Lead Me On

by Victoria Dahl

  “Chase!”

  Okay. All right. Chase took a deep breath and pushed up on his arms. He grabbed his jeans and headed for the bathroom. By the time he got out, Jane was up, wearing her shirt and underwear and pacing like a madwoman.

  She swiped a tear off her cheek and his heart fell, but there was no getting around the truth.

  “Jane, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  “What? Why did you say that?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “No!” she yelled.

  Chase knew it was a really bad idea to smile, but he felt his lips twitch in the wrong direction.

  “This is not funny!”

  “Jeez. Do you do this every time a man tells you he loves you?”

  Her mouth snapped shut so quickly that he heard her teeth crack together.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I need to break it off. Completely.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jane stopped in her tracks and spun to face him. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t believe you.”

  “Why?” she huffed.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe because we just made love?”

  “No. We had sex, Chase.”

  Intellectually, Chase knew that should have hurt, but it was so obviously a lie that his heart didn’t even twitch. She’d meant to break it off when he’d shown up, just as she’d meant to break it off several other times in their short relationship. But she couldn’t do it. Not when she wanted him.

  She liked him, and she needed his body, and Chase knew that eventually those two things would mesh together and create something much more intense. Just as it had for him.

  “It’s over,” Jane insisted.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. It’s just over. It was supposed to be over after the first night!”

  “When you came to the door today, you were upset. What happened?”

  She shook her head. Crossed her arms, then uncrossed them. Her chin rose. “I told Mr. Jennings.”

  “Um…” A flush of embarrassment crept up his face, as if Quinn Jennings was her dad and had just walked in on them. “You told him we were sleeping together?”

  “No! I told him about my family, about my name.”

  “Oh, I get it. But that’s a good thing!” He started to reach for her. “I’m proud of you, babe.”

  Jane threw up her hands to hold him off. “It is not a good thing! Dynasty MacKenzie isn’t a secret anymore. You know about her, and so does Mr. Jennings, and now…now Greg knows, too, and he’ll tell people. I have to live with her now.”

  “Maybe she’s not so bad, Jane.”

  Fists tightening as if she might practice her boxing on him, Jane advanced. Chase actually took a step back. “You have no idea how bad she was.”

  “Well, I knew—”

  “You knew me when I was, what? Thirteen or fourteen? I spent two more years perfecting my bad-girl image. I was completely out of control. I was…I can’t be anything like her. I can’t date a man with tattoos or visit my brother in jail or…I can’t. Or people will think I haven’t changed.”

  “But Jane…Who cares what people think?”

  “I care! You don’t understand.”

  “So tell me.”

  Her eyes were fever bright, sparkling with pain.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “No!” She looked so panicked that Chase no longer cared if she was going to hit him. He grabbed her and folded his arms around her. Her breath blasted against his bare chest as if she’d just run a race. Her knuckles dug into his stomach.

  “Jane, you need to talk to someone.”

  “I don’t need you to play therapist. I know what happened.” Her breathing slowed, so when she pushed away, he let her go. “My dad, my real dad, wrote to me every week when he was in prison. Every week. I had all the fantasies you’d expect about what a great time we’d have when he got out. What a great father he’d be. He encouraged those fantasies. Then he was paroled when I was twelve, and I never heard from him again. Ever. He’d moved on. He didn’t need a pen pal anymore because he had a life.”

  Chase’s throat tightened with sympathetic pain for her. “Jesus, that’s really awful. You must’ve been—”

  “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, of course. Puberty. I started craving male attention, and I had the body to get it. Men wanted me and I loved it. There you go. Therapy session over!”

  His chest burned so hot that he had a momentary fear he was having a heart attack. “You were just a kid.”

  “Sure, when I was twelve, I was a kid. But at some point I was old enough to know better. At some point I couldn’t blame my mom or my dad or my past anymore. It was just me drinking and getting high and having sex with men twice my age—”

  Oh, God.

  “And living with that is hard enough without everybody knowing about it!”

  She was pacing again, hands wound together, mouth pressed into a tight line. He remembered how sexual she’d been. A thirteen-year-old seductress on a mission to lose herself…and apparently she’d succeeded.

  “What happened when you were sixteen?”

  “Ha! I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I could handle myself.”

  It seemed ridiculous, but he was afraid. Afraid for that girl she’d been. Whatever had happened, it had been a long time ago, but the terror of it sent his heart racing. “What happened, Jane?”

  Her laugh sounded like a sob. “I thought I was so cool.”

  “Jane.”

  “These guys asked if I wanted to go to a real party down in Denver, and I was so damn ready to get out of this town and have some real fun. I hopped into their car at midnight and left town without thinking once about my family or my safety or who these guys were.”

  Chase rubbed his hand over his skull, hoping it would relieve some pressure. “Jesus.” She stood still now, but Chase suddenly found himself pacing, prowling across the length of the room.

  “We went to their house in downtown Denver. They had pills and beer and I was so high, I was happy to do anything, you know? I did do anything. I had sex with three guys. In the same room, at the same time. That’s who I was, Chase.” Her voice had been quiet, but it rose now, tears shining on her pale cheeks. “That’s who I was! And I deserved everything anyone ever said about me. I deserved it when girls called me a skank and whore, and when boys grabbed me and asked when they could get their next blow job.”

  “Jane.”

  He wrapped his hand around her arm and tried to hug her, but she shoved him away. “That’s who I was and I can’t bear to have anyone think that about me again!”

  “They won’t,” he whispered, tugging her back before she could escape. “They won’t think that.” He folded her into his arms and squeezed too tightly.

  “I just want a boring life that no one looks beyond,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. “That average woman who fades into the background. I don’t want anyone to know what’s inside. Ever. And you know what’s inside. I can’t be around you.”

  He pressed a kiss to her hair. “You’d rather be with someone who doesn’t know you?”

  “Yes!”

  “What kind of life is that, Jane?”

  “It’s…It will be peaceful. And good.”

  “No, it won’t.” God, her whole body was shaking like a live wire. “It will be a sham.”

  Chase led her to the couch. He lay down and pulled her on top of him. Holding her, stroking her hair, he waited for her shaking to stop. Eventually her body started to melt into his. The rough sound of her breath began to smooth at the edges.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  She gave a watery laugh. “Not really. I took care of that myself. But the next day they kept saying they’d take me home. Then all of a sudden it was getting dark again, and they said, ‘Hey, don’t worry. We’ve got a few friends coming over who want to party with you. We’ll take
you home tomorrow.’ I panicked, and I snuck out. But I was in Denver. I didn’t know anybody, didn’t know what to do, so I just wandered around for a few hours until I finally got picked up by a cop.”

  “Thank God.”

  “I was so tired and freaked out, I told him what had really happened. I honestly believed he was going to help me, you know?”

  Chase felt his relief vanish at her disgusted huff of laughter. “What do you mean?”

  “He wasn’t exactly sympathetic. He took me back to the station and called Mac to tell him I was going to be charged with solicitation if I wasn’t picked up by morning.”

  “Solicitation?” Chase barked.

  He felt Jane nod against his chest. “He told Mac…” Her breath hitched. “He called Mac in front of me and stared right in my face while he talked. He said, ‘I found your daughter walking the street. She admits she had sex with three men last night in exchange for drugs. Come get her or I’ll charge her with prostitution.’ I wanted to die. I didn’t…I never wanted Mac to know that.”

  Eyes wide with shock, Chase stroked her back.

  “He came. And I was so ashamed. He didn’t say a thing at first. He just started driving. When the sun started coming up, he pulled over, flipped the visor down and said, ‘Look at yourself.’”

  “Classic dad move,” Chase whispered, hoping to make her laugh.

  She did. Just a soft huff of laughter, but her spine relaxed a bit.

  “It worked. I looked at myself, and I was a mess, and I knew he didn’t doubt what the cop had told him. I looked hard and sad and used. I told him it had all been a mistake. That I hadn’t meant to end up with those guys. And then Mac started talking. He never talks. But that day he talked, slow and quiet. He talked about how much he wanted to do right by me, how much he loved me.”

  She paused to swallow hard. “He said he knew that my dad had hurt me and how mad I was at my mom. He said, ‘You throw your mom’s decisions in her face, but she tried. She tried. And all you’re trying to do is ruin yourself so you can prove she did a bad job.’”

  “Ouch.”

  Her hand rubbed his upper arm, back and forth in little strokes. “He didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t berate me. But he stopped at the hospital in Vail and told them I needed to talk to a doctor in private. He took care of me, Chase. And sometime during that drive I realized I did have a real father. I’d done nothing to make him proud and everything to push him away. I’d been awful and he still loved me.”

  “Is that what changed you?”

  “That was part of it. I wanted to make him proud, to repay him for loving me. And I wanted to be better than my mother, instead of worse. Most of all, that night…once the pills wore off, I was so horrified and ashamed of what I’d done. And so scared of what might’ve happened. And I knew that cop hadn’t offered help because he thought I’d deserved what I’d gotten. It was like I needed to feel that awful, that low, for any emotion to soak through the rage and alcohol and defiance.”

  Chase brushed his lips over her forehead, breathing in the scent of her hair. The burning in his chest started to fade, but some of it just migrated to his eyes. “I can’t believe you actually pulled yourself together after that. At sixteen? That’s amazing.”

  Now her fingers were tracing his tattoo, running slowly up and down the black lines. Her weight pressed him down. Goose bumps raced across his skin.

  “It didn’t matter. That’s my point, Chase. It didn’t matter that I’d changed. All anyone saw was who I had been. My good behavior was suspect. People at school and in town said I’d had a baby or that I had AIDS. They said I’d been a prostitute and I was on probation. The boys I’d once hung out with were cruel, but the girls were worse. Sometimes it does matter what people think of you.”

  “Sometimes,” he acknowledged, “but not anymore. You’re not sixteen. You’re not in high school. You have a good life now and you should be proud of yourself.”

  “Well, I’m not. Not when I think of that. I need the security of pretense and appearance. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

  “It’s not the truth. I love who you are now, Jane, but part of that love is because of who you used to be. The changes you made…I don’t know anyone who could have done that out of sheer will. Don’t you want someone who knows who you really are? Who loves who you really are?”

  “No. I want someone who doesn’t even know that world exists.”

  Chase rolled his eyes. God, she was thickheaded, lying on top of him, caressing his tattoo and claiming to want someone like Ned Flanders. “Okay, what about the rest of your wants? You’re going to marry some upstanding white-bread kind of guy, and then…What? Keep someone like me on the side?”

  “No!” She put her hand on his chest and pushed up to glare at him. “Why would I do that?”

  Chase curved his hand around the back of her neck, spreading his fingers over the heat of her. “Because I turn you on. Because those high-class guys don’t do a thing for you.” He pulled her down until her lips were only an inch from his. “Good girl or not, you’re passionate as hell, Jane.”

  He tried to kiss her, but she twisted away. “Stop it!”

  “You want to live your whole life like that? Hiding from yourself?”

  “Yes! I don’t need this. I don’t.”

  He held her still when she tried to push farther away from him. “Yes, you do.” Her heart hammered, her pulse vibrating through his ribs. “You were starving for it. For me.”

  When he pulled her down, she resisted again, but when his mouth touched hers, her lips opened. The kiss was hungry and hard. She devoured him, her hands clutching his head. Now instead of struggling to get away, she seemed to be fighting to sink into him.

  Her kiss was violent, her fingers digging into his skull, but Chase didn’t care. He was hard within seconds, thrilled to be used.

  Aside from framing her face with his hands, he didn’t touch her, but Jane touched him. She dragged her hands down his neck, his shoulders, arms. Her mouth followed, biting and sucking at his skin.

  He closed his eyes when she reached for the button of his jeans, then sucked in a deep breath when her hand wrapped around his dick.

  Her hand slid down all the way to the base of his erection, then back up, slowly. She watched her own movement, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she worked him.

  Chase shuddered, watching her jack him off. Her cheeks flushed, her nipples hardened beneath the thin shirt, her fingers squeezed tighter.

  “Ah, God,” he gasped.

  Her eyes flew to his, flashing triumph. She let go of him so she could whip off her shirt and wiggle out of her panties. Then she leaned down and came up with one of the condom packages he’d dropped in his hurry to have her earlier.

  By the time she rose over him, Chase was panting, but he still didn’t touch her. Instead he clenched his hands to fists as her hot sex touched him, as it slid down, taking him in, squeezing him.

  Jane threw her head back and sighed, the lines of her face relaxing. He knew how to make her look that way. He knew how to make her laugh and scream and smile and cry. He knew her. Whether she liked it or not, he knew her.

  She began to ride him, and Chase let her take what she needed. Not that it was hardship. She was beautiful, lost in her own pleasure. Sex with her was beautiful, and it made his heart twist every time.

  Despite his vow to let her have her way with him, Chase soon found his hands holding her thighs as he surged up to meet her. He watched the place where their bodies joined, watched his dick sliding in and out, and it was nearly too much. He’d just come a few minutes before, but his body was already tightening to an ache.

  Sliding his hand higher, Chase pressed his thumb to her clit.

  “Yes,” she whispered as he rubbed her. “Chase. Please. Yes.”

  His fingers brushed the slick heat that coated his shaft, and Chase shivered.

  “Yes,” she breathed, repeating it over and over like a prayer. He
felt her tighten around him, but she shook her head, holding back, one hand digging into the back of the couch. “No,” she moaned, but it was too late. Her hips jerked and she screamed.

  He managed to hold on long enough to watch her as she came, but the sight sent him quickly over the edge, plunging into his own world of painful pleasure.

  Jane collapsed onto him, and he gladly wrapped his arms around her sweat-dampened body. “Jane,” he whispered. “I love you.”

  She didn’t object this time, though her breath hitched a little.

  “I love you,” he repeated, “but that’s the last time I’ll let you use me.”

  The muscles of her back stiffened. “What?”

  “If you want me, Jane, you have to take all of me, even the parts that complicate your life. Even the parts that make you self-conscious.”

  Chase’s legs worked a bit unreliably, but he had no choice but to get up and make good on his words. This time when he came out of the bathroom, Jane wasn’t pacing and glaring. She sat on the couch, head in her hands.

  He watched her for a long moment, but when she didn’t look up, he grabbed his shirt and shoved his feet into his boots. “We’ll talk later, all right?”

  Jane didn’t respond, so Chase kissed the crown of her head and walked out without saying goodbye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  HER EYES FELT GRITTY and swollen before she even opened them. Not a good sign. And she felt as if she’d been asleep for only an hour.

  Jane cracked one eyelid open and looked at the clock.

  No wonder she was exhausted. It was only 1:00 a.m.

  She was letting her head sink back to the pillow when she caught a glow of blue light at the edge of her vision. The numbers on her clock were red and she didn’t leave any lights on at night, so what could it be? Jane frowned into her pillow for a sleepy moment, then shifted to her side to look.

  For a moment it was just the blue light. Then she saw the shape of her cell phone and the lower half of a man’s face illuminated by the glow.

  Someone was in her room! She gulped down a gasp as she watched a hand rise into the light to push a button. She couldn’t see anything else, not even the arm that must be holding the phone.