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Thick ropes of my release shot to my stomach. I pumped until there was nothing left, sinking into the mattress.
Moving in with Baker was both the greatest and worst idea I’d ever had.
And damn her, my dick twitched back to life. But it wasn’t my own touch that would do. Hers. I had to have it, and I couldn’t.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand, lighting with an incoming call.
I lolled my head to the side, my arm too heavy to reach for the phone.
Celia.
Why now? It had been months. I had started to forget.
No. Baker had distracted me.
She made it so simple to forget what I’d left behind. I’d practically vanished from my old life. Left it like I had the intention of going back. I’d led my family to believe I might.
There was no way. I’d tried to stay until I felt like I was crushed to the point I couldn’t breathe anymore.
One lone buzz signaled a voicemail.
A knot formed in my stomach. I didn’t care what she had to say. Yet . . . I reached for the phone anyway and held it to my ear like a desperate fool.
“Hey . . . it’s me. I know it’s been a while . . . Crap. Just call me back. I-I miss you, Holt.”
Her voice turned me inside out, just like it always had. I listened to the message six times before I buried the phone under my pillow. I turned on my side and punched the goose down, which did nothing to squash my anxiety.
Weak.
It took all my strength not to call her back. She missed me?
Truth of it was, a part of me missed Wyoming . . . and her. When I moved there, I’d been running from New York. All these years later and I’d run right back here.
Running. Always running.
I rolled to my other side and tossed back to the same position. Would I ever find the place where I belonged?
All I wanted was to be accepted. I’d never had it here. Sure, my family loved me, but my mother’s abandonment had caused this deep rooted sense of unsettledness. Made me question if anybody really wanted me around. The last year had only cemented that insecurity.
I was sick of living with a shadow of doubt constantly hanging over my head. Problem was, I didn’t know how to get out from under it.
“Holt?” Baker’s roughened voice broke through the darkness.
I rolled over. Light from the hallway spilled in, her shadowy figure huddled in the doorway.
I sat up straight, on alert. “Everything okay?”
“I can’t sleep.” She rocked back on her heels, eyes trained on the floor before they found mine. The turbulence in them made something inside me ache. She was begging for me to make it better, and this was her way of doing it.
I slid over and pulled the covers back. “I can’t, either.” She scurried across the floor before she lost her nerve. “Wait,” I said when she was at the edge of the mattress. “I, uh, can you give me a sec?”
Her shoulders deflated. “I can go.”
“No.” I reached for her hand when she turned to leave. “Hang on. Figure you probably wouldn’t appreciate that I’m naked under here.”
She appeared amused. “When are you not naked?”
I tilted my head as if considering. “Fair point.” I lifted my chin toward the dresser. “Problem is, my sweats are over there.”
