Just Let Me Love You (20 page)

I’m suddenly hard as fuck, and I want her like nobody’s business. “Lift up your dress,” I command.

Kay leans back, and I take the opportunity to trail kisses down her neck, until I have her rasping, “Okay. Let me take my panties off.”

I never stop kissing her, even as she lifts her dress to slip her panties down her legs. My lips travel down to her cleavage, kissing the neckline of her dress. And then I reach up and pop open a few buttons, exposing her lacy bra.

Kay is practically panting as she moves to straddle me, and I push up the stupid, fucking hospital gown I’m wearing and give her the tip of my cock. “Unh…” she moans.

She’s always incoherent at times like these, and I have to smile, pleased at my effect on her.

“Ease down on me, baby girl.” Arching my hips, I make it simple for her to impale herself on my dick.

And she does, with no hesitation.

“Fuck,” I utter when we’re fully joined. “You are so fucking wet. You must like hospital sex.”

“I like
you
, Chase Gartner,” she says.

She circles her hips, and then moves up and down my shaft slowly and lazily. It’s all gentle and easy, at first. But then we start fucking—hard and dirty, and a little nasty. After all, what we’re doing is forbidden and we could easily get caught, which makes it all the better.

Kay’s hands are on my chest, and my hands are in her hair. The bed’s making an awful racket, as is Kay, which compels me to whisper, “Shh, babe. Someone’s gonna hear us.”

“I don’t care,” she tells me. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Chase. Fuck me as hard as you can.”

Her cursing, which is rare unless we’re in bed, makes me start to come. “Shit,” I groan. I prolong as long as I can, stilling inside of her, but my release is past the point of no return.

Kay starts to pulse around me as I come.

We are still panting, recovering, when, to my surprise, I realize I am still rock-hard.

“Want to go again?” I ask, raising a brow and thrusting up into her.

“Yes, but”—Kay glances at the door—“what if someone comes in.”

I laugh. “You weren’t worried about someone coming in before.” A strategic shift of my hips, cock still buried deep inside, makes her look like she’s reconsidering.

“Still want to stop?” I ask.

“No, no way.”

“That’s my girl.”

And it’s true. Kay will
always
be my girl.

Kay

M
essing around in Chase’s hospital bed is like playing with fire. And we find ourselves almost burnt. Luckily, though, I hear the voices outside the door before anyone ventures in.

“We need to make sure we’re decent,” I whisper to Chase. “There’s someone in the hall.”

But Chase is not done with me.

He thrusts upward, hard. “Not yet,” he rasps, just before his hot mouth descends to one exposed breast.

“Uh, I don’t—” Another forceful thrust, and I’m panting a different tune. “Oh, my God, I changed my mind. Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Chase rasps.

When he feels my release, he lets himself go, and not more than a minute later, the door swings open.

“Close call,” I murmur as I’m adjusting my dress and jumping back over to the chair next to Chase’s bed with a speed I didn’t know I possessed.

“Sheesh,” I say, out of breath and still straightening my clothes. “We were almost caught red-handed.”

Chase adjusts the sheet on his bed and whispers over to me, “That’s what made it even more fun, right?”

I can’t argue that point, so I just smile.

A lady in a white lab coat, the doctor, walks over to the bed. She’s busy looking down at a clipboard, so I assume she’s seen nothing. Chase’s mom and Will are right behind her.

But just then, when I think our secret will never be discovered, I notice my pink panties sticking out from under the sheet covering Chase.
Oh, no
!

“How are we feeling today, Mr. Gartner?” the doctor asks, smiling kindly.

Thank God she’s focused on Chase and not me, because I can’t stop staring at the rogue panties.

Chase, unaware of my oversight in getting dressed, replies to the doctor, “Great, I feel really good. I think I’m ready to get out of here.”

“Well, let’s check you over and then I’ll make a final decision on releasing you.”

The doctor sends me an accusatory glance as she moves closer to Chase, and I’m fairly certain she’s figured out that we just had sex. After all, she is a doctor, right? She probably knows the signs to look for, like my flushed face, or Chase’s sly smile.

Crap, I hope it doesn’t smell like sex in here. And then there are those damn pink panties. Talk about a dead giveaway.

When the doctor glances back down at her clipboard, I attract Chase’s attention by nodding to the incriminating evidence of our lust gone wild. He chuckles when he sees the article of clothing I’m referring to. And then, to my relief, he covertly tucks the evidence farther under the sheet, all without the doctor noticing a thing.

Abby, though, sees Chase’s actions and frowns accordingly.

Will, the ever-observant little shit, barks out a laugh.

“Great,” I mutter under my breath. I know then that four of the five people in the room have now seen those damn panties.

The doctor looks up from her clipboard and gets down to business, focusing on her patient. After checking Chase’s vital signs, she examines his head wound. With the bandage off, the stitches are in full view, and I wince at how painful they appear. There’s a jagged line of black threads along the side of Chase’s head.

Covered, his injury didn’t seem so bad, not as real. But I can’t deny the icy stab of reality that comes over me when I see how badly he’s been hurt. It’s a grim reminder that Chase could have been ended up a lot worse than this.

Reaching over, I grab his hand and mouth, “I love you,”

“I love you, too,” he replies, his eyes searching mine. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

Part of Chase’s silky, light-brown hair has been shaved off. When he sees me staring and staring, he chuckles and says, “Guess I’ll be getting this evened up and going back to a prison buzz cut for a while.”

“Guess so,” I say.
But I’m sure you’ll still look hot
, I think to myself.

Abby and Will continue to hang back, observing everything quietly.

While the doctor is writing notes on her clipboard, Chase asks her, “So, what’s the verdict, doc? Am I good to go?”

“Actually, yes,” she replies, glancing up. “I’m discharging you today.”

With his eyes moving to me, Chase asks, “Any travel restrictions?”

The doctor shakes her head. “No, no restrictions at all. But I want you to follow-up with your family physician when you return to Ohio. And, of course, anything unusual that pops up, like sudden-onset headaches, blurred vision, that sort of thing, I want you to head straight to the ER.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Chase replies with a mock-salute and a smile that delivers.

The doctor blushes at Chase’s charming ways.

“Anyway,” she says, smiling back at Chase. “A nurse will be in with instructions for your aftercare. I think if all goes well, you should be right as rain from here on out.”

“Not that he was all that right beforehand,” Will mutters.

He’s teasing, but Abby quickly chastises him. “Will!”

Chase laughs and says, “Relax, Mom.” Turning to his brother, he adds. “And you—just wait till I’m back to one-hundred percent. We’ll see who’s ‘right,’ then. Or more likely, who is
left
upright.”

“Bring it on, bro,” Will shoots back as he pretends to flex.

Abby rolls her eyes, but like how I feel, there is relief and happiness in her expression. She’s glad Chase and Will are both okay and able to joke around. I know this because the alternative is unthinkable…for both her and me.

The doctor leaves, and Chase and I get down to the business of discussing when we should head back to Ohio.

“You should stay a while longer,” Abby breaks in. “Greg will be back tomorrow. I’d like to make a special dinner so we can all celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” Chase wants to know.

“That you and Will are okay, for one. And”—her gaze flits from Chase’s face to mine—“we should also celebrate that you two are now married.”

I know this is Abby’s way of saying she’s accepted our marriage, even though we chose an unorthodox route.

“So, it’s decided?” Abby prompts.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Chase says. “I kind of just wanted to go home, you know?”

“Yeah,” Abby replies, eyes downcast, “I know you need to get back.”

But when Will pipes in with, “Please, dude, what’s one more day?” I know we’ll be staying through the weekend. Not that I mind.

Chase sighs. “You okay with that, Kay,” he asks as he turns to me.

“Of course,” I reply.

I’m fine with whatever is decided, since truthfully, I’m just thankful Chase is all right.

Chase

D
inner with the family on my last night in Vegas goes much better than the first dinner we sat down to, shortly after Kay and I arrived in town. The positivity in the air gives me peace, peace that everything might turn out okay with
all
of us. We’re a little crazy, yeah, but we are still family.

Greg is his usual reserved self at the table, but there is genuine concern in his voice when he brings up the accident.

“You’re a very lucky young man,” he says to me just as my mom sets a pot roast in the center of the dining room table.

Turning to Will, he adds, “And so are you, son.”

Normally my brother would shoot off his mouth about how Greg is not his father and don’t be calling him son, that sort of thing, but today he just smiles and says, “Thanks, Greg. And don’t I know it. Chase and I were both really lucky.”

I think my near-miss with mortality has shaken Will. That, coupled with the quality time I’ve spent trying to reach him, and Cassie being out of the picture, leads me to believe that my brother won’t be turning back to drugs to solve his problems. He knows there’s nothing good to be found down that forlorn path. If anything, in our family, indulging our weaknesses leads only to disaster.

Once my mom is seated at the table, we dig into the delicious meal she’s made.

After a few minutes of everyone enjoying their food, she asks me, “So, are you flying back to Ohio, or are you still planning on driving your father’s old bike back.”

“I don’t know,” I reply, glancing over at my new wife, seated next to me, for her take on the situation. “What do you want to do, Kay?”

I’d originally hoped to drive the bike back to Harmony Creek with Kay. But my thinking it might be nice to see the country seems like a poor idea now. Too much has happened, and the delays have messed with our work commitments.

“Well,” Kay replies, frowning. “I’d love to drive back, especially on the bike, but I should probably get back to school as soon as possible. Father Maridale has had to cover for me a lot lately. I don’t want to take advantage of his generosity.”

“Yeah, I know.” I blow out a breath. “I need to get back to work, too.”

Abby nods. “Okay. Do you want me to ship the bike to Harmony Creek, then?”

“Uh…” I glance over at Will, who is pushing around peas on his plate.

Shit, I can tell the kid wants the old Indian to stay. He’s done really well with learning to drive it, and in less than a year he’ll be sixteen. Do I really need a motorcycle in Ohio? Probably not. I mean, sure, I’d love to have the bike since it was Dad’s, but Will has as much claim to it as I do.

With my eyes on my brother, I say, “Nah, why don’t we just keep the bike here and give it to Will next summer.”

Will’s head shoots up. “Really?” he says.

Kay shoots me a smile and mouths, “That’s sweet of you.”

Mom shrugs and says, “It’s your call, Chase.”

Fuck, that hit on the head Friday must’ve really scared her. She’s not turning this decision into a debate or a challenge to her authority.

But I want to be fair, so, as a group, we decide the Indian will stay. Even Greg agrees.

After dinner, Kay and I book our flights back home for the following day. I can tell my mom really wants to watch a movie—as a family—so I decide to give her this. Greg will never take the place of my father, but there’s no point in shunning all activity involving him. After all, the family dinner went well enough.