“I’m glad you think this is amusing.” Krista rolled her eyes as she began to walk around him. He didn’t move out of the way, and she brushed against him as she did.
“I think you’re amusing.” His voice dropped an octave and the sexy tone caused an answering shiver to spread through her from head to toe.
Damn. She really understood why thousands of people paid good money to hear that voice.
Crap. His voice. How could she have forgotten? He’d been at her house yesterday for hours hanging out with her and her sisters and she hadn’t asked him about the benefit concert.
Looking up, she was suddenly aware of just how close they were. That awareness did nothing to calm her racing heart, but it did make her completely lose her train of thought.
Benefit.
She needed to ask him about the benefit. “Um…” She swallowed hard, watching his pupils dilate with need as he stared down at her. “There is a benefit for the women’s shelter on the twenty-eighth. Yesterday, your name was brought up to be the musical guest. Not by me,” she quickly corrected.
Without batting an eye, he said, “Okay. On one condition.”
Seriously? The Chase she knew would not have conditions to perform for the shelter. The Chase she knew would be more than happy to help out. Over these past few days, she’d been starting to feel like he was still the same Chase—her Chase. Maybe she’d been dead wrong.
“We can’t pay you,” she snapped defensively.
“That wasn’t my condition.” He didn’t seemed phased at all by her snippy response.
“Oh.” She felt a little silly for having jumped to conclusions, but that was definitely a pattern she felt herself falling back into from being around Chase. She reacted first and asked questions later. Trying to display maturity that had been seriously lacking since his arrival, she did something that, although she was not a big fan of doing, was warranted in this situation. She apologized.
“I’m sorry. What’s your condition?”
Now he really looked amused. Krista didn’t even care if he looked smug. She wasn’t the same teenage girl who couldn’t admit when she was wrong. She was an adult now. A grown woman.
“Have dinner with me.”
Not wanting to make the same mistake and jump the gun, she clarified, “That’s your condition?”
“Yes.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“We had dinner. Last night.”
And it had been with the safety of chaperones, thank God. If not, she was pretty sure she would have ripped his clothes off and done all the naughty things her mind had fantasized about doing to him over the past ten years that they’d been apart. Actually, she knew that would have been the outcome because she’d been about two seconds away from doing just that when her sisters had walked in.
“No. We hung out. With your sisters. I want to have dinner. With you. Only you.” His eyes darkened as he said the last two words, causing her core to clench with need.
“One dinner. With me. And you’ll perform at the benefit. For free.” Krista’s heart was beating so hard she was sure that Chase could see it pounding beneath her pale-yellow scrubs.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Where?” she asked, her voice trembling, “When?”
“My house. Tonight. Seven o’clock.”
“Fine,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady as she felt her face flushed with arousal.
“I’ll cook,” he said.
Krista remembered how many times her mom had tried to teach Chase to cook and how the food had tasted when she had.
Lifting one brow, she asked, “Have you gone to culinary school in the last ten years?”
“No,” he said as the corner of his lips twitched.
“Then I’ll cook,” she stated firmly.
He began laughing, and she turned and walked back into the PT room with a smile on her face. She was having dinner. Tonight. With Chase. Alone.
Oh boy.
Chapter Sixteen
Krista reached over the console and grabbed the insulated bag that held the meatloaf as well as the recyclable grocery bag that held the salad and wine. Her hands shook as she wrapped her fingers around the straps. With a steadying breath she stepped out of her Volkswagen Bug and shut the door with her hip.
She stood at the side of her car for a moment, not doing anything. Just standing there. So many thoughts were flying around in her head that it was as if they were canceling each other out and her mind was blank. The paper bag softly rattled from her trembling hand and she knew that standing out here was not going to make her situation any better.
When she’d been getting ready, her nerves had been working overtime, making her feel alternately like she was going to pass out, throw up, or both. She’d tried to calm them by telling herself that this was just Chase. Unfortunately, that had not had the desired effect. Instead, that tiny, irritatingly accurate voice in the back of her head screamed, Yeah, it’s Chase!
Chase, her first love. Chase, her first kiss. Chase, her first time. Chase, the man who was everything she could ever want and more. Chase, the man who, after all these years, Krista was still madly in love with. That’s who she was going to have dinner with. Alone.
As she walked up the short path to the door, she tried another route. What was the worst thing that could happen? Things could be awkward between them. Not likely. They could get into a fight. More likely. They could make hot, passionate love that would ruin her for any other man. Very likely.
All day since she’d agreed to this dinner, her body had been priming itself for tonight. Apparently, her hormones had decided that they were on board with getting reunited with Chase. Her mind and heart were not quite ready to ride the Chase train, but those pesky hormones of hers had bought tickets and were currently sitting in the cabin patiently waiting for the conductor to pull the whistle and leave the station.
Knocking on the door, she tried to ignore her body’s very blatant overeager anticipation. But as soon as Chase opened the door wearing blue jeans that were worn in all the right places and a Cubs t-shirt that formed perfectly to the strong lines of his muscular chest and biceps, that annoying voice was back, saying, All aboard!
“Hi, beautiful.” Chase’s lips turned up in a sexy half-smile as he greeted her the way he always had when they had been a couple.
Sure, she knew that such a greeting was extremely common and not terribly creative, but somehow, the way Chase had always said it had made her feel like the only woman who had ever heard those words uttered. Like they were uniquely hers.
His eyes left hers and ran down the length of her body. She trembled under his gaze. It wasn’t that she was nervous that she looked all right. She knew she did. She’d gone ‘shopping’ in Haley’s closet—since she had more clothes than Paris Hilton—and found the perfect summer dress. It was emerald green with a thin trim of lace around her waist that gave a little peek-a-boo to her skin. The bodice was low-cut and fitted before flaring out at her hips. The hem hit her mid-thigh, showcasing her slim, toned legs. She’d paired it with white wedges—also courtesy of Haley’s closet—which gave her about four extra inches, making her feel on more equal ground since Chase was almost a foot taller than her. Underneath, she wore a sexy-with-a-capital-S matching white lace bra and panty set, which were from Haley’s Seduction collection but were all Krista’s. Sharing clothes with her sister was one thing. She drew the line at undergarments.
He breathed out through his nose. “Damn, you look good.”
“Thanks. You don’t look too bad yourself, rock star,” she said, needing to remind herself who and what he was—or more accurately, wasn’t. He was a rock star and he wasn’t her Chase. Since her body had gone rogue, she figured that her mind and heart needed all the backup it could get.
She stepped inside and was blown away by how clean and…happy the place looked. It was barely recognizable as the same house in which she’d visited Abby all these years. Th
e night she’d come over to retrieve Teddy for Bear, she had noticed how clean it was. But now, even with the sun setting, she could see just how much Chase had done.
“Wow. It looks great in here,” she said, standing just a foot inside the doorway, trying not to let her jaw hit the floor.
“Thanks,”
Krista could swear that she heard pride tinting his voice. She looked up at him, and sure enough, his honey-colored eyes were surveying the living room with a look of accomplishment and satisfaction. She wanted to laugh, but she didn’t. Chase was by far the most successful—at least in his career—person Krista knew, yet he was so obviously proud of himself for cleaning his mom’s house. Endearing didn’t even begin to describe it.
After he nodded his head in a job-well-done fashion, his hands reached out, taking the bags from her. She followed behind him but ran smack dab into his back when he stopped suddenly.
“Is this your mom’s meatloaf?” he said as if he were scared to ask, fearing that just uttering the sacred words “mom’s meatloaf” would jinx it and the loaf of meat would go up in a puff of smoke, vanishing into thin air.
“It’s my mom’s recipe, but I made it.”
Krista didn’t want to toot her own horn, but (toot, toot!) she had mastered her mom’s recipe. After returning home after college, it had been the first meal she’d asked her mom to teach her to cook. Krista could still remember the look of—oh boy, I know what this is about!—that had appeared in her mom’s blue eyes at her daughter’s request.
A deep groan sounded from deep in Chase’s chest. Krista smiled to herself. When she was growing up, none of her sisters or her cousins had liked her mom’s meatloaf, and that had not changed one iota now that they were all adults. For some inexplicable reason though, Chase had always loved it—like really loved it. So much so that the dinner had even caused a fight between them once.
One night when they were in high school, they had planned to go and meet up with some friends for pizza, but when Chase had found out that meatloaf was on the Sloan family menu, he’d said that he wanted to eat at Krista’s. He’d ended up doing both, but only after Krista had pitched a fit about it. Honestly, there were times she’d actually been jealous over the brown blob of meat because when Chase ate it, it looked as if he were having a religious experience. The only other time his face had ever looked to be in that state of bliss was when he’d been buried deep inside of her.
“Do you know how much I’ve missed this?” he asked as he pulled the dish out of the insulated packaging.
She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or the loaf, but she decided to participate in the conversation for the hell of it. “I can imagine.” Her voice had come out sounding snarkier than she’d meant it to.
Damn. Even now as an adult, she still felt the twinges of annoyance over his love for a meal. A meal, she reminded herself, she herself had prepared for him.
This was not good. Not good at all.
* * *
Chase savored every bite of the four slices of meatloaf he’d piled on his plate. A home-cooked meal was few and far between on the road. Not that he was complaining. He knew how lucky he was to have the success he did. That did not stop him from missing Mrs. Sloan’s meatloaf.
It was ridiculous, but over the years, he’d even dreamt about it. Several times, he’d been woken up before he’d gotten to taste it in his dream, and it had been almost as frustrating as being woken up while having a sex dream before the grand finale.
As his mouth covered the fork that held the last piece of loaf, he dragged his lips along the metal, pulling the deliciousness into his mouth. He groaned as he bit into the flavorful bite, reveling in every second it was in his mouth. As he swallowed, he looked up into Krista’s beautiful blue-green eyes and saw that look of irritation there.
“Sorry,” he apologized, knowing that he’d been bad company during their dinner.
“It’s fine,” she said as she pushed her salad around on her plate.
Chase might not have known everything there was to know, but he did know that ‘it’s fine’ meant that it definitely was not fine.
Covering his hand over hers, he rubbed his thumb along her knuckles as he said, “Thank you so much for making that and remembering it was my favorite.”
“No problem,” she snipped, pulling her hand away and taking a sip of her wine.
Chase was torn. He did feel bad that he’d basically had conversation blinders on while he’d eaten, but in fairness to him, he’d finished off his plate in under ten minutes. Then there was the fact that seeing Krista get jealous again, even if it was just over food, had seemed like a good sign to Chase.
He knew that asking her what was wrong was not the path to go down to change her mood. She’d never been the kind of girl to lay out an emotional roadmap for him to follow. He liked that though. The fact that getting to know her wasn’t easy.
“I was skeptical when you said you had made it, but damn, that was better than your mom’s,” he said truthfully, knowing that the comment might pull her out of her pout.
That got the smile he had been hoping for. Lifting her eyes from the salad on her plate, she grinned sassily. “You should know better than to doubt me.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the energy between them shifted from lighthearted to serious. He wasn’t sure why or what significance those words had had, but her green-blue eyes had turned very serious.
Setting down her fork, she took another drink of wine and then a deep breath. “Speaking of doubting people, I have been wanting to talk to you about something.”
“Okay,” he said encouragingly. The fact that she wanted to do anything with him was good news in his book.
“The night you left town—”
“I’m sorry, Krista,” he quickly apologized. Chase had wanted to talk about the same thing, but he hadn’t wanted to rock the very shaky boat that they’d been floating in since he’d returned. “I shouldn’t have left. I should have talked to you and—”
Holding up her hand, she stopped him. “You don’t have anything to apologize for, Chase. I do. In all the years we were together, and even the times we were apart during that time, you never gave me any reason to doubt you. But I did. I was just… I just thought… I felt so…”
The tortured look in Krista’s beautiful eyes was breaking Chase’s heart. He wanted more than anything to reach out to her. To pull her on his lap. To tell her that everything was okay and kiss her until she believed it. Something stopped him though. He sensed that what she needed to say to him was important to her. So even though every fiber in his being was straining to touch her, he didn’t. He waited.
Tears filled her eyes, testing his resolve to keep his hands to himself. Instead of reaching out to her, he said, “I swear to you, I never cheated on you.”
“I know.” She nodded as she took in a shaky breath. “I found out later from Larissa Peters that she was the one who planted the panties in your truck.”
“She was?” He had actually thought that he and Larissa had been friends. She’d been in a few of his classes in school. He’d give her rides home sometimes when they’d had to work on the yearbook project. Which must have been when she’d planted the underwear that changed his life.
“Yeah, and there’s more. She told me that there was a whole group of girls that would actually have weekly meetings to come up with new rumors and plans to try and break us up.”
“Why?” Chase figured it must have been retaliation from the falling out Krista had had with her three friends freshman year.
Krista smiled through her tears as she shook her head at him. “You really don’t know.”
“What? Was it that stuff with those girls that you had drama with?”
“No,” she said as if that were the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “It was because of you. Because they wanted a chance to be with you.”
“They thought if they broke us up, I would hook up with them?” Chase was trying to make
sure he’d gotten this straight.
“Yes,” Krista said emphatically, looking relieved that he’d finally caught on.
“And Larissa just told you this?”
“Yep. Apparently it was part of her twelve-step program.”
“That’s crazy.” Chase was having a hard time processing what Krista was telling him. It made sense now that he knew the facts. There had always seemed to be some new rumor about him flirting or cheating. So much of the time he’d felt like it had been him and Krista against the world, and now he knew that there was a sliver of truth to that. Because in high school your “world” consisted of your friends and classmates.
“I know. But the point is I shouldn’t have doubted you. Ever. Especially that night. I am so sorry.” Tears began flowing down her smooth cheeks. She lifted her hand and wiped them from under her eyes. “When you needed me the most, I wasn’t there for you.”
“Only because there were girls actively trying to sabotage us. It wasn’t like you were just pulling shit out of thin air.”
Shaking her head, she sniffed as she said, “There’s no excuse.”
Chase sighed and leaned forward, cupping her beautiful face. She looked at him with so much sadness and guilt. There was no one in the world who Krista was harder on than herself. Chase did not want her carrying that kind of blame around.
“Not an excuse, but a reason.” His thumbs brushed the tears off the soft skin of her cheeks. “Krista, we were young, and you aren’t the only one who should have done things differently that night. You’d just found a pair of girls’ panties in my truck and I gave you an ultimatum. Declare your unwavering trust in me or we were done. That wasn’t fair. I was scared and mad. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I didn’t for one second try to see how things looked from your side. I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t have anything to be sorry—”
Crazy Love - Krista & Chase Page 16