Chapter 38 #2
I sigh against his lips and let the next kiss roll over me like a wave.
He tastes of orange juice and coffee and being eighteen again.
I relax onto his body and let him sweep me out to sea.
His fingers coast down my back like they’ve always belonged there.
His other hand cups my face, deepening the kiss.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispers against my lips. “You make me crazy. Always have.”
“Same.”
He chuckles, rolling me underneath his body in one smooth motion, spreading me out on his giant bed and then catching my hands in his.
Once again, my view is restricted to Caribbean-blue eyes and the rugged face that fills my dreams. “I spent the first week you were in New York wishing you’d leave.
I spent the rest of them wanting to rip your clothes off. ”
I think about that for a second. “Maybe you should have. Might have made everything easier.”
He groans. Then he tugs at the borrowed sweatshirt. “It’s not too late, right?”
“Never,” I whisper.
A half second later, the Legends shirt leaves my body with a whoosh.
Then he lowers his mouth to my throat and engages in some kind of sorcery involving his tongue and a million nerve endings that I didn’t even know I had.
When the trail of his kisses dips lower, following the swell of my breasts, I gasp. “Chase.”
“Mmm?” he asks before his tongue does a circle around my nipple.
I shiver with pleasure. “It’s game day.”
“So?” He treats my other breast to the same luxury. “Consider this a warm-up.”
“Y-yes,” I sigh as he kisses my belly. “But now I’m wearing nothing but a competitor’s sweats. Isn’t that bad karma?”
“Fuck yes,” he says. A second later, the sweats are history. He kicks off his flannel pants, too, revealing nothing underneath but a very ambitious erection. Then he lowers his hot body onto mine. Skin to skin, we kiss like lovers returned from the wars. And maybe we are.
“I don’t think I can go slow,” he pants against my lips.
“Don’t care,” I gasp into his mouth. “I’m not an eighteen-year-old virgin anymore.”
“Good thing.” He raises his head and smiles at me. “You undo me, Zoe. Could barely fall asleep last night with you in my bed.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” His hand snakes down and deftly rids me of my panties. “Let’s just say I’m not the only one who thinks about choreography.”
“Oh.” I run my fingers through his thick hair. “Well, let’s hear your ideas.”
“Works better if I just demonstrate.” He leans down again and places his tongue on my throat, where my pulse flutters. And my breath catches. But then he skates down my body with remarkable speed and lifts my calves over his shoulders.
“Chase!” I gasp again as his wicked mouth lands in the crook of my leg. I shiver with expectation as he slowly, teasingly kisses his way toward my center. I make an unholy noise and grip his hair between my fingers when he stops teasing and flattens his tongue in a way that makes me see stars.
Suddenly I forget about all our troubles. I forget about contracts and angry bosses. I forget about meddling families and heartbreak and disappointment.
Hell, I forget my own name, and I just chant his. I’m not used to being spoiled like this, and it turns me into a shivering, mumbling mess. “Chase,” I gasp for the hundredth time. “Please. Now.”
He groans. Then he lifts his head and crawls slowly toward me again, and I stop panting to admire the way his muscles move. “Do you still have that IUD?”
“Yes! No. Well, I have a new one. And how do you even remember that?”
He lowers himself down onto my quivering, hungry body and strokes my cheekbone with his thumb. “I remember everything, Zoe. Where we went for dinner that night. The color of your dress. All of it.”
“Wow” is all I can say.
Because wow.
“The bad news is that I don’t have any condoms. Wasn’t expecting you. But we don’t have to…”
“Oh yes we do,” I insist. “And right now.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, pl—”
I don’t even get the words out before his athlete’s reflexes take over. He lifts my knee and pushes home, filling me in one smooth glide.
Then he makes a broken noise and drops his head onto the pillow beside mine. “Fuck,” he whispers. “I was trying to be slick. But I almost blew my own mind. I’ve never done this.”
“Um, what?”
“I’ve never gone bare. And with you? It’s…” He lets out a gust of air. “Hold, please. Gonna need a second.”
This leaves me smiling up at the ceiling. “I don’t know, Chase. What if it’s a trend? Like—what if we lost our rhythm here, too?”
His head pops up, his blue eyes intense. “That is not the problem here.”
I run a fingertip down his nose. “No need to get upset. I’m sure with the right amount of patience and practice, we can get it back again.”
“Oh fuck no.” He leans down and gives me a kiss so hot that it’s a miracle we don’t combust. “Practice is for tricky things,” he whispers. “Loving you is simple, Zoe.”
Then he moves his hips to prove it, and my body clenches needily around him. Nobody is joking now. I stare into his eyes as we attend to the serious business of pleasuring each other.
He’s right, too. When you strip away the complications, loving him is a simple business. Hands and mouths and pounding hearts. I sink into the bed, my tongue in his mouth, my fingertips drifting across his skin.
As promised, I let Chase handle the choreography.
I’m a little startled when he pulls out and flips me over in one smooth motion.
When he fills me from behind, everything becomes a shade more urgent.
I’m gripping the bed and straining back against his thrusting hips.
He’s wrapped an arm around my body, clutching me to his chest while he kisses my jaw and whispers into my ear.
I only catch some of the words through the haze of my own desire. Yes. Mine. Beautiful. We’re like an incoming tide, rising a little higher on each wave.
And to think that anyone would go to the trouble to stand between us? The fucking nerve.
“Zoe. Baby. Now,” he says.
I let go, and I fly free.