Now Or Never by Stella Rhys
17
HOLLAND
I wokein the morning to the sound of my phone buzzing on the nightstand, but I was steeped so deep in my warm, toasty, particularly heavenly slumber that I ignored it, letting myself drift back to sleep before it started buzzing again.
Come on, I whined inwardly, shooting my arm out to grab my phone, answering with my voice muffled and my face still half-buried in my pillow.
“Hello?” I mumbled.
“Morning, sunshine.”
At the first sound of that merry, smart ass voice, my eyes shot open. And all at once, I processed everything.
I was still in the hotel room. From last night. My brother was on the phone. And the water was running in the bathroom.
Because Iain was in the shower.
Holy shit, he’s still here.
He’s still here and he’s showering.
I raced through several emotions in a matter of seconds—stunned excitement to confusion to a vague, kind of hazy unease as I hurriedly ran my mind back to remember the end of last night.
Oh God. I squirmed under the sheets at the memory.
Because Iain couldn’t keep his hands off me in that car last night. After his driver got in, he’d fingered me to another orgasm, forcing me to walk across the hotel lobby dripping between my thighs. He murmured such dirty things to me through the whole elevator ride, getting me so hot and bothered that I knew he was going to devour me the second we got in the room.
But the second we got in the room, he got a call from a client out West, and even I could hear how fired up this guy was. So I showered while he took care of the call, and by the time I got out, he was still on the phone. He didn’t look up when I peeked my head out from the bedroom, so I decided to scroll Instagram on the bed till he was done.
But then apparently, I fell asleep. And apparently, he let me.
And not only that, he stayed the night as well.
But wait. Did he sleep too? Right here? With me?I had a million questions as I looked at his undisturbed side of the bed.
“Hello?” Adam said impatiently, startling me back to earth. “Jesus. Did you fall back asleep?”
“No! No, I’m here,” I said croakily, rolling onto my back with my hand pressed to my forehead and my still sleepy-but-stunned stare fixed on the ceiling. “Sorry, I’m, uh… ‘bout to get up.”
“I’m three hours ahead of you and I’ve been up for hours. Get your shit together.”
“Okay, easy,” I snorted, somehow relaxing at the familiar sound of my brother being an asshole. “First off, it’s like, 7AM right now. If you’ve been up for hours it’s because you never went to bed, so maybe you should get your shit together.”
He laughed hard. “Solid point.”
“Second, you haven’t returned my calls in like, two weeks so you don’t get to be mean to me right now.”
“Whoa, whoa, hey. What are you talking about? I’ve been texting you constantly!”
“A.J’s been texting me constantly,” I corrected. “You yourselfhave been too busy to personally check in on me and see how I’ve been doing since pulling off literally the greatest escape in the history of man.”
Adam groaned with genuine remorse as he audibly plopped onto the leather couch in his office.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been fucking up,” he relented. “It’s just been crazy busy here, but I promise I’ve been thinking about you. How has everything been?”
“It’s been good,” I said happily. “It’s been an adjustment, but it’s also been indescribably awesome and everything I ever dreamed of.”
“Excellent. So you like your coworkers at Minx?”
“They’re fine. My boss is a little high strung, but she’s nice and she likes me. Yesterday, she said she would ‘literally die’ without me.”
“Bit dramatic.”
“And exactly how you feel about A.J.”
“Alright, relax, smart ass. And how do you like your job?”
“I fucking love it,” I grinned.
“Good,” Adam said, sounding genuinely pleased. “The job is all that matters—which reminds me.”
“What?”
“Have you seen Iain yet?”
My heart seized at the sound of Iain’s name off my brother’s lips, and I froze just as the bathroom door swung open.
And right on cue, Iain strode out—gloriously half-naked with his six-pack rippling like live porn before my eyes as he gave a final rub of his towel to his wet hair. He was wearing just a pair of navy boxer briefs, he still had water glistening on his skin and in the light of the day, he looked so absurdly fucking defined I wanted to lick every chiseled line on his body.
Fuck. Me.He was breathtaking—a Greek god on Earth, and to top it off, his smirking eyes were already on me, fixed tightly on me even as he strode across the room.
“Uhh,” I said into the phone, my brain short-circuiting till Iain’s gaze averted to the garment bag hanging on the door. I blinked hard, not even realizing when I’d sat up straight in bed. “Yeah,” I mumbled, answering again when I finally gathered the majority of my voice. “Yeah, I have. I’ve, um… definitely seen him.”
Every inch of him.
“Great. I’m happy to hear that. I told him to check in on you, but I wasn’t sure if he got around to it. He’s been busy as fuck.”
“He has,” I said distractedly, hypnotized while watching the rolling movement of Iain’s shoulder blades as he reached up to unzip the bag. God. “Yeah, he, um, mentioned that he’s been pretty swamped, but he’s managed to—” I paused. “Fit me in,” I finished carefully, making sure I didn’t mix up my words and say “fit in me.”
Which he has.
Despite being fucking huge.
I wanted to drool onto the sheets when Iain turned around, bestowing upon me the sunny, head-on view of his glorious dick pressed against his boxers. He wasn’t even fully hard right now, or even thirty percent hard right now, but the outline of his shaft and tip was so pronounced my mouth actually watered.
“Awesome. Iain’s the man,” Adam said, making me wince with the weirdest, most uncomfortable feeling ever. Thankfully, he followed his praise with non-Iain-related stories about the craziness of work, and how many new assholes A.J had ripped him this week. I managed to respond as if I were listening, but as Iain got dressed before me, I fully tuned out, completely lost by the time Adam said, “I mean that’s gotta be our first real drink together, right?”
I blinked. “What?”
“When I visit in two weeks. We’re gonna do belated birthday drinks for Iain, and you can come now because you’re legal to drink.”
“Oh, right. Wait. You’re visiting in two weeks?”
“Yes. Christ. Haven’t you been listening to me?”
No,I thought, not even dismayed that Iain was fully dressed now because holy hell, he looked good in that light blue shirt. His silk tie was blue as well, but darker and striped, and it looked painfully hot just draped around his neck as he frowned so handsomely at something on his phone. God, I just wanted to blow him while he worked at his office.
Wait. What? Holland. Jesus.
“So you’ll be around, right?”
I grimaced as my brother’s voice disturbed my very dirty thought. “Yes, totally. But listen, I gotta get going now, okay? I’m running late, and I just… I’ll talk to you soon,” I said so hastily that I could still hear Adam protesting in confusion as I hung up.
And as soon as I put my phone back on the nightstand, Iain spoke.
“Good morning,” he said, the rich sound of his voice flooding me with instant warmth and arousal.
“Good morning,” I returned, looking up and finding myself slightly dismayed that he wasn’t looking at me. He was busy multi-tasking, leaning over the table where he’d set his phone and reading a text as he looped and knotted his tie.
God. So hot.
Every little thing he did was hot.
Wetting my dry lips, I eyed the garment bag hanging on the door.
“Did you… have a change of clothes sent over?”
“I did. Last night while you were asleep.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip at the mention of last night. “I meant to stay up for you,” I said truthfully. “But I guess you wore me out pretty good.”
He looked over at me with a faint smile, making my heart flutter as he studied me for a moment. The sun lit the green of his eyes to something spectacularly clear, and I swore it was an out of body experience for about two-and-a-half seconds.
But then he looked away.
As if he hadn’t just stolen all the air from my lungs, he turned right around to finish getting dressed, and all I could do was watch as he pinched the knot on his tie, sliding it up and tightening it around his neck, and simultaneously making my heart skip a beat when through the mirror, his gaze met mine. There was a serious look in his eye, and I could suddenly feel him gearing up to say the words I didn’t want to hear. Something like, “This was fun, Holland, but it ends here.”
I went through a dozen variations of the line in my head, steeling my heart for it, trying to force myself to be a grown-up about this.
As Iain flipped his collar down and crossed the room fully dressed, my mind raced to get myself fully prepared for impact.Still, a sinking feeling twisted in my stomach as Iain stopped at his nightstand to put on the final touch on his outfit, picking up his shiny Rolex and draping it over his wrist.
My pulse picked up as I waited.But just as he began fastening his watch, he looked up at me and said, “I’m going to need to see you again.”
So matter-of-fact.
My heart skipped two beats as I hugged the pillow to my chest.
“Okay,” I breathed out fast. And I knew I was doing a crappy job of acting normal, because he gave a short laugh and a smirk.
“I take it that was Adam on the phone.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll be here in two weeks.”
“I know, he told me,” I said, watching Iain adjust his cufflinks then look up at me.
“We’ll make sure this stops by then,” he said, making my heart sag for half a second before I realized that I shouldn’t be remotely disappointed by this new arrangement, because we’d initially agreed to one night. Just one.
And now I had two whole weeks.
But it’s going to hurt more to stop after two weeks,a part of my brain reasoned as the other just sang over it, because honestly, I wasn’t going to say no to this.
This was Iain Thorn we were talking about.
Not only was he my forever crush, he was showing me ways to come that I’d never even dreamed about. He was making me feel adventurous and alive in every way I’d hoped and prayed for when I was anxiously planning my move to this city and waiting in secret for the day to finally come. As far as I was concerned, this experience was good for me. Besides, flings were just part of being an adult. Whatever this was would only fortify me emotionally and make me a stronger person.
Right? Right.
I’d fully convinced myself by the end of the short call Iain took, saying “yes,” “no,” and “will do” before hanging up.
Once he set his phone back down, I asked, “So, when will I see you again?”
He looked at me as he headed for the seat at the table in front of the window, where his leather shoes sat neatly waiting for him.
“I can’t say yet since I’ll be in Boston for the next few days,” he said, sitting down.
I nodded, thinking oof and simultaneously ridiculing myself, because a second ago, I was sure I’d never see Iain again. Now, a two-day wait felt like an eternity.
“You look distressed,” Iain observed.
“Um, yeah…” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I think because me and my pussy have been a little spoiled lately. But we’ll survive.”
Iain laughed as he put on his shoes. “I’ll more than make it up to you when I come back.”
“I believe you,” I said, already fantasizing about all the different ways Iain would fuck me the next time I saw him. “I’m on the pill, by the way.”
He looked up at me, surprised. “Why are you telling me this?”
I paused. Was that not a normal thing to say to someone you were sleeping with? “Because… I’m clean?” I said, suddenly doubting my need to bring this up. “And if you are—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he cut me off brusquely as he got up.
I frowned. “Why?”
He eyed me for a few seconds as he straightened his tie.
“Because I need to be at my office in twenty minutes, and I can’t afford to get hard at the thought of fucking your pussy without a condom.”
I bit my lip, suppressing that natural thrill I got anytime Iain took that tone with me.
“Okay.” Just work topics then. “What do you have to do in Boston?” I asked, suppressing a grin because for a second, he was silent, running his hand across his jaw and staring at nothing, as if he needed a moment to mentally reset from the thoughts I’d just put in his mind.
“I’ll be there to negotiate a contract extension for a client,” he finally answered.
“And you’ll be back in New York after that?”
“I’ll most likely be in Cincinnati after that.”
“Oh, right… because you don’t take weekends,” I said, catching his eye and nodding with feigned judgment for a bit. “Which is crazy,” I added, just for good measure.
His mouth curved. “I’m aware of how you feel about it, Holland.”
“Yes, I am a big proponent of me time, which I understand you think is crazy, judging by the way you looked at me when I mentioned it.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Iain said, though he didn’t sound fully convincing, especially not with that smile on his lips as he brought his leather suitcase onto the table. “I just don’t know what that concept entails.”
“It’s just like a catch-up day with yourself,” I said simply, with a shrug.
“And what exactly do you do to catch up with yourself?”
“Well, the point is it’s different for everyone. It depends on what type of self-care you need or respond to. You know.”
Iain looked at me like he very much didn’t know. “So tell me what your me time looks like,” he said before slipping a folder out from his briefcase and flipping it open. His eyebrows pulled together as he read something off the papers inside, and I could tell he was busy, so I spared him a half-hearted answer.
“I’d tell you but it would probably sound silly to someone who isn’t me, so…” I gave a quiet laugh as I smoothed my hands over the comforter and eyed my phone on the nightstand. My screen was lit with texts from Mia but I knew they’d make me snort, so I decided to save them for later. “I’m going to keep that to myself for now,” I said quietly, mostly to myself since I was pretty sure Iain had stopped listening.
But when I turned back to him, he was closing his folder and looking at me as he tucked it back into his briefcase.
“Tell me,” he said sincerely.
His voice was soft an warm and it made my heart both hurt and sing, because the look in his eyes combined with his undivided attention reminded me suddenly of how he used to be with me. How special he used to make me feel.
I smiled, feeling my cheeks warming up as I explained.
“Well… basically, I have a weekly FaceTime with a good friend. Same time every week. Then I pick a place to have tea or coffee with a pastry, or if the weather is nice, I bring a little lunch to the park. And then I do a little ritual there that I’m not going to tell you about, because you’re going to make fun of it, but it’s good for me. It makes me happy. And that’s the whole point of it. Having some time every week where you prioritize strictly yourself. It’s like…” My gaze drifted as I trailed off, trying to think of the right word. “Maintenance, I guess. For you. And your mind,” I finished, fully behind my words but just a little embarrassed as I turned back to Iain to find him looking at me, smiling like he found me interesting, but mostly peculiar.
“I see,” he said before returning his attention to the papers in his briefcase. He was still smiling, looking maybe charmed but definitely not swayed into adopting this habit of mine. But that was okay. It made tons of sense to me—like my own personal religion. But not everybody got it.
“I mean do you actually need to work every weekend?” I asked from the bed as I watched Iain get ready. “Or do you just do it out of habit?”
Iain only glanced at me this time. “It’s my preference.”
“Because?”
“Because I enjoy being at the top of my industry. Bringing success to this agency that it never achieved before I took over,” he said, making my lips form an O as I nodded quietly to myself, realizing the probable reason for that motivation.
A post-mortem fuck you to his dad.
“Okay. I get that,” I said understandingly. “But what about holidays? What about your birth—” My eyes went wide before I could even finish my question. “Oh my God, it’s your birthday’s this month. It’s in two weeks!” I realized, looking at the date on my phone. “Are you going to do something? What are you going to do?”
Iain smirked at my unbridled excitement. “I’ll be working. Especially hard, in fact, since your brother will be in New York shortly after, and he’ll expect me to give him a full night of my time,” he said before asking, “What are you doing?”
I didn’t even realize I was already on my phone, suddenly looking at my calendar and my weather app. “The weather is perfect this weekend and next. It’s going to be like, eighty and sunny.”
I looked up to find him watching me with amusement. “Your point being what?”
“That you shouldn’t spend such a nice weekend in a totally landlocked state.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I very much prefer to get my work done.”
“Mm.” I crinkled my nose and teased him with a dubious sound. “I think deep down, you know you could use a weekend off. And you know what? I’m going to convince you to take it,” I said brightly, though I wasn’t even fully sure I meant it till Iain looked at me and laughed.
“Well, good luck with that.”
“What, you don’t think I can do it?”
“No. But I like that you believe in yourself,” he said as he went out to the living room.
Asshole,I thought as I tossed the pillow aside and threw the sheets off me, getting out of bed to follow Iain outside.
I had my panties on, but I couldn’t find my bra since last night, so I went hunting for it as Iain put a pod in the sleek little espresso machine sitting in the corner.
“Have you see my bra?” I asked after a minute with no luck.
I could hear the smirk in his voice as he said, “No. But I’m going to need you to cover up your tits right now.”
I looked out the window. “Why? No one can see.”
“I can see,” he said, turning to me as he brought a white espresso cup to his lips. “And if I have to look at them any longer, I’m going to fuck them.”
I swallowed. “Fair enough,” I said, grabbing a pillow off the couch.
“Coffee for you?” he offered, smirking when he peered over to find me hugging the pillow to my front.
“Sure,” I said.
And as he made another cup, I felt a sudden rush—the return of all these memories of him I’d suppressed while desperately trying to get over him at seventeen. They used to pain me, but my heart felt warm right now as I stood there, perched at the edge of the couch, watching Iain make coffee for me the way he used to do for everyone back home in Jersey.
I was lost in my thoughts till the grinding hum of the machine stopped and Iain was coming toward me, handing over my cup.
“What’s that look for?” he asked, his gaze shrewd on me.
I smiled sheepishly. “Oh, nothing. Just remembering you and your coffee.”
It was the first and perhaps only thing that ever endeared him to my impossible-to-please mom. She was so hell-bent on disapproving of Iain’s presence and interacting with him as little as possible. The completely blank-faced stare she reserved for him had been perfected within hours of his first stay with us, but then his second stay came around, and that time he came bearing gifts—specifically coffee that he brought back from Brazil.
“You actually managed to get some points with my mom with the, um… what was it? The cafezinho,” I recalled, surprising myself by pulling up the memory of the word. I was pretty sure it just meant little coffee, but it involved Iain boiling sugar and water in a pot before adding coffee grounds then straining it through a cloth filter into espresso cups, making for very little, very intense shots of black coffee.
Apparently, he and Adam drank them every day, several times a day, especially during exams. And since coffee was Mom’s only vice, she couldn’t help but try it.
And since she loved it, Iain started to get more of a pass in our house.
I expected to see him crack a smile at the memory, but instead I felt an odd shift in the air as he said nothing.
“Do you still go to Brazil every summer?” I asked, remembering how he’d always leave for his yearly trip directly from our house.
His parents had divorced when he was young and after, his mom had moved back home to Sao Paulo to live with her sister. I remembered that Iain always left for Brazil straight from his June visit to our house, because the flight was shorter and there was something about needing to bring them things from New York, where his mom had lived for so long before the divorce.
Images flashed in my mind as I remembered the suitcase he always packed full of gifts for his family. Perfume for his mom. Skincare products for his aunt. Sneakers, sports jerseys and electronics for his little cousin.
Iain took a last drink from his cup then peered briefly at her. “Not as often,” he replied briskly said before grabbing his briefcase and heading or the door.
I blinked, staring at his back for a second.
Cool. Guess you did it again,I thought wryly when I realized I’d touched on another sore subject that hadn’t been sore the last time we spoke. But clearly everything’s changed, and you can’t talk about just anything anymore,I thought, feeling a little frustrated and a lot tense because I feared Iain was going to be icy with me again, the way he was with me last night.
But once he got to the door, he turned to look at me.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” he said, hitting me with such a big wave of relief that I exhaled the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Not unless I get you home before then,” I replied, to which he smiled.
“I wouldn’t count on it, Holland.”
“Yeah, but remember the last time you said that to me?”
With a hand on the doorknob, he actually took the time to pause and think about it. And when he remembered, he tilted his head down and smiled broadly to himself, giving a low, sexy laugh as he said, “I do.”
It was the biggest smile I’d seen on him yet, and in that moment, I found myself quietly bursting inside, overwhelmed by how fucking attracted I was to this man. I didn’t even know what was coming over me when I blurted, “Wait!” as he was opening the door. All I knew was that I was suddenly hopping off the couch with urgency, heading to where he was paused at the door. His brow was furrowed, but his gaze was curious as I ran to him, the stupid pillow still hugged to my chest.
But I discarded it as soon as I stood with my bare feet in front of his shoes, and without even thinking—or caring about whether or not I was allowed to do this—I grabbed hold of his shoulders and hoisted myself onto my toes, pressing a kiss onto his lips.
I could feel immediate hesitation. His surprise against my mouth. He tilted his head, allowing me to kiss him, but he didn’t kiss me back. His lips moved, but it wasn’t quite a kiss, and when he pulled away to look at me, to stare deep into my eyes, I felt a second of red-faced regret.
But then I heard the light thump of his suitcase dropping to the floor, and with both hands cupping my face, he kissed me back.
His tongue swept with an instant hunger through my mouth as he backed me against the wall, pressing me against it then hoisting me up on his body. Wrapping my bare legs around his waist, he pressed his warm chest to mine, forcing my heartbeat to flutter frantically against his as he kissed me deeply, his tongue rough and shameless, pulsing and laving against mine, and devouring me so feverishly that fiery excitement ricocheted in my chest, bouncing around like a wild creature that had been waiting forever to be unleashed.
And just as I felt it, Iain squeezed me, like he could feel it too.
For what felt like forever, we just kissed, and when he finally pulled away, his chest was heaving, and his eyes were bright, unblinking on me. For once, he looked a little unprepared, like he’d been caught off guard, and it made me break into a smile.
His eyes still moved all over my face—from my eyes to my nose to my lips as he let me back down. And once my feet were firmly back on the ground, I put my focus on straightening his tie, smoothing my hands over his shirt, giving myself the excuse to feel all that hard muscle under my palms before looking back up in his eyes.
“Have a good day at work,” I murmured as he tipped my chin up to study me.
But before I could fully melt under the weight of his stare, he kissed me again.
Softer this time.
He said goodbye close to my lips, his eyes seeming like they didn’t want to look away. But then finally they did, and he was gone, leaving me to stand all alone in the hotel room, smiling giddily to myself, and quietly overflowing with this feeling of warmth that brought me back to a place I probably wasn’t supposed to be, because I wasn’t supposed to be this enamored with Iain Thorn again. I wasn’t supposed to lose myself in another all-consuming crush.
But as I chewed the corner of my grinning lips, I reasoned that it was a completely different situation this time.
And beyond that, I just couldn’t help myself.
