24. Kayla
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KAYLA
W ith a nod from me, we’re running up the steps of a different staircase, leading us past the last house in the estate, across front yards, until we reach his doorstep. Chase leans back against the door, pulling me in with a smile. He traces the seam of my lips with his thumb, drawing a shaky breath from me before pushing the door open behind him.
The house is dark, except for the light of the party going on outside. I follow him down the hallway, and he nudges me through the doorway ahead of him. The dim light from a floor lamp fades on as I hear the flip of the light switch. When I turn around, Chase is leaning against the door with his hands behind his back, watching me.
Waiting.
He’s put all his cards on the table several times. This choice—this movement forward—is mine to make. Uncertainty clouds his eyes as I step closer to him.
“I want you, Chase…” I say, pulling out the first words that come to me. That’s all it takes. He reaches me in two steps, our lips colliding as the last of my reservations disappear. Tipping on my toes, I pull him into my mouth deeply while he palms the back of my head. Our tongues twirl in a dance meant just for us, and I’ m wondering why I resisted this for so long. Why did I deprive myself of this? We spin around the room, finally landing with him pushed up against the wall. My hands wander under the hem of his shirt, the ripple of muscles smooth against my fingertips.
And then he’s pulling my hands away, holding them at the wrists. “Wait, wait,” he says breathlessly, touching his forehead to mine.
“I thought…” I start to pull away. A thousand paths of doubt swirl through my head as I try to make sense of his sudden halt. I thought he wanted this. I thought he wanted me .
“Don’t…” he says softly. “Don’t run, just…give me a minute. Let me catch my breath. Form some thoughts.” After what feels like forever, head still tipped to mine, he drops my hands and cradles my face, stroking my chin with his thumb. He looks at me, unblinking, and smiles softly. “I want to know you, Kayla.”
I drop my eyes, suddenly feeling a little too bare, too intimate. Wanting someone in a moment of heated passion and wanting to know someone are two vastly different things, and I didn’t account for the latter.
He lifts my chin until our eyes meet again and smiles. “I want to know your favorite things, and your hopes and dreams. I want to know about your family, about your past. I want to know why you look down whenever I say something too direct and what makes you scratch at the side of your thumb. I just…need you to let me in a little bit. Okay?” Bringing my hand to his lips, he kisses my thumb, then my wrist, and looks up expectantly. Watching. Waiting.
“Okay.” My voice is barely a whisper, but the spread of his bright smile rivals the light show beginning in the night sky behind me.
“Let’s watch.” He turns off the lamp and guides me to the bed, right down into his lap. I lean back against his chest, and his arms wrap around me, feeling just as nice as they did on the climbing wall. The French style doors across from us make a perfect frame for the fireworks outside as the boom-crackle-hiss fills the silence we’ve fallen into. He nuzzles my neck and breathes me in before kissing my shoulder. “You smell like apple pie…” He chuckles quietly.
“What?” I giggle, shaking my head. “You really are getting rusty.”
“You do. Like vanilla…cinnamon and apples,” he says between the kisses he places up and down the side of my neck. “And butter…”
“ I do not !” I snort, twisting to look at him.
Laughing then, he pulls me back against him. “Okay, maybe not that last one.” He laces the fingers of his left hand over the back of mine and plays with my thumb ring.
“Do you always wear this?” Chase whispers.
I nod, temporarily losing my ability to speak as warmth spreads through me at the feeling of his breath on my ear. “It was my great-granny’s. I never take it off.”
“Mmm.” He brushes his lips against my shoulder again, making my breath shudder. Colors explode and sizzle outside the glass doors—red and bright white fading into the dark night sky—and none of it rivals the simmering anticipation here in this room.
“What’s your favorite color?” I ask, realizing there are so many basic things we don’t know about each other. So many things I’ve avoided out of fear.
“Green, like your eyes.” He snuggles into my shoulder, kissing my neck again.
The hair on his face tickles against my skin, and I giggle, shaking my head. “I’m serious. What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue—but light blue. Sky blue,” he says. “What’s yours?”
“Green, like my eyes…” I joke.
He laughs, his chest vibrating against my shoulder as I snuggle in closer. “Makes sense. You look good in green… You look good in blue too.” He brushes his lips over the skinny strap of my light blue dress. “Everything, really…”
Turning my chin with his finger, he tips my face up and kisses me slowly, taking his time like he’s savoring all of it. I break away, spinning in his arms to fully face him, before pressing into his kiss again. Now that I’ve admitted to myself that I like him, now that I’ve kissed him, I can’t get enough. When he finally pulls away, I’m breathless.
“Tell me about your family,” he whispers, brushing his thumb along my jawline.
“There’s not much to know about. It’s just Mom and me. Mom works a lot at the hospital and always has, so I had a lot of alone time growing up.”
A look of understanding reaches his eyes as he nods. He doesn’t pry, and I like that he’s satisfied with whatever bits of information I’m willing to give. No pressure or guilt-tripping. “So that’s how you became so independent,” he says.
“I didn’t really have a choice.” I shrug, looking down at the buttons on his shirt. “It got better once I met Ash, and Patti’s been around since I was little. Great-granny, too, when I was younger. I had people, just not very many.” He lifts my chin again, and I wonder how annoyed he must be that I keep looking away from him. But when I look into his eyes, all I see is that warm, intense desire I’m learning to become accustomed to. He looks at me the same way he’s been looking at me for weeks, and it’s easy to get lost in it now that I’m here in his arms. I kiss him again, sighing into him as his fingers tighten around my waist.
“What about you?” I say, pulling back for a breath and trying to keep myself from feeling too vulnerable. “Tell me about your family—what didn’t I learn tonight?”
“Well, Mom and Dad are high school sweethearts and act like it.” He chuckles, shaking his head. “They’re never not touching if they can help it.”
“I noticed. It’s sort of adorable.”
“You think so? Some would call it intense.”
“Oh, it’s intense, but in a cute way. You can tell they’ve been together for a while.”
“Yeah…” Chase shrugs. “It’s normal to me, I guess. All my pa st girlfriends commented on how comfortable I am with affection. One even called me the ‘PDA King.’”
“The king, huh?” I tease, raising an eyebrow.
He smiles, shrugging again. “I guess you can be the judge of that,” he says, pecking the tip of my nose before leaning back against the headboard. “I dunno, I just…when I like someone, I show it. I don’t know any other way.” His fingers trail over my shoulders. “Is that okay with you? PDA?”
“Yeah…it’s okay.” I bite my lip.
Chase pulls me against his chest. “That’s good. It’s been hard enough not touching you before now.”
I look up at him through my lashes as he traces lines up and down my back with his fingers, staring back at me. I’m positive he’s leaning down to kiss me again, but when he gets close, he bites his lip and whispers, “What’s your favorite food?”
A surprised laugh escapes me, and I cover my mouth with my hand. We could have blasted through this information weeks ago if I would have been honest with myself and let him in sooner. Such a basic question paired with our heated energy tonight makes the simplicity seem silly.
He laughs, too, and I tip my head to his chest, my shoulders shaking. His arms circle around me, and we’re lost in a fit of giggles, spending the rest of the night talking and laughing, kissing and learning. And when the early morning comes, I’m still wrapped in his arms.
“ So …how was your night?” Ashlie wiggles her eyebrows as she sips her early morning coffee at the diner counter. Hunter gave her a ride home last night, seeing as I was otherwise preoccupied.I smile, remembering everything from the night before. “Girl, if you don’t just tell me…”
“It was good…nice. We sl ept together.”
“I mean, yeah, I figured that out.”
“No, I mean, we fell asleep. We kissed and talked and slept.”
“Oh,” she says, smile dropping off her face. “I thought you two would have had fireworks with a side of fireworks last night. ‘Nice’ doesn’t sound good at all. What happened when you left this morning?”
“I…snuck out.”
“G irl! ” Ashlie says with wide eyes.
“ Ugh , I know.” I cover my face with my hands. “Last night was good, but when I woke up this morning with his arms wrapped around me, I panicked. I don’t know what my problem is.”
“I do.” She smirks between sips. “You like him. He gave you intimacy, real intimacy, and you freaked.” I know she’s right. She’s been right this whole time. I was fully prepared to give it up to him last night, and when he stopped me, when he poured out his heart, it threw me for a loop that I’m still reeling from.
“He said he wanted to know me.”
“Like, biblically?”
“No, Ash, like get to know me…be with me.”
“Aw.” She puffs out her bottom lip, her brown eyes giving me an oh-so-cute look. “So, you’re together, then?”
I shrug. “I think…maybe. Yeah.”
“ Woo!” she shouts, shooting her arms up in the air. “Mission accomplished. I won the bet with Hunter. Now he owes me.”
“Owes you what?” I laugh, not at all surprised our best friends had a bet going against us.
“I haven’t decided yet.” She smirks, pulling out her phone and shooting off a text.