Chapter 22 Feelings? In This Economy?
FEELINGS? IN THIS ECONOMY?
Holly
“Sir, please stop clocking my internal panic. Mind your business, and your jawline.”
There was no discussion or planning, just a look that said we're definitely gonna do filthy things in about forty-five minutes.
Then his hand brushed hers backstage like foreplay with eye contact.
Her brain screamed BAD IDEA, but her body was already halfway into the Uber like a slutty little passenger princess on a mission.
Holly promised herself this was pure, undiluted bone-to-cope.
She was going home with Nate because the performance buzz still hadn’t left her body, and her thighs were still vibrating like a bass speaker.
She hadn’t actually gotten to ride him yet, and that felt like a gross oversight.
At this point in time she was practically owed a mattress and at least one orgasm that involved her tits in his face at the same time.
This wasn’t intimacy. It was maintenance. She repeated it three times, like a spell.
Maintenance. Maintenance. Maint—Yeah, okay. She was already in trouble.
Nate’s temporary apartment was small, but Holly knew damn well it’d cost three times more than hers.
She glanced around for a distraction, noting with approval that he kept the place pretty tidy.
Her nerves were still hissing like live wires, skin too tight, thoughts too loud, and her body far too fucking aware of itself.
Nate filled the room with his stupid, impossible presence.
Here in the dim light of his personal space, the full effect of the ‘simple’ outfit he’d thrown together for the show was anything but.
The shirt clung to his muscles like an old lover, and the pants were tailored to perfection.
They weren’t the clothes of an ill-tempered lumberjack, and Holly was intrigued by what his life back in Connecticut was actually like off the ice.
“Drink?”
She let herself drink him in, because fuck yes. “Just water, thanks.”
He was suddenly illuminated by a beam of light from the fridge.
Black curls a mess from sweat and adrenaline.
A flushed, awestruck expression still clinging to his face like he’d been hit by something divine and didn’t know whether to pray or punch it.
Holly’s breath caught in the back of her throat, and for one heart stopping moment she realized he was, without doubt, the most beautiful man she’d ever met.
“You okay?” Nate asked, voice rough with leftover exertion, like the words scraped their way out of him as he grabbed two bottles of water and let the fridge door swing closed with a swanky whoosh.
Holly laughed once, sharp. “Define okay.” She bent to pull her shoes off.
He raised a brow and dipped his head to one side, sizing her up for either more of their electric banter or some therapy sessions.
“So that’s a no, then.” He handed her a water bottle like a peace offering. “You wanna hydrate, or keep lying?”
Holly leaned back against the kitchen counter with a smirk, cracked the bottle, and took a deep sip. “Oh, we’re definitely sticking with the lying. I don’t want to be peeing all night long.”
His gaze dropped, taking in her bare feet before sweeping back up to her face.
Close enough to accidentally reveal the heated look burning in those glacial eyes of his.
Pride. And not the cocky, showy kind men used to make themselves big.
The quiet kind that says, I saw what you did. I know what it cost. I’m in awe of you.
It made her chest tighten, and she couldn’t work out if she was just that fucking affected by him or if she was possibly having a stroke. So, obviously, Holly did the only sensible thing and stepped closer.
“Don’t.”
Nate’s brows knitted. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
His jaw flexed. “I’m not looking at you like anything.”
Holly’s pulse flickered. She hated him for making her put words to it. For making her feel like she was the only one with the problem when she was actually the one holding the line.
She swallows. “You’re looking at me like I’m… something.” Her laugh comes out breathy, disbelieving. “Like I matter.”
“You do.” His eyes searched her face as if he was expecting her to argue back. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.”
The sheer depth of that statement made something inside her snap. It wasn’t the soft, sweet romance of the moment that broke her, either. The instinct behind her heart raced. Survival. It was her body screaming, shut this down before it gets into your bloodstream.
Holly grabbed his shirt to stage a one-woman intervention with her mouth. She kissed him like she was trying to cauterize something, as though she could seal up the wound that maybe-loving him was slowly starting to create for her.
Nate made a sound that was half shock, half sin, and then he was kissing her back like he’d been holding his breath since the day they met. His hands found her waist, steady and warm, and her whole body, that absolute traitor, melted like it had been waiting for him this whole damn time.
“This is just…” she started, voice too breathless to sound like anything but a lie.
Nate’s lips were already on her jaw, hot and hungry. “To burn off tension,” he murmured, voice all gravel and goddamn. “I know.”
Good. Great. Perfect. Yes. Let’s keep it emotionally bankrupt.
Her hands found the buttons of his shirt like she’d been hunting for them all night.
She peeled it off, pressing her palm to his abs and pushing as if sheer momentum could outrun the ache clawing up her throat.
Nate moved like he was spellbound. As though she’d strung some invisible wire between her desire and his, and he had no choice but to follow.
The backs of his knees hit the bed, and he sat, looking up at her with eyes blown dark and reverent.
His hands slid low on her hips like he couldn’t not touch, like her skin had its own gravity.
Holly crawled onto the bed to straddle him in one fluid motion, thighs bracketing his, her breath catching as his palm flexed against her ass like he was trying to ground himself.
Then she rocked forward.
The sound Nate made was a full-body weapon, a sound that should’ve come with a warning label and a five-day recovery period.
His grip tightened on her thighs, as if he was trying to memorize the exact way she fit against him.
She grinned and leaned forward to kiss him again.
Harder this time, trying to outrun the wild, terrible softness blooming in her chest. This didn’t mean anything.
It was just a come-down wrapped in sweat and muscle and post-show chaos.
Except for the way his hands swept up her back with such care and devotion that she felt her entire spine light up like a fuse, as if her body had been waiting forever to be touched like this. Not just wanted, but worshipped.
His palm cradled the back of her head, fingers threaded into her hair as if he was holding something precious. His forehead pressed to hers, his breath shuddering.
“Holly.”
He said her name so softly that it ruined her like a punch to the lungs because it wasn’t sexy or playful. He’d offered her the sheer truth of himself in those two syllables. Nate unplugged.
Her entire body went still for half a second, horrified by the warmth spreading through her chest. By the way her eyes stung. Nate’s thumb brushed her cheek, his gaze devastatingly gentle.
Her throat tightened so fast it was almost painful, and she immediately put a stop to it by kissing him hard enough to steal her soul back.
She moved faster, rougher, turning tenderness into friction and intimacy into sheer heat.
She didn’t speak or let him get a word in either.
Nate growled her name this time, and the sheer fucking sexiness of it imprinted in her mind.
And that’s what she clung to for dear life.
Lust didn’t look at you like you were everything, or ask you for things you weren’t sure you knew how to give.
And lust was where she was going to stay.
Within a matter of seconds they’d scrambled to bare themselves, Nate rolling on a condom before the heavy drag of his cock through the silken mess between her legs was enough to tip her into action.
Holly sank down onto him with a breathless, bitten-off moan, tight and wet and already shaking. He was so deep, and she whimpered because it somehow still wasn’t enough. Her nails bit into his broad shoulders as she angled herself for better leverage to give herself more of him.
Her thighs clamped around his hips, and for a second everything went white as though she was split open, filled to the brink, and held there like a hostage with Stockholm syndrome and no desire for rescue.
“Fuck, Holly,” Nate rasped through a clenched jaw.
She didn’t want him to say anything else, so she braced her hands on his chest and rode him, dragging her scorching heat up his length until he slipped almost free before she slammed down again with enough force to make his head tip back in ecstasy.
He groaned. Filthy. But Holly was relentless and rode him like she was punishing him for looking at her the way he did. Like she could fuck the soft want out of herself if she just moved fast enough. Skin slapped, breath tangled, his name falling from her lips like a prayer she didn't believe in.
Nate tried to sit up, tried to wrap an arm around her waist like he needed more contact, more closeness, more of her. But Holly shoved him back down, hair wild, eyes blazing, grinding hard as his cock hit just right and her vision blurred at the edges.
“This isn’t feelings,” she gasped without conviction as she rolled her hips again, chasing that brutal friction. “It’s just fucking.”
But the way his mouth parted when he looked at her like worship and ruin lived in the same breath? Like he’d trade his name, his career, his whole damn soul just to stay inside her a second longer?
Yeah. She was fucked. Not in the fun, orgasm-counting way. In the I’m scared this man is about to change the architecture of my heart way.
When it was over, she didn't let him pull her close or touch her in that dangerous, lingering way that might make her do something irreversible.
Instead, she slid off him with practiced ease, already reaching for her clothes, fingers shaky but moving with speed, like if she dressed quickly enough, she could zip her walls back up before he saw the damage.
Nate watched her from his bed, chest still heaving, curls a mess, eyes too dark, as though he was about to say something honest enough to detonate her defenses all over again.
She didn’t give him the chance. She yanked her shirt over her head, forced a smirk she didn’t mean, and tossed him a casual glance over her shoulder before pulling on her shirt like this was no big deal.
Like this hadn’t cracked her open in ways she wasn’t ready to look at.
“Good,” she said brightly, voice brittle around the edges.
“Tension burned off. Night.” Then she turned and walked toward the door.
Spine straight, steps steady as if leaving had always been the plan.
Her heart was already screaming, and as she closed his door behind herself Holly knew for sure that she was completely, catastrophically fucked.