Page 21

C lara shot up, her chest heaving, sweat chilling her skin. The bedroom was dark, her loud breathing cutting through the quiet.

A dream. It was just a dream.

But it wasn’t. Scarlett was dead. Clara had found her roommate’s lifeless body draped over her desk, and her house had been crawling with deputies.

She dropped her head into her hands, trying to quiet her breathing, not wanting to wake Holden.

It didn’t work. She still panted in reaction, and her skin was clammy and cold.

Quickly, she pushed the sheets off her legs and climbed out of bed. She didn’t even realize she was walking in that direction until she stood in front of Scarlett’s closed bedroom door. The brass was cool beneath her fingers when she wrapped her hand around the knob. Then, slowly, she turned it.

Her chest rose on a sharp inhale at the sight of Scarlett’s room. All her things, sitting there, as if she was going to return. Clothes sticking out of closed dresser drawers. Reading glasses on her desk.

The memory of Scarlett lying over the desk flashed in her mind.

Her heart thumped, panic crawling up her throat.

“Clara.”

She spun to see Holden. He stood there, shirtless, his perfectly sculpted chest on full display. But it was the concern in his eyes that held her attention. When he looked at her that way, she just wanted to fall apart in his arms. Let him hold her. Protect her.

He stepped forward. “Are you okay?”

“I was angry at her.”

“What?”

“The last thing I said to Scarlett was that I could have been a great friend. Then I stormed off.”

“You couldn’t have known what was about to happen.”

She swallowed hard as she turned back to the bedroom. “I need to know who killed her. I need to know if it was anyone from the hospital. I need—”

“Hey.” With gentle but firm fingers on her waist, he turned her back to him. “We will get answers. Jesse will make sure of it.”

She nodded, even though she wasn’t as confident as Holden. But maybe that was because she wasn’t used to this kind of stuff, while he’d spent years in special operations.

He tilted his head toward the hall. “Come on.”

“I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see her.” She fisted her hands to stop the trembling.

He saw. Of course he did. He saw everything.

Gently, he took her hand, uncurled it, and slipped his fingers through hers. “Not sleep. We’re going to heat up some croissants.”

She frowned. “What?”

“I saw them in your freezer. Come on. We’ll add some Nutella.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“You’re right…we need hot cocoa too.”

He led her toward the kitchen. Then, without a word, he lifted her to sit on the island.

She gasped. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making you Nutella croissants and hot cocoa.

And you’re going to sit right there so you don’t feel the urge to help.

In fact…” He opened her pantry door and searched for a moment before finding her jar of Nutella, uncapping it, and shoving a spoon inside.

He handed her the jar. “You can eat this to keep you busy.”

Despite the night they’d had, a small hint of a smile stretched her lips.

She watched as Holden moved around the kitchen like he’d lived there for months.

“Distract me,” she said quietly, as she swirled the Nutella with the spoon. “Tell me if you’re happy you moved to Amber Ridge.”

“Very happy. There wasn’t much left for me in Minnesota. My best friend and his family were here.”

“ Your family too.”

He gave her a gentle smile before taking the croissants out of the freezer and turning on the toaster oven. “My family too.”

She lifted the spoon to her mouth, and the sugary Nutella hit her tongue. “I’m sorry you lost your mother.”

He paused for a moment, every part of him going still. Then he looked back at her. “Thank you. It was just the two of us for a long time. My father left before I was born.”

“Losing her must have hurt.”

“She was my whole family.”

“Did you have much of a chance to say goodbye?”

“I had a million chances.” Pain wove through his words.

“She was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was eleven. I didn’t understand it then, and she always told me she’d be fine.

But as I got older, I watched her deteriorate, and I started to realize that the cancer could, and probably would, kill her.

I also realized that I couldn’t protect her.

I spent years looking after her. Hoping and praying that she’d pull through.

But there was nothing I could actually do.

I couldn’t take away her pain. I couldn’t fight her cancer. I just had to watch her die.”

Her fingers tightened around the jar as little pieces of this man started to slot together. “I’m sorry.”

Something clicked in his jaw. “The day she died, I realized how it felt to be so utterly alone in the world. It was a darkness I didn’t know existed until then.”

His words cut into her, hurting. “I can see how that would make you scared to need someone.”

“Terrified. I’m terrified to experience that darkness again.” His quiet words were so much more than he’d ever shared with her before.

She swallowed hard and looked down at the Nutella, swirling the spread with the spoon once again.

“One time when I was in the hospital and feeling sorry for myself, a nurse said to me that God always tests his strongest soldiers. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to be strong.

I didn’t ask to be. And if that were true, if I was so strong, why was I being punished for my strength? Everything felt so inherently unfair.”

“I know that feeling.” He shot her a look. “What got you through it?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I had to choose between letting a sense of inequity take over my life…or accepting that this was part of the life I’d been dealt and fight the cancer.”

“Your strength still amazes me, Clara.”

She tilted her head. “You’re strong too.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I would. You just can’t always see it.”

His gaze held hers for a moment, the hazel so intense…but also wounded.

He went to move past her, but instinctively, she reached out and touched his cheek. “Hey. You are strong. You were in the special forces. You had to be.”

That took a mental strength that very few in the world possessed.

His eyes shifted between hers, and he stepped closer, standing between her thighs. “I would argue that’s a different kind.”

“Strength is strength.” She touched his chest, feeling the strong beats of his heart beneath her palm. “I’m sorry you couldn’t save your mom. I wish we could save everyone, but that’s not how this world works.”

“I hated this world for a long time because of that.”

“I’ve felt that anger, Holden. I’ve held it in the palm of my hand. And I’ve felt the loss of a parent. Granted, I was young, and I had my mom and brothers to support me, but I know it hurts.”

“I wish I could let it go. I wish I could think about a future with someone I love and not feel this unbearable weight on my shoulders, pressing me to the ground.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. You’re thinking too far into the future. Maybe you just need to think about here and now.”

His eyes flared, and his fingers pulsed against her waist. “That could be dangerous.”

Her next words were barely a whisper. “Live dangerously with me.”

His eyes darkened, and long seconds of silence passed.

Then he growled, dropped his head, and kissed her.

And she fell. She fell fast and hard into everything that was Holden. She swam in him. Suffocated in him. Took everything he offered while begging for more.

His tongue slipped between her lips, and it was an explosion of sensations. He tasted good, a heady combination of mint and whiskey.

His hands went to her hips, shifting her to the edge of the island. She wrapped her legs around his waist, needing to eliminate any remaining space between them. She only wore a shirt, and God, there was so little between them in the way of barrier, yet still, it was too much.

When his mouth slid down her neck, she wasn’t sure whether to focus on that or the way his hands slid up her waist, beneath her shirt, touching bare skin.

“Tell me we shouldn’t do this, Clara,” he whispered, his warm breath grazing her skin. “Tell me to step back and let you go.”

“I can’t do that, Holden. I want this. I want you. You need to decide if you want me too.” And God, she prayed he did.

For a second he was still, then an almost strangled sound slipped from his throat as he lowered his mouth. He found her nipple and took the pebbled bud between his lips, sucking. Even through the material of her shirt, his lips felt like electricity. Like energy and life surging into her.

With desperate fingers, she yanked her shirt off. Then his lips were around her naked nipple. She cried out, her fingers latching onto the locks of his hair, her head tipping back while that dull throbbing built in her lower belly.

This man, who had consumed her for so long, now blocked out the world around her.

He switched to her other breast, his tongue circling her nipple before flicking it back and forth.

She hummed and moaned, her nails digging into his shoulders.

“You’re like a drug,” he whispered, his words weaving into her. “I’m addicted to you.”

“I was an addict long ago.”

Those hands on her waist tightened and he lifted her, his mouth returning to hers, his bare chest hot against her breasts as he walked through the house, only stopping when he reached her bedroom.

Gently, he lay her on the bed, his weight pressing her into the mattress. Then he looked at her— really looked at her. “Are you sure? Maybe now, after what happened today, isn’t the best time…especially considering it’s your first.”

Her blood pumped faster, the beats of her heart stumbling over one another. “I want it to be you. I’ve wanted it to be you since the day we met.”

His eyes darkened, and he dropped his head once again, but this time his mouth moved down her body, kissing over her chest, her belly, until he reached the waistband of her panties. Gently, he pushed them down her thighs.