I lean up and kiss the edge of that lovely curve. “Thank you, baby. Love you.”
“Love you. But still want to hear personally from my fiancée when you return.” He loves calling me his fiancée. It seems as if he finds every reason possible to plop it into conversation. I wonder briefly if it makes it more real for him. Austin makes it to our side, and I look at him guiltily. Anyone can tell he’s angry, but he has too much class to say anything. That or he fears what Chase will say.
“Austin. Gillian and Mr. Parks are going to lunch. Jack will drive. Stay close. And don’t let my love slip through your fingers again.” Chase is going easy on him. This experience is considered a warning. If I leave his side again, Chase will fire him. Every facet of my being is swimming with remorse. The tension pours off Austin as the two men share a stare off.
“Yes, sir.” Austin answers simply.
After a quick kiss goodbye from Chase, Austin leads me to the car where Phillip has waited patiently. Before I get in, I stop and search Austin’s face. He’s having trouble looking me directly in the eyes.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It was childish and could have cost you your job.” I look down, the shame controlling my mood. He touches my elbow. The gesture is friendly, meant to make a point.
Finally, I woman up and meet his hazel eyes. “If I may say so, screw the job, Ma’am. That little act could have cost you your life. Don’t do it again,” he warns, his eyes pleading.
“I won’t.” I mean it. If Austin has to stick to me like glue until this stalker business is over with, so be it. Either way, I have a feeling Austin will be around for a long time. Chase is unlikely to let me roam freely ever again. He doesn’t like the idea of the paparazzi getting close, let alone some admirer with a small vocabulary and a pension for dead flowers.
Crawling into the car, I lean my head back with a sigh.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook with me, pretty girl. You’re in big trouble. Big. Huge!” Phillip spreads his arms wide as I roll my eyes and cross my arms defensively.
“Yeah, yeah, get in line.”
Chapter 3
Gillian
Lunch with Phillip is excruciating. He spends the entire hour droning on and on about how I need to be more careful, and shouldn’t have attempted to escape Austin’s watch. The most surprising thing is how all of a sudden, my best friend is now enamored with my fiancé. Ultimately, we end lunch with a nod and a wave instead of our normal bear hug and snuggle. The entire experience has me in a sour mood now that I’ve had the day to think it through. What other woman has to deal with so many “great protectors” hovering over her every move? No one, that’s who.
When Chase enters the master bedroom, I’m sprawled out on the bed, shoes kicked off, skirt in a heap on the floor wearing only a beige silk blouse and my undergarments. The ceiling is the most interesting thing in the room as I stare up, trying to put the pieces of my day back together. It’s impossible. The day has been shit and I’m feeling very sorry for myself.
I try not to look at Chase although I can feel his presence as keenly as a breeze blowing against my hair. He’s prowling, and I know his eyes are all over me. Technically, I should still be miffed by his behavior outside the elevators, but it only left me with a slow burning ache between my legs and a steady rosiness to my cheeks. A couple times today I was asked if I was too warm or coming down with something. When Austin asked in the elevator on the ride up, I’d about had it. I was ready to scream to the heavens or to anyone who would listen that I was turned on and to back the fuck off! The only thing that could put a salve to this wound was a six foot three Superman look-a-like who, right at this moment, was stripping off his tie and blazer, eyes scanning me from head to toe.
“Tired?” he asks cryptically.
“No. Hot.” The words drip from my lips, sounding more like a growl than an answer.
“Agreed.” His smirk is devastatingly sexy. He unbuttons his dress shirt one tiny white button at a time making a meal out of the process. Everything in me is hyper focused on each new piece of skin Chase uncovers. “You’re in need?” One dark, sculpted eyebrow rises in perfect synchrony with the white fabric falling off his broad chest to pool at his feet.
His question is rhetorical, so I choose to nod, then arch my back off the bed, seductively sliding my hands from my hips, covered in black lace, to the buttons of my own blouse. Chase loosens his belt under my watchful gaze. The sound of the leather as it is pulled through his belt loops is almost as heated as his groan when I pluck open all but one button on my blouse. The creamy silk spreads to the sides exposing the fair skin of my abdomen. Chase sucks in a ragged breath through his teeth.
“Jesus, Gillian. Nothing compares to your beauty.”
“Prove it,” I say as I pop open the last button revealing a cream-colored lace push-up bra with black trimmed edge, the direct opposite of the matching panties. The bra does wonderful things to my breasts, pushing them up so high I could probably lick them myself. I cross one stocking-covered leg over the other, adding a pleasing press to my sex. I moan and scratch at the silk covering my thighs, clearly desperate. Chase knows what I’m doing.
“Oh I plan to. You were bad today. Should I issue a punishment?”
Punishment. That word has never entered my love’s vocabulary, nor would I ever want it to. The word itself has negative connotations. Something given as a penalty for an offense, transgression, fault. To handle severely or roughly as in a fight. I knew exactly what the word meant, because Justin had me look it up and repeat it back to him like a robot right before he beat the hell out of me for something he thought I did wrong. His punishment he called it.
I spring from the bed, seemingly catapulted into a different time. A hateful memory bleeds into my psyche unwanted.
“You can’t do anything right, can you?” Justin screams into my face while holding my throat in a viselike grip. His fingers dig into the tender column.
“Justin, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.” Tears pour down my face in rivulets, each crystal orb should calm him, see the sincerity in my apology. It doesn’t. Crying does nothing but make him happy. Knowing he can affect me so deeply gets him off.
“I worked hard for the money that bought that chicken and rice, and your stupid ass burnt it all to a crisp!” His other hand comes out of nowhere and smacks me upside the head. I feel like one of those punching dolls. You keep it steady with one hand, punch it repeatedly with the other, and it bounces back for another go.
“I’m sorry, I swear. I was trying something new. Something I thought you’d like and it didn’t work! Really…” I’m cut off by a particularly harsh blow to my face that cuts my lip and makes my nose gush blood. The metallic smell and taste is vile, and I choke and spit at the floor.
“Now you’re spitting on my floor you crazy cunt! Making another fucking mess. That’s it. It’s time for me to punish you!”
Justin pulls my ponytail and yanks my neck back, then drags me kicking to the kitchen table, where he proceeds to bend me over it forcefully. He slams my face into the Formica tabletop, blood spatters across the shined surface. The table settings clank as Justin grabs the spatula hot off the stove. He runs the hot metal down my spine sending spikes of pain warnings to my brain. Justin pulls up my dress and rips the simple cotton briefs off me, shoving them crudely out of his way.
“You fucking scream, whore, and I’ll kill you,” his scent is mixed with body odor and sawdust from the building he’s working on. The smell swirls viciously in my gut, and I breathe shallowly through a busted nose and split lip, trying not to vomit. “You got that, slut?” he grits through his teeth.
I nod, crazily wishing, praying, hoping this will be over fast.
He palms my bare ass and for a moment I think maybe, maybe he’ll just fuck me and not hit me. Wrong. Dead wrong. The first lash of the metal spatula sears my flesh. White hot pain, rips through my ass and up my back. I cry out, but quickly mu
ffle the scream into my forearm biting the flesh trying to compensate for the whipping lashes against my fragile bare skin.
After twenty lashes he stops. His chest rises and falls, clearly winded. Between the heat scorching my ass and the pounding of my head from the repeated knocks from his fist, I almost pass out. But the blessed blackness doesn’t come. What did set my teeth to rattle, is a punching shove against the table, hitting my teeth against the top and bruising the gums.
Then his dick pierced me. A guttural howl rips from my lungs…
Tears pour down the sides of my face as I come to. Chase is kissing the tears away. My entire body is shaking violently as I will the vile images to disappear, still stuck halfway between the nightmare and my happy place…Chase’s embrace.
“Baby, baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Chase whispers as he hauls me into his lap. His voice is my anchor, and I cling to his chest, before wrapping my entire body around him, legs locked behind his back. Large, safe arms claim my back as I burrow into the warm, naked skin of his neck. Peace. Here is where I’m safe. No one can hurt me as long as I’m right here. He is my serenity.
“You’re safe, baby. You’re safe. I’m never going to hurt you. I’m sorry, God,”—his voice cracks with emotion—“I’m so sorry.”
I nod and sniff into the warm haven of his neck. He smells of soap, and a delicate mix of citrus and sandalwood. It’s heavenly. If they could bottle it up, I’d spray the scent all over my clothes and bedding. Chase rocks me from side to side then front to back. He kisses my temples and the tears that run down my cheeks, everywhere he can reach. His giant hands skim up and down my skin in long, calming, soothing strokes.
After a time, I finally pull my head from the shelter of his neck.
“Hey, there’s my beautiful girl,” he whispers, and I smile weakly.
He leans in and barely touches his lips to mine. The touch is feather light but speaks of such promise. Chase is letting me come back to myself, to choose to accept his kiss. I do, greedily. And I don’t stop, can’t stop. I need him. With me, in me, to banish this memory, this nightmare. I pull at his neck and devour his mouth with my lips, tongue and teeth. My legs are hooked around his back, and I grind my sex against his hardness. He groans and pulls back, cupping my face and staring deep into my eyes.
“Slow down, Gillian. There’s no rush. Do you want to talk about what just happened?”
I shake my head. “No, I want you to make love to me,” I squeeze my legs around his body rubbing against his erection. It feels so good. He must know that I need him. Only he can take away the sick feeling, remove the claws of this monster and replace them with light and love.
Chase leans his forehead against mine. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t know what the right thing to do is.” He sounds miserable. My big, strong man is out of his element, shattered. He thinks he hurt me, that the flashback was his fault. I have to convince him otherwise. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
“Look at me, Chase.” His ocean-blue eyes pierce mine. I see sadness, hurt, and fear in their depths, and I won’t have it. “Just love me. Your love takes it all away.”
His eyes close and he sucks in a deep breath. I’m holding mine until he pulls me close and stands. Slowly, he sets me down on our bed, his body coming down with me. He removes his boxer briefs and my bra, panties, and stockings until we’re both bare and as raw as the emotions filling the room.
He lays his naked body over mine and settles between my thighs. Slowly his hands pull my legs farther apart as the knobbed head of his cock lies against the petals of my sex, awaiting entrance. He gazes into my eyes gauging my need. I try my best to show only my love, trust and desire for him. It must work, because he slides his length into me in one slow, heavenly thrust, until there is no him or me, just us.
Together. Joined.
I cup his cheeks sliding my thumbs along the five o’clock shadow marring his beautiful face. His eyes are still uncertain, worried. “You, surrounding me. Keeping me safe. This is what I need to pull me away from the depths of hell and bring me back to your love. Promise me you’ll always bring me back,” I whisper and kiss his lips.
“I promise,” he says into my open mouth as the tension becomes too much. He pulls back and thrusts, fully embedding his thick cock deep inside. Lust coils between us as streams of pleasure shoot through me.
At a leisurely pace, Chase makes love to me. Most of the time we are so starved for one another he takes me wherever he finds me. Whether it’s against a wall, in the closet, the library, our living room, each and every time its earth shattering. But this? This is an affirmation. His promise to me. It’s how he’s proving his undying love. I don’t need a ring on my finger to know he’s it for me. I can see it in his eyes, the way he looks at me, the struggle on his face as he pumps into me over and over, wanting, needing to ensure I go over the edge first. Always certain to make me scream with delight—never in pain.
I pull my legs up and over his back, and cross my ankles, holding him close. His hands cup my face, and he stares into my eyes, hips moving faster, pressing harder, deeper. He shifts his hips, swirls his pelvis and presses down, pushing his manhood against the perfect spot over and over until stars streak across my vision. I almost fear the fall, but he’s there to catch me. Always.
“That’s right, baby. Give it to me. Come for me.”
His lips take mine in a wet kiss as I tumble into oblivion crying out his name. My limbs lock around his ass, clutching, reaching, and gripping for dear life as wave after wave of pleasure consumes me. His body answers the call, hardening and tightening as he swells so large within me I may burst. A silent cry slips past his lips, and then I’m encased in his heat. Jolt after jolt of his essence shoots deep inside, coating, marking, branding me as his.
When I come to, Chase is kissing my face, neck, clavicle, and chest in small loving caresses. His lips feel soft, like an angel’s kiss along my cheek. Just when I register the feeling of them touching down, they wisp off to another expanse of bare, moist skin. The sensation is sweet, almost a tickle. I giggle.
“Did you just giggle?”
I smile and laugh. “Yes, I guess I did.”
“It was cute.”
“Cute?” I cringe and twist my lips unattractively. “Babies and puppies are cute. A naked woman you’re still firmly imbedded in isn’t cute.”
He smirks and his lips tip at the edge. “Well, I say you’re cute.” I roll my eyes as he leans down and licks one rosy nipple. “And I think you’re beautiful.” He sucks on the sensitive skin then laves it with his tongue a few times increasing my arousal. I just had him and I already want him again. “And your tits are fucking incredible,” he covers my other nipple then draws on it, sending zaps of excitement straight to my core. I can feel his cock stir within me once more. A wicked grin appears across his face.
“You didn’t get enough the first time?” I ask jokingly then thrust my hips up to add pressure to where I want it most. He doesn’t move. Just allows that huge cock of his to widen and grow within the slick walls of my pussy.
His gaze catches mine and he tugs one nipple up, making me cry out when it plops from his mouth still glistening with saliva. “I’ll never get enough of you. Haven’t you figured that out?” He tongues my other nipple again, this time blowing on the tip, sending shivers up my spine from the chill. “I don’t want to hurt you, Gillian, but I do want your pussy to be so worn out it’s hard to cross your legs when you’re wearing those sexy-as-sin, fuck-me pumps, and tight-as-hell skirts.”
I groan and lean my head back. He palms one breast while the other continues to receive the delightful, wet torture of Chase’s lips and tongue. When he adds a gentle nip and tug from his teeth, I beg him to fuck me. He does…oh, yes, he does.
After round two, quickly followed by round three, my sex is throbbing, thighs shaking, and I know now that his lofty goal to have me sore tomorrow is not so far-fetched, as I may have thought initially. As it stand
s, I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to get up to use the rest room.
“Here, baby, let me take care of you,” Chase opens my legs. Instantly, the combined fluids of our orgasms start to slide out. As usual, my man watches his essence slide past my lips and along the crack of my bum. I squirm and he grins, immensely delighted. Finally, he wipes away the mess from our lovemaking. I shake my head and throw a hand over my face, and lie there as he cleans up then disposes of the washcloth, rejoining me in bed.
We lay there cuddled against one another’s body. I’m about to fall asleep when he asks me a question.
“So, what happened tonight? I know it was a flashback. I want to know about it.”
“Chase, no, I don’t want to muddy your mind with those things. It was just a bad memory of when Justin beat me that’s all.” I snuggle in, and he holds me tight.
One of his hands slips into my hair and he runs his fingers through it. He continues this pattern then responds. “I need to know, Gillian. Everything was fine until I mentioned punishing you.” I stiffen within his arms, and he continues running his fingers through my hair, then rubbing up and down my naked skin in long, even strokes. “It obviously triggered something. You know I would never hurt you, right? I was honestly suggesting some playful spanking. Nothing painful. God, and the way you reacted, it was worse than in the doctor’s office.”
He’s referring to months ago when we first met. I had to get stitches removed from the mugging I’d endured in Chicago. When the doctor pulled on those stitches that jolt of pain sent me headfirst into a violent flashback. That revelation later turned into an evening of coming clean about our pasts. It was cathartic, and I don’t think we’d be as close or moving forward so easily had we not gone through it.
“I’m sorry you were scared,” I whisper weakly, not really knowing what to say.
“Scared? Baby, I was terrified. You looked at me as if I was the devil himself, come to take you to the pits of hell.” His arms tighten around me, his voice now shaky.
Mind (Trinity Trilogy Book 2) Page 4
