Hidden Heat by Amy Valenti Page B

until he came, his breath shaky against my neck as he held me.
    Behind us, the door opened and Grant peeked around it. “Oh, Jesus, Scott. Put your ass away so I can get some cereal. Holly, you can stay naked.”
    “Fuck off, Grant. I already told Holly you’ve touched it all before.”
    Safe in the knowledge that all the parts Grant might be interested in seeing were either pressed against Scott or against the counter, I grinned at him over Scott’s shoulder. “Sure it’s food you want?”
    “Ask me again when Beth says the meds are working.” With a wink that sent a light shiver through me, he retreated again.
    “Do I get a say in this little threesome you’re both planning?” a slightly disgruntled Scott asked.
    “Hey, if you’d rather call Skye, she offered to join us, too.” I gave him a conciliatory kiss as he helped me down off the counter.
    He raised an eyebrow. “You’re into women?”
    I opened my mouth to deny it, but as soon as I pictured Skye’s full figure and perpetually smiling lips… “I never used to be,” I whispered, fear chasing down my spine in pursuit of desire.
    Scott wrapped his shirt around me, then his arms, as if he’d sensed my sudden vulnerability. “We’re gonna find a way past this, okay?”
    I buried my face in his shoulder and wept. It wasn’t the idea of being into women that frightened me—it was that new sexual urges seemed to be surfacing left and right. Bondage, lesbianism, threesomes…those I could handle, but what next? What if I started finding really depraved things exciting? Things no decent person should ever do?
    Scott had meant to comfort me with his embrace, but instead, his masculine scent made my skin tingle all over again.
    I cried harder.
     
    * * * *
     
    Beth’s medication took about an hour to kick in. I spent that hour curled against Scott, trying not to writhe against him as we watched the netcast. He held my hand, but discouraged anything more than a light kiss, as if he knew I both wanted it and feared giving in to it.
    The movie we were watching was some kind of action-drama, but neither of us really focused on it. Impassioned speeches were followed by car chases and gunfights, followed—predictably—by melodramatic hospital scenes. It wasn’t until the hero and heroine started making out that I realised I didn’t feel an immediate urge to jump Scott’s bones.
    “Scott?”
    “Hmm?”
    His glance was a little wary, as if he expected me to beg him for more sex. Wow, what kind of a fucked-up situation was it when I’d managed to make a guy wary of sex?
    Then again, Scott wasn’t just any guy. I knew that as surely as I knew my own name.
    “I think the pills are working.”
    He let out a relieved breath, kissed my forehead. “That’s good.”
    What I was about to say scared me like hell, but it had to be this way. “I should go home.”
    Scott frowned. “You don’t wanna wait and see how long the effects last?”
    I got up, began to pace in long, agitated strides. “I would if I could, but my roomies are gonna start asking questions if I don’t go home soon. And what will it look like if you and I show up together for class tomorrow?”
    “You’re being paranoid, Holly. Vanishing together in the break between two lectures is dangerous. Getting the same bus towards the university—once—isn’t going to set off any alarm bells. The tutors and other students are all Focused, too. Their minds don’t come up with sexual explanations as quickly as ours do.”
    “More efficient,” I muttered, paraphrasing from the official literature we’d all been given about suppression. “More focused. Less distracted by attractive colleagues and daydreams of sexual activity with partners off the job. Blah, blah, blah. I know.”
    Scott caught my wrist as I passed, pulled me back down beside him. “Then why are you so jumpy?”
    “Because I don’t vanish for days on end. Ever since my procedures failed, I’ve been really routine-based.