AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I lift my hand, thumping it loudly on the door, then step back, arms crossed, waiting.
She answers quickly enough, but it feels like an eternity. Her surprise is obvious.
‘Noah?’ She grips the door jamb. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You invited me. Remember?’
Her eyes narrow and a pulse point jerks at her throat. ‘I invited you to Christmas lunch. It’s almost eight o’clock.’ She shakes her head. ‘And that was a long time ago.’
It wasn’t. Just over a week. But a lot’s happened in that time.
‘I don’t want Christmas lunch,’ I say simply. ‘I want you.’
Her eyes sweep closed and she swallows. I feel her weakness. I feel her swaying towards me.
‘I... This is my home. My daughter is asleep upstairs...’
‘I’ll be quiet,’ I say, and now I push past her, into her house. It is so picture-postcard perfect that I almost groan. Everything is cosy and pretty and normal and so very fucking Holly that I feel like I’m at my wits’ end. I spin around as she closes the door, latching it in place.
It is a home. The kind of home I’ve only known once before—at the Morrows’. Love and happiness is visible in every corner; every knick-knack is chosen for its rightness and significance to Holly.
‘Noah.’ Her brow is drawn lower, her expression wary. ‘You said you didn’t want to see me again.’
‘True.’ I shrug, like it doesn’t matter, when it matters so damned much. The idea of not seeing Holly again fills me with a strange drowning sensation.
I step towards her; she holds her ground.
‘I thought I meant it. But I’ve been thinking about that session in your office.’ Her eyes lift hopefully to mine, as though I’m here to fucking talk, to let her ‘fix’ me in the ways she thinks most valid. With therapy.
I need to dispel that notion. I wrap an arm around her back and pull her towards me, holding her tight against my body, pushing my arousal forward so she feels it for herself.
‘I’ve been thinking how we need to finish what we started.’
And I step forward, pushing her back against the wall, supporting her body there while I kiss her, hard, desperately, hungrily. I taste her tears in the kiss and still I don’t stop.
She is my kryptonite.
‘Noah.’ She says my name into my mouth. ‘You’re drunk.’
‘So what? Who cares? I want to fuck you, Holly. Drunk, sober—what does it matter?’
She sobs, her hands pressing against my chest. ‘No.’
‘No?’ I hadn’t expected this, and I don’t know what to do with it. No means no, always, without exception, and yet I know Holly and I know what she wants. Or do I? Maybe she doesn’t want me as much as I want her. Isn’t that what I’ve been fearing all this time?
‘This isn’t the answer,’ she says, her fingers relaxing, dropping to the bottom of my shirt, finding my skin, running over it hungrily.
‘Maybe not, but it’s something.’
Her eyes hold mine and a shiver runs the length of my spine.
‘It’s another mistake,’ she says quietly, and now she pushes at me—pushes me away. ‘We’re not having sex.’
My cock jerks hard in my pants, its rampant needs unwilling to be quashed.
But Holly is strong—stronger than I’ve ever known myself to be. She offers me a smile, but it’s tight and it’s sad. ‘You can stay and have coffee, sober up, before you go. You can stay and talk to me about the Morrows and the boys’ home and Gabe Arantini. You can stay and sleep this off—in the guest room—but you don’t get to touch me any more.’
‘I thought you loved me,’ I respond sarcastically, even as her words are doing weird shit to my gut.
