Hold Me Close Read online

  After a minute or so, Heath leaves the bathroom and returns to press something soft into Effie’s hand. It’s a dish towel, folded into a rectangle. She looks at him.

  “I can’t.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Heath tells her.

  “Go out of here.” Effie waits until he leaves, then stands to tuck the towel between her legs. She pulls her panties up to hold the towel in place, and another sob leaks out of her. It’s worse than a diaper.

  She tips the last few drops of water from the gallon jug into her palms to wash her hands and hopes that Daddy will bring them more water when he comes back. In the other room, Heath looks up expectantly when she comes out of the bathroom. He looks at her face, not between her legs. Effie notices that, and if there’s a moment when she starts to think of Heath as something other than a stranger she’s been forced to live with, it’s right then. When he is more than kind to her. When he helps her not be ashamed of something she can’t help.

  * * *

  “Effie. Hey. Effie.” Heath’s voice drew her back to this room, this reality, and out of that basement.

  Blinking, Effie let him turn her. He gently took the brush from her cramping fingers and set it down. Effie looked at her hands, encrusted with paint. The colors had blended and blurred, but there were hints here and there of individual shades. She rubbed her fingers together, feeling the rubbery dried texture in some places, still-slick in others.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “It’s late. I made sure Polly got a shower and brushed her teeth before she went to bed.” Heath let his hands run down Effie’s arms until he could lightly circle her wrists before letting her go. “Is it finished?”

  Effie turned to look at the painting. It was bigger than most of her other work. It would be a bitch to ship, if she could find someone to buy it. Naveen was going to go ape-shit, she thought and smiled with a sudden, fierce brightness that nevertheless felt as if it twisted her mouth into a grimace. She hadn’t sent him anything this good in a long time.

  “It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “But I’m not sure that it’s finished.”

  “You want something to eat? You were at it for hours.” Heath tapped her shoulder to turn her attention back to him, and like a woman waking from a dream, Effie turned.

  She blinked, really seeing him. With a faint shake of her head, she sighed. “No, I’m not hungry.”

  “Tired? Let’s get you to bed.”

  “I’m covered in paint.” Effie looked down at herself. She wore yoga pants and a white wifebeater tank top that stuck to her bare skin with paint and emphasized the fact she’d taken off her bra hours ago, when she’d been painting hard. “I need a shower first.”

  As always in the aftermath of painting something that had truly inspired her, she felt fragile, delicate, the Little Mermaid walking with her steps like knives. She wasn’t hungry, but she should at least drink something. Her mouth was parched, lips dry, tongue like sand. Yet she couldn’t make herself move, not yet, still caught up in the power of creating something she knew, she fucking knew to the core of her soul, was really art.

  Heath brushed the hair out of her eyes and rested his hands on her shoulders. His thumbs stroked briefly along the sides of her neck. “So, let’s get you a shower.”

  She stumbled on the step from the porch into the den, her legs aching from standing in essentially one position for so long, but Heath was there to hold her up. One hand snaked around her waist, guiding her. Through the kitchen, down the hall, past Polly’s half-closed door, where they both paused to peek inside.

  “I love her so much,” Effie whispered.

  Heath’s fingers tightened on her hip. “I know you do.”

  In her bathroom, he pulled her tank top over her head, and though he gave a soft intake of breath at her bare breasts and hardening nipples, he didn’t touch them. He helped her step out of her yoga pants, at first bending, then going to his knees to push the material over her ankles and off her feet. Head bent, he let himself lean forward a little to press his face to her thigh. Effie’s fingers trailed over his hair, her body already reacting to the idea of him kissing her there, but Heath let only his fingertips skate up the backs of her thighs for a second or so before getting to his feet. He didn’t look her in the eyes as he turned on the shower and tested the water before stepping aside so she could get into the shower.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Effie said as she got into the water a minute too early. She shivered at the lukewarm spray, rapidly warming. In another minute it would be too hot, scalding her. She tipped her face into the spray, already knowing his answer.

  “I want to make sure you get to bed all right.”

  “I’m not an invalid,” Effie told him. She took a mouthful of water and spit it out, eyes closed, hands flat on the shower’s tile wall. She didn’t need to see him to know he’d stayed within arm’s reach. She could feel him with every part of her. “Just tired.”

  He left her alone. She’d have stayed under that hot water forever, if she could. Somehow there could never be enough of it for her. Too many years fighting to bathe in cold water from a jug, running water a luxury, hot running water a reward for unspeakable acts she’d never had to perform. There were days she showered three or four times, simply because she could. Tonight, though, knowing the clock was ticking toward morning and she would have to be up and awake to get Polly off to school, Effie couldn’t allow herself to indulge in anything longer than the time it took to scrub herself clean of the paint.

  The bedroom was dark, but she didn’t need light to navigate. She’d towel dried her hair but left it hanging over her shoulders and down her back, and the tickle of it between her shoulder blades became an itch that spread throughout her entire body. Naked, Effie took several careful steps, sliding her feet as had become her habit so long ago so she didn’t step on something sharp. Heath was a shadow, but just as she had in the shower, she didn’t need to see him to know where he stood.

  She kissed him.

  She ran her hands up the front of his shirt to link her fingers behind his neck, not caring if she stained his shirt or his skin with the leftover paint. His mouth opened, as she’d expected, but his hands went to her hips and pushed her gently back, which she did not. Frowning, Effie moved to kiss him again.

  Heath turned his face just enough that her kiss skidded past his lips. They stayed that way for a moment or so, until Effie reached between them to cup his crotch. He was already hard, his cock hot and pressing the denim. He sighed when she did that. He shivered. But he didn’t kiss her.

  “No?” Effie whispered, moving closer to say it directly into his ear. She let her tongue drift out to flick at his sensitive earlobe. Then the flesh of his neck. She nipped, then bit, as her hand between his legs squeezed gently. Then a little harder. At his noise of protest, she eased off but kept her mouth close to his ear. “Kiss me. I want you.”

  With that, Heath groaned and pulled her close. His lips found hers. Then his tongue. His hands slid from her hips to cup her ass and grind her against him.

  Oh, it was always a mistake to think she was in control when she was with him. He pushed her back toward the bed, and they fell onto it together in a protest of creaking headboard and mattress springs. They rolled until Effie was on top, her knees pressing his sides in the sweet, hot places where his shirt had ridden up, and she loved that, fucking loved it, skin on skin. She needed more. Her hands slid up his arms to pin his wrists at the sides of his head, and she bent to let her breasts tease his mouth. At the touch of his lips on her nipple, she ground against him harder, harder, not caring if she hurt him. Trying, in fact, to make it hurt.

  Heath groaned and muttered her name.

  “Yes,” Effie said. “It’s me. It’s always me, always, always and forever.”

  She wanted to move up and ov