Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,279

of a chair. Then she thought, Fuck it, and added her bra to the pile. She’d wake up before the talk finished, and dress before Zach came upstairs.

She wove the length of her hair into a rough braid, searched through the mountain of pillows for her silk scarf, and came up empty handed. It must be around here somewhere, but she couldn’t be arsed to find it right now. Wearing nothing but her knickers, she stumbled into bed.

Before her eyes could slide shut, Rae grabbed her phone to set an alarm—and discovered five missed calls from the usual suspect. Anxiety shot her comfortable tiredness out of a cannon. She knew she’d ignored maternal criticism one too many times, lately—and nothing made her mother nastier.

Her notifications displayed the first few words of a text message.

Marilyn: I don’t know what…

Rae could finish that sentence without any prompting. I don’t know what I did to deserve such a cruel and selfish daughter.

She set her jaw and deleted the text without opening it. Then she re-opened the message she’d received that morning, one that had made her smile all day.

Hannah: This animal of yours is a big baby. What have you been doing to him?

It was accompanied by a picture of Duke lolling around on the floor, his tongue flopping like a flag, Zach’s niece and nephew brushing his long, chestnut fur. Rae stared at the image until her heart slowed, her nerves eased, and tiredness crept in again. There. She’d replied to Hannah earlier, so she put her phone away and settled into the bed’s plush embrace.

Christ, she missed her dog.

But at least these sheets smelled like Zach. Before they’d left for breakfast that morning, Rae had hung a sign on the door to tell Housekeeping there was no need to clean. She’d thought of it as saving the staff some work, but now she wondered if her subconscious had quietly planned this: sneaking upstairs to curl up in the pure peace that was her fake boyfriend.

She really wouldn’t put it past herself. It seemed like every time she laid eyes on Zach, she stumbled treacherously closer to the edge of… something. One of these days, she would trip and fall. And then where would she be? Up shit creek, that’s where. Because they were just friends, he didn’t want her, and, while she probably could trust a man again, she saw no reason to bother. It certainly couldn’t end well.

But that didn’t stop the smell of him from lulling her to sleep, and it didn’t stop her from dreaming of him, either.

Rae’s skin was warm, kissed by sultry ocean air, shadowed within a cool, marble hotel room. She was on holiday. She was with Zach, tangled up in white sheets. He leaned over her, that lazy smile lighting up his blue eyes. He ran an ice cube over her sweltering skin, and she gasped. He followed the cold, wet trail with his warm, wet tongue and she moaned. He bit her hip the way he’d bitten her hand last night.

Rae’s eyes flicked open like a doll’s and she stared up at the ceiling, panting, lust shaking through her. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she was close enough to sleep to let herself take it. Her legs splayed open, and her hips rocked as if searching for something. She licked her fingers, shoved a hand into her knickers, and touched herself. Parted her swollen folds with desperate, decisive movements and thought about the way he’d kissed her, the way he’d crushed her to him. Last night in bed, he’d only touched her arm, but she massaged her clit and imagined his hand gliding between her breasts, over her belly, easing beneath her underwear. Imagined watching his knuckles shift through the cotton as he worked her, his murmured praise hot and breathless in her ear. Her pussy tightened, her mouth opened on a gasp—

There was a slow, quiet click as the hotel room’s door opened.

Shit.

She yanked her hand out of her pants, squeezed her knees together and bit back a whimper of wild disappointment. Precious seconds from orgasm, but now her heart raced for another reason entirely. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She battled free of the sheets and leapt guiltily from the bed just as Zach rounded the corner and set eyes on her. Only when those eyes widened did Rae remember that she was essentially naked.

And then, like a terrible cherry plopped on a disaster sundae, black crept in at the edges