by Metsy Hingle
“Because you wanted to cover for your father again,” he said, his voice filled with disgust. “You’ve been doing it since the first week I got here.”
“Chase, why are you so angry with me?”
“Why shouldn’t I be angry? You wear yourself out. You spend twice the number of hours here that you should, picking up your father’s slack just so he can go out to his dinner parties and society affairs. Did you think I hadn’t noticed that it’s gotten worse these past two weeks? That he’s never here anymore and that you’re covering for him?”
Not giving her a chance to answer, he caught her arm and hustled her into the garage. “I’ve had it, Madeline. I don’t care if he is your father or how much you love him, you’re not going to do it anymore. You’re going home. Now. And you’re going to stay there until Monday morning.”
“I have no intention of spending my weekend locked up in my cottage.”
“Then don’t. Do whatever it is you want to do, as long as it doesn’t include working here. I don’t want to see you back inside the hotel before Monday morning.” He stopped inside the dark, empty garage. “Where’s your car.”
Madeline pointed to the far corner where she had parked, and he began to march her down the long, dark lane, her heels clicking loudly on the pavement in the silent garage as they approached her car. His anger still made no sense to her, but she refused to let it and his apparent irritation with her father deter her from telling him she had changed her mind. That she was ready for them to become lovers. “Chase, I know my father’s absence has been a problem. But I didn’t come back tonight because of him. I came back to the hotel because—”
“Damn it, Madeline. Stop covering for the man.”
“I’m not covering for him, you idiot. I’m trying to tell you—”
“You’re trying to make excuses for him. When are you going to open your eyes and stop denying that he’s done a lousy job of running the hotel?” Chase snapped. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he gave her a gentle shake and backed her up against the wall.
Madeline hiked up her chin, squared her shoulders, causing her breasts to thrust forward.
His blue eyes glittered with fury and frustration.
And desire.
Madeline watched it catch, then burst into flame as he became aware of her body gently grazing against his. “When are you going to stop denying us?” he asked, his voice whiskey rough and taut with pain.
“I’m not denying us. Not anymore.” Reaching up, she ran her fingers down the curve of his jaw, traced the angry scar along his chin. She met his gaze. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
He caught her hand, trapped it between them. Heat flickered in his eyes, threatening to engulf them both. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re the reason I came back to the hotel tonight. I was on my way to your room.”
“Why?”
She placed her palms on either side of his face, then slid her fingers up into his hair. She pulled his mouth down to within inches of hers. “Because I want you, Chase,” she told him. “All of you. Or however much you’re willing to give me.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer, to outline the parameters of their affair. She had done enough thinking for both of them. Too much time had already been wasted. She wanted—She needed Chase.
She took his mouth then, as he had so often taken hers. Hungrily, greedily, she nipped at his lower lip and slid her tongue between his teeth to invade, to taste, to torment.
A part of her registered the cool steel of the garage wall at her back, the mingling scents of dampness, exhaust fumes and gasoline. The unique scent of soap and spice and male that she associated with Chase. Anyone from the hotel could walk in at any moment and see them. She couldn’t seem to bring herself to care. She deepened the kiss.
A guttural sound escaped from Chase as he hauled her against him. He was rock hard and deeply aroused—and she was the cause. Excitement, fear, pleasure raced through Madeline. He ravished her with his mouth, with his hands, sending the flames of desire licking through her body.
At the sound of approaching voices and footsteps, Chase broke off the kiss. Swearing, he crushed her against him. The sound of their own labored breathing seemed to echo in the darkness around them.
“We can go back to my place or your hotel room. I’d prefer my place,” Madeline finally managed. Pulling back, she handed him her keys.
Chase glanced over at her car and then back at her. His mouth curved into that slow, wicked grin, but the hunger never left his eyes. “Assuming I can make it that far.”
Ten
He made it to Madeline’s cottage—but just barely, Chase admitted, as he shoved the key into the lock of her front door with shaky fingers. It had taken every ounce of control he possessed not to pull the car over on the first dark street he had come to and make love to her right then and there in the front seat.
Chase’s lips tightened at the notion. Just went to show how close to the edge he was these days. He hadn’t made love in the seat of a car since he had been an overanxious teenager with raging hormones and lacking any ounce of finesse or sensitivity for his partner. And even then he couldn’t remember feeling this…this desperation, this primitive need to claim a woman with his body.
But then again, none of the females he had known as a young man or any of the women he had encountered since had been Madeline. Cutting a glance to her, Chase took in the lush curves beneath the silk dress, her slightly swollen lips. He shifted his gaze to hers. Her green eyes shimmered with liquid heat as she looked at him.
Desire streaked through him with the speed of a comet, making his gut tighten with anticipation as he thought of wrapping himself in that heat. He turned the key and jerked on the doorknob, but the lock wouldn’t give.
“Do you need some help?” Madeline whispered, her voice a husky purr that danced along his spine and conjured images of soft, naked skin, silken sheets and hot sex. She moved closer to him, her breast lightly brushing the side of his arm.
The innocent contact zapped through him and went straight to his loins. Chase dropped the key. Cursing his unsteady fingers, he scooped up the key, jammed it into the lock a second time and twisted. The door swung open.
Madeline slipped inside, and Chase hurried in behind her. Before he had closed the door, he was reaching for her. She laughed and came to him, with that siren’s smile on her lips and that womanly gleam in her eyes that said she knew all about his fantasies, that she had fantasies, too. She lifted her face to him, offering him her lips and whatever else he dared to take.
Chase crushed her to him. He captured her tempting mouth, devouring it with a need that would have frightened him if he had been able to think. But he couldn’t think. He could only feel and taste. That incredibly sweet and drugging combination of fire and ice, of innocence and sin. He couldn’t get enough of her taste. He couldn’t get enough of her.
She pushed against his chest, tearing her lips free. “Chase,” she gasped as he relinquished her mouth.
The breathless sound of his name on her lips pushed him closer to the edge. Chase kissed her neck, tasting the soft scented skin as he worked his way to her ear. He grazed the delicate shell of her lobe with his tongue, delighting at the sudden hitch in her breath.
His own breath hitched when she repeated the action, when that clever mouth of hers kissed the lobe of his ear, nipped it with sharp teeth. Then he felt himself being pushed against the door, while those slim graceful fingers of hers went to work, loosening his tie, pulling it free from his collar and throwing it to the floor.
She moved swiftly. With an urgency that surprised him, excited him. She reached for the top button of his shirt at the same time she reached for his mouth. Chase opened to her, welcoming the invading thrust of her tongue and the dueling ritual that followed. His heart thundered like a racehorse at the finish line on Derby day as her fingers trailed a searing path of heat down his chest, where she continued to f
ight with the buttons of his shirt.
He had dreamed of her like this, wild and wanton in his arms. Chase moaned as her fingernails scored his bared skin before continuing to open his shirt. His body on fire from her touch, Chase deepened the kiss. He ran his hands down her sides, skimming the swell of her breasts with his fingertips, exploring the indentation at her waist, the full curve of her hips.
Madeline broke the kiss. Her breasts heaved beneath the black silk as she drew air into her lungs. Her eyes were emerald flames as they raced from his face to his partially opened shirt. She ripped the fabric open, scattering the remaining buttons to the floor as she pulled the shirt free from his slacks. She dragged it off him, tossed it to the floor with the buttons.
Then her hands were on him. Those soft elegant hands were running over his chest, down his belly, unbuckling his belt, fussing with the snap on his slacks, tugging at his zipper. Her fingers brushed against his shaft.
Chase groaned. He cupped her bottom, jerked her body against his aching hardness and seized her mouth once more. He ravaged her mouth, allowed her to ravage him. He was ruthless. So was she.
When she squeezed his buttocks, Chase nearly exploded. He pulled his mouth free. Sweet heaven, he thought, sucking air into his lungs. He struggled for some measure of control. He found none. He had made it back to her house, but he wasn’t at all sure he’d be able make it to the bedroom. Not when he was within inches of taking her right now in the dimly lit hallway.
Quickly, before he did just that, he scooped her up in his arms in a movement that sent her high heels thudding to the wooden floor. “Where’s your bedroom?” he demanded roughly.
“End of the hall,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck, while her mouth made an erogenous zone of his shoulder. Her teeth bit into his flesh and Chase shuddered.
Kicking the door open, he stepped inside her bedroom. He was only vaguely aware of the smell of roses, of walking across thick carpet into a room draped in swaths of vanilla and pale rose silk. A rice bed covered in that same shade of pale rose dominated the room.
A lady’s boudoir. The thought flitted in and out of his consciousness as quick as a heartbeat. He stopped in front of the four-poster bed. Madeline slid to her feet, torturing him with the feel of her body against his.
And then he was beyond thinking. He was beyond anything but the desperate need to feel Madeline beneath him, to feel himself inside her, to hear her cry out his name as he filled her. Desire shuddered through him. He wanted to take her now, to sheathe himself inside her warmth with one powerful thrust and end the months of torment. And she would let him. The wild hunger in her eyes, the frantic pulse beating at her throat told him she would.
But he wanted more. So much more than that swift release. He wanted to fan that flame inside her, watch it catch and burst into a blaze in those expressive eyes. And when it was white-hot, when her desire for him was raging out of control, he wanted to dive into the flame with her and take her with him.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he told her, his voice savage with need. In seconds he had the dress off and feasted on the sight of her body covered by scraps of black lace. He had dreamed of that body, had imagined seeing that soft cream skin like this. The reality was even better than his dreams.
Madeline’s hands clutched at his hips. Her body trembled. “Chase, please…Touch me.”
Desire licked through him again, singeing him with its heat. Then he touched her. First with his hands. And then with his mouth. He touched and tasted, following the curve of her jaw, the slender column of her neck, the valley between her breasts. He flicked open the clasp at the front of her bra and filled his palms with her breasts.
Forcing himself to go slowly, Chase skimmed his fingertips over the dark rosy tips and smiled as they pebbled and pouted beneath his touch. Lowering his head, he took one nipple between his teeth.
Madeline cried out. Her fingernails dug into his bare shoulders. She arched her body toward him. Chase scraped his jaw across her breasts, worrying the stubble of his beard would mark her sensitive skin, but unable to stop himself. Like a marauder, he bit. He suckled. He laved that exquisite flesh with his tongue, fed by her cries of pleasure and the pressure of her fingers tangled in his hair.
And then she was dragging his face up to hers, nipping at his neck, his jaw, his bottom lip as her mouth and teeth raced over him. She clawed at his slacks, her fingers scraping against his bulging shaft as she fought with his zipper. Chase kicked off his shoes and helped her tug down his pants, kicking them and his shorts over to join her dress and bra.
Chase lifted her to the bed, then quickly joined her there. He kissed her again, ravishing her with his mouth as she had ravished him. Pulling his mouth free, he ran his hand down her rib cage, felt the quiver go through her when his fingers raced over her stomach to rest at the edge of her panties. He stared at the scrap of black lace shielding her from him and ripped it in two.
Madeline gasped. Her eyes widened. Fear flickered in their depths for a moment. It excited him. It made him feel guilty. It made him want her even more. He slid a finger inside her. She was hot and wet and ready for him. His body shook as he fought for control.
“I wanted to be gentle. To go slow. But I can’t. I want you too much.” He spat out the admission.
“I don’t want gentle or slow,” she told him. “All I want is you.”
His control broke. He sheathed himself in her with one powerful thrust. He heard Madeline’s breath snag, watched her eyes glaze with heat.
And then she was clutching his hips, arching her body, meeting his thrusts. He felt the first climax rip into her, watched the shock of it register in her eyes. His own body shuddered with her release. Wanting to prolong her pleasure, he swallowed her protests as he withdrew almost completely and entered her again.
“Chase…please,” she cried out. Her nails dug into his back. She bit at his lip, his jaw, his neck. He felt the sting of her teeth as they sank into his shoulder. Another climax shook her, blasted through her body like a jolt of lightning and straight through to him.
Chase slammed into her again, burying himself to the hilt in her sweet heat. The blood pounded in his ears. He heard Madeline call out his name again. And then the flames exploded around him, inside him, devouring him with fiery tongues. Grabbing Madeline’s hips, he cried out in triumph and dived after her into the blaze.
Madeline opened her eyes and stretched, wincing slightly at the protest of sore muscles. She glanced over at the window where morning light snuck past the damask drapes to dance like fireflies in the still-darkened room.
The clock on the bedside table read 9:40 a.m. How decadent, Madeline thought with amusement, unable to recall the last time she had slept so late on a Saturday morning. But then, she had spent very little of the night actually sleeping. Chase had seen to that. She stretched again and smiled at the pleasant ache that ran through her body.
Chase stirred beside her. His hair-roughened leg brushed against her bare thigh, setting off tiny shivers of memory and effectively reminding her that she was naked. A flush stole over her body, and she tugged the sheet up around her breasts as she recalled how wanton she had been with him.
“Do you always blush so beautifully in the morning?” Chase asked, his deep voice making her heart kick as he leaned over and kissed her softly, slowly on the mouth. He lifted his head and traced the line of her lips, her cheekbone, to the shell of her ear, then started back down to her neck. His fingers lingered at the edge of the sheet just above her breasts. He looked into her eyes, amusement in his expression. “Even your ears are a delightful shade of pink. Makes me curious to see just how far that blush extends.”
Madeline batted his hand away and anchored the sheet more securely. “You’re not going to find out.”
He gave her that wicked grin, and her stomach did its usual flutter kick. “Not even the reason for the blush?”
“Forget it, Chase. I have no intention of feeding that e
go of yours.”
“It’s not my ego that needs feeding,” he told her huskily. His eyes darkened as he looked at her, touching her like a caress. He kissed her shoulder, moved to her collarbone. “You were incredible last night, Princess.”
Madeline felt the blush again, but was helpless to stop it. “I…I’ve never been that way before,” she told him honestly. “I felt so…so—”
“So what?” he asked, capturing the fingers that clung to the sheet and bringing them to his lips.
“So wild…so wanton.”
“I like you wild and wanton.” He peeled away the sheet and Madeline could feel the heat curl in her stomach, pool between her thighs as he stared at her breasts. He lifted those hot blue eyes to hers. “I want you that way again. Now.”
Madeline’s heart jumped as his mouth skimmed the curve of her breast. His tongue flicked back and forth over one nipple and then the other while his hand eased down her stomach, beneath the sheet, between her thighs. He tested her with his fingers, coaxed the sensitive nub at her center. Relentlessly he took her over one peak and then another and another until her body quivered and she cried out his name and begged him for more.
“Tell me what you want, Madeline. Tell me,” he said roughly, pinning her with the savage heat in those blue eyes as he stripped away the sheet and moved between her thighs. His golden body loomed over her, hot and hard and ready. “Tell me,” he demanded.
“You,” she told him boldly, her breath coming fast and furious. Feeling every bit the wild and wanton creature she had confessed to earlier, she opened and drew him to her. “I want you.”
