Hold Me Today: Put A Ring On It

by Luis, Maria

  Right before I throw gasoline into the flames and slide my hand against that bare strip of skin. Cold against hot, she shivers at my touch and gasps into my mouth. So damn responsive. I shouldn’t be surprised, not the way she’s always baited me for a reaction. The nice-guy thing to do would be to keep my hand in neutral territory at the dip of her waist. It’s what she expects, and I’m not above proving her wrong.

  I gloss my knuckles up and over her ribs, never missing the way her breathing changes, hastens, as if she’s a puppet strung to my every jerk of the master’s string. I leave goose bumps in my wake, until the pad of my middle finger is dead center on her chest.

  Meeting her gaze, I search for that bout of restlessness. It’s still there, lingering in the furrow of her brows but overshadowed by the same lust that’s making my pulse race. Pouty lips purse, then fall open on a harshly drawn breath. Heavy-lidded eyes stare back at me, not a hint of hesitation in their depths. The two of us, we’ve torn through every fenced boundary that may have existed. One hot, illicit kiss. One desperate, forbidden touch. And then all good reason came crumbling down.

  I skim my finger up, tracing the cup of her bra. Thin lace, no padding. I bet if I were to look, the material would be transparent enough to show me the exact hue of her nipple. Not that you’ve forgotten. A dark, rosy brown imprinted in my memory from a sunny day in Greece when the waves stole her bikini top. It’d been a good, good day, but not as good as this one. Boldly, I trace the gentle swell of her breast.

  “You won’t,” she whispers in a hushed dare.

  I do.

  I cup her breast, nothing but a scrap of fabric between us.

  She moans against my lips.

  And, fuck, that sound.

  It’s dirty and feminine and absolutely the fuel of fantasies. My fantasies, of mornings spent in bed, her body tucked under mine as I fit myself between her legs. Beneath my palm, it’s like I predicted: a hard nipple that the thin material of her bra can’t disguise. A groan reverberates in my chest, and when Mina shucks off her gloves and fists my hair, it’s all I can do not to crank this hookup session up to a thousand and undo the button of her jeans.

  This is a bad idea.

  Maybe, probably, but it feels too damn good to stop.

  I pluck at her nipple, then slip my hand over her back, right over her spine. And then I urge her even closer, until our chests are flush together and she’s gripping my coat lapels and dropping her head back, exposing the slender column of her neck.

  She’s temptation like I’ve never known.

  And in that moment, there’s only one truth: this woman who I’ve known my entire life is going to be my ruin.

  Get a grip, man.

  Instead of following the yellow brick road straight to sexual paradise, I wrench away and plant my hands on the steering wheel. At ten and two, like a good ol’, rule-abiding civilian. Like Saint-fucking-Nick. I draw in a sharp breath, trying my damned best to get a leash on my out-of-control lust. If we weren’t a dozen feet from her parents’ front door, I’d drag her over the center console and settle her pretty little ass right on my lap. I’d grind her down on me, until she either burst apart at the seams or started fumbling for my belt. Or both.

  Jesus.

  “I want to fuck you, Ermione.”

  Facing the windshield as I am, all I can do is imagine her eyes going wide at my confession. “Then why—”

  “Because when I do, it’s gonna be an all-night affair.” The rubber of the steering wheel under my palms grows hot when I tighten my grip. Keep your eyes on the street, Stamos. The street’s safe. Safer, at least, then how much I want to know exactly what it takes to make a woman like Mina come. I think of them all, shuffling through each option like a gluttonous man standing before a buffet. Me on my knees with my tongue playing with her clit. Me seated behind her, one curvy leg drawn up with her foot planted on my knee, exposing all of her to me as I thrust in, hard. Like my mouth has a mind of its own, I tack on, “Me, you, and that pussy of yours I want to devour.”

  She releases one of her trademarked whimpers, and out of the corner of my eye, I see her push her beanie cap back like she’s too hot to keep it on. “I never took you for a dirty-talker in bed,” she says, voice brimming with need.

  I cast my gaze over her, a quick sweep that sends heat straight to my hard-on. “Never have been,” I admit bluntly, “but every time I say something that makes those pretty lips of yours part in shock, it’s a win in my book.” It’s not only a win—it’s satisfaction like I’ve never known. I pause, collecting my thoughts before I give too much of myself away. “I like the way you gasp when I catch you off guard . . . more than I should.”

  Silence greets me, hanging over my head like a guillotine of disapproval. But Mina only chuckles softly, as if she’s game to be surprised by me every day of the week. “Nick Stamos, the man who will go to any length to prove a person wrong.”

  “Ermione Pappas,” I return in a voice carved from granite, my eyes locked on her flushed face, “a woman determined to bring chaos into my life. Careful, or I’ll get addicted.”

  I watch her bite down on her bottom lip, and I know her well enough to recognize the tell; she’s doing all she can to stop from smiling. And then the tapping begins, a gentle drumming of her fingers on the center console.

  “Do I want to know what you’re thinking?” I ask, slowly.

  “Honestly? Probably not.”

  I place my hand over hers, and the restless tapping eases into stillness. “Tell me anyway.”

  23

  Mina

  “Do you ever just want to . . .” I drop my head back, trying to gather my thoughts. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “The beginning might be a good place.”

  At Nick’s good-humored sarcasm, I feel another smile working its way onto my face. Which is nuts, honestly. There hasn’t been a single time in years where I’ve smiled when thinking about my mom or dad, and definitely not right after a trip down memory lane. Except that since stepping onto my parents’ front stoop, Nick has made me temporarily forget. First with the pom-poms and then with our hot-as-heck make-out session.

  God, my sex clenches just thinking about it. His hand on my breast, his mouth ravaging mine with such slow, persistent thoroughness. The man is a walking sex machine. It’s like he knows what I need before I even realize what I need. It’s an alarming thought, and I immediately glance to where his hand swallows mine.

  When was the last time I held a man’s hand? I honestly can’t remember, and I’m not sure what that says about me. That I’m scared of commitment, probably. That I’m terrified of deep, complicated relationships, most definitely.

  I think back to the last entry in my notebook and my sloppily written letters to GSN. I’m not completely clueless; I’m fully aware that my father’s attitude toward me all my life completely impacted the way I react to men and to dating. I guess I just never realized quite how much—not until tonight, when I stared at my life through a seventeen-year-old’s lens.

  Nick’s fingers ghost over the back of my hand, pulling back.

  I grab them before he can retreat fully, catching us both off guard by my assertiveness. He quirks one brow but goes along with it. This time, he sets the back of his hand on the center console as my fingers intertwine with his.

  Don’t overthink it, I warn myself. After all, if I’m okay with letting him cup my breast, I can totally hold his hand.

  Swallowing past the nerves lodged in my throat, I glance at the dashboard and breathe out through my nose. “Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in my own skin. It’s a weird way to put it, I guess. Maybe . . . maybe it’s better to say that I feel like I’m trying to claw out of myself.” I huff derisively. “That doesn’t make sense either.”

  Nick squeezes my hand, and his deep, smoky voice swirls around with me like a ribbon of encouragement. “Try again, koukla.”

  There he goes again with that endearment. I hate that I lo
ve it. I hate even more how it makes my toes curl and my knees clench together in a silent plea of yes, more.

  “I feel restless,” I confess, barely above a whisper. “I feel restless in my skin, in my life. When I said I wanted to move, it’s more that I need to get out, go somewhere, do something that makes me feel anything but the anxiety pulsing through me.”

  With his thumb caressing mine, Nick murmurs, “Being at your parents’ makes you feel like this?”

  He doesn’t even know half of what he’s asking. And the kicker is, I can’t exactly tell him the truth about the unknown man. My sperm donor, if you will. Sure, I can—but what good does that do? I spent near-on ten years asking my mother for information she refused to give me. Re-hashing the details is like picking at an open scab I won’t let be.

  That’s me in a nutshell: picking at scabs, watching the blood rise once more, and then hastily bandaging it up, never doing a good enough job for it to heal completely.

  On habit, I start to tap my fingers—only for Nick’s fingers to wrap around mine again.

  “You don’t need to be nervous with me, Ermione,” he says, voice rumbling. “I’ve told you this before: there’s nothing you can tell me that’ll make me look at you any differently.” He tugs on my hand, a silent command for me to look at him. So, I do. Full-on, with my emotions bleeding on my sleeve and this ridiculous sense of hope clawing its way up my chest. “Nothing,” he repeats in that classic, no-nonsense way of his. “You got that?”

  I meet his gaze. “It’s when I get a tattoo.” He pauses, and I see the confusion in his pewter eyes. “When I get like this”—I put a hand to my chest, over my coat—“this restless, on-edge feeling . . . it usually results in a new tattoo. Those snapshots I told you about, I wasn’t all truthful about it. I mean, I was and I wasn’t.”

  Releasing my hand, he leans forward, and, on instinct, I do too. His palm makes gentle contact with the side of my face, then delves deep into my crazy, untamed hair. I stare at him as his fingers graze the shell of my ear, and then my breath catches when he traces the sensitive skin behind my ear—right over my soaring-wings tattoo.

  He remembers.

  It’s crazy how you can know a person your entire life and yet it’s one moment, one sliver in time that tells you everything you need to know about their soul. And Nick’s soul? I’ve never met anyone else with his quirky humor, his good nature, his damn kindness that radiates from every inch of him.

  “I got all night,” he husks.

  I don’t get addicted to men, not ever, but I could get addicted to Nick—so easily.

  Tilting my head to give him more access, I curl my fingers into a fist when the need to start tapping kicks back in. “Each of my tattoos are always the opposite of what I’m feeling. When I got the one on my foot, I lived each day like I couldn’t wait to get to the next big thing. I needed—”

  “Patience.”

  I nod, feeling more exposed than I ever have in my life. “It was a reminder to cool my hungry ambition. You can’t rush certain things. You can’t make them happen just by wanting them to happen. Dreams need time to prosper and grow—and I firmly believe that they unfold when you can personally handle them manifesting, never before.”

  “And the one behind your ear?”

  His fingers graze it now, and I fight the urge to nuzzle his hand. “A pair of wings,” I tell him, “during a low point when everyday felt like a struggle, a constant stream of disappointment.” I may not want to come clean about my mother’s infidelity, but this I can tell. It’s my story to tell. “I don’t have the same outlook on marriage and kids as you because my parents just . . . I couldn’t breathe. It was stifling living under their roof. They told Katya and Dimitri to reach for their dreams, but never said the same to me. I got the you should be married by now speech one day and the very next, they were telling me no one would ever want me because I’d accomplished nothing.”

  “Who said that? Your mom or your dad?”

  I almost laugh. How can he read me so damn well?

  “Mostly my dad.”

  “Your dad’s an ass.”

  “You won’t hear me tell you otherwise.”

  He gives a quick, teasing tug to my earlobe, and then pulls back. “You’re one of the most accomplished, ambitious people I know. Don’t listen to their bullshit.”

  My heart, traitorous, rebellious thing that it is, flutters to life. Down, heart. “No need to lay on the sugar, Nick.” I pointedly look down at his crotch. “We both know you’re just trying to get into my pants.”

  He grins wolfishly, and it’s so surprising, so unlike him, that I audibly gulp—like the true, awkward person I am deep down inside.

  “Later,” he says before shifting the car into drive.

  “Later?”

  “Yup.”

  “But—” I cut off, completely befuddled. Men don’t just ignore their erections for what, a random drive through town? Most men aren’t Nick-fucking-Stamos. Too damn true. I’m sitting next to a guy with steel resolve. It’s dreadfully unfair.

  One palm on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift, Nick glances over at me. Damn him for looking so sexy like that. He cocks a brow. “But what? Something wrong?”

  He is not going to make me say it.

  The car rolls to a stop at an intersection, and then his big hand is on my thigh and, oh, God, I love how it feels. If he moves his fingers up just a little higher . . .

  “Out with it,” he orders, and though I can hear a trace of his trademark surliness, I know better now. The man keeps his emotions on lockdown, yes, but he’s got such a way of making me feel like I can open up and be myself with him.

  So, I open up and tell him exactly what’s on my mind: “I want you.”

  His hand tightens on my leg, fingers pressing in, all the while keeping his gaze locked on the road as he navigates the dark streets. “How bad?”

  I smile, and then throw down the verbal gauntlet. “I’m wet.” A small, deliberate pause on my part. “Does that answer your question?”

  “Fuck.”

  English profanity. God, I love it when his control slips. I can’t be the only one riding the hot-mess express. A girl’s got to have company, after all, and Nick . . . he’s A-grade company.

  “I know,” I say, patting the hand he’s still resting on my thigh, “an unfortunate predicament but one I’m sure you’d be happy to remedy.”

  “After.” His voice sounds like he’s swallowed a dozen nails, choked and ragged.

  “After what?”

  “Patience, Ermione. Find it.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, we pull up to a strip of stores with neon signs and a narrow parking lot separating the storefronts from the street. One in particular catches my attention immediately.

  My head juts forward, hand clapped on top of my beanie, as I crane my neck to look up at the glowing sign. “Downtown Tattoo?” I whip around to stare at the man in the driver’s seat. “Are you serious?”

  As if uncomfortable, Nick rubs the back of his head. “You said this is what you do. Your outlet or whatever.” His hand falls to clamp down on his thigh, and he gives me a look that I can’t even begin to read. “I’ll do it with you.”

  My mouth falls open.

  He’s back to rubbing his head, but not before swiftly averting his gaze. “Don’t look so shocked, Mina.”

  Impossible.

  This is him we’re talking about. Rule-following Nick. I-like-things-orderly Nick.

  I fling my arm toward the tattoo parlor. “Those are real tats.” It’s honorable he wants to get inked with me, but . . . “As in, the non-sticker variety. They don’t wash off.”

  He barks out a sharp laugh. “You mean, they’re not peal-and-press?” He slaps his leg with mocking gusto. “Well, damn, there goes that idea.”

  I scrunch my nose at him. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “You’re askin’ for it, koukla.” He dangles a wrist from the steeri
ng wheel, then makes a point to look me straight in the eye when he speaks. “Let me ruin whatever clean-cut image of me you’re so determined to keep on that imaginary pedestal of yours.” In the dark of the car, his gray eyes look positively black as he stares me down. I feel a shiver of want slip down my spine, heating me up—or maybe that’s the butt warmers he turned on during the drive. “I can be shy,” he growls, “and I can’t stand small talk. I know how I come across, Mina. I’m not clueless as to how people look at me.”

  “I know you aren’t.”

  “A guy can be nice without being weak,” he tells me, and I hear the deep conviction in his voice. “I help people because at one time, no one could help me. Not the kids in school who made fun of me and Effie for our ratty hand-me-downs from Goodwill. Not your parents, who took us to Greece while my own parents worked themselves tirelessly to give us more than they had themselves. Although please know that I appreciate what yours did for me and my sister—trust me, I know I’m indebted to them for opening their doors to us for years.

  “But it doesn’t negate the fact that I still struggled. There wasn’t anyone to help when I was working more jobs than I could handle, all because I was determined to open up Stamos Restoration on my own terms without investors having a say in my business.” His molars crack together when he scrubs a hand over his face, exhaling roughly. “I’m not a walking rulebook, Ermione, ready to take you to task—unless it’s to spank that gorgeous ass of yours. I love hard, but I promise you, I fuck even harder.”

  Oh. My. God.

  I . . . I have no words.

  For the first time in my life, I’m completely speechless. There are so many things I want to unpack about what he’s just said—and, because there’s nothing I love more than a philosophical debate about life and self-identity, I’m dying to know if anything he admitted correlates to his belief in dreams being just temporary longings.

  I want to give voice to it all, but the parking lot of a tattoo shop isn’t the right place. So, I crack a big smile, all teeth, and tease, “I love hard and fuck even harder. That’s tattoo material right there.”