Sixteen
Phoenix
The party rages long after we all return to the condo, and for once, I let loose a little more than normal.
I’d like to say it’s due to the break we’re on and that it’s my last chance to let off some steam before baseball season begins.
But honestly, I just need the distraction from Holden and the entire conversation from our run-in by the bar bathroom.
It doesn’t veer far from my mind, only worsening with Kason being all over him ever since.
And like the trainwreck I am, I can’t seem to look away.
Holden was right about one thing when he cornered me: I do want him. Even when I know I shouldn’t. It’s why I’ve been watching him the whole time, the same way I’ve caught him watching me.
It’s something that can’t be helped. Those seductive whiskey eyes ensnare me, dragging me under wave after lustful wave every time they lock with mine.
Just like right now, as I catch him staring at me from where he’s lounged on that fucking flamingo floatie again. Our only saving grace is everyone else has long gone to bed, leaving no one around to—
“You’re doing it again,” Holden murmurs, barely loud enough for me to hear over the crashing waves against the shore in the distance.
“Doing what exactly?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Nix,” he chides, a slight bite to his tone. “No one’s here. You can cut the shit.” His head drops back against the neck of the flamingo. “And I’m talking about how you’re straight-up fucking me with your eyes right now.”
Irritation flares within me as I swish my legs in the pool water, my fingers gripping the edge a little tighter. “I’m not fucking you with my eyes or anything else, for that matter.”
“But you have.”
My blood runs ice cold, and more than anything, I wish I’d gone upstairs with the rest of the guys—anything to avoid having this conversation with him. But luck never seems to be on my side when it comes to Holden Sykes, which means he can’t just drop it.
With no one else around, nothing is going to stop him from digging until he gets all the answers he wants.
“I’m not talking about this with you.” It feels like that’s all I ever say to this guy. But avoidance is the only weapon I have in my arsenal anymore. The only thing keeping me from fucking things up and giving into whatever is happening between us.
“Like hell, you’re not.” He sits up in his float, causing ripples in the water to splash against my shins like a mini tsunami. Fitting, since it feels like I’m being drowned by one made of emotions right now.
“Hold—”
“No,” he says, cutting me off. “You might hate me, and that’s fine. I’ve never been the kind of person who needs to be liked by everyone. But if Theo wasn’t just screwing with me, and we really do have history, then I should damn well know what it is.”
Nausea hits me as I war internally, knowing that telling him is the only option. No matter how much I don’t want to.
“Theo wasn’t lying,” I utter.
“Then tell me everything.”
“I don’t know what you know, all right?”
“Nothing!” he shouts, the water beneath him rippling some more.
“I don’t know anything except something happened between us that night, only for me to wake up alone.
And I’ve been going crazy since Theo said something, trying to find the missing pieces.
But I can’t. So, please, I’m fucking begging you to just put me out of my misery and tell me. ”
Swallowing, I shake my head. “The details aren’t important anymore. The fact that it happened at all is bad enough—replaying it now isn’t going to change anything.”
His eyes darken as he leans back against the flamingo’s neck, seemingly dropping the subject per my request. But from the frown etched at the corners of his lips and the way his eyes gaze up at the stars above, he seems lost in thought.
Once again, attempting to pull the pieces together without my help.
Silence falls between us, the only sound coming from the crashing waves and the wind rustling the palm trees. It’s peaceful enough to lull me to sleep, if I wasn’t so attuned to Holden’s dissatisfaction with my answer.
Which he makes apparent when he just won’t let it go.
“You’re not the only one holding onto secrets, you know,” he says, his raspy voice slicing through the quiet.
A quick glance at him reveals he’s still staring up at the stars, his hand swishing back and forth in the water absently.
“Is that supposed to hold some kind of allure?”
“Maybe. Or you can think of it as an offer.” Dark eyes shift to me, and I sense unease in them for what might be the first time ever. “Tit-for-tat. My secret for yours. I’ll even go first.”
I mull it over for a second, knowing even if I don’t agree, there’s a huge possibility he’ll only keep pressing. Stubborn and tenacious as he is.
Though, sharing secrets—alone and in the darkness—feels awfully…intimate. More so than anything else that has happened between us.
I grab the bottle of tequila I’ve been nursing since we got back and take a long swig, needing all the liquid courage I can get before I nod in agreement.
Holden’s gaze burns the side of my face as he watches me intently, setting me even more on edge. But it’s his words that might as well have shoved me off a cliff.
“I knew it was you.”
I lick my lips—drowning in tequila and his gaze—before asking, “Knew it was me?”
“The night you left me chained to my bed.”
Just the mention of that moment sends a bolt of lust rushing straight to my cock, and the way his voice drips with sex and sin as he slides off the float to swim closer has the appendage pitching a tent behind my trunks altogether.
“Of course you did,” I say with a scoff. “I flipped the lights on afterward. We had an entire conversation. Or did I traumatize you into blacking out again?”
A sardonic smirk lifts his lips as he shakes his head. “I meant while it was happening.”
Despite the warmth of the breeze and the water, my blood freezes the instant his words register. Because once again, Holden has a way of throwing me for a loop with a single sentence—flipping my world on its axis in the process.
“Bullshit,” I whisper through the knot in my throat.
“The only one full of bullshit here is you,” he murmurs as he continues closing the distance between us.
And he does, not stopping until he’s standing directly between my legs.
“Because the second your lips landed on mine, I knew damn well it wasn’t Kason in my room.
Wasn’t him kissing me, touching me…” He trails off, his palms land on the edge of the pool on the outside of my thighs—the heat of them scorching me more than the Gulf Coast sun ever could.
It’s searing, his proximity when he’s close enough to touch, yet contact isn’t made.
It’s driving me mad, but not in anger.
In want.
His teeth roll over his bottom lip before he murmurs, “But there’s one thing I couldn’t figure out.”
“What?” I find myself whispering, still held captive by his gaze.
“How I knew.” His eyes search my face, taking in every line and curve of my features before adding. “But it all makes sense now. The familiarity was because I’d already tasted you before.”
Pure, carnal desire roars through me at his words, ripping and clawing at the mask I’m desperate to hold in place. But the only problem is—thanks to his nearness and the alcohol—it’s slowly slipping out of place.
“So you…”
“Blacked out,” he finishes, nodding slowly. “I’m not proud of it, but yeah. I was gone.”
I clear my throat and mutter, “Clearly, you have zero self-control.”
“Oh, believe me, Nix,” he whispers, attention now fixed on my mouth. “If that were true, you’d be on your back beneath me right now.”
Shit.
The ache inside me intensifies to a level almost impossible to ignore, and it’s at this moment I realize something I should’ve known all along.
This is all a game to him. A dangerous one.
One I certainly know better than to play.
It’s why I should push him away—shove him back into the pool, get up, and go to bed. Or better yet, hold his head underwater and drown him the way I’ve been itching to since we arrived. Anything would be better than going along with this, falling further into the trap that’s been set for me.
Even knowing this isn’t enough to snap me out of the seductive trance he’s pulled me into, though.
If anything, he’s dragging me further and further under. Drowning me in want, lust, desire…until all I can do is succumb.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
“Because it’s all I can think about anymore.” His attention drifts from my eyes back to my lips. “ You’re all I think about. And I can’t do anything to stop it.”
An electric surge rushes through me, and more than anything, I wish the alcohol swimming in my veins was the reason behind it. Too bad we’re long past the point of pretending any differently.
I want him.
And while that fact also makes me want to drown him, it’s still true.
I want him more than oxygen; the very thing I need to survive in this fucked-up reality where he’s supposedly with my best friend.
Regardless of all the reasons why I shouldn’t, despite all logic that defies it…I want him.
It’s the only explanation for why my fingers curl around the back of his neck, and I drag his mouth to mine.
Something inside me breaks—splinters apart piece by piece—the second our lips collide, and it only gets more intense when his hands leave the concrete to grip either side of my face. The moment the heat of his skin seeps into mine, I become unglued. Dismantled.
Destroyed at a cataclysmic level, and all that remains is the bone-deep desire for him I’ve been trying to fight.
A soft groan slips free when the tip of his tongue teases the seam of my lips before spearing between them altogether, no part of him willing to wait for permission. Everything with Holden is at warp speed—all acting first and thinking later. I shouldn’t be surprised he kisses the same way.
One hand slides around and anchors in the back of my hair, holding me in place while he feverishly explores my mouth. Tongues roll and tangle together in a frenzy as hands glide over bare skin and toned muscles, a feral kind of desperation taking over us both.
His other hand drops down to my waist, sliding around my lower back, dragging me closer to the edge.
To him. Except chest to chest isn’t enough for either of us, so he slides his palm down my leg until it reaches my calf in a silent request. One my body listens to instantly, igniting under his touch as I wrap my legs around his waist, and he drags me straight into the pool.
The cool water lapping against my skin does nothing to negate the fire I’ve been consumed in, especially now with our bodies perfectly aligned.
It only gets worse when he shifts until my back collides with the wall of the pool, because now, I can feel the hard ridge of his erection against my own with every press and roll of his hips.
It’s possessive, the way he takes control of me.
Barbaric and brutal when his teeth scrape over my lips hard enough to draw blood.
As if the thread holding together his sense of control has snapped, and he’s suddenly taking all the pent-up lust, anger, and frustration out on me.
Channeling it into a kiss I could drown in.
It’s downright erotic, the way I feel it and him in every single nerve ending.
And I never want it to end.
But even in my oxygen-starved state, I know it has to. Soon, or I’ll never break free from this hold he has on me. I’ll let myself be consumed to the point where we complicate things further.
I groan into his mouth before jerking away, needing to distance myself from him. Before this goes further, before we make more mistakes than we’ve already racked up.
Before we do more damage we can’t come back from.
I shake my head, my breathing coming out in heaving pants against his lips.
“Hold—”
“Don’t you dare,” he whispers harshly while tightening his hold on my hip. “You’re not ending this now. I’m not fucking done with you.”
Then he crashes his mouth back to mine, and I drown all over again.