Chapter 51 Chase
Chase
I wander up to our hotel room hours later, sucker punched and in a daze. Annie’s follow-up text remains unanswered, and I know she’s tucked inside this room, wide awake and worried sick.
Me: My parents are here. I’ll see you back at the hotel.
Annie: Do you need me? Can I meet them?
I never responded.
Even now, I don’t know what to say.
All I want to do is touch her. Hold her. Sink inside her and beg for her goodness and light to vanquish my demons.
My hand shakes as I swipe the keycard over the sensor.
The soft whir of a lock. The door creaking open.
I trudge inside, watching as Annie leaps out of bed with her heart in her eyes, her gaze glimmering blue and lovesick.
“Chase.” She drinks me in. Assesses every inch of my sadness. “I was worried.”
I’m sure I look pale, chalky, and half dead, the black shadows saturating the warmth in my eyes.
I need her.
I need her.
She pads toward me, knowing something is wrong. “Tell me what happened. Talk to me.”
My jaw shifts. Throat rolls.
Her stare gleams with anxiety and dread, taking my silence as an omen.
“Chase, please—”
I grab her. Before she can take another breath, I’m hoisting her into the air and tossing her on the bed.
The mattress bounces, her air locks up. A second later, I’m crawling on top of her, my mouth devouring hers so fiercely, I nearly crack a tooth.
My tongue plunges inside, my body smothering her softness in hard muscle and heat and trapped emotion.
When I pull away, nearly gasping, I pin her wrists above her head and rasp against those watermelon lips, “I need you.”
I watch the way her pulse throbs in the delicate arc of her throat, causing the little mole below her ear to shudder and dance.
She nods quickly, brows pinched together. “Take me.”
A growl rumbles in my chest.
Something howls in the far corners of my mind.
Fear.
Need.
Devastation.
My grip is bruising, punishing.
I release her wrists, flipping her onto her stomach in one fast, rough motion.
I tear off her pajama shorts. Rip open my belt.
Pull her underwear off with my teeth as my boxers drop to my ankles.
With a savage tug, I yank her forward, splitting her thighs apart and thrusting into her from behind.
She cries out, gripping the bedcovers, her face smashed into the lump of sheets.
I rut into her, hands gripping her hips with the force of a dozen men.
Again. Again.
I feel possessed. Broken. Desperate.
She claws at the bed, her voice muffled, meeting me thrust for thrust. My hand cuffs the nape of her neck as I lean forward, hitting deeper, my pace nearing violence as our bodies slap together and she soaks my cock.
Warm. Good. Sweet.
My girl.
My everything.
“Annie, Annie, Annie…” I chant her name, reminding myself she’s still here, that I’m still here, that we’re still here.
She writhes beneath me, her hand reaching behind me to grip my neck. “Oh God…Chase. More. Don’t stop.”
I fist her hair, angling her head to the side so I can devour her throat, inhaling the taste of salty sweat and lingering perfume. My teeth clamp around the soft flesh, my tongue swirling the edges of that tiny mole.
Then I zone out.
Blackened vision and wayward thoughts.
The room falls away, her whimpers fading into white noise.
I’m grunting, thrusting, disintegrating.
I’m gone. I’m nowhere.
She’s still beneath me, warm and gasping, but something breaks loose in my head. My sight darkens at the edges, a tunnel with no end. My thoughts scatter like ash.
And I move without meaning.
Like something in me is trying to burn itself out.
I don’t hear her anymore. Can’t find her.
My hips pump hard and brutal as I pin her wrists to the bed again, needing leverage, an anchor, something to tether me to reality.
To her. To us. To me.
Her pussy strangles me. My hand is still tied up her long hair, clutching hard, my face buried in her neck as my other hand grips her thigh and my cock pummels her slick heat.
My mind is gone. But when she breaks apart beneath me, sobbing her release into the mattress, my body reacts, and I splinter into pieces.
I come so hard, the room spins.
Bending. Tilting.
Pleasure rockets through me, eclipsing the agony, slaughtering the demons in my head with swords and bullets. My legs shake, body buckles, my head thrown back with a roar.
I fill her. My cum spills out, trickling down her milky-white thighs as I shudder through the aftermath, collapsing on top of her with a fractured moan.
I’m breathing hard. She’s breathing harder.
I realize I’m crushing her, so I pull up slowly, slide out, and just stand there.
Staring. Vision glazed, flickering with white lights.
I wait for my brain to click back on. Wait for the room to stop spinning.
Weakly, she pushes up from the bed and turns to look at me as I haul my pants up my legs and flick the zipper. I scrub a hand down my sweat-slick face. Try to get a handle on my oxygen. My thoughts. The present moment.
And I see it.
That’s when reality comes crashing back like a sledgehammer.
I bite down on my tongue so hard, I’m close to chewing it right off.
I won’t look at her. I can’t.
I do.
Every muscle goes stiff like a goat playing dead.
Her hair is in disarray, mauled by my hands. Mascara is smudged under her eyes.
There’s a bite mark on her neck, bruises already blooming on her hips and thighs, red handprints all over her body.
She looks wrecked. Destroyed.
By me.
Holy shit.
I did that.
I blacked out, went somewhere else, and became the one person I swore I’d never become—
Him.