Chapter 9
ELLORA
By the time we reached the end of the block, I’d stopped pretending I wasn’t enjoying myself. Holden was still too confident and too handsome for anyone’s good, but he was also funny, thoughtful, and not nearly as much of a jerk as I’d pegged him for that first night in class.
He walked beside me with his hands in his pockets, glancing at me with a strange half-smile on his lips. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What?”
“You surprised me tonight.”
“Oh yeah? How?” I asked, arching a brow. “Was it because I didn’t spill anything on myself?”
He chuckled. “That helped. But I mean that you’re interesting. You’re not what I expected.”
“Let me guess. You thought I was going to show up in another wrinkled T-shirt and beg for extra credit.”
“I didn’t think you’d need extra credit.” His voice dropped slightly, suddenly a low timbre that made its way straight to my pulse. “I just assumed you’d be a little less…” He trailed off, clearly searching for a word.
“Less what?” I prompted.
“Dangerous,” he said finally.
I laughed. “Dangerous? I’m the least dangerous person you’ve ever met. I own a thrift store. I drive a hatchback and I consider a night in with a book on my couch a huge treat.”
“Exactly,” I replied easily. “It’s disarming.”
I rolled my eyes. “You have a weird definition of danger, Professor.”
“Holden,” he corrected softly.
That one word, just the fact that he was telling me to call him by his first name, settled between us like static.
My Uber notification pinged, but I didn’t look at it.
I couldn’t, not when he was shifting a little closer to me, a lock of that sandy hair falling across his forehead and his breath misting in the cold air between us.
“You know, if we’re going to pull off this whole fake-dating thing, we should probably work on our chemistry,” he said.
I gave him a teasing smile, but on the inside, my heart was suddenly galloping, my mouth bone dry, and my eyes locked on his like they’d been crazy-glued there. “You think our chemistry needs work?”
“Actually, I think it’s perfect, but I wouldn’t mind running a test.”
I opened my mouth to reply, desperately searching for something to say, something witty or smart, but my vocabulary got tangled up in my brain. He leaned in, slow enough for me to stop him if I wanted to.
I didn’t.
Around us, the city noise seemed to dim.
The streetlights blurred as he brushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear, and then his lips met mine.
It wasn’t polite or tentative. In fact, it was the kind of kiss that felt like an answer to a question neither of us had asked, hot and unhurried at the same time, leaving my knees weak and my body begging for more.
When he finally drew back, his forehead rested against mine for a heartbeat. Both of us breathed hard. The air between us had turned electric. My phone buzzed again.
My Uber.
I stepped back, trying to remember how to form actual words. “I, um, well, I guess that was your test.”
He smiled, those lips curving in a way that was both slow and devastating. “I’d say we passed.”
A car pulled up beside us. I was still reeling as I half-stumbled toward it, climbed in, and fell back against the seat. Holden shut the door behind me. He stood on the sidewalk as we pulled away, watching me like he was suddenly wondering what the hell he’d just done.
Frankly, I didn’t have the faintest idea either, but I already knew that it had been the kind of insanity I would willingly sign up for. Time and time again.
The next morning when I strode into the bakery under my shop for breakfast, I was running on three hours’ sleep and one very confusing memory of a kiss I couldn’t stop replaying. Josie was behind the counter, flour dusting her hair and trays of croissants cooling on the rack.
The air smelled like butter and heaven, and she grinned at me as soon as I walked in. “Well, good morning, sunshine. You look like you got hit by a pastry truck.”
“I wish,” I said, slumping against the counter. “At least I’d smell like cinnamon if it had been that.”
Josie slid a mug of coffee toward me. God bless her. “Slow week?”
“It’s more like slow month if I’m being honest,” I said, understanding why she might think that was why I hadn’t gotten much sleep. “You?”
She snorted. “In this economy? Every penny matters, honey. I’m keeping the lights on with caffeine and prayer at this point.”
I raised my cup. “To caffeine and prayer.”
We commiserated while I had my coffee. Then I climbed the stairs to open up shop for the day with a fresh pastry in my hand and hope in my heart. It didn’t last long, though.
The caffeine had kicked in just enough for me to face my spreadsheets, and the numbers didn’t lie. Hope was futile.
Sales were down again. Rent was due in two weeks. The electric bill was creeping higher. The money Holden had promised for this whole fake-date thing would help, but it was a bandage on a bullet wound.
If I didn’t find a way to make real, steady income, I would be back here, staring at the same depressing columns in a few months. Only then, I wouldn’t have fake-date money to fall back on.
As I stared at those spreadsheets, what I should’ve been thinking about was how the hell I was going to get my life together. Coming up with marketing ideas. Maybe figuring out how to expand my online shop.
Instead, my brain could focus on one thing and one thing only. That kiss. God, that kiss.
I almost moaned out loud just at the memory of it, it’d been that good. Like, stupidly, unfairly good.
It had made my toes curl and my brain melt. I closed my laptop with a sigh, pressing my fingers to my lips. It had been a long time since I’d been with anyone. Too long.
Between the shop barely staying afloat and Mom’s health falling apart so fast, romance had slid way down the list of priorities, but Holden’s lips had felt like a vacation from everything—my worries, my bills, the constant pressure of trying to hold my life together.
For those few seconds, I’d forgotten about all of it. There had only been him, warm, steady, and confident, and I wasn’t even ashamed of how I’d melted into him. It had just been that magical. But he was also my teacher and I was a broke store owner barely hanging on by a thread.
In all practicality, I needed his business knowledge more than I needed to be fucked senseless for a night. Plus, I was sure he would thoroughly ruin me for other men. According to Mercedes, Holden was a sex machine with a reputation for sleeping around. I was sure he was probably quite good at it.
One night would be all I’d get though, because apparently he was also utterly incapable of commitment. From everything I’d heard, he sounded like he could make you see fireworks but would also be gone before the smoke cleared.
That should’ve been a deterrent, but somehow, it wasn’t. That kiss must’ve triggered some primal part of my brain that was now completely unable to let it go because the next thing I knew I was picturing it.
My mind drifted to not only what I imagined would be the kind of sex that would blow my mind, but also the after. It was so easy to picture us together on Sunday mornings, his hand resting on my thigh as we drove to the farmer’s market.
The way he’d probably be annoyingly particular about produce.
I imagined him wanting to know where every tomato came from or whether the baker used real butter in their croissants.
He’d kiss me at red lights on our way home.
We’d make breakfast together in my kitchen, brushing against each other as we worked.
Then we’d end up making love right there, with him making me scream his name on the kitchen counter.
My heart squeezed, soft and traitorous, my panties too damp to even try to deny it to myself. God, I was getting carried away. I didn’t even know him like that.
And yet…
Before I could overthink it, I grabbed my phone and started typing before my brain could interfere.
Me: Last night was nice. Looking forward to the wedding!
I stared at the message for half a second before I hit send. Immediately, I dropped the phone face down on the counter, taking a few steps back as if it might explode. You are an absolute idiot.
It was too late now to take it back, though. So instead, my heart thudded against my ribs, half dread, half anticipation, and my cheeks broke out in flames.
If he responded with something embarrassing like he was probably going to, I would never be able to show my face in that class again, and then what on earth was I going to do?
Because learning from him would never again be able to happen. It was too bad, because it really seemed like he had a lot to teach me.
And not only between the sheets, despite what my suddenly very horny body would really like to learn from him.