by Zoe York
It was the last one that she thought of, constantly. She felt no jealousy toward Ryan’s wife. The poor woman died far too young, and her family was struggling because of it. Holly’s only thought about Lynn Howard was that she’d been blessed with a beautiful family.
She traced a circle on his knee, her index finger rubbing against the worn denim, faded white. “I’ve never really had serious relationships, not like a marriage, but I’ve never done the casual thing, either. Seven. That’s my number. My longest relationship was almost two years, and only that’s because we were both working so much on opposite ends of the globe that we never spent enough time in the same place to realize we weren’t a good fit.”
“How many of those guys treated you right?”
“They all treated me better than most men treated my mother,” she whispered. “I’ve had a fucked-up model to follow. And my standards are both low and high at the same time.”
“If you don’t want to do this…”
“I do. But maybe not like this. Not when your kids could wake up.” She kissed his cheek. “I don’t want you to ever regret what we do.” I don’t want to be the cause of your regret.
“Okay.” He laced his fingers through hers and looked up at the stars. “My in-laws will be back soon. They’ll be staying with us. I might be able to get away at night then. We’ll see.”
Lynn’s parents. The weight of that landed squarely on her shoulders, pushing the last trace of arousal out of her body.
“I need to tell you something,” she said quietly, leaning against his arm. “Before dinner, while you were grilling, Maya brought up Lynn, and Jack got upset.”
“Ah.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. I’m just telling you because…” She laughed a little. “Gavin said I should, to be honest. He said, ‘Daddy doesn’t like secrets.’ And I know that’s true. So I thought you should know. It wasn’t a big deal, really.”
“Okay, thanks.”
She sat up and turned toward him. He was staring into the distance again.
“Can I ask about her?”
A guarded expression dropped onto his face, but he nodded slowly. “Sure.”
“There are rumours. I try not to listen to them.”
Like shutters slamming closed, he dropped his gaze to the floor. “Most of them are true.”
“She was sick?”
He nodded jerkily, and her heart stung like she’d just been whipped.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to bring up anything that’s too upsetting.”
“What do you want to know, Holly?” He blinked up at her, his face pale now, and she inched closer again. Not too close—just friendly-like. I’m on your side, Ryan.
“Nothing. I just…she was your wife. And the mother of your children. If you ever want to talk about her, talk about the good things…” A few unexpected tears slid down her cheeks. She was mortified that she was crying, because this wasn’t about her. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I’d like to hear about her. That’s all.”
He shook his head, not looking at her. “It’s too hard.”
“Okay, forget I said anything.” She swallowed hard, trying to get ahold of her reaction. Exhaling roughly, she changed the subject. “Are you going to come to the bonfire this weekend? Olivia said she’d invited your family.”
He nodded. Acknowledging the invitation? Or would he actually come out?
“It should be…well-catered.” She couldn’t bring herself to say fun. It wouldn’t be, not really.
He huffed a humourless laugh. “That sounds like code for no marshmallows.”
“Probably not.”
He shook his head, laughing more freely now. “Okay, we’ll bring our own.”
— FIFTEEN —
THEY shared a few more kisses that week, and a lot of fleeting looks as their paths crossed, but he didn’t invite her over again and she didn’t wander up the lane. There was an unspoken agreement that they needed to pace themselves, because it wouldn’t take much to have them rutting on the floor of his kitchen like animals.
Holly’s pulse thumped hard in her neck as that visual burned itself into her brain. Ryan, shaking with need, holding himself above her. How wet she’d be for him, welcoming him into her body. The weight of him as he’d thrust into her, claiming her.
Her cheeks heated to a million degrees and she twisted her face into her pillow. It was late, and she’d had a long day. Joshua had been a toddler on the set, throwing tantrum after tantrum. She needed to sleep. Her personal trainer’s voice echoed in her head. We age while awake. Divas get their eight hours. It was so unfair that men looked better and better with age.
Another image flashed in her mind. Ryan with greying temples. Still big and broad. A few more eye crinkles. She pressed her legs together and swallowed a moan. She needed to get laid. They needed a night together, but she couldn’t ask him for that. Her nipples hated her for not skipping up the lane and knocking on his door.
Turning out her lamp, she rolled onto her stomach, sliding her hand between her body and the mattress. She rocked her pelvis, lightly teasing herself as her fingers danced around her clit. Already she was breathing hard and soaking wet. It wouldn’t take much, and she wanted to hang on to this moment, this fantasy of Ryan in all his different possibilities.
When her phone vibrated on the nightstand, she almost didn’t roll over. Leave me alone, she thought, thinking it must be Liana or her mother. But at the last minute she reached for it, and then her heartbeat picked up even more.
What are you doing? She bit her lip as she re-read the words beneath Ryan’s name.
Hands shaking, she dialled his number.
“So you’re not asleep.” His voice rumbled in her ear, making her chest all tight and achey, and deep in her belly, her womb clenched. The effect this man had on her was lethal.
“Not exactly, no.” Her words rushed out of her on a single breath and she closed her eyes, every part of her hanging on for his response.
“Where are you?”
She smiled. “In bed.”
“Me too.”
Oh, goodness. Heat swirled through her like the liquid wax in the top of a candle. Burning hot, freezing into a solid at the edges. She felt brittle and melty at the same time. Fuck it, she thought. “I’m naked.”
Rough breathing sounds were his first response. They worked for her. She trailed her free hand down her stomach, pausing just above her sex. His next question, low and urgent, almost made her pass out. “Are you touching yourself?”
“I was. I was thinking about you, and how close we’ve come a few times…” She sighed, pressing the heel of her hand low in her belly to keep from stroking lower. Not yet. “How good you’d look above me.”
“I have a fantasy about you, too,” he said, and the hitch in his breath as he admitted that made her dig her heels into the bed, tensing up all over. “It’s the middle of the summer and you’re spread out on a blanket in a field somewhere. Naked. You’re gorgeous.”
Middle of the summer. She’d be gone by then. She closed her eyes again, refusing the tears that prickled there. “I can feel you, pressing my thighs open.”
“Are you wet for me, Holly?” He exhaled, then groaned. “Touch yourself for me.”
“I am,” she whispered as she gave in to her need, sliding her fingers through her folds. “Are you…?”
“Yeah. I wish this was your hand jerking me off.”
“It is.” She allowed herself a small moan—as much for him as herself—and arched her back, straining her nipples against the cool top sheet above her. “And you’re touching me. Fingering me.”
He groaned in her ear. “I want to feel how tight you are. Hot and wet for me.”
She rolled her hips up, tilting her pelvis so she could follow his instructions. “I am.” The admission was freeing. “Just for you.”
“I want to taste you.” He was growling now, his words fast and hard in
her ear. She could picture his hand, pumping up and down his shaft as he worked them both toward their release. “Lick you up until you scream.”
“Yes…” she whispered, panting as she rolled the pads of her fingers over her clit, imagining they were his tongue.
“Suck on you as you come—”
He kept talking, dirty words that enflamed her senses, but she was already orgasming, her sex spasming against her hand, fresh floods of moisture proof of his effect on her. Oh. My. God. She struggled to catch her breath as her limbs twitched, and she pressed her face into the phone, desperate to hear Ryan losing it. He grunted in her ear, then let out a long, low, strangled sound. So that’s what he sounds like when he climaxes. She pressed her lips together, happier than happy with that secret knowledge.
Together, they took long, shaky breaths. Then Ryan cleared his throat. “I was kind of expecting you to not respond until the morning or something. But…that was really, really nice.”
She laughed, pressing the phone tighter to her ear. “Yeah.”
“I can’t wait to do it again, maybe in the same room.”
“Same.”
He took a deep breath. “You’re going to sleep now?”
Definitely. “Uh huh.”
“Sweet dreams, then.”
“Oh, you can count on that.”
“Me, too. See you tomorrow night. Try not to blush too hard.”
Impossible. “I can’t wait.”
— —
“Is it time for us to go to the party yet?”
Ryan’s kids had been perched at the kitchen window for thirty minutes, watching the stream of vehicles come in the lane. They were parked almost all the way up to his house now. Definitely enough people so we can blend into the crowd. After the scorching hot phone sex the night before with Holly, Ryan was more than a little nervous about sharing the same space as her, and people who knew him—like Olivia.
She was going to know in a split second that something was up.
Like his dick.
He needed Prozac to get through this party. What he had instead were three unbelievably excited kids. That was probably karma hard at work.
Not that he regretted last night—after Holly pulling back a few times, he wasn’t sure where she was at, and he wasn’t in a position to push her if she didn’t want to take their physical relationship to the next level. When she sucked in that little quick breath, then spilled out those two magic words—“I’m naked”—he’d done a fist pump like a giddy teenager.
Now he just needed to keep a lid on his reaction to her, and make sure nobody fell into the fire.
“Yep, it’s party time. Everyone remember the rules?” He opened the door and they all filed out onto the porch. “Keep an eye out for cars. Keep to the side. No touching the fire. Ask for someone to help with the—”
Crap he almost forgot the marshmallows. He darted back inside and grabbed the party-sized bag. He handed it to Jack to carry, then they were off.
As they neared the gathering of cast and crew and locals, he caught sight of Rafe and Dean Foster, heads bowed. They were talking shop, no doubt. Part of him wanted to slide on over there and find out what was up—either cop talk or Army talk, and he’d know the players in both conversations. But that stuff was never kid-friendly, and it wasn’t like he had someone else to hand the munchkins off to.
And as Maya slide around his leg, hiding from all the faces she didn’t recognize, he couldn’t begrudge his Non-Stop Dad role. They needed him, and he needed to be needed. It gave him a sense of balance—he’d never get over feeling like he’d failed Lynn somehow, but he wasn’t going to fail their kids.
“You want up, baby?” He stroked her hair as she shook her face into his thigh. Nope. “Okay. Hey, I see food. Who’s hungry?”
He navigated his tiny clan toward the buffet. Still no sign of Holly, but Olivia was talking to the pretty woman who was staying in cottage number four…Parvati. The name slipped into his mind from a conversation with Holly. An actress, and the director’s wife. Ryan lifted his hand when Olivia caught sight of him, and she waved them over.
“You came! Hi, guys.” She got down to his kids’ level and leaned in, lowering her voice. “There’s so much good food. Would anyone like a fruit kebab? Or maybe a sausage on a bun? Tiny quiches?”
“We brought our own marshmallows,” Jack said, holding out the bag. Olivia winked at him and whispered that he could hide it under the buffet so they’d be all theirs once the bonfire really got going.
“I want Holly,” Maya whispered, tugging on Ryan’s hand.
Olivia shot him a confused look, and he took a deep breath, hoping she just hadn’t heard Maya use Holly’s real name. “Have you seen Hope?”
“I think she’s inside with James and Joshua, they’ll be out in a minute.” She glanced back to Maya. “You like Hope, eh? She’ll be out soon and I’m sure you can get a picture with her.”
Ryan’s chest squeezed tight. This was just his friend, and he already couldn’t handle it. His arms burned as he kept them loosely at his side, feigning a casual presentation he didn’t feel in the least. “Come on, let’s go find a strawberry.”
“Holly likes strawberries,” his daughter said, tugging him in the direction of her grandparents’ house. Where his almost-lover was, but she’d be wearing her celebrity hat and he didn’t want to see that. Didn’t want anyone to see him seeing her and not being able to touch her, because nobody could know what she was to him.
Which is what, exactly?
He shoved that question away. He had to focus on the more immediate problem—what she was to his children, and how to manage that. “Hang on there, boo. Remember that the movie people are working today, too, even though it’s a party. We can’t just barge in. Let’s go find one on the buffet.”
And have a private chat about maybe not using Holly’s real name in public. Convincing his kids to go home for popcorn and a movie in his bed would probably be a hard fail. He shrugged at Olivia, ignoring the still confused look on her face as she returned to her conversation with Parvati. At the buffet, he gave each boy a plate to carry. Maya could share his. He didn’t feel like eating, anyway. Swallowing around the massive stress lump in his throat would be impossible.
“Hey, three pieces of cheese is enough, kiddo.” Gavin grinned up at him as he glowered. It was a really impressive spread. He didn’t even know there was this kind of catering available on the peninsula. “Okay, where should we sit?”
“Can we go down to the dock?” Jack asked. Where Gavin and Maya took after Lynn, social butterflies when Maya wasn’t being typically pre-schooler shy, Jack was exactly like Ryan. Can we get away from these people, please?
“You bet. Come on.”
But before they could step away from the group, a cheer went up. He knew why before he even turned around, but that didn’t change the punch to his gut any less. Bracketed on either side by her director and co-star, Holly glowed on the steps of the deck in a blue sundress and white heels, her hair done up and face professionally made-up. She looked slim, confident, and unbelievably beautiful. Way out of his league, and she was, at the moment. That was Hope Creswell, A-list movie star, in her element.
From the back of the crowd, with three kids banging into his legs, juggling a plate of food and a metric ton of emotional baggage, Ryan watched as the woman he was undeniably hooked on lifted her hand and said a few lovely words of thanks to the crew, and the local community for their hospitality. She looked around as she spoke, seemingly making eye contact with everyone.
But she didn’t look at him, not until the end. And when she did, she stopped scanning the crowd.
James Spencer also spoke, but Ryan didn’t hear anything the director said. He was too tangled up in Holly’s gaze, locked on him, and the warm little smile playing out on her lips. I was thinking about you, and how close we’ve come a few times… Nope. Couldn’t think of that, not right now.
Couldn’t really think of anything else,
either.
He needed to get her alone. Alone alone, not with his kids sleeping upstairs.
Maybe if they slept together, he’d be able to function in her presence. Probably not. But it was worth a shot. That was his story and he was sticking to it.
— —
Holly moved around the party, talking to people she knew and taking pictures with those she didn’t. The whole time, she felt Ryan looking at her. Watching. Wanting.
It burned her up inside, being this close and not being next to him.
“Holly!” She turned as she heard her name, but it wasn’t Ryan. He was moving toward her, but his attention was focused lower—at the three-foot level. Maya. The little blonde head bobbed through the crowd toward her, and she lifted her head to tell him she could see his daughter. The tight, anxious look on his face pulled her up short, and she just waited until they both arrived at her side.
“Hi,” she said quietly, smiling.
He gave her an absent-minded smile in response, but his focus was all on the four-year-old. “Maya Howard, there’s no running away from me.”
“Daddy, I just wanted to see—”
“You can’t bother Ms. Creswell…” He kept talking, quietly lecturing Maya, but Holly’s head went fuzzy hearing Ryan refer to her in a formal, distant way. Blood rushing through her ears, she tried to rewind the last ten minutes. She hadn’t been imagining the look they’d shared.
But of course things were different in public.
And they were very much in public. Not just people he knew, but a lot he didn’t, and all of them knew who she was. She’d gotten lost in the fantasy of being an ordinary girl.
No freedom for you, Holly Cresinski. You gave that up a long time ago.
