Chapter 18
Chase POV
The oversized gray fleece was swallowed by the dark leather of my couch, but the weight resting on my thighs was all bone, soft skin, and heat.
Nola straddled my lap, her knees pressed firmly against the outside of my hips, her bare feet tucked behind my calves.
The single Edison bulb on the cast-iron floor lamp threw a deep bronze glow across her face, catching the dilated black of her pupils and the rapid, visible thrum of her carotid artery.
Outside, seventy-mile-an-hour gusts drove sheets of ice against the factory sash windows, rattling the glass in its iron frame, but inside the loft, the air had gone dead still.
My pulse sat heavy and low in my diaphragm, beating at a steady, dangerous forty-four beats a minute.
I didn't move fast. Speed was for the ice, for the neutral-zone transitions where five-tenths of a second determined whether someone went into the boards. This was something else. This was a slow, deliberate demolition of every wall she had ever built around her ribs.
My hands settled on the thick cotton bunched over her outer thighs.
Her breath caught sharply, a small hitch of air that parted her lips. Beneath the fleece, the muscle in her legs pulled taut, a tiny defensive reflex that softened the second my thumbs stroked the fabric.
Slowly, dragging my palms with agonizing, measured pressure, I slid my hands upward.
The hem of the heavy hoodie rode up with my touch, gathering at her waist until my calloused palms slipped beneath the cotton and found bare skin.
The heat of her was an open stove.
Her waist was small, the curve of her hip bone sharp and delicate beneath my thumbs. The instant my bare skin made contact with hers, her back arched slightly, her hands lifting from her lap to flatten against the center of my black compression henley.
Her palms were hot, her fingers pressing into my pectorals, feeling the thick, rhythmic hammer of my heart beneath the fabric.
"Chase," she breathed, the syllable carrying that same ragged, beautiful hesitation that made my molars click together.
I didn't answer with words.
I raised my right hand, my thumb and forefinger hooking gently under the point of her chin, applying just enough upward force to tilt her face toward the amber light.
I locked her gaze with mine, letting her see the raw, unvarnished truth in my eyes—the complete absence of the enforcer, the complete surrender of the man who had spent five years hiding behind an iron mask.
"You have any idea what you did to me?" I rasped, my voice dropping into that low, scraping register that made her eyelids flutter. "From the second you dropped that plastic crate in my tunnel. You've been living behind my breastbone, Nola. Every shift. Every drill. Every damn breath."
Her lips parted on a shallow, uneven gasp, her hazel eyes swimming with dark gold.
"There's no going back from this," I murmured, my thumb sliding up to trace the swollen curve of her lower lip. "You know that, don't you?"
She swallowed, the pale column of her throat moving under my gaze, before she nodded once, small and resolute.
* * *
I didn't give her time to let doubt take root.
My hands gripped the hem of the gray fleece, gathering the heavy cotton in my fists. With a slow, fluid motion of my shoulders, I eased the fabric up over her ribs, over her shoulders, and lifted it off her head.
I tossed the hoodie over the back of the sofa, letting it drop to the floorboards.
She sat before me in the dim amber light, stripped to a thin, charcoal-gray ribbed tank top that left the pale slope of her shoulders and the delicate line of her collarbones bare to the room's warmth.
The air locked in my windpipe.
She was breathtaking. The soft swell of her chest rose and fell in fast, shallow hitches beneath the thin cotton, her nipples pressing against the fabric in tight buds from the sudden draft.
Her skin was porcelain, dusted with faint golden freckles across the bridge of her nose, flushed with a deep, feverish rose that spread down into the hollow of her throat.
My jaw relaxed, the last knot of tension uncoiling from my skull.
I leaned forward, closing the space between us until the heat rolling off my bare face brushed the side of her neck.
I buried my mouth in the crook of her throat.
Nola gasped, her fingers tangling instantly into the hair at the back of my neck, her small frame shuddering from her collarbones down to her toes.
My lips were hot, dry, and slow. I pressed an open-mouthed kiss against the wild, leaping percussion of her pulse, feeling the blood hammer against my bottom lip.
I trailed my mouth upward, my stubble grazing the sensitive skin beneath her ear, tracing the sharp curve of her jawline with deliberate, agonizing patience.
"Chase... please," she whimpered, her head falling back against my forearm, exposing the long line of her throat to the ceiling.
"Please what, sweetheart?" I growled softly against her skin, my teeth lightly catching the soft flesh of her earlobe before soothing the bite with the flat of my tongue. "Tell me what you want."
"I don't know," she choked out, her hips twitching against mine on an involuntary surge of need. "I don't know how to do this."
"You don't have to do a damn thing," I rasped, my hand sliding around to the small of her back, pulling her hips flush against the hard, unyielding line of my lap. "I've got you. Look at me, Nola."
Her eyelids fluttered open, heavy and glazed with a dark, dazed heat that made my chest tighten to the point of physical ache.
"Open your eyes for me," I commanded, keeping my voice low, firm, and wrapped in thick gravel.
She held my stare, her pupils dilated until only a thin sliver of hazel remained.
"Good girl," I murmured, the praise slipping past my lips like an oath. "Just like that. Breathe for me. Deep breaths."
I brought my other hand up, my calloused fingers trailing down the center of her chest, resting over her sternum, feeling the frantic, galloping rhythm of her lungs.
"Let me take care of you," I whispered against her lips. "Let me have all of it."
She let out a broken, shuddering breath, her forehead dropping against mine, her fingers tightening in my hair with a desperate, unreserved grip that told me everything I needed to know.
* * *
The sofa was too small for the fire consuming the room.
I shifted my weight, sliding my right arm beneath her thighs and wrapping my left around her shoulders.
I stood in one clean, effortless lift.
Her weight was nothing against my frame.
Nola gasped, her arms instantly locking around my neck, her face burying into the hollow of my throat as I carried her across the dark oak floor.
The storm raged outside the factory windows, throwing rhythmic flashes of pale blue lightning across the brick walls, but the only sound in the hallway was the uneven cadence of our breathing.
I carried her into the master bedroom.
The room was vast and shadowed, smelling of clean linen and cedar. The king-sized bed sat on a low platform of reclaimed timber, stripped of everything except charcoal cotton sheets and heavy down pillows.
I laid her down in the center of the mattress with meticulous care.
She sank into the pillows, her dark auburn hair fanning across the dark fabric, her chest heaving as she looked up at me through the dim blue moonlight.
I didn't give her time to feel cold.
I grabbed the hem of my black compression henley, dragged it over my head in one violent pull, and flung it into the darkness.
The cold air of the room hit the bare scars on my chest and ribs, but the furnace burning in my blood drowned out the chill. I crawled onto the mattress, settling my heavy, muscular frame directly over hers.
I braced my weight on my forearms on either side of her head, caging her completely beneath my shadow.
The heat of our bare skin collided.
Nola didn't shrink into the sheets. Her small hands reached up, her fingers sliding through the hair at my temples, her nails digging lightly into my scalp as she pulled my face down to hers.
Her hips arched off the mattress on instinct, pressing the soft denim of her sweatpants hard against the rigid, aching length of my pelvis.
The contact sent a savage jolt of adrenaline straight through my spine, shattering the last remaining thread of my restraint.
I hovered a millimeter above her swollen lips, my breath searing against hers, my chest expanding against the soft curve of hers.
"By morning, Nola," I whispered, the words scraping the dark like iron on stone, "you're going to feel me in every single breath you take."
She parted her lips, her eyes blazing with an unholy, beautiful fire as she pulled my mouth down to hers.