by Elle Harte
“I asked you if you’re sure you don’t want to be with someone right now?” he said in that low whisper and I could do nothing but stare. We were touching, our hands and our bodies and I was still unable to resist his imposing, blue eyes with just a hint of steely gray in them. From that up close they were infinite, deep, and full of the same deep passion his touch conveyed. He pulled me in closer and his lips were over mine, searching my mouth and I forgot for that moment that anything in life existed, that anything was even possible besides this. When we finally kissed he tasted better than I ever thought he would, better than I imagined. He was warm and soft but also demanding, and when he brought his tongue into the matter, I could do nothing but respond, and we stayed like this, just kissing each other. I really didn’t want to let go. Even though I knew that was the smart thing to do. But everything about this felt so fucking right, I just couldn’t bring myself to end it. Finally, he ended the kiss but his fingers were going over my face.
“Still can’t think of anyone you can be with?” he asked in that hoarse-whisper voice. “Because I can think of at least one person who would be perfect for you, Kitten.”
That stupid word again. I should be annoyed at him, but instead I wanted him to call me that again.
“Chase…” I tried to get away, to get back to reality but he held me there.
“Don’t please,” he said. “Don’t pretend you don’t like this, that you don’t want me as much as I do. Why can’t you let yourself go, like you did just a second ago? Like you did that night?”
I looked at him again. I should have been running. But my feet were planted to the floor. It was more than his hold, my body refused to do my bidding. It was insane.
“I work for you now,” I said, finally coming up with an excuse.
“Come on Blayne,” he said. “Don’t ruin something good because you have issues with breaking the rules.”
When I said nothing, he switched his sensual act down a notch and I heard the conversational tone of the same friendly guy who saved me from an embarrassing drunk situation at a bar, and took me home and talked about my ex. Who let me purge all that negativity out of my system and didn’t so much as touch me with an ulterior motive while I was in that phase.
“What can I do to change your mind?” Chase asked. “Because I can’t stop being Chase Cooper. I know there’s a baggage that comes with that name but can’t you let that slide? Are you seriously telling me you felt nothing for me in all this time?”
The bastard was right.
It was his name and who he was that was biggest concern.
“One date, Blayne. That’s all I am asking. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll stop pestering you.”
The idea of going out on a date with him was something out of a fairytale. Not because he was who he was, but because I had seen a side of him other people hadn’t and I wanted to know if I was right.
“One date,” I said.
“Really?”
“But we start small, okay?”
“How small?”
“Dinner-and-a-movie small.”
“Can we go now?”
“Tomorrow night,” I said, almost laughing. “I promised Chloe I’d help her with something tonight.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Tomorrow then. Get ready to be swept off your feet.”
Blayne
I was talking like an excited schoolgirl when I came back home and related the events of the evening to Chloe. As usual she was listening carefully, enjoying my little escapade and the details I gave her. I also told her it was Chase I went home with that night at the club. She was of course mad that I didn’t tell her sooner, but that changed when I made her an apology dinner made entirely of her favorite carbs. So now I could tell her everything that happened which made me feel better. It wasn’t fun keeping things from her.
“Why didn’t you just go with him tonight?” Chloe asked when I told her what Chase had said. “It’s not like I would have made you suffer, if you refused to watch a movie I’ve watched some thirty times already to go out with him!”
“I know that,” I told her. “It’s not because of you that I said no. I just needed some time to adjust.”
“So, you have a waxing appointment?”
“I have a waxing appointment.”
“And I’m guessing you’re going to wear your best underwear?”
“I’m going to go on a liquid diet too, Chloe, if that’s what you’re going to ask me next.”
“Nope. I’m good.”
I chose a bottle of pink nail color from the rack on Chloe’s nightstand. “So, what are we watching tonight?” I asked, slipping on to the couch and getting comfortable. “And please don’t say The Notebook.”
“What do you have against The Notebook?” she yelled.
“I don’t have anything against it,” I said. “I just don’t think it’s something I can watch like a million times!”
“We’re watching The Notebook and that’s that.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll watch it because…well…Ryan Gosling.”
“Yeah well whatever floats your boat.”
Chase
“How do I look?” I asked Kira as I stood in front of him.
she walked up to me and started fixing my tie. “You’re really going out with her?”
“I am.”
“Good for you,” she said and stepped back a few steps. “I think you look great.”
“Thank you,” I said and turned to the breakfast bar for my keys.
“You’re taking the Audi?” Kira asked. “Wouldn’t you rather take Stanton?”
“I don’t want her to freak her,” I said. “At least if I’m driving the car, it seems more…I don’t know…real?”
“Chase, you are real.”
“I know but I just want this to go right. What about you?”
“I’m staying over at a friend,” Kira said. “You can bring her here.”
“What friend?” I asked and the skepticism must have been evident from my tone.
“Relax,” Kira said. “It’s not one of those friends.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Take your meds with you.”
“I will,” Kira said.
“And let Stanton drive you.”
“Okay.”
“Call Stanton anytime you want to come back tomorrow.”
“Okay!”
“Just…take care okay?”
“I will,” Kira said. “Now go, you’re getting late!”
I checked my watch. “I am,” I said. “So…I will be off.”
“See you tomorrow!”
Blayne
The smart thing to do is to start trusting your intuition.
We went to his loft because he wanted to take me some place other than the hotel.
“So far so good,” I said, enjoying the smoky taste of the wine. “You are really making it higher up on my list of people to like.”
“I’m sure you will be tempted to give me a higher spot by the time the night is over.”
“You’re either too cocky,” I said. “Or mad.”
“Not mad, but bound more than a madman is.”
I almost spilled the wine.
“Shakespeare,” he said, taking the glass from my hand. He set it aside and continued talking. “Romeo and Juliet. It’s your all-time favorite piece of writing, isn’t it?”
“How do you know?”
He had that cocky smile on his face again. “I just do,” he said. “Besides, you’re not exactly inconspicuous.”
I was staring at him, completely blank. “How?”
“I told you Blayne, I know things.”
“I’m sure you know everything that popped up on Google.”
His reaction to this was almost vengeful, as he inched closer. “I also know that you like to think you’re tough but inside, you’re just like any other love-lost fool, trying to find fantasy in life, where it
doesn’t exist. I know that you’re a fool for love Blayne and I know you tried to look for it in Nick Callahan but you didn’t find it, did you? No. Instead, he broke your heart and made you swear off men for some reason.”
I was angry and a little annoyed, listening to him talk about me this way. “Fool,” I said, and the anger must have been apparent in my voice. “I love that word. You really are wonderful company Chase. I feel like a bigger fool now, standing here with you, than I ever have before.”
I tried to walk away to do something about my anger but he held me there, and his grip on my arm was a little tighter than it needed to be. “It’s not why I told you all this,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that whatever it is you think you need to hide from me, you don’t. There’s nothing about you that you could say to make me go away. And as for the fool comment, you’re not the only one. That’s what I’ve been trying to say this whole time.”
And that’s when it all makes sense.
He wasn’t just telling me about my past, he was talking about himself.
“I know nothing about you,” I said. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
He walked toward the sideboard and started pouring more wine. Then we both sat there, on the massive sofa and sipped it from our glasses. “It’s not a good idea to talk about past relationships on the first date,” he said. “That’s like dating 101.”
“You know we’re not normal,” I said. “We’ve already established that. Right now, it’s about payback. You know my secrets, I want to know yours. Simple trade.”
He smiled but this time there was a kind of sadness to it. “I was going to get married to someone I thought was the one,” he said. “I thought she was perfect. She was smart and she cared about me and she sounded like she was really into me.”
“So, what happened?”
“I caught her one night, with my friend.”
“Caught her? In bed?”
Chase loosened his collar. “Yes,” he said. “In my bed. I come back from a trip that got cut short and I saw them…together.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, because that felt like the only thing I could say. “I know how shitty people can be.”
He was gazing at the floor, lost in thought. “Turns out she really didn’t give a damn about me,” he said. “She even told me I didn’t deserve her. I’m beginning to think she was right.”
“Chase,” I said. “You’re a fucking catch! What she did to you, of course she had to say things like that. She had to clear her conscience somehow! I know because Nick always used to do that too.”
“You don’t know me,” Chase said. “I have plenty of faults to my name.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Mine are worse than others’.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
And then, once again, he was looking at me, the same way he had been looking at me all night, except for that one blast-from-the-past moment. “You like this,” he said. “You wanted to know me before we got any further. You wanted to see this side of me, didn’t you?”
“Is that why you did it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I wanted you to know that I’m a real person. That I have real problems, like you. That I’m not perfect.”
“You don’t have to be,” I said, setting the wine glass down and getting up.
I was feeling bold. I went toward him and he got up too. We kissed and I could taste every hint of flavor that the wine held, in his mouth this time. The pleasure was reaching all kinds of places inside my body that I hadn’t intended for them to reach. But that’s what he did to me. When his lips touched mine, as always, it was fireworks. I wished there was more than just his mouth to explore.
When his body pushed into mine, the growing bulge inside his pants was pushing into me, reminding me that he was also a part of this magical moment. Instead of going to the room, he cleared out the table and held me against it. His hands were fumbling with my clothes and my fingers were trying to pry open the buttons on his shirt, wanting to unveil whatever he was hiding.
Finally, I succeeded and we were both breathing hard, and his hands were fumbling with his belt and then his zipper…and I had the front of his chest to look at. My hands couldn’t help but feel the firmness of his chest, and I couldn’t begin to describe how that felt. I was still staring at the way his smooth skin gave way to the slight growth beneath his navel. By then his hand was pushing its way inside my pants and going through the fabric, and it lingered there and judging by the expression on his face, I was not the only one getting aroused by this.
One by one he started to take off my clothes, the pants come off first and then the underwear and his bare hands were touching me deeper and deeper…
“Chase…” I whispered.
But he was not even listening anymore. He pulled me in closer and I felt his erection against me. He reached into his pocket and fished out a condom and tore the wrapper between his teeth.
He kissed my neck. “Is this okay?” he asked.
I answered by kissing him back, harder this time. “Yes.”
I ran a hand over his erection and it made him gasp. He held my lips even tighter. “Fuck, Blayne. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting, Kitten.”
I continued to go over his length, and he was tugging at me. “I need this,” he grunted and grabbed my legs and spread them apart.
And then he was inside me and I had no choice but to let myself go.
When we both finally came it was like the whole world was trying to celebrate with us. Life suddenly looked perfect and so complete. He looked back at me, panting, and kissed me again. When we looked at each other, we both broke out laughing.
Yep.
Just two crazy people being crazy together.
How often do you get to feel that?
Almost never.
And I knew that very well.
He pulled off and put his pants back on but didn’t bother with the shirt. I straightened my own clothes and he helped me off the table.
“Can’t believe we just did that,” I said.
He looked at me, solemn. “Are you saying that because you didn’t like it?”
That’s what he was worried about?
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I…I don’t do this.”
“Why because some magic rule book said you can’t?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
He smiled. “I like that you don’t follow the rulebook,” he whispered. “More wine?”
We spent the rest of the night discussing our favorite books, movies, music, what we thought life was supposed to be and we talked about everything we could think of until I couldn’t talk anymore. I had so much to drink I didn’t think I could stand up straight but even though Chase drank more than me, he looked fine. Finally, he took me to the bedroom in his loft.
“You need to sleep,” he said.
The minute my head hit the pillows, I closed my eyes.
Chase
When I woke up she was in bed next to me. I could barely believe it. She stirred in her sleep when I climbed on top of her and tried to kiss her face. She opened her eyes. “Morning,” she said with a smile.
“Morning,” I said, and kissed her.
She kissed back and we started making out. I pulled her dress over her head and lowered her bra, pinched a nipple and she moaned. My morning erection got worse. I slid a hand inside her lace panties. She moaned even harder. I kissed the skin along her neck, lowered my mouth to her breasts and kissed every inch of skin, used my tongue on those perked up nipples and she shivered under me. “Want to make it more interesting?” I whispered.
“How?”
“Wait here,” I said and got up, barely able to walk owing to the erection and I managed to get to the dresser drawer and found a couple of silk scarves. I brought them back to the bed and used them to tie her to the bed. She started laughing. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“You’
ll find out soon enough Kitten,” I said and lowered myself to her thighs; put myself in the right position to eat her out. She quivered, tried to move when my tongue slid into her, and when I reached her clit she was bucking but the scarves limited her movement.
I had dreamed about this.
Jacked off to images like this one ever since I’d set eyes on her. And now she was here, she was mine. Or if she wasn’t she would be.
Blayne
I was in heaven and never wanted to come down.
The things Chase’s tongue was doing to me, there was no way I could explain it. Suffice it to say that it made me forget everything. When he finally took his head out from between my thighs, I was craving more. He took off his shorts and I could do nothing but watch because I was tied to the bed and for some reason that tiny addition was making everything sexier. It made me feel at his mercy and…helpless. I had no choice but to trust him. He was hard when he started to search for a condom on the nightstand and slid it on. And when he finally thrust inside me, the feeling was better than anything I had ever felt before…
Chase
“We should probably have the talk,” I said, untying the second scarf, and setting her free.
For now.
She looked at me from the bed. “What talk?”
I pressed a button on the wall so the blinds came off the large window and let in sunlight. She looked even more beautiful now than she had when I woke her up. “Now that we’ve moved on to a more intimate part of the relationship,” I said, fearing what might come after I had said what I wanted to say. “I should probably tell you that I can be what most women refer to as addictive.”
She was grinning again. “Really?”
“As a man of incredible talent,” he said. “I suppose it helps to keep my audience satisfied.”
“Of course.”
“So, I will ask you once, and only once: did you like it?”
“Chase,” she said, looking up at me. “Pretty sure this was the best sex of my life.”
