Unwrapping Holly

“Cole,” she gasped, her head resting against the wall, her cheeks flushed, her eyes heavy.

His gaze didn’t waver as he reached up and ripped open her shirt, tiny buttons flying everywhere. He yanked the material of both bra cups down and exposed her nipples. Bent and licked them, then kissed her. She clung to him, her soft sounds of pleasure, of desperate need, driving him wild. Making him hot. He was so hot. And so was she. Writhing against him, she rocked her hips, soft sighs sliding from her throat.

He ripped her panty hose, and slid his fingers along her drenched lips. She shivered and moaned. Whimpered his name. He unzipped his pants, wasting no time sliding inside her, damned happy they’d had the birth control conversation because he wasn’t sure he could have stopped himself from taking her here, now, at this moment.

Hot wet heat milked his cock as he sunk deep. That wild need to claim her was all his mind could manage, that and the anger at her because she’d pushed him away. A frenzied rush of punishing, erotic thrusts followed. It was the pulsing and pounding of two people trying to break through an emotional barrier with their bodies. A frenzied pumping that ended when her body claimed his, when her muscles spasmed around him and pulled a release from him so deep he could barely breathe.

Neither of them spoke, but the silence was rich with tension, with the barriers that passion could not erase. Cole pressed his head to hers and inhaled the moment, not sure if it would be the last between them. This hadn’t been his intention when he’d followed her. They had to talk. He knew it and he had no doubt she did, too.

Anger started to burn all over again, anger over the way she’d shut him out. She’d let him inside her body, but not into her mind, not into her heart. He’d be damned if he was playing that game.

He picked her up and carried her to the bathroom, setting her on the counter and stepping away, feeling the disconnect of their bodies like a blast of cold air. He adjusted his pants and then grabbed a robe off the wall hanger and tossed it to her.

“Put it on,” he said, his gaze flickering over her puckered nipples, his dick daring to throb again, as if he hadn’t just been inside her. “We have to figure out what is going on between us, and believe me, if you don’t get dressed, we won’t figure out anything but how I can get back inside you anytime soon.” He didn’t hold back the truth. He didn’t hold back one damned iota. The truth was, he was hurting. Holly, the only woman he’d ever opened up to, spoken to of the past, of his pain over losing his mother, had nothing but scorn and, apparently, sex to offer him.

She blushed and fumbled with the robe, and he didn’t miss the slight shake of her hands, or the puckering of her nipples beneath the creamy silk of the robe. She hugged herself, and Cole leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, studying her.

“I need to understand what’s going on, Holly.”

***

THE BATHROOM WAS TINY, ESPECIALLY with Cole occupying most of it with his big sexy body. Holly wanted to slide off the counter and hug him so she could feel his arms around her again. But the implacable set of his jaw, along with the steely stare, said it was time for answers. And she wasn’t sure she had them. She barely understood her own stupid behavior. It had been raw panic. Fear. A control thing that being with him again made her see as pathetically silly and unimportant.

“I feel like no matter what I say, I can’t make this right,” Holly finally admitted. “And that scares me almost as much as you do.” She expected him to say something, but he didn’t. She shifted a bit on the counter, tied the sash around her waist, pressed her hands to the surface beneath her. “When I thought you’d betrayed me, I was crushed. Then I found out you hadn’t, but I couldn’t seem to let go of how that betrayal felt.”

“The one that wasn’t real.”

“But don’t you see?” she pleaded. “It felt real. If I count on us and then we fall apart, what happens to me? And the family-home thing—I’d been thinking of moving home. For that, I need a foundation. I’ve always planned for things. I couldn’t plan for any of this. I couldn’t plan for you.” Everything about the man had her crazy, out of her mind. Good Lord, she’d almost had crazy, wild sex with him in the front of his truck. “It’s like a spinning ball, and I keep rolling faster. I can’t even drive my damned car without needing you to rescue me.”