Shifting Gears (14 page)

“Fuck, baby,” he groans as he caresses
my back then my hair, moving it away from my face, pulling at it
the way I love. I begin my onslaught of pleasing him—the way he
taught me to do so long ago.

I loved doing this to him before.
Making him lose control. Sending him into the same throes of
ecstasy.

I find the sensitive spot at his tip
and twirl my tongue around and around. He groans as he lifts his
hips. “Nicolette.”

I can’t wait any longer. I know how he
feels in me. What he does to my body.

I rise up and straddle him, letting
him impale me. I scream at the sheer pleasure of him filling me.
“Holt!”

I rock my hips into his, building to
oblivion. He grabs my ass with both hands, controlling my thrusts.
It’s going to be fast again. I can feel it. With him, I can’t help
it.

“Baby, you keep moving like that,
moaning my name, I’m going to come right now.”

His words are a challenge, and I ride
him harder, faster, ready to explode. I’m there, right there, when
he rips me off him and throws me to my back. Fuck. I was so
close.

“The only way that’s happening is with
me looking down at you while I’m shoving my cock in and watching
you take it. Now, say it. Beg me to take you, baby.”

“Holt.” I almost cry out. “Please,
Holt.”

He shoves himself in me so deep, I
flinch for a moment as my body adjusts to him. I squeeze his
shoulders, not wanting to let go. He’s thrusting in and out of me
hard, demanding. I wrap my legs around his ass, with my boots still
on.

I lift my hips, inviting him to go
even deeper, and he accepts. I’m approaching the orgasm I was so
close to having before he pulled me off.

“Holt.” I moan. “I’m…” I can’t finish.
My words have been stolen.

“Come for me, baby. Call my name. I
want to hear it as you come, baby.”

Those words take me over the edge. I
plummet as I let go, feeling the tension collapse all around me.
Tension that had been building in me for the past three years. I
scream, “Holton,” without thinking.

He jolts for a moment then grinds into
me harder. I’m going to come again. I can feel it. I clutch his
shoulders when my body tremors as he thrusts deeply into me one
final time. I feel his pulsating warmth as it enters me. My legs
tighten their grip around his ass. I don’t ever want to let
go.

****

I open my eyes to the sunlight and
Holt’s weight lying next to me. He’s asleep, with his arm and leg
across me. The goosebumps tingle as they travel across my body.
I’ve dreamed so desperately of this moment, right here, waking up
next to him like this for so long. To have it again, it’s
bittersweet. In some ways, it would’ve been better not to have it
at all. If you have it, you know what it feels like, so when it’s
gone, its memory haunts you. To the very core of your sanity. No
escaping it. It overpowers your life. It controls all your
thoughts, all your decisions, your everything. Controls
you.

The heaviness is in my chest. The
knife back again, twisting, reminding me of the pain. Tears well up
as I silently watch his chest rise and fall in his sleep. My
emotions overwhelm me, and the tears escape.

“Baby.”

I lift my face to his, and he’s
watching me cry.

“That’s not something I want to wake
up to. Why the tears?”

I brush them away quickly. I can’t do
this with him. Confess what the last three years of my life have
been like. I can’t. It would only show him how pathetic I am. Just
how right Amber really is. That I’m dull. Boring. Not the woman for
him. He needs a strong woman. A woman who won’t back down. A woman
not afraid to speak up. I can never be that kind of woman. Because
I’m weak. Fragile. Broken.

I avoid his question. “Sorry, I didn’t
mean to wake you.”

“Waking up beside you isn’t something
I would ever be sorry for.”

I take in a breath, and his words warm
me as I lie there, trying to smile.

His lips slowly lift into a smile of
his own as he raises his hand to cup my face and tuck a strand of
hair behind my ear.

I fight back the tears again. I can’t
lie like this with him. As much as I’ve dreamed about it, played it
out in my head over and over again, now that I have it, I don’t
want it. The feelings he brought back last night, his song, his
kisses, his touch. It was a mistake. All of it. Reality has sunk
back in. All my thoughts, my insecurities, my pain. Seems I’ll
never be able to escape them.

I desperately want to ask him what
he’s doing here, what his plans are, but I’m afraid to hear the
answers, so I don’t. I squirm away from him as I pull myself
upright in the bed. Now that its daylight, I’m self-conscious about
my body again, so I wrap the sheet around myself as I get
up.

“Where you going?” He tries to pull me
back, but I don’t budge.

“Bathroom.”

“You aren’t running from me, are
you?”

I look at him, shocked. It’s as if he
can read my mind. Am I that fucking transparent? “No, I’m just
going to the bathroom.”

As I shut the door behind me, I catch
my reflection in the mirror. Good Lord, my face and hair are out of
control. In the midst of our passion last night, I hadn’t taken off
my makeup or brushed out Lita’s creation. As a result, I look
scary. I mean
scary
. I can only imagine Holt’s first thought
at seeing me like this. Doesn’t really matter though.

I stand and stare at myself. I look
into my eyes. I know what’s behind them. Falling fast. Just like
before. I have to stop this. I can’t trust myself enough that I
won’t throw it out there again, giving him everything only to be
ripped apart again.

I glance down to see my pajamas neatly
folded on my hamper where I left them the night before. Thank hell.
I wash my scary face and brush out my even scarier hair. I drop the
sheet to the floor and quickly slip on my pajama shorts and tank
top.

I take a deep breath, but when I open
the door, I stand frozen. The sudden impact of seeing my bed empty
leaves me dizzy.

This is not happening.
This is not happening.

I stare at the ruffled sheets where
Holt’s body had been.

I walk out of my room on a rampage,
headed to the kitchen, where my cell is, to call Cass. He left.
Again. He baited me so easily with all his bullshit. I’m sure he’s
on his way to Amber right now, to laugh at how naïve I still
am.

As I stalk down the hall to the
kitchen, I hear voices. Cass is home already. Did she see when Holt
left? Better yet, did she lay him out on the sidewalk? Perhaps
that’s her on the phone, calling the paramedics to come scrape him
off the curb.

Yeah, like that would ever happen.
Holt would never hurt her. At least, not physically. Fuck with her
head. Likely. That seems to be his thing. I secretly hope Cass was
packing her mega-fuck-you-up mace spray when she saw him and put
two and two together and gave him something to remember me by. The
vision makes me laugh out loud.

As I get closer to her, though, she
doesn’t sound angry. She doesn’t sound like she’s on the phone with
the paramedics either. She’s laughing. I make it to the kitchen and
my jaw drops. Cass is sitting on one of the barstools at the bar,
laughing at Holt.

He’s standing in front of the stove
and, judging by the wooden spoon in his hand and the sound of
something sizzling, he’s cooking. In my kitchen.

Not gone. Still
here
.

After we just had raging sex less than
six hours ago. My heart is suddenly in my throat, and I almost
collapse right there as the sudden rush of emotions overtake
me.

They both turn to me as I stand
motionless in the doorway.

“Hey, hun, what’s so funny?” Cass
giggles.

My words fail me for a moment as I
turn my attention to Cass. “Nothing.”

I think she can hear the hesitation,
the uncertainty in my voice, because she gives me a strange
look.

“How do you like your eggs,
babe?”

I can barely keep it together, and
Cass is watching me intently, clearly worried. What is this? Holt’s
been back barely two weeks and already he’s in my kitchen,
half-naked with loose-fitting black shorts riding low on his hips.
Almost every inch of his enticing body now in the daylight. He
turns to me, catches me gawking at his body, and gives me that
delectable smile of his

“Well?”

I shift my gaze to Cass, who’s still
staring at me. I know she’s wondering what’s going on in my
head.

I don’t answer him. I don’t want him
to cook me anything. I don’t want him to know how I like my eggs. I
want him gone. I need him gone. I want to tell him to leave. I want
to tell him how much I regret last night. But the words don’t
come.

“I’m going to take a
shower.”

He doesn’t try to stop me as I walk
back to my bedroom.

****

I walk out of my bathroom, towel
wrapped around me, and see Holt, sprawled out across my bed with
his hands locked behind his neck. He was waiting for me. Thank God
those enticing black shorts are gone, replaced with jeans and a
rocker band t-shirt.

“It was too soon. You regret it. I
know. I shouldn’t have pushed you, but I couldn’t help it. I needed
you, baby.”

His passionate words make me dizzy,
yet I feel the slash of the knife at the same time. He nailed it,
though. Sensed my tension.

“Holt, I—”

He gets off my bed and walks over to
me, touching his fingers to my lips. “Shh. Wait.”

He rests his arms on my shoulders, and
I try to push aside the electricity his touch ignites in me.
Standing there in only a towel, it’s not easy.

“No fucking way am I ever going to let
a job take me away from you for that long again. Not going to
happen. I can’t promise you I won’t have to leave. I’m not going to
lie. Can’t control that shit. It’s my life. But you make me want to
stay, baby. Right here. I’ll give everything I can give. As much as
you’ll take.”

I tremble and swallow the lump in my
throat, pushing down the sobs that are begging to come
out.

“You tell me what I have to do to make
you trust that.”

“I—”

He shushes me again as he rests his
hands on either side of my face. “Baby, I’m going to kiss you, and
I want you to tell me what you feel.”

He gently presses his lips against
mine before I have the chance to object. This is not like any of
his kisses before. Not hungry. Not forceful. Delicate. He’s making
love to my lips.

I soften in his arms as he drops them
to circle my waist. He pulls his lips away, and I dip my head to
rest on his shoulder. I want him. I need him. God, the power this
man still has over me.

He lifts my chin to face him. “Tell
me.”

“I—”

“Nicolette. Tell me.”

“A desire to want more. Always more.
That’s what your kiss feels like to me.”

“Then go with it, baby.”

“I can’t.”

“You will. I can wait. I
will
wait.”

“You don’t understand, Holt. I’m
different.”

“I know you’re different, and at some
point, I’m going to need you to tell me how you got that scar
across your back.”

I stiffen in his arms.

“What’s not different is that woman I
found hiding three years ago. The woman who took me last night and
threw me across that bed right there and took what she wanted, what
she needed. You keep her hidden well, and I don’t think she comes
out to play very much. Does she scare you, baby?”

Our conversation has suddenly taken a
turn too reminiscent of a talk with my shrink, who’d asked me that
exact same question in a session. A year-and-a-half has passed
since my last visit to him, because I’ve learned how to control my
life better. And bury the things I have no control over. Push
forward. Holt coming back...yeah, all that shit went out the
window.

I discovered that side of me, the one
he says doesn’t come out to play much, because of him, and I buried
that side of me, because of him. That is, until it snuck out when I
saw him again.

He lifts my chin. I’m certain he can
see the torment in my eyes as I look into his and see confusion. He
wants to know.

I can’t pull my wounds open, allowing
the infection to spread.

“It’s okay, baby, you don’t have to
tell me. I think I already know the answer.”

My body relaxes. Thank God, he’s not
going to push it.

He gives me another gentle kiss, as
his cellphone chirps. I try not to melt away, still caught up in
his kiss, his words, as he drops his hand to his pocket and pulls
out his phone.

“Maddox. Talk. No shit? Yeah, yeah,
give me twenty. No. Right. Be there.”

That had to be the shortest
conversation, using the least amount of words possible.