By the skin of their teeth, they managed to make it out of the city, no thanks to Holly. When he thought of the danger she’d put herself in, he wanted to wring her pretty little neck. She’d come within a hairsbreadth of getting killed and that scared the piss out of him.
Chase was too angry to speak as they trudged along to headquarters. The last few miles were traveled in silence, because he didn’t trust himself to utter a single word, and Holly wisely remained silent. Though he was furious at what she’d done, part of him was proud of the bravery she’d displayed. It was yet another reason why he loved her. She wasn’t the kind of woman to lose her cool in the face of adversity -- she was someone who was willing to fight if it was necessary.
He didn’t bother to modify his strides, even though her legs were shorter than his. At times he noticed she had to jog in order to keep up with him, but she didn’t complain. After a while however, his conscience got the better of him and he slowed down. If he kept up this pace he was sure she’d pass out and he didn’t want that to happen.
“We’ll stop here for a brief rest. Here.” He unhooked the canteen from his utility belt and tossed it toward her.
“Thank you,” she murmured, taking it, and then gulping thirstily. “Ah.” Her sigh of relief said it all.
Chase felt like an ass for punishing her the way he had. “We could stand to take a half hour break if you’d like. These trees will give us shelter and shade and seem ideal. I think we’ll hit camp before nightfall.” He kicked aside some pebbles and took a seat on some moss.
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She hesitated for a moment, before joining him. “You’re not still mad at me, are you?”
He could read the anxiety in her eyes and more than anything he wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her worry away, but she needed to know how much of a fool she’d been to put herself at risk the way she had.
“Mad isn’t exactly the word I’d use. Frustrated, infuriated, or maybe even exasperated comes to mind first.”
“Oh.” She lowered her head. “Whatever it is I’ve done to upset you, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t know what you did?”
She raised her head to meet his gaze. “How can I know if you won’t tell me? For the past few hours you’ve done your best to punish me for whatever transgression you think I’ve committed.”
“Holly, you could have gotten yourself killed back there. What you did was dangerous and furthermore, if you do something that crazy again, I’ll personally bend you over my knee and paddle that luscious bottom of yours.” One auburn eyebrow shot up and then a slow smile turned up her lips.
“Promise?”
Chase glared at her. “This is no time for jokes. Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again.”
Holly returned his hard stare, narrowing her eyes. “What exactly should I have done? Let them capture us both and then let God knows what happen? If you expected me to sit around and play the damsel in distress then you can forget about it, buddy, because I’m not that type of gal. You men! You’re so full of yourselves thinking you have to always play the hero.”
“If that’s how I truly felt, Holly, I would have come out and said it. My ego can take a few lumps. That’s not the reason I’m annoyed with you.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Then why? What the hell is your problem and why are you treating me like I’ve wronged you?”
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“Because you scared me! When you put yourself at risk like that for a brief moment I thought I’d lost you and I don’t know if I could have lived with myself if that happened.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It means I love you, you idiot!” He shouted the words. Chase hadn’t intended to tell her this way, but now that the words were out there was no taking them back.
Holly blinked several times; her mouth formed into an “o.” She moved her lips but no sound came out.
“Say something, dammit,” he muttered. “I just told you something I wouldn’t say lightly to anyone.”
“I -- I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I had no idea. I mean I knew you wanted me, but I didn’t realize it went this deep. Are you just saying that?”
“I wouldn’t tell you something I didn’t mean, Holly. From our very first encounter I sensed you would be someone important in my life. I didn’t understand it myself at first, but now I do. I love you, Holly. You’re probably thinking we barely know each other, but I don’t think it takes years or months to figure out how you feel about someone.”
She scrambled to her feet and began to pace back and forth. “This is so sudden.” He stood up with her. “I disagree. As a matter of fact I believe you have feelings for me as well.”
Holly stiffened. “No.” She shook her head.
Chase strode over to where she stood and pulled her against him. He lowered his head and gave her a long hard kiss. With a sigh, she parted her lips at the insistence of his questing tongue. She tasted so damn good. His cock stirred and stiffened to full-blown arousal. It never ceased to amaze him how easily this woman could send his senses in a whirl just from her very nearness.
He grasped her ass, fitting Holly’s body against his so his erection rubbed the juncture of her thighs. He could tell she was turned on by the way she moaned into his mouth, and the way she pressed her breasts against his chest. Yes, she wanted him all
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right and it filled Chase with a degree of triumph but that wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
Much more.
Reluctantly Chase pulled away from her, and put some distance between them while he got his raging hormones under control. “Care to repeat that, Holly?”
“What?” The bewildered expression on her face told him the kiss had taken her aback as well.
“Tell me you don’t have feelings for me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Liar. Your body goes up in flames whenever I touch you, and I’ve noticed the way you watch me from beneath your lashes when you think I’m not looking. Why else would you endanger yourself to rescue me from the Cyrellians?”
“Because I wasn’t interested in becoming someone’s Sunday dinner and I f-f-figured I-I’d have a better chance of finding your base outside the city with you rather than without you,” she stammered, looking at her feet as if there was something important about them.
“You have a hard time lying, don’t you?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Why don’t you just admit it? You have feelings for me too. Why else would you be so angry with me because I’d left you that first time? We shared something special, albeit briefly, but I know you felt it too. It’s one of the reasons I came back for you.”
She turned her back on him, but not before Chase saw her furious blush coloring her cheeks. “Why me?”
“Why did I fall in love with you?”
“Yes. I’m not sure I believe in love at first sight. It’s simply too fantastical and unreliable.”
“I don’t think so. Maybe I know what I want when I see it and I knew I wanted you.”
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She turned to him then, her skepticism still etched in every line of her face. “How do you know you’re in love with me and this isn’t infatuation? Have you ever been in love before?”
“Once,” he said softly. If he was to build anything permanently with Holly, he wanted her to know all about him, including his past.
She gave him a scowl. “What happened? Did you get tired of her and cast her aside?”
Chase closed his eyes and silently counted to ten, willing himself not to get angry at that offhand comment. He knew she was still struggling with her own feelings and he needed to make allowances for that. “No. She died.” Holly gasped. “Oh, my goodness, Chase. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did.” The look of remorse was enough to wipe away any anger he may have been feeling.
“No, you shouldn’t have, but that’s okay. You didn’t know.”
“But still, I shouldn’t speak of things I have no clue about. I have a habit of talking without thinking things through first. I truly apologize. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”
“But I want to. I think you have the right to know. I love you, Holly, and I don’t intend to keep any secrets from you… ever.”
She gulped, turning her head to the side. “Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what? Love you? I can’t stop doing that. My feelings can’t be turned off at the snap of a finger. If they could, do you think I would have fallen for a stubborn little hellcat like you?”
Her lips twisted wryly. “Gee, you sure know how to flatter a girl.”
“It’s not my intention to insult you, but my point is, I couldn’t help falling for you. It just happened and now that it has, I plan on doing everything in my power to show you with my every thought, word, and deed. And I believe the first step in that goal is opening up to you about my past. Come sit with me.”
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Holly sighed, but allowed him to lead her to the spot where they sat before. Once they were settled back on the soft earth, Chase began his tale. “I had a girlfriend a few years back. Her name was Sheila. We were at the point where we were talking about marriage, but she was killed before I could ask her to marry me.” Holly’s deep brown eyes filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Chase.”
“Thank you. It’s been a while now, and I’m over the pain. I think there will always be a special place in my heart for her, but the love we shared was so deep, it gave me strength to carry on. It was the kind that was generous and giving -- the type that allowed me to move on with my life after she was gone and love again.” The only other person he’d spoken to about Sheila was Jack, but unlike that time he’d shared with his friend, it didn’t hurt so much now. Instead, it gave him a warm feeling inside because his ability to bring the incident up without wincing told Chase that he’d healed.
Holly placed her hand on his thigh. “How did it happen?”
“The Cyrellians got to her of course. To make a long story short, she’d begun to have suspicions about them. You see, we used to work for the same surveillance company but she began to notice some disturbing trends.”
“Like what?”
“It was her job to compile a weekly report of any suspicious activities and turn it over to her supervisors. The company we worked for was meant to be there to discourage crime and help the law enforcement agency to keep the streets safe. Sheila did this for a couple years, so at first it didn’t register in her mind when her Cyrellian bosses began to request very specific information that didn’t pertain to anything that could be construed as a crime at all.”
“Like what?”
“They wanted to know about specific people, and what their daily routines were and who these people were associated with.”
“When did it click for her that something wasn’t right?” Chase rubbed his chin. “I suppose she began to question them when their requests became more frequent. It just so happened she met up with a woman whose
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husband had gone missing and she remembered he was one of the people her bosses had wanted reports on. Sheila thought it was odd so she began to ask questions.
Though she’d worked there with not a single blemish on her record, they demoted her without a single reason why. But the bottom line is, they gave her old assignment to someone else, and she was relegated to filing. Needless to say she quit.”
“I can’t say I blame her,” Holly murmured. “That poor woman must have been beside herself when they did that to her.”
“Yes, she was. And fool that I was, I stayed on. Granted, she never asked me to quit because of what they did to her, it wasn’t her style, but I should have out of loyalty to her. The thing was, since we’d been talking marriage, I thought it best to hang on to my job for security. I was so caught up in wanting to provide for her that I didn’t listen when she began to speak of her suspicions about the Cyrellians and what they were up to. When I basically told her she was being paranoid, Sheila took matters into her own hands.”
“What happened next?” Holly seemed to be hanging on his every word. It pleased Chase to see her letting her guard down. That meant he was closer to penetrating her heart.
“She was caught breaking and entering into the surveillance center. There were several files in her possession. Sheila was locked up, and they wouldn’t let me see her when I tried to visit her at the local prison. I did however get word that she’d died on the inside from natural causes.”
Holly crinkled her nose. “That sounds strange.”
“Damn right it does. She was only twenty-six and had never been sick a day in her life. I knew in my heart of hearts foul play was involved. You can’t imagine the guilt I experienced because of it. Though I had my suspicions, I had no proof. Shortly afterward, I met up with Jack and the rest as they say is history.” Holly pouted. “I’m sorry, Chase.”
“Thank you.”
“She sounds like a remarkable woman.”
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He nodded. “She was. Phenomenal even.”
“What was she like?”
“Brave, beautiful, and headstrong.” A faint smile touched his lips. “I knew when I first saw her it was love. Exactly how I felt with you.”
“What did she look like?”
Chase shrugged. “Physically she was a lot like you. She was a redhead too, although her hair was more orange than auburn. Sheila and you are about the same body type as well.”
Holly stiffened, and her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying you fell for me because I look like your dead lover?”
Chase took her hands in his with a vehement shake of his head. “No! You two may have some of the same physical characteristics, but trust me, when I look at you, I see Holly, a very desirable and caring woman who I can’t stop thinking about. I constantly crave your touch and feel bereft when you’re not around. Like I told you before, if Sydney hadn’t asked about you I would have eventually come looking for you.” He tightened his grip on her hands. “Please put me out of my misery and tell me you return my feelings. At the very least give me hope that you could eventually love me.”