The room grows quiet, and for a few long seconds, Kaelyn just stares at me, her eyes still glistening with tears.
“You. Are. So. Amazing,” she breathlessly accentuates.
To hear those words come from her lips is everything to me. The hands that were resting on my chest graze up over my shoulders, and she shifts forward an inch until I’m certain her bare pussy is brushing along my crotch.
She then glances at my lips, and the air around us thickens. All I see is her; the office and the world around us ceases to exist. I forget about everyone and everything, only able to focus on the woman in front of me, the woman who single-handedly, on the first day of meeting her, shifted something inside of me. It’s unexplainable. All I know is that it continues to grow whenever I’m in her presence. It’s not quite love, not quite lust, but an undeniable connection that stirs inside of me. A connection I can’t grasp, yet I feel it anyway.
My hands move from her waist until they’re caressing her thighs, just below the bottom of her jersey. The barest of a moan slips from her mouth, and it takes all of my restraint not to slam my lips to hers and take her on this desk like a rabid animal.
“Chase,” she sighs.
The sound of my name has never sounded so good. My heart races within my chest, my cock stirs to life, and my fingers caress higher up her thighs until I’m only inches from her pussy.
I’m seconds away from doing what I’ve been craving since I set my sights on her last New Year’s Eve when my phone vibrates to life on my desk, and the incoming call breaks through the spell.
“That’s probably our take-out. I told the guy to call when he arrived,” I say, my gruff voice sounding harsh against the quiet surroundings. I twist my body to reach the phone and answer, just as Kaelyn steps out of my grasp and settles back against the desk beside me.
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll be right there,” I tell the dude on the phone before hanging up. I stand up straight and look at Kaelyn as she smiles tightly at me, looking a little flustered. “Our food is here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I duck out of the office, rearranging my erection that’s painfully straining against the inside of my jeans. When the blood flow resumes to normal, I realize how close I was to taking everything I wanted when I have no right trying to take it in the first place.
What the hell am I doing?
One day, I’m pushing her away in order to protect her from the nightmare that is called my life, and the next, I’m pulling her close, letting her in, spilling my heart while she wears nothing but a hockey jersey—my hockey jersey.
Fuck, I want her so bad, and there’s nothing I want more than to go back into that office, rip that jersey from her body, and have my wicked way with her, but the world outside these walls, the lifeless body that keeps on breathing, is the reason I can’t.
So, a few minutes later, when I return to my office with the food, I pretend like the past five minutes didn’t happen because nothing can happen, no matter how badly I want it, no matter how much I crave it.
Nothing can ever happen between us.
Birthday Suit
Kaelyn
When Chase returns with our food, I can already tell he’s put his guard back up after our moment just a few minutes ago. He’s no longer staring at me as if he’s seconds away from eating me up like a lion on the prowl. He’s cool and collected, smiling normally, albeit a little strained. He doesn’t avoid my eyes, but something is a little off with the way he won’t hold my gaze for longer than a second before focusing on the food on his desk. When he doesn’t mention our near kiss, I’m guessing he’s trying to pretend the last five minutes didn’t happen—or at least, that’s what it seems.
I don’t blame him. What we just experienced was intense, and I was kind of relieved for the distraction when his phone rang, breaking us from our lust-induced spell. If I’m being honest, my heart is still racing from the impact of that moment, and, Christ, if I were wearing panties, they’d be a soaking mess right now. Plus, the whole story of his childhood is still bearing down on my chest. If he wants to pretend it didn’t happen, then I’ll let him because I’m not sure what else is left to be said.
“The food smells incredible,” I voice, wanting to get past the awkwardness.
We’re having such a great night; I don’t want anything to ruin it, especially on my birthday.
He glances at me for longer than a second and smiles. “This is the only place I’ll order Chinese from. I guarantee, with one bite, you’ll be hooked.” He hands me an open carton of shrimp lo mein and a pair of chopsticks. “I hope you can use chopsticks. I didn’t think of asking for plastic cutlery.”
I take them from him. “I think I can manage,” I retort happily as I reach over and grab two egg rolls from the carton on the desk and place them on top of my shrimp lo mein. I wander over to the sofa and plop down, curling my legs to the side as I immediately dig into an egg roll. “So, what did you get?” I ask, covering my mouth as he brings his desk chair out and sits in front of me.
“Barbeque pork ribs with pork fried rice.”
I cock an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of pork.” I take another bite of my egg roll, refraining from rolling my eyes to the back of my head at how delicious it is.
“I’m a growing boy. It’s all about the protein.” He gives me a devilish grin, back to the guy he was before we almost kissed. Hopefully, it’ll last.
I finish off my egg roll before diving into my lo mein, and this time, I can’t keep the moan from escaping my lips. “Oh my God, this is amazing,” I say with a mouthful of food.
Chase chuckles around a bite of rib. He chews and swallows before speaking, “Told you it was good.”
“Good? No, this is orgasmic good. In fact, it’s almost better than sex.”
Chase raises a brow, a smirk in place.
“I said, almost better than sex. Well, that I can remember anyway; it’s been a while.”
“How long?” he asks, intrigued.
“Um, about six weeks.”
He actually barks out a laugh, and I can’t keep the grin off my face.
“And that, to you, is a long time? Try adding eleven months to those six weeks, and you’ll be where I am. Now, that’s a long time.”
I gawk at him and then quickly begin to calculate in my head. “That means you haven’t had sex since way before last Christmas.”
“Wow, you’re really good at math,” he deadpans.
My nostrils flare with amusement as I take another bite of my food. “You should get a medal for that kind of restraint. I’d be going out of my mind if I were you.”
He just shrugs before lifting up the hand that’s holding a rib. “I have a pretty great relationship with my right hand, so not all is lost.”
“See, that’s why being a woman is so much better. I don’t need my right hand when I have more than one Bob at my disposal.” I smile wide.
“Bob?” he questions with confusion.
I laugh. Men. I guess I’ll have to spell it out for him.
“Battery-operated boyfriend.”
The light seems to go off, and he almost chokes down on his mouthful of food.
“You really are something, you know that?” he says, setting down his rib before he licks the barbeque sauce from his fingers, amusement in his voice.
“I’m just being honest.”
He smiles softly, the corners of his mouth just lifting slightly, as his eyes zone in on me, and my heart flutters in my chest. “Yeah, it’s what I like the most about you.”
“Sometimes, honesty has gotten me into trouble, especially with my brothers. I could never lie to save my life, so when I was growing up and my brothers did something stupid or bad, as their big sister, I would try to cover for them. But Mom would immediately come to me for the truth, and I’d blurt it out without her even having to try to get it out of me. My brothers really hated me on those days, but I can’t be deceitful, it’s just not me.”
He smiles fondly bef
ore speaking, “Talking about honesty then, tell me why you went all weird at the twenty-four-hour diner when you mentioned you used to do ballet.”
I can’t help but balk at his question, and as much as I hate that he’s asking it, I know I won’t be able to brush it off the way I did last time. Not with the way he opened up his old wounds earlier. It’s only fair I do the same. I stall for a few seconds by stuffing my face with more noodles than necessary.
Once I swallow, I finally speak, “Ballet is a hard subject for me.” Letting out a deep breath, I set my chopsticks down before continuing, “Do you want the short or long version?”
“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” is all Chase says with a smile.
With that, I go with the long version. “Ever since my mom took me to my first ballet lesson when I was five years old, I fell in love with it. I loved the elegance of it, the charm of it, and just how girlie it was.” I smile fondly.
“I became obsessed with ballet, and over the years, it became a living, breathing thing. When I wasn’t at school or doing homework, I was dancing. I didn’t just love it; I was good at it. No, I was amazing at it. I knew I wasn’t intelligent. I mean, I did okay in school, but I knew I was never going to be the next brilliant scientist or doctor, and I was fine with that because I had ballet, and I excelled at it. I knew ballet was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, so when it came to choosing a college, there was only one school I wanted to attend, and it was the New York School of Ballet.
“It was my dream to go there since I was a little girl. Anyone who has the dream of becoming a professional dancer, they want to go to the best school, and with the New York School of Ballet being one of the most prestigious schools for arts in the world, there was never a choice of where I wanted to go. That dream came true when they offered me a place. So, off I went to the Big Apple, and even though it was scary, I was excited. I’d never been further than Texas, so New York, with their fast ways and bright lights, almost felt like another world.
“What I didn’t anticipate was how grueling it would be. Hard work has never scared me, but this was on a whole new level of crazy. It was strict—and when I say strict, I mean, it was like military strict. The first week, the teacher made each and every one of the students cry, including me.
“After my second week there, I was begging my mom to book me a flight home. She didn’t. She told me to suck it up, and I did—or at least, I tried. After two months being there, my love for ballet quickly dwindled, and for the first time in my life, school began to suck the life right out of me—or I should say, the school began to suck the ballet out of me. It just wasn’t what I had anticipated. It wasn’t that it was hard, but more that I was being asked to do the impossible. Nothing I did was good enough.
“Ballet was always so magical and effortless to me, but on the dance floor at the New York School of Ballet, it was anything but magical, and it definitely wasn’t effortless—at least, not for me. I was working harder than my body could handle. My ballet shoes were always filled with blood. By the middle of November, I literally had no toenails left, and at the end of each day, I dreaded to take my ballet shoes off, horrified to even look at the congealed blood. My body was in so much agony that I couldn’t even eat, and within two months, I’d dropped two jean sizes, and I was extremely anemic. But, despite the pain and the blood and the malnourishment, I pushed through it because this was my dream, and I was determined not to give up at the first hurdle. By the time Christmas came around, I’d managed to make it through a whole semester.
“It was when I returned after Christmas break that things turned even worse. There was a guy in my class who was an incredible ballet dancer but creepy as hell. I’d always feel his eyes on me in and out of class, and it always gave me a cold chill. He never spoke to me unless we were paired off, but there was just something about him that raised my hackles, and I could never pinpoint what exactly. He had the aura of Norman Bates; he was that creepy. I thought maybe I was being paranoid, that being in a strange city on my own was making me neurotic as shit, but I started seeing him wherever I went. Whether it be at the grocery store, the coffee shop, or taking a stroll down the street, I’d see him.
“After a few weeks of the same shit, I saw him while out on a run, and I lost it with him and demanded to know why he was following me. He just smiled at me—and when I say smile, it was like the Joker smile from Batman—and he told me I was being paranoid before walking away. He eased off after that, and with his sudden absence, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that he and I had been in the same places the previous weeks. A few weeks later, I began seeing him again, and I knew I should have reported him to the school, but instead, I just started carrying pepper spray in my purse. A week before spring break was the breaking point for me. It was late one night, and I was walking home from the late-night diner I worked at when I was attacked from behind. I tried to grab my pepper spray, but my purse got ripped from my grasp. It all happened so fast. One minute, I was trying to fight off my attacker, and the next, he was trying to pull down my pants.”
Chase’s eyes flare with anger, and I don’t miss the way his hands fist up, his food long forgotten about. “Shit, you were raped?”
I let out a shuddery breath and shake my head. “No, it didn’t go as far as that, but he definitely had his fun with me,” I say, grinding down on my teeth, emotion welling up in my eyes as I think back to that night as if it were only yesterday.
“Like I said, it happened so quickly, and when I thought I was just going to be another statistic, he was all of a sudden thrown off of me. That’s when I caught sight of my attacker as a police officer’s fist plowed into his face. It was my stalker, and I knew then that I should have gone to the police weeks before. I was lucky that a few cops were patrolling the area for homeless people, or they might not have come across me.”
“Jesus, Kaelyn,” Chase breathes out, a mixture of shock and anger clear on his face.
“You know what really pissed me off? I was prepared for an attack. I learned self-defense, yet when the real thing happened, I became this weak little victim. In just a few short months, New York had weakened me and stripped me of all my strength.
“I realized ballet wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth killing myself during class, being beaten black and blue, and being sexually assaulted by a fucking stalker. It wasn’t worth the dream I’d once had as a little girl. So, I did what I had to do. I reported the assault with both the school and the police and had a restraining order put against him, and when everyone was going on vacation for spring break, I purchased a one-way ticket back to Dallas.”
“So, you gave ballet up?” Chase asks with disbelief and sadness.
“Yeah. I mean, I could have just attended another ballet school closer to home, but by then, it was too late; the damage had been done. My love for ballet had died completely, and I just wanted to go home. And I did. I returned home and gave myself the summer to mend my broken heart and bruised body. In August, I enrolled at the University of Dallas where I not only started afresh, but where I also met my best friend, Jo, whom you met at the New Year’s Eve party.”
The room turns quiet, and I gaze down at the food on my lap. Chase seems to stew for a moment, looking a little lost for words.
I point my chopstick at him and give him a weak smile. “You wanted the long version,” I remind him.
He looks over at me and finally speaks, “I hate how you had your dream snatched away from you like that. A fucking stalker dude who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”
“Honestly, he wasn’t the one who made my love for ballet die; he was just the nail in the damn coffin. There will always be a part of me that will love ballet, most specifically ballet before New York, but it hasn’t been the same. Can you imagine your life if you couldn’t skate?” I ask Chase.
He just shakes his head, and I continue, “When I hung up those ballet shoes for good, it was like I lost the ability to walk for a while, but eventu
ally, I learned to walk again without them. I still miss it every day, and even though I let it go a long time ago, I still hate that I wasn’t cut out for the big time.”
He narrows his eyes on me. “Who says you weren’t cut out for it?” he argues.
“The fact that I didn’t even make it a full year in New York. That, and my teacher’s parting words were, ‘You’re simply not made for ballet; I saw that with the way you performed, with your execution, and your follow-through. Plus, your timing was that of a panting dog who couldn’t catch up with the rest of the mutts. You might have been good in your hillbilly town in Texas, but here, you’re nothing more than mediocre. I’m not sure why you were ever given a place here in the New York School of Ballet when there are so many more talented people than you. Trying to get into this kind of show business is one in a million, and, darling, you’re just one of many thousands trying to grasp for the stars, which are impossible to reach,’” I narrate her word for word, even going so far as mimicking the British accent.
“And you believed what she said?”
“Honestly? Yes, and she was right. I obviously wasn’t one in a million. If you can’t cut it at the college-level, then what chance would I have had at a professional level? Anyway, it was a long time ago, and I try not to dwell on it too much. So, there you have it—why I try to avoid talking about ballet. It just reminds me of my failures, and I like being happy. I am happy,” I state confidently, honestly.
“I have my own business in something I know I am good at, and I’m successful at it. I might not make millions, but I have medical insurance, a roof over my head, and family and friends that love me. Now, if a prince came and swept me off my feet, I’d be set for life, preferably one who looks like Chris Hemsworth,” I joke, laughing a little while I take a bite of shrimp.
Chase laughs, and the sound of his husky chuckle resonates deep inside me.
My Forever (Our Forever Book 3) Page 10