Chapter 19
19
Aaron
I’m. So. Fucked.
There’s no other way to put it. I sit up and swing my legs off the bed, careful not to wake Holly. She’s asleep, the moonlight filtering in through the gap in the curtain caressing her cheek.
She may not have thought her first time was a big deal, but it was life-changing for me. I will never be able to adequately express what it meant for me to be the one Holly trusted with this. That innocence in her eyes changed to fire, to power, to something indescribable yet mesmerising. When she came apart under my touch, something changed in me. I knew, in that moment, that there would be no one else for me. Once Holly leaves to go back to South Africa, she will take my heart with her, and I’m fine with that. I’m not going to need it anyway.
If I was half the man she believes me to be, I would put an end to this now, but I’m not. I’m a selfish dick who wants nothing more than every second, every touch, every experience, Holly is prepared to give me.
She sighs in her sleep, and I turn to see her rolling over. The sheet slips down, exposing her breasts. The fire has long since dwindled, and her gorgeous pink nipples are peaked from the chill in the air. I reach for the comforter and pull it over her sleeping form before resting my head in my hands.
She stirs again.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That’s okay, I would’ve been pissed with myself if I missed the view,” she says.
“Yeah? So, you’ve been gawking at me all this time?”
She shifts and wraps her arms around me, resting her head against my back. “Only for the last thirty seconds or so. What’s wrong?”
Shit!
“I was just debating whether to wake you up or not. It was a tough decision. I bet you’re sore.” I hate lying to her, but I’m not about to get all heavy after the night we just had.
She kisses me on the back. “What’s a little pleasure without the pain, right?”
I turn my head so I can see her. “That from one of the smutty books you’re always reading?”
She laughs. “Probably.”
“And what else have you learnt from those dirty books of yours?”
“Why don’t you lie down and I’ll show you?”
“What’s with you always ordering me on my back?”
Holly shrugs. “Let’s just say I like having you at my mercy.”
I stand, and Holly rises up on her knees so I can kiss her. Crawling onto the bed, I push all my thoughts away. If I’m going to enjoy the time we have, I can’t be dwelling on the future, I need to be present. I lie down with my hands behind my head. Holly bites her lip as she gets in position. When she looks at my dick and licks her lips, my cock twitches in anticipation.
“He’s all yours, Trouble. Do you want me to guide you, or have you done enough research from your reading?”
She looks up at me and smirks. “I think I can hold my own.”
“Well, show me what you’ve got.”
I’m pretty fucking happy Holly is resting her head on my chest, because I couldn’t move if I tried. I need to get a list of all the books she’s read and send thank-you notes to each and every one of those authors. Fuck me, even the most experienced girls I’ve been with haven’t made me come as hard as Holly did. I don’t know if I’m just acutely aware that most girls don’t like sucking guys off and do it just as part of the process, or if Holly just barrelled through all my defences, but to me, blowjobs have never been intimate. The girls usually reciprocated the oral after I made them come on my tongue.
Holly looks up at me. “Is it always like this?”
My hand stills on her shoulder where I’ve been tracing the number eight—the infinity sign if I were to get technical. Maybe if I put this out there, then God will have mercy on me and give me Holly. “No, Trouble. It’s not always like this.”
I clench my jaw so I don’t start telling her that I have never experienced anything like what the two of us just shared, or that I know for a fact I never will again with anyone other than her.
“Really? That’s a bummer. Although I probably could’ve answered my own question anyway. When I… uh… When I take care of myself, not every time is mind-blowing, either. And it’s never been close to being as good as it is with you. Is this a side effect of having multiple orgasms? Not being able to shut my mouth and keep my thoughts to myself?”
I kiss the top of her head. “If it makes you feel any better, I quite like hearing your thoughts.”
“You must be a sucker for punishment.”
“That I am, Trouble.”
She shifts and crosses her arms over my chest before resting her chin on her wrists.
“Can I ask you something? Do you miss South Africa?”
I nod. “Yeah, I do. There’s no place like home.”
“Isn’t Scotland your home?”
I smooth a stray hair from her face, trying to think how to put this without saying too much. “I loved everything about South Africa. How about you? Do you miss home?”
Her expression changes so drastically that the hair on the back of my neck raises. “Holly, you okay?”
She schools her features, but the peace and tranquillity that was on her face moments before is no longer there, I regret asking the question. I stroke her cheek. “You don’t have to answer if you aren’t comfortable.”
She sits up and wraps the sheet around her. “When you asked me that question, all the stress and anxiety I haven’t felt these last weeks came flooding back. It was so physical and so jarring. Until you asked me that question, I had no idea how much anxiety my parents caused me until it wasn’t my norm anymore.”
Her face contorts with so much pain that I swear I can feel it too. I shoot up and tug her onto my lap. As she rests her head in the crook of my neck. I stroke her hair and swallow down the lump in my throat. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on with me. Holly cries, and I’m going down like a dramatic football player at Hampden Park. “Talk to me, Trouble. I hate seeing you like this.”
She lifts her head and wipes her eyes. “I don’t know if I can handle that life again after being here. I haven’t woken up with a knot in my stomach since I got here, or heard my mother screaming my name at night.”
Fuck, I think I have an idea where this is going. My voice comes out in a whisper. “Why would she scream your name?”
She looks down at her hands. “You know how much they drink?”
“Yeah.”
“They get awful when they drink.”
I rub her arm to stop myself from clenching my fists, because I know what she’s going to say. So instead, I say it for her. “And things get physical. Does your dad hit your mum, Holly?”
She sighs. “It’s not just him. She starts, and then he finishes it. That’s when she calls for me. Because she’s out of her depth and wants me to rescue her.”
I’m seething. I could fucking kill right now. I want to get on a flight and go bash her parents’ heads in. Then I’m going for Spencer. How the fuck does he have the audacity to tell me what to do with my life? To tell me I can’t be with Holly when he lets her deal with shit like this on her own? The last thing I want is for Holly to have to deal with my emotions, so I take a few steadying breaths. “What does Spencer do when this happens?”
She shakes her head. “It only started when he went away to Stellenbosch.”
That makes sense. Had I been thinking clearly, I would’ve come to that conclusion on my own. “And you won’t tell him because you know he’ll come home and lose his scholarship?”
“Are you going to tell him?”
I want to phone him right now and tell him to meet me at the airport so we can give her parents a piece of our minds, but this isn’t about me going all Donkey Kong on everyone and everything. It’s about me supporting Holly support.
“I won’t. But I think you should.”
She sits up. I’m not sure if the distance she put between us is intentional or not. I have an idea she doesn’t know that her protectiveness over her brother has come out in the way it has, and I don’t blame her. As far as she knows, I’m the guy who could potentially upend Spencer’s future. “I’m not telling him, Aaron. And I’m asking you not to do it, either. I have a plan. I’m going to use my writing to get away from there. Get out from under their control. It always helps me escape when I’m at home.”
That worries me. Holly has been writing whenever she has a gap—on her break at the pub, her off days, every moment she isn’t spending with me. Does that mean she needs the escape now as well?
“Have you been doing the same while you’re here?” I feel like a dick because she shouldn’t be making me feel better. I should be making her feel better.
She straddles me. Cupping my face, she looks me dead in the eyes. “No. There’s a difference between escaping and being inspired. I have been very inspired since I’ve been here, thank you very much.”
Her teasing smile sends relief coursing through me. I never want to see her cry the way she did just now. But this isn’t over. I’m just not going to hammer her with it now.
“Are you telling me you weren’t inspired before? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She rolls her eyes. “Trust you to immediately think you’re the reason for my inspiration.”
“If not me, then what?”
“What if Basil is my inspiration?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Basil the Bastard?”
“The very one.”
I clutch my chest. “You wound me.”
“You’ll get over it.”
I love it when she teases me. “No sheep in South Africa then?”
She sighs, her lips twisting to the side. “According to my creative writing professor, no.”
“What do you mean?”
“My professor says my writing is boring, bland and uninspiring. He said I need to write from life experience.”
I wonder if he’ll find the six hundred ways I’m going to disembowel him, boring, bland and uninspiring.
“Your professor sounds like a prick.”
“He’s only trying to push me to be my best.”
“Will you let me read your story sometime? Let me see if he’s just got his head up his arse?”
She chews on her lip. “It’s scary letting someone read my work.”
“Scarier than Basil?”
“Maybe?”
“Well, then I think you better start being nicer to Basil.”
“I’m plenty nice to Basil.”
I give her a look. “I’ve heard you calling him Basil the Bastard out the pub window when you’re on shift.”
“I haven’t dyed him a rosy pink yet.”
I snort. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re scared shitless of him, would it?”
Holly pokes my chest. “Shut up. I need to write another chapter tomorrow. I think the least you could do is try to inspire me.”
“Let the inspiration begin.” I push her down and pepper kisses over her body as I slowly pull the sheet off her.