“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 br**sts 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 br**sts 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.
“Please,” she begged, “I need—” She bit her lip on another moan as he came almost to the tip, then backed away and ran his finger down in the hollow between her br**sts.
He paused his hand there, right in the center of her chest, where her heart was beating so hard for him, then leaned forward before she could get her brain to kick into gear, and kissed her softly.
Thoroughly.
Possessively.
The hairs on his chest teased her br**sts, driving her even crazier than she already was.
And then, before she could shift or blink or beg, he lowered his head and took one into his mouth. She needed to lower her arms so that she could steady herself by holding on to him, so that she could grip the back of his head and hold him there—oh yes, right there!—while he gave her the pleasure she’d been craving.
Everything narrowed down onto the lash of his tongue upon her, the coiling heat inside her belly, his warm breath against her chest. Chloe lost all track of time as he laved her br**sts, as he loved every inch of her torso—the peaks, the curves, the hollows, the shadowy undersides, the spaces between her ribs. And then he was moving lower still, dropping to his knees, holding her waist with his large, strong hands, holding her there for him to devour.