by Locklyn Marx
Then his mouth was on hers. Fireworks exploded behind her eyes. His lips were strong and soft at the same time. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he slipped his hands off the counter behind her and encircled her waist.
Time stopped. They kissed for what seemed like forever.
“Let me take you upstairs,” he said finally. It was a command, not a question, but Lindsay didn’t have to be asked.
She nodded, and he took her hand.
When they got to the bedroom, he took his time. He pulled her clothes off slowly, like he wanted to savor her in every level of undress. And the kissing, my God, the kissing! What had started off slow upped in intensity.
She usually felt vulnerable being naked with a man for the first time – not that there had been that many – but with Chace, she didn’t feel any of that. He made her feel beautiful, the way he pushed her hair back from her face, the way he would stop kissing her for a moment to stare into her eyes, the way he stroked her skin.
It was two hours before they were completely naked. And even then, he lay on top of her, kissing her, until she was breathless.
“God, Lindsay,” he whispered.
He slid in slowly, still taking his time. He began to move slowly, then faster and faster, the pleasure building in her body until it exploded. They climaxed at the same time, and when it was over, he pulled her close.
They lay there like that, him stroking her hair and kissing her forehead, not saying anything. She drifted in and out, somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, drowsy and high off their love-making.
Finally they fell asleep, limbs tangled up in each other.
When she awoke, Chace wasn’t there.
The smells of bacon and coffee were coming from the kitchen.
Her clothes from last night lie crumpled on the floor, so she took a chance and pulled on one of Chace’s tshirts.
When she got to the kitchen, he was scrambling eggs, wearing track pants and nothing else. His eyes were droopy from the lack of sleep, his hair rumpled for the same reason. Her breath caught as she took in his half-naked body. His chest was broad and defined, the six pack of his abs visible over the waistband of his pants.
“Hey,” he said, breaking into a smile when he saw her. “You’re awake.” His eyes raked up her body.
“Sorry,” she said, pulling his shirt tighter around her. “My clothes were on the floor, and so… I hope it’s okay.”
“God damn, you look sexy,” he said. His voice, just a moment ago scratchy with sleep, had deepened even further.
He turned the stove off and came toward her. This time, he wasted no time.
He pulled her shirt off, and then he tugged off his sweatpants. He entered her immediately, like he couldn’t take being without her for another minute.
It was just as delicious and perfect as it had been the night before. Her body must have been on the edge the whole time she was sleeping, because her orgasm came so fast she couldn’t believe it.
“You’re going to be hard for me to stay away from,” he said as they lay on the couch. He was playing with her hair again.
They drifted in and out of sleep, the breakfast he’d been making totally forgotten.
When they awoke around noon, they ordered lunch in and ate in the living room while they watched TV. All of it felt very intimate and coupley, and Lindsay couldn’t help but think maybe this was it, that maybe she would just stay here forever, having sex and eating food and watching TV and writing her books.
But when the HGTV marathon they were watching was over, Chace turned to her and stretched.
“So,” he said. “What are your plans for the day?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. She didn’t have any plans.
“I have to go down to my dad’s restaurant today on the Cape,” he said. “We’re having an anniversary party for him and my stepmom.”
“Cool,” Lindsay said, keeping her voice nonchalant. It was no big deal. He had a party to go to, so what? What did she think, that she was really going to stay here with him all weekend, eating food and having sex? That was ridiculous. People had lives.
But still. A niggling thought was eating at the back of her mind. She’d had sex with him. A man she’d never met. She’d come to his apartment and had sex with him twice, the very first time she’d met him. Her face burned when she thought about the things they’d done last night, and then again this morning.
At the time, those things had seemed perfectly natural, but now she realized she didn’t know anything about Chace, really. She’d never slept with a man on the first night she’d met him, but that wasn’t the problem – she’d didn’t think having a one-night stand made you a slut or that it was anything to be ashamed of.
No, the real problem was that she was afraid maybe it hadn’t meant as much to him as it did to her. That maybe it was just sex to him, that maybe she was never going to hear from him again.
But that was crazy, she told herself as she changed back into her jeans and sweater. Chace didn’t seem like that kind of person. They’d had all those phone calls, and he’d never done or said anything to give her the impression that he wouldn’t want to see her again. By the time he kissed her goodbye, and promised to call her that night when he was done with the party, she was feeling better.
That night she had dinner with her sister, but she didn’t tell Jamie anything about the date. Jamie would want all the sexy details, and right now, it felt too raw, too private to be talking about. Also, she didn’t want to jinx it.
When Chace didn’t call that night, Lindsay told herself it wasn’t a big deal. He was busy with his family. He would call the next day.
But he didn’t.
Or the day after that.
She signed onto the dating site, hoping maybe he’d left her a message. But there was nothing.
Still. It had only been a couple of days. Surely at some point he would email or call.
But as the days added up, her emotions turned from nervousness to sadness to anger. She wrote him a nasty email, but stopped herself from sending it. Her pride was all she had left, and she didn’t want him to know that he’d gotten to her.
She was extremely miserable for a while, more upset than she’d ever been about a man. But time passed, and after a while, the sting began to fade. She reminded herself that she’d never really known Chace in the first place, that he’d just been a voice on the phone, a voice that had kept her company while she was writing.
And after she’d repeated this to herself enough times, she began to believe it.
Until he’d shown up on her doorstep the other night, forcing her to face the fact that she’d been lying to herself the whole time.
Chapter Five
Chace rushed over to Lindsay. She was lying on the floor of the kitchen, her hair spread out in a tangle behind her, her face flushed, her eyes closed.
“Lindsay!” he said. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes fluttered open, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing her there, on the floor, had made him feel like a vice grip was crushing his throat.
She swallowed a few times, and then looked up at him.
He put his arm around her. “Sit up.”
She sat up, the color starting to come back to her cheeks.
“Say something,” he commanded.
She shook her head, looking a little dazed. “My wrist hurts.”
He looked at her wrist, then reached out and touched it gently.
She snapped her hand back. “Hey! That hurts!”
“Sorry.” He turned to Chuck. “I’m going to take her to the hospital,” he said.
“Someone needs to look at her wrist.”
“I’m okay,” she protested, trying to stand up. But she couldn’t put pressure on her right arm, and without the leverage she ended up back on the floor.
“You’re not okay,” Chace said. “You need to see a doctor. Your wrist is hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“St
op trying to stand up!” Chace said. “Jesus Christ!”
She sat.
“Good,” he said. Then he reached down and put his arms around her, guiding her up off the floor. She smelled like strawberries and peppermint, and something else, something that was just Lindsay. He was hit with a wave of longing, remembering the night they’d spent together, how she’d looked that morning when she came downstairs wearing just his t-shirt. Her hair had been tousled and long, her eyes rimmed with last night’s make up. She’d looked sexy and gorgeous, innocent and vixen-like at the same time.
The strength of the emotion shocked him. It was a year ago that had happened, a year since he’d let himself feel anything even close to what he was feeling now. He knew he should take a step back, but he couldn’t think of anything but the fact that he needed to protect her.
“I’m fine,” Lindsay kept saying, repeating it over and over again, like if she said it enough it would be true.
“Oh, yeah? Let me see your wrist.” She held it up. It hung there limply, and it was already starting to swell.
“I’m taking you to the emergency room.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I just landed on it the wrong way. It’s just a little sore.”
He ignored her, grabbing his coat off the hook behind the kitchen door, then leading her into the dining room.
“Can I have your attention please?” he said to the preservation society ladies.
“We’ve had an emergency here. This poor woman – ” he pointed at Lindsay “—has fallen and hurt her wrist very badly.”
A murmur rushed through the crowd as the old women looked at each other.
Emergencies were something they understood.
“Finish your meal,” Chace told them, “and it’s all on the house. Chuck will help you with anything you need.” He looked behind him to where Chuck was standing by the kitchen door.
Chuck nodded.
There was another excited ripple through the crowd as Chace guided Lindsay outside.
But as soon as they hit the parking lot, someone began calling after them.
“Hey! Hey! Wait!”
He turned around. Shit. It was the crazy mother. Chace had forgotten all about her.
“Oh, Lindsay!” she wailed, rushing toward them. “What happened?”
“It’s okay, ma’am,” Chace said. He remembered Lindsay telling him about her mother’s tendency to overreact, and how it annoyed Lindsay and only made her feel worse. “Lindsay hurt her wrist, but I’m taking her to the emergency room.”
“Lindsay hurt her wrist!” the woman exclaimed, like Chace had just told her Lindsay had been in a knife fight.
“Yes,” he said patiently. “But I’m taking her to the doctor now. It’s going to be fine.”
“Oh, my God!” The mother twisted her hands in front of her, then fluttered them like she was some kind of bird. “How is she going to type? She has a mortgage now, you know. I was always telling her she should have gotten that disability insurance, it’s the kind of thing young people never want to think about, but with her insisting on being self-employed, I told her she really– ”
“Yes, well,” Chace said, wondering why she was talking to him as if Lindsay wasn’t standing right there. “Lindsay will call you as soon as she’s done.”
He didn’t wait for her answer, just steered Lindsay toward his truck and opened the passenger door. Lindsay got inside, and he shut the door behind her before heading for the driver’s side.
“You doing okay?’ he asked as he slid in next to her.
She nodded, but her face had gone white. “Do you think it’s broken?”
“No.” It was true. He’d been on the soccer team in college and had been involved in enough “adventures gone wrong” — bar fights, dares, stupid ideas – to know what a broken bone looked like. “If it was broken, you’d be screaming.”
“It hurts,” she said, “but not enough to scream.”
He handed her the bottle of water that was sitting in the cup holder. “Drink this.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking a sip.
He didn’t deserve her thanks. If he hadn’t been messing around like that, making fun of her for working at Bob’s Big Boy, none of this would have happened. She would be safe and sound in the booth of the restaurant, her biggest worry being how she was going to get rid of her annoying mother.
His jaw set as he pulled out of the parking lot. It was the first time he’d had someone he cared about in the car with him since… well, in a long time, and it was making him anxious.
Ten minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of Cape Cod Hospital, and he got Lindsay out of the car and inside.
The ER was surprisingly deserted.
A bleach blonde receptionist handed them a clipboard with forms to fill out.
Lindsay insisted on trying to do it herself, but since she was right-handed, and that was the wrist she’d hurt, the clipboard kept falling to the ground.
“I’ll fill them out,” Chace said finally.
She opened her mouth to protest, but he shot her a look that let her know he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She nodded, then recited the information to him so he could write it down.
When the nurse came out to call her in, Chace stood up.
Lindsay looked at him. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” Right. Of course he wasn’t going in to see the doctor with her. That would be ridiculous. So even though every fiber of his being was screaming at him not to let her out of his sight, he sat back down.
She was gone for what seemed like forever. He paged through a copy of Sports Illustrated, but he wasn’t really paying attention to what he was reading. All he could think about was Lindsay.
When she finally emerged, she looked much better. Her face had returned to its normal color, and her wrist was in a splint.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Now he could get her home and take care of her.
And then he saw the look in her eyes. It wasn’t one of gratitude that he was there to drive her home, or even one of anxiousness about her injury. No. All that flashed in Lindsay’s eyes now was pure, red hot anger.
***
Her wrist had only been sprained, which was a relief. A broken wrist, the doctor told her, would have required a cast and a six week rest period. There was no way she could afford to take that much time off, not with the deadlines she had and the fact that she wouldn’t get another check until she turned her book in.
She was given a splint to wear, with strict instructions not to use her wrist for two days. She was supposed to ice it every few hours, and take a double dose of ibuprofen every six. Once she found out she was going to be fine, the shock of what had happened began to wear off. And along with it went her gratitude to Chace for taking care of her.
Now she was just pissed. She wouldn’t have been in the kitchen in the first place if Chace hadn’t been messing with her. Of course, it had been her decision to go back there, but still. He was so antagonistic. Like how he’d just shown up at her house last night, accusing her of stealing his dog. And this morning! Chace had come over demanding she let him fix her fence, and then took his shirt off right in front of her! What a show off.
He was one of those ridiculously good-looking men who thought they could get away with anything because of their looks and charms. God, it made her angry.
She stormed into the waiting room, intending to give him the silent treatment for the rest of her life. He was sitting exactly where she’d left him, a magazine open in his lap. When he saw her, he stood up. He looked so concerned and worried that she almost believed it. Almost.
She stomped over to the receptionist window and paid her bill, then walked right outside to the parking lot. She waited by the passenger side of his truck, and as soon as he unlocked the door with the key fob, she pulled on the handle with her left hand and got in.
She didn’t need to be taken care of. She wasn’t some damsel in di
stress, or some silly schoolgirl he could just have sex with and toss away, like that girl he’d brought home the other night.
He got inside and started the car, guided it out of the parking lot and onto the main road.
She decided to forget the silent treatment and start yelling at him, but she didn’t know where to start. She ran through a bunch of different openings in her mind, but none of them seemed fitting.
“I’ll pay the medical bill, of course,” he said after a few moments.
“You’re damn right you will.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, saw his face harden and his grip on the steering wheel tighten.
“What did the doctor say?”
“He said I could sue you if I wanted.” It was a lie. Doctors obviously couldn’t give legal advice, but she wanted to get him all riled up, and this seemed like the easiest way to do it.
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Doctors don’t say things like that. They’re doctors, not lawyers.”
“Well, this one has a brother who’s a lawyer,” she improvised. “A big time personal injury lawyer. The doctor sends all his injured patients to his brother, and then the brother sues them for millions of dollars and wins.”
Chace shook his head. “That’s illegal.”
“It’s not illegal,” she said, not having any idea whether or not it was true. “It’s just, you know, a grey area.”
“A grey area?” He shook his head. “Listen, if you’re thinking about suing me, you should just say, ‘hey, I’m thinking about suing you.’ Don’t go making up some bullshit story about a nefarious doctor and his shark lawyer brother.”
“It’s not made up!” God, he was infuriating. “And I am thinking about suing you.
For lost wages, and pain and suffering.”
He looked at her, his dark eyes meeting hers. “You don’t look like you’re in much pain.”
“That’s because they gave me some ibuprofen.”
His forehead wrinkled. Somehow, it made him look sexier than ever. “They gave you over-the-counter pain relievers and yet you’re in so much agony you feel the need to sue me for pain and suffering?”