Waiting on the Bachelor (The HoliDATE Series Book 1)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  I pulled back to see him and dropped my hands to the button on his pants. “I can take care of this for you,” I said quietly making him groan. I wasn’t the virgin he’d first met anymore. Over the last two years, I’d learned a lot and wasn’t afraid to take control, though secretly preferred when he did.

  He knew I was serious when I popped that button and reached inside, taking him firmly in my hand. Hard, hot, and ready to go.

  Then someone pounded on the bedroom door.

  Yup. Like Florida.

  “What?” Cain barked out.

  “Sam’s being a whiny little bitch about getting something to eat,” Adam called back. “I can run out if you want.”

  I bit back a smile before letting him go and watching Cain tuck himself back into his jeans. Sadly. Somehow his brown hair had become disheveled, yet I didn’t remember running my fingers through it.

  “I’ll order the pizza,” I called out but barely recognized my own voice. Cain nodded but grabbed my chin and pushed his lips against mine forcefully yet just a quick taste.

  Neither of us wanted to part yet we had to.

  Chapter Five

  The pizza arrived about half an hour later. The five of us ate, watched some TV, and laughed a lot. When we were together, we always had a great time. Exactly like we had when Cain and I first started dating and we were all becoming friends. Once we all met, it was like we’d been friends for years. The evening was complete with Cain watching me the whole time, his gaze burning my skin in the best way as I tried to keep a straight face like I couldn’t read exactly what he was thinking.

  Suddenly Cain stood and kissed the side of my head. “I’ll be right back.” As he walked by, he took the plate I’d been balancing on my knees before disappearing into the kitchen before heading to the back of the apartment where the bedrooms were.

  “You guys hate that we’re here, don’t you?” Kendra asked me once Cain was out of earshot.

  “Of course not,” I said back automatically though to be honest if I could’ve told them to leave at least for a while, I would’ve.

  “Cain does,” Sam added.

  “Well, yeah. He does.” But I couldn’t hold in the giggle that bubbled up with the honesty.

  Then just as suddenly as he’d left moments before, Cain stormed back in.

  “All right. That’s it.” Cain dropped the same suitcase on the floor next to the couch he’d brought back from his trip earlier and waved me over to him. “We’re leaving.”

  “What?” I slowly stood up from the chair.

  “They can stay but we’re leaving.” That didn’t really explain what he was talking about. It cleared nothing up.

  “You said that. Where are we going?” I didn’t even have shoes on.

  As if he could read my mind, he held my black converse out toward me. I skipped around the couch, took them from him, and sat on the arm to begin putting them on. Where we were going honestly didn’t matter to me. I’d follow him wherever he wanted but I still wanted to know what was going on.

  “Since this apartment has turned into an AirBNB, I booked us a room in the city. They can stay,” he pointed at our friends, “And we’ll be the ones to leave.” He moved in closer to me and whispered in my ear, “I just want to be alone with you tonight. We can hang out with them tomorrow. Say yes.”

  I slapped my hands against my thighs then stood up forcing him to back up quickly. “Let’s go.”

  Cain handed me my coat and once I had it on, he took my hand in his and grabbed the suitcase in the other.

  “OK, stay,” he said to everyone else. “Don’t stay. I don’t give a fuck. Lock the door if you leave and don’t call either of us until tomorrow,” he said, dropped the bag, opened the door, and pulled me through it.

  “Wait.” I held onto the edge of the door jamb to stop him from getting me all the way out. “You have to wake him up every two hours,” I said looking at Kendra. “He has some pain meds in the bathroom and it’s been two hours since he took any, so he can’t have anymore for like four hours. Check the label.”

  “Got it, Mom,” Kendra said through a laugh. That laugh followed us down the hallway.

  “You’re crazy,” I said to Cain after I stopped laughing once we were inside his freezing car.

  “Crazy for you.” He dropped back against the seat. “Listen, I want some time with you. We’ve barely had two seconds even to talk.”

  “That’s your fault,” I countered. “You attacked me when you got home.”

  “And that’s your fault.”

  I giggled. “How’s that?”

  He pulled the car out of the parking lot of his apartment complex. “First, you’re you. You’re smart and beautiful and make me want to be with you every minute in every way. Second, did you see what you were wearing when I got home? You couldn’t have expected me to not respond.”

  “Actually, a response was exactly what I was going for.”

  “By the way, that little number is in the bag. I threw in a few things for both of us and grabbed your toothbrush.”

  I smiled over at him. Cain was always so thoughtful of my needs. Which was why I didn’t have to check when he only had the one suitcase. My phone rang from inside my coat pocket. I reached inside and pulled it out almost automatically. Kendra.

  “No way,” he said pulling my phone from my hand. “Wait, was that an emergency?”

  “It was Kendra. I didn’t get to read it all, but it said something about spanking.”

  Cain groaned and asked, “Do you care if I silence it?”

  I shook my head. “Be my guest.”

  He flipped the button and handed it back to me. Even while driving he made sure it wouldn’t vibrate if someone called or sent a text. Then I pushed it back into my jacket pocket. Being out of touch for one night wouldn’t hurt anybody and would really, really benefit me.

  “So how was your trip?” I asked. Now was as good a time as any to get the talking over with. If I had my way, there wouldn’t be much of talking once we got to the hotel.

  “Long. Boring. I don’t think I actually needed to be there.”

  “Why not?”

  “A lot of the training doesn’t pertain to my job specifically, but Dad said I have to learn these things for the future.”

  “For when you take over the world?”

  “Or the company,” he said back quickly. “But it was also a bunch of team building bullshit.”

  “Poor baby,” I said as I began rubbing his shoulder. Cain was two people living in one body. He was still the same college guy I met and fell in love with, but he was also now this fully grown man building a career. I loved them both.

  “You can make up for it in a few minutes.”

  I laughed loudly because there wasn’t any pretext of why we were going away for the night. Yes, to be together but also to be together.

  When we arrived at the hotel he’d booked, I felt completely underdressed. As if this was one of those places that had a dress code. He stopped out front, hopped out of the car and grabbed the valet tag from the guy who slid in to replace Cain behind the wheel. A bellhop grabbed the suitcase out of the trunk as Cain came around and took my hand in his to lead me inside.

  The lobby was beautiful. Marble floors and crystal chandeliers. I honestly was afraid to even be in there. That I might break something. I just stood there while Cain checked us in then followed closely behind him as we headed over to the elevator.

  Once inside the car, Cain pulled me into his side and kissed me. I pushed up onto my toes to reach him better.

  Once we broke the kiss he whispered, “Do you hear that?”

  I listened but came up with nothing. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly. No Adam. No Kendra. No Adam. No talking. You and me. Alone.”

  The elevator dinged on the fourth floor and Cain led me down the hall to our room.

  Even that was far too upscale for anything I should be associated with. It was beautiful and laid out like
a regular hotel room, but everything was so expensive looking. I wasn’t grown up enough to be there.

  “This is beautiful,” I told him as I looked around. “But I’m more of a cheap, easy girl. You didn’t have to bring me here.”

  Cain snorted then said, “Easy? Should I remind you—”

  “No.” I cut him off but laughed, anyway. He was going to remind me of how long he spent wooing me after we first started dating but I rejected every move he made to take us to that next level. He had no idea how much I wanted to be with him. Nor did he know the reason I had to reject him again and again was because I needed my virginity intact. I needed it to pay for school back then. Or so I thought.

  He stalked slowly toward me. “I wanted to bring you somewhere nice. Somewhere no one would think to look for us.” When he got close enough to touch me, he grabbed my hips, and I began walking backward.

  “Ah… yes… good idea.” Then we hit the wall.

  Cain didn’t have to tell me we were done talking. His heated gaze said it for him as it burned against my skin. When he wet his lips, I almost melted. Then those lips crashed into my and, for the first time since he’d gotten home, I was able to let go and be with him without any threat of interruption.

  As we kissed, he spun me away from the wall and scooched us over to the bed where we both fumbled our way fully onto it until I was sinking into the middle with Cain hovering over me.

  “I love this place,” I said smiling up at him.

  But Cain gave me a half grin and dove in to kiss me again. His lips were soft yet demanding against mine and there was an intensity I couldn’t deny. I felt it, too and this would not be a slow love making. No. We’d been apart for too long. This was carnal need.

  Cain pulled me up to yank my shirt over my head then reached behind and did that one-handed grab thing guys did to get their own shirts off. Heat emanated from his chest against mine and his skin was silk under my hand. It may not have been the perfectly choreographed dance of undressing each other we saw in the movies but in the end, we were both naked and eager. Getting me ready for him didn’t take much. I’d been ready for days thinking about this moment.

  I moaned when he pushed into me. I’d really missed feeling his skin against mine. Missed feeling him inside of me. That wasn’t all. Being as close as a person could get to another and knowing there was no way we could get closer made my heart explode.

  He clasped my chin between his thumb and index finger, held me in place and kissed me as his hips moved against mine. When he put some space between us, he slid one of his hands between us and began rubbing circles on my most sensitive area coaxing every ounce of pleasure out of me. Didn’t take much.

  I flew off the ledge of ecstasy and when I did Cain dropped his head onto my shoulder and let himself go with me.

  We laid there, neither of us moving, heavy breaths feathering against each other until Cain moved up onto his elbows above me. Our faces were only inches apart.

  “I think we both need that,” he said then kissed the tip of my nose.

  “Amen to that.”

  “We should go get dinner,” he said.

  “Didn’t we just have pizza?”

  “You had one slice and so did I. And only because I had to eat something. But now I could use a real meal.”

  I nodded. “True. I’m actually pretty hungry.” He laid his head against my chest and sighed. Where I thought he’d get up so we could get dressed, he stayed right where he was. “That means we need to get up and put clothes on.”

  “Let’s rethink that idea.”

  I giggled. “Cain. Let’s go get something to eat.”

  He pushed up onto his hands and gazed down at me. “Fine.”

  He kissed me again before getting himself up and pulling me with him.

  Chapter Six

  After we were both dressed again, Cain led me out the way we’d come in. Through the lobby that was too expensive for me to be in. He must’ve called down for the car because it was waiting right out front when we got there. And it was already warm.

  He didn’t tell me where we were going, and I didn’t ask. So, when we pulled up in front of a small Italian restaurant, I was both pleasantly surprised and not. He’d taken me to a little place like this on our first date and we’d been back so many times I’d lost count. He really liked the smaller local restaurants, and I tended to agree. The food was always delicious and the service fantastic.

  Cain ordered this chicken dish while I went with a baked ziti.

  “So, come on tell me more about your trip,” I said then took a sip of the water in front of me.

  “Well, like I said, a lot of team building bull shit to make sure we’re all working together without conflict.”

  “So like the falling exercise where you have to fall back and hope the other person catches you?”

  He chuckled as the waitress dropped off a basket of breadsticks. “Yeah, basically. We spent two weeks falling into people.”

  “Come on. Tell me. I’m interested.”

  While the waitress delivered our dinners, and we began to eat, he told me more about what they’d done. A lot of it didn’t make sense to me because I wasn’t part of the business world and never intended to be. But I wanted to be part of his life and that meant hearing about that kind of stuff. Even if a lot of it was boring as hell.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “What about me?”

  “What did you do while I was gone?”

  “A whole lot of nothing,” I said honestly. I had to push my plate away then because if I ate another bite it would’ve been one too many and I might’ve thrown up at some point.

  “You had to have done something.”

  I sighed and fell against the back of my chair wishing I’d word elastic waisted pants. Or yoga pants. Something stretchy. “A lot of homework. Worked ahead actually. Cleaned out some of your drawers so if you can’t find something I probably threw it away.”

  He chucked and pushed his own plate away. “School work? You didn’t do anything fun at all?”

  “Well…” I leaned forward toward him. “I went shopping with Kendra and spent far too much money on the red bra and panties.”

  He leaned forward as well and said, “Worth every single penny.”

  “You haven’t even really seen it yet.”

  “I’ve seen enough,” he countered.

  “I agree. Any future scrimping will be more than worth the look on your face when you got home.”

  “Pfh, scrimping.” His tone had an irritated edge to it. Given the fact that we came from such opposite ends of the money spectrum, the only issue we’d ever had was how uncomfortable it made me that he could spend what I deemed large amounts of money without thinking about it. Cain wasn’t even extravagant. He drove a nice but normal car. His apartment was within the means of his current salary. The fact that his family had money, and I’d discovered he had a trust fund waiting for him when he turned twenty-five didn’t even come into play with those decisions. Spending a hundred dollars on a gift for me like that sexy set wouldn’t even have made him blink while it still sometimes made me queasy just thinking about it.

  But that was a problem for another time.

  “You’re ridiculous,” I said to him. Then I reached over to my coat and pulled my phone out to check the time.

  But crap, I had a bunch of texts from Kendra and a few missed calls.

  “Oh man,” I mumbled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I glanced up and waved my phone his way. “Kendra.”

  He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “What could she possibly need?”

  I narrowed my eyes on the screen. “I think these sent out of order because they make no sense.” Then I looked at him. “I’m going to have to call her.”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. But still I chose her contact to call her.

  “Finally,” she answered.

  “What’s going on? Those texts
made no sense,” I told her.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was rambling.” I heard a door shut in the background. “So, I didn’t know that Sam’s pain meds had loose tops and while I was in the bathroom, I knocked the bottle over into the toilet.”

  “Oh crap.”

  “Exactly. But it was both bottles. The one for the dizziness too. Antivert maybe? Anyway, you don’t have anything in the house for even a regular headache.”

  “That was my fault. I should’ve put the tops back on tightly. I meant to come back and do it,” I said honestly. It was all my fault. “So what do you need me to do?”

  Cain shook his head and whispered, “No way.”

  But I waved him off. He didn’t know what was happening or my part in it. I had to try to make it right.

  “Well, I called the number on his discharge sheet and explained what happened and the nurse called back saying they have refills for him at the hospital pharmacy. I was hoping that you guys could go grab it and drop it off before returning to your night of debauchery.” I didn’t answer right away. First of all, I was going to say yet, obviously, but I knew Cain didn’t want any more interruptions tonight. “Flan, I wouldn’t ask but you guys are closer to the hospital and with as dizzy as he is right now I’m not sure leaving only one of us here is a good idea.”

  “Yeah, of course. We’ll go now.”

  “Wait. Am I interrupting the good stuff? You can wait until it’s done if you want.”

  I laughed into the phone. “No. The good stuff already happened so we’ll do this then get back for more good stuff.”

  “Solid plan,” she said before hanging up.

  Cain still had his arms held tightly over his chest as he glared at me with a clenched jaw. “What did you agree to?”

  I gave him my sweetest smile and said, “There was a mishap with Sam’s medication and I said we’d go get the new ones and the hospital and drop them off at home.”

  “Flannery,” he said then sighed.

  “It was my fault it happened. I left the caps just sitting on top of the bottle instead of making sure they were screwed on. I have to fix it and I’m not going to let Sam suffer.”