Hold Me Close

Apart, they are broken, but together, they are whole

Effie and Heath are famous. Not for anything they did, but for what happened to them as teenagers. Abducted and abused by the same man, they turned to each other for comfort until they were finally able to make their escape.

Now adults, their relationship is fraught with guilt and despair. Whether fighting or making love, their passion is strong enough to destroy them both—and Effie’s not about to let that happen. She knows it’s time for her to have a “normal” relationship, and Heath is nothing but a constant reminder of the dark past they share. Heath, on the other hand, knows Effie is the only woman he can ever love. She may want to forget what happened, but he’s convinced that they must face their past together in order to move forward. So while Effie continues to bring new men into her life, Heath becomes obsessed with proving he’s the one she needs.

Then a new crisis arises and Effie begins to lose every scrap of self-control she ever had. As she struggles against her desire to return to the one man who understands her, she discovers that sometimes the only safety you find is with the person who is the most dangerous for you.

Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart

“Hart excels at creating female leads who know exactly what they want and don’t make excuses for their lifestyle. Following this heroine’s journey is exciting.”

—RT Book Reviews on Vanilla

“Meticulously sensual details and steamy interludes make this an achingly erotic read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Flying

“Hart’s beautiful use of language and discerning eye toward human experience elevate the book to a poignant reflection on the deepest yearnings of the human heart and the seductive temptation of passion in its many forms.”

—Kirkus Book Reviews on Tear You Apart

“[Hart] writes erotica for grown-ups…[The Space Between Us] is a quiet book, but it packed a major punch for me.… She’s a stunning writer, and this is a stunning book.”

—Super Librarian

“Naked is a great story, steeped in emotion. Hart has a wonderful way with her characters.… She conveys their thoughts and actions in a manner that brings them to life. And the erotic scenes provide a sizzling read.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Deeper is absolutely, positively, the best book that I have read in ages…the writing is fabulous, the characters’ chemistry is combustible, and the story line brought tears to my eyes more than once…. Beautiful, poignant and bittersweet…Megan Hart never disappoints.”

—Romance Reader at Heart, Top Pick

“Stranger, like Megan Hart’s previous novels, is an action-packed, sexy, emotional romance that tears up the pages with heat while also telling a touching love story…. Stranger has a unique, hot premise that Hart delivers on fully.”

—Bestselling author Rachel Kramer Bussel

“[Broken] is not a traditional romance but the story of a real and complex woman caught in a difficult situation with no easy answers. Well-developed secondary characters and a compelling plot add depth to this absorbing and enticing novel.”

—Library Journal

Hold Me Close

Megan Hart

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This book is for the wild ones who open their eyes wide

into darkness, the ones who love when they should not;

this is for the ones who count and take comfort in the stars.

This book is for those who would rather be haunted

and driven mad than left behind.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

chapter seventeen

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

chapter twenty

chapter twenty-one

chapter twenty-two

chapter twenty-three

chapter twenty-four

chapter twenty-five

chapter twenty-six

chapter twenty-seven

chapter twenty-eight

chapter twenty-nine

chapter thirty

chapter thirty-one

chapter thirty-two

chapter thirty-three

chapter thirty-four

chapter thirty-five

chapter thirty-six

chapter thirty-seven

chapter thirty-eight

chapter thirty-nine

chapter forty

chapter forty-one

chapter forty-two

chapter forty-three

chapter forty-four

chapter forty-five

author song list

Extract

Copyright

People are complicated, and they hurt each other.

Effie Linton had known this for a long time, just as she knew that sometimes those wounds were inflicted deliberately, over and over, and not with fists or weapons.

Sometimes, they did it with love.

chapter one

Smooth, smooth skin, warm beneath her fingertips. The scent of him surrounded her—cigarettes, fabric softener, the faintest hint of cologne that smelled as though he’d splashed it on days ago. That familiar tang of sweat. He would taste of salt and liquor and something sweet and indescribable. She knew this man inside and out. There had been times over the years when she’d been certain she would never touch him again. She shouldn’t touch him now, but she did it anyway, because not touching Heath would’ve been worse than turning away.

He shivered when she drew a fingertip up the hardness of his belly muscles to circle one dark brown nipple. He always shook when she touched him like this. Trembled and moaned, that mouth open just enough for her to catch a glimpse of his teeth and tongue before he pressed his lips closed. Embarrassed. He was always discomfited at his reactions, just as Effie was always aroused by them.

She murmured his name until he focused on her, his pupils so dilated that his pale green eyes had gone almost black. She pinched his nipple lightly, never looking away from his gaze. She pinched harder as his mouth opened on another moan. When she leaned to kiss him, Heath’s hand went to the back of her neck so his fingers tangled and tugged in her hair. She sucked his tongue gently, then more fiercely until he opened for her. Then she broke the kiss but didn’t withdraw. Their lips brushed as she whispered again, soft, low, filthy words of love.

She breathed his air. They didn’t move, not for some long moments, while beneath her now-flattened palm, Heath’s heart thudded faster and faster. His fingers snarled deeper into the length of her hair, pulling it from the loose bun so it fell over her shoulders and halfway down her back.

“Say it,” Effie breathed.

Heath said nothing, but his grip tightened. It hurt. Effie couldn’t hold back a tiny gasp when he tugged her head back, but that pain, oh, yes, she wanted more. Her fingers curled over his heart, digging into his skin. Harder. Deeper.

“Say it,” Effie repeated. “Tell me you want to fuck my mouth, Heath. Tell me to get on my knees and take your cock down the back of my throat. I know you want it. Say it!”

His lips pressed closed, thinning. She pushed away from him, but he didn’t let go of his fist in her hair, and she gasped again. Louder this time. Her nipples had gone tight and aching; her cunt clenched at the stinging throb in her scalp.

She slapped his face. Once, hard. When she tried again, Heath caught her wrist. His strong fingers ground her small bones against one another. With one hand on her wrist and the other still locked in her hair, Heath held her in place as she struggled.

Effie snapped her teeth at him. “Say. It.”

“You want my cock.” Heath submitted, finally, in that low and rasping voice that had more than once been enough to send her hurtling over the edge into orgasm. “You want to get on your fucking knees for me and suck me dry? Is that what you want?”

Now she wouldn’t say it, would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that yes, yes, oh God yes, it was what she’d been thinking about all day. All this week and all the endless ones before it, too. Months. Every night and every morning without him, until she’d been unable to stop herself from calling him to come over.

He would have to take it from her, that admission. Slap it out of her. Fuck it out of her. That’s how it was with them, and she loved that as much as she hated it. Probably because she hated it so much.

Effie fought him, but Heath held her so tight she couldn’t even twist in his grip. Slowly, he drew her closer until his mouth grazed hers. She bit his lower lip, catching it between her teeth and pulling until he jerked her head back. She tasted blood, but she’d barely left a mark on him.

Breathing hard, Effie slowed her struggles at the sight of Heath’s face. His tongue crept out to swipe along the wound she’d left—maybe she couldn’t see the evidence of her teeth, but she was sure Heath could feel it. The thought that she’d hurt him sent a wave of gut-punching heat through her. Her hips rocked a little before she made herself go immobile again. Silent and challenging.

Without letting go of her wrist or her hair, Heath pushed her down, down, onto her knees, and Effie closed her eyes as she resisted. He was stronger than she was. Always had been. She went to her knees in front of him with her head tipped back and the pain arcing through her as hot and electric as pleasure, so little difference between the sensations that she could not have said which she was actually feeling. Everything was tangled up, knotted and twisted, one feeling useless without the other.

Heath kept his grip on her wrist but let go of her hair so he could tug open the button and zipper on his jeans. His fingers fumbled and faltered as he managed to get his cock out. Thick and long, glistening at the head with clear, sweet pre-come... Oh, God, how Effie loved his cock.

She closed her eyes and whispered the words once more. “Say it.”

“I want to fuck your mouth, Effie.”

She cried out, low and aching. Her head fell back again, and she opened her eyes to look up at him. Heath, her Heath. He stroked his length up and down, then held himself at the base and dragged his cock along her lips until she opened for him. She took him deep, all the way, letting her throat muscles go lax.

Nothing mattered but this. The taste of him. The feeling of his flesh against hers, her lips stretched wide to take him in, the clutch of both his hands on the sides of her head, forcing her to let him do exactly what she’d ordered him to say. To fuck her mouth, slow and deep, then faster until her teeth grazed him and he wrenched her head back again to stare down at her with that open mouth.

His open. Fucking. Mouth.

Heath’s mouth made her crazy with longing. She wanted him to kiss her. To eat her alive and spit her out. To say her name the way he said it now, full of warning and that softness more dangerous than any threat. The sound of his love for her.

It hurt worse than anything ever could, that sound. It made it impossible for her to pretend he was just another man. It made it unimaginable for her to remember that there had ever been anyone for her but Heath.

Effie opened her mouth, unvoiced, offering herself to him. She’d begged him in the past, more than once. She might do it again now, if demanding didn’t work.

Once more, Heath drew his cock along her mouth. Her lower lip. The upper. He eased the hot, thick flesh inside, then out before she could take more than the smallest taste, and at this denial, Effie moaned.

“You want it.” His voice, deep. Hard. And somehow, always, always with the tiniest hint of wonder, as though he couldn’t believe she was doing this.

That doubt made her hate him.

He must’ve seen it in her face, because his expression hardened. So did his grasp in her hair again. When she didn’t wince or cry out, Heath pulled harder.

“You want it,” he repeated.

“Yes. Fuck my mouth. Let me taste you. I want...” She lost her words. There was only that pleasure-pain. Only oblivion.

Heath pushed himself inside her mouth, then withdrew. He did it again. Effie lost herself in the leisurely rhythm of it. When he pulled her off his cock, she murmured a protest.

“I want you,” Heath said.

You have me, Effie thought but didn’t say aloud. You will always have me.

She got to her feet and turned as he pushed her dress up over her hips. Heath hooked her panties down over her ass and thighs, then off. He kicked her feet wide as he pushed her forward over the back of the couch, one strong hand at the nape of her neck. The other guided his cock inside her. She cried out again at the forbidden stroke of his bare heat inside her.

Heath was always risk and danger.

He was always her safe harbor.

“Tell me how much you love fucking me,” he said.

Effie stretched out her arms and pressed her cheek to the backs of the cushions. She gripped the couch. She tilted her ass to urge him to fuck deeper inside her, deep enough to hurt.

“I love you fucking me.”

Heath’s fingers dug into the scant flesh above her hips. He would leave marks she’d have to explain away. Or maybe not. Maybe Effie wouldn’t say a word; she’d simply let the bruises speak for themselves.

“Touch yourself.” Heath spoke on a grunt.

Her hand slid between her legs, fingers finding her clit and rubbing, rubbing as he moved inside her. She would come from this, or from his thrusts, or from nothing but the thought of fucking him. That had happened, too. The pressure and slickness of her fingertips pushed her closer to orgasm. Faster, too, matching Heath’s pace. The sound of his breathing and the quickness of his pace told her he was close. Effie stopped her circling touch.

Heath wasn’t having any of that. He slapped her ass, a sharp, stinging crack. “You’re going to come for me, Effie.”

She wanted to come. She might not, in fact, be able to stop herself from it. They both knew it, though she sometimes wondered if Heath doubted the inevitability of her orgasms the way he doubted her love. She kind of hated him for that, too, for being unsure that he was getting her off even as he got closer and closer to coming himself.

He slapped her ass again, harder this time. More bruises. The thought of dark purple and blue fading to green and yellow on her pale skin, that was what bucked her hips forward. Pushed her clit into her touch. That’s what, in the end, made her come with a harsh and rasping cry. She shook with the ecstasy, was made blind with it.

Heath pulled out. Wet heat slapped her buttocks and lower back. It would stain her dress. She didn’t care.

“Effie, Effie, Effie,” Heath cried. “I love you.”

That was the thing about love, though, wasn’t it? When you loved somebody, you wanted to give them everything you could. You wanted what was best for them, no matter what. You wanted them to move beyond what was awful and terrible, beyond anything that had ever hurt them. She would never be able to do that for him, nor he for her. They would forever and always be a reminder to each other of all the things Effie wanted them both to be able to forget.

So, although she knew he was waiting for her to say it back to him, Effie only listened.

chapter two

“Where’s Polly?” Heath, hair wet from the shower, tucked the towel tighter around his lean hips and slid onto the stool at Effie’s breakfast bar.

“School, hello.” She glanced at the clock as she flipped the grilled cheese she was making. Just past noon. She had work to do, several paintings to finish and some paperwork to deal with. Updating her Craftsy store with photos of her new pieces was going to take some time, too.

“What’ve you been working on?”

He always asked her that. Effie shrugged. “Same old. I got a few new orders for some licensed products from a new company. They do mugs and mouse pads and stuff, not just T-shirts. And you know Naveen?”

“He has those two galleries, right?”

Effie nodded. “Yes. He hangs my pieces there in between regular shows, the stuff I feature online, and ships it for me when I make a sale. Well, I have a few things I need to get sent off to him, and I got some custom orders recently, too.”

“Sounds like you’re busy,” Heath said.

“It’s work,” Effie said. “Keeps the lights on. Pays the bills. Lets me afford grilled cheeses.”

The first painting Effie had ever sold went for just over ten thousand dollars. Now her pieces went for under a grand. She priced them that way on purpose. More work, more sales, a steadier income. She was too aware of the precariousness of her popularity—people who collected bones from sideshow freaks and signed poems from incarcerated serial killers could be fickle, and she’d done her level best to stay as far out of the victim spotlight as she could. She could’ve sold more, earned more, if she’d been willing to keep talking about her ordeal. There were websites and forums devoted to that sort of masturbatory, voyeuristic exploitation. She settled for living within her means and being grateful she could make a living at all with her art.

That first painting had gone for so much because she’d actually painted it in Stan Andrews’s basement. She heard it was hanging in a billionaire’s entertainment room, which made her think she ought to have held out for more money, but at the time ten grand had seemed like a fortune.

Effie made a career out of skewed landscapes and still lifes, of things seen from the corner of the eye. Her paintings looked normal until you slightly turned your head. Then you saw the maniacal dancing figures, the squirming maggots. The destruction. And if you looked very, very closely, you could always find a clock woven into the design. Those details were what made the collectors go crazy. They were her bread and butter. But to Effie, they were not what made her paintings art. They had kept her from losing her mind, and that, she’d always thought, was the difference between a paint-by-numbers kit of an Elvis on velvet and a piece that someone paid thousands of dollars to hang in their entertainment room.

She hadn’t been genuinely inspired to paint anything in a long time. At least a year, maybe longer. It hadn’t bothered her, losing her muse. Painting on commission or regurgitating old themes for a few hundred bucks had kept her busy. Licensing her images for postcards and T-shirts had paid her bills. She and Polly didn’t need much, and so long as Effie was careful about putting money away for college, she didn’t feel bad about not taking her kid on expensive vacations or buying her all the latest trendy fashions.

“You can afford better than grilled cheese, Effie.”

She laughed and pushed a plate with a sandwich and some potato chips in front of him. His clothes were still in the washer. She’d told him to put on something from her dresser. God knew there was more than one of his shirts and probably a pair of boxers in there somewhere. He’d chosen the towel on purpose to get under her skin.

“Maybe I can,” she said, “but grilled cheese is what you get.”

He studied the sandwich, then smiled as if he had a secret. “You put pickles on it.”

“Of course I did.” Effie crossed her arm over her stomach and put her first two fingers of her other hand to her lips. She’d given up smoking when she was pregnant with Polly and had never taken it back up, but that posture had never gone away.

After the sex they’d just had, she wanted a cigarette. Badly. He would give her one if she asked, but of course like cookies or orgasms, one was never enough.

“You’re not eating?” Heath hadn’t taken a bite. He watched her, heavy dark brows furrowed. That mouth, his fucking mouth, pursed in concern.

She had to look away or else she’d kiss him, and where would they end up after that? His kisses were worse than cigarettes. “I have to get to work. Anyway, I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat,” Heath said flatly.

She looked at him then. Silent. He was one to talk. His hip bones were jutting. Every rib clearly defined. Heath was fit and strong, but she’d known him to be heavier than this. She, on the other hand, had been noticing softness and curves where she’d once been sharply angled.

He broke the sandwich in half and held up one piece to her. She frowned and shook her head. He set it back on the plate and sat up straighter on the bar stool.

“I can swear to you, there’s no ground glass in it. No hairs. No floor sweepings. No pills.” Effie’s throat worked at the thought of it, but she forced herself not to gag. She hadn’t been hungry before, and now she was a little nauseous.

“I know that.” Heath turned the plate around and around, then lifted a chip. Keeping his gaze on hers, he put it in his mouth and crunched loudly.

“You can open up the sandwich and look inside,” Effie said, too loud. Too harsh. Her voice cracked and broke. “Go ahead! Make sure!”

Heath was off the stool and had her in his arms in seconds. She fought him for a second, but it was a useless protest. When he pulled her against him, she relented. Her cheek pressed his chest. She’d left marks of her own there, half-moon slices that would scab before they healed.

At least those wounds would heal, she thought. Some never did.

“I thought you’d be hungry,” she whispered. “That’s all. And it’s from me, Heath. You should know that something from me would never... I would never...”

“I know. Shh.” His hand stroked over her hair. “I was just being an asshole, Effie. I’m sorry.”

Countless times Heath had said those words to her, but Effie couldn’t remember if she’d ever apologized to him even once in all the time they’d known each other. She clung to him, though, for a few seconds longer before she forced herself to let go. She pushed away from him as the towel loosened and fell.

“You need to put some clothes on,” she told him.

Heath grinned. “You sure?”

“Your stuff will be done in an hour or so. Aren’t you cold?” Effie went to the fridge to pull out two cans of clear cola that she poured into glasses and held both up to the light without a second thought. She turned to hand him one but paused at Heath’s chagrined head shake. “What?”

“You do it, too,” he told her.

She frowned and set the glass on the counter with a thump hard enough to splash the contents out. “Yes. Well. Not from something you made for me.”

Heath wrapped the towel around his waist again and took up the sandwich to bite into it, chewing slowly. It eased her a little to watch him do it. They weren’t going to keep fighting, then. At least not about that.

He ate slowly, deliberately, pulling the bread and cheese apart into bite-size pieces, but she didn’t call him on it. There were some things that would never go away, no matter how long ago they’d become a habit or how you tried to get rid of them. Like the way she stood even though she had no cigarette.