“That’s Will Roberts. He’s a photographer,” Naveen said from behind Effie’s shoulder.
She turned. “Ah. One of your artists?”
“Sometimes,” Naveen said. “Should I rescue her?”
“Do you think she wants to be rescued?”
Naveen laughed a little. “Don’t all women want to be rescued?”
“No,” Effie said. “Sometimes we don’t need saving.”
She hadn’t meant it to sound bitchy, but Naveen gave her a slow, assessing look before he nodded. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. If she needs me, she knows I’m here.”
The conversation shifted after that. Naveen introduced her to some more people, including Will, who complimented Effie’s paintings so sincerely that she blushed. She kept herself from returning the favor with nice words about the photo in Elisabeth’s office—though she was kind of desperate to watch his face when she did. Elisabeth had disappeared, and Effie hoped she was all right.
Heath had not shown up yet. Effie couldn’t decide if she were upset or relieved. Still, every time someone walked through the door, she found her attention dragged there.
Maybe he wasn’t coming. Effie had included Lisa on the invitation to be nice, but what if the other woman had refused and forbidden Heath from coming, too? If he didn’t come, Effie thought, could she blame him? She’d pushed him into Lisa’s arms, after all. She’d told him to make it work. If that meant not being here for Effie, well...it was what she deserved.
Trying to put the thoughts of him from her mind, Effie ate cheese and sipped at a third glass of wine. With only an hour or so left in the evening, she was looking forward to getting out of here. The boutique hotel Elisabeth had booked for her was a short walk that was going to seem much, much longer while wearing these shoes. But the wine would help with her aching feet and a lot of other aches, too.
“How’s it going?” she asked as Elisabeth approached. She looked tired, but her smile was genuine. She held up her own glass of wine and shifted from one foot to the other with a wince.
“Ready to get these shoes off, I’ll tell you that.”
“Me, too. Listen, Elisabeth, I can’t thank you enough. For all of this.” Effie gestured around the room. “This has been more than I ever dreamed it could be.”
Elisabeth clinked her glass to Effie’s and drained the rest of it. “I’m so glad.”
Over her shoulder, Effie caught sight of that photographer. Will. She tipped her chin a little in his direction. “So...?”
Elisabeth didn’t even look. She smiled, shiny as a diamond and as hard. “I didn’t know he was invited.”
“You could’ve called security,” Effie said, and they laughed.
Her laughter stopped at the sight of a familiar lean, tall figure. Heath wore a suit—had she ever seen him in a suit? A crisp white shirt, a tie, his sleeves not too short and showing off his wrists. Polished black shoes. His hair, smoothed back from his face in an actual style.
“Oh,” Effie said. “He’s here. Alone.”
Elisabeth turned to look. “A friend?”
She would not cry. She would not. Effie blinked back tears and nodded. He was here. He came. He hadn’t forgotten. He had not abandoned her.
Heath was here.
chapter forty-five
As always, no matter how long they’d been apart, when they were together again it was as though nothing had changed. Heath followed Effie from piece to piece to look at everything she’d done. They drank some wine.
“You’re eating...? Is it good?” he asked when she offered him some cheese.
“Yeah. It’s good.” She ate a piece to prove it.
Nobody else in that room would’ve understood what a personal accomplishment that was, but Heath did. Right there, in that room with all the people who’d come out to praise her, the only one who mattered was him. It took her breath away, literally; it left her gasping with her heart thudding so hard in her ears that for a moment all she could hear was the thrum of her own pulse. Heath took her hand, his fingers warm and strong, and everything came back into focus.
“Hey,” she said. “Do you want to get out of here?”
She took him down the street two short blocks to her hotel. When she stepped too carefully because of her aching feet, Heath, laughing, bent so she could get on his back. They were still laughing when they got upstairs to her room and fell through the doorway in a burst of hilarity that felt so fucking good...that laughter...that Effie almost started to cry.
“I thought you weren’t going to make it tonight.” She tossed her shoes into the corner and stretched her toes with a grateful sigh.
Heath hung his coat carefully on a hanger. “I wouldn’t have missed it. You should know that.”
Effie paused, thinking she should keep her voice light and hoping that at least it wouldn’t shake, embarrassing her. “I didn’t know... I thought maybe Lisa wouldn’t want you to.”
“Ah. Lisa,” Heath said, then nothing else.
Effie looked at him. Heath shrugged. Effie’s eyebrows rose.
“She broke up with me.”
“Oh.” Effie went to the bag she’d packed with bottled water. She took one, offered him another. Drank.
Heath drank, too, then set the bottle on the dresser. “She said there was no point in trying to make something work with somebody who, she said, could only make it work when someone was hurting him.”
“Ouch.” She tried to feel sympathetic, or upset for him. She really did. But all Effie could do was smile.
Heath nodded. “Yeah. She was right, too. It wasn’t good with me and Lisa, not the way she wanted it to be.”
“You tried,” Effie said. “At least you did that.”
He was silent for a second or two before shaking his head. “No. I didn’t. Not really.”
With someone else, there would’ve been more words, but Effie and Heath didn’t need any. She was in his arms in the time it took her heart to beat three or four times. Kissing him within a breath after that. He picked her up and took her to the bed, where the pillows scattered and neither of them cared.
So many times they’d come together with a clash and crash, their lovemaking a battle. This time, he undressed her slowly, piece by piece, leaving her in her pretty lacy panties and bra long enough to sit up to admire her. Effie preened, arching her back on the bed, then laughing at the look on his face.
Heath didn’t laugh. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
Effie quieted. “I feel beautiful, with you.”
She reached for him, and he covered her with his body so he could kiss her mouth. She rolled them, but gently, so she could get at the buttons of his shirt. Effie took her time in undoing them, one by one, letting her lips and tongue follow the path her fingers made. He shivered when she kissed his bare flesh.
He always did.
They’d been naked together many times, but something about this time felt like the first. Effie kissed the ink on the inside of his elbow. Then the pulse throbbing in his wrist. The scar. She kissed the palm of his hand and curled his fingers around it, then brought his hand to her face. When he cupped her cheek, then slid his grip to the base of her neck to grip her hair, Effie sighed and opened her eyes.
Heath kissed her mouth. Her chin. Her jaw. His mouth slid along the curves of her face and the soft vulnerability of her throat, where he pressed his teeth until she moaned and arched and offered herself to him. Then lower, nibbling and nipping over her collarbones and the slopes of her breasts. He took a nipple between his lips through the lace of her bra. Effie shuddered at the pressure and the wet heat.
“Lower,” she whispered with a smile and ran her hand over the dark brush of Heath’s silky, thick hair.
He obeyed at once. His lips traced circles on her ribs and belly un
til Effie gasped and tangled her fingers in his hair to keep him from tickling. She felt his smile on her skin.
“Lower.”
Heath nibbled her hip. Her thigh. He brushed his mouth across her lace panties and paused to blow heat against her. His fingers hooked in the waistband and tugged them away. He hooked her knee over his shoulder and slid his hand beneath her ass to lift her to his kiss. His tongue found the seam of her cunt and parted her to his caress. Steady, steady, gentle and steady, unwavering, Heath used the flat of his tongue to stroke her clit. In minutes, Effie was on the edge, and that was where he kept her no matter how she writhed and moaned.
“Please,” Effie said.
Heath lifted his head with a grin. The sight of his wet mouth sent another surge of pleasure through her. She let her fingers drift through his hair, no longer so neatly combed. She took his chin in her hand, tight. Their gazes met and held. Slowly, deliberately, Heath tugged himself from her grip to give her another long, deliberate lick.
“You taste,” he said in a low voice, “so goddamned good.”
The adoration in his voice made her want to laugh or weep, and Effie did a little of both. She opened herself to him, with more than only her body. She gave Heath all of herself, and he feasted on her until she cried out, over and over. Her body tightened, tense, and released, only to be swept up again in another wave of pleasure that overtook her and left her gasping.
When she stopped shaking, Effie let her hands fall to either side of her head. “Oh. My. God.”
Heath laughed and kissed the insides of her thighs before moving up and over her. His cock pressed her belly as he kept himself from weighting her, his hands denting the bed on each side of her body near her ribs. He kissed her lightly before pushing up on his hands again.
“I want you inside me,” Effie said.
Heath’s breath hissed. “Yes. I want that, too.”
She pulled him back to her, urging him to cover her even though he resisted. “Kiss me.”
“I don’t want to crush you.”
“You could never,” she told him, still urging, until he gave in and lowered himself full on top of her.
Heath kissed her. He fit himself inside her slowly until Effie tipped her hips to draw him in—he filled her, and they both groaned. Heath pressed his forehead to hers for a moment, his eyes closed. He throbbed inside her, and she wanted to giggle, but it felt so good that she chuffed out a small sigh instead.
At the taste of salt, Effie used her thumbs to press away the tears—his or hers, did it matter, when they’d so long ago become one person? She drew him against her. “Hold me close.”
He moved inside her, and though she’d already had a dual orgasm, the pleasure built inside her again as he took his time and played her body the way only he had ever been able to do. They rocked together for a long time. She didn’t expect to come again, but the longer he drew out his climax, the closer she got. Every thrust pressed him against her clit, until Effie gasped and moved and raked her nails down his back to urge him to fuck into her harder, faster, deeper. When she hooked her heels over the backs of his calves, Heath laughed, low against her neck. The noise muffled. He nipped her throat, sending a shock wave of delight all through her.
“I want you to come with me, Effie.”
“I am. Oh...shit. Yes, I am.”
So many times and with so many men, Effie had lost herself inside her own head at this moment of orgasm. Taking her own pleasure without sharing it with her partner had been more than a habit; it had been a practice. But not with Heath. No, here and now and always with Heath, Effie gave and opened and shared. They were in this together. For all of it.
Breathless, she let the waves overtake her. She held him close as he shuddered. She kissed him, sipping at his breath and giving it back to him with her next exhale.
Finally, Heath collapsed. For a moment, his weight did press her a little too hard, though she’d never have said he’d even come close to crushing her. A few seconds only, before he rolled to her side, and without the time it took for a heartbeat, he’d pulled her snugly against him with his hand on her belly. He kissed her temple.
They stayed that way awhile, dozing. Effie’s stomach rumbled. She twisted in his embrace to press herself against him.
“We’re sticky.”
“We could take a shower.”
Effie yawned. “Bleah. Okay. In a few minutes. I’m lazy.”
Heath cuddled her again. She drifted, waking with a start to the beginning of a nightmare about lying tucked up in his arms with that man standing over them. Her mouth was too dry, and her pulse pounded, but unlike the many other times Effie had woken from a similar dream, this time, in Heath’s arms, she simply settled back against him and let the dream fade.
Her stomach rumbled. She laughed. He pressed his mouth to her hair, and she allowed herself to melt once more into his embrace. When he kissed her, though, Effie put her hand between them so her fingers could cover his mouth.
“Hungry,” she said. “C’mon, let’s raid the mini fridge. No. No, let’s order pizza! There’s a take-out menu over on the desk.”
Heath pushed up on an elbow to look down at her, his brow furrowed. “You’re going to order pizza delivery. From a place you don’t know.”
Effie sat. Naked, she crossed her legs and leaned forward to run her fingertip down his sticky chest and along his thigh. “Yes. I told you, I’m hungry.”
“What happened to you? Where’s Effie?” Heath looked so concerned she couldn’t tell if he were joking or not, so she swatted him. He ducked from the swing and captured her hand, then pushed her back on the bed to pounce. He held both her hands with one of his so he could pat her all over, tickling.
She fought him, but not fiercely, then offered her mouth for a kiss. When he took it, Effie rolled, breaking his grasp, and ended up on top of him. She straddled his hips and put her hands flat on his chest. She bent to kiss him but kept her mouth just out of reach.
“I’ll give you something to eat,” Heath said.
“I didn’t say I wanted sausage on the pizza.”
He laughed and kissed her, rolling her gently off him so he could sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He looked at her over his shoulder. “You want pizza? For real? I’ll order it.”
“I do.” She put a hand on her belly and watched him find his phone in the pocket of his discarded pants pocket.
He’d called her beautiful, but to her eyes, he was so lovely it hurt her heart to watch him move. She knew every inch of that body and had never grown tired of it. She was never going to.
“Heath—”
But he was talking to someone on the other end, ordering a large pie with mushrooms and pepperoni, and whatever Effie had meant to say got lost. She went into the bathroom with a lift of her brow and a quirk of her finger to get him to join her, and grinning, he did. They splashed and teased, until Heath went to his knees in front of her to press his cheek to her slick, wet belly. There in the shower he put his mouth on her again, teasing and tempting, until Effie had to gasp out a plea for him to stop.
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t again. Three is enough.”
That made him only all the more determined. Carefully, so she didn’t slip and fall, Heath pushed her against the tiled wall and held her there while he licked her with that same steady pace that never failed to get her off. She wasn’t going to manage, she couldn’t possibly...and then oh, yes. There it was. That moment when nothing would keep her from it. Effie slipped into pleasure shaking and crying out his name in soft, breathless gasps.
The sound of knocking at the hotel door got him to his feet. With a grin, Heath kissed her on the mouth and slipped out of the shower to wrap himself in a towel and pay for the pizza. By the time Effie came out of the bathroom, towel drying her hair but not bother
ing with anything else, he’d set up a small picnic at the desk in the corner.
“You want a soda? I can run down the hall.” He looked at her expectantly.
“Like that?” She pointed at the towel that was all he still wore. “Uh-huh. No, water’s fine.”
Heath shifted his hips from side to side. “You never know. I could end up on the evening news.”
“Been there, done that,” Effie said.
“And we didn’t even get a freaking T-shirt,” Heath replied.
They stared at each other, both smiling.
“I love you,” Effie said. “You are everything to me. I don’t want to be with anyone else, ever again. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”
Heath took her hand and kissed it. Then her mouth. “It’s a deal.”
Nothing fell away all at once. Their world didn’t change. She didn’t even feel that different than she had in the moment before she said the words aloud. And all of that made sense, Effie thought as Heath kissed her and kissed her and kissed her again. Because the world hadn’t changed.
Only she had.
* * * * *
Read on for an extract from VANILLA by Megan Hart.
author song list
I could write without music, but I’m so glad I don’t have to. Here’s a partial playlist of what I listened to while writing Hold Me Close. Please support the artists by purchasing their music.
“Waiting Game” – Banks
“Call and Answer” – Barenaked Ladies
“Skinny Love” – Birdy
“Beautiful with You” – Halestorm
“Break In” – Halestorm
“Hurt Makes it Beautiful” – Hugo
“Without You” – Jason Manns
“All of Me” – John Legend
“What You’ve Done to Me” – Needtobreathe
“You Won’t Let Me” – Rachael Yamagata
“Everything Changes” – Staind
“Last Love Song” – ZZ Ward
“Before I Ever Met You” – Banks