Anna was more perplexed by the man with every passing second. He was a wealthy business mogul who loved animals, sang and played guitar like a pro, hated business meetings, and treated his employees like family.
“While I like bunnies, I don’t want to be dressed like one in one hundred degree heat,” Chase said. “Anyway, you don’t want to hear about that, and I know you’re busy, so I’ll get out of your hair.”
Except she did want to hear more, which made Anna even more leery. Reminding herself that this was purely business, Anna sobered. “All right. Well, thank you again, and good luck with your meeting.”
“Thanks. Have yourself a good night. Bye, darlin’.”
The call ended and Anna closed Skype. She thought that her office was too quiet without Chase’s singing, so she thought some music was in order. Bringing up her music streaming site, she clicked on her country list and hit play.
Anna got rid of her suit jacket and opened her notes from that day. After quickly scanning them, she started fleshing them out. As she worked on the Horizon project, she hummed along with the music and felt more relaxed than she had in months. Inspiration hit her, and it was late until she found a good place to quit.
Anna couldn’t help but replay her day with Chase in her mind. He was so full of life and comfortable in his own skin. She knew a lot of businessmen who were confident and came off as hard asses, like her ex-boyfriend.
A shudder ran through her as she settled behind her steering wheel. She didn’t want to think about Greg, but he seemed to constantly lurk in the shadowy parts of her brain. Shaking him was nearly impossible, but she was determined to succeed—both physically and mentally.
Starting her car, she turned her mind to much more pleasant things—namely, a sinfully sexy Texan with an incredible singing voice. She shouldn’t, but thinking about Chase drove away her gnawing anxiety and kept the shadows at bay until she arrived home.
Chapter 3
Chase got out of the shower, toweled off, and padded naked to his bedroom. His Skype call alert went off on his laptop, which sat open on his bureau. The caller was one of his best friends and business partner, Tyler Jeffries. He hit the button for a phone call instead of one for a video chat since he wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Tyler and his other best friend, Ric Stanford, bitched at him whenever he answered in the nude. Chase thought clothes were overrated and would’ve been perfectly happy living in a nudist colony. However, he realized that most of the rest of the world didn’t share his views, so he played loosely by societal rules to keep from offending them too badly.
“Yo, bro! What’s up?” he asked as he took underwear from a drawer. A lot of times he went commando, but not when he had business meetings.
“Where are you?” Tyler asked. “I can’t see you.”
“I’m naked, so you’re just on voice call since I didn’t know if it was you or Hayley.” Chase slid his red boxer briefs on. “What can I do you for?”
A baby’s wail came through the speaker and Chase laughed. “He won’t go down, huh?”
Tyler’s wife, Emily, had given birth to little Tyler Michael Jeffries, Jr. almost four weeks ago at the beginning of September, and he wasn’t on a sleeping schedule yet.
“No,” Tyler said. “We’ve tried everything. He’s eaten, he’s got a fresh diaper, and we’ve walked him around the house a million times.”
Chase slipped on a pair of dress slacks and pressed the video button. He burst out laughing as soon as Tyler appeared. Their friend, Brooke, had dubbed Tyler “GQ” because normally Tyler looked like he’d stepped from the pages of the famous magazine. Right now, though, he barely resembled the usually impeccably dressed man Chase knew.
Tyler’s jaw was covered with what looked like two days’ worth of stubble and his black hair was in disarray. His gray eyes looked a little bloodshot, and he was dressed in Broncos PJ’s. He walked back and forth in TJ’s nursery, bouncing the screaming baby a little.
“Sing the song. Please sing the song,” Tyler pleaded. “We just need a nap. Even an hour will do. Please sing the song.”
Chase smothered another laugh and took pity on his friend, who, until last year, had hardly ever come in contact with kids. He’d become a father to his orphaned seven-year-old niece, Lily, and now had a brand-new baby. Chase recognized a drowning man when he saw one and couldn’t refuse to throw him a lifesaver.
“Okay. Let me see him,” Chase said, putting on a white dress shirt.
Tyler changed the angle of his phone, and Chase smiled as TJ let out another scream. “He looks just like Emily.”
A tired smile crossed Tyler’s face. “I know. I love it.”
“He sure is cranky, sort of like you at board meetings.”
Tyler’s smile quickly changed to a scowl. “Just sing the damn song, okay?”
“Okay, okay.”
Chase ended up singing three songs before TJ dropped off and he quietly sang a fourth for good measure. Tyler had sat his phone down while he’d put TJ in his crib, but he picked it up and came back into view.
“Thank you, thank you, a thousand times, thank you,” Tyler whispered.
“No problem, good buddy. Go get some sleep,” Chase said.
“I will. Talk to you later,” Tyler said.
Chase closed his laptop lid and sighed. He’d kill to be in Tyler’s position. His friend had it all: a successful career, a beautiful wife, and great kids. Although he loved his life, Chase would trade it all if it meant that he could have a family. That was impossible, since his boys didn’t have any swimmers.
Sterile. A hard thing for a man to accept when he badly wanted kids. He’d been almost fourteen when he’d contracted a severe case of mumps that had caused orchitis, an inflammation of his testicles.
When he’d gone back for a checkup with his doctor, he’d received the awful news that he’d almost certainly be sterile because he’d been so badly infected.
He’d recovered physically, but it had been a crushing blow to his fragile young male ego to know that he’d never father children. It wasn’t as though he’d been interested in a family at that age, but being informed that there was something physically wrong with that part of his anatomy had alarmed the teenage boy. That had happened right after he and his mother had moved from Texas to Cooper’s Creek. His parents had divorced, and they’d gone to live with his maternal grandparents. Between the divorce, the move to a place where he didn’t have any friends, and such bad news, Chase had been overwhelmed by despair for a few weeks during that summer.
When he’d started school that year, he’d met Tyler and Ric. They still didn’t know it, but they’d pulled him out of his deep depression by taking him under their wings. At his grandfather’s strong urging, he’d tried out for junior varsity football. The coaches had been impressed with his speed and uncanny catching ability. Coach Stevens had said that Chase had been born to play wide receiver.
Even though Tyler and Ric had been a couple of years older than him, they’d befriended him right away when Coach Stevens had moved him to senior varsity after only a couple of weeks on junior varsity. Honored that the head coach had thought that he was good enough to play with the older boys, Chase had worked his ass off to prove himself worthy.
He and Tyler had gelled instantly as a quarterback/wide receiver team, almost communicating telepathically. Combined with Ric’s formidable fullback skills, they’d been an unbeatable team and had won three back-to-back state championships.
The three of them had been almost inseparable, even going to the same college in New York. Upon graduation, they’d taken a huge gamble in starting their own investment company, and, through their smart risks and creative branding, Horizon Enterprises had taken off. Chase had focused more on the marketing behind any financing deals. His creative talents enabled him to design advertising campaigns that captured consumers’ attention. Eventually, they’d expanded, each of the partners taking a different city. The three bachelors had been happ
y making conquests, both in the boardroom and the bedroom.
Then, last year, Tyler had married Emily, his former girlfriend, and had moved from New York back to Cooper’s Creek. He’d traded places with Ric, who’d been running their Denver operation. Living there enabled Tyler to commute every day so he could be home with his family more.
Then Ric had met and fallen in love with one of the veterinarians in Cooper’s Creek, Kate Donaghue. They’d gotten married in July and were hoping to start their family soon. Chase was thrilled that his friends had found happiness, but he couldn’t help being jealous, too.
Shrugging off his dark thoughts and self-pity, Chase finished dressing and pulled his hair back into a stylish ponytail. Looking in the mirror, he squared his shoulders and smiled as he thought about the way Anna had watched him while he’d sung earlier that evening.
The desire in her eyes had been unmistakable, but there’d also been an underlying wariness in her expression. She wanted him, but she didn’t want to want him.
“Well, Miss Spencer, sooner or later, we’ll get you past that,” he said, putting on his socks and dress shoes.
Then he walked over to his bed to pet Lola, who was lying on it. She was sulking because he was going out. “Okay, girl. I gotta go. Behave yourself, and I’ll try not to be too late.”
He ruffled her ears and kissed the top of her head before leaving the room and leaving for his meeting.
* * *
A week later, Anna was on her way back to Horizon for an eight o’clock appointment with Chase. She was excited to show him what she and her team had come up with. Although she didn’t want to admit it, Anna had been disappointed when she hadn’t heard from him. He’d been running through her mind far too much over the past week, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him.
It was an overcast day, so the rainbow around the Horizon building wasn’t as bright. Entering the place, she submitted to the metal detector check and continued to the elevator. When she arrived at the eleventh floor, Ginger informed her that Chase was on the Roof Top, so she got back on the elevator and hit the button for the roof.
Getting off it, she again had the feeling of entering a resort, and the tropical atmosphere began melting her tension away. Arriving at the conference table, she encountered several people, a couple of whom typed away at computers, and one woman was on the phone. Another woman, who looked only eighteen to Anna, sat cross-legged on her chair. She chewed gum and texted furiously on her phone.
The girl looked up and smiled at Anna. She was very pretty with blue eyes and light brown hair. She had a lip ring and wore a pair of black yoga pants and a filmy red blouse over a black spaghetti strap tank top. “Hi. You must be Anna.”
“Yes. I have a meeting with Chase.”
“I’m Val. He said you’d be coming. His apartment is one floor down. You can go see him if you want,” Val said, cracking her gum.
The elderly man sitting next to her gave her an annoyed look. “Quit doing that. It hurts my ears. I might be old, but I’m not deaf.”
“Sorry, Smitty,” Val said.
Smitty smiled at her and patted her shoulder. “That’s okay, sweetheart.”
Val eyed Smitty’s wispy white hair that stuck up in places. “You really need to get your hair cut.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Smitty waved away Val’s concern.
Val smiled at Anna again. “It’s totally cool for you to go down to see Chase. He won’t mind.”
Anna nodded. “All right. Thank you.”
Walking back to the elevator, Anna wondered at Chase’s choice of staff. They seemed to be as unique as their boss. When she got out of the elevator a moment later, she saw a wooden door straight ahead. The small lobby outside it was decorated with more tropical plants and some high-quality beach paintings.
She knocked on the door and waited, thinking that it must be convenient for Chase to live in the same building where he worked. In a few moments, Chase opened it wearing only a towel. Water glistened on his skin and his wet hair was slicked back from his face. He looked like a water god who’d just come up from the ocean. God, she wanted to touch him, to feel his smooth skin under her hands, and have his lips on hers.
He smiled and her knees went a little weak. “Hi. C’mon in. Sorry that I’m running a little late, but I lost track of time because I was talking to my niece before she went to school today. Then I took a quick run to the store and got held up by one of the clerks. I didn’t want to come to our meeting all sweaty.”
Chase moved back, but Anna couldn’t make her legs cooperate for a moment. This was a mistake. This was his home, not his office. “I can wait for you up on the roof.”
“Afraid I’ll bite?”
She was afraid, but not of him biting. He looked good enough to. “I think we should keep this a working relationship, don’t you?
A wolfish grin crossed Chase’s chiseled features. “C’mon. It’s all right. I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.”
It was clearly a challenge. Anna’s chin rose a little, and she smiled back as she stepped inside, angry that he was making her feel things she didn’t want to feel. “You never know. I just might.”
Chase closed the door, which brought him into closer proximity to Anna. He smelled like citrus with a hint of chocolate. He held her gaze. “You shouldn’t tempt me unless you mean it.”
The sudden desire in his eyes shocked Anna, and she felt a little trapped. Then she thought that she must be imagining things. She wasn’t the sort of woman who turned men’s heads. However, Chase’s gaze lowered, traveling over her in a slow perusal of her body. When he raised his eyes back to hers, there was no mistaking the appreciation in them.
Her heartbeat accelerated, and hunger stirred inside as she stared into his gorgeous dark eyes.
“Here’s what I’m gonna do,” he said. “I’m giving you to the count of three to tell me no, but if you haven’t by then, I’m going to kiss you.”
Anna’s eyes went wide. “Y-you want to kiss me?”
“Yeah. So bad I can taste it, but I’d rather taste you.”
His intense expression and provocative words made all sorts of illicit images flit through her mind, and she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“One.”
He took a slow step forward, which brought him within inches of her.
“Two.”
Anna held her ground and looked up at him. Did she want him to kiss her? Of course she did. What woman wouldn’t? But that didn’t mean that she should. She was there to do business, not to do Chase. Her body had other ideas, though, and she wanted him.
She gasped when one of his arms snaked around her waist and he pulled her against his hard chest.
“Three.”
Anna opened her mouth to object, but it was too late. Those delectable lips of his slanted over her mouth, and he slowly slipped his tongue past her parted lips. His free hand came up to cup her head, and he deepened the kiss.
The tip of his tongue touched hers, coaxing her to respond. He didn’t demand, he didn’t force her. Instead, he teased and cajoled until she rested her hands on his chest and leaned into him. He tasted minty, and she wanted more.
* * *
When Anna started kissing him back, Chase put both arms around her waist and held her tightly. Her lips were so sweet and her full, soft breasts pressing against his chest felt incredible, but he didn’t want to push her too far. Her hesitancy told him that if he moved too fast that she would bolt.
Therefore, he gentled the kiss a little and started to end it. That thought went flying out the window when she suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him harder. Her invitation sent heat coursing through him and hot blood surged to his groin.
He slid his hands down to cup her backside and squeezed the firm mounds of her cheeks. Damn, but she had a fine ass. It felt even better than he’d thought it would. Reluctantly, he ended the kiss, but kept his hands where they were.
“
We better stop for now, sweetheart. I don’t want to have a tent in my pants when we go upstairs.” He gave her a mischievous smile as he curbed the impulse to drag her to his bedroom. To hell with that. There was a nice big couch only a few feet from them.
Her eyes lost their heavy-lidded look and opened wide. The fear in them alarmed Chase. He lifted a hand, intending to caress her cheek, but she flinched away. What the hell was that? Did she think I was going to hit her?
Slowly, he lowered his hand. “Anna, I’d never hit you, if that was what you thought?”
She pushed against his chest, and he released her immediately.
“Of course not,” she said without looking him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have let that happen.”
Chase watched with regret as she quickly erected walls between them. Why had she flinched? Could someone have hit her before? Anger swiftly rose inside him at the thought that someone might have struck her in the past. His protective instincts rose, and he decided he would find out why his hand had caused such a reaction.
“We’re supposed to be conducting business, not making out.”
Putting distance between them, Chase nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I never meant to offend you. I thought we wanted…never mind. I’ll go get dressed. Be right back.”
* * *
When he left the room, Anna furiously blinked back tears as embarrassment, fear, and regret swirled around in her mind. She’d wanted to kiss Chase so badly, and she’d enjoyed it immensely. And feeling his hands on her had enflamed her desire even more.
Then when he’d stopped, a flashback had taken her by surprise, ruining everything. She cursed herself for jumping at the sight of his hand coming towards her face. Stupid! This was the reason Anna didn’t let herself get involved with men. It was clear to her that even though she really wanted to, she wasn’t ready to trust a man again yet. Would she ever get over her fear and take a leap of faith?
Want Me (Coopers Creek Book 3) Page 3