Now Or Never by Stella Rhys

34

HOLLAND

I tookmy hair out and peeled off my wet clothes as soon as I got back to my apartment. I changed into the black silk robe I had been saving for what tonight was supposed to have been.

And I tried to scrub Iain’s words from my mind by letting Caleb touch me.

I turned away from his kiss, wouldn’t let his lips come close to mine. But I let him run his hands down my arms. Along my hips. I let his palms smooth their way to my front, his breath heavy as they began to move up to my breasts.

But just as he tried to touch them, I shirked away.

“I can’t,” I breathed out, shaking my head. Eyes closed. Mind spinning. When I opened them back, he was stepping toward me again. “Stop,” I said firmly. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry. You have to leave.”

Standing in the middle of my living room, Caleb grimaced and stared. Still looking down at my body. Still hoping for another second.

But when I said it again, he nodded, blowing out a big breath of air through his mouth before he turned around and walked out my front door.

And once he was gone, I stood there and buried my face in my hands, ready to just let it all out. To let go of the sob I’d been holding in for so long. The pain that had been bottling inside me since I walked onto that roof.

But then I heard shuffling in the hallway.

Then jostling.

I looked up from my hands when I heard the sound of low muttering outside. Two voices that got louder by the word.

Then came a loud thump.

One, then another, and when I realized limbs were crashing into the wall outside my apartment, I flew to the door, swinging it open just in time to hear Caleb hiss, “So what? You’re clearly here for the same!”

I got in the hall just in time to see Iain throw him against the wall.

“Iain!” I yelled, rushing between them just as Caleb swung at Iain and missed. My eyes lit on fire as I turned to him. “Get out!” I yelled at Caleb, my voice reedy and tears threatening to spill.

But I held them just a little longer, waiting till he finished cursing under his breath and getting out of my sight.

And once he was, I turned and stalked back to my door without so much as a glance in Iain’s direction. “Don’t come near me,” I said, my voice vibrating with fury.

He said nothing in reply but when I got into my apartment and slammed the door behind me, I heard him catch it and walk in.

I turned around, heart thudding when his stare locked on mine—vicious, tormented. Fired up like I’d never seen.

“Get out,” I said. Almost calmly. But when he shut the door behind him and came toward me, I screamed, “Get out, Iain!”

My pulse rocketed when he only kept coming, so I spun and headed for my bedroom, intent on slamming another door in his face. But I yelped as he firmly caught my arm and pulled me back.

“Don’t—” I ground out, pushing away, getting out two long strides before he growled my name and caught me by my robe, spinning me around and pulling me into his chest.

My tears finally spilled as I tried to fight him, to shove him away and tell him I didn’t want him here. It was all a lie, but I didn’t want it to be, so I tried yelling it true while shoving in vain against Iain and his every muscle clenched so tight it felt like stone.

But my body slowed, weak from resisting, and when I could see through my tears again, I saw the anguish in Iain’s eyes as they bore into me. The torment twisting in his features as he panted an inch from my lips, whispering I’m sorry with my hands collected in his and my back pinned against the wall.

I stared into him as he did the same to me. Three seconds of our hot breaths tangling in the same fog of thick air.

And then our mouths crashed against each other, our arms wrapping around each other and holding on tight as we kissed like we needed one another to breathe. My hands grasped fistfuls of his hair as his hands grabbed all over my body, squeezing at me, pulling at me like he refused to let go for even as second.

“I can’t give you up, Holland,” he whispered urgently. “I tried. I can’t. I’m sorry,” he murmured to me between kisses, his hands cupping my face, his forehead resting on mine. “I can feel it when you hurt. I always have. And I hate being the one who does it to you. I fucking hate it. I can’t do that again.”

I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me. Talking to himself. But it didn’t matter. He was talking. Telling me all the things I needed to hear.

“Come clean with me, Iain,” I whispered, holding his wrists as he held onto my face. “You have to.”

“I will. I promise. I’ll give you everything you want, Holland. I’m not letting you go again,” he breathed harshly. “You’re everything I need, and I need you to be mine and only mine. Because you belong to me. You’ve always belonged to me.”

His words tranquilized me, fire still in my eyes but a calm spreading though my veins as I pushed Iain back enough so he could look at me. All of me. Still wet. Fully bare under my torn open robe. The room was silent besides our panting breaths, but then I spoke the words that started it all.

“Show me then.”

He swallowed hard. “Show you what?”

“That I belong to you.”

He looked at me for only another second.

But then we lunged at the same time, our bodies crashing against each other. My arms pulling up his shirt. His tongue against mine as he undid his button and zipper.

Once he was fully naked, he pinned me hard to the wall, hoisting me against it. He wrapped my legs around his hips and he never broke away from our kiss as he lifted me higher, till I could feel his crown nudging against my sex.

Eyes locked, we exhaled the same breath as he eased me down every inch of his shaft, letting me feel his every hard ridge, and for a moment, we just breathed with him inside me, soaking each other in, but then letting our mouths find each other again. Our lips parted and our tongues slid against each other, slow first but then faster, faster till he was moving inside me, flexing his hips, steadily lengthening each stroke until he was fucking me so hard he pushed me up the wall with every thrust.

“You’re mine, Holland,” he growled, his voice fierce, pained, penetrating me between kisses. “Mine. All mine.”

He chanted the words as he tightly gripped the bottoms of my thighs, his entire body flexed as he drove in and out of me, making me feel so good I couldn’t keep still. I hugged my arms tight around his neck. Raked my hands through his hair. I dragged my fingernails down his back and I begged him to kiss me when he dared to break away to groan with pleasure.

I was only vaguely aware of him carrying me elsewhere. Still inside me as a door creaked open. As he lay me down. It wasn’t till his weight was on top of me that I realized I was in my bed.

And there, our limbs tangled, Iain grinding himself inside me, our eyes locked and our breaths mingling. He soaked in every second of me, whispering words I couldn’t quite hear till the last time he said it. “My weakness… you’re my fucking weakness, Holland. And I’m never letting you go.”

Much better words to end my night on.

Words that I heard even as my climax forced me to cry out his name. Even as Iain came with me, groaning into my neck, his heart against mine, our bodies soaring together, and our frantic eyes searching each other as we came back down.

There were other words now. Words unsaid that danced like sparks between us.

I didn’t say them though. And neither did he. But wrapped in each other’s arms, we knew it was okay.

That it could wait till tomorrow.