Chapter Eight #2
Katie held tight to Jenny and said, “Mrs. Andrews, she was just excited. It’s not her fault that ...”
Mrs. Andrews’s eyes narrowed on Katie. “I’ll thank you to release my daughter and mind your own business. The last thing she needs is to be under the influence of a rude hussy with the moral fiber of a cat in heat.”
“Mother!” Jenny yelled.
“Do not scream, Jennifer, I am merely stating the facts. She told me earlier, and I’ve seen her all over that lowlife Chase with no regard for anyone except herself. How Quinn Connors could have raised such a loose girl, I will never know,” Mrs. Andrews said.
“You will apologize to Katie right now.”
Katie was partly relieved to hear Chase coming to her rescue but also humiliated that he had heard every vile word Mrs. Andrews had said. And that he was making it worse.
Katie couldn’t speak as Chase descended on them like a dark, avenging angel and put his hand on her shoulder. His angry gaze was directed at Mrs. Andrews, whose nose had lifted four inches into the air. “I am not going to apologize for speaking the truth, you insufferable boar.”
Chase took a step toward the older woman and Katie dropped her arms from Jenny, moving forward to grab his hand, hoping to defuse the situation. “It’s not worth it, Chase. Let’s just go.” He ignored her, his focus still glued on Mrs. Andrews’s defiant expression, and she squeezed his hand. “Please, Chase. People are staring.”
He eased back a bit slowly, but his voice was cold as he said, “Katie is too nice to really give you what you deserve, but I’m not as nice or as good as she is. If I was a good man, I’d leave before I called you a bigoted, small-minded waste of space. But I’m not that good.”
Katie was relieved when Chase turned his back on Mrs. Andrews’s red-faced anger and led her toward the back exit. The rain hit her face, and she let the tears she’d been holding back flow. She shouldn’t have let Mrs. Andrews’s insults hit her so hard, but when she’d caught the various looks on the other faces around her, it had killed her to hold back her hurt. There had been looks of sympathy, people looking away to avoid eye contact, and then nods of agreement accompanied by disapproving scowls. It was terrible that so many people who had known her since she was a baby would stand by and let her be bullied.
She let Chase open the door and help her up into the Blazer. Slamming the door behind her, he ran around the front of the SUV to climb into the driver’s seat. Shaking his head like a dog spraying raindrops everywhere, he asked, “Are you okay?”
Trying to be discreet, Katie wiped at her tears. “Yeah, it was my fault anyway. I was inappropriate and antagonized her earlier, when I knew better.”
He cupped her cheek, turning her to face him and interrupting her excuses. “I don’t care what you think you did to deserve that, but you didn’t. You are the kindest, funniest, and most amazing girl I have ever met, and no matter what you might do, you would never deserve that.”
His words made her stomach flip-flop. When he kissed her softly, tenderly, her eyes teared up all over again. She’d known most of those people her whole life and the only person who had defended her was a man she barely knew.
“So, do you still feel like coming over?” he asked, pulling away to brush her cheek with his hand tenderly. “Waiting out the rain?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding to emphasize how very much she wanted to be with him right then. “There’s nothing I want more.”
With a grin, Chase started the Blazer. “Besides, I already told you I had this fantasy about the prom queen. And with that cute little tiara on your head, well, I have a feeling that my fantasies are about to become a reality.”
Katie reached up to touch her tiara and said, “And who are you in this little scenario?”
Taking her hand in his, he raised it to his lips. “The luckiest guy in the world.”
Eyes beginning to blur once more, she tried to tell herself he was just making her feel better. That it didn’t mean anything, even as he wormed his way just a little bit more into her heart.
C HASE HAD BEEN driving the car one-handed since they left the community center five minutes earlier, his other hand covering Katie’s. She couldn’t help feeling content, safe, and cared for, and she was done pretending this wasn’t serious. She was falling in love with Chase, and if he knew what she was thinking, he’d probably drop her on the side of the road and drive as far from her as he could get.
Or maybe he feels the same way you do. You could ask him .
Turning in the seat to study him, she cradled his hand in hers as she pondered that. They had taken the back roads out of town and hadn’t really said anything. Katie was a little worried he was regretting his earlier chivalry and was quietly panicking next to her.
As he turned off onto a short gravel road leading to a large, white ranch house with a wraparound porch and a barn, Katie sucked in her breath.
It was her dream house. The type of house she could imagine raising her kids in. The kind of porch on which she could set two rocking chairs, one for her and one for her husband. They’d spend their evenings rocking together, holding hands and talking about their lives, their kids, their love ...
“So what do you think?” Chase’s voice broke into her fantasy and she blushed.
“It’s a great place,” she said.
He opened his door and jumped out, slamming it behind him. When she opened hers and started to step down, though, she noticed the huge puddle of muddy water under her door.
Great, on top of looking like a drowned, puffy-eyed princess, I’m going to ruin my new heels.
Chase came around the door quickly, ducking his head against the rain, and said, “Need some help?”
“I can’t walk through the mud in these shoes. I can take them off, but then I have to hold the dress up and I’m afraid of falling,” she said.
Wrapping one arm behind her shoulder and the other under her knees, he lifted her up against his chest and said, “You know, if you wanted me to carry you, you could have just said so instead of hinting and hee-hawing.”
Rain pelted her face and she protested, “I wasn’t hee-hawing. I was just talking out loud. I wasn’t trying to get you to carry me, especially after the last time you tossed me in the pool ...” Her rambling stopped when she felt him start to toss her up a few inches and catch her again. “Chase!”
He looked like a seven-year-old who had been caught pulling a girl’s hair. Mischievous and innocent. When they reached the top of the stairs, Katie said, “Okay, you can put me down now.”
Shaking his head, he rebalanced her so he could reach out to open the screen door. “Uh-uh, Firecracker. I’m carrying you all the way back to my bed, where I plan on doing all kinds of things to you.”
“What kind of things?” she asked.
He pushed the wood door open and said, “The kind of things good girls don’t do. Unless they happen to be at the mercy of a very, very bad boy.”
Carrying her through the kitchen and down a narrow hallway, the look he shot her was intense. Licking her lips, she whispered, “Am I at your mercy?”
“Yes, Firecracker, you’re completely at my mercy.”
A FEW HOURS later, Katie lay across Chase’s chest in the dim light of the bedroom, running her hands over his body. Lightning flashed and the whole room lit up.
“So why did you get this one?” she asked, pointing to the sun tattoo on his chest.
He smiled. “Why does there have to be a reason?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just curious if there was.”
“You want the truth? It’s pretty cheesy.” He grabbed her hand and laid it flat over the tattoo.
Kissing the skin over his heart, she said, “Hit me with your best cheese. I won’t laugh. I promise.”
Chase stroked her face and said, “When I was a kid, my mom used to sing me ‘You Are My Sunshine’ all the time. After my dad left us, she stopped singing. She stopped caring about anything but finding a new man to take care of us. Each guy was just a new tool, and when she got too clingy, they screwed her. One guy actually stole her car when he left. She worked her ass off at the diner up the road from our trailer, sometimes taking double shifts for days just to make rent. Or avoid me.” She could hear the pain in his voice and she wanted to take it away.
He cleared his throat, obviously getting a handle on his emotions, and said, “Anyway, I was drunk and seventeen and I kept thinking about that stupid song, and how my mom used to be. I told you, cheese balls.”
Her eyes were burning with tears when she kissed his palm. “I’m so sorry, Chase.”
Running his thumb under her eye to catch her tear, he chuckled. “Ah, Firecracker, you’re such a softy. Don’t worry about it. I got over it a long time ago and dealt with my demons. I may not have had the most functional parent, but I turned out okay. And she’s got her life together now, been happily married for the last eleven years to an ex-naval officer who thinks the sun rises and sets on her.”
Katie lifted her head. “You don’t know where your dad is? Has he tried to contact you?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Woke up one morning to my mom crying and he was gone. Not a card, letter, or call in twenty-eight years. She never could tell me why he did it, but it doesn’t really matter. He left us. Makes him worth less than nothing to me.”
“Were they married?” she asked.
“No. Yours? Where’s your dad?”
“Yeah, they were married, not that it mattered. My dad left when I was too little to remember him. Mom never told me anything about him, but I found a box in her closet after she died. It was filled with pictures and love notes. I hired someone to find him, just to see if I could meet him, but he had been killed in an accident when I was six. He’d been drinking and taken a curve to fast,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Chase said.
“It’s okay, I didn’t know him. But when Mom died, it was like my world had been tipped onto its axis. I know she was sick for so long, and she fought hard for extra time; I should have been prepared for it.” Katie’s tears spilled over, as they did every time she talked about her mom.
“I don’t think you can prepare for that kind of thing.” His hand rubbed over her back, and it was comforting. “So she was a stickler, huh?”
Katie laughed. “Understatement. She was a first-grade teacher and famous for her ‘Rules of Morality.’ She used all of these old-school sayings to keep her students, and me, on the straight and narrow. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ was her favorite. I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup—except for pageants—until I was sixteen, and I was so frustrated. All of the other girls wore it, so when I was a freshman I started getting to school early and putting it on before class. I’d wash it off before leaving school, but one day I forgot I had a dentist appointment and my mom came to pick me up early.”
“Busted.” He laughed.
“Way busted. I got the whole Oh-what-a-tangled-web-we weave-when-first-we-practice-to-deceive lecture and she grounded me for a month. It sucked,” she said.
“My mom never grounded me. I didn’t even have a curfew. It was like living with a roommate for most of my life,” he said.
She had hated being grounded and sometimes her mother had been a bit too strict, but she always knew her mom loved her. Chase hadn’t had that, though. She was surprised he was as successful as he was with his upbringing. “So how did you get into art?”
He chuckled again. “You’re awfully curious tonight.”
Katie sat up and straddled his abdomen. “Considering we just became very well acquainted with some very private parts of each other’s bodies, I would think sharing a few fun facts shouldn’t be too much to ask.”
“Hey, I was just making an observation; don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“I’m not wearing any panties, remember?” She felt wicked saying it, but with Chase, her filter seemed to have disappeared completely. His eyes darkened and she slid her hand over the ridges and planes of his six-pack. “So art ...”
Chase trailed his fingers up her thighs and said, “You expect me to concentrate on anything but your lack of panties?”
“Yes.” Leaning over and teasing his earlobe with little nibbles, she said, “Tell me and I’ll ...”
The things she whispered to him were way too bold for Old Katie. When she pulled away, the mix of shock and desperation on his face made her laugh as he quickly spilled his guts.
“My English teacher in sixth grade. She caught me doodling, and instead of giving me detention, she pulled some strings to get me into a seventh-grade art class,” he said.
She walked her fingers down his stomach and prodded. “And your comic books?”
He was running his hand over the bare skin of her back and she wanted to purr like a cat. “I started it my senior year and showed it to the guy who owned the comic-book store in town. He helped me find out how to submit it, and after about eight rejections, I got a letter saying they wanted to publish three issues.”
Katie shook her head. “That is amazing.”
“So now you. Why did you pick cosmetology after giving up law enforcement? Kind of a weird jump.” He ran his finger down her nose and over her lips.
“Yeah, well, I decided I liked making my own hours and making good money more than chasing down bad guys.” She opened her mouth and he slipped his finger inside. She felt wanton and sexy as she sucked on it gently. Whatever it was about being with Chase, she liked the way she felt with him, lying in bed and not being the least bit self-conscious about the way she looked or if he wouldn’t like something she did. That was the amazing thing about being intimate with him; he made her feel like everything she did was a major turn-on.
Like teasing and sucking on his fingers softly. She was just testing it out, enjoying the look on his face, until he pushed her onto her back and moved over her, staring down at her like she was a sweet piece of chocolate he wanted to savor.
Rubbing her palm over his stubbly cheek, she whispered, “I love scruff.”
Chase smiled. “You do? Most girls bitch about it scratching them.”
She shook her head. “Not me. A little scruff to darken the cheeks. I think Hugh Jackman, when he’s all scruffy, is the hottest man on the planet.”
He scowled. “Hugh Jackman is a pansy.”
“Um, have you seen his body? The man is a God.” She laughed.
He started to roll off her. “Okay, I’m done, lost all interest.”
Katie hooked her arm around his neck and leaned up to kiss him. When she had him sufficiently relaxed, she said, “You’re a liar.”
“How’s that?” he asked.
Lying back, she lifted her hips to rub against him and said, “You’re still interested.”
“It’s only hard ’cause I’m thinking about Salma Hayek right now.”
“Oh yeah?” She laughed and sent her fingers into his ribs.
“Sorry, not ticklish,” Chase said, grinning down from his position on his elbows.
“Huh.” She skimmed her fingers up and over his back, kneading the muscles, and said, “Guess I’m going to have to figure out another way to torture you, then.”
Katie slid her hands down his back and grabbed his butt firmly. He sucked in his breath and she released the rock-hard cheeks to run her hands up his sides. She got to his chest and pushed him over, moving against him until her nipples were hard little peaks.
“I think I want to add another thing-I’ve-never-done item to my list.” She moved lower with her mouth, sucking and licking at his salty skin.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Chase’s voice was hoarse as she slipped farther down until she was at eye level with his erection.
“Why don’t I just show you?”