The Rules of Dating My Best Friend's Sister(97)

I moaned through the best orgasm of my life. Holden kept pumping and grinding until every last tremor worked its way through my body.

After, we were both spent. It felt like I’d turned to jelly.

“Wow. That was…”

Holden’s lip twitched. “Very long overdue.”

A few minutes went by, and Holden moved to get up. I grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”

“To get you a towel.”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I want to keep you inside of me.”

He smiled and kissed my lips. “That’s good. Because you’re already deep inside of me.”

***

I woke in a panic, pushing up onto my elbows in the dark. “Oh my God. We fell asleep. Holden, wake up. What time is it? Your flight…”

But Holden was already awake next to me. He was fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s five thirty. I have a few minutes still.”

I covered my heart with my hand. “Oh, thank God. We didn’t set the alarm last night. I thought we’d overslept.”

“I set the alarm. I got up to go to the bathroom a few hours ago, and I realized I left my phone next door. I couldn’t find yours, so I grabbed your laptop from the living room and set the alarm on that. It went off a little while ago, but I hadn’t ever fallen back asleep.”

I settled back into the bed and turned to face him. “Oh. Good thinking. But I’m sorry you didn’t fall back asleep.”

“It’s fine.” Holden’s voice was somber.

“You must be tired?”

“Not really.”

“Is something bothering you?”

He shrugged, but then shook his head. “Just a lot on my mind.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No, I’m going to go next door to make a cup of coffee and grab my phone and suitcase.”

“Okay.”

While Holden was gone, I slipped into the T-shirt he’d had on last night. Lifting it to my nose, I took a big inhale. I really hoped he didn’t need to take it with him because it smelled so good, and I planned to keep it for a while. He came back a few minutes later with his luggage and two mugs. His was half empty already.

“Uber will be here in a minute,” he said.

“Oh. Okay. I was hoping to get a few minutes to kiss you.”

Holden guzzled back the rest of the coffee, set his mug in the sink, and walked over to me. He cupped my cheek and pressed his lips to mine. “I’ll see you soon.”

Something seemed off. “Are you sure everything is okay? Did I say or do something to upset you?”

“I’m fine. I’ll call you when I can, okay?”

Talk about depressing goodbyes. I nodded and tried to force a smile, but I failed miserably. “Okay. Have a good flight.”

Shutting the door, my shoulders slumped. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but after the intensity we’d shared last night, I thought we’d have some sort of a big farewell moment filled with emotions. Instead, that was more like the way Warren and I would’ve said goodbye. Anticlimactic. Which was fine. It really was. It just seemed very anti-Holden.

But whatever. He was probably just feeling as down as I was about going our separate ways. I briefly considered going back to bed, but since I was up early, I thought I might as well hit the road for Philly and get a jump on traffic. So I took a quick shower, dried my hair, and finished putting my toiletries into my weekend bag. I grabbed my laptop from the bedroom nightstand and started to pack it into its case, but when I remembered I needed to send an email to my admin, I pulled it back out.

The power saver screen was on when I opened. But after it woke up, I went to type and froze.

Oh no.

Holden said he’d set the alarm on my laptop, so he must’ve opened to the same screen I just did—front and center with the email from Barbara Reston, the email with a first line that read:

Great news! Not only can we get you back to Philly as soon as next week, but we can get you a place to work in a local government building.

Holden’s mood when he left made a lot more sense now…





CHAPTER 27


Holden



The ride to the airport was a blur. My thoughts raced so fast that it felt like it took two minutes to get here.

We were waiting at the gate to board our plane when Monroe plopped into the seat next to me. “Hey, man. You alright?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, staring out at what looked like our plane.

He handed me a donut hole out of the greasy bag he was holding. “This trip is supposed to be a good thing, you know. Why the fuck do you look so down right now?”

I popped it into my mouth. “No offense, but you wouldn’t understand.”

In all the years I’d known Monroe, he hadn’t been in a single relationship. I doubted he would do anything except chastise my ass if he knew the truth about what was bothering me.

“This business is a lot easier without girlfriends. You know that, right?”

I guess he wasn’t that clueless as to what was on my mind. My eyes darted over to him. “Thanks for the insight. I do know that, yes.”

“Out of all of us, I thought you’d be the last one to fall into that trap.”