Chapter 28
I give Maggie just long enough to set our desserts on the table before I’m hauling her back to me, pinning her against the carriage house door.
She drops her denim jacket to the floor and winds her arms around my neck, her lips crashing into mine with a need that matches my own.
I slide one hand into her hair to free the pin holding it in place while the other grips her bare waist, something I’ve wanted to do since the second I saw her in that crop top.
I’ve seen her every day—even if only for a few quiet hours—but the second she’s in my arms, it feels like I’ve gone too long without her.
“God, I’ve missed you,” I mutter against her lips.
Then I’m kissing her again, my hand trailing down to bunch her skirt in my fist. I lift it higher and higher until I feel her smooth skin underneath, dragging my fingers up her thigh in search of her panties, and when I don’t find any, something like a growl tears out of me.
“Surprise,” she whispers, breath hot on my ear.
A thousand thoughts come at me, but only one lands. “You’ve been bare all night?”
Because if I’d known that, we wouldn’t have made it ten minutes into dinner—and maybe she could’ve skipped the rest of it.
“All night.”
“Fuck me. I mean, damn—shit. Shoot.”
Maggie laughs. “Stop, Holden. I like your dirty mouth.”
The way she says it makes me want to drag my dirty mouth all over her, but I settle for the column of her throat while my fingers glide through her—hot, wet, mine.
She makes quick work of my buttons, pushing my shirt open in one fluid motion. A beat later, she’s at my belt, already tugging it loose, shoving my jeans over my hips. We stumble toward the bed, my hand still between her thighs, her grip fisted in my collar like it’s anchoring her to the earth.
She leans in, her voice a whisper against my jaw. “Still want to hold my hand?”
“I want to hold every part of you.”
She gives me a light shove, and I fall back onto the bed, grinning up at her.
Then she steps between my knees, her skirt billowing around us, eyes I can’t escape owning me as she pulls her shirt over her head and tosses it aside.
I mutter a curse, unable to look away from her perfect tits spilling out of her white lace bra.
And when she sinks to her knees in front of me, my heartbeat stutters.
My boots are the first to go, then my socks. She takes her time, slipping each one off at a painfully slow pace before moving on to my jeans, still bunched at my thighs. I lift up just enough to help her ease them down.
“You’re killing me,” I say as I kick them off. They land with a soft thud between us.
“I’m not trying to.”
She pauses there, kneeling between my legs, and my eyes rake over her—from the golden waves skimming her shoulders to the white layers of her skirt fanned out like frosting.
She looks like a doll in a cake, and fucking hell, I want to eat her up.
“I just…” She hesitates. “I want to remember everything.”
Because this may be all we have.
A sharp pang follows the thought, but I refuse to let it bring me down. Not when we’re both right here. I want to remember everything too, and I don’t want to waste a single second missing her while she’s still mine.
She wets her lips like she’s bracing herself, then leans forward, hooking her fingers in the waistband of my boxers. My breath hitches as she carefully tugs them down, my cock aching with how much I want her.
“Fuck, Maggie—sorry.”
She looks up at me, a little nervous but steady. “I’ve never done this before,” she whispers. “But I watched a video.”
And holy shit. That one sentence is the most erotic, vulnerable, Maggie thing I’ve ever heard. Honest. Brave. Resourceful as hell. Did she seriously study porn just to suck me off?
This girl is going to ruin me.
“Maggie, wait,” I say, scraping together every ounce of restraint I have. “You don’t have to do this.”
She bats those goddamn lashes, and I swear she looks wounded. “Do you not…want me to?”
“Oh, God no—I mean yes. I mean, if you want to.” I swallow. “Thank you.”
Thank you? Jesus.
She bites her lip, trying and failing to hide her smile. Her wicked blues pin me to the bed, and I stare back at her, transfixed, while she wraps her fingers around me.
Every thought I have vaporizes.
My head falls back, elbows buckling as I hit the mattress. She’s only touched me, and I’m already wrecked.
“Maggie,” I whisper, eyes locked on the slow spin of the ceiling fan above us, “I don’t think I’m gonna—ah, hell.
” Her lips, plump and perfect, close over me, and my hips jerk on instinct.
I grab fistfuls of the sheet to keep from reaching for her.
To keep from holding her still while I thrust into her sweet mouth.
Because she’s moving so slowly, so…carefully.
But with every pass of her tongue, every twist of her soft, eager hands, every maddening pull of her lips, her confidence grows. And I’m lost. Absolutely lost to her.
Her palm slides lower, cupping me, and my whole body goes tight. Then her nails graze me—just barely, but fuck me, I feel it everywhere.
She squeezes, and that’s it. End scene.
“I’m close,” I choke out, my voice raw. “You should—you don’t have to—”
But she doesn’t stop.
She doesn’t stop.
She keeps sucking me, stroking me, ruining me, until I fall apart in her mouth. My back bows clean off the mattress, her name tearing from my throat.
Lying in a heap, boneless and breathless, I hear her skirt hit the floor and my spent cock twitches. I barely manage a Christ before the bed shifts and she’s prowling over me like I’m her prey.
“I need you to fuck me, Holden.”
My eyes snap open. My pulse flatlines.
Did I just imagine that?
Because calling me a jackass is about as dirty as her mouth ever gets.
“Who are you and what have you done with my Magnolia?”
She goes straight for my neck, her lips on my skin while her hands tug at my shirt like it’s personally offended her.
“This is in my way,” she mutters.
I sit up so she can shove it down my arms and yank it off of me.
“Better,” she says, and then she’s kissing me again, dragging her mouth along my jaw as her gloriously naked body stretches over mine.
My greedy hands roam her back until I’m palming that sweet, round ass.
I squeeze hard and grind against her, but it’s not enough.
And as much as I’d like to see her saddle my dick and ride me into the sunset, I can’t be sure she watched that video.
So instead, I roll her onto her back and position myself between her thighs.
“Yes, Holden,” she breathes, and I almost forget myself.
“Shit—shoot, Maggie, hang on.” I lift off of her to reach for my jeans, but she stops me.
“I’ve been on the pill since I was seventeen, so if you’re, um…safe…”
Hell yes, I’m safe. I’m practically celibate.
A groan tears out of me as I settle over her again, hard and aching.
“Maggie, I’ll go slow. Just—”
“Holden.” Her nails scrape down my back, sharp enough to leave tracks. “Stop talking.”
There’s no way in hell I’m surviving this. Her. Any of it.
My hand slips under her thigh, hauling it up, opening her wider for me. And when I slide in…Jesus.
She’s hot, wet, tight as fuck. But she takes me with ease, like she was made for me. I start slow, just like I promised. But then those long, slender fingers grab hold of my ass. Pull me deeper. Move me like her patience is hanging by a thread.
Challenge accepted.
I drive into her then—harder, faster—chasing the sounds she makes like I’ll never get enough. Scared I’m gonna break her. Positive she wants me to.
I take her like I need her to feel me tomorrow.
Like I need to feel her forever.
Her hips rock up to meet my every thrust, and it’s all I can do to hold on. Her nails dig into my shoulders, and her body goes tight, muscles clenching around my cock.
“That’s it,” I rasp against her mouth. “Let me have it.”
And when she falls apart beneath me, gasping my name like it’s the only word she knows, I fucking lose it.
Because I love this woman.
And nothing’s ever felt like this.
I come harder than I ever have, like I’m leaving a part of me inside her I’m never getting back.
“Maggie,” I whisper, the words right there. Pressing. Ready.
I love you.
She blinks up at me, still trying to catch her breath. “Yes?”
Fuck. Just say it.
“I, uh…” Shit. “I’ll be right back.”
I scold myself all the way to the bathroom, grab a towel, then ease into bed and clean her up with a kind of reverence I can’t hide, like she knows what I almost said and didn’t.
When I’m done, I toss the towel on the floor and kill the lamp. Maggie molds her body to me like it belongs there. And God, maybe it does.
I kiss her forehead, slide my fingers through her slightly damp hair.
“Come to LA with me,” I whisper into the quiet dark.
“What?”
“After filming. Pack a bag and come to LA.”
The thought puts a smile on my face—until her sigh wipes it right off.
“Holden, I can’t. We’re booked solid this summer.”
But I refuse to give up. We can do this. We can have this. “After that then. After the premiere.”
She shifts onto her side to face me, but with only the moonlight spilling in, I can’t read her expression. Probably for the best.
“You have the promo tour,” she says.
“Come with me.”
“And hang out in hotel rooms while you do interviews? Fly back and forth for weddings I’m already locked into?”
“What if I come here then?”
“Come here?”
“It’s just…” I hesitate. “Ben graduated. He said he’ll start teaching soon, so he can help out more. Take some of the load off. And if I could come here too, then maybe…you’d consider long distance.”
“So this was Ben’s idea?”
“Maggie…” I reach for her, but she pulls back.
“Ben’s going to France,” she says flatly.
I let out a dry laugh. “Does he know that?”
“You know as well as I do that’s where he needs to be. I’ll drag him across the Atlantic myself if I have to.”
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. “There has to be a way. I’m not ready to lose you.”