B0161IZ63U (A) (29 page)

“I told the girls my story the other day,” she said.  “And I think that helped some of them open up.”

He nodded.  “That’s good, baby.”

As she looked at him, she was rocketed back to the day in her garage, when he’d been trying to connect with her, to go deeper.  Deeper than he already was, even though he’d reached subterranean levels long ago, getting farther down inside her than she’d ever allowed any other man to get.  She’d been scared to let him sink any further.  She’d dodged his questions, rejected his open heart because she’d been terrified to open her own. 

“I told them about the man who hurt me when I was twelve, and how afraid I was to talk about it.  I told them because I didn’t want them to be afraid to talk to me.”

Chase breathed deep and sat tall.  His hands had stopped stroking her legs.   They were now holding tight, encircling her ankles in his warm grasp.

She shook her hair out of her eyes.  “I’ve never told anyone, but I told them.”  And now she’d told Chase.

He nodded, his own eyes growing wet in time with hers.  He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

She leaned forward, covering his splayed legs with her hands, and began giving his upper thigh the same torturous attentions he’d been giving her calves.

“I’m
so
proud of you, Lila,” he frowned, shaking his head as his eyes seemed to get trapped in some poignant place between earnestness and desire.

Trailing her long nails over the dusting of hair on his thighs, her eyes fell to his lap, the zipper of his shorts, and she watched his body’s instant response.

Her eyes rose to his just as her fingers disappeared under his white shorts.  “Are you scared?”

He was honest.  “Terrified.”

“Me, too.”  She smiled softly.  “Why are you?”

He was silent for a moment, just enjoying the feel of her hands on him, her nails trickling under his shorts, along the valley of his upper thigh, so dangerously close to the hardness that was nearly torturing him.

“I’m terrified.”  His voice broke.  “Because I know, once we make love, I’m never going to be able to go back.”

“Back to what?”

His eyes met hers.  “In my heart, you were always mine.  You were always my girl,” he said.   “But now, it’ll be real.”

His eyes had darkened with possession, fear, and above all, fight.  They looked almost dangerous, and as his fingers dipped deeper, brushing the delicate fabric of her bikini bottoms where they disappeared between her legs, she gasped.

“I’m already your girl.”  When his head dipped down, she cupped his cheek, tilting her head to catch his eye.  “I’m completely yours.”

“Except nobody knows it.”

“They will.”

He looked up at her from under his lids, held her, and then looked off into the beach, turning his lips into her palm.  He bit the edge of it playfully, and then kissed it in apology.  “What are you terrified of?” he asked.

She smiled at him.  “That I really am a monster.”

A pained gleam crossed his eyes, and he took her wrist, pulling her in.  Their fingers dug into each other’s thighs the moment their lips met, bodies ready to satiate a need that their hearts hadn’t yet finished tangling with.  His tongue dipped out and touched hers, gently, pulling back with a frown.

“Beautiful monster,” he whispered, trying to smile.

“Maybe I became one when I was twelve.”  Lila shook her head.  “Maybe all the good in me is gone.”

“No. Stop.” He took her cheeks in his hands, waiting for her eyes to meet his. “Why do you continue to say negative things about yourself in front of me?  I’m not going to tolerate that, Lila.” Chase took her chin, lifting it.

The understanding in his eyes amazed her.  He knew what she was saying without her having even said it, could see what she was feeling in her eyes without her ever having expressed it.  That strange sensation, the one that overrode the guilt and the fear by miles, bubbled up inside of her again.  It tightened her stomach, seized her heart, and wet her eyes.

“Lila, how can you still deny what we have? What we mean to each other? It’s real. On a deeper level than anyone will ever understand.  Hell, I don’t even understand it sometimes.”

“Me either.”

“I don’t always understand it, but I have
always
known it was real. And fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.  If they don’t understand us, they never will.  We shouldn’t be in the business of changing people’s minds.  We should be too busy enjoying each other.”

“I think you’re living in a dream.”

“Since the moment you kissed me back in Brooklyn, yeah.  I have been living in a dream. 
You
are my dream, Lila. There’s nothing anyone could ever say, not even you, that will make me believe different.”

Lila’s eyes grew watery.

His voice lowered. “You could have had me then, back when I was thirteen.  Fourteen. Sixteen.  I loved you with every part of me, and you could have
had
every part of me.  My dick swelled to insane proportions at the mere thought of you.  That hasn’t changed, obviously.” He looked down into his lap, and their smiling eyes met.  “But at sixteen? Baby, I wanted it so bad. I would have died for it.  I would’ve.”

She smiled gently.

“You didn’t give. I wanted you so badly, I pushed for you so hard, but you didn’t give.  And thank god, because you would’ve destroyed me.  It wasn’t time for us. I wasn’t ready.  Thank god at least one of us knew that.”

She pressed her forehead to his.

“Lila, you saved my
life
.”  He shook her gently. “You’re not a monster.  You’re not Josh.  You’re not anyone who’s hurt you in the past.  You’re Lila James.  You’re the woman that’s stepped up to bat against
Harvard
, guns blazing, by yourself, to protect a girl who doesn’t even like you.”

“Julie likes me,” Lila cried, pulling back.

“She hates you.  She really does.”

“She does?” she whispered.

“She hates you because she knows how much I love you.  You’re the love of my life.” His hand clutched at her cheek.  “We’re not doing anything wrong, baby.”

She placed her hand on top of his.  It shook.  She wet her lips, panting softly.

“And when I cum inside you tonight, we still won’t be doing anything wrong. And we still won’t be doing anything wrong the time after that, or the time after that, because this is
real.”
His thumb moved back and forth across her cheek as his gaze crashed into hers.  With a deep breath, he moved his hand from her cheek to her collarbone, brushing the gold dove necklace with the tips of his knuckles.

“Do you want to eat first?” he whispered.

Lila’s eyes rose to his, fell to his parted lips, and then fluttered closed.

And she shook her head no.

Chase stood from his chair, leaned down, and caught her lips with his, muffling the moan that he knew was coming with a soft taste of his tongue.

She instinctively locked her thighs around his waist from where he was bent over her chair, arms slinging around his neck.

He lifted her with ease, craning his neck back as he stood tall, not breaking their kiss for a moment.

Lila tightened her arms around his neck and tilted her head to deepen it, their battling lips never once faltering as he moved towards the house with her cradled in his arms.

16

It all flew by in a blur.  All she could see were the fireworks shooting under her tightly closed eyelids.  All she could feel were his hot hands traveling all over her, his hungry tongue tasting her lips and her sweaty skin, his dick pressing hard into the hotbed of her bottoms.  All she could
think
was how badly she needed him inside her.  She didn’t even notice they were in the master bedroom until she’d fallen onto the plush white duvet.

He zeroed in on top of her, cradling his arms on either side of her body as his lips and tongue reclaimed their place sucking heavily on the skin beneath her jaw.

“Yes,” she breathed, taking his arms in her hands.  His biceps flexed where she touched him, sending her body spiraling into overdrive.  Her chest began to heave.  She knew what the right thing to do here was. The smart thing.  The thing that wouldn’t send her life into a complete tailspin. The thing that wasn’t wrong in every way.  That thing wasn’t something she was prepared to give.  Looking at him, the wrong answer seemed so right.

“I need you so bad,” he breathed against her skin, lapping up the slightly sweaty taste until it glistened.  He moved his attentions to her collarbone, hypnotized by the sound of her breathy pants.  He’d fantasized about what her desire would sound like spilling from her lips for so long, but the real thing was better than anything he could have imagined.  It infiltrated his senses and shot through his veins with a fury, hardening him and softening him all at once. pumping through him with more power than his blood.

“I need it, too.” She clawed her fingers into the back of his head.  “I need you.”

Pushing up on his arms, his lips rediscovered their purpose at the dip of her neck, egged on when she released a shuddering moan. He’d found her spot, the one that made her breathing heavy, her heart hammer, and her legs spread, even if against her own volition, and he hit that spot with intention, sucking the skin hard.

She screamed out.  Her legs splayed wide as she tugged at his waist, trying to pull his body down.  She wanted all of his weight on her, his chest against her chest, his thighs against her thighs.  More than anything, she wanted his dick between her legs, deep inside, working away the rapid pulsations that grew in persistence every second, and was now slowly driving her insane.

“I know you want it, baby.  I know you do,” he gasped, between fervent kisses.  His hand came up to cup her jaw as he licked the dip in her neck with purpose.

Her skin trembled where he kissed her, the heat washing over her skin, leaving her so wet with need that she began grinding against
herself
.  Her thighs pressed together, looking for friction that barely satiated the need for him.

“Please, Chase.”  When her begging went ignored, she pressed her thighs together hard, curling against the tiny shots of pleasure it created with such fury that it put her on her stomach.

He allowed her to roll over, placing his lips in the same spot on her neck from behind. He was enjoying her frantic cries far too much to give her what she was begging for.  The sound was like beautiful music as he tasted her, forced to reach down and adjust the tightness in his pants.  He licked a patient trail from the back of her neck, sliding down one side of her silk robe as he moved.  The fabric was soft and slippery, but nothing like the warm velvet slickness he knew waited for him between her smooth legs.

She audibly lost more control, but he never ceased his feast of her warm skin, each taste sweeter than the last.  His hands traveled her shapely back hungrily, and his teeth clawed at the skin between her shoulder blades.  When he slid the opposite strap of her robe down and exposed her full naked back, she instinctively lifted her shoulders.

“We don’t have to fight anymore.” He ran his hands over the newly exposed skin of her back, the beds of his fingers burning at each beautiful destination.

Lila jammed her eyes closed, unable to fight the hot, tantalizing sensation of his hands and lips on her body in such an intimate way.  Chase, her Chase, had set fire to her, and he hadn’t even properly touched her.  Not in the one place she needed it most.  Against all her will, she gyrated against the mattress underneath her, crying out when it gave her clit the attention it so desperately needed.  Her cries moved into frustrated groans when Chase pushed his hand into the small of her back, stopping her rotating hips. 

He wasn’t going to let her cheat her way out of this. 

The frustration in her moans was present, warming the sheets below. She could see herself falling into an abyss that she hadn’t even realized existed inside her.

“I want to make you cum,” he moaned against her neck, reaching down to still her hips when he saw her trying to take what was his.  If she was going to finish tonight, it would be by his hand and his alone.

She turned her head on the mattress, jamming her eyes shut. His hooded eyes searched her face, watching it happen, her submission, and his entire world fell away. She’d relinquished control.  Let go.  Turned everything over to him, her fight, her heart, and her pussy. Her surrender shot through him like morphine, straight to his veins. Nothing else mattered more than making sure the hesitation that had disappeared from those beautiful eyes stayed gone forever.  He never again wanted to see a hint of uncertainty on her face when she was looking at him.  It was going to end tonight if it was the last thing he did.  He ran his knuckles along her cheek, dragged it down the delicate line at the top of her back, and dipped it lower until it was brushing the swell of her breast.  He nestled his hand beneath her breast and the mattress, testing the weight. His breathing hitched, and he gave it a soft squeeze, pushing at her back with his other hand as she tried to grind into the mattress again. Tried to take her pleasure in her own hands.

With a scream, she gave into his strength, allowing him to stop her gyrations.  This time, she craned her neck and met his eyes over her shoulder, desire running across her face and in her eyes.

Chase met her gaze, held it, and her eyes fell shut. This time, her capitulation pulled at his heartstrings, and with one swift move, he took her around the waist and flipped her with ease, putting her on her back.  Her eyes met his, darkened with need. Her bare breasts, peeking out of the open flaps of her robe, wobbled to life as she landed on her back, coming to a plump stop next to her arms as she slowly rose them over her head.

Defenseless, he followed her as she stretched languidly, careful not to move too fast. He made sure to keep himself on his arms and knees as he came over her, fingering the dip in her neck that had spelled her defeat.  His fingers danced lower, grazing her pussy over the fabric of her robe for only a moment, long enough for her eyes to fly open, wide and excited. His hand traveled back up to her breast.  He cupped it again, with more purpose this time, before sliding it back down and encircling one of her slim ankles.