Now or Never

by Victoria Denault

  “Morning, Larry,” he whispers against my shoulder and I laugh.

  “Shut up, jerk,” I say and let my left hand drift between us until I find his dick. He’s hard as a rock. “You’re in a vulnerable position here so I’d watch it if I were you.”

  He moves, rolling on top of me, his lips skimming my neck and then my cheek before finding my lips. My hand is still pinned between us around his shaft and I give it a slow, soft tug, which makes him groan in that way that makes my insides boil. It also gives my tongue just enough room to slip past his parted lips and claim his mouth. I want to repeat last night more than I want anything in the world. I part my legs so his hips slip between them and I tug on him again. “Is that an invitation?”

  I smile and kiss him again. “Only if you don’t call me Larry.”

  “How about if I call you beautiful, and so fucking sexy I woke up with the worst hard-on of my life,” he says slipping his hips forward, bringing himself closer. I move my hand around to his ass as he reaches for a condom from the bedside table. He still has that tight round hockey ass. “How about if I call you perfection. Because you are.”

  I wrap my arms around his neck and tilt my pelvis toward his as he rolls the condom on. Then his tip grazes my entrance. “How about if you just—” He pushes into me in one steady long thrust. “Yeah…that.”

  The sex is as passionate and perfect as it was last night, the only difference is it doesn’t feel as crazy, or as rushed because we’re both confident now that this is what we need—each other. There’s no hurry to see how this ends because we know the answer—it ends in pure, raw pleasure. We enjoy it, teasing, licking, touching, until we’re panting, groaning, shuddering. I come just as hard as last night and with just as much abandon. This man has set me free—for these fleeting, euphoric minutes—I am free of pain and sadness and I feel good again. I cling to his shoulders, nuzzling my face against his scruffy beard and moan against his skin. “I need you.”

  “You have me,” he grunts as he pushes hard into me. “You fucking own me.”

  His hips snap, his head tilts back and he grunts as he shudders his release and it’s the most fucking amazing thing I’ve ever seen. This man who, from the moment I met him, has been nothing but toughness and darkness, has slowly started to show me more and right now, in the middle of his release he is nothing but pure vulnerability and I am just in awe.

  He collapses on top of me and we stay that way for a while, wrapped up in each other, drifting in and out of sleep. The weight and warmth of his body on mine fills me with a peace I haven’t felt in years. When the sun starts to poke through the blinds on the window behind the bed and he stirs, rolling over, I fight the urge to stop him. He rubs his eyes and picks up his phone from a tiny shelf next to him. “My electrician is going to be here to finish up the wiring in twenty minutes or so.”

  “Boo,” I mutter and Holden laughs as he climbs out of bed. He stretches, butt naked, and yawns again. My eyes shamelessly sweep over him, drinking in every sculpted inch of him. Boy is a beast. And then he turns and walks toward the bathroom and his perfect, tight round ass is on display. “You want to shower first?” he asks as he stops in front of the tiny door. “I’d just carry you in there and do it together, but it’s definitely not big enough.”

  “We can break in the new shower in the cottage that way,” I suggest and he smiles.

  “I like the way you think,” he says. “And now I’m going to bust my ass to finish that bathroom as soon as possible.”

  “Good,” I say and sit up, holding the blankets against me. “You shower first. I don’t think my legs work right now anyway.”

  “I did my job then,” he chuckles as he slips inside the tiny bathroom. He leaves the door open and I’m tempted to just sit here and watch him, but I force myself not to and crawl from the bed to hunt down my clothing.

  As I dress, reality starts to set in and my brain starts to fall back into its old patterns of self-doubt. What did we just do? What does it mean? Was it one night? Am I ready for something? I just came out of a ten-year relationship that went nowhere. What the hell am I doing? What is he doing? What does he want? I wish my dad were here to talk to. I used to be able to tell him anything.

  I’m in full-on mental free fall by the time I’ve got all my clothes back on, so I decide I need some air. I walk through the trailer. “I’m going outside for a minute,” I call, not sure he can even hear me over the water, but I don’t wait to find out if he did.

  I swing open the trailer door, hop down the steps and as soon as my feet land on the driveway I am face-to-face with Sadie and Dixie.

  I gasp in surprise. Dixie has her arms crossed. Sadie has hers on her hips and they’re both staring at me with wide, shocked eyes, which I’m sure match my own.

  “What the hell are you two doing here?” I ask.

  “What are you doing here?” Sadie replies.

  “What are you doing in there?” Dixie adds, uncrossing her arms long enough to point at Holden’s Airstream.

  “There’s no heat in the house,” I say.

  Sadie’s left eyebrow rises. “And so you created heat in the trailer?”

  “What? No. I…what are you doing here?”

  “Jude told us you were here,” Sadie says and I freeze. How the hell does Jude know where I am? The trailer door swings open behind me and a shirtless, towel-clad Holden is standing there.

  I should be embarrassed because my sisters are looking at me like they know exactly what happened last night but instead I’m angry—at Holden. “Did you tell Jude I was here?”

  “No,” Holden says firmly. “He told me you were here and I didn’t lie.”

  “What?”

  “Ty told Jude you didn’t get on the plane, Win,” Sadie says and I’m still mad at Holden. Why couldn’t he lie for me? He must know exactly what I’m thinking because his eyes soften.

  “I had to tell the truth, Winnie.” He wants me to forgive him, I can see it all over his face and I will. Eventually. Right now, I have to deal with this.

  I turn away from him to face my sisters again. They’re both still staring at him. “Long time, no see Holden,” Dixie says with a small wave and a smaller smile. She didn’t like him either. Hell, none of us did except Jude.

  “Dixie. Sadie.” He nods at them both. Sadie gives me a bigger smile, but I know it’s more because he’s naked and she thinks I had something to do with that. “I’m going to get dressed.”

  He shuts the trailer door and my sisters attack.

  “Oh. My. God. Did you sleep in there last night?” Dixie demands. “With him.”

  “Did you not sleep last night in there, with him?” Sadie asks.

  “I thought he was a dick? Are you fucking a dick?” Dixie says. “Why are you fucking a dick?”

  “Technically we all fuck dicks,” Sadie quips and Dixie rolls her eyes at the bad pun. Sadie looks over at me again. “But seriously, Win. Is this like some kind of…I don’t know…like grief therapy or something? Are you really with him? Do you like him? How did this happen? When did you break up with Ty? Are you seriously just going to hide here forever?”

  “Please just stop,” I say and for some reason tears are building behind my eyes. “I don’t want to discuss my life with you guys, which is why I was hiding out here. So I could be alone.”

  They both look wounded by that and I feel bad but it’s the truth and I’ve spent way too much time in recent years avoiding the truth. Sadie’s face falls. Dixie looks like she might cry. I feel that cold dark ball of guilt and sadness starts to fill my gut again.

  “Winnie,” Dixie says with a trembling voice. “We lost him too.”

  And the tears fall. From my eyes, from hers and from Sadie’s. We’re three sobbing messes. Sadie grabs us both and pulls us into a hug. I hear Holden’s trailer door open and then close. I think he probably saw us and scooted back inside to give us privacy, but then I hear him clear his throat. We pull apart and I wipe at my eyes. Holden i
s hunched over with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. “You ladies are welcome to talk it out in my trailer. I have to get in there and work.”

  I shake my head. “Let’s go to the beach.”

  They both nod and as we head down the driveway, I try not to look directly at Holden. I’m a big enough mess as it is, but he squeezes my shoulder as I pass by, and I have to look up. He hands me the blankets I was wrapped in last night. “It’s chilly. Take these.”

  I let him pile them in my arms. “Thank you.”

  At the beach it’s low tide, so we walk all the way down the where the sand starts to dip and we drop down, side by side, to stare at the surf. Dixie and Sadie drape a blanket over their shoulders and I wrap myself in the other one. It’s not as cold as it was the last couple of days and I think it might be warm and beautiful today. We don’t say anything for a long while and just watch the waves crashing on the shore. The finally Sadie speaks. “Is it really over between you and Ty?”

  I take a long, slow breath. “Yes.”

  “Why now?” she says.

  I close my eyes and tip my head up to the sun. “The month before we all moved to San Francisco, I found out he was fucking one of the other accountants in his office.”

  “Winnie, oh my God,” Sadie gasps.

  “That fucking piece of human garbage,” Dixie says furiously.

  “I’m the asshole that was too weak to leave him,” I say and open my eyes to look at their faces. Dixie’s expression is pure anger and she looks like Jude right before he punches someone on the ice. Sadie looks concerned, which reminds me of my mom when we used to do stupid stuff as kids. “I should have just ended it back when I found out, but I didn’t because he was sorry and said he loved me and I decided to try to forgive him.”

  “I could never forgive that,” Dixie says.

  “I couldn’t either and I think I knew it,” I reply and run my fingers through my hair, trying to tug out the tangles out from the night before. “But I still didn’t end it.”

  Sadie sighs, tracing lines in the sand beside her left knee. “Well at least I finally understand why you two were fighting so much. You could have told us. We would have been there for you just like we’re trying to be here for you now.”

  “We were all already dealing with so much,” I say. “And I wasn’t ready to tell anyone it happened. Fuck, I’m not even ready now.”

  “Okay first of all, you have nothing to be ashamed of and second of all, you have nothing to feel guilty about,” Dixie says firmly as she tucks up her legs, wraps her arms around them and rests her chin on her knees.

  “Why did you finally end it?” Sadie says softly

  “Dad told me to.” I glance over and they’re both staring at me. “In his letter.”

  “He flat-out said dump his ass?” Dixie questions and I laugh lightly.

  “No. He knew I wasn’t happy, and he urged me to go after my happiness,” I say and swallow the lump in my throat. “He said it was now or never, and he’s right. I mean, Holden is an example of that. Dad wanted to renovate the cottage forever and never did, and now he’s not going to get to see it.”

  “Dad’s right.” Sadie nods, staring out at the ocean. “Life is now or never. I’m trying to remember that and not put things off and enjoy everything I’m doing, every moment with Griffin and even every good day at work but…I still miss him so much.”

  “Me too,” I sniff. “How is Mom doing?”

  “Better than I thought she would be,” Sadie says. “She has her bad moments, but she’s going to a grief counselor and she’s coping.”

  I nod and guilt fills my heart. I haven’t kept in contact as much as I should. “I will call her.”

  “She’d like that.” Dixie reaches for my hand and squeezes it gently. “But she’s okay if you don’t call too. She knows you better than anyone. She knows you have to handle this your own way. Like a weirdo.”

  I chuckle and squeeze her hand back. Sadie laughs too, and I suddenly feel lighter and stronger than I have in months.

  “Since you brought Holden up…,” Dixie says slowly. I look over at her and the curiosity in her eyes is undeniable.

  “I didn’t bring up Holden.”

  “Let’s pretend you did. Because he’s clearly the elephant in the room…or on the beach as location would have it.” Dixie grins at her own ridiculousness. “Wanna enlighten us on whatever it is we saw when we got here this morning?”

  “Honestly, no,” I reply firmly. “Enough sharing for now. I’m starving. Let’s go eat somewhere.”

  I stand up and they start to get up too. I know they aren’t going to let this go and I’m going to have to say something about Holden and me soon, but I’m going to put it off as long as I can.

  14

  Holden

  As I drive back from hockey practice, my mind falls back to what I’ve been thinking about on and off all day long—Winnie. She and her sisters came back to the cottage after about an hour. They all looked like they’d been crying, but they clearly weren’t fighting anymore. Probably talking about her dad and everything. Dixie and Winnie hauled their carry-on bags into the house and dumped them on the porch before turning around and leaving with Winnie. By the time I left for hockey practice, they hadn’t come back yet.

  I know I should just let her be with family, and I know she’s mad at me and I’m the last person she wants around, but I’m aching to see her again. Last night wasn’t just sex to me. It was the start of something real. It was—she is—what I’ve always wanted but never thought I deserved. I can’t just walk away from that. So, she may need space, but she’s not getting it.

  I park the truck behind her sisters’ rental and hop out. The lights are on in the cottage, so I pause and stare up at it, but I don’t get out. I kind of want to go inside and see her, check on how they’re doing, but I don’t know if she’d want me to. I’m sure she’s figured out I had no choice but to admit the truth to Jude, but that doesn’t mean she’s not still annoyed by it. I wonder if she’s still thinking about the mind-blowing sex we had less than twenty-four hours ago and if she’s hoping to get me naked again as much as I am dying to get her naked again.

  Fuck it, I’m going in.

  I take the stairs two at a time and knock twice on the screen door before letting myself in. “Winnie?”

  “We’re back here!” a voice calls, but it’s not Winnie.

  I walk through the living room, past the stripped-down bathroom and into the half-renovated kitchen-dining room area. Dixie and Winnie are sitting on a drop cloth on the floor with glasses of wine and a family-size bag of Humpty Dumpty dill pickle potato chips. I try not to wrinkle my nose, but I hate that flavor.

  “Hey,” I say and shove my hands in my pockets. “Just wanted to make sure everything is all right and you guys are managing around all the renos.”

  “We’re managing,” Sadie calls from the kitchen area where she is bent over, looking into the fridge. “But you sure as shit destroyed this place.”

  “That is part of the renovation process,” I reply with a shrug. My gaze falls back down to the top of Winnie’s head. I wish I could see her face, but I’m guessing she’s avoiding eye contact on purpose.

  “So will the power stay on tonight, or will all three of us have to snuggle up in your trailer?” Dixie asks me pointedly, and Winnie slaps her sister’s arm. “Or is Winnie the only one you offer to keep warm at night?”

  “She’s the only one,” I reply swiftly and that gets Winnie to finally look at me. When our eyes connect, I give her a soft smile. “The power will stay on now. We’re done with the rewiring.”

  “Cool. Wine?” Sadie offers and holds up a bottle from the fridge.

  I shake my head. “Thanks, but I should get back to the trailer and leave you guys alone.”

  “Bye,” Winnie says with a cautious smile, but it’s a smile and I take that as a good sign.

  Dixie’s smile is a little warmer, slightly less guarded as she waves
good-bye.

  I give Dixie and Sadie a nod and head back out of the cottage.

  For the next few hours I try to keep my thoughts off her. I take a long, hot shower, I make some pasta and drink a couple beers. I try to watch some Netflix, but I can’t stop thinking about Winnie. Even with the trailer windows closed, I can sometimes hear bursts of laughter or noises coming from the house. Eventually, that dies down too. I steal a glance out the window above the bed and it looks like all the lights are out now. They must have gone to bed. It’s almost eleven but sleep doesn’t even feel like a remote possibility for me. I’m riled up for some reason. I walk back over to the fridge, and stare at the contents debating another beer, when there is one hard, short knock on the door.

  I turn to face it. “It’s open.”

  The door opens and Winnie’s standing there in nothing but a simple blue cotton nightie that falls just below her ass. I can’t take my eyes off it and I know she knows what it’s doing to me. “I’m sorry for barking at you about telling Jude.”

  “I didn’t tell him,” I remind her as my eyes keep sweeping up and down her perfect form. “He asked.”

  “I know and I’m sorry for being upset that you told him the truth,” Winnie says and takes a step up into the trailer. I watch her long legs move gracefully, the hem of the nightgown lifting, precariously close to revealing much more than her toned thighs. My dick throbs. “I just didn’t want to face my family yet.”

  “It seems like it’s going okay, though,” I say, my voice heavy with lust.

  I think she nods, but my eyes are focused on how tightly this nightgown now wraps around her chest. The cold night air has caused her nipples to stand at attention under the thin cotton. I think about how perfect they’ll feel in my mouth.

  “Yeah. I think it’s good I talked to them,” Winnie says, and I finally lift my eyes to her face. The door is still swinging open behind her and I wonder if she’s going to leave. “They want me to go home next month for an ALS fund-raiser that Jude is going to speak at, in memory of our dad.”