“Fucking hell, Maura.”
“In me,” she whispers against my lips as the tip of my dick slides easily inside of her. “All the way.”
“Slow,” I whisper and push gently until I’m completely buried in her. With her eyes pinned to mine, I pull back, then push in again, repeatedly, in an almost frustratingly slow pace, just enjoying every inch of her as she contracts and relaxes around me.
I’ve never felt anything like this in my fucking life.
“Chase?”
“Yes, babe.”
“The pace is good, but I need you to push just a little harder when you… Oh yeah. Just like that. Fuck.”
“I don’t think we’re fucking this time,” I murmur and thrust just a little harder. “God, you feel incredible. You’re so damn wet.”
“I’ve been wet since I walked in here.” She pulls my head down to kiss her. And just like this, we rock together in the silence, gently making love until her back arches and she clamps down over me and we both succumb to a crazy orgasm.
She almost immediately falls asleep, which makes me grin. Apparently, hot sex makes her tired.
I leave her long enough to fetch a hot, wet cloth from the bathroom so I can gently clean her up. She opens her eyes for a moment, smiles at me, and then turns on her side and falls back to sleep.
She looks so small in the middle of my bed. I frown and wrap myself around her, holding her close to me. In her sleep, she wiggles even closer and sighs sweetly.
I brought her here that first night, and we had sex in this bed. That was a first. And tonight, I knew I needed her here again. Not only is Maura the first woman that I’ve had sex with in this bed, but she’s the first to sleep in it.
All of the vulnerable feelings I was talking about earlier are here. I am vulnerable when it comes to Maura. I suspect that she could hurt me, and I don’t know how I feel about that.
Bullshit.
I don’t like it and I don’t want it to end, all at the same time.
It’s fucking ridiculous.
Chapter Ten
~Maura~
Someone is breathing in my ear.
I open one eye, and realize that I’m not in my own bed, and it’s light outside. The last thing I remember was Chase and me having sex, and after that, I must have passed out. How I ended up sleeping like a baby in Chase’s bed, I don’t know.
But I did.
And now he’s wrapped around me, and he’s breathing in my ear. But it doesn’t feel like the kind of breathing that comes with sleep.
He’s awake.
I turn onto my back, and he backs away, giving me room.
He’s dressed. At some point, he pulled on sweats and a T-shirt, and I’m stark-ass naked.
And immediately uncomfortable.
He’s gazing down at me, but he’s not smiling. And frankly, he doesn’t seem exactly happy that I’m here. He’s right next to me, touching me, but he’s ten thousand miles away.
And I can’t get out of here fast enough.
“Good morning,” he finally murmurs. I sit up, letting the covers slip to my waist, and his eyes immediately fall to my breasts.
“Good morning,” I reply, covering myself back up. “Can I have ten minutes alone?”
“Why?”
I frown. “Because I’d like to get dressed.”
“I’ve seen it more than once,” he says and I roll my eyes.
“But I don’t want you to see it this morning, so give me ten.”
“Done.” He nods and immediately leaves the bed, and the room, shutting the door behind him. I exhale and cover my face in my hands.
“What did you do?” I ask myself. But then I decide that I’ll worry about what I did later. Right now I need to focus on getting my shit together, literally and figuratively, and getting the fuck out of Chase’s house.
I don’t stay the night, and clearly Chase doesn’t either. It made us both uncomfortable. He couldn’t even stand to be naked next to me any longer.
That speaks volumes, with the title being Get The Fuck Out.
And that’s what I’m going to do.
I pull on last night’s dress and run my fingers through my hair before resigning myself to the fact that it just isn’t going to get any better than this.
Chase is in the kitchen when I leave the bedroom, brewing coffee from his Keurig.
“I wasn’t sure how you take your coffee,” he says.
“Don’t bother.” I shake my head. “I’m heading out.”
“I’m happy to make you some coffee.”
“Cream and sugar,” I murmur and watch as he methodically makes the coffee, using a tumbler to go, and when he passes it to me, I offer him a thankful smile and turn away. “Thanks.”
“Are you okay?” he asks my back.
“Great.” I turn around and toss him a wink. “Thanks for letting me stay through the storm.”
“The ice has melted,” he says. “I checked.”
“Perfect.”
I wave and retrieve my handbag, then beeline it to my car. Within fifteen seconds I have the car started, my seatbelt on, pull out of his driveway, and am driving away from Chase’s house before I call Tommy.
“Hey there, sugar,” he says with a smile in his voice.
“I fucked up, Tommy.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine. But not only did I sleep with Chase again, I stayed the damn night.”
“At his house?”
I frown and stop at a stop sign. “Of course at his house. The ice storm happened after I’d already arrived at his place, and he wouldn’t let me drive home.”
“Good. It was a bitch out there last night.”
“And I stayed.”
“Come over to my place, sugar. I have donuts.”
I grin and nod, even though he can’t see me. “This is why we’re friends.”
“Because I have donuts?”
“Yes. I’ll be there soon.”
I end the call and drive straight to his house, which is thankfully only a ten-minute trip, and he’s waiting for me with a fresh maple bar.
I take my coffee in with me and he raises a brow at it. “He made you coffee for the road?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm,” he says and passes me the sweet treat before turning away to lead me to the sunroom off of his kitchen. It’s our favorite place to talk.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing yet,” he says and gestures for me to sit. Tommy is a handsome man. He’s roughly six feet tall, with dark hair and a lean build. He wears glasses, which are stupidly hot, and he has beautiful hands. “Tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
He nods, and I begin, reliving last night from the moment I walked into Chase’s house until I showed up on Tommy’s doorstep.
“Hmm,” he says again and takes a sip of his own coffee.
“What does that mean now?”
“Well, like I’ve told you before, none of us can read minds.”
“Duh.”
“Maura, you’re the one who said you don’t want a relationship.”
“I don’t.”
He frowns. “But now you’re pissed that he backed away this morning after you slept over.”
“I’m not pissed.” Okay, maybe I am. “It was just awkward and I wanted to get the hell out.”
“Did you want him to snuggle you and kiss you and tell you that last night was the most amazing night of his life?”
I take a bite of my donut to buy time. Maybe I did. “We had a really great connection last night, in the dark, during the storm.”
“I have to admit, it’s romantic as fuck,” he says with a grin. “I’m rather jealous.”
“It was romantic, crank radio and all.” I chuckle, remembering the way I teased Chase about that radio. “I wasn’t expecting to wake up to him regretting it.”
“Is that what he said?”
“Are you a shrink now?”
He grins and shrugs one shoulder. “Maura, did you ever stop to think that maybe he was freaking out because he was worried that you would freak out? And what did you do? You freaked out, just like he was afraid you would. Rather than talk to him, you bolted.”
“You’re not wrong,” I admit slowly. “I did freak out, almost as soon as I woke up. I’m not used to sleeping with anyone else. And when I realized that he’d gotten dressed, it felt like he was trying to tell me to get the hell out of his house.”
“I had no idea that casual wear was code for get the fuck away from me.”
“Don’t tease me about this.” I point my finger at him. “I was still naked, and I was sleepy, and he was bright eyed and dressed for a freaking blizzard.”
“You’re so dramatic,” he says with a laugh. “Maybe he’s a morning person. Maybe he was cold and wanted to warm up. Maybe he got a call in the middle of the night that his mother was in the hospital and he didn’t want to wake you, so he let you sleep and was going to tell you that he was so sorry, but he had to leave to tend to his dying mother.”
“I’m dramatic?”
“All I’m saying is, there could have been a dozen different reasons for why he was dressed.”
“Okay. Also? He wasn’t super friendly.”
“Were you super friendly?”
“Jesus Christ, Tommy, whose side are you on?”
“Yours, always. But you’re not going to convince me that the dude who made you coffee for the road was trying to ditch you. Maybe he wanted to talk and being naked would be too distracting.”
“Well, he could have said any of those things when he saw that I was freaked out and it would have calmed me down quite a bit.”
Tommy nods thoughtfully and tilts his head this way and that, mulling the situation over. “You should go back there.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not going back there. I’m not doing the walk of shame into his house with last night’s dress on and sex head.”
“The dress is adorable, by the way.”
“He liked it.”
“I’m sure he did.” He smirks. “That dress does fantastic things to your tits.”
I look down and cringe. “Could I have been any more obvious in wearing this last night? It screams fuck me now.”
“Trust me. That’s not offensive to a man.”
I laugh and take the last sip of my coffee. “Great. This is one more thing I’m going to have to return to him. Do you think he did that on purpose?”
Tommy grins. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, he’s not getting it back today.” I kick my shoes off and lie back on Tommy’s couch, close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I’m not good at the dating thing.”
“You’re just rusty.”
“No, I’m just bad. If he was interested in dating me last night, I’m quite sure that went out the window this morning.”
“Okay, drama queen.”
“Quit calling me that.” I stick my lower lip out in a pout. “I’m a level-headed woman.”
“Sure you are.”
“I’m embarrassed,” I admit. “I handled this morning badly. And I might be freaking out because he and I connected on many topics last night. It’s not just physical chemistry anymore. Now I know more about him, intimate things, and I still like him.”
“I feel so sorry for you.”
“It’s a good thing you have donuts because your sarcasm alone would make me flip you off.”
“What are you going to do about Mr. Wonderful?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh and stare up at the ceiling. “Nothing today. I’m into him, and that scares me, so I think I need a few days to work it out.”
“This isn’t a sprint. Take all the time you need. If he’s worth it, he’ll still be there when you’re ready.”
“Okay.” I smile at Tommy and reach over to the coffee table for another donut. “In the meantime, I’m going to eat my feelings.”
Chapter Eleven
~Chase~
“Happy Friday,” the short brunette says next to me and holds her glass up to clink with mine. I oblige her and then switch seats, walking down to the far end of Kat’s bar. I came alone and I intend to leave alone.
Not that the brunette holds any interest for me.
“You don’t look so great,” Kat says as she refills my glass. “How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
My gaze whips up to hers and she offers me a sympathetic smile. “Heartbreak is written all over your face.”
“Almost two weeks,” I reply and sip my wine. “I’m not heartbroken.”
“No?”
“No. It didn’t work out.” I shrug, like it’s no big deal.
“What happened?”
“I think it started to get too serious for both of us.”
“You discovered a connection between you that wasn’t just sexual chemistry?”
“Yeah.” I nod, remembering that night in my living room. “We have a lot in common.”
“So you played the game for a while, and then discovered that you have a connection.”
“I didn’t play a fucking game,” I reply, immediately pissed.
“What do you call it? Pledging not to have sex again, then conveniently forgetting something at the other’s house. I think it’s a fun, sexy game, as long as everyone’s on the same page.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” I reply. “But yes, it was damn sexy. More than I expected or even imagined.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“She’s not interested in more,” I reply. “She couldn’t get out of my place fast enough the following morning. It was like the hounds of hell were on her heels.”
“She panicked.”
“Big time. And I’m not going to say that I didn’t. After she fell asleep, I overthought about it all night. I wanted to talk to her the next day, but as soon as she woke up, she ran.”
“Did you try to talk to her?”
“No, she couldn’t wait to leave. So, I made her coffee and watched her walk out my door.”
“You’re two people who don’t trust relationships,” Kat says and waves at Mac, who just walked into the bar and immediately got pulled into a conversation with a client.
“I trust her.”
“That’s probably new for you.”
I nod again. “Yeah, well, I don’t meet a lot of trustworthy women. I’m not interested in a long-term relationship, anyway.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
Kat frowns and blinks rapidly, as if I just told her that I don’t like wine.
“But you’re interested in her.”
“It doesn’t matter, Kat. I’ll never be like my parents,” I say before I can stop myself and Kat’s eyebrows climb up into her hairline. “I’m not willing to be addicted to anyone. To be consumed by them so completely that it’s all I think about. To let someone destroy me financially and emotionally isn’t an option for me.”
“Whoa,” she says, holding her hands up. “Stop right there. Who said that all relationships are like that?”
“I just—”
“I’m not done. Being in love with someone, loving someone, isn’t the same as being codependent. Yes, you do need to be vulnerable to another person, to let them in, to trust them with your feelings and your heart.”
“Not going there.”
“That’s really sad,” she says and her eyes well with tears. “I’m sad for you, Chase, to never have the experience of falling in love, to only allow yourself to enjoy the physical pleasures of a woman, but nothing more than that.”
“I’m fine, and you have romance on the brain thanks to my charming brother.”
“Romance is only a piece of it,” she says, shaking her head. “The biggest thing for me is the day-to-day. Sleeping, and I do mean sleeping, together. Planning trips. Sharing news stories. He brings me coffee in bed every morning. I rub his scalp as we binge-watch TV shows. Yes, the sex is great, bu
t it’s so much more than that. He’s my partner in every way, and now that he’s a part of my life, I can’t really remember what it was like before him.”
“That’s wonderful, and I mean that.” I reach over the bar and squeeze her hand. “I love that he’s found that with you. I’m just not convinced that it’s for me.”
“Let me ask you something, and you have to be brutally honest with me.”
Truth or Dare.
“Okay.”
“Since the last time you saw Maura, have you thought of her even once?”
Only every minute of every day.
“Yes.”
“More than once?”
I smile. “I think of her often.”
“Then you should call her,” Kat says and wipes the bar down with a white towel. “It’s worth it, Chase. The vulnerability. The trust. It’s all worth it.”
“What if we both do all of that, and in the end it still doesn’t work out?”
“There are no guarantees in life, my friend. It might implode inside of a week, or you might die together when you’re ninety-eight. We don’t know.” She shrugs and smiles as Mac joins us, sitting on the stool next to mine. “But I wouldn’t trade a single minute I’ve had with your brother for anything.”
Mac frowns and looks back and forth between Kat and me. “Did you just hit on my wife?”
We both laugh, and Kat shakes her head. “No. I’m giving him advice.”
“Good, because he’s been brooding about like a sulky teenager for more than a week.”
“I have not.”
Mac rolls his eyes. “No one wants to talk to him because he snaps everyone’s heads off. So they’re all coming to me, and that’s just a pain in the ass because Chase is the people person, not me.”
“I haven’t snapped—” But before I finish I remember shouting at my assistant just this afternoon and take a sip of my wine instead.
“Yeah,” Mac says. “Exactly.”
“I just told him that he should talk to her,” Kat says.
“Is this group therapy now?” I ask.
“Kat’s smart,” Mac replies and smiles lovingly at his wife. “I don’t think she’s steered anyone wrong yet.”