The barbecue had been nice, though. For some reason, spending the evening with her
without
going home with her afterward had felt…good. Evidence that there was more between them than sex. Of course, Jane hadn’t meant to spend time with him at her family party, but that was too bad. She’d done it, and he’d enjoyed every second of it, even with Grandma Olive calling him a pansy.
He’d had paperwork to catch up on, so Chase hadn’t minded giving Jane some space, but now he was ready to move forward.
Jane finally opened the door, and Chase’s body tingled with happiness at the sight of her wearing workout shorts and a T-shirt with her cute black glasses. “Hey, I’m just in time for boxing.”
Jane cocked her head. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Ouch. “I have something important to tell you.”
She glanced past him before nodding. “Okay. Come in.”
Chase looked over his shoulder as he stepped inside. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine. I’m glad you’re here, actually. I wanted to talk to you, too.”
That was more like it. “About what?”
She hesitated, lips parting for a moment before she shook her head. Her ponytail bounced, distracting him into thinking about how soft her hair felt when he made love to her.
“You go first,” she said, waving him toward the couch.
“All right.” He dropped onto the couch and she sat down next to him. “My father heard something yesterday, but I didn’t want to say anything until he’d confirmed it. The police have another suspect.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know his name. They’re keeping it quiet because they haven’t brought him in yet.”
Jane looked down at her hands. “All right. It’s great to hear, though. I’ll let Jessie know.”
“Yeah, hopefully they won’t be looking in your brother’s direction again. But don’t say anything that might tip off the suspect.”
“I’ll wait a few days.”
Chase took her hand and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “Are you okay? You look tired.”
She shrugged.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“I…” Frowning, she looked down to their hands. “I need to…”
Jane was worried about their relationship again. It was easy to see. But he’d meant what he’d said about falling for her, and he wasn’t going to let her go easily. He’d made that mistake with his ex-girlfriend. This time he wasn’t letting go without a fight.
Chase leaned close, and when Jane looked up, he kissed her. He knew how to work her. He knew when her neuroses were about to overwhelm her real feelings. And he knew full well that he was her weakness, and he was pretty damn thrilled about that.
Though she didn’t pull back, her lips were cool against his for a moment. And then they weren’t. Then they were soft and hot and opening for him.
She kissed him back and let him keep it slow, which was unusual for her. They tasted each other for a long minute, and then he pulled away. “What’s wrong, Jane?”
Her fingers dug into his hand, she took a deep breath…but then she shook her head, denying she was upset. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
“A movie?” It was nine o’clock and he had to prep a site at 6:00 a.m…. “A movie sounds perfect.”
Jane got him a Coke—a real Coke, as if she’d gone shopping for him—and poured herself a glass of red wine. Then she turned on a romantic comedy, snuggled close to him, and Chase was back in heaven.
At first he thought they’d re-create Saturday night when they’d watched a movie in platonic relaxation. But he’d already seen this movie, and he hadn’t touched her in so long, and her lips looked rosy and red from sipping the wine.
Soon enough, he found himself stroking her knee, then the inside of her thigh. It felt like years since he’d touched her there, and he was rock hard and aching within minutes. Jane sipped her wine and laughed at the movie while Chase closed his eyes and thought of the way he’d licked her last time. The way she’d screamed in pleasure.
Shit. He forced his eyes open and tried to watch the show, but there were other scenes playing behind his eyes.
Holding his breath, Chase slid his hand higher, and Jane’s thighs eased apart.
Thank God. He gave up any pretense of looking at the TV and turned to her. She kissed him and tugged him close. He laid her on the couch or she pulled him down, but somehow he ended up over her, kissing her, pressing his whole body into hers.
God, he’d missed the taste and feel and sound of her. Her sweet mouth and soft hair and greedy sighs. Jane’s hands ran up his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. She shoved off his shirt and he knew then that she was as hungry as he was.
He touched her everywhere, running his hands over her skin, dragging off her shorts, pushing up her shirt. “Jane,” he murmured over and over again. “Jane.”
In no time Chase was slipping on a condom and sliding deep inside her.
“Ah, God, Jane,” he whispered as she wrapped her arms around him. Every inch of her body touched his as he took her, plunging slow and hard.
Her nails dug into his back, her sighs turned to moans. His whole world was Jane beneath him, surrounding him.
He shifted higher on her body and Jane cried out, her nails dragging down to his ass. He felt her rising into him, her sex tightening around him. She shuddered beneath him, her scream a mixture of pleasure and tears. Just as her cries faded, Chase was pulled deep into the vortex of release, the world giving up all its light for one spinning moment.
Before he’d finished spinning, Jane went stiff beneath him. “We have to talk,” she said, pushing at his chest.
Oh, Jesus. Seriously? He couldn’t even feel his legs.
“Chase!”
Okay. All right. Chase took a deep breath and pushed up on his arms. He grabbed his jeans and headed for the bathroom. By the time he got out, Jane was up, wearing her shirt and underwear and pacing like a madwoman.
She swiped a tear off her cheek and his heart fell, but there was no getting around the truth.
“Jane, I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“What? Why did you say that?”
“Because I love you.”
“No!” she yelled.
Chase knew it was a really bad idea to smile, but he felt his lips twitch in the wrong direction.
“This is not funny!”
“Jeez. Do you do this every time a man tells you he loves you?”
Her mouth snapped shut so quickly that he heard her teeth crack together.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I need to break it off. Completely.”
“Uh-huh.”
Jane stopped in her tracks and spun to face him. “What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t believe you.”
“Why?” she huffed.
“I’m not sure. Maybe because we just made love?”
“No. We had
sex
, Chase.”
Intellectually, Chase knew that should have hurt, but it was so obviously a lie that his heart didn’t even twitch. She’d meant to break it off when he’d shown up, just as she’d meant to break it off several other times in their short relationship. But she couldn’t do it. Not when she wanted him.
She liked him, and she needed his body, and Chase knew that eventually those two things would mesh together and create something much more intense. Just as it had for him.
“It’s over,” Jane insisted.
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing happened. It’s just over. It was supposed to be over after the first night!”
“When you came to the door today, you were upset. What happened?”
She shook her head. Crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. Her chin rose. “I told Mr. Jennings.”
“Um…” A flush of embarrassment crept up his face, as if Quinn Jennings was her dad and had just walked in on them. “You told him we were sleeping together?”
“No! I told him about my family, about my name.”
“Oh, I get it. But that’s a good thing!” He started to reach for her. “I’m proud of you, babe.”
Jane threw up her hands to hold him off. “It is not a good thing! Dynasty MacKenzie isn’t a secret anymore. You know about her, and so does Mr. Jennings, and now…now Greg knows, too, and he’ll tell people. I have to
live
with her now.”
“Maybe she’s not so bad, Jane.”
Fists tightening as if she might practice her boxing on him, Jane advanced. Chase actually took a step back. “You have no idea how bad she was.”
“Well, I knew—”
“You knew me when I was, what? Thirteen or fourteen? I spent two more years perfecting my bad-girl image. I was completely out of control. I was…I can’t be anything like her. I can’t date a man with tattoos or visit my brother in jail or…I
can’t
. Or people will think I haven’t changed.”
“But Jane…Who cares what people think?”
“
I
care! You don’t understand.”
“So tell me.”
Her eyes were fever bright, sparkling with pain.
“Tell me what happened.”
“No!” She looked so panicked that Chase no longer cared if she was going to hit him. He grabbed her and folded his arms around her. Her breath blasted against his bare chest as if she’d just run a race. Her knuckles dug into his stomach.
“Jane, you need to talk to someone.”
“I don’t need you to play therapist. I know what happened.” Her breathing slowed, so when she pushed away, he let her go. “My dad, my real dad, wrote to me every week when he was in prison.
Every
week. I had all the fantasies you’d expect about what a great time we’d have when he got out. What a great father he’d be. He
encouraged
those fantasies. Then he was paroled when I was twelve, and I never heard from him again. Ever. He’d moved on. He didn’t need a pen pal anymore because he had a life.”
Chase’s throat tightened with sympathetic pain for her. “Jesus, that’s really awful. You must’ve been—”
“It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, of course. Puberty. I started craving male attention, and I had the body to get it. Men wanted me and I loved it. There you go. Therapy session over!”
His chest burned so hot that he had a momentary fear he was having a heart attack. “You were just a kid.”
“Sure, when I was twelve, I was a kid. But at some point I was old enough to know better. At some point I couldn’t blame my mom or my dad or my past anymore. It was just me drinking and getting high and having sex with men twice my age—”
Oh, God.
“And living with that is hard enough without everybody knowing about it!”
She was pacing again, hands wound together, mouth pressed into a tight line. He remembered how sexual she’d been. A thirteen-year-old seductress on a mission to lose herself…and apparently she’d succeeded.
“What happened when you were sixteen?”
“Ha! I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could handle myself.”
It seemed ridiculous, but he was afraid. Afraid for that girl she’d been. Whatever had happened, it had been a long time ago, but the terror of it sent his heart racing. “What happened, Jane?”
Her laugh sounded like a sob. “I thought I was so cool.”
“Jane.”
“These guys asked if I wanted to go to a real party down in Denver, and I was so damn ready to get out of this town and have some real fun. I hopped into their car at midnight and left town without thinking once about my family or my safety or who these guys were.”
Chase rubbed his hand over his skull, hoping it would relieve some pressure. “Jesus.” She stood still now, but Chase suddenly found himself pacing, prowling across the length of the room.
“We went to their house in downtown Denver. They had pills and beer and I was so high, I was happy to do anything, you know? I
did
do anything. I had sex with three guys. In the same room, at the same time. That’s who I was, Chase.” Her voice had been quiet, but it rose now, tears shining on her pale cheeks. “That’s who I was! And I deserved everything anyone ever said about me. I deserved it when girls called me a skank and whore, and when boys grabbed me and asked when they could get their next blow job.”
“Jane.”
He wrapped his hand around her arm and tried to hug her, but she shoved him away. “That’s who I was and I can’t bear to have anyone think that about me again!”
“They won’t,” he whispered, tugging her back before she could escape. “They won’t think that.” He folded her into his arms and squeezed too tightly.
“I just want a boring life that no one looks beyond,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. “That average woman who fades into the background. I don’t want anyone to know what’s inside. Ever. And
you
know what’s inside. I can’t be around you.”
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “You’d rather be with someone who doesn’t
know
you?”
“Yes!”
“What kind of life is that, Jane?”
“It’s…It will be peaceful. And
good
.”