All I Want Series Boxset, Books 1-3: All I Want for Christmas, All I Want for Valentine's, All I Want for Spring (17 page)

Holly’s face registered surprise, then she curled her mouth up into a smile that reached her eyes. I hoped I was fulfilling my part of the bargain, of taking responsibility for my mistakes.

“To us,” I said, holding up my bottle. “Whatever life throws at us, let’s always stay friends and have each other’s back, no matter what.”

Holly raised her beer bottle back towards mine. “To us,” she said, fixing me with her gaze. “I’ve always had your back, and I always will.”

My stomach dropped as she looked into my eyes. I recognised the feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it wasn’t a feeling I was used to having with Holly.

Excitement. Attraction. Desire.

I opened my eyes wide as the shock of the revelation jolted my heart, but I managed to control my breathing and style it out. However, when I gazed at Holly’s face, I was pretty sure I saw just what I was feeling reflected right back at me.

Holy batshit
. Was this what Nicola had meant when she’d said we could never have a relationship with Holly around? And was this what all my mum’s raised eyebrows and unspoken questions had been about too? Did Holly like me
like that
? It was far too many questions for my brain to cope with. As I stared at Holly, my clit twitched and I closed my eyes.

Then I shot up from the sofa, ignoring the static in the air and the fluttering in my chest. If I was about to have a heart attack, this was not the best time for it. I’d thought tonight, of all nights, was going to be complication-free, but apparently not.

“I’m just going to check the dinner.” I scooted over to the oven, avoiding looking at Holly for fear I might blurt something out or give something away — what, I wasn’t quite sure.

“You only just put it in.”

She was right, of course.

“Yeah, but I was just thinking that perhaps I should have seasoned the duck.”

When I turned, my gaze fell on Holly and my vision went blurry. It was as if I’d been seeing her one way my whole life, and now, someone had flipped a switch and Holly was a femme fatale. In grey furry slippers. Her short, dark hair flopped adorably on to her forehead, a lot less fussy than it would have been had we been going out tonight. Her T-shirt now clung to all the right places and I blushed as my gaze stopped momentarily on Holly’s breasts before looking away quickly.

“Do you think I should season the duck?” I opened the cupboard to look for seasoning. Then I looked back to Holly. “What does seasoning mean, exactly? I’ve never known that, it always seems a bit general, doesn’t it?” I was babbling, which was strangely reassuring. It meant I was reacting as I normally did when I liked someone.

But now Holly was putting down her beer and walking over to me, and I wasn’t sure I could take such close proximity now that the cat was out of the bag and my heart was telling me its deepest, darkest secrets. I might implode if she came within three feet of me.

When I’d thought about getting together with Nicola, there had always been something holding me back, always been a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Something beyond the fact she was a relative stranger with personal baggage galore.

Standing here in front of Holly, there were no questions, no what-ifs. The puzzle was complete and everything slotted into place. I knew everything there was to know about Holly and I liked it all. I’d been so busy running around and creating drama, I hadn’t stopped to see what was right in front of me. And what was right in front of me was so much more than an image on a dating app. Holly was a 3D person and she was everything I was looking for.

However, the prospect of acting on that piece of the puzzle was absolutely terrifying, because what if it went wrong? I risked losing everything. Our friendship, my home, my security — and my love for Holly. Because I did love her, I always had as a friend. But turning it into something more? That was too much to comprehend.

“What do you mean, what’s seasoning?” Holly asked.

What was she talking about? My mind drew a blank. Seasoning? I’d been hit with a startling new revelation in my life, and Holly was talking about seasoning?

But no, hang on, I’d been talking about seasoning, hadn’t I? The rest had been an internal dialogue with just me participating. Right, I remembered now. Seasoning.

I blinked.

Holly furrowed her brow. “You okay? You’re acting very strangely.”

The heat from her body was leaping on to mine and I felt dizzy. Weak. I had to focus.

“Fine,” I said. I buried my head back inside the cupboard so she couldn’t see the panic written in pink highlighter on my face or the fear currently lodged squarely in my chest and throat. What if I vomited all over her? I really shouldn’t have had that tiramisu dessert with my mum at lunchtime.

“So which seasoning did you say?” My head was still in the cupboard. “I’ve got Cajun, nutmeg, coriander, mixed herbs.” I twisted the small pots of herbs to read their labels.

Holly touched my arm lightly. “Tori, come out of the cupboard.”

But her touch on my arm made me leap into the air. In doing so, I managed to knock a couple of the pots of herbs from the shelf, and they bounced off the kitchen counter and on to the floor. Luckily, they were made of plastic so they didn’t smash. I turned to pick them up, but Holly was already on her haunches.

I dropped down to the floor myself to help her out, as one of the herbs had flipped open and a mass of dried oregano was now littering the kitchen floor.

Holly grabbed the dustpan and brush from the under-sink cupboard and as she bent back down, we came face to face with each other. And when I looked at her, something changed. My brain flipped to romance mode, and everywhere I looked, my vision was misted and objects airbrushed. It was as if my mind had just installed a photo editor and was trying out every happy filter possible. Right now, my whole world was set to Sunshine and Yellow Glow.

I stared at Holly.

She stared at me.

I dropped my gaze to the spilled herbs, but when I looked back up, she hadn’t taken her eyes off me. My heart rate revved like a motorcycle engine and blood zipped around my veins. Was I about to pass out or about to kiss my best friend of a million years? I couldn’t be certain which way this one was going to go.

But it turned out that Holly was sure, so the passing out option was bypassed.

Before I could react, Holly’s lips were pressing into mine, soft, firm and beery. She didn’t try to rush, she just let her lips linger and caress, stroking across mine, taking her time. The effects of her kiss shot through my body with utmost force, causing my fingers and toes to curl, holding on for dear life. It was sublime and it was happening to me.
With Holly
.

I sunk into the kiss with my best friend, and magic pulsed in the air around us. The trains wound down, light increased and there was a ringing in my ears, but it was a happy sound. Our lips slipped over each other like they’d been made to measure, whispering a secret to each other they’d been bursting to tell. But the secret was out now, and there was no way of putting it back.

I’ve no way of knowing how long we kissed, but eventually Holly gently pulled away. She held me by the top of my arm, a smile playing on her lips. She went to say something, her eyes locked on mine, but then she just pressed her lips back on to mine lightly before pulling back again.

When I opened my eyes, the world felt brighter, shinier, more defined. I’d kissed a lot of women before, but I’d never been kissed like Holly had just kissed me. This was so much more than just a kiss.

“Your lips feel pretty good,” she said before kissing me again.

“So do yours.” I reapplied my lips to hers and I felt it right where I was meant to.

This shit was getting real, but I wasn’t scared. Rather, I wanted to clutch our possibilities, because right now, they seemed limitless. Especially when my lips were on hers and nothing seemed impossible.

I only stopped kissing when we nearly toppled over, both of us still down on our haunches, the herbs still on the floor.

When I looked at Holly, I was stuck for words. None of them seemed adequate for what had just happened.

“So this is… interesting,” I said finally. “Kissing — we don’t normally do that.”

Holly smiled, then shook her head. “No, we don’t.”

“And when we do, we do it squatting on our kitchen floor.”

Holly laughed. “It’s a first for me. For you too?”

I rubbed a hand up and down her arm. “Yep. I’m a kitchen floor kissing virgin.”

I stood upright and offered a hand to Holly.

She took it, hauled herself upright and cracked her head on the open cupboard door. Hard. She was immediately back down on the floor again.

“Shit, that sounded like it hurt. You okay?” I was on my knees beside Holly, who was sat on the kitchen floor, clutching her head and swearing under her breath. “Holly?”

She groaned in response and I stroked her arm.

“Can you see if it’s bleeding?” She was still trying to catch her breath.

I peeled her hand away, noticing for the first time how long and slender her fingers were. Which of course then sent a shudder down my entire body, and I had to blink to remember what I was doing: looking at Holly’s head and checking she wasn’t bleeding to death.

“I can’t see any blood,” I said. “But let’s get you up and over to the couch.”

She nodded slowly and made it to the sofa where she laid out, wincing. I brought her a bag of frozen peas and she held it against her head. Then I sat at the bottom of the sofa with her feet touching me, assessing her body, the body of my future lover I had no doubt.

I’d never slept with anyone so much taller than me. Holly’s body was slim and went on for days, and I shuddered again as I imagined touching her for the first time, holding her breasts, kissing her neck. I blinked.

I must stop having amorous thoughts while the object of my affection might be concussed.

“How you feeling?”

Holly peeked out from under the frozen peas. “I’ll live,” she said. “But I’m more than a little upset that when I finally get to kiss you — and believe me, that’s something I’ve been wanting to do for weeks now — I then nearly knock myself out and end up like this.”

She’d been wanting to kiss me for weeks? This was news. But when I looked at Holly, holding her head, I decided to revisit that later.

“You don’t need to worry,” I said. “Just relax for now till you feel better. This is you and me, there’s no hurry. We’ve got all the time in the world.” I got up and walked over to Holly, and her eyes sparkled like diamonds. I leaned down and kissed her slowly, cupping her face and slipping my tongue inside her mouth.

She groaned lightly.

I didn’t stop for a couple of minutes. I put all my effort into it, everything I was feeling in that moment. Right there, Holly and I were connected in a way I could never have imagined the day before. It’s funny what life throws at you, isn’t it? When I pulled back, my head was spinning, and Holly was looking at me like I’d just given her the world.

“Fucking hell, Tori. Where did you learn to kiss like that?”

My cheeks reddened. “I teach it at the Lesbian Skills Centre, didn’t I tell you? That’s where I’ve secretly been going most weeks, not actually spin class as I’ve been telling you. It was a top secret mission.”

Holly grinned, then remembered she was in pain and frowned.

“You okay?” I dropped to my knees by her side. “Should I get you a headache pill or something?”

Holly stared at me, her pupils large. “I’m only thinking about one thing right now, but that might make my head explode.” She grinned at me. “Let’s just see how we go with dinner and wine, and then we’ll take it from there, okay?”

I nodded, then pushed myself upright before swooping to kiss Holly one more time. “And can I just say, this is one of the few times I’ll be able to say I leaned down and kissed you, so I’m taking advantage of it.”

Holly beamed at me. “I’ve told you before — when you’re this tall, you have to spend half your life horizontal just so your partner can have a fair crack at kissing you. It’s something I’ve learned to live with.”

And then Holly winked at me.

I went weak at the knees.

Literally.

***

Dinner was a surprising success — even without the seasoning. Turns out, these ready-made dishes already have all the seasoning they need. Holly also told me over dinner that seasoning meant salt and pepper.

“Why don’t they just say that then?”

She wasn’t able to give me a satisfactory reply.

We ate the duck at the dining table with Holly gingerly touching her head every few minutes.

“It feels like there should be a dent in my skull.”

I confirmed there was no dent, nor was there a torrent of blood pouring down her face. She eventually believed me and began to relax. However, I understood her dilemma. After our unexpected snogging, relaxing over a good meal and acting normally wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Tonight was turning out to be anything but normal.

My senses were still dialled up to the maximum setting, so every time Holly moved, spoke or even glanced at me, I was preparing for her to say something profound, something life altering. Something that would make my heart soar, or make my heart sink. Like that it had all been a mistake, and we should just eat this dinner, forget it ever happened and move on.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she chatted about how she was dreading Christmas, how good the food was, how weird her head felt.

“You might be concussed. I listened to a podcast the other day about it. If you feel sick, that’s a key sign.”

Holly gave me a look. “Why were you listening to a podcast on concussion? Did you have a premonition?”

I returned her look.

“Or you could have poisoned me with your food. You’re not exactly famed for your culinary skills.”

“I’m serious. Dizziness, sickness, it’s all part of it. So no more wine for you.”

I topped up my glass, though.

Holly pouted. “I’d say tonight needs a little bit more wine, don’t you?”

She had a point — I didn’t want to tackle this without a little Dutch courage either. I topped up her glass.