Chapter 14 #2
What if, right now, she’s not thinking about me at all?
What if this is the start of something real, something more, and I’m just standing here, letting it happen?
The thought rips through me, hot and sharp, a flash of white-hot panic I can’t ignore following.
It’s not a date. Not really. Right?
She said yes, though. That has to mean something.
But it’s a fundraiser. Work stuff. Sort of.
Isn’t it?
But she looked like a fucking angel in her dress. A sexy, little angel.
Shit. It’s a fucking date.
But she baked for us before she left. For me. If going out tonight meant something, why would she do that? She would have just made cookies or something.
No, she made strawberry shortcake. Shortcake! She had to be trying to tell me something.
Trying to wake me the fuck up?
Oooor I’m just reading way too much into…everything and nothing is different. Nothing at all has changed.
So why does it feel like everything changed the second the door closed behind her, and I just watched it happen?
This…this can’t be just another mistake of mine.
It can’t be just another thing I look back on and regret.
This is her.
Paige.
My Paige.
My pulse pounds in my ears, my chest tightening so much, it feels like something inside me is about to snap.
I scrub my hands over my face, but it doesn’t erase the images burning into my brain.
Prescott reaching for her hand. Paige letting him. Maybe even liking it.
No.
No, no, no.
Why didn’t I say something? She looked at me, didn’t she? Like she wanted to make sure it was okay with me? Not for permission but out of respect because she feels this too?
She baked for me, and I just let her go, watched her walk right out the door. Sure, I didn’t know she baked until after she left but still. That had to mean something. It had to. But maybe it didn’t.
I’m full-on pacing now, wearing down the grass along the side of her building like a stalker. I tug on the ends of my hair, telling myself to chill.
But it’s nearly nine thirty, and he said she’d be back by eight, so where the fuck are they?
An image flashes before my eyes—him leading her into some fancy downtown condo—and literal vomit rises in my throat.
Shit.
Oh god.
Oh fuck.
I freeze in place, cold, hard determination flowing through me and allowing me to think clearly for the first time in the last few hours.
No.
Not oh fuck.
Oh fuck no.
Yanking my phone out, I damn near jog across the yard, hitting Call on Cameron’s name.
She answers on the first ring. “Hey, Chaser, how’d it go?”
“Give me the address, Cam.”
“The what?” I hear some shuffling around. “Chase, where are you?”
“I know you have her location like I know Brady has mine. Give me the address. Please.”
“I’m putting you on speaker to look but you’re freaking me out. What’s wrong? Did she text for an escape?”
“No.” I grind my teeth, feet carrying me faster. “She did not.”
“Well then, what’s wrong—”
“I need to go and get her, Cameron.”
“But…ohh. Shit. Um…okay. Wait.”
“What, what is it?”
“She’s… Wait, you’re at her dorm?”
I look back at it. “I might have been waiting.”
Thanks, Brady. Shithead.
“Chase, it looks like she’s in her room.”
I jerk to a stop, whipping around to glare at Paige’s building. “What?”
“It says she’s been there for twenty minutes. Should I call her?”
“Do not call her.” I’ve already spun around, stalking my ass back to the building. “I’m hanging up.”
Shoving my phone in my pocket, I jog the last few steps, prepared to bang on the door, but someone steps out, allowing me through. I slip past the RA, ignoring her shouting as I cut into the stairwell and take the stairs two at a time to Paige’s floor.
I burst out of the doors, my adrenaline at an all-time high.
I wait until I’m almost at her room to call her, my limbs shaking.
My anxiety spikes as the phone rings and rings, and she doesn’t pick up.
My fist comes down heavy on the cheap wood, and no one answers.
Why isn’t she answering?
I bang harder. Longer. Louder.
Finally, the door is yanked open but before our eyes meet, I shove my way into her dorm room, vaguely registering her squeal as my eyes snap from each small corner, waiting for the moment they collide with another man’s. But the space is empty, no closets or bathrooms to hide inside.
“Chase, what—”
“Just…” I close my eyes and my head falls back as I take a deep breath, trying to find some semblance of calm. “Give me a second.”
Inhale.
He’s not here.
She wasn’t in here with him.
Exhale.
But she was out with him and for a lot longer than planned.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, worried.
A scoff leaves me, and I shake my head. “No, Paige. No, everything is not okay.”
“What happened?” She shuffles closer, but I still can’t quite look at her.
“Did you have fun?” The words come out sharper than intended.
My eyes cut her way at her answering silence, even though I stay facing the wall.
“Did you have fun tonight?”
Her little head tips, gaze safe on mine. “What’s this about?”
In the next second, I’m crowding her, stepping in to her. “Tell me. Tell me if you had a fun.”
“Yes.” A frown builds on her brow, but she doesn’t look away. “I had a good time tonight.”
My jaw clenches, and I close my eyes. “Did he like your dress?”
“I… What?”
My lids flick open, and I don’t realize I’m walking until her back meets the door, my knuckles find their way under her chin, and I tip her head back, so she’s forced to look at me.
“Did Prescott like the dress you bought just for him?”
That little scowl of hers deepens, but I push on.
“That dress. Did he tell you, you looked perfect in it? Because you did. Did he tell you you looked like something no one else should touch?” My insides are fucking folding. “Because that’s what I thought.”
She swallows, gaze ping-ponging between my eyes.
“Did he…did he say you looked dangerous tonight, warn you that the mere sight of you would wreck a lesser man?” I cup her cheek, my thumb brushing along the edge of her lips. “Did he say those things to you, Angel?”
A sharp shake of the head, a silent no falling from her lips.
“Good,” I whisper. “That’s good.” I pause, my stomach in knots.
Her little hand comes up, pressing to my chest, and all I can think is how much I wish she’d keep it there. “Chase?”
“I didn’t want this,” I admit, my tone shredded, my temples pounding. “I tried so hard to ignore it, to avoid this, but I physically can’t. Not anymore.”
Her little fist gripping my shirt, and my feet shuffle impossibly closer.
“It’s me, Paige,” I dare to breathe out, hoping this isn’t another fuckup in my life as my fingers fold into her hair. “I’m the lesser man and you fucking wreck me.”
My mouth comes down on hers, and there’s no warning and nothing soft about it. I crush my lips to hers, fist tangling in her long locks. Tugging, turning until her neck is fully stretched, her mouth up and open in offering, and holy shit, does she offer.
Full and complete submission.
I didn’t know that’s what I needed from her until this very moment.
Mine.
She falls into me, molds to me, moaning as I lead us through this.
I want her to feel it—every word I didn’t say, every moment that I stayed quiet when I shouldn’t have.
Every second I pretended I could avoid this—her. Us.
She gasps into my mouth, and I don’t pull back.
I press in, my other hand gripping her waist, needing her even closer, no matter that I’ve already got her smashed against the door.
She doesn’t resist, just melts into me like her whole body’s been waiting for this too.
Like I am the home it’s been looking for.
She makes this sound—soft and shattered—and I swear I lose my goddamn mind. I don’t ease up. I take more, and that seems to be exactly what she wants. To give.
Her hands lock tight around me, nails pressing into my scalp. It’s not pain; it’s the rush right before the snap. The kind that coils in your gut and steals the breath from your lungs, and mine are fucking starved but only for her. For this.
When we pull apart, her lips are swollen, her breath shaky, and her eyes?
Wrecked. Just like mine.
For a moment, everything fades away, the noise, the pressure, the questions—gone. All that matters are the two of us and the utter rightness that swells in my chest at the feel of her in my arms.
But the longer I stare into her beautiful, blue eyes, the more those barricades begin to tumble at my feet. She’s literal perfection and staring down the field with something bigger than me waiting in the end zone—a gold-plated future. And me?
I’ve got nothing in my hands but her and a thousand reasons she should walk away from me.
She deserves something solid, a sure thing, a plan.
Not this.
Not me and my mess.
Proving she can see me like no one else, her soft, little hand reaches up, pressing into my cheek, and I soak in the contact, desperate for it.
“What is it?” she asks, worry in her tone.
I place my hands over hers.
“I have nothing,” I admit. Shame sweeps in like a hand around my throat, squeezing tighter with every word until my voice comes out even quieter than before.
“No money, no plan, and maybe not even a future worth dragging you into. It’s messed up, beyond selfish, really, and I told myself I wouldn’t be that way anymore, but I want you to take a chance on me anyway.
To see if I’m worth the risk, even though I’m not so sure I am.
” A bitter scoff leaves me, and I swallow hard.
“Even though I’m almost positive I’m not. ”
Her features soften but not in a way that weighs like pity. It’s tender. Warm.
It’s all Paige.
Her free hand joins the other on my cheek and she raises onto her tiptoes. “You’re wrong.” She speaks so damn sweetly, so softly that something in me cracks, a hard shell deep inside giving way and revealing something underneath. Something raw.
“The only thing I have to offer you is me, and that’s not saying much.”
“Chase…”
My hands slide down, fingers wrapping around her wrists. “I make a lot of mistakes.”
“We all do.”
My forehead falls to meet hers. “I don’t want to make one with you. You deserve more.”
“And you are more.”
“Can I be yours?”
“That depends,” she whispers, sliding her lips across mine and leaving me chasing the feeling as she pulls back.
“On what?”
“If I get to keep you.”
My hands find their way under her thighs, and I hoist her up, holding her to me. “I might beg you to.”
“I might like that.”
I might already be falling in love with you…