“Caden . . .” I panted against his lips, my body trembling and thrumming. “Caden . . . I’m going to . . .”
He dragged his lips up to my ear, nipped my lobe and groaned, “Oh God, gorgeous, me too.”
I burst out laughing, the happy sound quickly dissolving into moans and whimpers as my orgasm shattered my world and nothing existed except the concentrated pleasure shearing through me, and Caden’s breath on my neck, his hands on my body and his flesh in mine.
I laughed and came, and Caden did the same. I’ve never felt a more wonderful quaking of a body than I experienced then. We came together, we existed together.
And as he continued to thrust into me, as a second orgasm began to build and then erupt through me, not even the thought oh wow formed in my head. All there was was pleasure. Pleasure and a sense of everything being the way it was meant to be.
Caden
“Okay,” I murmured, incapable of finding the energy to lift my head or raise my weight from Chase’s body. “Oh wow definitely doesn’t cut it.”
She didn’t respond, and I realized she hadn’t heard me. I lifted my head, needing to see her face, her eyes.
“I think you destroyed any advanced vocabulary in me as well,” I said when her gaze found mine.
Her chest was heaving with shallow, rapid breaths. Her lips were parted and slightly swollen from my kisses. I touched her bottom lip with my thumb, wanting nothing more than to kiss her again. So I did. My cock – still embedded inside her – pulsed against the tight heat of her sex. I’d need to move soon, to withdraw and deal with the condom, but I didn’t have the strength.
Not just because I was physically drained, but because I was exactly where I wanted to be, where I’d longed to be for so many months now.
Studying my face, she smiled, at once shy and playful. “I am that awesome, y’know.”
To prove it, she squeezed her inner muscles, sending a wave of fresh pleasure through my spent cock. I laughed, and then – as much as I didn’t want to – moved off her. My body reacted to the sensation of leaving hers, giving up one last throb that was both pleasurable and torture. When a guy has reached maximum pleasure any sensory experience is insanely hyper intense.
I got up and crossed to the bathroom, where I made quick work of dispensing with the condom, and then flicked on the shower. “Join me?” I called over my shoulder.
It took a second for my post-coitus fuddled brain to realize Chase would not likely have heard me. Christ, I really was discombobulated by pleasure. Drawing a deep breath, I walked back out to the bed. Chase was lying on it, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, drawing slow circles on her belly with her fingertips.
As I approached her, she rolled her head and smiled at me. “Did I mention I’m quite impressed with your overall package?” she said, waving a hand in the vague direction of my lower body.
“I aim to please,” I said with a smile. “I also aim to shower. Want to join me?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to quickly go out and buy some clothes. I can handle not wearing underwear for the day, but I think I’d like a new shirt and jeans or something.”
I let my smile turn to a dirty grin. “You realize I’m going to be horny all day knowing you won’t have any undies on, right?”
She flashed her teeth at me in a grin as filthy as mine. “Hell yeah.”
Laughing, I headed back for the shower.
I was dry, dressed and combing my damp hair with my fingers the bloke’s way, when Chase returned. She strutted into the bathroom naked, wriggled her butt at me and squealed when I lunged for her. It was only the fact her phone started ringing that prevented me hauling her up onto the bathroom vanity and doing wicked things to her body.
“Someone’s calling you,” I told her, releasing her from my arms.
“Damn,” she pouted, eyes twinkling. “Can you get it for me, please?”
I snatched a quick kiss, slapped her butt just below her Buddha tat and hurried out of the bathroom before she could retaliate. This was Chase after all. She would retaliate.
By the time I got to where her phone sat on the bedside table, the caller had given up. For a second the memory of my conversation with Donald the Dude the previous night haunted me, dampening my elated mood, and then Chase’s phone dinged and vibrated with a message and I put thought of the professor aside. Dropping onto the edge of the bed, I picked up her mobile. It was a text from Dr. Adams, the kind of text I wanted to read. A smile spread over my face and a happy warmth flowed through me.
Doofus was doing well. We could come in and see him whenever we wanted.
I was just pondering over the fact that awesome sex with Chase had made me bloody hungry, when Chase emerged from the bathroom. I took one look at her and burst out laughing.
“What?” she asked, eyebrows high, melodramatic confusion on her beautiful face as she executed a half-pirouette.
I grinned. “Love the duds, gorgeous.”
She looked down at what she was wearing. “Don’t I look incredible?”
A tie-dyed purple and blue tank-style dress covered her from boobs to mid thigh, sinfully snug and sporting a gaudy image of Mickey Mouse and Pluto. Whoever the artist was, they mustn’t have been exactly . . . lucid when creating the image. Mickey looked stoned and Pluto looked like an orange demon dog with a possible case of rabies.
“Something tells me,” I said, “that’s not official Disney merchandise.”
Chase gave me another one of those naughty smiles I loved so much. “I suspect you’re right. But I couldn’t resist.”
I ran my gaze over her. What with her wild pixie-cut hair, dyed the color of the ocean, pierced eyebrow, incredible body and long legs, she looked like a sexual deviant’s ultimate Disney fantasy.
Christ, she was hot. And mine.
“Ready to go see Doofus?” she asked.
“You really not wearing any undies?” I asked in return.
For an answer, she turned, stuck her butt out at me and hitched up the hem of her new dress.
“Chase,” I said, shaking my head when she turned back to face me, “if I wasn’t so damn hungry I’d do things to that hot arse of yours right now.”
She strutted past me, lips twitching. “C’mon, Aussie boy. We’ve got a dog to see.”
We grabbed breakfast at the International House of Pancakes next to the motel. I’d never been into an IHOP before but fuck a bloody duck, was it an experience. Who knew there were so many different ways to serve up a gallon of sugar and salt on a plate of pancakes?
Because I am a five-year-old boy at heart, I ordered a plate of chocolate choc-chip pancakes with ice cream and hot chocolate fudge sauce. With a side order of bacon and a chocolate shake.
Chase sat opposite me, watching me eat the whole thing with disbelief on her face. On the table in front of her sat a bowl of fruit salad and yogurt and a black coffee.
“I can’t believe you’re eating that,” she said, her eyes tracking my fully loaded fork as it moved from my plate to my mouth.
I stuffed my mouth full of the sugar overload, chewed on it a few times and swallowed, grinning the whole time. “Hey, when in Rome,” I said, reaching for my shake.
“What do you normally eat for breakfast?”
“Vegemite on toast,” I answered, before taking a massive slurp of chocolate milk.
“What is it with you Australians and that disgusting stuff?”
I plonked my shake back down on the table. “Them’s fighting words, missy.”
She shook her head and chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. Just don’t ever try to make me eat it. I still can’t believe Tanner, my own flesh and blood, likes it.”
I scooped up another mound of chocolate choc-chip pancakes with my fork and smiled. “He’s half Aussie. Of course he’s going to like it. Maybe even two-thirds Aussie, if you count my brilliant bone marrow.”
“Eat your sugar, weirdo,” Chase ordered, lifting her coffee to her lips. “We’ve got a dog to get
to.”
As much as I enjoyed my somewhat indulgent breakfast, I must admit I was regretting it a few hours later. Standing in the Laguna Niguel Animal Hospital, with its distinct smells, my stomach was making it very clear it wasn’t happy with me.
Doofus, however, was.
We stood beside his cage, Chase crooning about how awesome he was as I checked his chart. His readings were good, although his temperature wasn’t behaving the way it was meant to. His core temp was still high, and according to Dr. Adams, he was refusing water and food. Not what I wanted to hear, but not overly worrying. Not yet, at least. If he continued to do so tomorrow, he’d need a drip.
A part of my mind added up the costs incurred so far. Dr. Adams hadn’t mentioned payment, but I doubted he’d be treating Doofus for free. Which meant this trip to the States was costing me a fortune. Ouch.
At the slight brush of Chase’s shoulder against mine, I turned, watching her rub her forehead against Doofus’s through the bars, her eyes closed, her smile wide and genuine and totally beautiful. A fortune, but completely worth it.
I’d just double my paid intern hours with Briny when I got home. While I was completing my doctorate. And prepping for my mid-year exams.
Oh man.
Maybe I could work off some of the bill via unpaid work at the clinic? I was about to tell Chase I was going to go have a chat with Dr. Adams when her mobile phone started vibrating in her bag followed by the familiar loud ring.
It had taken a few incoming calls on Chase’s mobile for it to dawn on me that when Donald the Dude called, her phone played Pink’s ‘Walk of Shame’, most recently last night while she was out buying condoms.
A thick lump filled my throat. Guilt and anger threaded through me.
Doofus’s ears dropped close to his head, a low whine coming from him.
A strange stillness fell over Chase and she chewed on her lip, scratching his neck. I wanted to ask her if she was going to pick up the phone, but at the same time couldn’t bring myself to utter a word.
I’d yet to tell her about my chat with the professor last night. I should have by now. The fact I hadn’t was slack. Possibly even deceptive.
I should have told her before we had sex this morning, but I’d allowed myself to get caught up in the moment. Or maybe I was just letting myself think it was the moment that had prevented me from telling her. Maybe it was really the fact I knew she wasn’t going to be happy.
Maybe it was the fact I was protecting her from confusion and she hated being protected.
Maybe I was being selfish . . .
Fuck.
As we stood there, Doofus’s tail thumping gently and his ears flat to his head, the song filled the silence. I waited for Chase to get it. She didn’t.
Finally, silence resumed, as much as an animal hospital can be silent. Dogs whined, barked, cats meowed, birds chirped and squawked. I’m positive I heard the distinct screech of a sulphur-crested cockatoo coming from one of the other areas in Recovery.
Sliding Chase a sideways look, I returned Doofus’s chart to its hook on the front of his cage.
Christ, I had to tell her.
“Chase . . .” I said, my voice a husky scratch.
Her chest rose and fell with a shaky breath, and then she was talking to Doofus again. “We’ll bring you back something yummy to eat,” she told him, scratching at his ears, which were once again in a happier position. “Grilled cheese, maybe?”
“Reckon we could find some Vegemite around here?” I asked, needing to break the tension trying to replace our earlier ease. I’d tell her later. I would. Along with the fact giving a dog bread wasn’t a good idea, especially a sick dog. I think showing off my vet knowledge now was probably not good timing.
Timing. Huh. It seemed me and timing weren’t on the best of terms at the moment.
She shot me a mock glare. “We’re wanting him to live, not die of poisoning.”
I laughed. She smiled. And then frowned when her phone vibrated and pinged with an incoming message.
“You should get it,” I suggested, even as the words scraped at me like razorblades.
An unreadable expression fell over her face. She studied me, as if looking for something in my eyes, and then withdrew her phone from her bag.
You have no freaking clue how much I wanted to read the message. I mean, if you had to rate it on a scale of one to ten, one being a curious itch, and ten being an imperative so vital the very fabric of existence was at risk, it was a fifty.
I stubbornly fixed my stare on Doofus.
The tones of her typing out a reply drilled into me, each key-strike a blow against my confidence and ego. It was stupid. For all I knew, she might have been telling Donald the Dude she’d just had the best sex of her life and it wasn’t with him so would he mind pissing off and leaving her alone. My fragile male ego, however, was concocting other messages. Messages that created a heavy lump in my throat and a churning knot in my gut.
If anyone tells you love makes you invincible, tell them they’re full of shit. Love makes you paranoid and insecure and nervous you’re going to fuck it all up and lose the best thing that’s ever happened to you.
From the corner of my eye I saw Chase return her phone to her bag. Pink started singing almost straightaway. Doofus whined, his ears drooping again.
Chase didn’t answer it. Instead, she turned and offered me a wry smile. “Let’s see if there’s anything we can do here to work off Doofus’s bill.”
My chest tightened. We were so perfect for each other. We thought the same way, approached problems the same way . . . The difference between us was I didn’t have another interested party circling me like a shark.
There was little I could do about that, except stay true to who I was and stick to the course I’d mapped out, which was basically being myself. If I couldn’t convince Chase we were meant for each other by being me, then why should she be with me when I wasn’t?
For the next three hours, Chase cleaned out all the animal cages and environs, and I performed basic medical check-ups on recovering animals, and did an inventory of the small animal vaccinations.
Before we left, Chase snuggled into Doofus one last time. She murmured things to him I didn’t hear. Chase doesn’t murmur often. It took me a few months of knowing her to realize it was a hearing thing. I’ve seen her murmur to Tanner, and once she murmured something to Amanda that made her roll her eyes and shake her head, but that was about it.
No under-the-breath mutterings, no secretive whispers. When Chase wants to say something, she does. Whatever she was saying to Doofus, it was accompanied by a gentle stroke of his shoulder, her eyes closed. The sight filled my throat with a thick lump.
Animals and Chase. My emotional downfall? Or my emotional strength?
We spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing. Chase took me to all the tourist traps. I posed in front of the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, I planted my hands in Hugh Jackman’s handprints and grinned cheesily. We ate what was either a really late lunch or a really early dinner at the Nickel Diner, which was just as fantastic as Yelp claimed. We found Robert Downey Jnr’s star on the Walk of Fame and I realized just how big a geek Chase was when she actually laid down on the footpath beside it and had me take her photo. Of course, she got to see my geeky side in full force when we found Patrick Stewart’s star and I spent the next hour dropping quotes from both Star Trek and the X-Men movies.
When she responded to one of mine with the appropriate quote, I had no choice but to haul her to my body and kiss her. It was the first real contact we’d shared since her text conversation with Donald the Dude. I want to say she didn’t stiffen a little when I did it, I really do. I want to say that more than anything.
Unfortunately, I can’t. Something had happened; a dark cloud had fallen over her heart, her mind, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I sure as hell knew, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t tell her about taking the guy’s call the
night before. Not while she was unsettled.
Was I being a coward? Probably. Putting off the inevitable? Definitely.
Making it worse for myself? Yeah. I was making it worse for myself.
But I hated the thought of upsetting her. I can’t stress that enough. Hated it. I didn’t just want to protect Chase from any physical harm or mental harm that came her way, I wanted to shield her from emotional pain as well.
So I stayed mum on the subject, doing my best to ignore the lump of guilt building in my gut.
It didn’t help when I made the mistake of leaning over to her while we were watching a street performer at Santa Monica Pier, and whispering in her ear how talented the guy was. She jerked away from me, eyes wide, confusion on her face. It was then I realized what I’d done. I’d whispered in the ear that was completely deaf. Shit. What was wrong with me? How could I be so stupid?
“Sorry,” I blurted, my chest tight. “Sorry, I—” I bit back the word forgot before it could leave my lips.
She studied me, her expression unreadable, and then turned back to the street performer. “It’s okay,” she said, a small smile curling at the corner of her lips.
I let out a ragged breath. I rarely forgot about Chase’s hearing impairment. It wasn’t necessarily in my thoughts constantly – she was Chase Sinclair, Amazing Girl to me, not Chase Sinclair, Deaf Girl – but it was like a distant notion in the back of my head most of the time. Forgetting now, whispering into the ear that was completely deaf . . . I couldn’t help but feel like I’d somehow been insensitive.
The slip niggled at me, an itch that wouldn’t go away, for the drive back to the hotel.
I chatted the entire trip, making inane observations about LA, the traffic, and any animal I happened to see. I know an embarrassing amount of trivia about animals and have a habit of sharing with whoever happens to be near me when I see one. We passed a Labrador (Did you know Labradors have webbed toes to help them swim faster?); a Poodle (The Poodle actually originated in Germany, not France. The French love the dog so much, however, they made it their national dog); a Clark’s Grebe (The collective noun of the grebe genus of birds is a “water dance”); and of all things, a giraffe traveling in a trailer marked L.A. Zoo (Did you know that in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp?). I babbled the whole time. There really was no other word for it. Babbled. Like the idiot I was.
Undeniable (Always Book 3) Page 12
