by Lib Starling
He moved aimlessly through the streets of Jackson, without any destination in mind, but walking at a brisk pace. It wasn’t as good as running through the foothills with the rough claws of sagebrush grasping at his face, but it would have to do.
Why are you so nervous? he asked himself. What do you have to fear?
Alexander would be angry when he found out. The Alpha House leader had been explicit: Roxy was his territory, and any intruders would be punished. But Chase didn’t care. He knew he was a match for Alexander in any fight.
Fighting destroys the harmony of the fraternity, he told himself sternly. Is that why you’re so shaken up? Because you know this will lead to a fight – it has to – and that’s not fair to the rest of the brotherhood?
That was only partly it, Chase decided. He cared deeply about his pledge brothers – Darien and Jack and all the rest – but his jittery tension came from another place. He had never deliberately crossed Alexander before. By doing so, he realized as he circled the town square for the sixth time, he was making a statement. A challenge.
He was calling Alexander’s authority into question.
That’s not what I want. I don’t want to be the leader. I just want to get away – finish my last year of school and then move on, put this competitive, ladder-climbing life behind me. Forget the pack mentality that drives all the rest of Blackmeade. Go off somewhere quiet and be my own man.
But by staking a claim on Roxy – deliberately invading Alexander’s territory – he was setting himself up for a struggle that could culminate in a takeover of the frat. He knew Alexander wouldn’t give anything up without a full-on war – not Roxy and not his identity as the ultimate leader of the House. And since he’d told Chase to stay away from the girl, Roxy was part and parcel of Alexander’s identity.
I should back off – leave her to Alexander, for the good of the brotherhood. They don’t need me to disrupt their entire world. School is stressful enough without turning the fraternity on its head.
But in the same moment that he had the thought, Chase’s stomach clenched and his vision swam.
Give up Roxy? Never. She was too precious, too rare. Chase had suspected it on the night of the party, when he’d caught her intoxicating scent. But when he’d touched her hand in the café, his suspicions had tipped toward certainty.
If not for Blackmeade being an all-men’s college, she would fit right in. She’s one of us. Chase was almost sure of it.
Such a thing was so rare as to be practically unheard of. Roxy, Chase decided grimly, fishing his keys out of his pocket and heading for his car, was a prize worth fighting for. No matter what the cost.
.8.
T he weekend couldn’t come fast enough for Roxy.
Scarlett hadn’t visited the Buffalo since the Chase incident and had made herself scarce around the house, too, disappearing whenever Roxy was at home or keeping to herself in her bedroom. It was obvious to Roxy that Scarlett’s feelings were hurt, but she could do nothing to salve her friend’s bruised ego – other than refuse to go out with Chase, which was out of the question. Roxy was determined to find out if, as Darien had said, Chase was a different man entirely outside the confines of Alpha House. She wasn’t quite sure she believed it was possible – once a frat boy, always a frat boy, or so her experiences in Hanover had taught her. But she wanted the gorgeous, intriguing, dark-eyed man to be different so badly that she was willing to hope – and willing to risk her heart.
He picked her up right on time, pulling his old but perfectly gleaming, burnt-orange Mustang to the curb outside the little blue house. Roxy pressed her hands to her fluttering stomach as she and Brooke watched him climb from the car and head up the walk toward their door.
“Oh my God,” Brooke whispered. “Rox, he is stupidly attractive. Even the way he walks is hot.”
She swallowed hard. “I know.” And I can’t figure out why he’d rather have me than Scarlett. Or Brooke. Or anybody.
“Is your phone all charged? Good. Call me if you need anything – anything. He seems like a nice guy, but you can never tell with these frat-boy types.”
“Believe me, I know what you mean. I’ll be on my guard.”
“Don’t be too on your guard,” Brooke said with a sly smile. “You’ve got to have a little fun.”
Chase knocked politely even though he’d surely seen the two girls drooling at him through the living-room window.
“You look fantastic,” he said to Roxy when she opened the door, taking in her olive-green V-neck sweater and dark jeans with an appreciative shake of the head, as if she wore the most luxuriant ball gown.
“So where are we going?” she asked as they headed out of town.
The Mustang was quite a ride; Roxy let the force of the engine press her back into her bucket seat as Chase stepped on the gas outside the Jackson city limits. Sagebrush and rustic wooden fences blurred along the roadside as the car’s speed increased.
“I thought it might be fun to do a little nature-gazing.”
“Nature-gazing?”
“The elk herds start to come into the sanctuary at this time of year. Not very many of them yet – they really start moving later in the fall. But it’s still a pretty great sight.”
“That sounds amazing. We definitely didn’t have anything that exciting in Hanover.” And as they drove, she told him all about her hometown, and what had caused her to leave.
“I’ll be the first to admit,” Chase said as they rolled into a dirt parking strip beside a scenic overlook, “that frat boys are the worst. I wouldn’t be in Alpha Delta Phi at all, except that everybody who goes to Blackmeade is pledged to one frat or another. It’s a small enough school that nobody opts out. Most of our future prospects are determined by our fraternity connections – who we know and how we know them. But I lost my taste for Greek life right after my pledge week. In fact, I think I’ve lost my taste for all of Blackmeade and everything it represents. It’s nothing but obsessive over-achieving, and we’re all expected to become the same brand of cutthroat businessmen after we graduate.”
“You don’t want to go into business?”
They stepped out of the Mustang together and stood gazing out across a vast expanse of drying grass. It was nearly chest-high, still green near the earth but shading at the tips to a bright golden-yellow that glowed in the late afternoon sun. Far across the flat valley, the even, regular peaks of a distant mountain range stood out in shades of deep violet-blue against a clear, end-of-summer sky.
“Business really isn’t for me. Especially not any business that requires me to hitch my wagon to somebody else’s star, if you know what I mean.”
“Alexander?”
Chase gave a short, sharp laugh. “Exactly. And others like him. Blackmeade culture is so insular that everybody invariably goes into business together. We’re all in each other’s pockets. Well, Blackmeade alumni are very well-off, so the strategy must work, by a certain way of measuring success.”
“But it’s not your way of measuring success.”
“You got it.”
Roxy smiled up at him. “I completely understand what you mean! Everybody in Hanover was so focused on the importance of college, but I just… I just couldn’t make myself do it. It’s not for me. It’s not how I measure success, or achievement, or whether a person is good or worthy, or anything.”
Chase’s returned smile, thoughtful and searching, threatened to melt Roxy’s knees. “You do get it.” He held her eyes for a long moment, and something warmed in their black depths. Then he turned abruptly, out toward the field. “Come on.”
Chase waded into the grass. It bent and rippled around him, hissing like water poured over rough stones. Roxy hurried after him, but after a few paces she hesitated. The golden tips of the grass moved all around her, a ceaseless, smooth motion like waves on the deep ocean. It seemed the further she walked from the car and the road, the deeper she went into an unknown wilderness – a place of unpredictable forces and powers uns
een. She was paralyzed suddenly by the fear – a baseless and childish one, she knew – that the grass would close over her head as if she’d been thrown into the sea, and she would sink down and down into a world of beasts and danger.
Chase stopped and called back to her. “Are you all right?”
Roxy nodded, and finally words came, and her legs agreed to move. She took a few more steps toward him. “I’m just worried about…” About wild animals, she definitely could not say. He’d laugh; they were only a few yards from the car and there was surely no dangerous wildlife stalking the vicinity of Jackson Hole during daylight hours. Nor could she put into words the deeper fear that nagged at her, the sensation that she might slide below an ordered, predictable surface into a sea of dark power and thrashing creatures. Finally she said, “Are there any snakes out here?”
Chase laughed. “Sure, lots of them,but the dangerous ones are also very polite. They’ll rattle before they bite you. If you hear a rattle in the grass, stop and tell me. I’ll come scare the snake away.”
How Roxy was supposed to hear a snake’s rattle over the susurration of the wind-tossed grasses, she had no idea. She quickened her pace and before she knew what she was doing, reached out and grabbed Chase’s hand. A Hanover guy would have jerked his hand away with a look of disgust, or turned her gaffe into a joke. But Chase’s stern, dark-shadowed face softened, and his lips tightened as he struggled to contain a happy grin. He squeezed her hand reassuringly, and didn’t let go as he led her on toward a small knoll that rose slightly above the field.
They climbed the hill hand in hand, and stood gazing out across the rippling sea of grass. A scattering of clouds passed over the sun, sending a wash of deep shadow racing across the valley. As the shadow stilled and pooled on the valley’s eastern edge, Roxy saw a flicker of movement, a large, tawny form moving within the cooler confines of the cloud-shade. She stared, and in a moment realized that it was not one yellow-dun form she saw moving, but dozens – hundreds, perhaps. The elk herd spilled out into the valley, moving at a trot, leaving the cold clefts and high walls of foothills and ravines behind them. As the front runners slowed to a walk, the herd spread like a living blanket across the land.
“Wow,” Roxy whispered, afraid to startle the elk even though she and Chase stood far away.
Chase’s hand tightened in her own. She tore her gaze away from the majesty of the elk and peered at his face, and was startled by what she saw there. Chase watched the herd, but a fierce intensity burned in those dark eyes, his features still as if all his senses were focused on the elk. He was like a hunting animal, poised to run down his prey, and Roxy’s flutter of anxiety returned.
“Are you all right?” she asked him. “What’s the matter, Chase?”
He turned at the sound of his name. For a heartbeat he looked at Roxy with that same hunting-beast ferocity, and involuntarily, she stepped away from him, gasping in fright. But a moment later he smiled and the look of predatory focus vanished. “Just in awe of nature, that’s all,” he said. He stepped closer, so that their bodies nearly touched. “And of you.”
He dropped her hand, and Roxy almost protested, wanting to feel his skin against hers. But then his fingers lifted to her hair, gently teasing her wavy red locks, smiling idly like a child with a favorite plaything. The familiarity of the gesture – and the feel of her hair sliding along the nape of her neck, moving at Chase’s direction – made her tremble with desire.
She forgot her fear of an unknown sea of wilderness. She forgot Scarlett’s hurt feelings and all the mocking voices that had followed her from Hanover. A desperate longing to feel Chase’s hand in hers again – to run her palms over his arms, his shoulders, to press her body against his and feel his heart beating through his chest – overwhelmed all other thoughts. She caught his wrist as his hand toyed with her hair and looked up at him. She was wordless, but her eyes brimmed over with the feelings she could not speak.
He hesitated for just an instant, concern painted plain on his face. Have I done something wrong? his eyes asked. But then he seemed to understand.
He leaned down and kissed her.
Never before had Roxy felt such fire in a kiss. The only lips that had ever touched hers had always curved immediately afterward in mocking smiles, or spilled with insults, or split wide with raucous laughter. But Chase pressed against her hungrily, exploring her mouth as if he never wanted to stop, as if to break the kiss for any reason would destroy something vital in him.
She clung to him, feeling the strength of his back and shoulders through the worn softness of his old flannel shirt, and as his arms wrapped around her, the easy force with which he held her in place sent heat coursing through her body.
His lips moved to her neck, to the sensitive place just below her ear. She gasped, throwing her head back so that he could taste more of her. Some dim corner of her mind was astounded at her boldness, and warned her to be careful. Wasn’t this always the way it started, some handsome guy feigning interest before he…
But Roxy silenced the warning voice. Chase was different. Darien had said so, and Roxy sensed it herself. He wasn’t like the rest; he was not a frat boy at heart, and as astonishing as it seemed – impossible, really – but undeniable, too… his heart wanted her.
Chase’s hands traced the curves of her body from her shoulders to her waist, and pulled her close until it almost hurt, to press against the hard muscles of his chest and stomach, the angular bones of his slender hips. But she didn’t want him to stop. Roxy pushed against him insistently, seeking more.
Chase pulled her toward the earth; together they sank onto their knees, still kissing, still clinging to one another. The grass flattened beneath them, forming a soft, sweet-smelling bed, and the curtains of standing grass that surrounded them shielded their passion from the view of anyone who might happen by.
Roxy broke away from his embrace to fumble with Chase’s shirt. Her hands were clumsy and numb, and half of her still reeled with disbelief that this could really be happening – that Chase could truly want her. The other half of her craved his body with a fierce need, and she pursued him with the focus of an animal hunting its prey.
Chase helped her remove his plaid flannel shirt, then the gray t-shirt underneath. The golden light just prior to sunset fell softly on the flat, hard planes of his body, the curving muscles of his arms and their tracery of intricate tattoos. He wore a necklace she hadn’t noticed until now – a black cord supporting a flat silver medallion, which rested against his chest, as obvious as the moon in a dark sky.
“Are you sure you want this?” he asked.
His voice was husky and low; she caught the sound of his restraint, the command with which he mastered himself so that he wouldn’t come on too strong or make a misstep. The thought that he was holding himself back – that he wanted to throw himself into lovemaking as desperately as she did, that some wild force within him warred with his sensible side – only heightened the flames of Roxy’s desire.
In answer, she pulled off her sweater and flung it aside, revealing a playfully lacy bra… and more. For once, she was not shy – not ashamed of her soft, imperfect body. And Chase looked on her with such pure, ravenous want that Roxy felt as stunning and confident as a goddess.
Smiling, she lay back on the flattened grass.
Chase’s body was over her in an instant, his mouth pressing hers once more, his chest and stomach warm against her skin as he unzipped her jeans. Then he trailed hot kisses from her collarbone to her navel as he slowly worked her jeans loose. She kicked off her shoes, wiggled out of the confining mess of her clothing, and then fell back with a moan and a shudder as Chase’s hand reached between her legs, tracing the feel of her through the lace of her panties.
“God, I want you,” he growled through clenched teeth. “You have no idea…”
“I think,” she said between panting breaths, “I do… have some… idea.”
“No, Roxy.”
His hand stopped its d
elicious rhythm, and she opened her eyes in confusion. Why had he stopped? She wanted more – more of this touch, and more of his body. She wanted all of him. But he was looking down at her with a curious look on his face. It arrested her thoughts, that mixture of awe and desire, of desperation and near-possessive triumph. There was even a little sadness in it, a hint of loss that Roxy didn’t understand. She reached up to brush the rough stubble of his face, to offer him some comfort. He closed his eyes in ecstasy and kissed the palm of her hand.
“You can’t understand – you can’t know how rare you are, how amazing…” He breathed deep, trying to steady his voice. “And you can’t know what this will do to us, if we…”
“Us?” Did he mean the two of them, or Alpha House?
But Chase didn’t answer her. He only spoke on, as if she’d never interjected. “But I don’t care. I don’t. I want you like I’ve never wanted anyone before, and damn the consequences.”
He kissed her again, hard, and Roxy found herself almost afraid of his furious passion. Almost, but not quite.
“Tell me you want me,” he said, looking down into her eyes with a dark force that pinned her to the earth. “I want to hear you say it.”
A side to him emerged that Roxy hadn’t seen before – a slow-moving, superbly confident charisma that was, she thought, very much like Alexander’s perfect, unflappable coolness.
“Tell me,” Chase insisted.
“I want you,” Roxy whispered. And there was not a particle of her soul that didn’t mean it.
Chase stripped himself of his shoes and jeans so fast that Roxy hardly had time to realize what he was doing. He leaned over her again, and she felt his hard cock press against her thigh. She moaned as he kissed her, and held her breath as his hand strayed downward again. But this time he didn’t trace gently along the line of her panties. He hooked a finger under the edge and pulled them aside. When he entered her with a hard thrust, he let out a shuddering groan and sagged for a moment against her body, as if the feel of her sapped his strength. Then he lifted himself and began to work his hips in a steady, rapid rhythm.