by Cynthia Eden
Something happening to Vivian? That idea terrified him.
Because she mattered.
He wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened. When she’d stopped being a target and become so much more. Maybe it had been when she’d brought him brownies and given him that shy smile? Or maybe it had been the first time he’d heard her rattle off one of her facts for him? When she’d held him in the elevator and battled her own fear?
Chase didn’t know. And maybe the when wasn’t important. She was important, and he would do everything in his power to protect her. This wasn’t about the case. Not about the CIA. Not about Wilde. For him, it was about protecting an innocent woman who’d been pulled into a nightmare. From the beginning, his instincts had been screaming that she couldn’t be guilty.
He pushed open the door to his room. Vivian was too good, too innocent for something like—
Holy fuck, she was naked in his bedroom. He locked down his body—well, not his dick because that sprang to full, eager attention—but Chase did not step forward. If he stepped forward, he’d pounce. He’d take.
He’d devour.
“I was thinking that maybe we should get this out of the way,” Vivian said with only a small quiver in her voice. “And then we will both feel better.”
Chapter Thirteen
He wasn’t saying anything.
Mistake. This is a major mistake.
Vivian reached for the bed sheet. Pulled it around her body. Chase stood in the doorway like a statue, and he still hadn’t said a word. Her confidence plummeted. “I thought you wanted me.”
“You’re naked.”
Well, she had been naked. Now she was clutching the sheet in front of her because the silence had stretched too long, and the scene had played out way differently in her head.
“Why are you naked in my room, Vivian?”
“I thought it was obvious.” As obvious as possible. “I’m here to have sex with you.” That sounded clinical and cold, but cold was the last thing she felt. That adrenaline rush he’d talked about? After she’d left him, it had only seemed to get worse. Her whole body was tight and aching and, crap, it wasn’t just about adrenaline. She knew that. It was about fear. About being scared that she would be killed. It was about wanting to live. It was about wanting to grab tight to every moment.
No, stop it. It’s about him. “Sex is a good way to deal with an adrenaline high.” She had zero scientific evidence to back up that claim. She just hoped the statement sounded good when she said it.
His brows shot up. “So you want to use me in order to come down from your high?”
Use him? Vivian faltered. “No, that’s not what I meant—”
“Fair enough.” He strode across the room. Stopped when he was right in front of her. How was it that she could forget just how big he was? How tall and wide in his shoulders? Chase had a raw power that pulled and pulled at her each time he was near.
“You can use me,” he said as he stared down into her eyes. “Use me all that you want.” His head lowered.
Her hand rose and pressed to his chest. “No.”
Chase stopped. “Change your mind already?” A jerky nod. “Got it.” He backed away.
“No.”
His head cocked.
“I’m not using you. I’m lying.” She bit her lower lip. Everything was so confusing. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I can clear that up for you. You’re standing naked in my—”
“I don’t know what I’m doing with you. I don’t know why I feel this way about you.”
“What way?”
Vivian struggled to find words. “Even when I’m hurt, even knowing that you lied, I still want you.” More than she’d wanted anyone else. “And maybe, if we have sex, then—”
Chase held up one hand. “Okay. Gonna stop you there.” His voice was low. Deep. Almost guttural. “If this is the part where you say that you think if we have sex, we get all that tension out of the way, and then things can go back to normal between us—if you’re saying that, you’re dead wrong.”
Her throat dried even more as she clutched the sheet tighter. “I am?”
“First, there is no normal between us. Never was. I lied to you, and I fucking hate that.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Second, it’s not like I’ll have sex with you and not want you again. And again. And again.” He shrugged. “The way I figure it, I’ll have you once, and then get addicted.”
That wasn’t the experience she’d had in the past. Sex had been good, sure, but it had hardly been anything that she’d call addictive. None of her previous lovers had ever used the word addictive when describing what they’d done. A woman would remember that particular term.
“You want me to help you?” Chase rumbled. “You want me to get you past the rush you feel? You want me to give you so much pleasure you scream?”
She couldn’t even talk.
He nodded. “I can do that. I can do all of that without having sex with you. Because we cross that line, and there will be no going back for me. I told you, I won’t lie again. You need to know that I’m a possessive bastard. Especially where you are concerned. If I have you, I won’t be letting go. So before you offer me what I want most, you damn well need to consider what will happen next.”
Her breath choked out. “I want you.”
A muscle flexed along his jaw.
“I have since we first met. This…” One hand fluttered back and forth between them. “It gets worse the longer I’m with you.”
“Worse?” Both of his brows kicked up.
“Stronger. Hotter.” She licked her lower lip as her stare cut away from him. “I know I’m not sounding rational. I know I should be running from you, not to you—”
“That’s where you are wrong.” His voice was low and hard. “You should always run to me. Count on me. I will give you whatever you need. Always.”
Her heart wouldn’t stop racing. “Right now, I need you.” As she’d come into his room, as she’d nervously shed her clothes, she’d been thinking…
Just sex. It’s just sex. If they got this out of the way, then the tension wouldn’t be between them any longer. If they got this out of the way—
He closed the space between them. “It’s not about getting it out of the way.”
Had she spoken out loud? Horrified, her gaze flew to his. She expected to see anger flashing in his eyes, but…
Only tenderness was in his gaze. “Sex with you is about getting what I want most. Getting it out of the way?” He shook his head. “Hell, no, baby, that’s not the way it will go. Not at all.”
She wasn’t thinking clearly. “I shouldn’t have come here.” He’d lied to her. Hurt her. And saved her life. She kept returning to that part. He had saved her. If Chase hadn’t run in front of her car—literally, thrown himself in front of her vehicle—she’d be dead.
He’d lied, yes, but…
His lies had saved her. And, God, even she knew the evidence against her looked bad. But Chase was fighting to prove she was innocent. Why? “Why do you care so much?”
His eyes narrowed.
“About what happens to me,” she added quickly. “Why didn’t you want another agent taking over? Why didn’t you walk away? You didn’t have to stay with me.”
“Yes, I did.” His hand rose. His fingers skimmed lightly over her shoulder, sending a shiver skating through her body. “I don’t walk away from people who matter to me.”
“I’m a target. I don’t—”
He kissed her. Her lips were open, and his mouth met hers in a hot, drugging kiss. The kind of kiss that channeled the adrenaline and fear pumping through her. The kind of kiss that made her want to stop thinking. Stop all of the fearful worrying and just feel. To simply get lost in him and never, ever let go.
Her hands rose to grab onto his shoulders. His body crowded closer to hers, and the sheet became trapped between them. She didn’t care about the sheet
. It could fall. She wanted to keep kissing him. To keep feeling. To keep—
“You’re not a target. You’re my mission. Mine,” he growled against her mouth. “You always have been.”
Then he was lifting her up. Holding her easily. Carrying her a few feet over to the bed and the sheet slipped away from her body. He lowered her onto the bed. Her breaths came quickly as she stared up at him.
“If we go too far, you stop me,” he said, as he stared down at her. “All I want to do is give you pleasure. I’m not…” He shook his head. “God, you are fucking gorgeous.” He put a knee on the bed. Leaned forward. Trailed his fingers up her side and slowly moved to the tip of one breast.
She bit her lip to hold back a moan.
“So pretty. Can I taste?”
“Yes.” Speech was getting hard. Way hard.
His head lowered. His lips curled around her nipple, and she forgot about speech. Her head tipped back against the bedding as need tore through her. His lips and mouth teased her nipple. Licking, kissing, sucking, and her hips jerked upward in instinctive response. She’d never felt like her breasts were particularly sensitive before, but now…
OhmyGod.
He kissed a path to her other breast, and her hands flew out to fist around—she had no idea what. The fitted sheet? A comforter? Didn’t matter. He was licking her. Sucking her. And she could feel the faint edge of his teeth in a sensual bite.
Once more, her hips surged up. This time, she hit his jeans. His hips. He’d positioned his body between her legs as they splayed over the edge of the bed, and when her hips arched up, she was riding against him. Need pumped through her. She couldn’t hold on to control any longer. She was past that point. Fear, adrenaline, lust—everything tangled through her. Everything was centered on him. Everything was about—
Chase.
His head lifted. “Vanilla…my favorite flavor.”
What?
“Got to taste more.”
He was kissing a path down her stomach. Her heaving breaths came even faster. She knew what he was going to do. She wanted him to do it. She was desperate to feel his fingers and his mouth.
His fingers touched her sex. Slid between the folds. Stroked her ever so carefully as he moved back, crouching beside the bed.
“Beautiful,” he breathed. Then Chase surged forward. He put his mouth on her. Licked and thrust his tongue against her—into her—even as his fingers kept working her. The bedding fisted in her hands as her head thrashed because nothing had ever felt this good. She could feel her climax thundering toward her, and it had built so fast, faster than it had ever had before.
“Chase!” Vivian screamed his name.
He wasn’t done. Contractions of pleasure pulsed through her sex, through her entire body, but he wasn’t done. If anything, he seemed to grow wilder. His mouth rougher. He kept licking and tasting, and his fingers were stroking her at the same time and she couldn’t come down from that first orgasm because—was she coming again? Yes.
A second wave hit her, even harder than the first. She couldn’t cry out his name this time. She could barely catch a breath. Pleasure didn’t pulse through her. It pounded on a wave that seemed to wreck her. Her eyes squeezed shut, her body tightened, and the pleasure blasted through her cells.
Best orgasm of my life.
She wasn’t even sure how long it lasted. Time kind of floated as pleasure reigned. When her heart finally stopped thundering and her breath slowed to less desperate pants, Vivian cracked open her eyes.
He was still crouched between her legs. Only his gaze was on her face now and he looked savage. Feral. Wild.
This wasn’t the easy-going guy she’d met at her apartment building. That guy had been an illusion. Never real at all. The man she was staring at right now—the dangerous predator who looked at her as if he couldn’t wait to pounce—this was the real man. She was seeing him clearly.
And I want him even more than I wanted the handsome, smiling stranger I met in my hallway.
“Have I ever told you…” His voice was a rumble. It pierced right to her core as he continued, “that you taste just like my favorite treat?”
“I…” She couldn’t think of what to say.
“When I was a kid, my dad would sometimes take me to the ice cream shop on the corner. On one of the days when he wasn’t drunk off his ass.”
Her heart squeezed. She pushed up onto her elbows. “Chase—”
“Vanilla ice cream. The best in the whole world to me. Nothing tastes as good.” That molten stare of his dropped to her exposed sex. “No, scratch that. You’re better. You’re my new favorite treat.”
The way he was looking at her…
“I could eat you right up,” he added roughly.
Um, he just had.
He leaned forward. Her body quivered.
But then he rose. Stepped back. “I’m not always a selfish bastard.”
She didn’t remember calling him one.
“I can prove myself to you. I’m not the monster you think.”
Vivian shook her head. She hadn’t thought he was a monster.
“I can give. And not take.” He carefully positioned her on the bed. Moved her tenderly. Then pulled the covers up around her. “See?” His voice was tight. Hard. “This is me not taking. This is me not being a selfish prick.” He turned away.
He was walking away.
“Chase?”
“I hope you can sleep better now, Viv. But if you need me, I’ll be right down the hall.” A rough laugh escaped him. “Though I’ll probably be in an ice-cold shower for a bit. Then I’ll be in the room down to the right.”
The room down to the right. That had been the room she’d been assigned when they’d arrived. Merik had taken her bags in there for her. Wait, Chase was going to that room? And leaving her in his bed? “Eighty percent of women have faked orgasms.”
He froze. “If you were faking, that was a fucking world-class performance.”
“No, I wasn’t faking, God, no, that was the best orgasm—orgasms—that I’ve ever had.” Her words rushed out. She was nervous and that was why she’d spouted her random orgasm stat. Such the wrong time to share that particular fact.
Chase glanced back at her. “The best?” He smiled. Winked. “And here we are, just getting started.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
His eyelashes flickered. “Because you need time. Because you’re about to crash. And when you wake up in a few hours and your head is clear and you remember all that I’ve done, I don’t want you to hate giving yourself to me.” His jaw tightened. “I don’t want you to hate me.”
She didn’t think she could hate him. “You don’t have to leave.”
“I do.” He nodded. “Because I can’t be this close to you, I can’t stay in the same bed with you, and keep my control.” His voice held a ragged edge. “Trust me, it’s barely hanging on as it is. You tasted like my best dream, and I just want more. I want everything, and until you’re ready to give me that, I need to go down the hallway. I need to take that icy shower. And I need to talk to you in a few hours.” His hand moved toward the light switch. Paused. “Do you want me to leave the light on? I know you don’t like the dark.”
Some of the tension left her body. “The light is on in the bathroom. That will be enough for me.” It was kind of him to remember her fear. Kind of him to make sure she was all right. Thoughtful. “I can’t quite figure you out.”
“I am a man of mystery.”
He was leaving. She wanted him to stay.
Chase turned off the light to the bedroom. Pulled the door closed behind him.
“Good night, Chase,” Vivian whispered.
***
A cold shower wasn’t going to cut it. He needed freaking ice water in order to get the job done. But, since he didn’t have that on hand, Chase marched through the dark bedroom and went straight for the shower. He flipped on the cold water and let it pound down into the tub.
She tas
ted better than anything in the world. When she came for me, when she called out my name, no one has ever been so sexy.
His dick was rock hard. All he wanted was to turn around and march right back to the other bedroom. Open the door. Climb into bed with her.
And take and take and take.
Because he was such a greedy bastard.
But he wanted her to see him as more.
She’s been through hell. She’s going to collapse. Vivian needed sleep. Rest. She didn’t need him fucking her for hours, though that was certainly what he wanted.
Chase yanked off his shirt. Kicked away his shoes. Ditched the last of his clothes. Then he stepped under the cold spray of water.
Didn’t exactly help. Because when he closed his eyes underneath that spray…
He only saw her.
***
Chase wrapped the towel around his body. He’d stayed in the blasting water for almost ten minutes. He was a little better. Maybe. He flipped off the bathroom light and strode back into the darkened bedroom. He had strong night vision, so the darkness didn’t bother him. Never had.
But Vivian doesn’t like it. He didn’t want her afraid in the dark so he’d tried to make sure she had everything she needed in the other room—
Movement. From the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow shift near the window.
Chase immediately stilled. What in the hell? Was one of the guards checking the perimeter? Odd. Getting this close to the safe house wasn’t standard procedure.
The window began to open. What. The. Hell?
The window rose, but there was no shrieking alarm. There should have been a shrieking alarm. The cabin was wired, typical for a safe house that belonged to the Wilde company. Eric Wilde designed the security systems, so they were all top-notch. And a window on the ground floor, being opened by an intruder? Hell, yes, the alarm should have been shrieking. It wasn’t.
Bad sign.
The shadow eased into the room. Chase could tell the figure had something in his hands as he turned toward the bed.
That’s far enough, asshole.
Chase rushed him, hard and fast. He drove his shoulder into the bastard and sent him staggering onto the floor. The man came up instantly, and his arm flew toward Chase.