An Arrangement of Love (28 page)

I placed my hands against his warm chest. “Back up a little.”

“No.” He leaned down and gave me a quick kiss. “I cut my date short with Wendy tonight. You want to know why?”

“No.” I was lying. I was dying to know.

“All I could see was that look on your face after I kissed her. It scared the shit out of me. There was so much pain and heartbreak on your face. I wanted to hurt myself. I couldn’t eat during dinner. Mentally I wasn’t even there with her. All I kept thinking was, ‘Jasmine is gone and I won’t be able to get her back this time.’”

“I planned to talk to you about ending it today.”

“No.” He buried his head into my neck. “You have to know I won’t let you go.”

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall, breathing him in. “That’s not really your choice to make.”

“Where would you hide? Really think about that.” His hands slipped under my shirt. He traced lines into my skin. My blood rushed. Again, energy pulsed everywhere his fingers made contact.

“When I go to sleep at night, Jasmine, you’re strolling through my dreams in the most amazing fantasy worlds and I swear to God I can feel, smell, and taste you like you’re really there. And when I wake up in the morning and you’re in my arms, I thank God over and over for blessing me with you. Do you really think I would just let that go?”

I sighed. “You punched Gabe for no reason.”

“I hit him because that expression on your face was only for me.” He pressed his chest into my breasts. My nipples hardened under him. “What were you thinking about when your finger was in his mouth?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Answer me! Damn it.”

I remained silent, but opened my eyes and gazed at him. I shouldn’t have. Raw emotion coated his expression. He looked scared and hurt.

“Don’t yell at me,” I whispered.

He let out a long breath.

“I’m sorry I punched him. It was wrong.” He guided my hands from his chest to his shoulders. He lifted me up and I straddled him with my legs. His hardness pushed between my thighs. I moistened instantly and rubbed a tiny bit against him before I forced myself to stop. He groaned. “I won’t do it again.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because I’m falling in love with you and I’m too goddamn scared to do anything to lose you.”

I hugged him hard and laid my head on his shoulder. “But in the end, you will still kiss Wendy again, and Dawn too. And my heart will break each time. And I will no longer be that fun woman who’s opening your mind and exciting to be around. I’ll be a resentful bitch who’ll only want to cut your balls off.”

I climbed off him. He tried to stop me, but I shoved him away. “I’m sorry, but the only time it really works for us is when it’s only us. And you can’t give me that.”

“I’ll try.” He seized my arm, pulled me to him, and captured my mouth.

“No,” I murmured, but my body burst with anticipation.

“I love you.” His tongue pierced my lips. He cupped my behind and lifted me, rushing us over to my couch, ripping my shirt with no restraint, and yanking down my bra like a mad man. “Forever. How can I get that with you?”

“You know how.”

He consumed me—his teeth tenderly nibbling my skin and grazing my nipples. His hands dove into my pants. Those satin fingers teased my flesh and engulfed my aching bud with heat and pleasure. His scent rushed all over me as he toyed with it. I moaned and drowned in him, sucking on his lips and knowing he had me.

“Give me some time.” He shoved two fingers inside of me and I cried out in pleasure. “Another week or month.”

I unbuckled his pants, grabbed his cock, and slipped my hands up and down its length. He looked so damn sexy, hungry, and coiled in taut, ridged muscle. I needed to feel him one last time and didn’t care if it was a good idea or not.

“Fuck.” He gritted his teeth. “Answer me.”

“Just make love to me right now.”

He flipped me onto the couch so I was lying down. The soft leather smoothed against my back. I rushed to pull off my pants.

Someone banged on my front door.

“Chase!” Dawn yelled. “We need to talk right now.”

Closing his eyes and frowning, he hovered over me with his cock pointing my way.

Just the reality check I needed.

“Just go to her.” I turned over to reach for my pants. “This would have been a mistake anyway.”

“How’s that?” He pulled his erection back into his pants. I bit my lip and sat up as I began to dress myself. My shirt was torn at the top, but I could still cover myself enough.

“Chase, are you coming out here or do I need to come in?” Dawn asked.

What the hell?

“She has a key to my apartment?” I glared at him.

He shook his head. “If she did, I didn’t know.”

“Why do you even have a freaking security system on my apartment if you’re sneaking in through the closet and she has a damn key for the front? You both take the concept of control freaks to the next level.” I slipped on my pants and stood up.

“I’m coming, Dawn,” he yelled back. “I’ll talk to you in your apartment.”

“Hurry up,” she said through the door.

He rubbed the temples on his forehead.

Dressed, I got up. He grabbed my arm. “What do you mean this would’ve been a mistake anyway?”

He tightened his grip.

“Let me go, please,” I said.

My guest room door opened.

“Are you decent?” Troy called out.

Oh goodness.

Mortified, I covered my face with my hands. “I forgot you were in there.”

Troy and Vivian stepped out with rumpled clothes. Vivian’s blonde hair was in disarray. Some of it twirled on top of her head. The rest stuck out on the sides.

Releasing my arm, Chase turned their way and glanced at them as they held hands. Horror creased over his face. “Are...you dating?”

“Yes.” Vivian smirked. “If that’s okay with you, Mr. Stone. Jasmine, we’re going to go unless you want us to stay. Do you?”

“No. I’ll call you later.” I headed over to the door and opened it for them.

“You are...dating?” Chase continued to sit on my couch as if someone had scared the crap out of him.

“Yes. Why?” I asked.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“What’s up with him?” Troy asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll talk later.” I wanted to say at home, but I didn’t want to startle Chase. The sad truth was I didn’t think I could walk away from him if he stood right in front of me, so I planned on sneaking away while he argued with Dawn.

Speaking of Dawn.

She stepped into my apartment as Vivian and Troy walked out. “Is he still in here?”

I motioned behind me.

“You need me to stay?” Vivian asked one more time and scowled at Dawn.

“Nope. I’m fine.”

She combed her fingers through her hair and trailed behind Troy.

“You’re disrupting this house,” Dawn said.

I figured she was talking to Chase, but instead, she targeted me with her blue eyes.

“Dawn, I’ll talk to you in your apartment.” Chase got up and headed my way. “Jasmine and I have to talk now.”

“No. We don’t.” I shook my head.

“Trust me. I have to tell you something,” he said.

“Whatever you have to tell her can wait until after we talk.” Dawn jumped between us. “Right now, we need to discuss why you think you can just piss on all the rules we’ve established over five years.”

I eased away from them.

Chase’s eyes followed me. “We need to change the rules.”

“Excuse me?” Dawn said.

“Jasmine.” Chase rushed to me and whispered in my ear, “This conversation with Dawn won’t take too long. Go up to my apartment through the pathway and wait in my living room. I have to show you something.”

“What?” I asked.

“Just listen to me,” Chase muttered.

“What are you whispering about?” Dawn’s voice screeched. Her eyes watered. Her hand touched her chest. “Chase?”

Tears spilled from her eyes and streamed over her cheeks. Something bit at my own chest. In that moment, my aggravation for her vanished. Desperation was etched all over her face, from her trembling lips to her pleading eyes. She’d known him a lot longer than I had. If I was consumed by him in a few weeks then she’d been utterly devoured.
If I stay, this is my future. I’ll be standing in the living room of girl number eight or ten, full of desperation and grief, clinging to the rule system just so my heart wouldn’t continue to break over and over again.
Yesterday, I’d envied Dawn, but now my own heart broke for her, because she was stuck here, when I still had enough mental power to flee.

“Go talk to Dawn, please.” I backed away from him. “Now.”

He nodded his head. “Okay, but meet me there.”

“Sure.”

I doubt it. Hopefully, I’ll be in my car by the time you go to your apartment.

Dawn wiped her face and walked out.

He rubbed by me and whispered, “Remember. My living room, not my office. I’ll hurry back.”

“Okay.”

Chapter 30

I
can’t recall why
I figured going upstairs was a good idea. Maybe I believed the big answer for why I was so gullible resided up there. Perhaps some symbol for Chase’s true intention was there—a shrine to me, a sign declaring he no longer wanted to live every man’s dream of having women attend to his needs because now, he had me, and I was all he’d ever want. Even better, a heart-breaker elixir, not an actual tube full of potion but some item where I would be so overblown with disgust it would give me that extra push I needed to gather my senses.

Regardless, I was unprepared for what I found.

I entered a small room with three other doors. Each door had a number I assumed related to the other women’s apartments, since the door I left wore a four. When I moved further in, hanging clothes, shelves of folded sweaters, and hooks decorated with shoes appeared.

This has to be his closet.

The space stretched to the length of half my bedroom. Clothes, accessories, and shoes crowded the place. He could’ve clothed a small town with everything in it. I stepped out into his bedroom. A huge picture of the Beatles walking in a line across a street hung above his bed. The words
Abbey Road
read under it. Black and white piano key carpet decorated the floor. Red paint coated the walls. A simple white blanketed bed stood in the middle next to white nightstands. Framed photos of Dawn, Wendy, Lucy, and me stood on his right nightstand. On the left was an old black and white picture of a gorgeous woman who had to be his mother. They both had those midnight black hair, high cheek bones, and piercing green eyes.

I left the room and walked down a white hallway. At the end, I spotted an opening for the living room. Curiosity nipped at my legs as I turned to another door instead and opened it. It was an empty room with just a made bed and nothing else. I closed it and went to the door right next to it.

His office.

There was a huge desk, a shelf behind it stacked with binders, and small flat TV screens bordering the room. My body stiffened.
No wonder he asked me not to go in his office.
On the right screen, Chase and Dawn argued. Screen two displayed Wendy in her bedroom touching herself and gazing directly at the camera.

“Come to me, Chase. Break the rules for once,” Wendy said. “Did I do something wrong tonight? What made you sneak into her apartment?”

Wendy knew he had a camera in her bedroom. I wish someone had told me. I would’ve had them removed if I could.

Screen three showed Lucy sleeping on her living room floor on piles of multicolored pillows. Screen four displayed my kitchen, with the pots still simmering.

He’d been watching Gabe and me in the kitchen? For how long?

Four joysticks stuck out the bottom of each screen. I walked over to screen two and moved it. The view switched to Wendy’s empty living room.
Thank god. I can’t deal with Wendy begging for Chase right now.
I moved to Dawn’s screen where they argued and pressed the up arrow button. The volume increased.

“Get rid of her,” Dawn cried. Drool dripped from the corners of her lips. Snot streamed down one nostril. Make-up smudged her eyes.

“I can’t.” Chase tried to hug her. She shoved him away.

“Is it not enough you have the others?” She collapsed on her floral print couch. “I’m only one woman. I only have one mind and you’re twisting it into nothing. I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror anymore. My thoughts are dark and I’m always angry.”

“Dawn, please.” He took one step to her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Then get rid of her!”

I jumped at her scream and from the raw pain in her pleading voice. My body trembled under her tone. She wanted me gone.
No problem. I’m out of here anyway.
I turned my back to the screens, ready to leave, when my name in black letters caught my eye. It was on a big yellow binder.

“Tell me why you can’t?” Dawn asked.

I glanced over my shoulder and watched them on the screen.

“I don’t want to get rid of her.” Chase sat on the coffee table in front of her and slumped over like a defeated man. “You’re right, I am acting differently. She’s...different.” He sounded as if he couldn’t find the right words.

“Chase, you’ve broken too many rules. You know what happens.” Dawn rocked back and forth, more tears spilled down her face.

“I didn’t break them, not intentionally.”

“Will you let her go?” Dawn asked.

I froze, waiting for his reply.

“No. I won’t.” His voice sounded low. “Not even if she begs me to.”

That’s my cue to leave.

Still, the binder piqued my interest. I decided to get a quick look and maybe take it home with me. Moving quickly, I went to the binder, picked it up, and opened it. My baby pictures and birth certificate stuck to the first page. I twisted around and placed it on my desk, making sure I had a good view of Chase. If he left Dawn’s room, I’d figure out which way he was going and run off the other way.

“How did you even get in her apartment tonight?” Dawn asked. “I thought you told us the secret passageways were closed off when Yancy died.”