Chapter 38
HOLDEN
I led her into my office, my hand in the small of her back and my heart pounding like it was trying to break out of my chest. Over the last few days, Jimmy and I hadn’t only been figuring out what to do about the Renewal Initiative, nor had he forgotten what I’d asked him after I’d learned about Sara’s illness.
It was ridiculous how nervous I was about showing her what else we’d been up to, though. I’d faced down furious shareholders and confronted journalists with hidden agendas, but this?
This was personal. It was perhaps the most personal thing I’d ever done for somebody else. Once Ellora found out that I’d been keeping something else from her, I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew this wouldn’t even just strike close to home. It was going to be a direct hit.
“So, uh, I wanted you to take a look at something.” I woke up the monitor on my desk. Squeezing her hand, I used the other to click into the folder on my desktop.
The logo popped up on the screen a moment later, the lines clean, simple, and elegant. Sara & Friends.
Ellora froze beside me, her jaw slackening before she swiveled to look up into my eyes, her own wider than I’d ever seen them. “What is that?”
“It’s a foundation,” I said quietly. “In your mother’s name. To support families of dementia patients. The aim is to help them get the care they need and to create a community for them to be part of.”
Her eyes filled with tears faster than I thought possible. “You did this? This is your foundation?”
“Yeah.” I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly very aware of how small this office felt with her in it. “Well, no. I started it, but it’s yours. Ours if you want it to be. I was going to tell you before, but I didn’t want you to think it was a stunt I pulled to win you back.”
“Holden…” she breathed, one of her palms gently cupping my face. “How did you do this? When on earth did you even have time for something like this?”
“I didn’t have time. I made it,” I said honestly. “Weeks ago. After you told me about your mother’s condition, I started looking into it. Jimmy has been working behind the scenes to get it up and running. Dr. Feldman is involved as well.”
She looked at me like I’d just torn down the whole sky so I could hand her the stars. “I can’t believe you did this.”
I swallowed, forcing out the truth before I lost my nerve. “I love you, Ellora. This is just a small way to show you how much.”
She stepped even closer, her free hand landing on my chest, her palm lightly resting right over my heartbeat. “I love you, too.”
My heart skipped and stuttered, emotions I’d never felt before—not even on my wedding day—racing through me.
I leaned down and kissed her, promising without words that I was here and that I wasn’t going anywhere.
Swearing that I would take care of her heart from now on and that I would never let anyone, including myself, hurt so much as a hair on her head.
Something buried deep inside me finally unclenched as she kissed me back the same way, as if she was giving herself to me and was promising all the same things. Every wall I’d built around myself crumbled, every neat little compartment where I’d stored things I didn’t want to feel gone.
These kisses weren’t careful or strategic. It wasn’t about timing, control, or any of the things I’d been good at my whole life. It was about her. Only about her.
Ellora. Ellora Langton has a pretty nice ring to it, actually.
Her fingers curled into my shirt, pulling me closer, and the world just disappeared. There was only the taste of her in my mouth and the quiet sounds she made. Sounds I wanted to hear for the rest of my life even though I’d sworn up and down for five years that I would never, ever go there again.
I deepened the kiss, one of my hands sliding into her hair and the other tracing the curve of her spine, committing every inch to memory. She fit against me like I’d been built with this moment in mind.
Like every step, every mistake, every failure, and every success had led me right here. To her.
When she whispered my name, I felt it everywhere. I pulled back just enough to look at her, my forehead resting against hers. “You have no idea what you’ve done to me.”
She smiled, a little breathless as she brought her eyes up to mine in the moonlight. “I think I do.”
I kissed her again, my hands finding both of hers and our fingers lacing. I walked her backward through the penthouse, down the hallway I’d walked a thousand times, but never like this. Every step suddenly felt new, like the entire world had just fallen open to me.
We reached my bedroom and I hesitated just long enough to brush my thumb along her cheek.
She looked up at me like she already knew what I was thinking, like she knew that this was about finally letting myself love her completely.
Then she rose up on her toes and kissed me again, and I stopped thinking altogether.
Acting on pure instinct, I slid my hands to her back and found the top of her zipper. She was still wearing the dress Maia had sent over to our offices this morning, a fitted, businesslike navy wrap that had nearly undone me when I’d seen her in it.
On the other hand, she could wear a plastic bag and it would have the same effect. My knuckles brushed against her spine as I unzipped the dress, slowly dragging the metal tab down one inch at a time. Ellora shivered against me, her breathing choppy by the time it was all the way open.
I hooked my fingers under the sleeves, caressing her shoulders before I pushed the fabric down. It pooled around her waist, bunching between our bodies. Reaching around her again, I unhooked her bra and dropped it to the floor. My mouth never left hers as I rolled her panties off with the dress.
My blood was roaring in my ears, my focus narrowed to her and only her.
The sweet scent of her shampoo consumed me.
The sensation of her soft, naked body against my own was completely captivating.
I drank from her lips like she was the elixir of life, only pulling away to open my bed so I could help her into it.
My bedroom was warm, but I didn’t want her to feel a single shred of discomfort. Taking her hand in mine, I led her the last few paces to the bed and climbed into it with her, tucking her close before covering us both with the blankets.
I brushed a lock of hair out of her face before sliding my hand to her neck and gently guiding her lips back to mine. She sighed into my mouth, but I felt her squirming against me and I smiled into the slow kiss, then pulled away with one hand on her cheek and the other on her hip.
Moonlight spilled in through my floor-to-ceiling windows, light from the city below illuminating the space with gold while the moon shone silver. All the way up here on top of the city, with the light ethereal, I sort of wondered if I was dreaming.
This was too good to be true, this woman who was everything I’d ever wanted. Somehow, she even loved me. I could feel it in the way she melted into me, her kisses ardent but reverent, and her moans completely uninhibited.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered, that red hair a curtain around her beautiful face and her expression completely open.
I stroked my thumb across her cheek. “I’m thinking about how much I love you. How lucky I am that you’re mine.”
“Oh, I’m yours now, huh?” A teasing smile touched the corners of her lips. “Okay, fine. You convinced me.”
“That was easy.”
“I have one condition.” She tilted her head, her lips swollen and wet, those green eyes shining with need. “Make love to me.”
I groaned. “That’s not really a hardship, baby.”
“Glad to hear it.” She pressed her mouth to mine, one of her hands sliding up my chest and doing unholy things to me.
After all the women I’d been with, I’d thought I knew what it was to be turned on.
I hadn’t known shit. The need I felt whenever she touched me was so much more than physical.
It was like this soul-deep ache that made my body beg to fuck, but also to claim.
To possess. To do all sorts of shit I never would’ve guessed I could need.
All those urges shot through me now, forcing me to my knees without conscious thought being necessary. I pressed a trail of kisses to her throat and paused at her chest to slide my nose along the curve of her breasts before sucking each of her nipples into my mouth.
She slid her fingers into my hair, she reached for my shirt. I took it off for her but my lips remained on or near her skin. My cock was straining against my fly, doing its best to make my zipper leave permanent indentations, but I didn’t even think about freeing it.
If I did that, there was no way I would ever be able to resist the temptation. I licked, sucked, and kissed a path from her chest to her hips, moving over so my knees were between her legs. The scent of her arousal had always been intoxicating, but it was so much more intense tonight.
I felt drunk as I breathed her in, kissing the insides of her thighs. Groaning, I lowered my face to her pussy. She was already so wet that she was glistening. With her legs spread wide, she was on full display to me and I couldn’t get enough.
I took my time exploring every inch of her with my tongue, tracing her folds while my fingertips danced around her entrance. She squirmed and moaned, her fingernails dragging across my scalp in a way that made me shudder.
I sucked her clit into my mouth.
“Holden,” she whimpered, her entire body tensing around me.
I swirled my tongue around it, utterly addicted to the sweet taste of her and the way she always started sounding a little anxious when she got close, like she actually thought I might stop.
There was no fucking way I ever would. Her pleasure was the best thing I’d ever gotten to experience.
Making her come was my favorite pastime, my own guilty pleasure.
The muscles in her thighs started trembling. One of my hands fell to her hip, keeping her anchored while I slid two fingers into her tight channel. That was all it took for her to come apart around me. My name was on her lips as she flooded my mouth.
I licked her clean, then slowly kissed a path back up her body when I was done and claimed her lips in a kiss that imprinted itself on my soul.
As I lowered myself down on her, I realized my boxer-briefs were damp, my cock officially wet with how much I wanted her, but I still kissed her tenderly while she caught her breath.
She seemed to think I was always calm and in control, but I felt half fucking crazed right now, my body primed to do unspeakable things to her that definitely wouldn’t count as making love. When I felt her hands on my waistband, I sucked in a breath.
“Be gentle with me,” I warned in a harsh whisper. “I—”
“I want you to show me.” Her eyes met mine as she undid the button and slid my zipper down.
Within a few seconds, she’d kicked my pants and underwear away, and just the slick heat of her against my rigid cock was almost enough.
“Show me how much you want me, Holden. It’s always about me, but tonight, it’s already been about me. ”
Repositioning herself underneath me, she tilted her hips up so that the molten heat of her entrance enveloped the tip of my dick. My heart tripped over itself, my teeth grinding. “We need a condom.”
“We don’t,” she whispered, her palms on my cheeks as she held my face, her gaze intent. “I’m on the pill. I have been for a long time. I just didn’t mention it before because—”
“You’re mentioning it now,” I ground out, my eyes slamming shut. “That’s all that matters, Ella. I get it. We weren’t us before. We weren’t solid. We are now.”
“Yeah, we are.” She wiggled a little underneath me, wrapping her legs around my hips and flexing her muscles so that she was pushing me into her.
The last thread of control I’d been clinging to for dear life snapped like a fishing line that had caught a shark instead of a goldfish. I thrust into her as my mouth dropped back to her lips, my kisses as desperate as my movements.
I’d never felt anything like this, the sensation of it all so different without protection and so much more intense than I ever might’ve thought. Shannon hadn’t wanted to risk getting pregnant, so even though I’d been married before, this was entirely new to me.
And I was glad because I wasn’t sure I would have been comfortable letting absolutely anyone else see me so completely vulnerable. It was like I became unhinged, losing myself in somebody else for the very first time ever.
Ellora was with me every step of the way, her kisses sure and her body as hungry as my own. The moonlight, the I-love-yous, and the sensations I was feeling came together in a perfect storm of pleasure.
Everything else in my world disappeared in that moment. I would slay dragons for this girl with my bare hands, eat hot coals, or dance naked in the moonlight. Whatever she wanted, I would do. I would give her everything. Anything.
As long as I got to have her in my arms like she was tonight for the rest of my life, I would give it all up for her. When I felt her walls rippling around me, I didn’t even bother trying to hold back. I just let go, and the best part of it was that she was right there with me.