Chapter 13
Kia lifted her hands, touched his hair, delved into it with desperate fingers, and opened her lips to his kiss. It was like opening herself to magic.
The pleasure filled her entire system. It raced through her veins, pounded in her heart, and had her arching to him, reaching for more.
The snow fell around them, sheltering them, enclosing them in a cloak of white as the towering oak overhead caught most of the flakes, leaving only the smallest hint of icy splendor to melt around them.
Kia could feel the overwhelming sensations moving through her. Chase's hands moved beneath the cloak, ran over her back, gripped her hips, and pulled her closer, and all the while his kisses fueled the desire raging between them.
"Sweet Kia," he groaned, his lips moving over her jaw. "I've missed you."
Her heart jumped with the admission; hope surged through her.
Her head tilted back, allowing him access to her neck as his fingers lowered the zipper at the back of her dress. His hands slid inside the material, stroking her, heating her further.
"I've missed you, too," she whispered. "Oh God, Chase, I missed you so much."His lips moved to her shoulder, the strap of her dress falling down her arm, the material falling away from her breasts, and his lips were there.
Chase laid her back against the heated hood of the car. Her heavy cloak protected her back from too much heat, while she stayed warm between the hood and his body.
Kia could feel the heat, beneath her, above her. His lips moved over the rounded globes of her breasts, his tongue licking over her nipples as his hand stroked her dress up her legs, over her thighs.
Her fingers fumbled at the buttons of his shirt, but she managed to loosen them, to push the material aside, to stroke the hard width of his chest.
His groan against her nipple had her shivering with pleasure. Then he drew her nipple into his mouth, sucking with ravenous greed.
She arched, drawn tight with the sensations tearing through her now.
She could feel his touch in every pore of her body, filling her with electric pleasure, and she was greedy for every touch. Every sensation.
"Chase," she whispered his name tremulously as her hands pushed beneath his shirt to grip his shoulders.
She could feel him between her thighs, the fingers of one hand tugging her panties over her hips as his lips began to move lower.
He didn't mean to do this, surely? Here, in the snow?
But he did mean to do it. He was doing it.
Kia stared down at him, watching as he spread her thighs and bent his head to the liquid heat that flowed from her. His face was twisted in pleasure, eyes dilated and staring back at her in rich, heated lust as he kissed her *.
Kissed it. Laid his lips over it, sucked it into his mouth and nicked at it with his tongue before pulling back. He repeated it, again, again, until her hands were in his hair, her legs lifting for him, her shoes bracing on the bumper of the car.
Chase's hands pressed beneath her, lifted her to his lips. Raining kisses on the swollen, sensitive flesh, he made her crazy with the nearing ecstasy. He licked, sucked each fold between his lips, and stroked it with his tongue.
He moaned against the flesh, flicked his tongue over her, and then parted the intimate lips and pushed his tongue into the clenching core of her body. Kia arched, a shattered cry falling from her lips as pleasure raced from her vagina, through her nerve endings, sizzling over her body and pushing her closer to the edge of pure sensation.
"You taste so sweet, Kia." He lifted his head, ran his tongue around her *. Slowly. So slowly. Teasing it, flicking over it as she watched him, panting, barely able to breathe for the excitement racing through her.
"Touch your breasts for me." His voice was a lash of command, intent, guttural with his own pleasure. "Let me see you, Kia. Let me watch you play with your nipples."
Kia whimpered at the order, feeling the flush that heated her.
Moving her hands from his hair, she lifted her breasts, cupped them, and moaned. Her thumbs and forefingers gripped her nipples and her hips jerked at the stabbing sensation that raced to her * and beyond.
"So pretty," he groaned, his head lowering once more, his eyes watching as his tongue stroked around her *.
He kissed her again, pulled the sensitive bud into his mouth and suckled at it slowly, deliciously. She was so close. Riding the edge of orgasm when he pulled back again, causing her to arch to him, to cry out at the loss.
"So f*cking pretty." His fingers smoothed over her swollen folds. "Give me your hand."
He gripped her wrist, pulling it from her breast and brought it between her thighs.
"Let me see you," he growled. "Show me how you pleasure yourself, Kia."
Her eyes widened at the demand, shock and lust eating through her defenses as he pressed her fingers into the wet heat of her p-ssy.
"Show me." He licked his tongue over his lips as he straightened, his hands moving to his slacks. "Show me what you like. Then I'll give you what we both need."
Oh God, yes. She needed him.
She circled her * with her fingers, rubbed over it, then ran her fingers down the slick slit. And she watched as his belt loosened.
She parted the lips, watching as his eyes trained on her fingers, and she rubbed over the entrance to her body, moaning as he unclasped his pants and eased the zipper down.
She pushed a finger inside her, whimpering as he eased the thick, hard flesh of his cock from his pants.
"I want you without the condom." His eyes lifted to hers again. "Are you still protected?"
Kia shuddered at the thought of taking him, feeling him inside her there, bare, moving inside her, filling her.
"Can I have you like that, Kia?" he whispered. "Bare. Just me and you?"
"Oh God, Chase," she cried out, her voice hoarse. "Don't you know? You can have me any way you want me."
Her gaze moved, lowered, her mouth watering at the sight of him stroking himself, his fingers easing over the thick flesh of his cock.
Teasing her.
She teased back.
His eyes moved to her hand, where she pumped her finger slowly inside her vagina then pulled free, the juices glistening on her finger as she held her hand out to him.
"Ah, God. Kia." He came to her.
His lips parted, taking her finger inside the heat of his mouth as he pushed the head of his erection against her, parted the folds, and began to stretch her.
"Chase. Chase, it's so good." She arched, lifting herself, parting her thighs. "I need you. I need you so much."
She needed him hard and deep. Fast and strong.
He pressed her thighs farther apart, held her open, and they watched, together, as he pressed inside her.
Electricity sizzled around them. Pleasure scraped over her nerve endings, heated her and drew her tight with the needed release as he eased inside her. Inch by inch, parting the tender flesh and stroking inside her as she pulled her finger from his mouth and held on to his wrists.
Something to hold on to. She needed to hold on to him, because she could feel herself threatening to race into some glittering vortex of pleasure that would steal her senses.
It had never been like this. She had never known pleasure like this. Even with him and Khalid the pleasure hadn't been like this. Just the two of them.
Just his flesh and hers, his touch and hers.
"Ah, hell. Kia." His hips jerked, bucked, filling her with the last inches of his cock and driving hard, deep inside her.
He lifted her legs, bracing them back, pressing deeper inside her as her head thrashed against her cloak.
She couldn't make sense of this pleasure. It was more than heat, more than the electric thrills of racing fire and longing. It was more than pleasure.
Her p-ssy flexed and clenched, sensation tightening her womb as broken cries left her lips and Chase began to move. At first, slow, easy thrusts that built the need inside her. Like a fire being stoked, built, burning hot and blistering, Kia began to burn.
She twisted beneath him, staring up at him in dazed ecstasy as he began to move harder. Faster. His expression twisted, tightened into taut, savage lines of hunger. His eyes glittered beneath his lashes and even in the cold, beneath the fall of snow, a rivulet of sweat tracked down the side of his face.
He f*cked her with heavy, hard strokes, pumping into her, impaling with a pleasure that tore through her and filled her senses with a kaleidoscope of sensation.
"Chase!" She cried out his name as she twisted beneath him. Burning.
Needing.
She felt torn apart by the need that ripped through her, raced over her flesh and drove inside her womb, wrapped around her *. She could feel it building inside her, expanding and contracting as he began to move harder, deeper."Chase. Chase, please." Her hands fastened on his wrists as she felt her orgasm nearing, felt it with a force, a power, that a part of her warned could be destructive.
"Hold on to me, baby," he groaned. "Hold on to me tight."
He came over her, his hands moving beneath her shoulders, her legs wrapping around his hips and he was taking her hard. Forcefully. His hips pounded into hers, flesh slapping against flesh as Kia felt the explosion detonate inside her.
She screamed his name, arched, her legs tightening around his hips as the racing tremors of sensation became rapture through her body. Lightning, radiant heat, and the feel of him spilling inside her. The pleasure increased and swept her away on a tide of pure sensation.
Magic and starburst of rapture. Chase above her, his arms beneath her, holding her to him as he whispered her name against her neck, his body shuddering, jerking as he raced through his own release.
Kia held him to her, her arms wrapped around his neck, her head buried against his shoulder as she let him sink inside her. She felt wrapped in warmth, cocooned in the glow of pleasure, and, for the first time in her adult life, complete.
That was the frightening part. She felt complete in Chase's arms.
"Sweet Kia." His voice was broken as he kissed her neck before easing back slowly.
His hand lifted, touched her cheek, wiped away the damp of the melting snow, and brushed across her swollen lips as her eyes opened.
And she stared into his. His eyes were darker than before, his expression so tight, so savagely lined with a hunger, a need, that she knew had nothing to do with sex or lust.
"What am I going to do with you?" he whispered, laying his forehead against hers as his eyes closed. "Ah God, Kia. How the hell am I going to deal with this?"
She lay beneath him, waiting now, feeling the battle surging inside him, and wondering if she would come out losing against that battle, or winning.
Chase could feel her beneath him, tense, so warm, her body still gripping his in a fist-tight hold, so snug and heated he knew he could take her again, so easily.
So damned easily.
He eased back instead, grimacing as he felt his cock protest at the retreat and the cold that awaited it. As he moved back from her, her legs fell from his hips, her dress sliding over her thighs and to her feet as she lifted the dress strap back to her shoulder.
"It's cold," he told her, raging inside. The need to hold her burning as deep and as fierce as the need to let her go.
He could feel that darkness racing inside him, pounding in his head. A hunger he only associated with Kia, some unknown surge of emotion that had him enforcing his control over it.
He'd never known before what he could feel tearing at him now. He was naturally dominant, naturally sexually hard, and she was so sweet, so soft, she terrified him.
He stared into her quiet, watchful expression as he helped her up, helped her adjust her clothes before he adjusted his own.
He should never have gone to her tonight, and he knew it. He saw the hope in her eyes, and he saw the fear. And he knew, tonight, he would end up destroying himself.
Kia watched his face as he reached around her and zipped her dress. His expression was torn, his eyes roiling with emotion that she knew he wasn't going to let free. She could see it, she could feel it. But he would never let go of it enough to trust it in her care.
She wondered if that was the battle. If he wanted to trust her, hold on to her, and had to push it back. Or if that darkness in his expression, in his eyes, held something more.
"Chase."
He laid his fingers over her lips when she would have asked, when she would have tried to whisper her own feelings.
"Let's get you home." His jaw tightened. Flexed. "Before you catch a cold."
She stared back at him, torn, knowing, feeling the distance he was suddenly placing between them. Just as he had when Khalid joined them. Just as he always had.
Damn him. Something inside her exploded in grief as he helped her back into the car. He waited until the door closed behind her before buttoning his shirt, moving around the car, his head down, his expression savagely controlled. For just a second she had seen the pain in his eyes, a flash of savage darkness that tugged at her soul and tightened her chest.
When he slid into the driver's seat, he looked as presentable as he had at the ball. No one would have known he had just taken her on the hood of his car, whereas she knew she looked mussed, perhaps still a bit drowsy from the pleasure.
That haze was easing away quickly, though.
She sat silently as he drove quickly off the Sinclair property and headed back to Alexandria. He didn't waste time; he maneuvered the vehicle efficiently, quickly, and, too soon, they were pulling up in front of her apartment.
She was surprised when he got out of the car and came around to her side. He helped her out and kept hold of her arm as they moved inside the building. As though eager to get her to her apartment and be on his way.
"You don't have to go up with me," she told him. "I'm perfectly capable of getting upstairs on my own."
She didn't want him to come up with her. She didn't want what she sensed was coming, the pain she knew would explode inside her.
"I know you are."
He stepped inside the elevator with her anyway, punched in her floor, and watched the digital display as they rose up.
Kia took the key from her purse as the elevator doors opened again, and was once again surprised as he gestured for it.
Seconds later, her door opened and she stepped inside. Chase didn't follow her. He stood in the open doorway, watching. She turned to meet his gaze. She slid the cloak from her shoulders and tossed it to the couch. Kia had to force back the shiver that wanted to race over her body, the betrayal of anger that wanted to rise inside her.
"Are you staying the night?" she asked him, her voice cool, remote.
She wasn't taking this anymore. Damn him to hell. She was falling in love with him. Bastard that he was—cold, remote, distant— something in her heart responded violently at the flicker of emotion in his eyes, and his battle to hide it.
His jaw clenched. "No. And you don't really want me to."
Her lips twisted mockingly as the anger that would have surged inside her days before remained at a slow simmer. She wasn't even surprised. She thought, perhaps she had expected it.
"You know, Chase," she finally said. "I want a lover, not a f*ck every now and then. I'll tell you what. Close the door as you leave, and we'll pretend none of this ever happened. I've had enough."
She couldn't take this ride. It was tearing her apart inside, leaving her scrambling to hold on to something, to make sense of herself and her own emotions. She couldn't handle it anymore.
He stepped into the apartment then, and with a controlled flick of his hand, the door closed with a bang.
Kia didn't flinch. She stared at the door, then back at Chase as she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head.
"First, you couldn't take me alone. Now, you take me alone, but I don't want you to spend the night in my bed, according to you." She waved her hand back at him. "Give you a way out, and what do you do? You step in and slam the door closed." Her smile was one of angry mockery. "I thought women were the ones who had trouble making up their minds, not big tough private investigators."
His eyes narrowed on her. "You've enjoyed every minute we've spent together," he informed her harshly. "You can't cry foul now, Kia."
"I'm not crying foul, Chase," she assured him. "I thought you got the message the other night. I want more. I'm not a doll to be taken out for your enjoyment and content to sit on a shelf until you're ready to play again. If that's what you want, go hire a call girl. They won't give you near the problems over it that I will."
"You knew this was just for the pleasure," he snapped.
She could see the anger in his eyes now, the pulse of hunger and of dark intensity.
"Well, as far as I'm concerned, the pleasure involves more than kinky sex," she retorted. "There's more to the pleasure than that, Chase. And if there isn't, then I don't want a part of it. I want more than you're offering; you don't want to give it. Fine. Walk the hell out of my life and stay out of it."
Perhaps she was being unfair to both of them, but the needs rising inside her overwhelmed her. She wanted more. She ached for more from him, despite her promises to herself that she wouldn't let this happen. She was tired of staring into the night, wondering if tomorrow he would deign to hold her, talk to her, just be with her for more than the sex.
She needed that from him. She needed that in ways she couldn't combat any longer.
And that was exactly what he should do. He should walk right out that door and out of the damned building and have the hell done with it.
Instead, he was standing there, staring at her, seeing something in her eyes that had every male instinct inside him standing up in warning.
"And what will you do when I walk?" he snarled. "Find someone else so you won't have to sleep on that damned couch every night?"
He couldn't believe the words that burst from his lips, or the anger that seemed to ignite inside him. Damn her, he knew it was time to let her go.
Knew it was time to walk the hell away before he hurt her, and yet he was still standing here. Still pushing both of them.
She inhaled sharply. "You think this is just because I don't like that damned bed?" She threw him a disgusted look. "How very good you are at salving your own pride, Chase. And whether or not another man fills it is none of your concern."
The hell it wasn't.
Chase had been ready to walk away. He had known, clear to his soul, that after tonight he had no choice but to break this off. Now, breaking it off was something he knew wasn't going to happen. Letting her go wasn't going to be an option.
He glowered back at her, watching as her chin lifted defiantly. Her shoulders were straight, her entire body braced for battle and humming with stubbornness.
And she was making him harder than ever.
"It's very much my concern," he growled. "Tell me, Kia, do you have my replacement picked out?"
Her eyes narrowed, satisfaction curling at her lips and fury burning inside her.
"Actually, I do. It's an electric blanket and a vibrator. I've decided, Chase, there are definite benefits to both."
Shock exploded through his system. It wasn't even another man? She wasn't even replacing him with flesh and blood?
"Have you tried it yet?" he snapped. "It's not going to be as satisfying as you think it will."
She shrugged at that, her expression tight with anger. "I've gotten along fine with my vibrator for two years. It's never cheated on me, yelled at me, or made impossible demands," she said. "It's never refused me, nor does it have commitment issues. And you know what, Chase?"
"What!"
"As long as I keep it in batteries, it never fails to keep me company all night long. A definite improvement over my dismal lovers, don't you think?"
"Dismal?" He said it slowly, feeling it now. He could feel it. Damn her.
That darkness creeping at the edge of his senses, that pounding, primal need that he only f*cking felt around her.
This was why it rose inside him like a damned animal fighting to be free.
Defiance. From the moment he had met her it had glittered just behind her gaze, hidden, mysterious, daring him to find it.
"Dismal." She punctuated the word by propping her hand on her hip and regarding him with angry eyes. "You're a sex god, Chase. You have all the right moves, all the right words, and you can make a woman come until she's certain her brains have liquefied in the rush. But guess what?"
"What?" he growled.
"You're a lousy lover." Her nose wrinkled in disdain. "I can't imagine how your ex-lovers had the nerve to lie with such astounding ease when they bragged of you holding them through the night." Her voice rose. "Showering and washing them, drying them, and taking them even after Cameron left." She swung away.
Chase almost swore he heard her voice break. Kia almost swore she was going to lose control of her anger, and her pain. She shook her head and swallowed tightly.
She deserved at least as much as his past lovers, and she received so much less. It was breaking her heart, needing him to hold her, needing more in a lover than Chase was willing to give her.
"Why?" She turned back to him. "Tell me why you think they deserved more than just that very experienced cock of yours and I didn't."
The pain blooming inside her was overshadowed not by anger, but by the pain, and the determination. She wasn't going to allow him to destroy her. She could love him. She didn't need him to be here, to hold her, to touch her, to love him. And she couldn't make herself not love. But neither did she have to let herself be destroyed.
"Because." He faced her, staring back at her, his eyes intent, watching her closely. "You're not strong enough for a relationship with me, Kia, and we both know it. You couldn't handle the games Drew wanted from you, and you may not be able to handle the dominance I'd bring into it. He nearly broke you.
I won't be responsible for that."
Incredulity filled her. "You think Drew nearly broke me?" she asked in disbelief.
"You know he did, Kia," he snapped. "I watched you, when you allowed herself to leave this f*cking apartment. You hid from the damned world. You couldn't face them knowing he had tried to share you. What the hell do you think you're going to face in a relationship with me, Kia? People know. Ex-lovers, friends, they know Cam and I shared our women until his engagement to Jaci. They'll guess what's going on. Is that what you want?"
She inhaled, held on to her control by a thread and refused to scream out in fury. She didn't give a damn about the gossip or what others thought they knew. What raked talons of agony across her soul was that he would use such a flimsy excuse to hold back from her.
"Fun and games are over, Chase," she told him harshly, her voice rough, her throat thickening. "You can leave now. Please lock the door behind you."
She turned away from him. She had to get away from him. If she didn't, she might get violent. Even worse, she might cry. Damn him.
"Don't you turn away from me, Kia." His hand gripped her arm, swinging her around. "You wanted this argument. You wanted the explanation, now deal with it."
"Deal with what, Chase?" she snapped. "A man who believes I'm a coward? One who thinks I deserve less than every other woman he's ever slept with?"
"That wasn't what I said, damn you."
"You called me weak." She pushed away from him.
"This is what I mean." He gripped her arms again. "Look at you, you're already hurt. Less than a month into whatever the hell is ripping through us, and I've already hurt you. This is where we are. You're soft, baby. So soft and gentle, and I'm hard. I'd break you, and I don't want that."
He truly believed it. Kia stared up at him, shaking inside and out, so furious and so filled with disbelief that she could barely make sense of her own emotions.
"I asked you to leave," she said carefully, staring at him with steely resolve. "I deserve more than this, Chase. More than a man who believes I'm too weak for a relationship with him. Perhaps you're the one with the fault.
Perhaps you're too weak for a relationship with me."
The challenge. Chase felt his cock harden to impossible degrees.
Damn her. He'd never reacted to a woman like this, no matter the defiance or the challenge. Never before had he wanted to make one scream for pleasure or beg to submit as he wanted this one to do.
Before she could stop him, he had her pressed against the wall, her arms over her head, her wrists shackled in his hand. She showed no fear. He didn't want her frightened of him, but had always worried she would be if she saw what he was inside.
The man who could kill. The man who needed the flaming lust, the challenge, the defiance she was giving him now. He had never seen this side of her, but somehow, he knew, he had always sensed it. Known it was there. And had fought giving it a chance to face him.
But it was only her anger. That stubbornness he saw in her eyes wouldn't make the long haul in a relationship with him. When he was dark and moody, she would cry. If he snapped at her, she would be hurt. If he dared to take her harder or stronger, or challenged her to stretch her sexuality, she would never know how to set her limits.
She wouldn't know her own boundaries, only his. And that would destroy both of them.
"You're right." He stepped back from her. "You deserve better."
He watched as she lifted her chin, her arms moving to her sides as she stepped away from him, walked to the door, and opened it before turning to face him.
"You're damned right I do."
"This won't change anything, Kia," he told her. "The next party, the next ball, we'll end up exactly as we ended up tonight."
"Bet me!" Her nostrils flared, her blue eyes hardened to gemstone brightness in her pale face.
With her hair mussed from their lovemaking, her neck still showing the scrape of whisker burn, and her lips swollen from his kisses, she looked like an enraged sex goddess.
And he wasn't about to bet her, because he knew the truth of it. He was hurting her, hurting them both, and he hated it. But he was learning. Staying away from her was impossible, and after tonight it would be even more so.
"Goodbye, Chase." Her lips thinned, her expression so filled with feminine purpose that he felt like an animal ready to rut.
He didn't trust himself to speak. He nodded sharply and left, bracing himself for the slam of the door as he walked past her.
A second later, he flinched and paused as the door closed softly, deliberately, the lock snicking into place. He clenched his teeth and stalked to the elevator.
She would see that the next time it would be harder, faster, burning hotter, and hurting deeper. He could feel the ragged wounds ripping through his soul now. The force, the control it took to walk away from her, as it always did to walk away whenever his emotions were involved.
She was his weakness. He was hers. And until he could get a handle on the dark emotions ripping him apart, he didn't dare give her any more than he was giving her now.
Because once she learned what being with him meant, dealing with him day after day, she would know it wasn't that easy. And she might well learn that Chase Falladay didn't let go of anything that belonged to him.
He had every possession now that he had ever owned in his life. He hoarded them. He guarded them. He f*cking ensured they stayed his. And if he ever claimed Kia as his, then he had no doubt in his mind that she would live to regret it.
They both would. Because he'd never let her go. She would become his soul. And if Chase ever had to watch his soul walk away, it would destroy him.