Page 16 of Infatuated as They Come (Sinful Trilogy #2)

Sawyer

Holly, for whatever reason, had spent over two thousand dollars on a rug.

When I first saw the thing I was pretty sure she just got ripped off real fucking bad, but the white and pink wool felt comfortable under my feet as I sat on the couch, and it was exactly what I needed after being on them all day.

I liked my job and I liked fixing cars, and working for Jay gave me some benefits that I didn’t get back in Dallas, like a lot more hours and better pay—with an efficiency bonus on top.

That meant fixing more cars earned me more money.

It was all worth it for Holly. Getting up early and working all day and coming home tired didn’t hurt me in the slightest, because at the end of it all, I got to see her.

Living with her had been better than I could have ever thought.

It wasn’t like I didn’t get to spend any alone time with her over the summer, but that was different.

Her dad absolutely hated it when I came over, so I’d have to sneak into her bedroom late at night just to hold her while she slept.

Or we’d hang out at my place where I could finally get her all alone and to myself, but there was always that annoying itching feeling of time going by too fast for me to really savor the moment.

That was gone now. Now I got to wake up to her and fall asleep with her. I got to hold her as close as I could get her as we stayed in bed together, one arm wrapped around her and my lips pressed to the top of her head with that pretty scent of her in the air. That soft, light lavender .

She was everywhere too, in every room. She had her candles all around the place and the bathroom was stocked with a million different hair and skincare products and her clothes took up more than half of the closet, but I didn’t mind that at all.

God, I fucking loved it. I didn’t have much stuff to begin with and didn’t even need it.

It just made me love living with her more, because I could feel and see her everywhere.

I knew it was a smaller place than what she was used to. She had gone from a mansion to a cramped apartment, but I couldn’t exactly splurge on some fancy Manhattan penthouse. But I was determined for it to be temporary, for the apartment to just be a stop along the way of something better.

And I knew her dad still didn’t think I was the guy for her.

What Holly had said to me the other day hadn’t shocked me in the slightest. I had never met this Nate guy, but I could already picture him in my head.

I wasn’t afraid of him. I was just pissed that Holly’s dad was doing something so fucking disrespectful behind my back, but I should have expected that.

Reaching forward on the couch, I picked up the little yellow newspaper on the coffee table in front of me.

Holly had been picked as a trainee for the student newspaper at Columbia and had her first article published already.

They had her in charge of the student life section and she had written about moving out of home and settling into campus.

I had already read it a couple times, but I figured one more time wouldn’t hurt.

“Well, what do you think?” I heard Holly ask.

My eyes flickered up from the article to Holly, and I knew for a fact that my eyes were darkening as they scanned her body.

I was used to seeing Holly in a cheer uniform.

Holly in a cheer uniform used to be the bane of my fucking existence, but the new one she had on was different to the one I was accustomed to.

The red top showed off her stomach and the matching-colored little skirt that stopped mid-thigh wasn’t hiding much either. She twirled, the pleats flying up to show me smooth, golden skin.

“Did they shrink that thing in the fuckin’ wash before they give it to you?” I asked, putting the newspaper down .

Standing in front of me, Holly gave me a teasing, little look over her shoulder. “You don’t like it?”

“I love it.” My hands landed on her hips as I pulled her into my lap, enjoying the little squeal she let out. “Could you maybe wear a different one when you cheer? One down to your ankles? And then you could only wear this one around me.”

“Sounds like you like it a lot.”

“Yeah, you look real fuckin’ good in this thing,” I muttered, hands running over the top of her legs, moving up higher and higher until I got to the end of her tiny skirt. “Might need you to wear it around me all the time.”

“Hm, I could do that,” she said, leaning back up against my chest. “I missed cheer so much.”

“I missed watching you cheer.”

“You missed watching me cheer or you missed seeing me in my cheer uniform?”

“Both.”

“I think you might have a thing for cheerleaders.”

“Just one,” I said, spinning her around so that she was straddling me, so that I could see her pretty face.

The necklace I had given her was dangling away from her neck and threatening to take my eye out, but I loved it when she wore it, so it was a risk I was willing to take.

She whimpered when my hands rubbed at the back of her thighs, not stopping until I got to her ass, a low hiss leaving my mouth when I found the edge of the little shorts she always wore when she cheered.

“We shouldn’t do anything before you have a game,” I said against her lips. “Don’t want you to be all tired, huh?”

“A little kissing never hurt anybody,” she whispered.

She looked good and she smelled good and she felt good and I couldn’t help it when I flipped us over, moving us so that she was lying down on the couch and I was on top of her.

My lips found her glossy pouty ones, pushing my tongue in between them and feeling my cock twitch as she whined and pulled at my hair, tugging at the strands all desperate like.

I pressed up against her some more, feeling her legs wrap around me, my hunger for her growing the more she writhed under me, and as much as I wanted to take her and make her all mine, I knew kissing was as far as it was gonna go.

She had to cheer and I didn’t want to rush anything, anyway. I liked taking my time with Holly.

I kissed at her some more, my tongue dancing with hers and her fingers tight in my hair as I grinded into her, and I was so hard there was no way in hell she couldn’t feel me. But her phone suddenly went off on the table, the sound making us pull away from each other.

“Why do you have to be such a good kisser?” she murmured. “You ruined my hair too.”

“You ruined mine. As usual.” I sat up and pushed a hand through my hair, not able to see the damage she had done but knowing full well that Holly had gone to town on making a mess.

“Yeah, but you pull off the messy hair look. I don’t.” She grabbed her phone, her eyes widening. “One of the girls got nail polish on her skirt.”

I gasped. “Oh my God.”

“Shush. It’s an emergency.” She kissed my lips and got off the couch in a rush. “I’ll see you at the game, right?”

“Yeah, baby, of course. I’ll meet you there.”

She got herself all wrapped up in her coat with her gym bag in hand, giving me a little wave before she left the apartment.

I had an hour and a bit to kill before I had to head over to the stadium, and I realized then that it had been a while since I had painted anything, so I figured I’d get started on something new.

I wondered what to make as I flipped to a fresh sheet in the canvas pad and got some paint ready, and Holly was in my mind instantly.

We had gone to a lot of places over the summer and it was hard to narrow down my favorite day with her, but there was one scorching hot day where we went to a small river a good thirty minutes from my place, and Holly looked as beautiful as ever with the hot wind in her hair as she dipped a foot into the water.

She had looked at me over her shoulder, twinkling smile on her face, eyes all full of brightness as she held up her dress that little bit to stop it from getting wet .

She really liked doing stuff like that. Going on long drives, spending her days in places she had never been before.

She didn’t get to do much of that growing up: she was out doing whatever rich girls did in their spare time.

But she liked the simple stuff too—the stuff I did when I was a kid, when free things were the only thing you could do, and that met roaming all over Dallas trying to find something that wouldn’t cost you a cent.

No restaurants, no country clubs, no boats.

Just being under the sun, in the trees, until the sky went black.

It would be easy to get started on the sky first, so I mixed some blue and white paint together, trying to create that brilliant sky blue.

I kept the strokes of the brush nice and loose, giving it a good clean before I dipped into a lush green so I could make the trees.

I had missed painting a lot. The move and work and getting settled into a whole new city hadn’t given me the chance to do much of it, but I quickly got lost in the feeling of it all, in how good it felt to make something so warm, knowing that it wasn’t just some far off place that I saw in photos, but that it was something I had lived and felt.

It was a memory. A good one. And God, did it feel nice to have memories you actually liked to think about.

I rushed to get started on Holly. To her long, dark hair that cascaded down her shoulders and the way she dipped a foot into the water so elegantly and created the tiniest of ripples.

She had been wearing a yellow dress that day, all soft and pale, so I cleaned my brush and worked on that next.

I didn’t stop until Holly was brought to life and I wished I could capture how beautiful she really was, because her on canvas didn’t do her justice.