“He just wanted you here. You were his only family.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I was his only whipping boy.”
She studied him thoughtfully. “You don’t believe that. You have to know that he loved you.”
“Inasmuch as he was capable, which was damned little,” Chase said with a strained smile. He stood. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. He’d buried his father yesterday and that meant burying the past and any feelings about it with him.
Rorie was looking at Holland Harrison through hero-glasses and, though Chase knew the truth, he figured she needed to cling to that image more than she needed to have an accurate account of his father. He made his way to the door, then turned back to look at her. Her mouth was turned down in a sad line and the pity was back in her eyes, making him want to punch something. Or replace the sentiment with a more productive one, like desire. “I’m going to see Hank. I’ll be by the office later.”
“I’ll arrange for the crews to finish current projects, then you’ll need to decide what to do about the future work.”
“Let me talk to Hank first.”
She nodded. “I’ll help you however I can,” she said, and, for whatever reason, he got the distinct impression that there was a double meaning to her words.
“I’ll make it worth your while. I’ve only got to the end of the week to get everything settled.”
Something shifted behind her eyes. Regret? “Then you return to Iraq?”
He nodded, suddenly certain of his path. He’d needed this break—this reality check—but, at the heart of it, after everything was said and done, even after the horror of Mosul, he was a soldier. He cast a glance around her small house, then looked toward the huge Victorian he’d grown up in and knew without a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t belong here. This had been his father’s path, not his. He sighed. This was Rorie’s future now.
The thought was ridiculously unsettling.
4
“WANT A BEER?” Chase offered, extending a long-neck in her direction. They’d been going over the business accounts at his—soon to be her—kitchen table for hours. The small of her back ached and she was getting hungry, but considering the figure he’d quoted for her “help,” she had no intention of complaining.
Rorie tsked under her breath, accepting the beverage with a smile. “More alcohol? Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“It’s a beer, Aurora Rose,” he chided, eyes twinkling. “I promise that there will be no repeat of last night.”
Rorie felt her jaw sag and lock. “If you value your life, you will never call me that again.”
He laughed. “What? Your full name? It’s nice. It suits you.”
“It does not,” she bit out, horrified. She hated her name with a passion. Loathed it. Despised it. Had seriously considered changing it, but had never been quite able to convince herself to go through with it. “It sounds like a friggin’ wallpaper pattern. It’s Rorie, do you understand? Say it with me. Rorie.”
“Sheesh,” he said, eyeing her speculatively. “Don’t get your back up, Rorie,” he emphasized obligingly. “I was only teasing you.”
“I don’t like it.”
He blinked innocently. “Really? Seriously? I wouldn’t have known. I wouldn’t have had any idea.”
She rolled her eyes, a smile playing around her lips. “Shut up, Chase. How did you find out about it anyway?”
“The will,” he said. “Hank gave me a copy.”
Ah. “Any surprises? Other than the house, I mean?”
Chase rummaged around in the refrigerator and pulled out assorted casseroles. “Help yourself,” he said. He snagged a couple of plates out of the cabinets and found the cutlery. “You can warm it up in the microwave.”
“Thanks.”
He loaded a spatula with a wedge of lasagna, then a heaping spoon of tuna casserole. “No surprises,” he said. “Dad was a micromanager, so everything was in excellent order. Rather than sell the business as a whole, he wants me to liquidate all the assets. We’ll finish the work that is already in progress and Hank suggested asking Roger Reynolds to take over everything that was upcoming. He said Rog and Dad frequently covered each other when the need arose.” He added a dollop of sweet potato casserole to his plate, making her smile at the bizarre combination.
“What?” he asked, seeing her grin.
She nodded toward his plate and felt her lips twitch. “Interesting choices.”
He pulled a shrug. “I don’t get a lot of home-cooked meals and I like all of these. Why not eat them together?”
“True,” she said, loading her own plate.
He popped the dish in the microwave and set the timer. “Anyway, I called Roger and he said to send him everything—bids and time schedules—and he’d honor them at Dad’s estimate.”
“Roger’s a great guy and he does quality work.”
He slid her a look. “He said there’s a place for you there, if you’re interested. Jeanette’s been ready to retire, but hasn’t wanted to leave him in the lurch.”
Rorie swallowed and felt a gasp of mingled relief and delight rise out of her throat. “Wow. That’s fantastic.”
Given the current economy, she’d been prepared to ask “Do you want fries with that?” until she could land another office position and was eternally thankful that she wouldn’t have to. She’d spent enough of her teenage years in food service to last her a lifetime. Work was work and she was always proud to do it to the best of her ability, but she hadn’t spent two years getting her Associate’s degree in Business Management to man a cash register.
Honestly, Rorie didn’t have huge expectations out of life. She wanted the simple things. Things that other people she knew seemed to take for granted. Steady paychecks, dependable vehicles, central heat and air, a roof over her head, a husband and a couple of kids and enough money to take a moderate vacation every year. She didn’t want to be rich, she merely wanted to be comfortable. To be happy. And little things made her happy.
Chase studied her and only stopped when the microwave sounded. “I told him I thought you’d be interested and that you’d be in contact.”
He took her plate and began heating it, as well. “Yeah, I am. I’ll get everything to him tomorrow. Was he interested in buying any of the equipment?”
Chase nodded. “He’s pulling an offer together on all of it.”
She swallowed. “That would expedite things nicely, wouldn’t it?”
Her plate heated, he set it in front of her and took his seat. “Yes, it would. That gives me a couple of days to sort out the stuff here in the house that I’m allowed to have and I’m done.”
She’d been meaning to talk to him about that. Her voice softened. “Chase, you can have anything in this house that you want, whether it’s in your designated rooms or not.”
His black eyes smoldered at her and his lips curled into a sexy grin. “Anything?”
Butterflies with the souls of killer bees whipped around her belly. If he didn’t quit looking at her like that, she was going to be in serious trouble. Between the teenage crush, the adult onset adoration and the unrelenting desire, she was seriously considering letting the chips fall where they may.
And that meant bed.
He was leaving at the end of the week. This was her only chance and she knew it.
“You know what I’m talking about,” she said, once again imagining them on this table. Her legs wrapped around his waist, his bare chest beneath her palms… She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and fought the warmth pooling at her center. Just one word loaded with innuendo and she was ready. Wet, desperate and willing.
What was it about this guy? Rorie wondered. What made him so damned lethal? What made her want him above all others? Not just physically, though that was potent enough. But she wanted to soothe him, to rub the line from between his brows. She wanted to crawl into his lap and feel his arms settle around her. She’d spent less than twenty-four hou
rs with him and yet she felt as though she’d known him forever. As though her soul somehow recognized his. As though they were tuned in to the same secret frequency and they were the only ones on the air.
And every minute in his company only intensified the sensation. She’d been fighting it—denying it even—all day, but every bit of denial merely crumbled beneath that charmingly sexy grin.
“Th-think about it,” she said, struggling to keep her tangled thoughts in focus. “If you decide that you want anything—or all of it—then just let me know. I don’t want to keep anything that you would want to have.”
His black gaze skimmed over her mouth, lingered, and the tops of her thighs caught fire. “I only want one thing right now,” he said, his voice low and slightly rough. A rueful smile shaped his lips and his eyes tangled with hers. “But, unlike last night, I’m not drunk enough to take advantage.”
That sounded like a cop-out to her, one that made her curiously frantic to change his mind. “I didn’t realize Rangers counted on liquid courage.”
His gaze sharpened at the dig and a tiny thrill whipped through her. “You’re mistaking courtesy for cowardice.”
She slid her full bottle across the table, offering it pointedly to him, then stood and deliberately pulled what was left of the six-pack he’d bought out of the refrigerator, leaned over his shoulder and set it down in front of him. Her breast rested against his arm and the contact made her shiver from the inside out.
It was the boldest thing she’d ever done in her life, but he’d be gone in a couple of days and she’d more than likely never see him again. Desperation made one do things one ordinarily wouldn’t do.
And she desperately wanted to do him, so…
Seemingly impressed with her audacity, Chase’s eyes twinkled with heat and admiration and a dark, sexy chuckle rumbled up his throat. His gaze never leaving hers, he picked up the longneck and drained it, then turned and stood, towering over her. Heat rolled off him in waves and she found herself leaning forward, instinctively needed that warmth, that closeness.
Then his fingers found her chin and his mouth found her lips and her brain lost its ability to function.
And then nothing else mattered because she was tasting him and the flavor reminded her of…home.
5
HE’D BEEN right.
She had the softest, most wonderful mouth he’d ever tasted. When she’d deliberately handed her bottle to him—that liquid courage she thought he needed—Chase had just about lost his mind. Here he’d been trying to be good, to leave her alone, not to take advantage of her grief and, rather than accept the courtesy for what it was, she thought him a coward? Had she purposely taunted him?
Between the horror outside Mosul, burying a father he’d convinced himself he didn’t give a damn about only to learn otherwise, her pitying glances and the perpetual heat buzzing between them, Chase had been an emotional wreck. Factor in the terrifyingly potent need to be with her—just to have her in his sight—and he knew he was treading on shaky ground.
He pushed everything out of the way and put her on top of the kitchen table. No time for a bed—he wouldn’t make it that far—and besides, it seemed appropriately fitting.
He was about to feast. On her.
Her greedy mouth fed at his, her hands had burrowed under his shirt and currently worked their way along his spine. He’d had a perpetual hard-on since seeing her in that damned robe this morning and wouldn’t have thought that he could want her any more, but he did.
Something about her simply made him crazy. She tripped some sort of primeval button inside him, a caveman switch, if you will, and he wanted nothing more than to possess her. To own her. To kiss every inch of her, suckle her breasts and taste her heat, to bury himself inside her and brand her permanently as his.
It was hot and wild and completely out of the realm of his experience, and if he had the least amount of blood left in the head on his shoulders he would have been terrified at the onslaught of feelings—the power of them, specifically—but every bit of energy was focused in the head below his waist and how fast he could get it inside her. He felt as if he was suffocating in his own desire, and if he could just get inside her, he’d be able to breathe.
She ripped the shirt over his head and tossed it aside, then kissed a path down his neck and laved a male nipple. He shuddered.
Her hands were all over him, slipping and sliding over skin that felt too hot, too sensitive, too ready to do her bidding. He pulled the straps to her sundress down with his teeth, exposing a pair of bare, exquisite breasts, and moaned. “No bra?”
She gently bit his shoulder and worked a hand at the snap of his jeans. Her breath was ragged and low and her fingers were gratifyingly unsteady, as though she needed this just as much as he did.
“It was built into the dress,” she explained.
He palmed a plump breast, admired a rosy nipple before taking it into his mouth. “Brilliant design. I think all of your clothes should be made like this.”
Her mouth opened in a silent gasp of pleasure. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He thumbed the other peak and sucked deep. “You’re driving me out of mine.”
Her hand slipped beneath his boxers and wrapped around his pulsing shaft, then she worked the slippery skin against her palm. “Hi, Pot. Meet Kettle,” she said, laughing. “You think I go around having sex on kitchen tables all the time?”
“Every guy wants to be original, so I would hope not.” Nudging her teeny panties aside, he found her hot and wet and ready. He stroked her with his fingers, knuckling the tender nub nestled at the top of her sex while pushing a single finger deep into her tight channel. She fisted around him, squirming against his questing hand. Her back sagged against the table and he quickly looped her legs over his shoulders and replaced his knuckle with his tongue.
Feast, indeed.
Her taste exploded over his tongue and he groaned with pleasure. She was all sweet and womanly and the feel of that soft, soft skin beneath his lips was incredibly arousing. He felt a single bead of moisture leak out of the head of his penis and felt his legs shake beneath him. Rorie’s hands were on her breasts and she tweaked her nipples with every lave of his tongue against her swollen clit.
The sight of her touching herself was the single most sexy thing he’d ever seen in his life.
He fumbled around for his wallet, extracted the emergency condom he kept there and quickly rolled it into place. A second later he was nudged up against her folds. The sundress—floral, of course—was hiked up around her thighs and lay in a bunch beneath her breasts. Her aqua eyes were dilated and heavy-lidded and her mouth was plump from his kisses.
Pearled nipples, naked thighs, hot, wet…
He braced himself, pushed in and angled deep. He took the gasping breath of a drowning man who’d just tasted air and locked his knees to keep them from giving way.
The sensation, the absolute sheer perfection of the two of them together—him inside her—astounded him. His gaze found her equally astonished one and, in that instant, he felt his future twist, tangle and twine inexplicably with hers.
The shock of that knowledge detonated through him, but he determinedly ignored the blast. He’d think about it later. He withdrew and plunged again, desperation making his knees weak. Right now he just wanted her.
IF ANYONE would have told her she’d be acting like a wanton hussy, having sex with a man she’d known of but hadn’t really known on a kitchen table the day after a very painful funeral, Rorie would have raided their purse for their happy pills and escorted them to rehab posthaste.
She’d always heard that funerals made people more thankful to be alive and therefore more desperate to affirm their own vitality by having sex and, while she could certainly see where that might be true, she knew for a fact that wasn’t the reason her legs were wrapped around Chase’s waist and she had sweet potato casserole in her hair.
She wanted him with a ferocity—a need—that borde
red on the insane. It was powerful and raw and wild and with every push of the long, hard length of him inside of her she could feel that crazy energy building in what she knew was going to be the most powerful orgasm of her life.
And it felt as though it had been a long time coming.
“You make me…want to crawl out…of my own skin, you know that?” he asked her, thrusting so hard she could feel his taut balls slapping against her sensitized flesh.
She laughed, clamped her feminine muscles around him and wrapped her hands over the perfect globes of his ass. “I…might have…a general idea, yes,” she said, panting.
A sizzling tingle built deep in her womb, a bright glow that, like a puff of air against a kindling fire, grew more luminous with every stroke of him deep inside her. He was perfectly proportioned, perfectly sculpted and so achingly, beautifully male that it almost hurt to look at him. Mine for the moment, she thought, giving his rear a possessive squeeze. The little movement seemed to give him a thrill and he pushed harder and deeper and harder still.
The old but thankfully sturdy table squeaked in protest and with every thrust she could hear the dishes rattle farther toward the edge, but she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the feel of him deep inside her, the utter perfection of his skin beneath her mouth, the taste of him against her tongue, the look in his eyes as he pistoned in and out of her, as though he were just as caught up in this mindless insanity of need as she was. Every muscle in his body was tensed and ready, and the breath coming in hard little puffs out of his lungs sent a thrill of feminine pleasure through her.
She was doing this to him. She was making him lose it.
The heady thought made that glow burst into a white-hot flame and three strokes later, she screamed and bucked beneath him as the orgasm suddenly crested. He pushed harder, faster, pounding into her. She came to the tune of the dishes shattering on the floor. Her vision blackened around the edges, her lungs refused to work, her mouth opened in a long silent scream and her back literally left the table as the release swept through her, convulsing through her body in wave after wave of wonderful, orgasmic bliss.
Born on the 4th of July Page 8
