Hold Me Close Read online

  “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