by Jamie Pope
“Let me go change.” She stepped away from him, not because she wanted to, but because being that close to him scrambled her senses.
She slipped into the hall bathroom and took off her dress, knowing that being here with him tonight, even if they didn’t sleep together, was crossing a line that they could never uncross. Hell, they had probably already crossed that point the night she let him strip off her underwear and give her an orgasm she wouldn’t soon forget. But tonight she was going to turn her brain off. Not think about anything at all, save enjoying this night with him.
When she emerged from the bathroom, she found Chase setting food out on his coffee table and sticking forks into the open cartons. There were no plates and she realized that tonight all formality had gone out the window. She didn’t work for him. His sister wasn’t her best friend and their lives weren’t vastly different. Tonight they were just a man and a woman sharing a meal.
He looked up from his task, his eyes drinking her in. She couldn’t help but notice that his eyes lingered on her bare legs. Her dress had been shorter than Chase’s long T-shirt, but she could see the desire in his eyes. She could feel her own rising, knowing that there was nothing between her skin and his soft shirt.
“You ordered my favorites,” he said after a long moment.
“I ordered everything. I don’t want you missing out on your ten courses.”
“I’m not missing out. In fact I think I’m gaining something extra.”
“Indigestion?”
He laughed. He had a great deep laugh that sort of rumbled in his chest. She felt it go through her body and it warmed her. It was the type of laugh that she could listen to forever.
“Sit. I’ll grab some wine. Red or white?”
“What kind goes the best with greasy takeout?”
“Beer.”
She grinned at him. “Then beer it is.”
He grabbed two bottles from the small fridge behind his bar, popped the tops off and took a seat beside her on the couch. He didn’t give her any space, sitting as close to her as he could get. Her naked thigh pressed against his hard, clothed leg and suddenly she found it very hard to think straight. She could only feel. Feel her heart beating faster. Feel her nipples turn into rock-hard peaks, feel that gentle throb between her legs.
She was hungry, but it wasn’t for the feast spread out in front of them on Chase’s coffee table.
“I have a friend who brews his own stuff. He wants to open a gastropub in the near future and sell this beer. I’m thinking about investing.”
“Oh. Are you?” She took of sip of her beer. It had a slightly sweet citrusy flavor. It was enjoyable, but right now she wasn’t all that thirsty.
“I am...” He trailed off as she stood up and removed his T-shirt from her body. It had been a very long time since she had stood before a man naked. The last time she had she’d felt self-conscious, wondering if her ex was going to criticize, but she felt none of that standing before Chase. She felt confident. She felt sexy.
“When a woman gets naked in front of a man, she expects him to say something.”
“Thank you,” he said slowly.
She laughed as he grabbed her hand and tugged her into his lap. She felt his erection rubbing against her bottom. She couldn’t help but move against it. His breath quickened and he let out a tiny moan that excited her even more.
“Are you sure about this?” He placed his hand on her thigh, stroking it with his thumb.
“I think we both knew this was happening tonight.” She ran her hand over his hard pecs. “You’re a beautiful man, Chase.” She kissed his throat, his powerful Adam’s apple that she had dreamed about kissing since the first time they had had a conversation. “Not just on the outside, but you are kind and thoughtful and sweet, and I would like nothing more than to be with you tonight.”
He said nothing to that, just got up with her in his arms and carried her to his bedroom. His room screamed masculinity, done in all grays and blacks, but she had a hard time taking it all in because he had dropped her on the bed and covered her body with his own.
She moaned at the feel of his weight on top of her. He was heavy, but the most wonderful kind of heavy that made her feel protected and grounded.
He took her mouth in a hard, hot kiss, robbing her of her breath and her senses. She melted into the mattress, letting him take what he wanted from her. She could taste his need, his hunger for her. She wanted to satisfy him. She wanted to fulfill his every desire tonight.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he panted when he broke the kiss. “I want to feel more of you.”
She did as he asked and he slid his hands to her behind, cupping it, squeezing her flesh as he stroked his hardness between her legs. The fact that he was fully clothed while she was naked making it hotter. But still she wanted to feel his skin, feel his entire body pressed against hers with no barriers between them.
“Take this off.” She tugged at his shirt. He let her pull it off him, but he didn’t return to his spot on top of her. He knelt between her legs and stroked one of his big hands up her rib cage.
“There’s so much I want to kiss and touch. I’m not sure where to begin.”
“Let me help you decide.” She got up on her knees so that she faced him, and kissed him softly just before she took hold of his fingers and ran them across her nipples. “Here is good. I like the way that feels.”
“What about this?” He cupped her breast and lowered his head, taking her tight little point into his mouth and sucking gently. She trembled. His warm wet mouth, his smooth tongue, the way his eyes closed when he tasted her all brought her that much closer to climax, and he had barely touched her yet.
“Chase,” she whimpered as she pulled away from him and grasped his face to pull him in for another kiss.
The only way she could describe the way he kissed her was erotic. It was slow and fast at the same time. His tongue thrust in and out of her mouth, his hands stroked her body. The experience made her think that every other kiss she’d had and every other kiss she might have would never compare to his.
“I need you, Amber.” She slipped her hand inside his pants, finding his hard cock and stroking it. She loved the way it twitched in her hand. She loved the deep moan that escaped him.
“Enough.” He stopped her. “I’m too far gone. I need this to last.”
“I don’t.” She placed his hand between her thighs so he could feel how wet she was. “I’m ready.”
“Amber.” She stroked herself with his fingers, pleasuring herself while she was taking pleasure in watching him watch her.
“I imagined this, Chase.” She slid his finger inside of her. “I imagined you here. Even when I didn’t want to. Even though you’re the last thing I should be thinking about.” She pumped his fingers a little faster as she felt her orgasm growing closer.
He let out an almost primal grunt, pushed her backward on the bed and then ripped open his nightstand to pull out a condom. She had never seen this side of him. Buttoned-up Chase Drayson was hot and hard and uninhibited and it was so sexy it was almost scary. He put the condom on and covered her body, sliding into her so hard she saw stars. But it was a good kind of hard. His slid out slowly so that she felt every single inch and slammed into her once again.
She cried out. She dug her nails in his back. She writhed beneath him. She didn’t want it to end. But Chase was too good. His strokes too efficient. She was trying to prolong it, tried to make it last longer, but he kept driving into her with that toe-curling pace.
He looked down into her eyes, his face twisted with pleasure. He was so beautiful and she was so close to release. He was inside of her. He was as close to her as two people could get and yet she wanted more. To be completely with him as orgasm struck. She couldn’t help but pull his head down to hers and kiss his lips.
Her climax struck her with a force that took her breath away. He came with her, crying out her name as he did.
He collapsed on top of her, his body going boneless. She loved the feeling of him on her, still inside of her, his breath brushing her skin.
After a while he rolled off her, and she mourned the loss of his skin pressed against hers. But apparently he hadn’t liked the space between them, either, because he gathered her close and buried his face in her neck, leaving behind sweet tiny kisses. “You know this isn’t going to be just one night, right? I don’t think I’m going to be able to get enough of you.”
She didn’t think she was going to be able to get enough of him, either, and that scared her.
Chapter 10
For the first time in his adult life, Chase had called out of work when he wasn’t sick. But he had a good reason and she had her buttery soft legs spread across his lap. Amber had spent the night in his bed wrapped in his arms. They had made love four times that night, and when they woke up this morning, he knew he couldn’t let her leave. He wanted nothing more than to just spend the entire day alone with her. No interruptions. None of the stressors of the outside world infiltrating.
“What do you think about peppermint peach?” Chase asked her as his pencil moved across his notepad.”
“For a cupcake? It’s very interesting.” Amber looked up at him with her brows raised. He could tell she thought it was a bad idea, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “I’m glad you’re really thinking about this.”
“You can tell me it’s bad.”
“How would I know if it’s bad or not? I haven’t tasted it. It could be the best cupcake on earth.”
She was sweet and he found himself completely relaxed for once. That was a rarity for him. It must have been her. No one else could put him at such ease.
“I’m taking this seriously. I even made a sketch.” He turned his pad around for her to see the drawing he’d made of the cupcake. Amber carried around colored pencils in that huge bag she always had with her just in case the idea for a design popped into her mind. He thought she was crazy when she suggested they spend the afternoon coloring, but forty minutes into it he had to admit he was having fun.
“That’s beautiful. I love the way you have the candy cane sticking in the icing. Maybe we can try to make them this evening.”
“I think it will be gross, but if we launch a successful marketing campaign we could get everyone talking about it. Lillian’s: Home of the Peachy Peppermint Pastry.”
“I find it sexy the way you use alliteration, baby.” She leaned closer to him and kissed the crease of his neck. It turned him on. Everything she did turned him on. He couldn’t get enough of her and they spent the day together, eating leftover Chinese food and making love all over his apartment. He kept his cellphone on silent. His email had gone unchecked and unanswered for the first time in his adult life and he just laid around with someone.
He never allowed himself to do this. His mind had always wandered to what he was going to do next, what had to be done, how he could have perfected the things he’d already accomplished. But not today. Today none of that mattered.
“This Bite of Seattle is really important to you, isn’t it? You’ve thought of a hundred cupcake ideas in the past half hour.”
“It’s not just important to me, it’s important for Lillian’s. We try not to talk about it there, but Sweetness Bakery is our direct competition and I’ve been hearing that some of our recipes are extremely close to theirs. But having frequented their business before we opened ours, I know they didn’t have those items on their menus until recently.”
“Like what?”
“I overheard a customer asking one of our cashiers about the strawberry lemon cake truffles. They wanted to know if we had gotten the idea from Sweetness, but I was there when Mariah and Jackson thought up the idea. I know Sweetness didn’t offer that before. We checked out all the area bakery menus and that was our original idea.”
“Hmm. Do you think there is a spy or something? Maybe one of Sweetness’s people came in and ordered it and then tried to replicate it.”
“Maybe.” He nodded. “But it’s kind of a blatant rip-off, isn’t it? I think it could be an inside job.”
“Really?”
“We hired a new girl a few weeks back. She seems innocent, but you never know.” He shook his head. “I’m probably just being paranoid. I don’t really think anyone is trying to steal our recipes.”
“Caring about the bakery is your job and I love that you take so much pride in it.” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed his lips. “But we’re not thinking about anything today. No work. No worries. It’s just you and me and some Chinese food.”
“You’re right.” He pulled her down on top of him, and spread himself out on the couch. All that softness against him caused him to let out a small groan. She felt so good it was almost painful. “Kiss me again.”
“As you wish, sir.” She kissed him a little longer this time, her tongue slipping into his mouth in a slow, erotic way that made him hard all over again.
“Where did you learn how to kiss like that?” He slid his hands under the T-shirt she was wearing and cupped her perfectly round behind.
“Art school.” She lifted her head and smiled down at him. “It’s a mandatory freshman class.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“The Pratt Institute.”
“Oh,” he said, impressed. “You are as brilliant as you are beautiful.”
“Stop being so nice to me, Chase.” She kissed his lips lightly. “I don’t know how to handle it.”
“I don’t want to stop. It’s going to be impossible for me.”
“You’re going to have to. I can’t handle it.”
“Why not?” He tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice.
“Because it’s going to make me need to have sex with you right now. Not want, but need. And the pizza guy will be here any moment.”
“You can stay here until he does.” He slid his hands farther up her naked back, stroking her smooth skin.
“You’re insatiable,” she moaned.
“Am I too much?”
“You’re just right.” His heart pounded faster as she dipped her tongue into his mouth and kissed him again. He wasn’t sure what it was about her, but there was definitely something about her that made him think that they could be in this for the long haul.
There was a knock at his door and he sighed, knowing that they were going to have to postpone their lovemaking for a few minutes.
“I’ll get it.” She grabbed her wallet out of her bag and hurried to the door. She was wearing just his T-shirt. Her hair was wild and he knew she wore nothing beneath. But she wasn’t self-conscious about answering the door like that and he found it sexy as hell.
“Well, look what we have here,” Jackson said, walking through the door, followed by Mariah. “You must have made one hell of a recovery, big brother. Or did Amber nurse you back to health?” He looked Amber up and down once. “And might I mention how gorgeous you are looking this afternoon, Amber?”
Mariah said nothing, but he could see the judgment in her eyes.
“What are you two doing here unannounced?”
“It’s not unannounced.” Mariah finally spoke. “We’ve been calling you all day. You haven’t answered once. We were worried about you.”
“Oh. My phones are on silent.”
“And now we know why. Hey, girl,” she said to Amber.
“We’re adults,” Amber said as she went to stand by Chase. “We like each other. Just be happy for us.”
Mariah n
odded. “I love you both.”
There was another knock at the door and this time Chase went to answer it. “Good. Now join us for dinner. We ordered way too much from the pizza place.”
* * *
Amber walked down her street after getting off the bus a few evenings later. She had just come from her last class of the semester where she had handed in her final paper and taken the most difficult final of her life. She thought she’d done okay. Not spectacular but pretty well. Chase had helped her study. She didn’t think he would be a good study partner because he looked at her too long and she tumbled into bed with him. But when it was time to get down to business, Chase did not play. He was a surprisingly good teacher. Sometimes people who were extremely smart weren’t good teachers because they thought everyone’s mind should work the way theirs did. But Chase broke things down so that she understood them. He gave her little tricks to remember terms. He was a great teacher. She wanted to approach him about maybe taking on a mentee at the afterschool center or teaching a class about running a small business. But she knew that was asking him too much.
He had been a prince this past week. He picked her up and dropped her off at work, the community center and school. He had taken her grocery shopping and even called around to get more quotes from mechanics to fix her dead car. She was starting to feel guilty. She was starting to feel uncomfortable, as though he was doing too much for her.
She knew he had his past with gold-digging women, and that’s why Amber always tried to make things equal between them. He wasn’t allowed to take her anyplace fancy. If he bought her dinner, she bought him lunch the next day. She didn’t want him buying her gifts, although she had accepted a brand-new box of high quality colored pencils and a new sketchbook from him because it had been so thoughtful.
She tried not to compare him to her ex. Because with Steven things had started out well, too. He bought her things and took her places, but soon those nice gestures became debts and he’d treated her as if she had owed him. Owed him all her time, owed him his way, owed him her obedience, and when she didn’t give it to him, he became nasty and cold. And then one day she realized that she had asked him permission to go to the store.