Author: Bella Andre

He held her gaze, knowing his was as dark, as heated, as hers. Chase knew he shouldn’t keep pressuring her to give him things she wasn’t anywhere near ready to give, even as he said, “If the choice is to take what you’re offering or to walk away, I choose this. I choose you. I choose whatever you’re willing to share with me. Even though I’m never going to stop wanting more from you than just awesome sex. Even though I’m always going to want to change your mind.”

“Chase, I—”

He put a finger over her lips. “I know you’re not ready and I know I shouldn’t push you, but damn it, I can’t help the way I feel. I can’t stop myself from loving you.”

Chloe's eyes got big at the word love and a moment later when she scrambled off his lap with sudden, fierce strength, it took everything Chase had to let her go.

Chapter Twelve

Chloe knew she had been honest. Painfully so.

So had Chase.

She’d even offered to walk away from him. She’d tried to be honorable, just as he’d been with her.

But Chase was clearly a realist. Just as she was. And they both knew that their physical connection was undeniable. Unstoppable.

“I know you don’t want to hear that I'm falling in love with you,” he said softly. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

Oh god, she shouldn't want to hear that he was falling for her, not when it scared her to death to know how deep his feelings ran. And yet, she couldn't deny the warmth that spread through her at knowing what she'd come to mean to him.

He was standing now, facing her. Waiting.

There were a million excuses she could have made, a dozen lies she could have tried to tell.

But she couldn't.

“I’m sick of lying to myself. I can’t do it. Not with you.” The admission came out before she could pull it back and she willed herself to be brave.

Fortunately, it was easier to be brave with Chase than with anyone else. Because she knew that he loved her.

“The truth is that I won’t be able to control myself around you, either. The truth is that even though I can’t give you what you want, even though I should be the one to let you go find someone who’s capable of loving you the way you deserve to be loved, I don’t want to walk away from you. From this. I can’t give you what you want. All I’m capable of giving right now is sex. Just sex.”

Oh God, what was wrong with her? Why was she letting herself get in any deeper than she could handle?

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” He held out a hand to her. “Have lots and lots of great sex.” He paused, his expression serious. “But not until you feel better. Not until you’re not shaking anymore from having to relive that night.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I’m sorry I made you go back there, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

“You needed to know,” she told him. And, surprisingly, she felt a little lighter for having shared her story with someone who cared for her. Deeply, truly cared.

She walked all the way into his arms. “I feel much better,” she told him.

“There’s no rush,” he said, even though both of them knew that there was, as their days together ticked down. And she didn’t want to waste another second thinking about what Dean had done. Damn it, hadn’t she vowed that he wouldn’t steal this from her, too?

“I really do think I’m ninety-nine percent of the way there,” she said. “Think you’re up to helping me get that last percent back?”

Chase stared at her for a long moment before his mouth moved into a sinfully sexy smile. And then his lips were sliding across hers so softly she almost couldn’t feel his kiss.

But her body reacted instantly.

A few seconds later, he kissed her again. Just as softly. She tried to kiss him back, but he pulled away before she could. Another kiss, too gentle and quick for her to do more than just wait for it.

No, damn it! If they were going to do this just sex thing, she couldn’t let him give her these soft, senselessly enticing kisses. From here on out she needed to make sure things stayed physical, not emotional.

Having sex, not making love.

Hot kisses, rather than sweet.

Amazingly, she knew exactly where to start. “Let’s—”

He pressed another one of those soft kisses against her lips.

“—go—”

Another kiss.

“—outside.”

That finally stopped his mind-bending onslaught and it occurred to her that he’d been trying to kiss her into submission. A gentle capitulation.

And, oh, if he did that long enough, gave her enough of those sweet kisses that stole her breath and made her heart pound with wanting...well, she could see that he just might end up drawing a promise out of her that she wasn’t ready to give.

A promise in return for pleasure.

Chase had told her he wasn’t going to give up. But she was just as firm in her position. So if he was going to try to make tonight about emotion, she was going to make sure they erred on the side of the physical.

Her resolve firmed just as he came at her with another one of those sinfully sweet kisses aimed straight at her heart. Pulling away before it could land, she led him to the French doors and out to the balcony off the bedroom. She didn’t need to hear his questions to know he was wondering what the heck she was up to.

Well, he’d just have to wait and see.

At the last second, she realized they were going to need one more thing before leaving the room. “Where are your condoms?”

Out of her peripheral vision, she could see his erection grow bigger, taller. “In my bag.”

“Get one.” She smiled at him, a smile that felt wicked and different. But not bad. Liberated. “At least one.”

His eyes narrowed, a muscle jumping in his jaw, at her command.

Another wicked smile, along with the brush of her hand across the stubble beginning to cover his jaw. “You don’t like me telling you what to do?”

“On the contrary,” he responded, his words raw and rough, “I like it a great deal.”

Darn it, she was trying to keep a handle on things here. He shouldn’t be able to turn everything on its ear with just a few words.

The night air still held some of the warmth of the day, but it was cold enough that she could feel it slide across her overheated skin. It felt good, like a splash of sense. Just enough sense to keep her purpose in place, but not enough to have her put a halt to being with Chase altogether.

When they were all the way outside, she turned back to Chase, plucking the condoms from his fingertips—he was clearly a hopeful man given the stack he’d brought out—and placing them on the rail within easy reach.

She let herself look at him for a long moment, the way he stood before her in the moonlight, utterly confident in his nudity. Of course he was. Any man—any person—this beautiful should be confident.

Her intention to keep things only physical slipping ever so slightly, she found herself saying, “You could have anyone. Why me?”

His thumb rubbing sensuous little circles against the inside of her palm, he replied, “I knew the instant I saw you.”

“What—” She should stop this, move back to playtime. But her mouth was a traitor with another question. “What could you have possibly known?”

“Nothing,” he replied with perfect honesty. Honesty that immediately cut through any protests she might have made. “And everything.”

She didn’t understand.

Or, rather, she didn’t want to understand.

She needed to keep things simple. Black and white. That’s what their connection was. That was all it could possibly be until she had her life figured out and back on track.

“We’re good in bed together,” she told him, and then, to make sure they stayed on the purely physical track, “That night at your brother’s house, out on his porch, what did you want to do to me?”

His eyes burned into hers, a whole new level of intense. “You know exactly what I wanted to do to you.”

“Show me, Chase.”

A second later, he had her backed into the porch rail, one hand in her hair, the other on her hip. They’d been like this enough for her to recognize the way he liked to hold her.

She liked it, too. So much. There was sizzling pleasure in his arms. But comfort found her there, too. A sense of safety that he would always hold her just right. Not too tight. Not too loosely, either.

Fortunately, his mouth descended on hers just then, sending her thoughts into flight.

She hadn’t thought he could kiss her better than he already had. Oh, how wrong she was.

This kiss was hotter, went so much deeper, was so much more dangerous than any that had come before.

She couldn’t breathe, didn’t even care that she was quickly losing her hold on reality as her sole focus centered on his mouth, to the way his tongue found her most sensitive spots, to the way his teeth knew just where to bite, just how hard to tease her. And then, oh God, he was doing just what he’d done before, running kisses across her cheek, then down to her neck, to the hollow of her collarbones.

The anticipation of what he was going to do had her trembling even before his tongue slid against her skin.

She held her breath, only to have it come gasping out as he made contact.

“Lovely, Chloe.” His seductive praise was a whisper just below her earlobe and she shivered with unrepressed delight as his teeth found her there and lightly pressed into the sensitive flesh.

“You didn’t bite me there.”

“I wanted to,” he finished.

A whimper escaped her as she realized that she was a fool to think she could lead Chase anywhere. His gentleness did not preclude his power over her emotions.

He laved the small bite before moving his attention back to her shoulders. She never would have thought that she’d be sensitive, reactive, on that part of her body.

How incredibly wrong she was.

Chase lifted his head. “Too many clothes.”

She was on the verge of opening her mouth to remind him that she was naked when it hit her: He was pretending. Pretending they were rewinding back two nights. Giving her the fantasy, per her request.

His fingertips moved to her shoulders where the silky straps of her dress had been. Slowly, deliberately, he slid those phantom straps aside. “Lift your arms for me.”

There was no reason for her to raise her arms. She didn’t have any clothes on, no dress to get off. Her breasts were already there, bared—and aroused—before Chase.

It would have been enough for her if he’d laid her down and taken her on the wooden slats of the deck, right then and there. But, oh, wasn’t it so much sweeter to play this game?

To pretend.

And to lose herself in heady anticipation.

Moving her hands and arms as if she were trying to slip free from the straps of a dress, she lifted them up and shimmied, just as she had two nights ago.

She went to lower her hands when Chase said, “Just like that.”

She waited for panic to take over, for the urge to lower her hands. He’d promised not to hold them in place again, and he was keeping to that promise. But wasn’t asking her to do it almost the same? And shouldn’t she be feeling something other than the heady warmth that was moving through her, head to toe?

“Lovely.”

He ran the fingertips of his free hand over the swell of her breasts and she arched into his touch. One broad fingertip began slow circles over her skin. Slowly, way too slowly, he came closer to the tightly puckered skin that was so desperate for his touch.

“Chase,” she moaned when he was right there and instead of giving her what she needed, he turned his attention to her other breast.

“Mmm?”

He didn’t look up from the torturous circles he was making on her flesh. Her arms trembled from the way she was holding them, but she didn’t lower them.