I used to think that all I needed in this life, all I desired, was to have control over the resort again. To bring it back to life and restore it to former glory. I daydreamed about it all the time, how I would turn things around, how the joy of resurrecting my father’s legacy would be enough to make me truly happy. I knew now that I was wrong all that time. I needed more than the Peppertree to be content. I needed love, and not just from anyone. I needed Chase.
Perhaps I was just a fool, to let myself have feelings for him again. After all, wasn’t one heartbreak enough? Why was I so eager to hand him my heart only to have him shatter it again? There had been all those moments when we were together, when I thought for certain he felt the same way I did. But it was wishful thinking, I was sure of it now. Why would a man like Chase Hawthorne ever truly want me? In my current sadness, I was convincing myself that this was all out of some obligation. Maybe he still felt badly about breaking my heart in college, and he didn’t want to steal the Peppertree from me, too. It was just to ease his own guilt. It was all about the art of the business transaction, wasn’t it?
I stood up and paced back and forth in my suite, gritting my teeth to keep from crying. I thought about Olivia, that stunningly beautiful blonde woman who had confronted me in the bathroom at our reception party. When I compared myself to her, it didn’t make sense why Chase would ever really choose me over her. She was basically a supermodel. She was a city girl, clearly, with her high-heeled thigh-high boots and her skintight dress. I was just some lonely country girl who lived in a failing resort on top of a lonely mountain. I was nothing like her, nothing like Chase. We were from two different worlds. How could we ever reconcile those differences? Besides, I knew he was only in this for one real reason: to produce an heir.
It still made no sense to me why he would choose me as the mother, when a woman like Olivia existed. Maybe, I told myself, she wasn’t interested in carrying a child. Maybe he just wanted to use me for my body, to produce a baby, only to hand over that child to his true life partner, Olivia. That thought made my heart ache so painfully that I had to sit down on the edge of my bed.
“Oh God, I am so stupid,” I lamented, cradling my head in my hands.
I had told myself not to fall for him, not to let my feelings get in the way of our business deal. I reminded myself of the facts. This was only meant to be a year-long, pretend marriage. I was only in this for the Peppertree. Chase was only in this to ease his guilt and to gain an heir. It was basically an arranged marriage, wasn’t it? I groaned, shaking my head sadly.
He had been so subdued on the phone lately. The text messages had dwindled down to only a few during the day, whereas before we had been talking so constantly that I had to charge my phone repeatedly over the course of my day. Perhaps he was just trying to wind me down, put the brakes on our relationship to remind me how it was supposed to be. We had gotten ahead of ourselves, let the drama and fantasy carry us away. Or at least, I had. Chase was cool and collected, as usual. I was certain he had only played along with my emotions because he was hesitant about hurting my feelings yet again.
“I drove him right into this, didn’t I?” I asked aloud. “I told myself I wouldn’t fall for him. Not again. And here I am, unable to sleep or work or even think without Chase crossing my mind. I hate this. I’m such an idiot.”
Was I really so starved for love and attention that I had tricked myself into believing that Chase really cared for me? Had I blinded myself to the reality of our situation? Had I really let my feelings override my logic, my work ethic, my dedication to the Peppertree? It certainly seemed that way, and I didn’t know how the hell to reverse it. How was I supposed to struggle through the rest of this year, knowing that I had played myself like a fool, fallen in love with a man who only wanted me for my womb? I was a businesswoman. I knew how this stuff was supposed to work. Don’t get attached. Don’t put someone else’s needs above your own. Keep your eye on the prize. And in this case, the prize was getting to go back to the way things were. To walk away from Chase at the end of this year and go back to running the resort, pouring my heart and soul into my late father’s dream while I let my own dreams die.
And that was the best case scenario. After that showdown with Olivia in the bathroom I had even more to worry about. As awful and cruel as she was, she seemed to know a lot about Chase, to have a history with him. Judging from how effortlessly mean she was to me, a complete stranger, I had no reason to believe her feelings for Chase would be enough to keep her from ruining this whole business deal to get back at him. She didn’t love him-- she wanted to spite him. And me. I had no doubt about her determination to do so. Women like her were cunning, with boundless energy for their evil deeds.
Then I wondered to myself how Chase could have ever been with a woman like that. Sure, she was incredibly beautiful, the kind of femme fatale I could picture escorting Chase to all his high-class galas and gallery openings in the big city. She looked every bit the part. But her personality was so foul, so cruel, that it seemed to contradict everything I knew about Chase to imagine them even getting along, much less being in love.
“Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did,” I mumbled to myself. “Maybe my image of Chase isn’t the reality. I’m casting my own dreams on him instead of seeing him for who he really is.”
But that just didn’t seem possible. I remembered our moments together, when we were pressed close together, wrapped in each other’s arms like we were the only two people in the entire universe. Like we were meant to be, tied together by fate or destiny or whatever I could fool myself into believing. Chase was never cruel, even though he could be tough when he needed to be. Unless he had just kept that side of him hidden from me all along.
“No. That’s not possible. Chase is a good man,” I argued with myself. I looked across the room and caught sight of myself in the mirror. The light outside was fading, the evening growing later and darker. My face looked pale and tired. I hadn’t been sleeping well, not without Chase sleeping next to me. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was close to ten o’clock.
“I need a drink,” I told myself. I got up, put on a heavier coat, and headed downstairs to the bar. I ordered a whiskey sour and took a seat at the same table where I had first seen Chase sitting that fateful evening when he sauntered back into my life. I nursed my drink, drowning in sadness and despair, wishing that some sign would come to me and show me that things would be alright again someday. I spent hours sitting there, downing drink after drink, until I was nearly half-asleep and no happier than before. The bar was empty by now, the bartenders gone home already, leaving me to sit in the near-darkness, wallowing in my sorrows.
Until I saw a tall, broad shadow lumbering into the moonlight shining through the massive window. I squinted, thinking my boze-fuzzy mind was playing tricks on me. But then my heart skipped a beat. The figure came closer, and the moonlight illuminated his face. It was Chase. Standing there in a heavy coat and boots, a slouchy beanie pulled over his hair and snowflakes clinging to him all over, as though he’d been trudging through the snow for hours. I could see he was ever so slightly shivering, and I stood up, almost too shocked to speak. This had to be a dream.
“Chase?” I murmured.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chase
I pointed to the shocked serving staff members with a finger that was still numb from the cold. “Out,” I ordered. My tone wasn’t cruel, but it was firm.
Everyone looked at each other in shock, not moving.
“Did you all forget I’m the co-owner of this place? Everyone out!” At the sound of my sharp bark, the staff hustled and set down whatever they were doing to clear out from the restaurant, and as soon as the last of them was out the door, I locked it behind me and turned to face a petrified Haley, who was gaping at me from the corner booth.
“That’s more like it,” I growled, crossing the room toward her.
“Oh...my God, where did you…? How did you?”
“I drove,” I dismissed, stripping off my jacket and tossing it to the floor carelessly as the feeling started to come back to my face.
“Are you joking?” She looked stunned. “It’s too dangerous. You could have died.”
“I didn’t.”
“What?” she gasped. “Chase, you know how that’s how my father—”
I stopped her as I reached that same corner table where we first saw each other. “Nothing’s too far for you. I’m safe. I’m here.”
Before she could answer, I grabbed her with an ice-cold hand and stood her up.
Her eyes were still open wide, true shock in her expression, and I can’t imagine how wild and insane I must have looked barging in here like this.
“Why, though?” she finally asked, looking more fearful by the moment.
“Olivia showed up at my place,” I explained, and her face darkened. “She showed up naked under a fur coat and tried to blackmail me into having an affair. Said she had evidence about us and that she’d go public and tell everyone our marriage is fake if I didn’t do what she wanted.”
“Oh my God, no,” she breathed. She put her head in her hands and looked like she was going to have a panic attack. “No, no, no.”
“Haley,” I started, but she turned away from me, biting her fingernails.
“I never should have agreed to this,” she nearly sobbed. “To any of this. I never thought it would get this complicated. I wanted to keep the Peppertree so badly, and the idea of having a baby of my own sounded so great at the time, but...” She turned to face me, and her eyes were rimmed with red. “I can’t do this with someone who doesn’t love me back.”
The words hit me like an arrow through the heart, and my jaw dropped as I watched tears stream down her face.
“I know it’s pathetic,” she sobbed. “But I can’t lie anymore. I love you, damn it, as much as I tried not to, no matter how much I tried to get you out of my head, I love you. I’ve loved you since...God, I can’t even remember where the facade ended and the real thing started, but I’m so, so far deep in it. I can’t do this anymore, not like this.”
I was stunned to silence for a few long moments as she sniffled. At last, I spoke in a soft, still tone.
“Haley, do you have any idea why I just crossed a mountain in a snowstorm?”
She stared at me like I was about to play some cruel joke.
“For you,” I confessed, and I watched her face go bright red. “All for you. To get everything that’s been in my heart off my chest for...hell, for weeks.”
“W-what?” she stuttered, her eyes going wide. She knew what was coming. I knew it in my heart, and it was written in her expression--it was something she felt too, but she’d never dared let herself go there out of fear.
I took Haley’s hands, and they warmed mine as I squeezed them.
“I turned my back on her and came here, because...because I love you,” I gushed, and I saw tears spring to Haley’s eyes.
“I love you, Haley Simmons,” I repeated, my face splitting into a laughing smile, and I picked her up to hug her, swinging her in a circle. “I love you, and I don’t want our marriage to be fake. I want this to be real, I want us to have a life together.”
She silenced me with a kiss, grabbing my face and pressing hers to mine. Her heart was pounding so hard I could feel it as I set her back down, and for a moment that felt like eternity, we got lost in each other.
Finally, she broke the kiss and half-whispered, half-sobbed into my ear, “I swear to God if you’re not serious.”
“Let me show you just how serious I am,” I growled meaningfully, and I unzipped my pants. “I’m going to show you exactly what I wanted to do the moment I saw you at this very table. And after that, I don’t ever want us to be apart for a second.”
My cock sprang free, and I ground it against her, pushing her down against the table and feeling her hair in my hands as she buried her face in my muscles.
“I’m going to build a life with you, have a child with you, and we’re going to run this place, right here in the mountains...together.”
I ripped my shirt off. I thought I heard buttons roll uselessly to the ground, and I didn’t care. The mess of clothes coming off was such a blur I barely even noticed. All I cared about was touching more of Haley and her touching more of me.
Soon, I felt her nails digging into the skin of my back while I pressed a kiss deep into her mouth.
Her tongue was warm, and everything about her was so ripe and ready to be plucked that I could have come inside her right then.
We soon tossed our shoes aside, and her bra came next. The moment her breasts were exposed, I was on them.
My teeth grazed her nipples, and my tongue massaged them until they were stiff and needy. Her breasts seemed fuller than ever, and the feeling of those stiff nipples between my teeth made me so hard I could barely stand it.
She was bent backward on the table, and I was looming over her, my hands on her hips one moment and her sides the next.
“Do you know how much,” she started, interrupted by her own sharp gasp as I pinched a nipple in my teeth, “how much I’ve wanted to tell you I touch myself thinking about you?”
I gave a deep, rumbling groan in reply as I felt her up, pushing my cock against her bare thigh, feeling precum bead up and wet her leg.
“Every time you pulled out of me, I just wanted you back in,” she whimpered. “I didn’t want to tell you because it’s all been about the baby, but God, I just...I need you so fucking badly every night.”
“I want you at my side every night,” I told her, pulling her upright and looking her right in the eyes, our faces inches apart as I pushed my cock between her thighs. “Fuck, I wanted to tell you I loved you the night we were at the reception together. I wanted to bury my face in your pussy and never take it out.”
My cock touched the outer lips of her womanhood, and she gasped, her eyes rolling up and her mouth hanging open.
I couldn’t help but fill her mouth with a deep kiss, and I pulled her closer and entered her.
She gave a muffled scream into my mouth as I pulled her closer, scooting her further onto my hard, bulging cock, feeling the very veins that ribbed it pushing into her tight, needy lips. I rocked back and forth, massaging that pussy that I knew so well by now.
“There’s so much I’m going to explore with you,” I told her, holding her hair and pulling her head back just enough to show her how much control I was in. I pressed my lips to her neck and wanted to sink my teeth into her. Her moaning was music to my ears. “You’re my wife, and I want the whole world to know.”
“I love it when you call me that,” she confessed, shame and lust in her voice all at once. “Every time I heard it, I wanted it to be true.”
“It is true,” I growled, tugging her hair a little more. “You’re my bride, and I’m going to fuck you like you deserve.”
She lowered her eyes to look up at me despite me holding her back, and she licked her lips. “Let me do something I wanted to do when I saw you in this booth.”
I smiled, knowing exactly what she meant.
She was so tight around me it was almost a shame to pull out, but I did slowly, and I sat down at the edge of the booth.
In an instant, Haley crawled onto her knees and wrapped her hands around my cock, feeling her own slickness there and shuddering sweetly at the feeling of its girth.
“This is all yours,” I rumbled, watching her fondle and almost worship my thick cock, “as much as you want, as long as you want, every single day.” She looked up to me with eyes that were full of fire and mischief, and she let her tongue out to caress the tip of my cock.
“Careful,” she warned me playfully. “Give me an inch and I’ll take a mile.”
With that, she wrapped her lips around my cock and bathed my tip with her tongue. She licked off the bead of precum and let the tip of her tongue play with the slit of my cock, and it pulsed in her mouth to reward her.
/> I gripped her head and laced my fingers through it as I leaned my head back to enjoy the feeling of her on me. It was different than last time, somehow. Last time, it had been about us connecting in a quick moment of passion, like a flash of lightning.
This time, there was something so much fulfilling about the way her tongue played with my shaft, feeling its weight. She drew the tip of her tongue up the soft underside of my cock from the base to my tip, and it sent electricity through me. It was the feeling of real appreciation, of desire, of a hunger to know everything about my body and what it was capable of.
It was everything I wanted to explore with my mouth on her pussy, but when I did that, I had the excuse that it was just to get her wet before entering her.
I never thought a blowjob could have such meaning, but Haley was full of surprises, each one sweeter than the last.
The way her mouth caressed my cock was so blissful I could have let it go on for hours, with my hands stroking her hair and encouraging her as she worked, but that wasn’t how I planned on ending this session.
When I felt like I was tense and ready to release, I tugged on her hair gently, pulling her back. She reluctantly let my cock go, looking up at me pleadingly. I took her chin in my thumb and forefinger and slowly stood up.
“On the booth,” I commanded her softly.
She laid back on it, and when I turned to face her, she wrapped her legs around my waist before I could even say anything. Neither of us wanted to wait a second longer. I took her by the hips and stuck my cock deep inside her.
Her Pleasure Warrior_A Military Romance Page 49