Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
CAROLINE
It was even better than I’d imagined.
Chase said my name like he was rolling his tongue around a hard candy or a tight nipple. I couldn’t hide how much I wanted him. It was a self-destructive desire, but neither my pussy nor my heart was listening.
They’d decided: him.
I licked my lips, and his eyes caught the movement. Chase was right: I was a brat, because I loved the look of pained horniness on his face. I wanted to push him until he lost that starchy composure again and growled smutty things like he had at Lueur. I craved that with a desperation that was beginning to frighten me.
“This is inadvisable, Ted— sorry, Caroline.”
After hearing him say my real name, it physically hurt when the fake one crossed his lips.
“Say it ten times,” I suggested.
“This is inadvis?—”
I pushed his shoulder. “No. Say Caroline. ”
He eyed me over the top of his wire-framed lenses, his gaze full of hot promise. “Caroline, Caroline, Caroline. Is that enough?”
No, it was not.
I wanted to rub myself to the tune of him chanting my real name. I wanted to roll around in a sound, and that wasn’t even possible. If he said my name enough times, in his grumbly professor’s voice with the stern expression he often wore when he looked at me, I might orgasm right here on the floor tiles.
Instead, I squeezed my thighs together and leaned back against the bathtub to study him. Even in a robe, barefoot and sitting on the floor, Chase looked expensive.
(I ignored the little voice that whispered out of your budget .)
It was the way his hair sat in elegant waves, somehow not mussed by the earlier chaos, and the way his nose jutted proudly like a ski jump on a vacation only people like him could afford. But there was also kindness in his mismatched eyes—usually. Not now. Now they were hungry, and a bit frustrated.
Just how I liked.
I climbed to my feet, Chase’s hands bracketing my hips in case I slipped. When I offered him a hand up in return, he took it. I liked that he did. His hands were warm, with those thick fingers I found so incredibly sexy. I imagined them running over my body, burrowing inside me as I squirmed…
On his feet, Chase left his hand in mine. Like magnets, we drew closer together. I didn’t know if he was pulling or I was. Maybe it was both.
Just before our lips pressed together, I said, “Warning. I’m about to kiss you.”
His lips, an inch from mine, quirked. “I know.”
His mouth was firm and warm, and for two seconds, I managed to stow the desperation I had been feeling since hearing his belt buckle drop to the floor. Being in his arms felt like a familiar comfort, but this wasn’t about comfort. This was like twisting the valve of a Bunsen burner fully open. Our kiss turned hungry and desperate. I wanted to lick up the quality that made him so good and ingest it somehow; to keep, to remember him by.
Tentatively, I asked, “Can I?—?”
“Yes, Caroline, fuck yes.”
I love when he swears.
I did what I’d been wanting to do since I met him: I jumped him like he was a pommel horse, throwing my legs around his waist and trusting he’d catch me. Chase wrapped his arms under my ass and hauled me to him as if he was trying to pull my body through his. He wanted me just as much as I wanted him. My breasts mashed into the front of his robe as our lips and tongues warred with desperation that neither of us wanted to verbalize. We kissed and kissed and it was everything, until suddenly, it wasn’t. It wasn’t nearly enough.
As if he could read my mind, Chase put me back down on the tiles and steadied me. But I didn’t have time to miss the contact, as he began kissing a path down my neck, hot little stamps of desire.
“Can I touch your breasts?” he asked between kisses.
“Yes. You can touch me anywhere. If I don’t like something, I’ll tell you. Just don’t put your hands around my throat. I don’t like that.”
“I remember.” He pressed a kiss to my lips again. “Thank you for trusting me.”
Then his hands were inside my robe on my breasts, exploring their shape and weight. When he lightly pinched both nipples at the same time, I gasped. He grinned against my neck, then his lips were kissing a downward path, fastening around one of the buds he’d pinched as he caressed it with his tongue.
After so long wanting him and knowing I couldn’t have him, being confronted with a buffet-like experience kissing him was almost too much. But this would be our only time together, and I didn’t want a slow and leisurely sampling of every option. I wanted him to fuck me. Hard, deep, and relentless.
“Chase.” I breathed. “Don’t tease. ”
He smiled. “Hypocrite.”
“What?”
“You love to tease me.” He nipped at my earlobe. “So you can dish it but you can’t take it, huh Caroline?”
I was about to argue—because I was always about to argue, because I was the brat he’d said I was—but then his hands were on my hips. He spun me around to face the bathroom mirror, and before I could regain equilibrium, he’d sandwiched me between his hard body and the free-standing sink. I grabbed the sides of the basin to brace myself as he leaned over me, his chest covering my back and his groin cradling my ass. His cock was hard and pressing into my flesh, a thick reminder that what I wanted was close.
Gratification bloomed in my chest, tangling with the need I’d been consumed by since Lueur. I knew this was my short-term thinking and it was going to make my life harder in the long run, but I was sick of doing what I had to. I was sick of never having a life, never prioritizing a good time with a handsome man over a rehearsal or an audition. Because in the long run, it hadn’t helped: I wasn’t a star, not even close. It had all been for nothing.
But this I could have. This was all for me. I said a little prayer of thanks to Dolly, then I gripped the sides of the basin and pushed my hips backward, trying to make him give me more.
Chase slid one hand down my belly and thrust it inside the split of my robe, cupping my pussy to still me. “Impatient brat.”
Our eyes met in the mirror. My reflection was flushed and breathless, tits out, while he was still in his robe looking annoyingly composed. I didn’t want him to look like he was about to give a keynote; I wanted him to look as desperate as I felt.
Chase started stroking my lower lips with one thick finger, parting my folds, spreading my body’s moisture around.
“Is that good?” he asked, and his voice wasn’t calm at all.
Breathlessly, I nodded.
When his hand disappeared, I protested. But he was unknotting my robe. He didn’t mess around with the sleeves, he simply pulled the loose sides of the robe up over my back. For a second I was swallowed by the fabric until it slid off over the top of my head, trapping my arms over the basin, holding me there for him.
One of Chase’s large palms cupped my shoulder and stroked down my naked side, over my ribs, waist, and down to my hip. He did this a few times, petting me, learning the story of my body. He felt the muscles of my back, strong from heavy and elaborate costumes, and my waist, scarred from aggressive tight lacing when I was a baby burly, before I invested in custom corsets that actually fit and learned how to lace them properly. He explored my rounded hip and thick thigh, every caress feeling worshipful.
After Lueur, I’d wondered if Chase’s behavior was a one-off, some kind of reactionary persona he’d never let out of the box again. Now, I was seeing this sexual side of him was as much a part of him as the straightlaced blogger. Both sides of him were true to who he was. And they made sense, a complement rather than a contradiction.
“Tell me you want to come,” he said in a low voice.
“Yes, I do,” I answered.
“Tell me you want me .”
“I do.”
He lifted his palm and rapped my ass, one quick slap. I could snap an ostrich fan with more bite than that, but the fact he did it had me moaning.
“Tell me better than that,” he chided. “Make me believe it.”
I stared into his eyes in the mirror and summoned the words from my most elemental place. “I want you, Chase. Ever since I met you, I’ve wanted you. I know I’m inadvisable , I know I’m not your type. But please, just one time. Make me feel good.”
A satisfied noise rumbled in his chest and he used the hand on my hip to pull my ass more firmly against his erection. When his pulsing thickness pressed into the split of my ass, I had to close my eyes.
Chase folded his body over mine and dropped a kiss between my shoulder blades. “You should know by now, Floss. If you ask me for something, I’ll give it to you.”
He slid his other hand up my back and into my dark hair, and the Teddy wig came off in his hand—whether I hadn’t glued it down well enough or the water had made it lift, I didn’t know, but Chase was left with a handful of wig he hadn’t been expecting and my cap had slid back, revealing the pink flyaways curling around my forehead.
Chase looked surprised. “Your hair really is pink.”
I nodded.
“It suits you.” He bent over me and pressed another soft kiss beneath my ear. “Do you need a minute?”
I thought he would be furious, and losing my wig was an apt symbol for how badly I was losing my grip on this entire scam, but I didn’t care. I just wanted him to keep touching me.
“I’m good.”
With another kiss where my neck and shoulder joined, his blunt fingertips resumed their stroking, my wetness making an easy path. He was bolder now. The tease of him spreading my body’s juice along my slit and over my clit had my pussy clenching, wanting more. I was usually the seductress, the one calling the shots. Chase had me completely turned around.
The ache below my belly was now the only thing I could think about. When he nudged my knee up, I thanked Past Caroline for every single butterfly stretch I had ever done and propped one knee on the sink, completely exposing myself to him. For him. Being this exposed while a man was still dressed (a robe counted) might have made me feel self-conscious or cheap. But it didn’t. It felt good. I wanted to be spread like this for him; I wanted him to claim my body and let loose with me because he trusted me. I wanted it more than I could remember ever wanting anything physical in my life.
Chase placed a flat palm on the base of my spine, like he was bracing me, which made me whimper. When I didn’t think I could wait any longer, he slid one finger into my pussy and my body eagerly drew him in. He pushed in and out, testing my stretch before adding another finger. I was up on my tiptoes, thighs quivering, the soles of my feet feeling hot and cold at the same time. I was undignified but elated.
“More,” I demanded. “Three.”
“Not yet,” he said, continuing to work his fingers in and out of my body. I wanted to argue, to brat, but he changed his pace, pushing into me slowly and dragging his fingers almost right out before pistoning back into me with short, hard thrusts.
Chase worked my body like he had some kind of user’s manual that even I didn’t have all the chapters to. For a split second I was embarrassed to hear the loud sounds my wetness was making as he drew his fingers from my body then pushed his way back inside, but I squashed that feeling. Vaginas made lubricant when aroused—normal, good, important lubricant. There was nothing shameful about that.
“I’m dripping for you,” I told him, reclaiming my power.
“I know,” he said in his hoarse voice, which destroyed any lingering doubt. “It’s beautiful.”
Dear Dolly. Chase the square was intriguing. Chase the horndog might kill me.
CHASE
The sight of her, bent over like this, arching her back for me, would be forever burned in my brain. She was a knockout.
When our eyes met in the mirror, the need I saw there made me even harder. Blood throbbed through my cock, demanding the feel of her. Some base part of my brain had known it would be like this between us. I looked back to the place her body hungrily welcomed my fingers .
Floss— Caroline! —whimpered again, and the sound was a tug on a marionette string that led straight to my cock. Or something. I was a writer, but disjointed words were tumbling around my head in no particular order: Hot. Brat. Need.
She wanted me, and that knowledge was heady, addictive.
As if I’d cued her, she deepened the rocking of her hips, searching for more. I reached around and began strumming her clit with my other hand. Her wetness was incredibly satisfying. But I couldn’t let myself get distracted; I had to make her come.
When we’d met, she’d assumed that because I’d blushed at her coarse mouth, I could never satisfy her. But I’d paid attention to everything she’d said, every clue she’d ever given me, and now, when she was naked and needy in my arms, I was going to make her feel that misjudgment. I curled my fingers inside her, keeping up the relentless stroking of her clit with my other hand. She writhed into the cradle of my lap, and I gritted my teeth as her ass ground over my cock. There was no way to angle my hips away; I just had to get her there first. Quickly , before she killed me.
“You can take it Caroline.” It was both a promise and an instruction.
My fingers inside her found the place I’d been searching for, and as the pads of my curling fingers pressed into that spot she let out a desperate keening noise that shot straight to my balls. Her body suddenly clenched tight, and I grunted as her plush walls clenched my fingers. The sink and I were all that was holding her up now. I didn’t stop my movement, I gave her clit the most I could.
“Yes, Floss.” I gritted out. “Let go.”
Her clit seemed to swell as her whole pussy shuddered around my fingers. Then all the tension left her body and she went limp with one long, guttural exhale. As her arms buckled over the sink, I grabbed her waist and clutched her to me, waiting while she caught her breath. She took her time coming back to herself and when her eyes met mine in the mirror, I knew neither of us recognized our reflections. I had a predatory look of satisfaction on my face, and she was deeply flushed—which was a fitting full circle, seeing as the idea of making her orgasm like this had first seeded in my brain when she’d teased me for blushing.
With a wince, she lowered her knee from the sink.
“Are you OK?”
She nodded, not ready for words yet.
Despite the painful erection under my robe, I felt smug. She was never going to look at me with that gentle, pitying look again.
I shouldn’t have been so pleased by that—it suited me that most people thought of me as a prude. It helped me distance myself from Dad. But for this woman to believe that didn’t work for me at all, and I was willing to do anything to prove her wrong.
For that reason, I made sure I had her full attention in the mirror as I brought my fingers to my mouth and tasted the evidence of her orgasm.
When her mouth fell open, I hid my grin.
Floss—Caroline—pushed out of my arms and turned to reach for the knot of my robe.
I stepped back quickly. If she so much as looked at my dick, I might paint the walls.
Like the brat she was, she pouted. “It’s your turn.” She reached again, but I intercepted her hands.
“It’s not chess, Floss. There aren’t turns.”
She tipped her head, studying me. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but eventually her expression cleared, proving I’d made the right decision.
“Do you have any tea? Maybe Yorkshire? Or English breakfast?”
“Maybe some chamomile somewhere?”
“It’ll do.”
She plucked her robe off the sink, and the sight of her body in motion, even a little movement like that, was deeply distracting. Heedless of time, I stood there staring. Caroline wasn’t self-conscious about her nudity; she seemed as comfortable naked as she was clothed. Her breasts were two perfect pendulums, swaying as she moved. Her skin was smooth and, now I knew, soft.
She pulled off the dangling wig cap and tossed it in the sink. Her messy pink hair tumbled free, as vibrant as it had been at Lueur.
I realized she’d asked me something while I was mid-eye fuck.
With effort, I dragged my eyes back to her face. “What was that?”
She was smiling. “Tea, Chase. Would you like some?”
“Sure.”
Wrapping herself in the robe, she left the Teddy wig in the bathroom without a backward glance. I was a little slower to follow her. There was nowhere I could tuck an erection like this in a fucking robe. But I clenched my teeth and carried on.
“Tea, Lyssa?” she asked as she walked back into my lounge. But her friend was asleep on my sofa, wrapped in a blanket that I thought had been in the guest bedroom.
Caroline pressed a finger to her lips for my benefit, and gently plucked her friend’s phone out from under her cheek where it was denting her face, putting it down on the floor beside her.
I started finding the tea things, trying not to think about my aching cock. Caroline made a face when I used the microwave to heat up water, but when her tea was ready she pulled a stool out from the breakfast bar.
I shook my head. “We need to talk,” I whispered. “Come.”
“I already did,” she joked, but I could hear nervousness.
She followed me to my bedroom anyway, sitting crisscross applesauce on the bed and cradling the mug in both hands.
“Now you know the two most important things about me,” she said conversationally. “I like drinking tea, and being fingered by sexy bloggers.”
“I’m not settling for that. You owe me more.”
She’d trusted me with her body. Would she trust me with the truth?