CHAPTER 32
Olivia
He tips his head back and closes his eyes for a moment, his stubble accentuating the pure lines of his face. Something about his beard and the bruised circles under his eyes makes him a little less perfect, but ironically, that just makes him more appealing. He’s rugged and raw and so familiar, like a dream I can’t shake.
I recognize something in him. A loneliness. A yearning. I know it’s in him because I feel it in myself. Everything turns over in me.
I raise my hand and give in to trace his contoured lips with a finger.
His hand falls away and I feel him moving back, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand for him to leave now, knowing this could be the end of whatever is between us.
I reach up, and it’s my turn to brush his hair back, to whisper my skin against his in a caress, feeling over those famous cheekbones, that chiseled jaw, the one that journalists write odes to and cinematographers worship.
He’s just a guy, not some god, I tell myself. Just a guy. And I’m just a girl. I can do this.
“I want it to be you, Chase.”
His jaw under my hand flexes.
Chase closes his eyes. I can feel his turmoil, but I don’t understand it. I’m offering him no-strings sex, every guy’s dream. My mind starts to spiral in unwelcome and soul-destroying directions until he opens his eyes.
And there it is. I see that I’m not alone in this. It may mean more to me, but I’m not imagining our heat, our connection.
“No-strings sex? Yay?” I say, trying for jovial and failing. I blow out a breath. “I chose you. Now it’s your turn to choose me.”
“Oh hell, Olivia.” And he kisses me. Swoops down and just kisses the shit out of me. He ravishes me, takes me hostage—not that I’m putting up a fight.
I want every hot, panting second of it.
Thanks, Nanna.
When we come up for air, his voice is ragged. “You have no clue how much I want you. But there’s more I need to tell you.”
I shake my head to clear it, but only one thought keeps repeating. “Later,” I say.
He lowers his head, resting his forehead against mine, and our breaths meld. Everything about him overwhelms me. His hard arms engulf me. I want to dissolve into his embrace until we aren’t two separate people, until my atoms and his atoms combine.
What I feel is raw, overpowering. It scares me, how much I can feel with just one embrace from him, not even a kiss. Only one other person had the power to make me yearn like this, but that man hadn’t even been real. Remington only lived in my imagination. Chase is a flesh-and-blood man, and I’m ready to surrender.
I shift my hands from his face to his shoulders and down to his jeans. I rest my fingers on the button for a moment before lifting his T-shirt. His skin is hot, firm underneath. My hands continue their journey up, this time unencumbered by cloth, nothing standing in the way between me and his strong muscles and smooth skin, just a sprinkling of hair as I reach his chest.
“You need to kiss me. And you need to keep kissing me.” The insecure, tentative parts of me have left the building, and all that’s left are instinct and want.
I press my mouth to his. He freezes for a few seconds, seconds where my boldness almost collapses. Almost. But somewhere, I gather the courage to open my mouth on his, and my tongue slicks across his bottom lip, to suck and gently bite it.
His reaction is immediate. He gives a rough groan, and it’s as if his control is a dam that reached its limit and cracked apart. Suddenly, everything shifts, and his self-control crumbles to rubble as we both get swept away in the current of sheer desire.
With a muffled, “Fuck it. We’ll talk in the morning,” he takes charge of the kiss, his tongue invading, plundering, capturing.
I make some sort of noise, an assent that I can’t hold back.
It may have been the word yes. It may have been his name. Or it may have just been a sigh. All I can do is hold on to him as waves of feeling crash through me, dragging me underwater where it’s just him and me and this explosive thing between us.
We devour each other, and then suddenly, I’m lifted into his arms. He continues to kiss me as he walks me into the house and into the bedroom.
He sets me gently on my feet as we stand in front of the bed.
He looks down at me with such intensity. Hair hangs in his face as he breathes heavily, and my heart skips a beat. This beautiful man is mine, at least for the night.
He reaches for the sweater he gave me earlier. He pulls it up and over me. I reflexively hide myself with my arms, my dark hair a black shroud against the milky skin of my breasts.