She wore black. A black silk evening gown with a single strap over one shoulder that bared the upper curves of her breasts. It flowed along her body like midnight, cascading along her legs to sweep the floor behind her.
A black silk-lined cape was taken from her shoulders by the doorman and checked in, along with her little black purse.
Her champagne-blond hair was pulled back in the front and held by combs dripping with diamonds and opals. They sparkled in her shoulder-length tresses.
Chase couldn't keep his eyes off her. She looked like a princess. So beautiful she made his chest ache with the need to touch her, to assure himself she was real.
No sooner had she turned back to the room than her gaze connected with his. Her somber blue eyes were filled with shadows, her expression solemn before her parents moved toward her and she forced a smile.
It looked as natural as a sunrise, but Chase knew there was nothing natural about the curve of her lips. That smile didn't reach her eyes, it didn't relax the curves of her body as she kissed her parents' cheeks.
Surprisingly, Timothy Rutherford frowned, his gaze latching on to Chase's as though disappointed in him somehow.
Society sucked, Chase decided. He'd fielded so many damned questions about his nonexistent relationship with Kia that he was already gritting his teeth. And to add insult to injury, the men were positively gleeful at the thought that Chase wasn't claiming her.
He tapped his fingers against the tablecloth of the table where he, Cameron, and Jaci sat. Falladay Investigations, though their only client was Sinclair properties, donated heavily to the event the Edge-woods put together each year.
The benefit ball aided the women and children's shelter the Edge-woods had taken under their wing ten years before when their daughter had died at the hands of her abusive husband.
"I love that dress Kia's wearing." Jaci sighed. "It's an exclusive, too."
Chase glanced over at her, almost missing her smug smile. She was picking on him; he could feel it. She had been doing it for days.
He lifted his drink and sipped from it, his eyes following Kia's progress when he noticed Jaci rise from the table and join Courtney.
That was never a good sign. Courtney and Jaci together were damned dangerous. And within minutes, they were at Kia's side.
He brooded as Kia stared at them in surprise. A little frown edged at her brow, and for a moment she looked confused.
Jaci laughed and tugged at her arm, finally managing to draw her away from the older couples she was standing among and pulling her over to another table.
He bit back his groan. Hell. This was a nightmare. If those women managed to corrupt Kia, she would never be the same again.
There were eight of them now. It had begun with that little witch Tally Rafferty. She had pulled together the women she knew were married to the club members and friends of her lovers, Lucian and Devril Conover. They had formed a friendship, a sisterhood, that had become terrifying to the men in their lives.
And now they were befriending Kia.
He had an overwhelming urge to jerk her from their grasp and hide her from them forever. Not that there was anything bad about any of them. They were the kindest women Chase had ever met. Good-hearted, sweet, loving, and devious as hell.
He leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes on them. Kia seemed a little off balance, as though she wasn't quite certain what she was doing there with the other women. She was talking, smiling, but he caught the nervous little looks, the uncertainty.
Damn Drew Stanton and the women who had made her so uncertain of her own appeal, her ability to choose and make friends. Her lack of confidence in herself as a woman.
Though, he admitted, even in the short time he had been allowed in her bed, that confidence had grown. Grown so much that she had thrown him right out of that bed.
His jaw clenched at the thought of her demand.
Return alone or don't come back at all.
He had stayed away from her. He'd told himself it was better that way. He had known all along that Kia wasn't made for the type of relationship he needed.
No emotion. Those were his rules. He didn't want to hurt a woman's tender heart, didn't want to build false illusions, so he kept things as simple as possible. It was better that way. Safer that way.
He'd broken that rule only a few times, and each time he had regretted it.
Until Kia.
With Kia, there were regrets, but being in her bed wasn't one of them.
"She's a beautiful woman," Khalid commented from where he sat across from him, his gaze on Kia as well. "Such a woman should not be alone each night."
Chase's gaze shifted to the other man. He was watching Kia with an edge of regret as well. Surprising for the man who never became attached to a woman. That was Khalid's rule, to love them all equally. But there was something about Kia that made the other man quieter, more reflective.
That knowledge had Chase's stomach churning with anger.
"What's your problem?" he muttered. "There are a lot of women alone here."
"But not all are her." Khalid shrugged, turning back to Chase with an almost amused smile. "I enjoyed the time we spent with her."
Chase's eyes narrowed. "Did she run you off, too?"
Khalid's brow arched. "I, my friend, have never been run off," he informed Chase arrogantly. "I am a rather intelligent man when it comes to women. I know when the time for games is over. The time for games with her is at an end, unfortunately."
"What the hell do you mean by that?"
Khalid's lips quirked. "It amazes me at times, watching the men I know as friends, and seeing for myself how dense they can become when it comes to affairs of the heart. Tell me, Chase, do you intend to declare her as your own?"
Declare her. The process of informing the club and its members that he was involved in a relationship with her. It barred any other member from attempting to poach, unless the woman initiated the contact, at which time the two members would be forced to distance themselves and see which the woman finally decided on.
There were rules to the club. Rules that had been formed generations before and had continued with only slight revisions or deviations. It kept the club secure, it kept it peaceful. It kept it limited to a very small number of members.
"I hadn't planned to," Chase finally snapped, though he had had to fight himself in order not to. To keep his relationship with Kia as unfettered and easy as every other relationship he had ever had.
Khalid's lips thinned at the information. He picked up his drink and knocked it back before slapping the glass on the table and giving Chase a hard, almost angry glare.
"She deserved better than either of us anyway," he suddenly snapped. "If you will excuse me, I believe I've had enough of the party atmosphere."
Chase watched in surprise as Khalid rose to his feet, straightened his silk evening jacket, and strode from the table.
Now that was odd as hell coming from the perpetually cool Khalid.
"Problems?" Cameron leaned forward. He had watched Khalid as he left the ballroom.
Chase's gaze moved back to Kia. She was in the midst of the other women now, and he saw a smile, a real smile, flicker over her lips at something Tally Rafferty said.
Courtney was moving onto the dance floor with Ian, and several of the other women were following suit.
Kia glanced over at him, her expression at first distant, alone. Their eyes met, and her face flickered with so many emotions that pushed into his chest and crowded through his brain.
"Khalid's fine." He rose to his feet as Jaci moved from the other table to make her way back across the room. "I'll catch you later, Cam."
He passed Jaci and ignored her smug smile. He ignored several friends who called out his name. His entire attention was on one woman and his determination not to be thrown out of her bed.
He could take her alone, he decided. He didn't have to let emotions get involved in that. He could handle it.
He moved to the table, his eyes holding hers.
"Dance with me, Kia," he murmured when he stopped in front of her and held his hand out to her. "One dance."
One dance.
Kia stared up at him, and she knew she was lost. She could see the hunger in his eyes, the same hunger that burned inside her, and she didn't know how to fight it. She needed. Ached until she wondered if she could bear the emptiness inside her.
She put her hand in his and let him draw her from the chair and onto the dance floor. Just as it had the last time, reality receded into the distance as he pulled her into his arms and began to lead her among the other couples.
They moved together like silk against flesh. A slow, easy glide, their bodies brushing, burning.
"I've missed you," he whispered, and her heart nearly broke all over again.
"Have you?" She couldn't submerge the threat of disbelief in her voice. "You could have called."
Was that surprise that flickered in his eyes? Surely it wasn't. He was a man, fully mature; he knew women, knew their bodies and all the right things to say. Surely he knew the need for more than the orgasms he could give.
"Would calling have been enough for you?" he asked, his hand resting on her hip.
"It would have been a start."
She needed more, and she knew it. And he should know it.
He pulled her closer, his steps leading them deeper onto the dance floor and pressing his erection more firmly against her stomach.
Kia felt her knees weaken at the feel of his arousal, at the sight of it in his brooding gaze. Chase was hungry, very hungry. She knew that look, had seen it on his face as he took her, felt it in his touch as he held her.
And it was just the hunger.
"I need more than a few phone calls, Kia," he finally told her. "I'm a man, not a teenager."
"Are we going to argue the rules of a relationship, Chase?" She shook her head at the thought. "You're making excuses, and we've gone far past that stage. If you want to walk away, then I won't try to hold you. But if you want more from me, then there are things I need as well."
She couldn't afford to let him break her, to allow herself to be broken. She had spent two years attempting to atone for something she hadn't been the cause of, fearing herself and society because she had lost the confidence she needed to make friends, or to keep them.
Realizing how far she had allowed herself to sink was frightening. Even more frightening was the knowledge that Chase could destroy her as Drew had never imagined destroying her.
"Why isn't the pleasure enough, Kia?" he asked her then, staring down at her, watching her so closely that she wondered if he could see clear to her soul. Or if he even wanted to.
"Pleasure alone lasts for such a very short time, Chase," she said. "When the pleasure's gone, what's there left to hold on to?"
His expression hardened. "I thought you had already learned, Kia, what you're holding on to is an illusion to begin with. You want love, don't you? You want to turn this into an emotional roller coaster that could destroy both of us."
She shook her head slowly. "It's only a roller coaster if you want it to be," she said softly. "But I want more, Chase. I want more, or I want none of it at all. Because when the pleasure is gone, all I have left is a cold bed and the same life I had when you walked into it. Plus the knowledge that something is missing. And I'm tired of that something missing."
She paused as the music drew to a close and moved from his arms before the orchestra swung into another slow tune.
"It's 'not enough for you either," she told him then, knowing it, feeling it so deep inside her that the knowledge was a part of her. "You want it to be. You wish it were. But both of us know it's not. And
that
has the potential to destroy us. Not the emotion itself."
"I wish you wouldn't walk away, Kia." His voice was stony, his gaze cool, those light green eyes becoming icy.
She smiled sadly. "I wish I didn't have to walk away."
And she did. She turned and moved toward her parents, to where they stood with her aunt.
She had made her appearance, she had mingled, she had danced, and she'd had her single glass of wine. And she'd had enough.
It was far better than she had done in the past two years, she told herself. She wasn't hiding, she wasn't afraid of the social niceties, and she did not fear the whispers that followed her.
Turning back, she watched as Chase moved onto the dance floor again, this time with a debutante who was no doubt cooing and simpering at the honor of dancing with one of the princes of society.
Kia sighed with the saddened realization that that girl could have been her six years before Believing she was so poised, so strong, and so impossible to hurt. And she had learned different.
"Kia, sweetheart, your aunt and uncle are coming to the house after the ball." Her father drew her attention back to him. "You should join us."
"I think I've had enough for the night already, Daddy." She gripped his arm and reached up to kiss his cheek. "Gould you have the limo brought around for me? I'm heading home."
"Are you certain?" He frowned and looked over her shoulder to the dance floor, to Chase, no doubt.
"I'm positive." She nodded decisively. "I need the rest."
She hugged her parents and her aunt and uncle before moving through the room, keeping her eyes averted from Chase. It was nearly impossible. If she looked at him, she just might weep.
Her fingers ached to caress him, her body tingled with the need for him. Beneath her dress, her juices spilled into the fine lace of her black panties, new panties, bought with Chase in mind.
As the doorman helped her on with her cape and returned her purse to her, Kia turned back and looked.
He wasn't dancing. He was leaning against the wall as he chatted with Ian Sinclair. His eyes were on her, though. His look called to her, urging her to come back, to take the pleasure he was offering her.
A few hours in his arms, and no more.
Was it worth walking away? Letting go of what she could have in exchange for the loneliness awaiting her at home. She could take him and Khalid, hold on to Chase, and pretend they were alone.