Five Minute Man: A Contemporary Love Story (10 page)

Now here he was, skulking in the corridor like some creeper, hoping for a glimpse of Holly while trying to stay below Eve’s radar. Luckily, though, Eve appeared to have attached herself to one of the muscled bodybuilders from the weight room and hadn’t even looked his way.

“Liz, right?” He stepped out of the shadows as Liz was about to walk past. He glanced down the hallway, but there was no sign of Holly. Liz paused long enough to wave on a few of the women she’d been talking to and faced him.

She nodded, eyeing him warily.

“My name is Adam, and –“

“I know who you are. What do you want?”

She wasn’t openly hostile, but she wasn’t sending out any warm and fuzzies, either. Thankfully, there was no hint of the feminine interest that had flared in her eyes that first night at Applebees. Thank God for that. The last thing he needed was for any misunderstandings. Unless Holly decided to start taking his calls again, Liz was his best hope for understanding what the hell was going on.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

She exhaled and looked longingly at the exit. “Go on.”

“Holly’s not answering my calls.”

It was a statement, not a question. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, waiting. Clearly she was not going to make this easy for him.

“Do you know why?” he pressed.

She stared at him for a long few moments. “Holly’s my best friend. I don’t know you from ... yeah, forget I said that. What makes you think I’d betray her confidence?”

Adam blew out a breath. He hadn’t thought of that. It just went to show how out of sorts he was. “I don’t want you to betray anyone. I just thought... hell, I don’t know what I was thinking.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”

He turned to go. It had been a mistake to try and approach Holly’s friend, both cowardly and stupid. If he had a problem with Holly, and he obviously did, he should be dealing with it himself. He was just going to have the bite the bullet and man-up. He could get her flowers, maybe, and hope that would be enough to earn him a chance to find out how he’d managed to fuck up something that had shown more potential than anything else in the last decade.

Liz bit her lip. Holly had been miserable these last few days, and Adam looked no better. Holly was her best friend, and since Liz had been the one to encourage her to go out with Adam in the first place, she felt partially responsible.

Holly had confessed everything the night before. It was the first time in nearly ten years that Holly had wanted to skip their girls night out, prompting Liz to show up at her door and literally drag her ass out and pry the information out of her.

But Adam certainly wasn’t acting like a man who was only interested in Holly as a potential client, and her female spidey senses backed up that assessment. If there was even the slightest chance that Holly had made a mistake – a mistake that might be rectified if she would just talk to him – didn’t she owe Holly that much?

“Adam, wait.” Decision made, she jogged a few steps and caught up to him. If she was wrong, so be it. “I don’t know all the details, but Holly thinks you might only be interested in her as a client.”

The sheer surprise on his face told her that her instincts had been dead on. “What? Why in the hell would she think that?”

“Apparently she overheard something.”

Adam racked his brain, trying to imagine what Holly might have overheard to give her that impression. He narrowed his eyes, last week’s exchange with Eve going through his mind. That was the last time he had seen Holly, though they hadn’t spoken.
Shit
. She must have seen them together, somehow overheard what he’d said.

“It’s not true, though, is it?” Liz asked, watching him closely.

“No. Hell, no. Look, I did say something like that, but only because I didn’t want Eve giving her a hard time.”

It was Liz’s turn to narrow her eyes. “Eve? Eve Sanderson?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah. You know her?”  

Realization dawned in Liz’s eyes. A strange expression stole over her face before it blanked completely. “Wait. Let me guess. Eve’s decided she wants you, and won’t take no for an answer.”

He arched one brow. “Yeah, something like that.”

Liz muttered something distinctly unladylike under her breath. “Well, you’re not the first she’s pulled that crap on, and you probably won’t be the last. Unfortunately, if she’s set her sights on you, you’ve got a bulls-eye on your backside until someone else catches her eye.”

“A lot of people catch her eye ,” he grunted. Yet another reason why Adam wanted nothing to do with her. He wanted a woman to look at him as if he was something special. As if he was the only man in the room. Like Holly had.

“Yes, but the only ones she latches on to are the ones who look the other way. As long as she’s the one walking away, you’re golden. But if you do the walking... well, let’s just say Eve doesn’t handle rejection well.”

“How do you know so much about her?”

For a brief moment the mask cracked and Liz grimaced as though in pain. “Let’s just say I have my own personal history with Eve. The question now is, what are we going to do about Holly?”

She glanced down the hall, saw the bodybuilder showing off to a younger girl. Eve was glaring at both of them, looking like steam was about to come out of her ears any second. If what Adam said was true – and she had no reason to think otherwise – Eve might spot him and forget about the bodybuilder. Liz had to get him out of there, fast.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing his forearm and leading him toward the exit. “We’ll talk about it over coffee. You’re buying.”

A
dam hadn’t felt this nervous since the first time he’d had sex. He’d been sixteen, though he had looked old enough that when he told the pretty co-ed he was a junior, she had assumed he was talking about the university instead of the high school. He might have been young and inexperienced, but he hadn’t been stupid enough to correct her.

He knocked again with one hand, gripped the roses tightly with the other, inadvertently crushing the stems. A missed thorn dug into his flesh, but the minor pain was a welcome diversion.

“Holly, I know you’re in there. Please let me in.”

His coffee with Liz had been enlightening, to say the least, though kind of scary, too. Unlike Holly, Liz had absolutely no problem with saying exactly what was on her mind. She’d asked Adam point blank what his intentions were with Holly. And when he’d blurted out the truth, she’d told Adam, in no uncertain terms, exactly what he had to do.

She’d smirked when his face had turned the color of a turnip and his jaw had hit the table, but hadn’t wavered for even a moment. Once he’d gotten over his initial shock, he’d had to admire her absolute confidence.

And hope to hell she was right.

***

“I
t’s late, Adam,” Holly said wearily, opening the door a few inches. Obviously sitting in the dark and ignoring his repeated knocks was not conveying the message any more effectively than the unanswered texts and calls. “What do you want?”

Adam used his much larger body and pressed forward. She stepped back, tilting her face upward toward his. His blue eyes were dark and intense, his movements deliberate. Pure male power radiated off of him in waves, making her innermost parts clench against their will. But it was nothing compared to the next words out of his mouth.

“I want
you
, Holly.”

She gasped slightly. Disbelief, hope, and a big surge of lust rose up inside of her, drowning out her rational mind’s increasingly weak protests that Adam was not interested in her that way.  He tossed the flowers off to the side, red and pink blooms scattering to the floor.
He brought flowers?
She barely had time to process that thought before he was stepping forward again. Right into her personal space. She countered by taking another step back, though the length of her stride was less than half of his. He grinned wolfishly and took another step. So did she.

One more and he was close enough to reach out and wrap his arm around her waist and pull her against his hard body. She closed her eyes just for a moment, relishing the feel of all that hardness, the heat seeping through his clothes and hers, the scent of clean, powerful male. Her nipples grew to diamond hard tips against his ripped torso, easily distinguishable through the thin material of her ratty T.

Without permission, a slight moan managed to escape. He took full and instant advantage, lowering his head to claim her mouth. At the same time, she felt his large hand skim along the curve of her waist and over her hips, pausing only when he cupped her ass and lifted, drawing her tight against something incredibly large and extremely rigid.

If felt so right to be fitted against all of those rippling ridges and bumps. Her much softer, feminine parts yielded instantly to his much harder planes, filling in every dip and curve. Her hand came up between them, her palm flattening against his chest. Not in an attempt to push him away, but to curl her nails into his chest like tiny claws, fierce and possessive.

He rewarded her by thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She wanted more, so much more, of him thrusting parts of him into parts of her.

Suddenly her feet were no longer on the ground. She was in Adam’s powerful arms, being drawn even closer, until every possible inch of her sensitized flesh was pressed against his granite hardness. Total surrender was a given as he ravished her mouth mercilessly, taking as much as he gave, capturing her throaty moans for his own.

Then they were moving. Without easing his grip in the slightest, Adam walked them forward until her back was against the wall, using his weight to pin her in place. It felt so good, all that pressure, all that unyielding strength against the thousands of nerve endings crying out for his touch.

She felt a rush of cool air as he reached down between them to grasp the hem of her shirt, felt his rough calluses skimming over her heated skin. His palm paused briefly over her heart; surely he must feel the way it was thrusting itself against her ribs.

He smiled against her mouth, and she knew he had.

His big, muscular thigh pushed between hers, holding her in place as it pressed suggestively against yet another part of her shamelessly begging for his attention. She tried in vain to flex her hips just a little to relieve some of the ache, but he only pressed harder, letting her know that he was the one in control, and she was all but powerless to stop him.

Why, for the life of her, would she even want to? Something niggled at the back of her mind, some faint echo of warning, but it was lost in the flood of endorphins as his hand moved upward, cupping her full breasts through the thin cups of her bra.

He growled then, a purely masculine sound that she felt as much as heard. Though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, her breasts swelled even more, the hard beads that were her nipples pressing forward. It was both heaven and hell the way he teased her, rubbing his thumbs over them several times before giving a skillful flick of his fingers to release the front clasp of her bra.

The soft support vanished, the cups peeled aside and mercifully replaced with his roughened hands. She
might
have whimpered.

“So fucking beautiful,” he hissed, releasing her mouth and dropping his head to suckle her through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. This time there was no mistaking the sounds she made, crying out at the hard pull of his mouth, not in pain, but in pleasure.

He nipped at her, and she understood instinctively that it was a mark of his approval.  A few heartbeats later, he grasped the waistband of her lounge pants and pushed down hard.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he commanded, his voice rough and thick with need. Holly obeyed without question, eagerly stepping out of her pants and snaking her arms around his neck. She nearly screamed when she felt his fingers between her legs, his groan another sign of his approval at finding her slick and oh-so-wet.

For one interminably long moment, he pulled away from her. She was about to protest until she heard the glorious sound of a snap and a zipper. Then he was back, grinding his hips against her, lubricating the absurdly large proof of his desire with her thick juices, and it wasn’t
enough
. She dug her nails into his shoulders, needing
more
. Thank God he seemed to understand. A slight tilt of his hips poised the blunt head right at her entrance. He paused, breathing hard. “Holly...”

Why the hell had he stopped? She looked into his eyes, saw the raw, stark need matching her own, as well as his unspoken question. She knew instinctively that it was the only time he would ask. Her answer would determine not just the next few minutes, but their future.

“Yessss,” she answered, a husky whisper, using her legs to pull him tighter.

Adam pressed forward, penetrating the wet, silken bundle of need that had become the focal point of her entire body. “Oh, fucking Christ,” he murmured as he worked his way deeper. This time it was Holly who rewarded him, with another rush of silken heat and a tight squeeze and pull made possible by years of religiously-done Kegel exercises. Judging by the strangled moan that erupted from his throat, they were worth every second.

When his balls pressed against her swollen folds, he paused, a single brief moment only. For that moment, time and space ceased, hung in a suspended sense of nearly unbearable anticipation. She looked into his eyes, now polished sapphires, and whispered the only word she was capable of: “
Please
.”

Adam grunted in affirmation. He withdrew and thrust again and again with long, slow, thorough strokes that stretched her to her physical limits and filled her completely. It still wasn’t enough. He was still holding back, and she needed him, all of him. A minute later, she tightened her leg lock around his hips and dug her heels into his tight ass in an unspoken request for
more
.

He gave it to her. Increasing his pace, his hips pistoned with even greater force, thrusting into her harder and faster. Possessing her. Owning her.