TWENTY
SERENA
CHASE: I’m on the fire escape. Open the window.
I’m gripping my phone when Chase’s message lands. My breath catches. Relief rushes in. I unlock my bathroom door, and lunge for the window, fingers fumbling the latch. It’s stiff and takes me a moment, but then the window is open and there is Chase, all broad shoulders and stormy eyes, crouched on the fire escape like a knight who took a wrong turn at a fairytale castle. All the fear leaves me in a whoosh, and my legs go soft with the rush of adrenaline and safety.
Chase is here.
I’m safe.
I step back as he climbs through the window. A sudden urge to laugh pushes up inside me at the thought of this huge hulk of a man, all muscles and height, squeezing himself through a window to rescue me. He stands to full height, and my tiny apartment feels instantly smaller. Then his arms wrap around me. A full-body hug that pulls me into him. I breathe in the woody, sweet scent of his aftershave. My hands grip the back of his tee, feeling the heat of his skin, the power of his muscles.
I can feel the tension coiled inside him, like a predator poised to attack, but his voice when he speaks is soft. “Are you OK?” he murmurs against my hair.
“I am now. Ryan is still?—”
The next bang of fists on wood steals the words from my mouth. It’s followed by a hard, jarring thud, then another. The door holds but something in the wood gives. There’s a loud crack that makes me yelp in surprise, despite Chase’s arms around me.
“Stay back,” he says as he steps out of my arms, and in long, fierce strides, he’s at my door, throwing it open in one swift move.
Ryan must not expect it, because he stumbles back, almost falling on his ass. His eyes bug out as he takes in Chase and the crackling fury rolling off him in waves. Gone is the easy-going, always-joking man everyone knows. In his place stands someone terrifying in his stillness—shoulders squared, jaw clenched, eyes lit with a cold, focused rage. This isn’t the golden retriever boyfriend people expect. This isn’t Chase the quarterback, either. This is Chase the protector, and he looks ready to dismantle anything that threatens me.
“Leave.” Chase’s voice is gravel and command. He doesn’t step forward. He doesn’t need to. His presence alone makes the hallway drop ten degrees. Watching him like this, all power and quiet wrath, I’ve never felt safer. Like nothing could touch me with him here.
Ryan’s eyes flick to me. “You got me fired,” he hisses.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I reply.
Chase moves, just one step, but it sends Ryan retreating. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m gonna call the police, and you’re gonna find yourself in more trouble than losing your job.”
I watch Ryan deflate. He’s still angry, but something in him recognizes the end of the road. “I didn’t want to lose you, Serena,” he calls to me. “That’s all.”
Chase cuts in, “Don’t you dare speak to her.”
“I know I went about it the wrong way,” he replies to Chase now, “but everything I did was for her.”
“Goodbye, Ryan,” Chase replies, calm and final. “Don’t come near Serena again. Next time, I won’t be this nice.”
Ryan opens his mouth, and I can see the retort forming in his thoughts, then dying on his lips as somewhere beneath the haze of alcohol, he knows Chase isn’t bluffing. Without a word, he turns and stumbles his way down the stairs. Chase remains in the doorway, his back to me, hand gripping the frame until he hears the entrance door open then shut. Only then does he turn to face me, and I let out a breath that turns into a shaky laugh.
“Should we add fire-escape rescues to your résumé?” I say, trying to joke, but the sob catches in my throat and I cover my face with my hands. Chase is by my side instantly, wrapping me in his arms and his body like he could shield me from the whole world.
He presses a kiss to my forehead, and despite the adrenaline and what’s just happened, a zap of electricity shoots to my core. “He won’t come back.”
I let myself be held for another minute before I step to the door and open it, inspecting the wood. “It’s not too bad,” I say. “The top hinge has come away from the wood a little. I’ll call the landlord tomorrow.” The practicality grounds me. I’m not sure I’ll sleep tonight without jumping at every little sound, but I’m no longer terrified.
Chase shakes his head as though he knows what I’m thinking. “I’m calling a repair guy I know first thing tomorrow. But you’re not staying here tonight.”
“I’ll be OK,” I say, voice too high, giving me away.
Chase shoots me a look that dares me to argue. “Pack a bag. You’re coming with me. I don’t want Ryan deciding to try again tonight here or at my apartment across town. We’re going to Oakwood.”
I’m about to protest. To remind Chase that he has training tomorrow, and I have work, and it would make so much more sense to stay in the city, but then he folds his arms across his chest and raises one eyebrow. “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder, princess.”
I crack a smile. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?” There’s something dangerous in Chase’s voice. Something I don’t recognize that has me heading to my bedroom to pack an overnight bag.
We drive in silence. The highway is dark, the headlights reaching only the asphalt in front of us and nothing beyond. Not the untouched sprawl of the national park land. The pine forests climbing the slopes, wild and beautiful, the backdrop to a journey from the city that usually signals I’m going to one of my two favorite places—Oakwood Ranch or carrying on down the highway to the outskirts of Idaho Springs where my parents and Elle live.
I stare into the darkness, trying to make out the shapes of the jagged foothills or the distant mountains. I swear I can sense them there even if I can’t see them. I give up and glance at Chase. His hands grip the wheel like he’s still furious about Ryan’s drunken attack on my apartment door. So am I. What the hell was Ryan thinking? The evening replays in my thoughts, pulse kicking up as those pounding fists ricochet in my mind.
Guilt swarms in my belly. I’ve been ignoring Ryan’s escalating behavior for months. Telling myself he’ll calm down or move on. I should’ve done something sooner. What if it had been Liv in the apartment alone tonight? What if he’d managed to break the door in?
I shudder, suddenly feeling sick.
Chase’s firm hand lands on my thigh. “He can’t get to you now,” he says.
“I know. I just feel stupid for not dealing with his behavior sooner.”
“This isn’t on you, Serena. What he did tonight, and what he’s been doing since the breakup to get you back, is not OK. And that’s all on him.”
“I still don’t get why he said I got him fired though,” I reply. “You’re the only person I told about everything that’s been happening. After his threat to take my job away last week, I was planning to talk to Gina in HR this week, but that doesn’t explain how it’s my fault he lost his job.”
Chase’s hand moves back to the wheel, his voice hard. “He deserved to be fired.”
There’s something in his voice. I glance at him in the darkness of the cab, and that’s when I see the tight line of his jaw, the muscle twitching in his cheek like he’s holding something back.
“Chase.”
His grip tightens on the wheel.
“Chase, did you speak to someone at the Stormhawks about Ryan?”
Chase frowns. “He shouldn’t have threatened your job like that, Serena. It’s your dream. Your life. And he knew that, and he used it to try and get you back into his bed. He couldn’t get away with it.”
I shake my head, stomach knotting as I realize what Chase has done. “He wasn’t going to get away with it. I told you I would talk to HR. I told you I was going to handle this. But I wanted to do it on my terms to minimize any fallout, like… I don’t know”—I throw my hands out—“Ryan getting drunk and trying to knock my door down.”
Chase is quiet for another moment. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I wanted to protect you.”
“When did you speak to HR about my life and my career and not bother to tell me?” My voice is hard.
There’s a pause, and then: “Friday.”
Three days ago. Reality hits like a blow. “Are you seriously telling me that when we met at the fair, you’d already spoken to HR and didn’t think to mention it? You didn’t think to check with me first?”
Chase’s reply is strangled. “I was waiting for the right moment. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do.”
“You had no right,” I hiss. “What you’ve done is almost as bad as Ryan’s threat. You interfered in my career. You get that, right?”
Finally, his eyes dart to me, sharp and surprised, before he’s staring straight ahead again. “It’s not the same. I was protecting you.”
“You can’t go behind my back and against my wishes and call it protection,” I say, voice a quiet fury.
The air crackles with anger and tension. The betrayal sits heavy in my chest. It’s not because I don’t appreciate that he wants to protect me, but because he made a decision for me. Because he took my voice out of the equation, believing he knew what was best.
We don’t say another word as Chase pulls off the highway, and we hit the dirt track that leads to Oakwood Ranch. He takes a left where the new track forks to his house by the lake and, a few minutes later, we’re inside. Even without pictures on the walls, blankets, pillows, and any real sign this place is lived in, the peace and warmth of Oakwood Ranch is still here, in this house, and it’s almost enough to soothe the anger pounding through me.
“Serena,” Chase says as he closes the door. “I’m sorry.”
I spin around to face him, pulse quickening. “Sorry for going behind my back and thinking you knew what was best, or sorry it blew up in my face and made Ryan come looking for a fight?”
Chase moves a step closer, tension radiating off him like heat from a flame. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But I’m not sorry that Ryan finally got what was coming to him.” His jaw clenches.
I hold my ground, even as my breath hitches. “You don’t suddenly get to flick a switch and start acting like my boyfriend because we’ve been fake dating for a month.”
Another step closer from Chase. We’re inches apart now. My senses fill with the woody vanilla scent of his aftershave. Heat seems to crackle in the air like the final moments before a storm hits.
“There’s nothing fake about me wanting to protect you, Serena. I’ve always had your back. And I always will.”
“Whether I like it or not, right?”
“Of course not.” His voice dips, softer now, regret threading through it. He rubs the back of his neck, eyes searching mine in a way that makes me feel vulnerable and undone. How can one man be so infuriating and so magnetic, so possessive and so thoughtful all at once? “I went about it the wrong way?—”
“You had no right to go about it in any way.” My voice trembles with the effort to stay strong, even as every inch of space between us disappears. Fire burns through my body, but it’s no longer anger I feel, it’s want. I swear I can feel it shimmering in the air too.
“I know,” he says, almost a whisper.
His admission steals the heat from our fight, but it doesn’t dissolve the tension. If anything, it sharpens it, as we stand toe-to-toe, my heart pounding, our breath mingling in the silence that follows.
“This isn’t us,” I whisper. “Why are you suddenly acting like you have a say over my life? You’re not my boyfriend, Chase?”
It comes out like a question. He doesn’t answer, but I watch his gaze drop to my lips, then lift back to my eyes. It’s the same look I felt in the darkness of the Ferris wheel. Heated and intense.
“What if I was?” His voice is low, almost a growl.
“What are saying?” I shake my head, ignoring the way my heart is threatening to explode out of my chest. I don’t breathe as I wait for his reply. I know what he’s saying. Deep down, I know. But after all these years of squashing my feelings down, hiding that part of myself, I have to hear him say it.
“I want you.” The words rush out on an exhale. “You’re all I can think about. You’ve become etched into every thought. I want to make you laugh. I want to hang off every word you have to say. I want to win every game for you. I want you by my side for it all. But most of all—” He pauses. The column of his throat moves as he swallows, his eyes burning into mine. “I want to hear you scream my name when I make you come over and over again, and I want to show you what it means to never have to settle.”
My throat tightens. A dozen replies burn through me. Things I’ve wanted to say for years, but none of them make it past my lips. Because he’s looking at me the way I’ve always looked at him. And there’s no going back from that.
The next second, he steps closer and then I’m in his arms and we’re kissing. Lips and tongue and urgency and need. It’s everything I feel like I’ve waited my whole life for. Chase deepens the kiss, his tongue moving against mine in deliberate strokes that make my knees threaten to buckle. I respond with a whimper, fingers sliding around the back of his neck, tugging him closer. One of his hands cups my jaw; the other glides down my spine, pulling me flush against his chest until there’s not a whisper of space left between us. I answer with equal hunger, drawing out a moan from low in my throat. Even as every thought leaves my head and the only thing that exists is this kiss—this moment—I know nothing will ever be the same again.
Chase draws back a fraction, tilting my chin up so our eyes meet. “Do you really want this? Because right now there’s a chance we can walk away and find our way back to the friend zone, but when we break this rule or cross this line, whatever you want to call it, I don’t know if there’s any way back.”
A tiny alarm rings in my chest. A whispered warning: Chase doesn’t believe in forever. I push the thought aside. With Chase’s breath warm on my skin and every inch of me aching for this man, I don’t want to think about anything beyond this moment and how long I’ve waited for this.
I press myself against him, feeling every hard line of his body. “Rules are meant to be broken, Sullivan.”