11. Holden
11
HOLDEN
T he situation has escalated.
I’m not sure what I was thinking, going there on Friday. Trying to retrace the decision-making process that led me to following Lenora Vogel back to her apartment and fucking her virginity away, is damn near impossible. In retrospect, there wasn’t any logic or thought processes to speak of. The moment I heard that little fuck asking her to drinks, some primal, possessive animal took control of my faculties, and its only mission was to lay claim to Leni by any means necessary.
Apparently, this required me staying there for an entire weekend. Every time we fucked, it was somehow better than the last, and it wasn’t until I stumbled, disoriented and horny, out onto the street on Sunday night, that reality finally set in. I fucked up. I really, really fucked up.
The fixation I had on the woman before could just about be reasoned away. Now, I… Jesus, the last few days with Len felt as though I was meeting her for the first time. Even after knowing her for far longer than I’d like—because god knows this entire situation would be a hell of a lot easier if we’d met now—we certainly never spent time together like that. The sex was alarmingly excellent, but that wasn’t the end of it.
I like her.
I like everything about her a whole goddamn lot.
I like the way she makes me feel as if someone is looking out for me.
I like the feeling of triumph I get when the darkness vanishes from her eyes, giving way to something bright and warm.
I like being good for her.
It might seem counterintuitive; after all, I am twice her age, and our history is strange, to say the least. None of that speaks to the beginnings of a healthy relationship. Even so. There’s no denying the fact that a few weeks ago, Lenora Vogel was a shadow of the woman I left at the door of her sister’s apartment with a fierce kiss and a promise to take her home with me after work on Monday.
Have I ever made anyone happy before? Not just a fleeting, passing buoyancy—followed almost immediately by the sting of rejection or anger—but actual happiness.
It’s a depressing question to ask myself, but not as depressing as the answer. Or, it was the answer before Leni stepped back into my life. I’m not interested in being her savior or boosting my own ego by doing right by her. If I wanted that, I wouldn’t be fucking her. No, I just want to keep making her happy.
Yeah, no question about it. I really fucked up. I’m in way too deep, so deep that I don’t want to come up for air.
This isn’t just sex.
I know what just sex looks like, and what I’m doing with Leni doesn’t resemble it in any way, shape, or form. Last night, I sat in the car outside my dark, empty house for almost an hour, warring with my impulse to turn around and drive straight back to her apartment.
Decades of shoving away romantic feelings, of being content and happy on my own, have done nothing to prepare me for Leni. She slipped under my defenses while I was busy believing I could never feel that way about her, and now I have no idea how to get free.
I’m falling for her.
If I wasn’t before this weekend, I sealed my own fate the moment I crawled over her naked body and pushed my way inside, connecting with her in a way no one has before.
It wasn’t just firsts for her, either. The last few nights are the only time I’ve slept beside a woman and didn’t sneak out in the morning. It was the first time there was emotion behind the physical act of sex, and I still can barely wrap my head around how fucking hot it was.
I spend Sunday night tossing and turning, torn between excitement and dread for what the morning will bring. My mind is on her as I shower and dress for work, turning over the impossible situation in the way I often do when I have a particularly challenging problem at work, looking at it from every possible angle.
Could I get her to love me? If I went for it and, miraculously, succeeded… that would be it. I couldn’t change my mind or end it if I got bored. Loving Lenora Vogel would be the kind of commitment that would require me to grow, to change, and after forty years of being alone, I have no idea if I’m capable of that.
I’m on autopilot for my drive to the office. When I arrive, and the sound of my car door slamming is echoing off the ceiling of the parking garage, I’m jerked from my preoccupation by the very last person I want to see right now.
“Hey,” calls Bram casually as he opens the trunk of his car to remove several boxes of old Architectural Vision magazines.
There’s no reason for me to be on edge right now. The man has no way of knowing I spent the better part of the weekend balls deep in his daughter, or that she’s been all I can think about for far longer. Everything is normal . Everything is fine .
“Morning.” I take one of the boxes for him, and the two of us turn, walking side by side toward the exit of the parking garage. “Where is your better half?”
Bram chuckles. “Taking the day off to look at wedding venues with Honor.”
“You weren’t invited? I thought it was customary for the man paying to have some say.”
This comment has him frowning. “They’re paying for it themselves. I offered, but Ballard wouldn’t hear of it. Told me to save it for Leni.”
My pulse stutters as my brain immediately produces an image of the daughter in question wearing a white dress. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m in such deep shit. We couldn’t even get across the street before she came up in conversation, and now I’m picturing her in a goddamn wedding dress ?
We stop at the curb, and I hit the crosswalk button with my elbow. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it,” I manage.
Bram nods thoughtfully. “How’s she doing, by the way? I wasn’t sure she would take well to working an office job. Honor thought she would walk out the first day.”
I hesitate, trying to decide how much of this is appropriate for me to tell Bram. Little to nothing seems like the safest option. “I’m not sure she likes it, but she’s doing fine. Can I ask you something?” I ask before I can stop myself. Is it bad form to be pumping Bram for relationship advice when the relationship I’m interested in being in is with his daughter?
My partner glances at me, obviously intrigued. “Of course.”
I swallow, staring straight ahead. “Has it been easy? To be with Sophie?”
This earns me a chuckle. “In some ways. I’ve been on my own for a while, and as my kids like to remind me, I tend to steamroll. It’s been an adjustment, being in a partnership.”
“But is it worth it?” I press, my heart beating a little faster at the direction this conversation has taken.
Across the street, the crosswalk light changes, and the pair of us set off again as Bram continues. “Absolutely. I would take much more drastic measures than asking her opinion on what to have for dinner, if I needed to. Thankfully, Sophie seems to be fairly tolerant of my idiosyncrasies.”
Tolerant is an understatement. With over a decade in business with the man, I believe Sophie ought to be nominated for sainthood.
“Right,” I respond distractedly as we reach the E&V building.
Something in my tone must have tipped off Bram that this wasn’t exactly the innocent line of questioning I attempted to portray it as. He frowns at me as he holds open the door, standing back to allow me through first.
“Did you meet someone?” he asks, lowering his voice so the receptionists don’t catch wind of it. I’m grateful. Gossip spreads like wildfire in this place, and the last thing I want is people on the lookout for hints of my romantic interests.
“It’s casual.”
Bram hums. “Are you sure about that?”
Not at all. “You know me,” I joke half-heartedly, just as we reach the top of the stairs and turn toward Team V’s offices. “I like variety.”
“Oh, hey, Len!”
My heart drops like a stone, and I almost bump into Bram, who has slowed his pace to address Leni, who is turning into the hall from the copy room.
There is nothing at all in her expression to suggest she’s picked up a single word of the conversation Bram and I were just having, and yet I know. She heard.
It’s a lie. Or, at least, now it's a lie. I’ve gone on a date here and there in the six months since New Year’s, but I could never quite get myself to care enough to put in a real effort. Instead, I would go home, pull up that well-watched video of Lenora Vogel dancing, and jerk myself off imagining it was her hands on my cock instead of my own.
“Hey, Dad. Holden.” She brushes past, and I have no choice but to continue after Bram, helping him carry the boxes back to his wing of E&V while he debates whether or not the vacation he booked for himself and Sophie ought to be a surprise or not.
As soon as I’ve deposited them on the table, I turn on my heel, striding to my office as quickly as I can without outright running, my stomach churning. Even if I’m not quite sure where we stand, the idea of her believing I’m interested in anyone else is repugnant to me. My stomach is actually churning when I arrive in the workspace, out of breath, and whip my head around, looking for Leni, but she is nowhere to be seen.
The nausea intensifies.
A few of my employees are staring at me strangely, and I arrange my expression into something vaguely resembling normalcy. Wracking my brain, I run through her possible whereabouts like a checklist. She may be in the ladies’ room, but she also refills all the office supplies first thing each morning, so there’s a chance I can catch her in the supply room.
Without offering a word of explanation to my bemused employees, I turn on my heel, half running back across the atrium toward the hall leading to the storage room, and sag in relief when my first guess proves correct.
Leni stares at me, her hand halfway to a box of compressed air canisters, eyebrows knitting in confusion. “ Uh ?—”
I slam the door behind myself and lock it. As I look toward her, though, the words I wanted to say—the ones declaring her as the only woman I’m interested in doing anything at all with—get caught in my throat.
It’s suddenly difficult to swallow. She’s wearing a pink skirt dotted with little flowers and a lacy white blouse that skims the sharp line of her collarbone. Her beauty knocks the wind out of me, as does the realization I am really, truly out of my league here.
Instead of speaking, I lunge forward, crossing the room in three long strides and lifting my hands to her face. My lips descend on hers, kissing her with a desperation bordering on mania. Leni’s gasp of surprise is lost as I bear down harder, hungry and bruising, and I don’t realize we’re moving until her back hits the nearest supply shelf,
“ Fuck .” The word leaves my mouth in a sharp hiss as the two of us grapple with my belt in an uncoordinated mess, panting into each other’s mouths. My cock is already hard when Leni finally manages to shove down my boxer briefs, but it’s barely been freed before I reach down to grab the back of her thighs, lifting until my length is pressed against her pussy with only a pair of panties between us.
Leni whimpers, pulling them aside, and in seconds, I’ve guided my tip to her entrance. I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from groaning as I plow forward, bottoming out inside her. This is beyond reckless, beyond stupid, and yet, even knowing that isn’t enough to make me slow this down.
She clings to me, her teeth buried in her bottom lip, as I set a relentless pace, driving in and out of her with little thought beyond sending her back to work with my cum leaking out of her pretty cunt. If someone were to try to press their ear to the door, there would be no mistaking the wet slap of skin on skin and Leni’s gasps every time I bottom out, grinding my piercing on her clit.
Dimly, I’m aware of something falling off the shelf behind us, but neither of us looks around to see what it was. Even counting the weekend we just had, I’ve never in my life had sex like this, frantic and animalistic.
“I’m gonna come,” she whispers brokenly, just as her inner walls begin to clutch greedily at my shaft, determined to milk me dry. “Holden, oh fuck, oh fuck ?—”
Watching this woman come on my dick has rapidly become my very favorite sight. It’s intoxicating, watching her control shatter as she gives in to what I’m doing to her. Nobody has ever seen her this way, or felt her from the inside, or knows what she looks like when she goes over the edge.
Just me.
The thought of that alone has me coming. Hard. I surge forward, my hands digging into her thighs as I grind helplessly into her, unloading as deep as I can. It’s going to be leaking out of her all day. I’ll sit at my desk, watching her squirm, and know it’s because my cum is soaking her cocktease panties.
Then, I’m going to follow her home and fill her up all over again.
“Shit.” I stare between us as I pull out of her pink, swollen pussy, a combination of our releases coating my shaft. We really shouldn’t have done this. Any number of people have a key to this room and could have come in to find me balls deep in my partner’s daughter. Including the partner in question.
Leni lets out a reluctant little laugh as I set her back on her feet, both of us adjusting our respective clothing. At our feet, a box of highlighters has fallen and burst open, scattering neon markers over the floor. Without a word, both of us kneel, hastily gathering them up.
“About what you heard…” I begin, my throat tightening as I remember the reason I followed her here in the first place.
“It’s none of my business.” She sounds convincing enough, but despite the bravado, she still doesn’t quite meet my eye.
I swallow. “I haven’t been with anyone in months. Bram threw me off.”
It’s clear this has surprised her, but she doesn’t ask questions, keeping her attention on repacking the box of highlighters. In the quiet of the supply closet, I can hear every rustle of our clothing, and the sound of my own heartbeat. “And, for the record, Len.” She looks up, and as our eyes meet, the organ in my chest, which I once believed purely functional, stutters. “It’s your business.”