt Zach’s hands on her, and she loved their weight.
Languid and dazed, her heart slowing, she murmured, “I liked that.”
Zach laughed. “I appreciate the verbal confirmation.”
“Look at us communicating,” she said wryly.
“Like a dream.” He moved to lie over her, every rough-hewn inch of him pressed boldly against her body, the perfection of his smile filling her vision. She felt his thick erection pushing against her belly, that wicked piercing so different from his soft skin and crisp hair. She’d only just come, but her pussy tightened in anticipation of his swollen shaft. Her hips rolled without permission, rubbing against him, and he growled and bit his own lip.
“Fuck, Rae. Tell me you want me.”
“So much.” Her voice was shattered, but her lust rang out loud and clear. Their eyes met, and it was such a relief not to hide. “I want you so much in every way, and I have you, and I’m not letting you go.”
He groaned and thrust against her belly, his pre-come silky on her skin. He smelled like salt and desperation. “That was pretty fucking romantic, sunshine. Are you coming down with something?”
“Impatience.”
“I’ve got you,” he rasped. And then again, a few minutes later, his fingers slick and sure as he prepared her for his cock. “I’ve got you, love.” Tight, wet circles over her needy clit; long, thick fingers buried inside her. His jaw was tight, his control palpable, but she wanted the storm hiding inside him.
“Please,” she whispered. “I need you. I need you.”
He let her go and rolled on a condom.
Remembering the slow, blissful morning they’d shared last weekend, Rae lay on her side, her back against his chest. He grasped her thigh with a shaking hand and spread her legs. His breaths were laboured, his heart pounding so hard she felt it against her spine. Then the head of his cock nudged her entrance from behind.
She could barely speak. Even her moans were breathless. But she managed to say, “Now. Please. You’re mine. And I’m yours.”
He groaned as if the words were a touch. Then he thrust hard, rocked deep, and took her completely. His arms were iron bars around her, and each stroke of his cock unravelled her mind. She clutched at his tense forearms and gasped, sobbed, begged for more. He sank his teeth into her shoulder and gave it to her.
He gave her everything.
Rae’s second orgasm was a lightning-bolt blow to her nerve endings, a wave of beautiful devastation. Behind her, Zach choked out a moan, one hand gripping her hip to hold her still. “Jesus,” he gasped. “Fuck, you feel so good, squeezing my dick. Rae—”
She felt the moment he came, too, his whole body spasming behind her, his voice cutting out and his cock pulsing between her thighs. As soon as he finished, he rolled her over and kissed her like his life depended on it.
Later, when she was dazed and satisfied, and he’d dealt with the condom, she said, because she felt like it, “I really, really love you.”
“And I really, really love you.”
This was peace. Pure and simple.
He gathered her close and kissed the top of her head, holding her for a while. Then he broke the comfortable silence to say, “Nice of Duke to stay downstairs through all of that.”
Rae snorted, clapping a hand to her mouth. “Shut up.”
“I’m just saying. Very considerate.”
“You’re ridiculous.” She poked his ribs. He poked back. She pulled his hair. He smacked her arse and bent his head to lick her nipple. After a moment, she was gasping, “Alright, okay. You win.”
He pushed her onto her back. Bent over her breast again with obvious intent. “You’re damn right I do.”
Pleasure shivered through her, but somehow, she kept her wits. “Do you know what this is?”
He looked up, releasing her breast. He must’ve seen something serious in her face, because he caught her hand and twined their fingers together. “What is it, sunshine?”
“This is a happy ending.”
His eyes shone with satisfaction. “Oh. Shit. You’re right.”
Epilogue
Two Years Later
It was a sweltering Friday night in August, and the Unicorn’s beer garden was full of disapproving stares. Baby Ann McRae, infamously
gauche divorcée, had recently increased her scandalous behaviour. Bad enough that she’d started sleeping with the town trollop, a man twelve years younger and ten times prettier than she was. Even worse that they’d moved in together, living in obnoxious sin, as if they truly didn’t care what the Ravenswood gossips said. Now they’d gone and fucking done it, they really, really had. Because Rae’s left hand, the one currently skating through Zach’s dark hair, sported an emerald and sapphire engagement ring so bright you could see it from space.
Despicable, all those razor-sharp eyes seemed to say.
Delicious, Rae thought at the sight of Zach’s smile. She leaned in to kiss it.
He turned as if he’d read her mind, curling an arm around her shoulders, dragging her close, kissing her hard. By the time they finished, Nate was rolling his eyes in a way that didn’t quite match his delighted grin, and Ruth was looking vaguely horrified.
But the poor woman couldn’t be too grossed-out, since she managed to complain a moment later. “Do you realise how horrendous it is that we are all engaged? At the same time? As if we planned it, like… like sorority sisters?”
Evan’s look of triumph hadn’t faded for months. Even now, it sharpened as he winked at his fiancée. “I think it’s cute.”
“You would,” Ruth muttered, but she fingered the fine, silver necklace where her engagement ring hung, and her eyes seemed to smile while her mouth stayed disapproving.
“I agree,” Hannah said. “It’s cute.” When all eyes turned to her in astonishment, she arched her perfectly shaped brows. “What? It is.”
“That’s it,” Ruth snorted. “The world is ending. The apocalypse is now.”
“It’s a shame Laura and Samir are already married,” Evan mused. “We could’ve planned a four-way wedding.”
“We could’ve planned a what?!”
While the rest of the table wound Ruth up, Rae put her head on Zach’s shoulder and breathed in the scent of happiness: lemonade and red wine, hot, languid summer, and Zach. Her love. Molten iron, dappled sunlight, and cool certainty.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and murmured. “Penny for your thoughts.”
She smiled. “You can have them for free.”
The End
Thank you for reading Hold Me Close! I hope it held you close and offered a comforting, cozy distraction when you needed it most.
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And keep reading for a sneak peek at my M/M novel WORK FOR IT—an enemies-to-lovers romance set in a tiny, rural village near Ravenswood…
Chapter One
Griff
It’s a warm, sunny Saturday—proper lovely, bright enough to beam through my rose-printed curtains and paint my living room blood-red. Which, now I mention it, looks a bit weird. But still; this is a nice, spring day.
Now, ask me what I’m doing. Go on. Say, What are you up to with your weekend, Griffin?
Right now, I’m sat in the (creepy) blood-red living room, staring at my mother’s candles on the end table. There’s three of them, burned down to different heights, all as thick as my wrist, which is pretty fucking thick. They used to be black, but their colour is messed up by the thick layer of dust that’s settled over the last ten years. Dribbles of wax cling to their edges, frozen forever, because these candles will never be lit again. Mum’s not here to do it, after all. But I’m not thinking about that.
No; on this fine Saturday, I’m thinking about ginger, and all the ways it’s causing me problems.
I stormed into the living room five minutes ago, because if I’d stayed in the kitchen, I might have tried to brutally murder a root. The twist in my latest cordial recipe, a rich orange and cinnamon spice I’m planning in time for Christmas, is frustrating the shit out of me. It’s not right. It wasn’t right on Monday evening, either, or Tuesday or Wednesday or the rest of the week, which is why I’m still fiddling with winter flavours in the middle of spring on a Saturday—because Rebecca reckons holiday options will keep the business’s momentum going, and who’ll come up with those options if I don’t? Definitely not our bloody boss. He—
Ah. Ah. I’ve fucking got it.
I jump up—or, rather, I get up slowly because this sofa hasn’t changed since Mum died either, and it whines whenever I sit or stand. Doesn’t matter. This is my, what do you call it? My eureka moment. Fuck the details. I stride back into the kitchen, pick up the wrinkled knot of ginger I threw down a while ago, and snag a red chilli from the little plant on the windowsill. If I can DIY some minor infusion, just as a test run—
Bang, bang, bang.
Aaaand that is the sound of my Saturday work session coming to a fast and definite end. I drop the ginger—at this rate, it’ll bruise like a peach in protest—and smile in spite of myself. Only one tiny fist has ever made such a racket at my back door. To be honest, only one person in this village ever comes to see me at all, not that I’m complaining.
Rebecca lets herself in after three seconds of waiting, which she’d probably describe as Oh my God like a fucking hour, and stands in the open doorway, her hands on her hips. Behind her, I see my garden, a contained little fairy forest bathed in rich, afternoon sun. The light glints off Rebecca’s hay-coloured curls and steely expression.
“Griffin Everett,” she says to me, “you best not be working.”
“Nope,” I tell her. Not a lie. I’ve just started washing up.
“Oh, Lord, you are. This is what happens when I leave you to your own devices of a weekend.” She throws up her hands. “Come on, you great lump. Let’s go and have some fun.”
I grumble and moan because that’s what I do, and she ignores me happily.
Five minutes later, we’re walking down the village’s main road. It’s called Fernley Road. The village is called Fernley. Yeah. It’s that kind of village.
Since this is the only way to get anywhere useful, and since it’s such a nice day, there’s plenty of people out and about. They walk their dogs, call absent orders to their kids, give each other cheerful hellos, ignore me and Bex. That’s part of the routine. We come face to face on the narrow path with old Mr. Holyrood and his five dachshunds, who all stop to greet Rebecca—probably because they’re miniscule dogs and she’s a miniscule human. My best friend and I are opposites, little and large, light and dark, mouthy and socially silent.
Mr. Holyrood, like everyone else in this town, watches me from the corner of his eye as if I’m one of those midnight monsters who creeps up on you when you look away. He greets Bex first, since her only crimes are 1. Being a bit brash, for a woman, and 2. Being best mates with me. The fact that she used to get with girls before she “came to her senses” and married a nice young man is seen as a teenage phase—by everyone but us, I mean.
“Rebecca,” he says stiffly, nodding all slow and careful, like the pea-sized head on his long, thin neck might drop off and roll away. Then, through gritted teeth like I’m bloody Voldemort, he mutters my name. “Griffin.”
Griffin. Even that part of me is wrong, in a place like this. My mother—my tragic, scandalous, blah-blah-fucking-blah mother—gave me a weirdo name, as far as Fernley’s concerned. People round here are called John or Beth or James. People round here aren’t born out of wedlock, people round here aren’t unnaturally massive and unnervingly quiet, people round here aren’t openly into men and completely fine with it. People round here aren’t me, unless they have the bad taste to be me, in which case you’d better avoid them or tell them what a freak they are whenever you can.
Although, most people stopped choosing that last option once I hit 6’2.
“Afternoon, Mr. Holyrood,” Rebecca says. The words are polite, right? But the way she says them, they sound like Fuck you, Mr. Holyrood, wearing their Sunday best. That’s her superpower. I don’t have a superpower, or the patience to talk to p
eople I don’t like, so I just stand there in silence. I do that a lot, which might be part of my, er, image problem. Not that I care.
After a tense moment of awkward nodding and sharp commands at dogs, Holyrood skirts around us and fucks off. Once he’s gone, Rebecca hooks her arm through mine—which is awkward, with the height difference, but I like it anyway—and drags me down the street. “Don’t you want to know what we’re doing?”
I seriously consider that. “Is it going to give me a heart attack?” Rebecca has a talent for wild decisions and for convincing me to go along with them.
“No,” she laughs. The sound tinkles like bells. If you didn’t know Rebecca very well, you’d think she was just the sweetest doll of a woman. “We’re going to spy on Mrs. Hartley.”
Maria Hartley is a war widow with three kids, and a teacher at the local school. She has a single shock of white in her brown hair and she smiles at me like I’m a normal person. When my mother was alive, Mrs. Hartley called her Gemma, babe, and looked her in the eye. Sometimes Mum sent me round to hers with jars of homemade jam. I’m right fond of Mrs. Hartley, I am, so I frown. “Spying why?”
“She’s renting out her little flat again. To a Londoner, I heard.”
Mrs. Hartley’s flat does a not-so-roaring trade in historical tourists, usually snagging one a year. If that. “A relative?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Aly says—” Aly is Rebecca’s neighbour “—that he looks like nothing she’s ever seen.”
I have no idea what that could mean, so I mutter dubiously, “Hm.”
“Oh, go on with you.” Rebecca smacks my arm. “This is why we’re going to spy! To see if she’s right!”
“Hm,” I say again.
Rebecca laughs.
It takes all of five minutes to reach Mrs. Hartley’s big, white house with its pretty hanging baskets and green-painted fence. Her kids are in the front garden, arguing over who gets the last choc ice and who’ll have to make do with rocket lollies. The minute they see me, their eyes widen. I hover by the garden gate behind Rebecca and consider smiling at them. Then I realise I’m casting a shadow—a literal fucking shadow—over the garden. Sigh. My awkward attempt at a smile would probably send them screaming.
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