Chapter 10
“NO, NOT HIM,” SHE LIED
Holly
“I don’t believe in distractions. Apparently unless they play hockey and smell like danger.”
Her night ended the way every other one had that week: alone. The book she’d pretended to read was abandoned on the nightstand. Her apartment was silent, still humming with the echo of performance. And she was curled in bed, tense and wired, wrapped around a need she’d spent days trying to ignore.
She’d done everything right. Showered. Moisturized.
Performed the ritual of control with expensive serums and soft lighting, pretending that discipline could smother the heat still simmering between her legs.
Her skin glowed like she was calm. Composed.
Like she wasn’t one breath away from crawling out of her own skin.
But the lie peeled at the edges.
She could still feel him. Nate. His hand pressed to her lower back. The weight of his thigh between hers in that final pose. Hot, commanding, knowing. Like he’d felt her clench around nothing and pressed harder.
The sweat was gone. The music over. But the ghost of him lingered, soaked into her pores like perfume. She closed her eyes, and there he was again. The heat of his gaze. The rasp of his breath behind her ear. That voice. Just tell me how you want it.
She turned over, groaning. Sheets twisted around her legs. Her tank top clung damply to her skin. She was flushed, pulsing, restless. Her thighs pressed tight, hips shifting like they could outmaneuver the ache. But they couldn’t.
She reached for control. Told herself she was just adjusting her waistband.
Just trying to sleep. But her fingers slipped beneath the elastic, slow and shameful, like she could lie to herself a little longer.
Like she wasn’t already soaked. Like her hand hadn’t been here before, chasing this same phantom.
The first brush of contact made her hiss, and she dragged one fingertip through her slick folds as she warned herself not to wonder what it would be like to have his hand there instead.
Her back arched, reflexive and needy. Her breath caught, and she squeezed her eyes shut like that would make it stop. Like she didn’t want it.
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t. Not again.”
But her hand moved anyway.
There was no grace in it. No seduction. She didn’t stroke, she dug.
Fingers sliding through soaked heat with ruthless efficiency, each movement sharp, fast, furious.
She moved like she was punishing herself for wanting, for needing, for remembering the way his thigh had pressed between hers like a question she already knew the answer to.
Her wrist flexed, hips lifting into her own hand in frantic, stuttering jerks.
There was nothing rhythmic, just chaos. Just a scramble for relief she knew wouldn’t come clean.
She fucked her hand like it might knock him loose from her brain, like she could drive him out with pressure and friction and speed. But all it did was summon him.
The harder she moved, the more vivid he became. The ghost of his teeth at her throat, dragging her open, voice low and filthy. That was the worst part. How fucking hot he’d been when he said it.
Tell me where you want me.
Like he didn't know damn well exactly what he was doing.
She gasped, thighs twitching, fingers slick and sliding as she chased release harder, rougher. Like she could erase him. But all she did was burn herself at his altar.
Every swipe only dragged him deeper into her head, and he was everywhere. Behind her, whispering filth in Danish she didn’t understand. In front of her, hand tangled in her hair, voice low and vicious as he told her what she’d beg for next.
She bit her lip, moaning low and wounded.
Her free hand fisted the sheets as her hips stuttered, and she applied the exact amount of pressure she needed like an addict hunting a hit.
She was too far gone to stop now. Her body was betraying her in real time, spiraling toward a release she didn’t want to name.
“No, not him,” she gasped, even as her fingers moved harder. “Not him—”
Liar.
The orgasm shattered her. Her spine bowed off the mattress.
Her legs locked tight around her own wrist, holding herself there like she could trap the memory of him inside.
Holly’s mouth dropped open in a broken, moaning cry that sounded obscene in the cozy light of her tiny bedroom.
For a moment, all she could hear was her own heartbeat, loud and violent in the echo chamber of her body.
And then… stillness. Collapse.
Her trembling hand slipped free, her breath ragged as she stared up at the ceiling. Holly was dazed and flushed from throat to chest, her tank top clinging to the sweat of her own betrayal.
She hated him. She hated how easy it was to want him. And worst of all?
She still wanted him just as badly as she did before her little lapse of judgement.