by Susan Stoker
“Chase,” Sadie breathed, her knees weak from the imagery his words evoked.
Without another word, Chase spun and left the room.
Sadie brought a hand up to her lips and traced them. Then she smiled and hurried to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
He might not have meant it as such, but that kiss was as good an incentive to talk as she’d ever had. She’d tell Chase about Jonathan, hopefully he would still want to be with her, then she’d finally have the man she’d been lusting after for way too long.
The day had kinda sucked, but if it ended with Chase inside her, she’d relive it in a heartbeat.
Chapter Nine
Chase lay on the bed waiting for Sadie to come out of the bathroom. She’d been in there a while, but he wasn’t going to rush her. It was bad enough he’d kissed her like he had, not to mention telling her he wanted to make love to her all night.
He hadn’t lied, though he probably shouldn’t have been so blunt. But sitting next to her all night, breathing in her scent and holding her in his arms, had gotten him so worked up, he couldn’t have held back if his life depended on it.
She probably thought he’d tuned her out completely when he was talking to Munroe. That he had no idea she’d been stroking his leg with comforting motions while he’d barely held himself together. Finding out that he hadn’t been the only man to survive that fucked-up mission had been surprising, exhilarating, and frustrating all at the same time. His commanding officer should’ve told him. He understood that the deaths of an entire Delta Force team was kept on a need-to-know-basis…but fuck that. He’d needed to know. He’d thought for months that every one of those Delta Force soldiers had died at the hands of ISIS. The guilt he’d felt for being the only one to walk away from that failed rescue mission had eaten at him.
He still mourned the other men who had died, but finding out Munroe was alive and well was a miracle.
Sadie had sat by him, not flinching away as he’d squeezed her leg, silently supporting him while he’d freaked out. It meant the world to him.
And he wanted that for the rest of his life. Her support. He’d take it and give it back tenfold. And only Sadie could give that kind of support to him. No one else would do. No one else could soothe him when he felt like he was drowning in an ocean of emotion. No one else could make him smile when he thought he’d never smile again.
He was done waiting.
He honestly didn’t care anymore why Jonathan was obsessed with her. It didn’t fucking matter what Sadie had or hadn’t done. That asshole wasn’t getting his hands on his woman. The past was the past, and whatever had happened when he’d had her in that bedroom at Bexar could die with Jonathan, for all Chase cared.
But it mattered to Sadie. He could see it in her eyes every time he looked at her. She was scared shitless that whatever she told him was going to send him running. But she had no clue. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was hers, hopefully she was his, and that was that.
But in order for her to let it go, she had to get it off her chest. Had to tell him what happened so he could reassure her that he still wanted her…loved her…and they could move on. Once she told him, he’d show her in one of the most intimate ways he could that Jonathan fucking Jones would never come between them. Not then, not now, and never in the future.
Chase heard a noise and turned his head toward the bathroom. He inhaled sharply and felt his dick lengthen with arousal.
Sadie stood in the doorway of the bathroom, looking unsure. She was wearing his T-shirt, and it looked amazing on her. It was too big, of course, but since he wasn’t that much taller than her, it hit her at the top of her thighs. He knew if she turned and bent over, he’d be able to see everything. He had no idea if she was wearing panties or not, but it didn’t matter.
He held out a hand. “Come here, Sadie.”
She tugged at the bottom of his T-shirt and shuffled over to the bed, biting her lip. The freckles on her face were almost obscured by the blush that shone brightly on her cheeks. He folded back the covers and smiled as Sadie hurriedly came forward and sat on the bed.
She lay back and he drew the covers up and over them both. The only light in the room was coming from a lamp on the other side of the bed. It cast a soft glow, enough so that he could see her face and gauge what she was thinking, but not so bright that it killed the mellow mood.
Chase pulled Sadie into him until she lay against his side with her head on his shoulder. This was the first time they’d lain together in a bed. Oh, he’d dreamed about it over the last month, but had controlled himself. It had almost killed him to say good night every evening and not follow her into his guest bedroom, but he’d done it. And now that he held her against him in bed? He wasn’t ever going to let her sleep alone again.
He could feel her naked legs against his own and he ground his teeth to try to keep his erection under control. All he wanted to do was roll over on top of Sadie and make love to her until neither of them knew their names. He tried to tell himself to have patience.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
She nodded against his shoulder.
Chase waited for a while, but when she didn’t say anything more, he said, “Tell me about it.” He didn’t elaborate on what “it” was, figuring she knew.
He honestly thought Sadie had either fallen asleep or was going to ignore him, but finally she began to speak in a small, tired tone. “When I had my suspicions about what was going on at that school, I didn’t hesitate to call my uncle. I figured he could probably do something. I was stupid for not telling Milena. I should’ve stopped her from going there day after day. But I knew how much the job meant to her, and she really cared about the teenagers she was looking after.”
“You weren’t one hundred percent sure what was going on, and being cautious wasn’t a bad thing, Sparky.”
She didn’t comment but continued her story. “I went down there simply to visit and talked her into letting me come with her when she went to the school to work. She had no idea what was going on there, Chase. None.”
Sadie’s finger was making random patterns on his chest and Chase reached out and enfolded her hand in his own, trying to soothe her and encourage her at the same time.
“I didn’t get a chance to see any of the younger girls when I was there. We weren’t allowed to leave the area where the pregnant teens were housed. But after the raid, when the FBI agents were questioning me, I made them tell me what they could.
“Jeremiah and Jonathan were awful people. All the things they did to those poor girls were horrifying. And the fact that they basically rented them out for other pedophiles in the community just made it worse. I was so sickened by it all. Even though I was there for Milena, I felt as if I should’ve done something more to help those girls. The agents told me that Jeremiah had handpicked a group of girls for Jonathan. Told some they weren’t lucky enough to be chosen by the leader, but being given to his son was almost as good. Others were castoffs of Jeremiah’s who’d gotten too old for him.”
Chase hated what he was hearing, but he honestly wasn’t surprised. He’d sat in on the debriefing with the FBI about Jeremiah Jones and what the founder had been doing at the school. He’d read the transcripts of the interviews with some of the teenagers and girls who had been rescued. They were all going to need extensive therapy to overcome the brainwashing they’d been through.
He turned his head and put his lips on Sadie’s forehead. Chase lay like that, letting his care and concern hopefully soak into her from their flesh-on-flesh contact. After a while, she continued.
“Even though I knew Jonathan was just as bad as his father, I wasn’t really scared of him. I thought Milena was the one in danger, not me. When he kidnapped us, I honestly wasn’t too worried. I mean, I was, but not for me. So when Jonathan dragged me away, it shocked me. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. It was so unreal when he started telling me what he wanted to do with me. That he wanted me as a breeder to give him baby
girls he could molest to his heart’s content.
“That nearly broke me. I could handle almost anything he did to me, but the thought of him taking my child and hurting her… It made me crazy. So, after he dragged me into a bedroom, and before he knocked me out, I…I let him touch me. He lifted my shirt and grabbed my boobs. He told me how ugly I was, and how fucking me would hurt both me and him. But the end result would be worth it.”
Sadie looked up at him then, the pain, embarrassment, and shame shining bright in her eyes. “He hurt me, Chase. Twisted my nipples, squeezed my boobs, even put his hand on my throat to hold me down when I started to resist what he was doing. Said that he liked how easily he could mark my pale skin. That maybe he could learn to like fucking an older woman. He said he could hurt me more than he could the girls. That I could take more than they could. I…I didn’t want to do it…but I knew I needed to stall him. Knew Milena’s boyfriend would eventually come for her…so I had to do whatever I could to make sure he was distracted.”
When she didn’t continue, Chase pulled her on top of him, not wanting to trap her underneath him if she’d been raped by the bastard, and asked, “What, Sparky? What’d you do? Say it once, then we don’t have to ever talk about it again.”
Sadie closed her eyes and her breathing sped up. Chase recognized her reaction as a fight-or-flight response. He smoothed his hands over her skin lightly, not pressuring her to continue and not holding her against her will.
Finally, she said, “I pretended to orgasm while he was hurting me. I threw my head back and gave the performance of my life. Except the tears coming from my eyes weren’t from ecstasy, but pain. And he bought it, hook, line, and sinker. I thought he was going to rip my pants off after I finished moaning and shaking like a porn star, but his touch gentled instead. He petted me for several minutes while I pretended to come down from my orgasmic high. Then he turned my head and made me kiss him. For a long time. I was still crying and shaking from the pain in my chest—but I made out with him. Kissed him as if I couldn’t get enough, all the while trying not to gag. Then he reached for my hand and cuffed it to the bed. He sneered at me and said he knew I was a whore all along, just like all women were, and that he was going to enjoy hurting me in the future, but he was going to plant his seed inside me right then and there.”
Sadie took a deep breath, then said, “But before he could do anything, his phone beeped with a text. I don’t know who it was, maybe Jeremiah, but he knocked me out at that point. When I came to again, he dragged me out of that room down to another, where I saw Milena and her son. Jeremiah was holding JT, and he and Jonathan said goodbye to each other. Then Jonathan brought me back to the bedroom. He kissed me again, and I thought if I kissed him back, if I was docile, maybe I’d find a chance to get away. But he smiled at me. An evil, awful smile that made me want to puke. He told me he wanted to finish what he’d started earlier. He cuffed one of my wrists again then leaned over to grab something from a drawer in the table next to the bed.
“The thought of what he might have done to others on that same bed…of what he wanted to do to me…made me so angry! My foot was moving before I’d even thought about it. I kicked him with all my strength and he smashed his head on the table and fell over like a dead tree in the forest.”
She closed her eyes then finished quickly. “I ripped off the Velcro cuff on my wrist. I didn’t wait around to see if Jonathan was coming for me or not, I just ran out of there.”
“You amaze me,” Chase told her softly.
She shook her head. “I kissed him, Chase. I willingly let him touch me.”
“Bullshit,” he refuted. “You said it yourself, you were giving help time to get there. Giving me time to get to you. You were selfless and brave. You did what you had to do.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if I’d slept with him. If he got me pregnant.”
“Wrong,” Chase said in a harsh voice. “Even if you didn’t fight him, it still would’ve been rape. He was in the wrong, Sadie, not you. But you should know, even if he did take you, with or without your consent, even if you were pregnant as a result, it wouldn’t change how I feel. Not one fucking bit. You’re mine, Sadie Jennings. And any child you might’ve had as a result of that night would’ve been mine. Ours. Sparky, I don’t care if you’ve slept with one man or a hundred. From this point on, you’re mine. No one else exists for me.”
“You can’t really think that,” Sadie argued. “All guys care how many men a woman has been with. Especially when one of those men could’ve been Jonathan.”
“Would you think less of me if I told you I’d been with a hundred women? That I’ve had girlfriends since I was fifteen?”
“Well…no.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a guy. It’s different.”
“No. It’s not different at all. It’s fucking society that’s convinced women it’s okay if a man sleeps around and doesn’t care about his virtue. It makes him a stud. But a woman has to guard her virginity like it’s the eighteenth century, otherwise she’s a slut and a whore.”
Sadie stared at him with wide eyes. He saw the moment his point sank home.
“I see you’re getting it. Look, we all have pasts. Good, bad, and ugly. There are things I wish I’d done differently growing up, but I can’t change any of it. All I can do is go forward. But you making a conscious decision to do what you needed to in order to buy yourself and Milena some time isn’t something you should ever be ashamed of.”
She dropped her head and it thumped down onto his shoulder. She scrunched her arms under her and laid her palms flat on his chest. Her legs separated and she straddled his hips, drawing her knees up next to his body. Chase folded his arms around her.
Several minutes passed and neither said a word. They just enjoyed being close to one another.
Finally, Sadie lifted her head. “He hurt me, and I was afraid it would be a really long time before I wanted to be with someone else. Or even wanted to be around men in general. But from the second I saw you, I knew you were different.”
“I am different,” Chase said immediately.
She grinned, and he was so relieved he would’ve given her the moon if only she’d keep smiling at him like that. “You’re mine.”
“Yeah, Sparky, I am. And I hope you already know this, but I won’t ever hurt you like that asshole did. Not ever.”
“I know. I wouldn’t be here if I thought different.”
“So is that why you think Jonathan wants you so badly?” Chase asked, wanting to get the subject completely done with before they moved on. “Because you bested him?”
Sadie shrugged. “Maybe. I think he thinks I betrayed him in some way. Pretending to orgasm and kissing him made him think I wanted him. But when I kicked him, he must have realized it was all a lie. He’s obsessed with me. Or the babies he thinks I can give him. I think he’s built up this fantasy in his mind about starting a new school and having red-haired little girls following him, at his beck and call for his perverted urges. And he’s convinced I’m the only one who can give them to him.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. He probably feels like you’re his possession. He grew up under his father’s thumb, so he sees women as being good for one thing and one thing only. Instead of disappearing, which he should have done, since the FBI is looking for him, he can’t get past losing you.”
Sadie shivered over him, and Chase would’ve smacked himself on the back of his own head if he could’ve. “I’m sorry, Sparky. I don’t need to continue talking about this.”
She immediately shook her head. “No. You aren’t saying anything I haven’t thought about myself. But I think it’s more than that. I tricked him. Pretended to like what he did. I think I hurt his ego, because I made him look stupid and because I got away from him.”
Chase nodded. “Yeah, I can see how that might make him even more obsessive.”
“I just…I really want him to leave me alone.”
“It’s
better this way,” Chase said, then hurried to explain when she stiffened. “Think about it. What if he did disappear? If he’d gone to Mexico to hide out? He’d still be feeling the same way he does now. Possessive and like he owns you. But we wouldn’t know about it. You’d go about your life and not worry about him, thinking he was long gone. But then one day he could just waltz back into town and grab you.”
“You’re right,” Sadie agreed immediately, then shuddered. “When you put it that way, I’m totally glad he’s impatient, immature, and slightly insane.”
Chase carefully turned, keeping Sadie tucked into him until she was on her back and he was over her, resting his weight on his elbows. He tangled his fingers in her hair and held her head still. “You good?”
“Good?”
“Not worried over what I’m going to think about what you had to do in that room with that asshole?”
She dropped her eyes, then bit her lip as she looked back up at him. “You really don’t think less of me for letting him touch me?”
“No, Sparky. Not even a smidge. In fact, hearing about what happened from your perspective only makes me think more highly of you.”
For several seconds neither of them said a word, then Sadie whispered, “Make love to me?”
“If I do anything that makes you uncomfortable, you tell me,” Chase ordered. “If I touch you and it brings back too many bad memories, say something. If we start this and you panic, tell me. I don’t care if I’m inside you and you have a flashback, you say the word and I’ll stop. The last thing I want is this to be something you’re tolerating rather than something you want more than your next breath…which is how I want you.”
“Chase…” Sadie said, her voice breaking.
“You promise?” Chase pushed.
“I promise. I want you. Have from the moment I saw you. Please, make love to me.”
“Nothing would please me more,” Chase said, then dropped his head to hers.
