"From everyone but me," he agreed, his voice heavy despite his gentle tone.
She let a bittersweet smile form on her lips as his fingers stroked her neck. Kia knew she should be pulling away. Better to deal with the headache than to deal with Chase, in his bed, curled against him as the darkness wrapped around them, heavy with sensuality.
"Why did you hide for the past two years, Kia?" She felt his lips against her brow again. "Why didn't you let Rebecca Harding and her little friends take the fall as liars rather than putting it on your head and taking everything on your own shoulders?"
Why had she? She breathed out roughly, her fingers digging into the comforter covering her as she tried to hold on to her determination.
"I'm not going to let it go," he assured her. "Tell me why?"
"Because it was easier," she finally whispered. And it was only partially the truth. "Rebecca didn't start that grief, Chase. I did. I trusted the wrong person, and I married the wrong man. I needed time."
"Don't lie to me." The rough whisper was breathed against her cheek. "Right here, right now, Kia. Give me the truth."
"Because I knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from you, and I didn't want to humiliate myself further."
There. She had said it. She admitted to him what she had fought against admitting even to herself. She was licking her wounds; it was a partial truth. She was embarrassed. Who wouldn't have been? But she had also known she was weak. Drew had seen it. Even Rebecca had known of the fascination Kia had for Chase. And the thought of further rejection had kept her curled inside herself like a frightened child.
She had made the excuses to herself. Her confidence was low. She was afraid of trusting. When all was said and done, this was the reason why she had hid until she couldn't hide anymore.
Rejection she could take. Loving Chase had been something she didn't think she was strong enough to handle.
Silence filled the bedroom then. Chase pressed her closer to his chest, his fingertips stroking the back of her neck, easing the headache away and filling her with a lazy, frightening sensuality.
"Every woman has a weakness," she whispered against his chest. "You were my weakness, Chase. Even Drew knew I couldn't keep my eyes off you. The more our marriage deteriorated, the worse it became. I didn't want others seeing that and believing I had been unfaithful, or that you'd had any part in that break."
"Would you have stayed with him if he hadn't brought the third in that night?"
She flattened her hands against his chest, felt his heartbeat against her palms, slow and steady.
"I loved Drew when I married him. I loved the illusion he gave me of who and what he was. I don't want illusions anymore. But neither do I want a relationship that's cold and remote except in the bed."
"What do you want, Kia?"
She lifted her head and stared into the shadowed expanse of his expression. "I want something real. I want to laugh. I want to be able to cry when I need to. I want to dance, and I want to be free. And I want to be held."
His fingers continued to stroke, to massage her neck.
"It's hard to be free and to be held at the same time," he told her quietly.
"Is it, Chase?" She touched his jaw, simply because she couldn't help herself. "Isn't that what love truly is? Being free even as you're being held? Knowing you can reach for the stars, and someone's there to share it with you? Or to give you a boost if you need it? Someone to laugh with, love with, cry and argue with? Someone you know will be there when you're moody, when you're dark, or when you just need a hug." She smiled up at him, feeling it inside her, reaching out to him, knowing Chase was the man she wanted that with. "Isn't mat love?"
Chase felt the dreams that moved through her as though they were his own. It was so unfamiliar, the sensations so unique, that he wanted nothing more at that moment than to get out of the bed and leave the room. To escape the velvet bonds he could feel wrapping around him.
"You're free, Chase," she whispered, moving her hand back from his jaw and fixing on him with those gem-bright, dream-rich eyes. "Always free."
And she would always hold him. He saw that, too. Saw that Kia held things inside her, wrapped herself around the people she loved in such a subtle way that they never knew what she had done until it was too late. Until she owned a part of them.
"You're delirious," he replied, but his hand smoothed down along her side until he was cupping her hip, holding her to the thick, hard ridge of his erection.
"I need you." She whispered his words back to him, and Chase swore his heart was going to leap right out of his chest.
"You're hurt." He swallowed tightly. "When you're better. Ah fuck, Kia."
Slender, graceful fingers moved from his chest to the heavy weight of his erection. They curled around it, stroked, pumping his flesh with silken destruction.
"Not a good idea," he groaned. "Sanjer will kill me for this."
Her lips brushed his jaw, her tongue reaching out to stroke, to taste his flesh. Each touch was like a destructive whisper. Chase held her to him, let her touch, let her stroke, and he pushed back the hunger rising inside him like a beast he didn't know how to control.
He had tried, he told himself. He had tried to stay as far away from her as possible. He had tried to save them both.
"Kia, go to sleep, or your headache's going to get worse," he warned her. "When I slide inside you, I don't want to stop until we're both coming. Until our heads are exploding. You don't want that right now."
He gripped her hand, held her wrist still.
"You don't want me?" The edge of vulnerability in her voice sliced at his chest.
"One of these days, very soon, you're going to find out exactly how much I do want you," he warned her. "But not tonight." He lifted her hand from his flesh. "Not when it will only hurt you worse."
She moved to turn out of his arms, to pull away from him.
"Don't do it, Kia." He clamped his hand on her hip, staring down at her as she looked up at him in surprise. "You don't pull away from me, do you understand that? Not now, not ever again."
The hand that landed on his chest was less than gentle. A hard slap against the tensed muscles before he was forced to allow her to push away from him.
"Understand this," she told him fiercely. "You won't control me, Chase Falladay. Period. And the minute I'm able to push my butt out of this bed and stumble to that front door of yours, I am so out of here."
She jerked her pillow to her, slapped it, and laid her head gingerly against it.
Chase grinned. He waited, counting down the minutes, the seconds. Then easily, gently, he pressed his fingers back into her neck and began to knead the tense muscles again.
Nearly six inches separated them. For now. Until he could ease her into sleep, then he would have her in his arms once again. And in his arms was exactly where she belonged.
As her shoulders relaxed and her head settled deeper into her pillow, Chase moved to her. A while later, she was backing into his warmth once again, and it wasn't long after that he was following her into sleep with his arms around her.
Holding her completed him. He wasn't going to explain that one to himself, nor was he going to look into it too closely. It was that simple, and for the time being, he was going to let it stay simple.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
Five days later Kia froze in the act of attempting to slip from the bed and from beneath Chase's arm when his drowsy voice grumbled from the depths of the huge bed he had forced her to sleep in.
"I have to go to work."
She had lain around and done nothing but sleep and eat for nearly a week now. Her parents had driven her crazy, flitting in and out. That insane doctor had made her want to shoot him every time he woke her up, and Chase had her so frazzled she wondered if she would ever be able to settle her nerves again.
"Like hell. Sanjer said a full week." He hooked his arm around her waist and dragged her back to his chest. "Go back to sleep. You really don't want me to wake up yet."
But he sounded very awake. And he felt awake. The hard, thick length of his erection was pressed against her back. Because he slept naked. Because he had come to bed after she fell asleep and wrapped that hard, warm body around her.
And he made her like that. That was what he did. After she went to sleep, chilled and achy, he slipped into the bed and got her all warm and relaxed, and when she woke up the next morning all she wanted to do was stay there.
Well, she'd had a headache then, she assured herself. She didn't have one now.
"I really don't care if you wake up, Chase," she informed him irritably. "Or what Sanjer said. I have a job, and I have my own bed."
"A bed you don't sleep in," he snorted, holding her to his chest.
"I do now," she told him, her voice firm. She had to be firm when arguing with Chase, she had found.
He was quiet behind her. "What the hell does that mean?" he finally growled.
"It means exactly what the hell I said." She pushed at the arm wrapped around her and gave a moment's thought to just biting him if he didn't let her go.
A second later she was on her back, staring up at what had to be the sexiest sight God had ever gifted a woman with. Chase, long black hair tousled around the dark, arrogant features of his face. His light green eyes were narrowed down on her, thick, dark lashes doing nothing to shield the hunger, nor the fire in his eyes.
"When did you start sleeping in your bed?" His lips were tight, a muscle flexing in his jaw.
"The night before I bought my electric blanket and a vibrator," she said sweetly. "Why, Chase, I do declare, I've learned that that bed can be quite comfortable when I want it to be."
She relaxed beneath him as much as possible with the sight of those hard, powerful biceps flexing by her shoulders and the hard flush washing through his cheeks.
She was counting down to the explosion now.
"What kind?"
She blinked back at him. "Excuse me?"
Where was the anger? The fury? Drew had blown a gasket when he found her tiny personal vibrator years before. Wouldn't Chase be just as angry? Especially when she had done everything but demand he not touch her for the past few days.
"What kind of vibrator?" He leaned closer. "When you're using it, do you think of me, Kia?"
Her eyes widened. "What?" she stammered, her hands pressing against his chest, but not pushing him away.
She felt uninhibited suddenly. The look in eyes, that wasn't anger. The flush on his cheekbones, that was arousal.
"Tell me about your vibrator." One hand tugged at the slender strap of the camisole top she had worn to sleep in, pulling it over her shoulder. Suddenly she was uncertain, off balance.
"Ab-about my vibrator?" she stammered again.
"Is it as thick as my dick?"
She was the one who flushed now. She felt the heat wash over her entire body.
"Are you crazy?"
"Do you think of me when you use it? Do you spread your pretty thighs and press it into your tight, hot little pussy and whisper my name? You're so snug, so tight, it's like a silken vise when it wraps around me. Is that how it feels against the vibrator? Like you're being stretched until all you can do is cry out my name?"
He was aroused. Oh hell no, he was past aroused. He was clearly becoming dangerously, wickedly horny. And he was making her wet.
"I don't cry out your name," she lied, lifting her gaze from him, knowing she had. She had screamed out his name because she couldn't come hard enough, couldn't feel the release deep enough, to even take the edge off her need for him.
"You're lying to me, Kia." His voice deepened, caressing her nerve endings as she pushed at his chest.
"Get off me, Chase. I need to shower and get out of here. You don't really want me here, and we both know it. So let me go."
Before, she hadn't been able to contain the need to lift against him, to tear the camisole from her body, to drag her aching nipples over his hairy chest.
She had been without him for too long. Her body was protesting that absence vociferously. Her pussy was contracting involuntarily, spilling its juices against her silk and lace panties as she tried to ignore the head of his cock pressing between her thighs.
"Tell me how you do it." He moved, gripping her hands and pulling them to the bed beside her shoulders. He shackled them to the mattress, his thighs spreading, parting hers. "Tell me, do you push it inside you slow and easy, or fast and hard? Is it slender and tapered, Kia? Or thick and wide? Do you warm it in your mouth and imagine warming me there?"
She couldn't help it. Her gaze jerked back to his, rounded in shock, a fever raging beneath her flesh as his voice turned deep, guttural.
"It's thick and wide," she whispered back furiously. "Just the length, just the width of yours, and every time I use it I come until I pass out because it's better than anything I've ever had before."
Wicked, sensual, knowing, his lips curled seductively. "It makes you pass out, does it?"
"Every time," she said, though not in anger. She couldn't hold the edge of anger, but she couldn't dull the sharp edge of hunger either.
"Oh, Kia, you are such a naughty little liar." He chuckled as though in delight.
She held back her own smile, but she felt her lips pout as her lashes swept over her eyes. She arched against him then, rubbed the silk and lace of her panties against the engorged head of his cock.
"When you jack off, do you think of me?" she asked him then. "When your fingers are tight around your cock, Chase, and your cum is spilling from your flesh, is my name on your lips?"
"Every time."
Her lips parted in shock. She couldn't breathe. She was fighting for oxygen, fighting to clear her head enough to think when he had stolen her breath with those two words.
"I imagine those pretty lips first." He nipped at her lower lip. "Parting, sucking me in. I close my eyes and I see you there, but it's never as good, Kia. Are you sure it's as good with that vibrator?"