by J. C. Reed
Concern, I realized. Maybe she didn’t like Chase as much as I had figured. Or maybe she was just worried for me… Or maybe I was misreading everyone tonight.
I was slowly turning into this obsessive person who just had to know what everyone else thought.
“Be back soon,” I mouthed to Jude. “Don’t wait up.”
She just nodded and closed the door.
Chapter 13
“You wanted to talk,” I began as soon as we took our seats at the restaurant and the waiter had brought us the menu card.
Chase nodded gravely. “I did.”
For a moment, silence fell and he looked away. A menacing vibe loomed in the air. I frowned again. His mood swings made no sense.
His hesitation told me that something bothered him and he didn’t know how to communicate whatever was on his mind. I had always heard that men were broody and kind of taciturn, but I always thought Chase was the outgoing type, judging by the way he could so easily fill silence with his chatter and stories—that was all until today. Ever since his surprise visit, suspense and anxiety had followed me and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I figured that if Chase had a problem, any problem at all, I better heard about it now rather than later.
“You’re thinking about your ground rules. Right?” I asked slowly.
“I am.” He paused again.
“Just say whatever it is, Chase. I’m not some delicate flower whose feelings you have to spare. I can handle a discussion or conflict.” I leaned back, not just to regard him, but also to put more distance between us.
He looked up and a dark expression crossed his features. Slowly, he licked his lips, leaving a sparkling trail of moisture behind—the kind that made me want to press my lips against his. And then his eyes settled on me.
Dark blue and intense, and way too disconcerting.
Too intense.
My heart began to beat just a little bit harder, and a slow, delicious pull crawled between my legs.
I want him.
The thought was so vexing, my throat constricted and my hands clenched in my lap.
“Everything’s been sorted out,” Chase said slowly.
I narrowed my eyes on him, not getting his drift. “What’s been sorted out?”
“The wedding. My friend got the necessary paperwork done already. It’s all ready for us to sign.”
No hesitation. No fear. He really wanted to do it. There was just an air of nonchalance about him—and something else…that darkness again, which I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking at him with both curiosity and anticipation. “When?”
“I’ll send you the details.” He made it sound like a business meeting.
It’s a business venture. What did you expect?
I had no idea. Maybe I didn’t expect anything at all. Or maybe too much. Just not…that.
I crossed my legs, fidgeting in my seat uncomfortably.
“Is that what you came to tell me?” I asked. “Because if it is, you could have told me on the phone. Or at home.” When you turned up uninvited.
He heaved a sigh, the noise of the restaurant diminishing to a soft roaring in my ears. Leaning forward, he crossed his hands over the table.
“Remember when we talked about expectations?” Chase asked slowly, ignoring my question. I shook my head, and he continued. “It was on our first date. We decided that we don’t see other people while we’re married.”
A big, flashing neon light appeared before my eyes and a cold sensation restricted my breathing. He wanted to see other people. That was why he wanted to see me—to ask whether we could change that particular rule.
So what?
He had every right to it. I knew it. He knew it. It was to be expected in a marriage-for-hire situation. But my foolish heart took a blow nonetheless.
“If you want us to date others, I’m fine with it,” I said casually, even though I didn’t mean a single word. Actually, even the words—as meaningless as they were—hurt me to the core.
Chase’s jaw set and his blue eyes dropped a few degrees in temperature. “That’s not negotiable, Laurie. If you want to fuck, I’ll be there for you.”
Holy cow.
My jaw dropped, and not in a flattering way. For a few moments, all I did was stare at him as my brain fought to grasp the meaning of his words.
He didn’t want me to fuck others. But what about him? Did he want to fuck me? That part he had just made pretty clear. Did he want to fuck others, too?
“You want to—” I shook my head, unable to finish the question.
Chase nodded patiently. “Everyone has needs.”
Ah.
Made sense. Only, it didn’t.
He made it sound like he could be available to everyone he wanted to bed while I was only allowed to have him.
“What are you saying, Chase?” My stomach turned and my blood rushed through my veins like a swarming nest of bees—fast and dangerous.
“I’m saying that I can’t control myself anymore, Laurie.” His fingers closed around my hand over the table, entrapping it with his. I stared at him, both entranced by him and disgusted with myself for listening to him rather than pour a glass of water, preferably with ice cubes, on his lap. “I can’t do the small things anymore.”
“What small things?” I stared at him, reading his expression. And then it dawned on me. “Oh, you mean—”
“Kissing, a bit of touching here and there, you know, all the first-base things,” he clarified. “Every hour I’ve spent in your presence so far, you’ve left me in painful need. I don’t want to break our rules and date others, but I also don’t want us to go on like this. I don’t want our…” He paused, grasping for words.
“Friendship?” I suggested.
He laughed, a silky, captivating sound. “It’s not friendship if we lick and suck each other, Laurie.” His beautiful blue-gray gaze flickered with something and glazed over. He was thinking back to our little incident in bed. “It’s called friends with benefits, only we’re getting married. So we’d be a married couple with benefits.”
I turned away to hide my sudden blush. A waiter came, but Chase sent him away, telling him to give us a few more minutes alone. I turned back to him, but his expression hadn’t changed. He still hadn’t answered my question, so I saw no other option than to ask the obvious.
“I don’t understand. If you don’t want me to fuck others, what about you, Chase? What do you want?”
“You know it. It’s the same thing you want, Laurie.” His smile disappeared. “I want to fuck you and you want me to fuck you. It’s as simple as that. You see, we have quite a bit in common. At some point we’ll have to go through with it.”
He was right, of course.
No man could live in celibacy. At least not someone who hadn’t chosen that path. Slowly, I was beginning to realize that I might be having trouble with my chosen path as well.
“If you need sex so badly, you could simply ask if you may date other women and I’ll—” I shrugged, as though I didn’t care, but the mere thought made me choke on my words.
He cocked his head. “Is that what you want me to do, Laurie?”
I swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”
I would. Very much so.
His probing glance told me he didn’t believe me. “I’m asking you if that’s what you want, Laurie.”
“Why?” I whispered, and cleared my throat to get rid of the rasp in my voice. “Why would you even offer such a thing?” I moistened my lips, pausing. He looked at me, still as a statue, and just as beautiful. Perfect. Terrible. Frightening, even. The picture of his lips touching mine crossed my mind, soft at first, then with more fervor.
“Because the circumstances fit. It’s not humanly possible for two people to spend so much time without having sex, so I want an arrangement that benefits the both of us. And there’s more.” His thumb began to caress my sensitive skin—the motion both i
nnocent and fascinatingly erotic. “I want you to live with me.”
My cheeks flushed with heat that traveled down my chest and settled low in the pit of my stomach.
“In the same penthouse?”
He couldn’t be serious. At his meaningful stare, all blood drained from my face. I had never considered the fact that he might want to live under the same roof. Come to think of it, his wish made perfect sense, if we were to fool everyone around us. But, in my naivety, I hadn’t thought so far. In fact, I hadn’t thought anything through. Chase had been right. I hadn’t planned it well enough. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I hadn’t even remotely anticipated how happy the thought of seeing Chase every day made me feel.
He smiled. “But those were only two requests. There’s more.”
My eyes snapped back to him.
“More? How many fucking demands do you have, Chase?”
“Just one more. Nothing major.” He paused, and for a second his eyes lit up with amusement. “Which is understandable, considering that I also do three things for you.” I raised my eyebrows as he started counting, lifting fingers as he did so. “I agreed to meet with the crazy in-laws. I agreed to marry you. And last, I agreed to teach you in all things related to sex, because you asked me to.”
I stared at him. “Are you serious?”
His mouth curved in a wicked smile, sexy and mysterious. “Never been more serious. Because I agreed to help you, I want things to be fair and square. Or else you would be owing me for the rest of our lives, and I don’t think you want that. Or do you, Laurie?”
Another waiter passed with a tray of drinks and Chase stopped him.
“A bottle of Krug Private Curee, please.”
The waiter took his order then shuffled away silently. Chase leaned back, watching me with what I could only assume was amusement.
No, make it satisfaction. And then I realized why.
“Did you just order the most expensive champagne you could find on the menu?” I asked.
“One of the best,” he replied. “We need to celebrate our new arrangement.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
“You have. You just haven’t admitted it yet.”
Oh, the arrogance.
I rolled my eyes, then cocked my head, forcing my lips to match his irritating grin. “What’s the third?”
His lips twitched. “Nothing big. I just want us to stay married for a year.”
Holy crap.
I stared at him, speechless. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I had any blood left in me. I felt cold, and warm, excited and scared—all at the same time. At some point, my smile must have died on my lips and my jaw had dropped. I closed it but still didn’t manage to utter a word.
Chase was still grinning, his eyes boring into me, enjoying every second. Finally the air whooshed out of me, but still no words stumbled out. My tongue stuck to the back of my throat and my mind remained surprisingly blank. At last, the waiter appeared with the bottle of champagne and filled our flutes, then disappeared again, oblivious to the turmoil inside me.
I grabbed the flute and took a full sip, then another, the delicious taste barely registering in my brain. For all I cared, he could have ordered tap water and I wouldn’t even have noticed the difference.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I finally asked.
“No joke. I would never embarrass or ridicule you, Laurie. Those are my conditions. Sex. Living together. And staying married for a whole year. You either agree or we can’t get married.”
Holy shit.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you blackmailing me?”
He cringed visibly, as though even the idea was beyond him. “Call it an offer. A demand, maybe, but one that will benefit the both of us, like I said before.”
He lifted his flute and motioned me to raise mine. “Those are my terms. Take it or leave it,” Chase continued, unfazed by my sudden silence and the dread gripping my heart.
“A year,” I said feebly. A year of seeing him on a daily basis, sleeping next door, maybe even sleeping with him, if he so desired. Somewhere I could hear something burst—my stupid bubble and hope of annulling our marriage within twenty-four hours. “Do I even have a say in that matter?”
“We could pretend you do.”
My breath hitched in my throat, but this time not from dread. I realized, as much as I was terrified, the idea appealed to me.
“I don’t know,” I muttered, ignoring his glass of champagne. “I’ve never lived with anyone before and I don’t know what you expect.”
He shrugged, lowering his arm, and took a sip of his champagne, before leaning back, more relaxed than I had ever seen him.
“That’s pretty simple. I’m not a man of many demands, which is why I have jotted them down for future reference.” He reached into the briefcase at his feet and pulled out an envelope, then pushed it across the table toward me. “Here’s everything you need to know. Take a look when you get home and tell me what you think. If you want to negotiate, I’m open to suggestions, though I’m not going to budge on those three terms, as mentioned.”
“I thought I was hiring you. I didn’t realize you had expectations,” I said feebly, my heart sinking in my chest. Of course, in order to hire his services I would have to pay him. Given that I was struggling in the financial department and he was doing me a favor, it made sense that he expected something in return.
“Of course I do. Everyone has expectations, or else we would be taken for granted or taken advantage of,” Chase said.
He made himself sound so weak and innocent, I had to suppress a snarky reply.
“Taken advantage of, huh?”
“You asked me how you could repay me, and those are my requests. There is no such thing as a free ride. I’ll just go on and call it fair.” He tipped his long finger against the envelope. “Like I said, everything you need to know is in there.”
My fingers clasped around the envelope, fidgeting, as my curiosity got a hold of me, urging me to find out what those requests were. Chase’s hand settled on mine again and squeezed lightly. “At home, Laurie.”
His voice was soft, maybe carrying even the slightest hint of a gentle, romantic undertone. Judging by the way his hand lingered on me and his eyes were glinting, anyone watching would think he had just proposed to me.
And he had.
But people would have been surprised at what he had just offered.
“It’s an indecent proposal, Chase,” I whispered.
He tilted his head. “I have to agree, but I can promise you it’s one you’ll appreciate.” He winked. “Now we’re going to enjoy our dinner and talk about something else. It’s our third and last date before our marriage, so I want it to be good and decent, because after Tuesday, it will be nothing of that sort.”
All words inside my brain died. I had no idea what he meant, but maybe it didn’t matter—for the time being.
He waved at the waiter to take our order. I pushed the envelope aside unwillingly, but my mind kept circling around the question at hand.
What exactly did he expect in return for his favors?
Chapter 14
Our date barely lasted half an hour. When I arrived back home, Jude was waiting in the living room with countless boxes scattered around her and a phone cradled between her ear and shoulder. I peered through the door to say hi, ignoring the mess scattered all over the floor, and then headed for my bedroom, locking the door behind me. The last thing I needed was for her to pop in at an unfortunate moment. Not that I had anything to hide from her, but whatever Chase’s envelope contained, I wanted the privacy to look it over without anyone’s input. Revealing intimate details about my life wasn’t really my thing, and I had a feeling that Chase’s demands were more than that. Plus, the suspense was killing me. Not knowing about something was almost worse than dying of boredom.
Sitting on my bed, I peeled the envelope open and pulled out two sheets of paper. It was an agreement.
I
stared in disbelief at rows and rows of words—all Chase’s wishes—and then began to read, unable to stop the heat spreading through me.
Like Chase had announced, his first demand was that we remained married for a whole year, during which we would live in the same household, albeit in different bedrooms. He also expected me to relocate to NYC for the next few weeks and move in with him straight away, because he had to work there.
I could deal with that.
And NYC sounded exciting. It had always been at the top of my ‘places to visit’ list.
A few points suited the purpose of resolving everyday issues, like financial arrangements. He preferred to keep his financial status a secret, and so did I. He expected me to accompany him to social gatherings and support him in his career, which was to be expected given that he was an actor. Hanging out with the right people was probably part of the job description.
So far, so good.
I could do that.
I liked to be professional.
What cut off my air supply was the next point on his list.
Or, to be more precise, the few points that centered around sex.
Holy cow!
What the hell were some of those words? I knew Chase wanted to get down and dirty with me, but what the fuck! He had compiled a whole list of things he wanted to teach me. They were so bad, heat began to travel through me and settle in places I didn’t want to be reminded of.
Chase’s requirement of using safe words didn’t help either.
I rubbed a hand over my eyes and then reread the few points in the hope I might have misinterpreted the obvious, but no matter how often I analyzed his words, the requirements remained the same:
He wanted experimental sex.
Why do you act surprised, Hanson? He told you that before.
Yeah, he had. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the word ‘experimental.’
During dinner he had offered to sleep with me should I so desire in the future. Only, my brain hadn’t quite grasped the full meaning of his words.
That sex wasn’t just sex.