Chapter 43
Mia Walker added Pepper Quinn to the chat.
Mia: Welcome home jailbird. You had us worried there!
Pepper: Thank you so much for helping Chase get guardianship. Words cannot express how grateful I am.
Mia: Don’t mention it! That’s what family does.
Pepper: As someone who doesn’t really have family, that sounds pretty great.
Emily: I don’t know if anyone has told you this, but my brother loving you means that you’re automatically inaugurated as a full family member. Sunny too.
Chloe: And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it (evil laugh).
Chloe: P.S. Did you get any new cool jail tattoos?
Pepper: Only a spider web across my throat and a cross below my eye.
Chloe: Wait, you’re joking right?
Chloe: Guys, is she joking???
Chloe: Where did everyone go?
PEPPER
I moan as Chase slides his tongue slowly against my clit, stomach clenching and legs shivering.
“Oh god, I can’t take any more,” I pant, gripping the bedcovers in my hands.
Chase’s head appears from beneath the covers, a wicked grin on his face. “We both know that you’re lying.”
Every limb feels limp, spent, and wonderfully satiated after the five rip-roaring orgasms he’s given me since we got back to his place. The sheets across his huge bed are all tangled, half hanging off.
“You’re an evil man.” I sigh happily, squirming as he trails his stubbled jaw across my stomach. “How long did you say Sunny would be?”
“Mmm, she said she would be back in time for dinner.” He settles himself over me and I feel how ready he is against my center.
“Again?” My eyes go wide, tiny bursts of electricity sparkling inside my navel as he shifts against me.
“I’ve come to accept that I will always be hard within a twenty-foot radius of you.” He grins, leaning down to nip the sensitive skin at the base of my throat.
I giggle, my breath expelling abruptly when he shifts again, more intentionally this time so that I get another hit of friction in just the right place.
Even though I’m exhausted, I feel the never quite extinguished spark of desire zing to life, my heartbeat accelerating. Just when I decide to give in to the devilish man trailing a hand down a lazy path to my hip, we both hear the mechanical clunk of the industrial elevator and freeze.
“God dammit,” he hisses, flexing his hips with a small groan.
I gasp, clutching at his broad, muscular shoulders. “Chase—”
“I know, baby. I know.” He leans down and gives me a chaste peck on the lips before sliding out from under the covers and walking his bare, perfectly sculpted ass over to his closet, muscles slipping and sliding beneath tanned skin.
I sit up as he flings one of his T-shirts and some sweatpants my way and starts pulling on some of the same. Before I’ve even got my foot into one leg, he’s back by my side, kneeling down to help me.
“I could get used to this princess treatment.” I slip his T-shirt over my head, noting that it pools right down to thigh level because he’s so big. And that is saying something, because I am not a particularly short woman.
He rolls up the cuff on the bottom of the sweatpants, making sure they don’t trail under my feet. When I stand, I see in the large mirror in one corner that I look kind of like a drowned rat, with my hair stuck up in all different directions.
“So get used to it—move in with me.” He smooths my hair down, cupping my cheeks in the process and kissing my forehead.
“Stop saying stuff like that so casually.” Doesn’t he know my heart skips three beats every time he does?
“Why? I want you here.” He lifts his eyebrows and I open my mouth to respond, but hear another clunk from the other side of his door which reminds me we have more pressing matters.
“We’ll talk about this later.” I roll my eyes and give myself a once over in the mirror to make sure I don’t look too freshly fucked, excitement streaking through my belly
Chase hadn’t told Sunny I was coming home, and I'm glad. I can’t freaking wait to see her face.
“Okay, but my answer will be the same, Peppercorn.” He smiles, ruffling a hand through his hair, which houses obvious signs of my hands clutching at it. “I’m done being apart from you.”
When we open the bedroom door, we both see an energetic Sunny shimmying around the living space with earphones clamped to her head, wearing gym wear. Her hair is wet from using the building’s pool, and she has her eyes closed, face scrunched and seemingly lost in the music.
“Oh my.” I lift a hand to my mouth as she moonwalks a couple paces, and then flips her feet into a classic Michael Jackson toe stand, singing a quiet lyric I can’t hear, wildly off key.
I can feel Chase shaking close behind me as he tries to hold back laughter.
Sunny spins around on the spot, a faint tinny bass escaping her earphones. I start forward to get her attention, but Chase grabs my shoulders and holds me back right as she begins another fresh round of slinky moonwalks.
“Are you crazy? She’s building up enough static to shock the shit out of the next person who touches her.”
I snort, conceding that he is probably right.
“Hey!” he bellows, the tenor of his voice cutting right through her music and making her startle.
A moment later, her eyes land on me and flare wide. “Pepper!”
I grin, rushing forward as she flings herself in my direction, so hard she knocks the wind out of me. “Hey babe.”
“You’re back!” She pulls back as if to check it’s really me, moisture pooling in her eyes. “What happened? Is it over?”
“It’s over, kid,” Chase says quietly when I feel too choked up to respond straight away. “She’s home and she’s not going anywhere ever again.”
“Do you promise?” Sunny’s question is aimed at me as she blinks back tears.
I nod enthusiastically. “Promise.”
“Oh thank god! Did you know that this guy lives on a diet of takeout and cheese whiz?” Her eyes bug as she throws a thumb over her shoulder at Chase, who moves toward the refrigerator on the kitchen side of the living space and pulls out three bottles of water.
“Woah, woah! What is with all the cheese whiz slander?” He holds his hands apart in mock indignation, the ever-present smirk gracing his mouth.
“It’s not real food!” Sunny enunciates loudly, chopping her palm onto her hand for emphasis.
Chase throws two of the water bottles our way, and I pluck mine out of the air and open it for a greedy pull.
I’m not complaining, but being in Chase’s bed is thirsty work.
My lips feel bruised and swollen, and between my legs feels a bit like that too.
And he’s just out here casually swigging water from a bottle looking like a Greek god—like he didn’t just rearrange my insides and have me begging for a higher power that turned out to be him.
“It has protein…maybe?” he adds as an afterthought.
I walk over to the island counter as they both begin bickering about cheese, of all things, picking up my discarded purse and rummaging inside for lip balm to soothe my lips.
“Wait, is that—” A large hand reaches over my shoulder and pulls out the stapler, which is embossed with a Dev Ops Inc. logo on the top. “Why have you got my stapler in your bag?”
Oh shit. “Erm…”
He turns to look at me with incredulous, knowing eyes. “Start talking, Quinn.”
After a moment of hesitation, I decide to take the leap of faith and believe everything he said to me today about loving my weird, and tilt my chin. “You annoyed me, so I took it.”
“They’ve been going missing for weeks and I thought I was losing my mind!”
I shrug one shoulder. “I have seven of them at home. You annoy me a lot.”
He huffs out a laugh and swipes a hand down his face. “I’m really in for a lifetime of this shit, aren’t I?”
“Possibly. I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep you yet,” I tease, drawing a small circle around my lips with the lip balm.
He narrows his eyes, but before he can speak, the elevator clunks open again. Chase turns, blocking my view.
“You have to help her!” The familiar gravel-like bark of Mr. Clay reaches me, and I glance across at Sunny, who is equally stunned a few feet away.
“How did you get in here?” Chase asks, bemusement lacing his tone.
This building might seem more casual than the glitzy towering apartment skyscrapers in Manhattan, but from what I’ve seen, the security is no joke.
“You have to help her!” Mr. Clay urges, his watery eyes pinned on Chase as he hobbles closer. “You can’t abandon them when they need you the most. You have connections, you must be able to get her out.”
“Mr. Clay, I’m not—”
“They’re good kids, all of you are.” The old man stuns me by swiping at the moisture gathering in his eyes, directing the last part at a bewildered Sunny.
“And Sunny, you’re…” His voice cracks, and he struggles to finish his sentence for a moment.
“You’re a good kid,” he chokes out huskily, seeming to settle for a few words he can manage rather than whatever he had originally planned to say.
“Mr. Clay!” I sidestep Chase, revealing myself to him and seeing his eyes go wide. “I’m here, I’m okay.”
The old man gawps, freezing in place for a handful of seconds, before surprising all of us by launching at me, discarding his cane to the floor with a thud and pulling me into a hug as he half laughs and half cries. He pulls back and then attacks Chase too.
“Oh, you’re a good man!” He clubs him on the back with surprising force, and Chase stands frozen until he is released. “Thank you.”
“Mr. Clay,” I start tentatively. “Not that I’m not grateful for your concern, but it was only a couple of months ago that you were trying to get us kicked out of our building.”
He shakes his head, wiry eyebrows flapping from the force. “I must confess…I just wanted an excuse to talk to you both.”
The times we left and came home jotted down in a notepad suddenly have a whole different meaning.
The old man turns to survey us all, clutching his liver-spotted hands together.
“All of you are good people. And I’m sorry I was so rotten to you to begin with.
I—” The old man pauses, a crease forming between his brows.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve just been lonely for so long I forgot how to be nice. ”
He looks so sincere that something in me melts, some final barrier that had me holding back a part of myself around our older neighbor.
“Well, Mr. Clay,” Sunny announces, clapping her hands together. “Lucky for you we’re used to grumpy old men around here.”
There is no mistaking the pointed look she throws Chase’s way.
“Speaking of, what’s the second important thing we have to do today?” I ask Chase, pulling my brows together.
“Hmm?” He drags his head around like he wasn’t quite paying attention, but somehow that falls hollow when he’s usually so sharply attuned to everything around him.
“You said earlier there were two important things to do today, seeing Sunny and…”
Chase clears his throat, offering me a closeted glance that could almost be nervous. I cap my hands on my hips, my spidey senses tingling. This man is up to something, and I’m damned if I know what.
“Sunny, get the Nebuchadnezzar out of the refrigerator, would you?” he calls out as he reaches into the inner pocket of his suit jacket that got hastily draped over a tall kitchen island chair when we got back, when we were too eager to be rid of clothes.
“What in the word-salad hell is that?” Sunny squints at him.
“The big bottle of champagne.”
“Why are we drinking champagne?” I ask slowly, turning to face him.
“Well, we might not be, but I’m hopeful.” He gracefully bends to one knee in front of me, and my heart stutters to a halt when I see the small box in his hands.
“What is that?”
He flips open the box, and a beautiful pink diamond sits on a slim band, hugged by a ring of smaller white diamonds. Sunny gasps somewhere behind me, and I’m pretty sure I do too.
“This—” Chase pulls it out of the white silk cushion it’s nestled into. “Is the ring I want you to wear forever.”
He looks up at me with big brown eyes, filled with warmth and something I now recognize as love. Burning, soldering, so intense that it takes my breath away.
“Everyone says to wait until you find your equal,” he murmurs softly, almost to himself.
“But you’re so much more than that, Pepper.
You’re far superior in every way, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to live up to that, if you’ll let me.
Be my wife, Pepper.” Something molten crosses his face when he says those words, thickening his voice to a near growl.
For the thousandth time in the past week, the bridge of my nose stings, but I fight it back.
There was a version of me long ago where I dreamt of a happy ever after like this, before that young girl became jaded and wronged by the world.
Before she created a hard shell to protect herself.
I allow myself to sink into that long-lost softness, because that’s what Chase allows me to do.
Be soft. Be feminine and vulnerable, because I know that no matter what happens… he’s got me.
I suck back the wave of emotion threatening to pull me under and press back my shoulders. “On one condition.”
Sunny whoops loudly, and Mr. Clay chuckles.
“Anything,” Chase echoes my response from earlier today, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a restrained smile while he waits, hope dancing across sharp features.
“Tell me what you really had to do to get Jennifer Aniston to agree to let you use her voice for your assistant.”
The small smile toying on his lips becomes wide and mischievous. “I had to steal a moped and drive it around the Prince’s Palace of Monaco.” He tips his head a fraction. “Almost got arrested.”
“You let me believe that you had a fling!” I flap my hands up in frustration, a bigger part of me than I care to admit relieved. I mean, come on. I don’t care how much you back yourself, no one can compete with the enigma that is Janiston.
“I kinda liked the thought of you being jealous.” He grins, rolling one broad shoulder apologetically.
“You’re such an idiot.”
Chase chuckles. “And this idiot could be all yours for the price of one little word.”
I absorb every inch of him on bended knee, in sweats and a T-shirt but still looking like the biggest snack I’ve seen, and pretend to ponder.
“Lemon?”
“Nope.”
“Magpie?”
“Try again.”
“Ohhhhhh.” I click my fingers like I’ve just figured it out. “YES!”