Page 35

35

Holt

This is the worst banquet in the history of banquets.

Even though I know my foot is solid, I feel like I’m going to break it again every time I step on it.

Fletcher and Silas are both at my table, and they’re being Fletcher and Silas, which is clearly amusing Goldie but annoying me.

And I can’t see Ziggy.

Not only is Zander’s big head in the way, I have to turn around to even look at her table.

But I know she’s there.

Seated next to a guy Fletcher’s already called Fuckwank Two-Point-Oh.

Occasionally her voice drifts my way as we eat thick, juicy ribeyes and loaded baked potatoes that taste like shit without her next to me.

They’re fine .

Likely excellent, in fact, based on the way everyone at my table is moaning over their food.

Porter even grins at me and says it’s too bad we can’t give me credit for the menu because no man in their right mind would object to his daughter dating a man with good food taste like this.

Roland gets up and makes a speech about how proud he is to have such a great team and how all of us players are like sons to him, which makes me want to howl in outrage.

If I were like a son, he wouldn’t be making proclamations that none of us are allowed to look at his daughters.

I hear a couple soft grunts and snorts behind me, which tells me there are other people not buying it.

I’ve at least turned around to watch the speech, which means I can glance toward Ziggy’s table and look for her curly hair.

She wore it all down tonight.

Down, over a black cocktail dress that highlights her baby bump and was driving me mad while we were getting ready.

She’s a bundle of nerves tonight, and I can’t solve it.

Check that: I could solve it, but she doesn’t like my solution.

I catch a glimpse of the fuckwank leaning in to say something to her.

Another glimpse of her nodding.

Politely? Or does she like him?

She doesn’t like him, idiot, Caden whispers to me. She likes you. She LOVES you. If she’s fickle enough to toss you for a business twatwaffle, she doesn’t deserve you.

I’m hearing him less these days.

Not because I don’t still miss him. More because missing him isn’t the biggest part of my personality anymore .

I’ve found a new life to live for. A reminder that I am alive.

And it’s killing me to be this far away from her right now.

I wonder if the baby’s kicking her right now. If Tater Tot knows she’s nervous tonight.

After her dad talks for an eternity, he announces a short break, and then the awards will start.

I try to stay subtle as I watch Ziggy get up and say something to Miranda, then head toward the patio.

Checking on the catering, no doubt. Making sure they don’t need anything else.

But when the fuckwank rises after a minute and heads that direction too, I bolt out of my seat.

Fletcher’s next to me before I can process that I’ve even moved. “Going somewhere, Captain?”

Shit .

“Need to take a piss,” I lie.

He’s following her.

The fuckwank is following her.

I didn’t act fast enough the last time someone followed her, and it cost her a job.

While her job might not be in danger tonight, I’m not risking her sense of safety either.

Fletcher eyes me, then nods. “Cool. Need a piss buddy?”

“No.”

“Women do it. We should try it.”

“Sit down. You’re annoying me.”

And there the fuckwank goes.

Outside.

Same door that Ziggy went through thirty seconds ago.

Miranda’s watching me as I stride around the tables toward the patio too .

Deedee is not, thank fuck. Roland’s distracted because my teammates are top-notch friends who are on it .

I don’t see the guy who was grilling out here before as I approach the patio doors. Grills are still open, but otherwise, there’s no evidence he was here.

And at first, I don’t see Ziggy.

But then?—

“Yeah, it’s a start-up. We’re recycling stickers. Stickers . Do you know how many stickers there are in the world? And like, you can’t recycle cardboard if it has shipping labels on it. And what are shipping labels? Stickers .”

The fuck?

I can hear them, but I can’t see them.

I can see bushes though.

Christ on a kumquat. Is this one of those hedge mazes?

Why would Ziggy go into a hedge maze with him?

“It was my sister’s idea, but she doesn’t have the vision to execute it. You have a sister. You know how it is. So I was thinking, if you don’t want to work for your dad anymore, I could hire you. Can’t really pay anything, but the couple that works together, works together. Heh. Get it?”

I’m crashing through the bushes, tracking his voice, when I hear Ziggy too. “Very…jokey. But as I told you at dinner, I’m quite happy with my current job.”

Good.

Good .

She’s okay.

“Come on, Ziggy, you and I both know you had to say that because your dad was watching. It’s just us now.”

“And I’d prefer to get back inside.”

The fuckwank snorts. “Neither one of us wants to get back inside, and we both know it. ”

There.

There .

I feel like I’ve gone in six circles, but there they are, at the edge of this row I’ve just turned down.

She’s stiff as a board, half-pressed against a corner of the maze, and she spots me a second after I spot her.

“Problem?” I say.

Her shoulders drop from around her ears, her eyes soften, and the slightest smile turns her lips up. “Not enough bodily fluid tonight.”

The fuckwank squints at her before boxing her into a corner while he turns to face me. “No problem. None of your business.”

“Excuse me, I’d like to leave,” Ziggy says behind him.

“You’re bothering my girlfriend,” the fuckwank tells me.

“ You’re bothering my girlfriend,” I growl back.

He pulls himself up to his full height, but he’s still three inches and forty pounds smaller than I am. I get the satisfaction of seeing a flicker of fear in his eyes to accompany his sputtered, “She’s not your girlfriend.”

“You’re three seconds from finding out what I do to guys who don’t move their scrawny little worthless asses out of the way so that I can make sure you didn’t hurt a single hair on her head, and if you did, you don’t get warning before I destroy you.”

His jaw works up and down.

“Three,” I count. “Two.”

The chickenshit dashes down the hedgerow. “You’re gonna regret this.”

The fuck I am.

Not when I have Ziggy in my arms, sagging against me.

I bury my face in her hair. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I mutter to her. “Is there a single dude in this city who doesn’t want to corner you with a business proposition?”

She starts giggling.

“You okay?” I add.

She squeezes me tight. “I am now.”

“A fucking maze ?”

“I thought you would come find me. Not him.”

“No more mazes. No more events. No more anything unless I’m right by your side. Understand?”

“I knew you’d be here.”

Her cheek rests on my shoulder, and I give in to the moment of privacy to slip my fingers through her hair. “You smell amazing.”

“You feel amazing.”

“I want to go home and peel this dress off you and inspect every inch of you to make sure you’re really okay.”

She shivers. “I’ve wanted to hold your hand and lean against you and smell you all night.”

“Fuck, Ziggy, we’re only halfway done with tonight.”

“But we’re alone now,” she whispers. “We have a few minutes.”

This woman. “Only if we’re quiet,” I whisper back. “Sound carries through the maze.”

“Good. We’ll hear if anyone’s coming.”

She lifts her head and brushes her lips against mine.

I groan in relief at kissing her after barely being able to even see her most of the night.

She’s okay.

I’m okay.

She doesn’t want the fuckwank.

She wants me .

Me, the guy whose ass she’s gripping as she touches her tongue to mine.

Me, the guy who’s slipping my fingers under her dress while I hold her tight, feeling the silky skin of her leg, the muscle tone, the hair between her thighs.

She whimpers and spreads her legs as I realize?—

She’s not wearing underwear.

She’s completely bare under this dress.

“Fuck, Ziggy,” I whisper again.

“Surprise,” she whispers back against my lips. “I was going to save this for the drive home, but we’re here now , and ohh, yes, there, right there, oh my god .”

The barest flick of her clit is all it takes to get her moaning.

And she’s so slick. So wet.

I’m hard as a rock, and I’m going to stay that way. But slipping two fingers into her vagina while I thumb her clit—this is heaven.

Listening to her soft pants and stifled moans while I finger-fuck her in the bushes—worth it.

Worth the ache in my balls and the strain in my cock and the knowledge that it’ll still be another two hours before we’re alone again.

Her gasps intensify as I jerk my fingers in and out of her channel.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” I whisper. “So fucking gorgeous when I’m fucking you.”

She stares back at me, glassy-eyed, pink all over her cheeks, lips parted as she pants. “You—Holt—love— oh my god .”

Her inner walls clench around my fingers while her head falls back, eyes drifting shut, mouth clamping shut to stifle her moans, that long, beautiful neck bared for me to suck on as she rides her orgasm.

How did I ever live before I had this woman in my life?

What was even the meaning of life before I first laid eyes on her?

The way I love this woman?—

“ Get your goddamn filthy hands off my daughter ,” someone roars.

Someone close.

Someone in my ear, actually.

The world tilts, and I’m being flung backward while Ziggy gasps. “ No .”

“I told you,” someone else says.

Bushes catch me, and I come to my senses a split second before a meaty fist connects with my jaw and sends stars through my vision.

“ Stop !” Ziggy shrieks.

There’s a flash of black and a whiff of vanilla, and my blurry double vision focuses on one point.

Ziggy.

Arms spread, back to me, standing between me and her stepfather.

“Do not,” she says, “ ever lay a hand on him again . Do you understand me?”

“He knows the goddamn rules, and you do too . What the fuck are you doing?” Roland snarls at her.

“Making up my own mind about what I want.” She’s panting.

She’s panting and she’s crying.

It’s the crying that splinters my heart.

“Roland? Ziggy? What’s going on? ”

“That rugby player is fucking her,” the fuckwank who wanted her to go into business with him says.

I eye him.

He steps backward and trips over Deedee, who’s rushing out here with Miranda and three of my teammates behind her.

“He had Ziggy trapped out here,” I say to Fletcher. “Murder him.”

“On it, Captain,” Fletcher replies.

“Can’t wait,” Silas adds.

“Oh, wow, that’s bad,” Tatum says.

“You don’t issue orders here anymore,” Roland says to me, but Fletcher and Silas have each grabbed one of the fuckwank’s arms, and they’re dragging him out of the maze, muttering things to him that I can’t hear while Tatum tags along.

“ Stop it ,” Ziggy says.

“I will not stop it,” Roland roars at her. “ There are goddamn rules for a reason .”

“ Roland ,” Deedee snaps while Ziggy tumbles backward into me.

“It’s okay,” I murmur to her. I squeeze her waist. “It’ll be okay.”

“Get your filthy hands off my daughter ,” Roland repeats.

So this is Ziggy’s stepdad when he’s mad.

I know a thing or two about angry fathers.

“She doesn’t belong to you,” I tell him. “You gonna make her pick? I’m not gonna make her pick. My world, she gets all of us. She gets an even bigger family to love her and the baby. But you wanna make her pick? Go ahead. Tell her she has to pick. Tell me I’m fired. Tell me I’m traded. See how well that works out for you. Everywhere. Your family. The team. Your standing in the community. Go on. Tell her she has to pick.”

He glares at me.

“Holt,” Ziggy whispers.

I squeeze her waist again. “I love you,” I whisper in her ear.

She whimpers and looks up at me, and my heart cracks in two.

I have to choose .

That’s what she’s thinking.

The thing is—her stepdad’s mad. He’s having a full-blown temper tantrum.

But he’s been good for her.

He’s not the shit my father was. He loves her in his own way. He loves her the best he can.

Whose relationship with their parents isn’t dysfunctional? Hers is at least salvageable.

It will be okay .

That’s what I’m trying to telegraph back to her.

I love you and this will be okay .

But I don’t know if it will.

If I’m fired—he’ll make the team pick between me and him. A couple guys will stay with me, maybe, but not for long. They all have their own lives. Their own dreams.

If I’m traded, she’ll have to pick between staying here and going with me.

If I’m traded, what the fuck does it even matter?

“I’m getting Ziggy out of here,” Deedee’s saying to Roland. “Go back inside. Pretend everything’s fine. You still have an awards banquet.”

“I’m not awarding this fucker a single damn thing ,” Roland replies .

I squeeze Ziggy’s waist one last time, then straighten. Jaw’s starting to hurt like a bitch.

It’s minor compared to the ache in my heart. “I’m leaving. But only because you need to get a fucking grip on your temper and your attitude.” I jerk my head toward the maze entrance, where Crew and Zander are waiting. “They’re gonna make sure you let Ziggy leave on her own too. To go wherever she wants to go.”

Deedee glares at me. “ I will make sure my daughter is okay.”

“And they’re gonna make sure you agree with her definition of okay because she gets to choose for herself what she wants.”

Dropping my hand from her is like tearing off a bandage, except it hurts worse in far more places than just my skin.

She does have to decide.

She has to decide what she wants.

Will I fight for her?

Fucking right I will.

But it won’t matter if she decides she doesn’t want to fight for me now that we’ve seen firsthand what we’re truly fighting against.

“Holt,” Ziggy says.

I look at her one more time. She’s no longer between me and her stepfather. He could attack again without hurting her or the baby.

“I’ll be home,” she says.

I start to nod, but Deedee’s hugging her so tight, I don’t think she sees.

“I know, baby,” Deedee croons. “It’s time. It’s time to come home.”

My breath freezes .

Is that what she meant?

That she’d be at her parents’ home?

Or that she’d be at ours?

Roland growls again, and I turn my back on him and stride out of the maze.

Fucking thing.

I circled the whole fucking thing to end up almost back at the beginning again.

“This is bullshit,” Zander mutters to me.

“Life usually is,” I reply.

“We got Ziggy,” Crew tells me.

I nod my thanks.

I pass Silas and Fletcher, who’ve trapped the fuckwank against the building and are asking how he likes being trapped by someone bigger than he is.

They won’t hurt him.

Just gonna teach him a lesson.

Especially since Goldie’s watching from the door.

She makes eye contact with me. “You okay?”

I look back at the maze, where no one else is leaving yet. “Guess we’ll see.”