by Leanne Davis
He glanced her way and her intense gaze drilled into him. Her eyes took in the bleached tips of his dark hair and the earrings that adorned his ear. His t-shirt was pulled tightly across his chest, but it seemed more like a casual afterthought than him trying to be sexy. Ropy, beaded bracelets hung on his wrist, and above that was the bold, bright dragon that decorated his skin. He was so not her type. Twenty-four. Yeah, he looked it. He was unusual in his appearance and not just because of his Asian heritage. He had a way of twisting his looks to make them the opposite of what she considered typical, normal, or conservative. All the usual things she valued in her dates, herself, and most especially, her men were absent or lacking in Chet.
He shrugged. “You keep making things worse on yourself. Just picking up the pieces.”
“But why? We aren’t friends. You don’t talk. To me. At me. About me. You don’t say anything. I mean, my sister fucking dies, gets murdered, and you’re right there when I get the news, and you later find me out of my mind in grief on the floor of a restroom and you don’t say anything. Nothing. Not one damn word. Not an ‘I’m sorry. So sorry for your loss. Are you okay?’ No condolences or anything typical and expected after hearing such news. Do you get that? How abnormal you are? You have been working for me for three years and you never ever spoke to me. You grunted once or twice, throwing a few monosyllables out during the rare times I needed to converse with you. You grunted. I seriously doubted if you even spoke English. And then your response to all this is to come to my house… and… and…” She shook her head, dropping her gaze when her face exploded in heat.
“Would it have helped?”
Puzzled, she took in a sharp breath. “What?”
He turned in the driver’s seat, fixing his gaze harder on her. “If I had said any of those things to you? Those banalities that everyone around you repeats and chants, would it have helped you in any way? Would it have made you feel better?”
Her brow scrunched up. “Well, no. I mean—”
“Exactly. You didn’t want or need my sympathy, did you? Who was I to you?”
“But common decency demands it no matter what. You witnessed me hearing about my murdered sister and saw the grief the news caused, and yet you couldn’t even mumble a single word of sympathy? Or sorrow? You—you think kissing me was normal?”
He shifted around, becoming agitated. “What part of any of that sounds normal? Responding to a woman’s murder? What words are normal for that? What are the proper ways to express anything about that? Huh? There aren’t. So I did the only thing I believed would help you, I temporarily distracted you. For a few minutes, you actually calmed down and didn’t sink deeper into it. I chose to do that instead of giving you empty platitudes that wouldn’t have solved anything for you. At least, my approach was constructive.”
“And the sex too?” She had to avert her gaze, and her tone was low, soft and embarrassed.
“Yeah. Sex too.”
She shook her head. It was so strange. Chloe never heard of anyone acting like this to another person. She had no idea how to accept it.
“It worked too.”
“What?” She lifted her head, shocked at his soft words.
He stared straight ahead now. “Sex. It worked for you. You were about to make a total scene at the funeral reception even more than you already did with Tara. You were clean off the rails. So I took you away from there to stop you. Any words I said would have only fanned your internal inferno more. You were looking for a fight. I think I succeeded in putting out some of the fires you wanted to ignite around you. They couldn’t help you. And then you became catatonic. I just wanted you to feel better.”
Licking her lips, she burned up as she realized how well he grasped her emotional state. She was definitely off the rails and no one else noticed. But why? How could Chet recognize that? Someone who didn't even know her? She didn’t understand. Not at all. Where had this come from? Where had Chet come from? He was like no one Chloe had ever met.
“Why? I’m nothing to you. And vice versa. You knew nothing about me. And… and I don’t have sex with strangers. Not like that.”
“I didn’t take advantage of you. You said, ‘please.’ I didn’t misinterpret that.”
She squirmed around. “No. I mean, I wasn’t accusing you of that. I wasn’t in a good place mentally. I wasn’t thinking. It was so wrong and now I regret it since we’re nothing more than strangers—”
His hands gripped the steering wheel harder and he worked his fingers around it, pressing and unpressing until his knuckles turned white. Startled at his sudden intensity, she glanced at his profile. His jaw was locked and his eyes glared forward. Then his voice grew lower and softer as he replied, “Your favorite color is purple. You eat cupcakes for lunch every other day. You hate to exercise but insist on walking three miles, usually around the lunch hour, in town three days a week. Your favorite part of the café is making the desserts and welcoming the guests. You hate the business side of it, and most times either fudge on it or don’t do it at all. You can charm a smile out of almost anyone.” He paused for a moment. White-knuckling it again, he admitted, “Even me.” She stared at his profile and her mouth dropped open in awe, while her brain kept buzzing. Holy shit.
He continued, “You don’t know the meaning of the term bad customer service. You’ll go to the most ridiculous ends to please your customers even when they are wrong. You’ve been on four dates in the last three years and all were black men passing through town. They wouldn’t have gone anywhere, anyway, because you’re such a control freak and you really don’t want a boyfriend. At least, you think you don’t. You didn’t sleep with any of them. You spend most of your time with Ryder and Wyatt and were halfway in love with Ryder even if you refuse to admit it. That’s why all your dates never worked out.”
Riveted on his insightful knowledge, she couldn’t find words to reply. First, she’d never heard Chet speak, but now this? Such a long analysis and totally correct. Well, everything but the part about Ryder.
“Do you watch me? Or stalk me?” It popped out of her mouth so fast, she shut her eyes. She was determined to make everyone hate her, wasn’t she? That’s what she came up with? Asking him if he were stalking her? No, that didn’t ring true. Not at all.
“No.”
She smiled. He was so Chet-like, she realized. He answered exactly what she asked him without any elaboration. He rarely gave up information except for what was asked of him. Chloe never asked him anything, not in the past three years, so he never offered any explanations. She was a bit intimidated by him. Coming to work, all brooding and blank-faced, but his lack of interactions and smiles only indicated he didn’t want to talk to anyone at all. Any encounters that Chloe found necessary with Chet were purposely handled through Dok.
She had no idea, however, about any of this. He gave no indication she meant anything to him. Not once. Not at any time, let alone, if he freaking noticed her.
“I’m sorry. That popped out. I just didn’t know. Anything. This…” she shook her head and swallowed. “I’m a little intimidated by you,” she admitted, shocked by her own honesty.
He shifted towards her. “Me? You’re the boss lady.”
“You don’t talk. You don’t smile. You don’t interact. I thought you didn’t like me. Figured it was just the way it was.”
“I like you.”
If her life weren’t such a mess, and her headspace weren’t such a disaster, she might have laughed at his reply. He seriously meant it, she realized. If she laughed, it would have been mean even if he didn’t regard his actions as bizarrely as she did.
“Yes, but I didn’t know that, Chet. You started kissing me one day in my office when I was blinded by tears. I had no idea. Nothing to prepare me. And then you were suddenly in my bedroom and I didn’t know anything. It’s been confusing on top of all my grief right now. So you think platitudes are a waste of time but I can’t begin to make any sense of you. You know things about me, honestly
, that I’m sure no one’s ever commented on before. I find it—”
“Those are my observations. You said we didn’t know anything about each other. I was proving I did.”
“But you acted first and explained nothing. Can’t you begin to see why I don’t know what to do or say? How can this be? I don’t know. Not anything.”
He stared at her and she was caught by his dark gaze. His eyes flicked down and back up before he nodded. “You want me to ask what I already know? And not just act?”
“Um. Yeah. But what do you think you know?”
“Your outfit doesn’t match and your hair hasn’t been tended to in...” His gaze scanned over it as he added, “in a while. So I know you’ve stayed in bed most of the time you’ve been off work. For some irrational reason, you decided on the spur-of-the-moment to come in. You took one look at Tara and everything you hadn’t said, as well as all the grief about losing your sister, culminated once again, and you saw her as an easy target. You didn’t know you were going to do or say those things. Your eyes are red-rimmed, so you’ve been crying. A lot. You don’t sleep. Or else you have to take a lot of those sleeping pills you keep on your bathroom counter.”
She licked her lips. “That was… actually, that was eerily, right on.” She shook her head. “How do you know all that?”
He shrugged and his gaze was heavy on her. There was no shyness to this guy. She always thought he was but now she realized he wasn’t quiet, shy, or reserved. He replied just fine when he was spoken to or had something to say. Except when he didn’t. He wasn’t into the feeble pleasantries of chitchat or idle talk. “So, you only speak if you have something to say?”
“Why else would I?”
She bit her lip and tilted her head, trying to figure him out. Yes, he seemed to be serious and not joking. “Umm, for the sake of communication? And filling in long silences. Because that’s what people do?”
“People recite empty platitudes that don’t help. Does it help at all if I tell you I’m sorry your sister is dead? I’m sorry Ryder loves someone else now, and you are no longer his main priority. Isn’t that just obvious? Anyone would feel that way.”
She winced. He was being brutally honest. Not shying away from anything. “Well, no, I thought you might be a sociopath who felt nothing. So there’s that too. And maybe not quite so honest. Stop telling me about Ryder moving on.”
He threw his hands up. “Why? Because it’s too honest? How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
“I have no idea how to explain it. People just usually know. They have a feeling, or they pick up on—”
“What?” He threw her a sideways glance.
Social cues. Body language. That unspoken factor that can’t always be explained or articulated, but is just freaking known by most people in any situation. It’s a way to convey the gist of things. She shook her head. Not now. Too much to figure out. She didn’t know what, if anything, this all meant.
“Nothing,” she mumbled.
He fell silent and so did she. They both stared forward for a long while. His voice was clear and firm when he interrupted the quiet. “I feel things.”
She turned again at his statement. It was so sincere, it grabbed her and pulled her out of her own heartache and grief. She must’ve hurt his feelings. Yet he didn’t really express that. He simply stated a fact. He felt things. Something melted her heart a little bit. Did he really not see the quirks in how he interacted? And communicated? Actually, he didn’t communicate.
“I should have realized that.”
“I was just trying to help you. Ryder was talking to you and you looked more miserable with each moment. I just tried—”
She sucked in a breath and finished his sentence, “To make me feel not so sad.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She gulped hard. She only just then realized, during the few scattered moments with Chet, and no one else, she was a degree less sad. She was slightly more engaged in figuring him out and his interactions towards her. And in those few moments, she did forget her sister. Wow, that would have been otherwise impossible.
“I think… I think you managed to do that. And then I mangled it.”
He turned and leaned across the seat, taking her chin and holding it still. Startled, she found herself staring into his dark eyes. Her breath caught and she gasped. She assumed he was just shy and even meek, but holy shit. He was the opposite. Bold and sure. A man who went for what he wanted without hesitation or apology.
“I’d like to kiss you. May I?” She held his gaze, her heart swelling.
“You don’t like it when I say things like that, do you?” The thought stole her breath away. It was so novel to her. “You don’t like it when I’m self-deprecating.”
“No, I don’t. There’s no reason to be. You’re hurting plenty as it is,” he answered, and his tone was even and calm. “So may I?”
She held her breath, frozen by his gaze. She had to know. She could not just keep going along with him without further clarification of what was going on and what that entailed. “Because you want me to feel better, right?”
“Yeah.”
She could never have foreseen anyone feeling like that about her, or reacting to her like that. She nodded despite feeling unsure and confused. Uncomfortable, and yet inexplicably drawn to him, she was intrigued by her own needs.
He leaned forward and his mouth met hers. Shifting his body closer to her, he gripped the back of her head where it met her neck and pulled her towards him. She closed her eyes and let his kiss warm her body, which slowly started to melt as she drifted closer to his heat. It felt so good. Just like the day on her bed, and his warmth made her feel less alone, when nothing else could. As he deepened the kiss, she was overcome by an aggressive need for more. She longed to feel more. Everywhere. She wanted him to take away the burning anger and hurt she felt over Ryder and Tara, as well as the humiliation of her reaction and having everyone witness it.
Her lips moved to his cheek and she leaned forward to pepper a trail of kisses along his neck while her hands touched his chest, pulling him closer. His head bent back at her touch. “Please, just make me feel better.”
Chet returned to the silent man he was before. Grabbing her around the waist, he pulled, tugging her upwards. Ungracefully, she somehow climbed over the console and was facing him. With the steering wheel jammed in her back and her legs straddled on either side of him, she bent her knees. He slid the car seat all the way back to free her from the wheel. Their mouths frantically connected and a frenetic energy overtook her. She attacked him. She pulled on his shirt and pants as her hands shook. He pressed his hands on her breasts and she tore her mouth off his, leaning forward and pushing his face onto one breast. He responded instantly and his warm breath moistened the material of her shirt and bra as he sucked her through the layers of fabric. His hands snaked up her shirt to her bare skin and she worked her slacks downwards. “Touch me. Please. Now,” she begged him, forgetting herself and any propriety as to where they were. Daylight in the park parking lot. But the car windows were tinted dark so no one could see inside. Chloe reassured herself with that thought.
His hands responded and gave her what she was frantic for. Dropping down directly into her panties, he began touching her. She was dripping wet already and moaned at his gentle touch with both satisfaction and lust. His fingers slid up inside her and she took his tongue deeply into her mouth as she moved her hips over his hand. There was nothing subtle or polite about her gestures. She was crazy, frantic, and uncouth. And so selfish. She needed this badly. Her blood was boiling hot… and yes! She threw back her head as an orgasm slammed her hard and long. His dexterous fingers kept stroking her so it was even more intense and extended.
She went limp against him. He withdrew his hand. She voluntarily tucked up against his chest and felt him hot and hard under her. Her climax exhausted her and she wilted beside him. Her head was below his. She easily curled up into this former stranger, who was k
ind of strange in his need to touch her instead of giving her sympathetic condolences, and yet? He was right. It worked and she now basked in it. She loved being spoiled by it and took advantage of the situation.
All at once, she unexpectedly began to cry and clung to his chest. He stroked her back, while remaining silent. She guessed that was his way. She knew Chet wouldn’t act in any that he didn’t want to. She firmly believed that. If he didn’t want her against him, he wouldn’t hold her, no matter what. He didn’t soothe her with words. He let her cry and cry until she collapsed from exhaustion and grew totally silent. For the first time in far too long, she didn’t feel the need to break the silence. She indulged it. She let it be and reveled in it. It seemed to soothe her ragged, raw nerves. She could finally be alone without feeling lonely. And feel supported without being smothered. She no longer felt she had to help or talk or do something for anyone else using energy she didn’t have. She was being helped. And cared about. And soothed. She had no words to say, she ultimately realized. Not being alone felt so much better than all those sleeping pills she used to ease her grief at being left all alone. And now she wasn’t. She wasn’t alone and it helped more than any words she could have heard.
Chapter Eight
CHET FELT CHLOE’S BODY finally release all the tension as she deflated beside him. Her head was buried against his chest. He held her. There were no words necessary and he understood that. That’s why he didn’t bother to talk. It didn’t make sense to do things that were unnecessary. Empty words seemed more like an insult to him than any terms of endearment, and a waste of his breath. They degraded the grief that Chloe was dealing with.
Her loss was only compounded by Ryder finding someone else to share his life with, who would essentially take the role of Chloe’s sister. Naturally, Chloe believed she didn’t harbor romantic feelings toward Ryder Kincaid, but she was either wrong or unaware of how deeply they ran. Perhaps she was in denial. Chet wasn’t sure which it was. She didn’t seem to understand that her connection to Ryder substituted for having a boyfriend.