CHAPTER 12
ELWOOD
For some reason I can’t shake the feeling that something is about to happen.
I don’t know if it’s a good something or a bad something.
The more time that goes by with Hollyn’s car in the shop, the more it feels like time is running out.
And I have no idea whether I’ve convinced her that this is where she belongs or not.
I’ve been too much of a coward to ask her. But I hate being in the dark.
Which is why I’m practically bouncing off the walls as we eat breakfast together. Christmas is only days away and she’s been seamlessly integrated into all the Christmas traditions around town. Everyone has welcomed her with open arms, and she’s relaxed more with every day she’s spent here.
But that doesn’t mean she won’t get in her car and drive off the moment she gets the green light.
“Tonight,” I offer, trying to keep us both occupied, “we could go and check out the lights. There are some really fancy displays around here and Christmas is just around the corner.”
“That sounds like fun,” she says with an amused smile on her face and her green eyes sparkling.
When her phone rings we both look at it like it’s a venomous snake about to strike. Maybe it is.
“Hello?” Hollyn’s voice is tentative when she answers. I can’t hear what is said on the other side of the call, but her face goes blank. “Okay. Thank you for calling and letting me know.”
When she hangs up, her eyes slide closed for a moment before they open again. She looks at me, but it’s like she’s looking through me. I hate it.
I hate if down to my fucking marrow.
“That was,” Hollyn pauses and clears her throat while squaring her shoulders like she’s about to step onto the battlefield, “that was Easton Auto. My car is ready.”
Her words feel like a punch to the chest, and I press my hand against where it aches. Rubbing the area does nothing, not like I really expected it to.
“That’s,” I start to say it’s a good thing or great or amazing, or something equally full of shit. But I can’t get the words past my lips. I settle on, “Okay.”
And it sounds inadequate.
My breathing starts to pick up as panic sets in. Her car is ready. She’s going to leave. It makes sense considering the only reason she was still here is because she couldn’t leave. Literally.
Now she’s able to leave Storyville. She’s able to leave me.
The feeling of my heart clenching in my chest has me gasping for air. I know I need to get myself under control. Hollyn doesn’t deserve to feel guilty for leaving and keeping the promise she made to her friend.
Even if it feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest and stomped on.
What did I really think was going to happen? She made it very clear from the beginning that being here was always temporary; when her car was fixed, she was going to get back on the road. It was only my hope, and delusion, which made me feel like anything other than that could happen.
“Elwood,” my woman’s voice sounds far away as I swing my wide and wild eyes in her direction. She looks concerned. Really concerned. “Hey,” she breathes out, “I need you to try and calm down. Can you do that?”
I nod even though I’m fairly sure this is now my permanent state of being. Freaked out. Worried. Empty. Incomplete.
This is how life will be now.
I’m going to have to let her go. I’m going to have to watch her drive away.
I haven’t done enough. I haven’t won her heart.
Even though there are moments when she looks at me and I swear there is love shining in her eyes.
“Right, calm,” I bark out the words between gulping and gasping breaths.
“Can you breathe with me?” She takes some deep breaths, and I find myself following her lead.
It does help calm my racing heart. But it does nothing to help the pain in my soul at the thought of her leaving. Of not waking up with her in my arms. Of not being surprised when she shows up at the library. Of not seeing my small town through her eyes and appreciating it so much more.
“I should cuff you to my bed, then won’t be able to leave,” I grumble the words under my breath, not really intending for her to hear me.
Hollyn bites her lower lip, and I shake my head. “That might pose some problems,” she sounds calm about this whole thing. Way too calm.
“Are you going to run now?” My question is a challenge, one I’m not sure how she will take.
Her eyes narrow as she looks at me and her mouth opens before snapping shut again.
Everything in me wants to throw myself at her feet and beg her to stay. Here. With me.
But I’m not sure if it would make her balk or if she would find it endearing.
Desperation claws at my chest and everything in me is screaming to tug her against me and never let her go. I don’t like this feeling. It’s too much and there’s nothing I can do to change what is about to happen.
Despair and doom wrap around me and hold me hostage.
“I’m not going anywhere, Elwood,” Hollyn’s voice is soft and sweet.
But it barely penetrates the buzzing in my ears. Which is almost all I can hear.
I blink a few times and focus on my woman’s mouth, replaying her last words in the attempt to figure out what the hell she’s talking about.
“What?” I breathe the question out and my woman smiles at me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” her words are firm and unyielding.
Disbelief fills me. There is no way I heard her correctly. It’s impossible.
The smile on her face grows even wider as she watches me struggle. “It’s true,” she confirms as if she can read all the doubts flying through my mind. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My hands shoot out, and I grip my woman and haul her against my chest. I bury my face in her hair and take a deep, cleansing breath. “Are you being serious right now?”
“I would never joke about this. It’s too big and it matters too much.”
Even though I could, I don’t need to look into her green eyes to tell she’s sincere. I can hear it in her voice, and I can feel it in the way her hands wrap around my shoulders as she holds on tight.
“I’ve been thinking a lot since the other day when I was awoken by a dream about Hillary, and you found me on the back porch drinking tea.” Hollyn takes a deep breath like she’s centering herself. “Even though it makes no sense, not really, I swear she visited me in my dream that night.”
“What did she say?” My words almost get lost in her hair with how soft I speak them, but she hears me.
“She told me it wasn’t ever really about the journey and was always about the destination.” Her words turn glassy, like she’s barely holding in her grief, “I think she was trying to tell me I have found my destination and shouldn’t feel like I’m letting down my best friend.”
“If you want to finish the road trip, I’ll happily go with you.”
She jerks back and studies me as if she’s seeing me for the first time. A smile breaks out on her face, and she starts to nod slowly. “Maybe we wait until the spring or summer?”
I bark out a laugh and nod. “I think that would be a good idea. Less ice and snow to contend with.”
Her hands come up and cup my jaw, the tips of her fingers running back and forth over the scruff there.
“I think Hillary only talked about the road trip as a way to get me to look toward a future, one she knew she wouldn’t be there for.
She wanted to give me a focus and hoped I would find a place of my own along the way.
It’s why she never talked about a destination.
She had no idea where I would end up and just wanted to give me a chance to find myself after putting so much time and effort into her and what she needed. ”
“I think Hillary was the best kind of friend,” I whisper. “She wanted you to live for you and for her.”
“Yeah,” the word gets caught in her throat and unshed tears fill her eyes. “I won’t let her down.”
“You couldn’t even if you tried,” I tell her even though I never met the woman.
It feels like I have though. Through Hollyn’s stories and the loyalty she wears like a badge of honor.
Through the kindness she shows, even though meeting new people makes her wary.
Through the grief she wears as a shawl because the memories she has with her friend are too sweet to forget and the burden is light when made with love.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
I hate myself for asking, for making sure, but I can’t help it. The last thing I want is for Hollyn to wake up one day and resent the hell out of me because she stayed instead of riding off into the sunset.
“I’m sure,” Hollyn says with conviction in her voice so deep that my heart starts to hammer in my chest.
“Then you need to know something,” I whisper and her eyes turn curious as she looks at me.
“I love you, Hollyn. I think I fell in love with you the moment you walked into the library, and the feeling has only grown with every moment we’ve spent together.
When it’s time for you to finish Hillary’s road trip, I’ll be right there at your side.
We’ll see all those places together while you tell me all about the woman who sent you to me. ”
When one of her tears escapes her lash line and slides down over her cheek, I’m there to brush it away. And then I’m up and striding through the house with her in my arms.
“What are you doing?” She tries to sound serious, but I can hear the laughter in her voice.
“I’m taking you back to bed,” I chortle. “You just made me the happiest man alive, and I think the best way to celebrate is by fucking you until you pass out only to do it all over again when you wake up.”
Hollyn throws her head back and laughs as I take the stairs two at a time and barge into my room—no, our room officially now—and straight toward the bed. When I set her down on her feet, she wobbles, but it’s only for a second. And then I’m there.
I peel off her clothes, growling with every inch of skin I expose to my hungry eyes. I’m on the edge of feral and there’s a chance I won’t be able to control the need I have to claim my woman. Officially. Primally.
My own clothes become a blur of fabric as I rip them off my body and I’ve never been more grateful for lazy morning in pajamas in my life. It’s only seconds before my hands are back on my woman and roaming all over her soft skin.
With my jaw clamped so tightly I can almost hear the crack of my teeth, I turn my woman around until she’s facing the bed. My hands glide up her body until I’m cupping her tits and rolling her hard nipples between my fingers.
Hollyn arches her back, her ass pressing against my hard cock and smearing pre-cum between us. “You’re getting us all messy, Sweet Girl,” I grunt the words, the guttural sounds barely making it past my lips.
She looks over her shoulder at me; her green eyes simmering with heat and need. “I like getting messy with you, Elwood.”
When I take her mouth in a possessive kiss, it’s fueled by teeth and lips and tongues. It’s messy. And fucking glorious.
My hand connects with her ass and pulls a yelp of surprise from her. When I look down, the pink handprint I’ve left behind has me wanting to beat my chest and roar out my victory. But I don’t.
Not yet.
I slap her other ass cheek and growl, “Hands and knees, Hollyn.” I meet her eyes to ensure she can see just how on edge I am. “I need to claim you.”
The smile on her face is sin and stardust. “I’m already yours, Elwood.”
“Fuck,” I groan, the sound tortured as it comes from deep in my chest.
She doesn’t fight me and scrambles onto the bed. Her ass is in the air in such a way that it might as well be a red flag to a bull. I take a deep breath and try to gather the threads of my control as I climb onto the bed behind her.
My cock is so damn hard it hurts and pre-cum is leaking from me. The need to be inside of my woman, who is staying, is riding me hard.
As I grip the base of my cock, I run the crown up and down her slit teasing her. Her hips jolt and she tries to push back against me to slide herself down my shaft. But I don’t let her.
Not yet.
“Say it again,” I demand.
“I’m not going anywhere, Elwood.”
Her words are a match.
And the fire catches.
I surge forward, burying my cock inside of her in one smooth thrust. The way her walls tighten around me is pure fucking bliss. And the worst kind of torture.
My fingers dig into her hips as I grip them as I start out slow and smooth, wanting her to feel every inch of me as I claim her. But then the hold I have on my control loosens. It was only a matter of time.
“I love you, Sweet Girl,” the words are a rumbled growl but from the way she squeezes around me, she hears me just fine.
“I love you,” she moans.
When she throws her head back, her hair flies over her back in a cascade of auburn that is so damn gorgeous I almost forget what I’m doing for a second. Almost.
I fuck her harder and faster, our bodies moving together. It’s a claiming. For both of us.
When we come, we do it together and I hold myself still as deep inside of my woman as I can. I want every ounce of my cum filling her. Call it obsessed. Call it possessive. I don’t rightly give a fuck.
“That’s it,” I run my hands over her back as we both shudder from the aftershocks. Our breathing is shallow as we try to come back down from the high slowly. “You’ll be dripping my cum all day.”
I sound unhinged.
Hollyn looks over her shoulder, her face flushed and her pouty lips parted as she pants. “I don’t mind at all,” she admits with a wink.
When I shift us, I make sure she stays in my arms. I’m not letting go of her anytime soon.
She whispers, “Thank you, Hillary. Thank you for making me break down, and find the destination I didn’t even know I was looking for.”
I swear a bell on the Christmas tree downstairs tinkles with her words, and I can’t help but smile.
How it happened doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters is her being here, in my arms, and she’s decided to stay. It could have been Santa. It could have been Hillary.
Either way, I’m grateful and I’m never letting her go.