Keeping Allie (Breaking Away #3)

by Raine, Meli

  We stop in front of a pop-up camper.

  “What’s this?” I ask, amused.

  “Home sweet home,” he says, hiking the bike up on its stand.

  I take off my helmet. Maybe I didn’t hear him quite right.

  “What?”

  He smiles, the grin so dazzling it’s like the moon just came out. I look out over the ocean. The thin pink line is gone, and now the horizon is a muted grey. It’s a dark night. No moon.

  Just the blazing light of Chase.

  “I live here. For now. Can’t stay more than a few weeks at a time, but that’s all I need. I’ll just move it when I have to and rotate. Mark says it’s not good to stay in one place for too long.”

  “You have an oceanfront home?” I say, gaping.

  Oh, the laugh that booms from his gorgeous body. He looks down at the small fire pit, over to the cooler, and then at a small charcoal grill. “That’s right, baby. Nothing but the best. This is my cliffside mansion.”

  I match his grin. “It’s as good anything a Hollywood movie star could own.”

  He laughs and unlocks his front door, reaching inside. He grabs two camp chairs, unfolding them and making them face the ocean. “You have too much tact for your own good.”

  “I have to. I wait tables for a living.” I frown. “How do you move a pop-up with a motorcycle?”

  He laughs again. “I’m about to sell my bike and buy a truck. Mark got me set up here. It’s all good.”

  We settle in to the chairs, his hand holding mine. We look like an old couple, the wind blowing our hair back, the gentle night waves crashing quietly in the distance. The sound lulls me. Soothes me.

  “What made you decide to live here?” I ask.

  “Mark. He said I need to be a nomad. Just in case.”

  “In case...what?”

  He tenses. “In case our dad tries to find me.”

  “Your dad? I thought you were hiding from El Brujo.”

  He frowns. “No. Remember? El Brujo doesn’t care about me. And your mom made it okay between me and Loogie. We had to fake my death so I could leave the Atlas gang. Dad said he’d kill me if I ever tried to get out.” He gives me a sad smile. “I had to beat him to it.”

  I let out a low whistle. “You did tell me. Sorry -- it’s a lot to take in. So this is all to escape Galt.”

  He nods. “And Frenchie.”

  My turn to tense. He looks at me, frowning. “Sorry,” he says. “Don’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “It’s a little hard to avoid them when it’s all I can think about.”

  His body ripples with a single tremor, as if I’d hit him with a giant rock.

  “God, Allie, I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

  He stands and offers me his hand. I take it and stand, too, his arms wrapping around me in a huge hug. “Yes, I do,” he murmurs in my ear. “I need to apologize every day for the rest of my life for what happened.”

  “Stop it!” I insist. “You saved me. You and Mark and Mom. I was doomed before I even met you, Chase! Can’t you see that? Jeff had me sold off long before that day in the bar when we met.”

  “I know.” His face is shadowed but I know he’s troubled.

  “How about this,” I say, pressing my cheek against his warm chest. Strands of my hair float out in all directions as the wind changes course. “We stop apologizing and we start living.”

  “And loving,” he answers, pulling me away, then dipping down for a kiss.

  This kiss is more dangerous than the one at the pier, or in the park next to Sunrise Cafe.

  Because this kiss is right here, next to Chase’s place.

  He’s so solid. So warm and delicious, his mouth loving mine, teasing and laving, our lips dancing as we kiss. Chase pulls back and breathes, his hot breath tickling my nose.

  “You going to invite me in?” I ask.

  He makes a sound in the back of his throat that makes my heart start to race. “You realize if I do that, this could lead somewhere very, very naked.”

  “Is that a promise, or a threat?” I ask.

  “I will never threaten you, Allie.”

  I break away from him and open his door, running up the three small steps and into the tiny little trailer. I’m laughing as I hear him call out to me, making sounds of disapproval. I want this, though. I’m so tired of being afraid. Whatever my mind wants to put into my head—I can take it. I’m a big girl. I’ve been through so much.

  It really is time to face those demons. I can do it with Chase, or without Chase.

  And now I have a choice.

  My choice.

  I choose making love with Chase on my terms.

  Right here and right now.

  I find the wall light and turn it on just as he pulls the door open and leaps up the steps with one giant lunge.

  “Allie, I—”

  The camper has two popups on either side for two big beds. One is dark, but the other one is canopied by strings of Christmas lights looped over the bed, which is covered in beautiful pink sheets and sprinkled with rose petals.

  “Oh!” I exclaim, surprised. “You were, um...prepared.” I hold back a laugh. Apparently, we were both thinking the same thing.

  Then again, this is Chase. He’s a guy. When do guys not think about sex?

  “I wanted to surprise you,” he says from behind me. My back is pressed against his chest and his arms are around my waist. He’s a wall of warmth. The ocean’s waves make a steady soundtrack in the distance. It’s so hypnotic.

  He turns me around, his hands on my shoulders, eyes serious. “I don’t want to scare you off. If this upsets you, I—”

  I put my fingers up to his mouth. His lips feel like soft leather. Like velvet. I put the tip of one finger in his mouth and he uses his tongue to pull it in, suckling. It’s like it’s attached to a string that pulls on the very essence of my core, drawing me closer to him.

  “I want you to be my first,” I whisper.

  “I don’t want to be your first,” he says softly.

  I jolt. “You don’t?”

  “I want to be your only, Allie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I reach down and pull off my shirt, unhook my bra and stand there, topless. It’s like ripping off a bandage. I’d rather just show him my new, scarred body and get it over with. His eyes watch me attentively. As I reach down and undo my pants, I slide them over my hips and slip off my shoes, but leave my panties on.

  “Your turn,” I say. I don’t smile.

  Chase shakes his head. “You have to undress me, Allie. You have all the control here.”

  “I do?” I squeak.

  “You do until you drive me so far out of my fucking mind with lust and love that I start begging, honey. But we’re not at that point yet.” He reaches for my hand and puts it on his jeans fly. “Are we?”

  All the words are caught in a giant tangle in my throat.

  My nipples tighten as I unbutton his jeans and slowly, tooth by tooth, unzip his fly. I pull his jeans down over his hips and—oh!

  He’s commando.

  He kicks his shoes and jeans off. My hands shake as I unbutton his shirt. He’s radiating heat and arousal, and I’m absorbing it. My body breathes him in. I feed on his desire and his craving. As I pull his shirt off, I reach down and kiss the dragon tattoo, then the winged wheel. His hands reach down and he cups my ass.

  “You are divine,” he whispers. He lets go and sheds the rest of the shirt. He’s naked. Glorious and beautiful.

  My eyes fill with tears.

  Chase stretches out on the bed, his arms up under his head. His muscles in his arms and legs flex, his abs a bumpy terrain of sculpted steel. He is just so beautiful to watch. Almost too beautiful to touch.

  He looks at my hips and says, “Off.” The order comes out with a breathy hitch and his erection twitches, as if it said the word and not Chase. I slide my panties off and he frowns.

  I
knew it.

  I’m ugly.

  I scramble to pick up my clothes but Chase sits up and is on his knees, suddenly in front of me, holding my waist with his cheek pressed against my belly.

  “Your hip. What is that?” he mumbles into my navel.

  “The three little circles? The scars?” I ask. Don’t make me look, I think. Don’t make me remember.

  “Are those what I think they are?” he asks, pulling back and looking up at me with eyes filled with pain and sympathy. And something else.

  Revenge.

  “What do you think they are?” I whisper.

  “Did someone burn you? Are those cigarette burns?” he asks in a voice that sounds like he’d rather say anything in the world than that.

  “Yes.”

  A low moan of pain and suffering, like Chase is wounded, pours out of him. He grasps me, hard, his stubble visceral and distinct against my other hip.

  “Those animals,” is all he can say, over and over as he kisses the scars. Gently, with an aching sweetness that makes me love him even more, he lays me on the bed and systematically finds every scratch, every scar, every burn on my body.

  He kisses each one.

  And then he does it a second time, but this time he says “I’m sorry” every single time.

  By the time he’s done I’m squirming with want and crying with love at the same time. How he elicits such complex emotion from me is a mystery.

  A mystery we’ll have to spend the rest of our lives figuring out.

  “I’ll get them, Allie,” he finally says, lying next to me, dangerous and strong. “I’ll get every single one of the bastards who touched you like this. Who hurt you. I’ll hunt them down and I will kill them.”

  I know he means it.

  And I know he’ll do it.

  “We’re not gonna talk about them right now. We’re focusing on you,” he whispers. “What you want. What you need. How you want me to touch you. How you want to touch me.”

  I shiver with anticipation.

  “You cold?” he asks, his mouth closing in on my nipple.

  I shiver again. “No,” I answer, my fingers slowly exploring his back, his shoulders, the back of his neck as he places wet kisses all over my breasts.

  “If you are,” he says, his mouth on my belly, “I can think of a few ways to warm you up.”

  Some part of my brain wants to sabotage this. It keeps recalling images from my nightmares. Just as Chase gets me relaxed and aroused, it’s like an ice bucket challenge of pain and taunting. Chase senses it and pulls back, his hand lightly stroking my thighs.

  “What is it, baby?” he asks.

  “It’s—I—nothing,” I say.

  “Allie,” he says. Just my name. Nothing more.

  “I can’t stop thinking about my nightmares,” I say slowly. Haltingly.

  “Nightmares?”

  “About...you know.”

  “Oh. And when I touch you, it makes you think about them?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” He slides up and curls his arms around me, holding me snug and tight. He strokes my hair, pushing it off my flushed face. Something in the moment just shifted from arousal to comfort and I like it and hate it all at the same time.

  I want both. Can’t I have desire and be comfortable, too?

  So I say that.

  He stops moving.

  “You want to feel desire and comfort?”

  I backpedal. “It’s silly, I know. It’s hard to explain. It’s like...” My voice dies out as I realize it really is hard to explain. Especially when I’m naked and Chase is naked and I just want to connect with him. There’s this wall between us. I can’t figure out where it came from. I can’t understand how to tear it down.

  “No, baby. It makes perfect sense, actually.” He moves away from me and stretches out on the bed, on his back. Chase’s grin is open and authentic. “How about this. I’m yours. You touch me. However you want, whenever you want. You have all the control. You have all the choices. It’s all in your hands, Allie.”

  I have all the control.

  I have all the choices.

  “What if I don’t want what you want?” I ask, so softly even I can barely hear myself.

  “Then that’s that. You have to want it, too, for it to happen.” He stares long and hard at me. “Nothing happens that you don’t want. You’ve had too much happen to you where you didn’t have any rights or choices. That’s over. Never gonna happen again.” He frowns, then smiles at me, a playful look. “Starting now,” he adds, wiggling his ass a little, settling in as if he’s already enjoying himself.

  “Are you sure this isn’t a ploy to get me to do all the work while you just lie there and look pretty?” I tease.

  “Me?” he says in mock horror. “I am too much of a gentleman ever to do such a thing.”

  I reach forward and grasp him by the base of his—

  “Holy hell,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “God, I’ve missed you, Allie.” His hands move as if he’s going to touch me and then he retreats. He’s remembering his promise.

  This is my show.

  I’m not sure how I feel about this. I feel awkward. On display. Like I have all the power. Having no power is a wretched experience, one I never want to repeat. Having all the power, though, has its problems, too.

  I let go of him and sit up, naked on the small platform where the bed is. We’re facing the ocean, and there’s a zippered flap that acts as a cover for the small screen window at the end of the tapered pop-out. I reach across Chase, crawling on all fours like a cat. My body is stretched over him. I unzip the flap and see the shore. The white, foamy peaks of the ocean’s waves make me smile.

  Something wet and warm covers one nipple. I look down. It’s Chase. His tongue makes lazy circles and I gasp.

  He lets go. “Sorry,” he says in a voice that very clearly is not sorry. “Couldn’t help myself.”

  So that’s how it’s going to be?

  I smile at him and raise my eyebrows, then slowly back down over his body. He’s practically shaking with the attempt not to touch me.

  Hmm. Power can be fun after all. When used properly.

  I kiss his chest and trace a wet line with my tongue around one of his nipples. He groans.

  “Your turn,” I whisper, blowing hot air on the tight skin.

  He reaches up and bites my earlobe.

  I return the favor.

  “What do you want, Allie? Anything,” he says, his voice a long, pleading sound that makes me glad we have all night. All the time in the world. I’m wet and throbbing, wanting him inside me. I need Chase to drive the fear out of me. I don’t need the control right now. I know I have it, so I don’t need it.

  What I want is him.

  I climb up and kiss him, resting the entire length of my body against his. We are one big wall of hot skin. His hands cover my back, my ass, my ribs, my hair. He’s touching me everywhere, as if he could mix the two of us together like finger paint, like flesh you can combine to make something better. Prettier. Artistic.

  “I want you. I want you to make love to me, Chase. I’m so tired of being alone. Of being afraid.” I pull up and look at him. Really look at him. “I mean it when I say I want you to be my first. I also want you to be my only.”

  “I love you so much, Allie. I’m so sorry.”

  “No,” I say, pressing my fingers against that strong, sultry mouth. “No apologies. Nothing but this right now,” I say, kissing him deeply. “And I love you, too.” My voice catches in my throat, the emotion overwhelming. “With all my heart. Now let’s show each other.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  He flips me on my back in a breathless maneuver and peppers my belly with kisses, his mouth going down until his tongue touches a spot that makes me cry out with joy. It’s so concentrated—the pleasure. Like someone took every shred of goodness and arousal and put them all in his fingertips, his tongue, his hands.

  The fire that has built in me is st
oked, flames bursting, licking the edges of consciousness. I am going to explode. My hands grasp the bedsheets, crushing rose petals in them. The scent of roses fills the air as I arch up, wanting more of Chase, his hands roaming everywhere. Just when I think I can’t take anymore love from him I hear an enormous wave crash against the surf, my eyes closed, my body rising up, up, up.

  And crashing with it.

  I thrash and moan his name over and over, my mind worn away like the soft, smooth rocks on the beach as I overflow into a climax that makes me splinter and ignite. Chase is relentlessly attentive and just as I’m about to beg him to stop I crash again, my body lost in the waves of enjoyment. I’m one big pulse, one heartbeat throbbing right where his tongue does delightful things that turn me into a melted pool of devotion to him.

  He kisses his way back up my body, from belly to the valley between my breasts. Chase pauses to kiss each nipple, then gives me a taste of myself. I feel languid and stretched out, like a well-pulled piece of taffy. I’m warm and safe and eager.

  I’m ready.

  His eyes search mine and he sees it, too.

  I’m more than ready.

  He reaches into a tiny drawer next to the bed and pulls out what I assume is a condom. In seconds it’s open and he’s putting it on. I’m grateful in that moment, but his kisses on my neck as he moves between my legs, his thighs between mine, make me forget everything but the sensation of him.

  I widen my legs and let instinct take over. I close my eyes and for a second, I’m drawn out of this blanket of us, pulled into fear. Will it hurt? Will I change? I can’t go back once we cross this threshold. It’s irrevocable.

  I’ll be a different Allie in seconds.

  My body tenses, then relaxes as Chase looks at me. His eyes are the color of topaz and caramel, darkened with desire and love.

  “You want this?” he asks. I realize he’s giving me control again, his hand coming up to cradle my cheek, thumb stroking my lips.

  “I want you,” I say, nudging my hips up until—

  Oh!

  He enters me with a smooth, fluid grace that seems so easy. So full. He’s going inch by inch and I can tell he’s holding back. Chase is being respectful of my body. My pain. My invitation.