Chapter 14 #2
His grin was wicked and there was a challenge in his dark eyes that reminded me of the first time we’d kissed, when he’d been nothing but sharp edges, friction, and a bad attitude.
As I watched, his grin widened into a smirk, and he dropped to his knees.
He stared up at me and then, very slowly and very intentionally, he licked his lips.
“Holy shit,” I said. My dick throbbed, and I grasped at his shoulders, holding him in place.
I was ready to let him blow me right where I stood—right until someone rattled the door handle.
I froze, listening for the sound of Bobby’s keys, but heard only silence.
Still, it was a sharp reminder that the risk of my boss walking in was small but very real, and it was enough to kill my erection.
“We can’t do this here,” I said regretfully and tucked my softening dick back into my pants.
“Why not?” Chase glared at me with enough heat to start a small fire from his spot on the floor.
“You’re kidding, right? Bobby almost caught us once. I don’t know about you, but I need this job.”
He got to his feet, brushing at the knees of his pants, and rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
He’d gone from horny to pissed in four point oh seconds, which was the opposite of what usually happened.
Something was definitely going on with him.
But I knew better than to ask directly, so instead I wrapped my arms around him and nuzzled at the side of his throat, hoping it would get him to loosen up. “We can go back to your place instead.”
He jerked out of my grip. “That’s not happening.”
“Okay,” I said. “My place then.”
Chase’s shoulders stiffened. “We either fuck here or we don’t fuck at all.”
I blinked and waited for the words to make sense. They didn’t. “What?”
He tugged himself out of my grasp and shrugged. Shot me a look. “It was good, wasn’t it? When we were just fucking around, I mean. It was hot.”
“Yeah,” I said, not sure where this was going and not liking it a single bit. “Why would you ask that?”
“Just, it was hot,” he said, one corner of his mouth tugging up. He looked away. “So we should go back to how it was.”
“What?” I asked again.
He folded his arms over his chest and jutted his chin out. “I don’t want you coming to my place again, and I’m not coming to yours, so let’s just go back to fucking like how we started out.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” I asked him over the sudden blast of white noise in my skull.
“Don’t be so weird about it,” he said. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“If this is about Cash, then—”
“Don’t bring him into this.” Chase froze, his expression hardening. “Fuck you.”
I willed my tone to stay even. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s changed.”
“That’s the point,” he said, narrow-eyed. “Nothing’s changed. We can still fuck.”
I tried to get a read on him, but his walls were back up, and I knew it did no good to push against them.
If I tried, he’d only push back harder. I’d thought of him as a feral cat more than once, and he had that same look in his eyes now—the one where I didn’t know, and he probably didn’t either, if he was going to turn tail and bolt or tear me into bloody shreds.
I didn’t recognize the guy who’d kissed me and snuggled with me those few times.
Didn’t recognize the guy I thought was falling for me the same way I was falling for him.
“Okay,” I said. “I hear what you’re saying, but no.”
“No?” If he narrowed his eyes any more, he wouldn’t be able to see a thing.
“I don’t want to go back to what we had,” I said. “I liked where we were going. Where I thought we were going, as boyfriends. So, no. If you’re offering me the choice between the way we started and nothing at all, then I guess we are breaking up.”
For a second he looked truly shocked, like I’d said something completely beyond his comprehension.
And I wanted to reach out, to pull him into a hug and tell him that if he really thought that all we had was fucking, then he was wrong about me, and he was wrong about himself too.
I wanted to tell him that I wanted the Chase Hooper who laughed, and cuddled, and let me introduce him to my family as my boyfriend.
The guy I’d only caught glimpses of because he was hiding behind that goddamn wall, but I didn’t say that, because he was a feral cat.
Then he rallied, and scowled, and said, “Fuck you then, I guess.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice rasping. “Fuck me.” I dug into my pocket for my car keys and said, “I can still give you a lift home.”
His scowl deepened, and he curled his fingers into fists. “Fuck you!”
And then, leaving the words echoing in the kitchen, he stormed out.
I heard the door slam, and the bell jingled a long time after he was gone.
When the bell rang again my heart raced, and for one shining second I dared to hope that Chase regretted walking out and was here to ask for a second chance.
But this was Chase. He wouldn’t ask for a first chance if his life depended on it.
So I was disappointed but not really surprised when someone else stuck their head through the doorway to the kitchen.
“Everything okay?” Tyler asked. “I just saw Chase taking off like his ass was on fire.” He wrinkled his nose. “You guys fight or something?”
“Or something,” I said and rested my head on the prep table and let out a sigh.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to say the words we broke up, but at the same time I needed to tell someone what had happened, and I knew Tyler wouldn’t be a dick about it.
“Chase wants to keep it casual. I said no. So he told me, ‘fuck you,’ and I guess we’re done. ”
Tyler hissed between his teeth. “Ouch.”
“Yeah,” I said into the table. “It worked out about how you’d expect.”
I heard Tyler rattling around somewhere behind me and then the heavy clunk of a bottle being placed on the prep table. I lifted my head and said, “Why do you have the Marsala?”
Tyler set two coffee mugs down beside the bottle. “Drink up, boss.”
“That’s for tiramisu.”
“Unpopular opinion,” Tyler said, “but tiramisu tastes like ball sweat. And it didn’t sell when we made it, so this is fair game.” He poured a generous amount of the wine into a mug and slid it my way. “Get that in you.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Says the guy who tried to date Chase,” Tyler said. He poured himself a mug. “What? Too soon?”
I snorted. “Asshole.” I took a sip of wine. “That’s gross.”
“It’s either this or vanilla extract,” Tyler said.
“Or we could not drink anything?”
“That’s quitter talk,” Tyler said and slapped me on the back. “So, you want to talk about it?”
“Still trying to get my head around what happened, honestly. I think I just turned down no-strings sex.” I tried to laugh, and it didn’t work.
“Yeah,” Tyler said, “but that’s not what you wanted, right?
Nothing wrong with that.” He lifted himself up onto the prep table and patted the space beside him.
“Did I ever tell you how Jess and I met? We were a one-night stand that went horribly wrong. So I get it. The wanting more part, not necessarily the Chase part.”
“Still too soon,” I said. I sat on the table beside him and took a swig of the awful wine.
It tasted slightly less awful this time around.
By the third swig my taste buds were numb and it slid down just fine.
And it was doing a pretty good job of numbing the crushing disappointment that was threatening to roll over me too.
I liked Chase. He was abrasive and rude and took no shit, but most of that was just for show.
Underneath he was smarter than people thought, and he was secretly kind—I knew that from watching him with Gracie—and he was protective as hell when it came to his family.
But I only knew those things about him because he’d let me peek past his defenses.
And maybe he thought I’d seen too much, who knew?
Whatever the reason, he’d slammed those walls right back up, and I couldn’t see him letting me back in any time soon.
Tyler poured more wine into my cup. “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
I took another drink and felt the warmth spread down to my toes. “I doubt it. Have you ever seen Chase back down about anything?”
Tyler grimaced. “True.” He slapped my shoulder. “Well, maybe it’s for the best, if you don’t want the same thing.”
“Maybe,” I said. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever Chase had said just now, it wasn’t true.
We’d held each other the night after Sam’s party, and Chase wasn’t as good a bullshitter as he thought he was.
He hadn’t been faking, not then and not the time at his place when we hadn’t just fucked.
We’d shared something softer and more meaningful, something deeper than just getting off together.
Chase and I did want the same thing, even though he’d never admit it.
And that meant we were both missing out.
Feral cats only bit and clawed because they were scared.
But that didn’t make it sting any less.
“There’s another bottle after this one,” Tyler said, tipping the last of the Marsala into our mugs.
“I’m already too fucked up to drive,” I said.
“Then we might as well open the next bottle,” he pointed out with impeccable logic.
I was gonna have to call Mom to come and get me.
But fuck it. It wasn’t like that was the worst thing to happen today, was it? Just like my inevitable hangover wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen tomorrow either.
“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s open the next one.”