Chapter Thirty-Nine. Holden
THIRTY-NINE
Holden
It’s a gut punch to see her in the dress.
The ridiculous amount I had to pay the salesclerk for the code to access the outside door to get in here was more than fucking worth it to see Rowan like this.
She’s breathtaking in it.
The floor-length sheath of ivory. A straight column of satin that tastefully hugs every curve. It has delicate straps and an open back so the fabric pools just above her ass.
It’s understated yet sexy and the minute I see her looking at her reflection in the trifold mirror of the private dressing room, visions of hiking it up and fucking her in it fill my head immediately.
Shortly thereafter is a flash of jealousy so fucking strong that I don’t know how to process it.
She gasps the minute she sees me. Her eyes grow wide and she steps down off the platform she’s standing on, her hands going up to cover her chest as if I can’t see her in the dress.
As if it’s our wedding she’s trying on dresses for.
“What are you doing in here?” she whisper-yells, fear in her eyes as she glances over her shoulder, toward the door leading to the sitting room where her and Chad’s moms are sitting, foaming at the mouth to see her.
“It’s locked,” I tell her as I move across the room. “As is the one behind me.”
“Oh my god. This is not good. How—”
“Don’t worry about it. No one will—”
“You can’t be in here. Everyone will know. You can’t—”
I don’t hesitate. Not a single goddamn bit. I slant my mouth over hers and take until I can’t take anymore. Until my breath is faint and my head is dizzy and my balls ache with a ferocity like I’ve never felt before.
Her hesitation lasts milliseconds. Then her hands are fisting in my shirt and her body is pressed up against mine like she wants to unzip my skin and crawl inside.
The feeling is mutual.
“You can’t be in here,” she repeats until I swallow the words.
“I can. I am. And the more times you tell me I can’t, the longer I fucking will be.”
I think of Chad’s hand on her ass at the engagement party. Of the kiss he put on her lips to piss me off.
You want to one-up me, Chadwick?
I’ll win.
How about your bride in her wedding dress getting fucked by me?
Her fingers score the back of my neck as I kiss her again. “You look incredible. Stunning. And I fucking hate you for it, but more so who it’s for.”
“It’s not real,” she pants out. “It’s—”
“Rowan? Is everything okay in there?” a woman’s voice calls from the door.
“Yes.” Rowan puts her hand over my mouth, her eyes wide. “I just needed a minute.”
“The attendant said as much; do you need me to come in there? Do you not like the dress?”
“No.” I begin to inch the fabric of the dress up. “The dress is…”
“Sexy as fuck,” I growl into her ear.
“Perfect,” she chokes over the word as my fingers slip between her thighs and find her pussy. “I just…”
“Call off the wedding,” I order.
“I can’t,” she whispers back.
“Yes. You. Can,” I say, each word accented with my fingers moving in and out of her.
She moans. There’s no mistaking it, and I grow rock fucking hard at the sound all while knowing her mom just heard that.
Too bad Chad didn’t too.
“Row? Honey? I’m worried. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” her mom continues.
I push her back up against the wall as her hands move to my pants and begin undoing them. “I’m going to fuck you in this dress, Sunshine.”
Her cold hands find my hard cock. My eyes roll back in my head as she pulls it out and encircles it with her fingers.
“I just, uh … needed a minute to myself,” she calls out.
“I’m going to fuck you so when you wear it and walk down the aisle, you’ll remember the feel of it bunched around your waist as I fuck you into pleasure.”
“Just a little overwhelmed is all,” she continues and then fists my hair in her hand and yanks my mouth down to hers. “You’re such a fucking asshole doing this to me.”
“Doing what?” I ask as I lift her up with both hands and use the wall for leverage before lowering her down onto my cock.
“Burning this moment into your memory. Of you in this dress while my cock is in you?” I dig my fingers into her hips as she gasps the first time I thrust up.
Good.
Fucking.
God.
It takes a few seconds for the lightheadedness the feel of her sweet pussy creates to abate some.
“Hold…” My name is a breathless pant as she squeezes around me and scores her nails in my shoulder.
“I admit it. I’m more than fucking jealous—you picked this dress out for him to see you in.
” Another thrust and then a hard grind so her thighs tighten on my hips.
“But I’m the fucking asshole?” I tug on her bottom lip as her back arches so I go even deeper.
“I’m the asshole?” I repeat as I lift her up some so I can piston into her as hard as I can.
My mouth finds hers in a torrent of violent desire.
And when I pull back, when I circle my hips beneath hers, when I thrust so very slowly so that all we can think about is us, I lean in to her ear and say, “Oh, baby, you haven’t seen anything yet. ”
“Don’t mess my makeup up,” she mewls, her head falling back and neck arching for me to lick my way up.
I chuckle against the skin there and revel in the goose bumps that chase after it.
“Pretty sure you’re going to need to be more worried about the mess between your thighs when I’m done. Wearing this dress for him while I’m still in you.”
Fuck. You. Chad.
And with that I set out to finish the task. To prove to her just how fucking great we are together.
To make her know this fucking touch of mine is real.
The silk fabric bunches beneath my fingers as I hold her hips and drive into her over and over, but it’s her nails digging into my skin that tell me this is real.
The bite of pain with the blush of pleasure.
It’s a reminder that I’m here. That I’m actually doing this—staking my fucking claim on a woman I’m not supposed to have. And it feels so good that without that bite of pain, I just might lose my goddamn mind and forget the first two.
“Holden,” she moans, and my name has never sounded sexier. “I can’t—”
“You can,” I growl in her ear. “You will.” And so I work harder, faster, deeper, to make her forget her surroundings, forget why she’s here, and to only think of fucking me.
Me.
That’s the only person she needs to see right now.
Seconds burn into pleasurable minutes. Fingernails dig deeper. My cock drives farther.
And just when I think I can’t hold out anymore, Rowan’s entire body stiffens—her legs, her back, her lips on my shoulder—as she muffles her cry of release.
Fucking Christ. Just that little movement, her pussy pulsing around mine, drags me over the libidinous edge until I fuck her through her own orgasm so that I can claim mine.
I grit my teeth and do everything I can not to shout out—the pleasure so fucking intense it’s blinding—as I empty everything I have into her.
“Rowan,” I murmur as I kiss my way up her neck, my cock still jerking inside her. “Fucking hell, woman.”
This woman … she’s … incomparable.
And this moment, this sex, was … addicting.
And unsatisfying.
Because when all is said and done, when I lower her legs to the ground and grab a tissue to help clean her up, she is still in the fucking dress.
Still in ivory for another man.
“Rowan,” her mom says and knocks again. We both jolt as her voice shocks us out of the moment. “I’m more than worried out here.”
“Sorry. I had to write an email,” she says. “Zipping the dress back up again.”
“Again? Why do you need to zip it up again?”
“Shit,” she mutters but I press my lips to hers and take one last kiss.
“Call the wedding off.”
“Only if you walk away from TinSpirits,” she says.
What? I fight the crazed chuckle I want to emit. That’s what this is all about?
“I thought you were doing this to buy time. Time for what, though? Is this about your inheritance? About something you gain through marriage? Whatever it is isn’t worth going through this fucking charade.”
She falters in motion.
That’s my first fucking clue that I’m on to something.
But Bob and I have done our due diligence.
We’ve searched the fucking databases and haven’t found shit.
Henry Williams’s encryption software is fucking stellar, but we broke through it and there is nothing fucking there other than the mention of a letter.
What is the fucking letter?
But the expression on her face says it’s something.
“What is it, Rowan?”
She stares at me with a clarity that unnerves me. “I have to look out for me, Holden. I don’t have a fucking clue where you’re going to be when all is said and done, so I have to look out for me.”
“When all is said and done? What does that mean?” I play into the fucking lies I’ve told and don’t fucking care that I do. I’ll think about the consequences of that later. Let the guilt come later.
But right now, the taste of her on my tongue and the sight of her in this dress don’t exactly have me thinking straight.
She drops her head and draws in a shaky breath.
“Get cold feet. Have a huge fight. Give a fucking reason as to why you can’t wear that dress for anyone else but me.”
I can see her resolve wavering just as quickly as I can see her build it back up. “Walk away from TinSpirits and I will.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“In my world it does. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. You ruined that. You took that from me. If I have to give up something, then so do you.”
I stare at her, curious and turned on by this newfound defiance but not understanding it all at the same time. “I can’t do that,” I say.
She nods. “Neither can I, then.”
We wage a visual war as the words just uttered sink in, as the gauntlet she’s thrown down settles, and I wonder if I just lost her.
The pounding on the door makes us both jump.
“Sweetie. I’m worried. She’s getting me the key just in case you’re not okay,” her mom says.
“I guess we’re in that gray area then, aren’t we,” I say and press one more chaste kiss to her lips before heading out the door I came in.
The door shuts behind me and blocks the devastating vision of Rowan in a wedding dress with her body still humming from my touch.
She can’t marry the prick.
I’ll make sure of it.