Chapter 206: Getting Back To It

Holly’s POV

The dream clung to me like a soaked towel…heavy, impossible to shrug off.

I woke up with my sheets twisted around my knees and my heart doing a sprint somewhere behind my ribs.

For a second I lay there, letting the afterimages roll through me: the leash, the heel, him on his knees. My mouth tasted like the dark corner of a nightclub and my pulse had its own music.

I dug my fingers into the mattress until my knuckles went white, forcing my head to be sensible. Sensible won, sometimes…but not this morning. The thoughts skittered around my skull like sugar-high kids in a candy store, and every time I tried to pin one down it leapt away laughing.

Then, the full force of it came crashing back. The sight of him on his knees, begging. The feel of the belt in my hand. And the sudden, embarrassing truth of my own body. I bit my lip hard, a jolt of pleasure-pain shooting through me as I slid a hand down. My fingers met the proof of my dream, a slick, undeniable wetness that had me gasping. I was as wet as a towel left out on the beach at high tide.

Fuck. Just the thought of him, that infuriating, arrogant, sexy man, had me this ready? It was ridiculous. It was humiliating. It was absolutely, unbelievably hot.

I parted my legs wider, my fingers pressing against my folds, a soft groan escaping my lips. The images from my dream replayed in my mind's eye…David, his eyes blazing with a mix of fury and need, his jaw tight with shame, yet still obeying me.

The wet sound of my fingers began to fill the quiet morning air, a rhythm of want and release. I bit down on my knuckles, trying to muffle the sounds as my back arched, my hips instinctively pushing up.

The pleasure was a raging wave, pulling me under, my toes curling into the mattress. I stroked faster, harder, the pace frantic and desperate, until a warm bloom of release washed over me. My cum opened all over my hand, a silent, messy surrender. I curled into a ball, breathing heavily, my body humming with a deep, satiated ache.

BRRRRT! BRRRRT!

My phone shrieked again like a smoke alarm. I flailed for it, nearly knocking my lamp over in the process.

Tyler. I blinked at the clock: almost ten. Half an hour until noon and an hour away from the start of whatever minefield the day promised. I yanked the phone to my ear and transformed from puddle of desire to professional late-for-life.

“Tyler,” I blasted into the phone, voice five shades too bright. “I can be there in a jiffy. Sorry! I…” I jabbered apologies like a politician. Tyler’s calm voice patched me together. I promised, I lied gently about traffic, and then hung up.

Four missed calls from Norman blinked at me like tiny angry suns. Mr Griffin must be drilling them with threats. Very satisfying.

No calls from David. He was doing the hard-to-get thing, then. Cute. I smiled despite myself…let’s see how long that act holds.

I stepped into the shower, the hot water a blessed relief against my skin. The steam filled the small space, and as I washed, my hands drifted down, stroking the sensitive folds that were still humming with a relentless ache.

My eyes closed as I chased the last ghost of that feeling, my fingers tracing the familiar lines, seeking out the lingering pulse of that morning's climax. The heat in my belly flared again, a slow, building warmth that had me biting my lip once more. Just thinking about him was an addiction, a constant hunger.

I dressed in pants and a crop top, threw a jacket on, grabbed my bag, did a quick sweep of lipstick and perfume, and left the apartment with Kayla’s kitchen still smelling like last night’s garlic.

Kayla smacked my cheek and called after me to wait for breakfast, but I was already sprinting out of the house.

The drive took an hour because the city has a vendetta against punctual people. I followed the address he sent to me and soon enough, I was rolling in.

The building Tyler picked for his startup stood alone on the block like a proud, slightly confused llama.

The sign over the door read small and bold: Ignite Flow — Creative Logistics & Brand Activation. His idea…his beautiful, slightly absurd idea…was cleaner than the sign: a boutique startup that handled guerrilla marketing for scrappy independent brands. Pop-up experiences, midnight sticker-art campaigns, brand stunts that felt like winks instead of shoves. “Experiences that make people remember you without hating you,” he had said to me during our conversation.

I found him waiting at the door, blinking like a man who’d rehearsed a thousand entrances and still got nervous. He yanked the jacket from my shoulders with that considerate gentleman flourish of his and took my bag like a knight reclaiming a ransom. “Welcome to the mothership, your highness,” he said, beaming.

“It’s… cosy,” I said, testing the word. It was an empty shell with potential and an alarming number of IKEA boxes. Perfect.

“It’s a blank page.” He tightened the straps of my bag and set it down with solemnity, as if we were about to birth a brand together. “And you’re the artist.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You have very high expectations for someone who got her certificate online.”

He shrugged. “I trust your flair. Just don’t put glitter in the vents.”

Soon enough, we began. Paint cans, rolls of patterned vinyl, a stack of magnetic boards, a laptop that looked like it had been through seven protests, packets of stickers, a surprisingly delicate string of fairy lights, a crate of mismatched vases clearly destined to be repurposed, and an enormous roll of contact paper with a monstera print that made me inexplicably delighted.

“So we're gonna be doing this alone?” I asked, surveying the entire product we will be working with.

“Are you scared of being here alone with me?” he asked, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.

“Well,” I said, reaching into the side pocket of my bag with the sort of grin that warns of danger, “I have a taser, pepper spray, a pocket knife, and…just in case…a pair of handcuffs in here.”

Tyler’s eyebrows did a tiny gymnastics routine. “No wonder your bag felt like a brick. Do you actually go everywhere with that?”

“Everywhere,” I confirmed. “I’m thorough.”

He laughed. “Of course you are. Should I be worried?”

“Only if you commit a crime,” I said. “Then you'll be arrested by the police. Not me.”

He pretended to look offended and then scooped up a roll of wallpaper like a sword. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll plead guilty to being insane.”

We laughed it off and faced the business of the day.

We dove into the work and it was chaos in the best way. We stuck plants in corners that had no business hosting flora. We slapped stickers with varying degrees of alignment accuracy. Tyler’s sticker placement philosophy could be summed up as “enthusiasm over symmetry,” which led to some of the most characterful corners I’ve ever seen. At one point I found him with a strip of glitter tape halfway down his face because he had been laughing while talking and had absentmindedly decorated himself.

“You look like a disco samurai,” I said, wiping the tape off his cheek.

“You look like someone who could sell a brand with just one raised eyebrow,” he shot back. He praised my taste in a way that made my chest do the tiny flutter it reserves for people who know how to hand me a paintbrush.

We chased each other with rolls of vinyl…him waving it like a flag, me pretending to be a very dramatic, very uncoordinated matador.

Once, mid-chase, he lunged at me with a stack of sticky-back posters and I slipped straight into a laugh-crying fit on the floor, clutching my side and trying to breathe.

Well, all I can say is that he made me feel like a child again…safe, light, and full of warmth.

And I liked it.