by Mindy Neff
She drew in a shaky breath and was just letting it out when a knock came at the door. Josie froze. She didn’t need to ask to know who was standing on her porch.
The knock came again.
Slowly, as if in a trance, she moved to the door. She placed her palm flat against the pine frame.
“Josie?”
She’d have known his voice anywhere. Sighing, she dropped her forehead against the door. “Yes?” she whispered, her heart beating so hard she wondered if he could hear it through the wood.
“Open up.”
His voice was sandpaper rough, commanding, yet gentle. Josie knew she had two choices. She could hide from this terrible longing and hope he’d go away, or she could twist the brass door knob and let him in.
He knocked again, softly, as if he knew right where she stood.
God help her, it was what she wanted. She’d fallen a little bit in love with him four years ago, and like a tiny seed that sprouts and grows with water and sunshine, so had her feelings, blooming overnight when she hadn’t been looking.
With an unsteady hand, she twisted the knob.
She no longer knew what was right or wrong, but she wanted this night. Needed it.
In silence, he came through the door, then closed it with a soft click. In the light of the single lamp burning, Josie stared at him, transfixed by his shadowy features, caught in a way she knew would haunt her dreams forever.
“I tried to stay away. I couldn’t do it.”
“It would be best if you had,” she whispered back.
Slowly, he shook his head. “There’s too much between us.” The warmth of his palms nearly scorched her as he touched her arms, rubbing the silky material of her robe against her overheated skin.
Her heart quickened as he took a step closer. His hands cupped her face now, tilting it upward, his vivid blue eyes holding her in place. As his hands followed the contours of her face, his warm, sweet breath brushed her lips, causing her imagination to go wild.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he insisted, his eyes never leaving her face.
The featherlight touch of his fingertips made her feel as if she were the most delicate of treasures. She knew this man’s touch. He was a man who savored lovemaking. Slow walking, slow talking, with a slow, erotically confident hand. Yes, she felt the anticipation in the sultry air like the hair-raising static of a stray bolt of lightning that struck a little too close. “Yes,” she whispered. “I feel it.”
His fingers speared through her hair, scattering the pins that held it up off her neck. “If I kiss you now, I won’t stop.” His voice, low and rough, strained for control. Like before, he was giving her a chance to change her mind, letting her know he would respect the limits she set.
But Josie didn’t want limits. She wanted another night of passion with this man, another memory to add to her small treasure cache, even though she couldn’t allow herself to hope for a future between them. Perhaps granting herself this moment was selfish, even a little unfair to both of them, but life itself could be cruel.
He was staring into her eyes. Waiting. His thumb made a sweeping pass across her bottom lip, stroking, soothing, arousing.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Kiss me, Chase.”
“And the rest?”
“Don’t stop.”
With a groan of satisfaction and need that matched her own, his head descended. All her fantasies combined couldn’t compete with the actuality of his lips taking command of hers. As if a powerful drug had been released into her system, she found herself awash in sensations she was helpless to stop.
With sure hands he angled her head to deepen the kiss. Their tongues touched, circling in a time-honored ritual that made her crazy with need. She felt his hands shift to her back, rubbing, then with characteristic bluntness, he cupped her bottom, bringing her up against him.
She tore her mouth away from his, panting. His arousal pressed against her belly. Even through layers of silk and denim, she could feel every inch of him explicitly. The sensation was both frightening and thrilling.
When he stepped back, Josie moaned, bereft that the contact was broken. Something was out of control inside her. She had a burning urge to climb right up his body, wrap herself around him, press against him…anything to assuage this terrible longing that seemed to be sapping every ounce of strength she possessed.
Chase sensed her need. It radiated out of her like scorching sun on melting asphalt. The flush on her smooth cheeks and the heavy rise and fall of her breasts beneath the silk kimono made him want to rush. But he cautioned himself to go slow. Josie Alexander was a woman a man should savor. “Tell me what you want, sugar.”
He’d said those words before. He knew she remembered. Her gaze locked onto his for a charged, frantic instant. Somehow, the whisper of sadness he saw in her eyes made her even more mesmerizing.
“Please.” Her voice was barely audible. Her eyes lowered, but Chase understood. The erotic message in them had been easy to read. She was so responsive, like dry tinder waiting for a hint of spark to set it aflame. She wanted him to make her burn, make the decisions and the moves, sweep her up and take her on a journey to heaven.
A journey free of guilt.
Chase knew he could seduce her into sweet submission. But he wanted a partner on this ride, an equal participant.
“The words, Josie.”
He heard her sigh of surrender, a surrender born of passion. “Touch me,” she said.
“Here?” His palm grazed the crest of her breast, drawing lazy circles against the silk robe.
“Yes.”
“And here?” Spreading the robe, his finger traced a path down her bare, flat stomach. He felt a warm glow of triumph when her muscles quivered at his touch. She sucked in her breath as he slowly, surely, cupped her through the silk of her panties.
“I do like your underclothes, darlin’.”
“So do I. But I’d like them better on the floor.”
He gave a hoarse chuckle. “A woman after my own heart.” He’d been waiting for her boldness. She was with him now. One hundred percent. He swept the robe from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, then hooked his arm under her legs and lifted her. “We’ll let the rest litter the bedroom floor.”
“Hurry, Chase.”
“Not this time, sugar. My mama always said if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” Stopping just inside the bedroom doorway, he anointed her breasts with slow, openmouthed kisses, watching as her back arched and her eyes clouded over. This was how he remembered her. Hot and sweet and wild.
“Chase—”
“Southern tradition, you know.”
She ran her hands over his shoulders, grazed his ears, then fisted his hair. “Two can play this game.”
“That’s just what I’m hopin’ for, darlin’.”
When he lowered her feet to the floor, sliding the length of her near-naked body against his fully clothed one, she nearly died. She reached for the snap of his jeans but he grabbed her wrists.
“Not yet.”
As she stood and watched, he removed his clothes. His body was even better than she remembered, strong and lean and hard. His stance was sure, cocky even. A dark, determined lord, with a sexual confidence that alarmed even as it thrilled.
“Turn for me.”
She hesitated. Couldn’t he see that she was aching? The pulsing between her legs was much too close to pain. She felt dizzy with need, a need to press herself against something, anything…him. The anticipation was almost too much, sending her perilously close to the edge.
He wore a look of gentle determination. Slowly, she turned so that her back was to him. She felt his hands at her waist, then her bottom. Stroking. Worshiping.
“Scandalous,” he breathed, tracing a finger along the thin scrap of material that all but disappeared between the cheeks of her buttocks. “You wear this sexy stuff all the time, or is this for my benefit?”
Josie could barely breathe
, much less answer. “All the time. I make it.”
“Beautiful and talented, too.” He toyed with the thin strap at her waist, following its contour to the front panel of silk. “Still have the peach ones with the little ties?”
The fact that he remembered what she’d worn all those years ago eased Josie’s inhibitions somehow, made her feel treasured—validated her womanhood. She sucked in her breath and nearly forgot to answer as his palm moved lower, cupping her through the silk of her panties. “Yes.”
“Yes, you have them,” he asked lazily, “or, yes, you like what I’m doing?” His fingers alternately pressed and stroked.
“Both…Chase, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. You see, sugar, I need—” he hooked his fingers in the elastic band and slowly lowered the scrap of silk, running erotic, teasing kisses along her bare bottom and thighs “—to make you crazy.”
As he stood, his hands came around the front of her, up her legs, barely brushing the vibrant heat where she wanted him most. His fingers skimmed her belly, finally cupping the heavy ache of her breasts. His lips cruised over her shoulders and along the sensitive side of her neck, while his hands molded and massaged her breasts.
Josie pushed back against him, reveling in the naked press of their bodies. His touch was torture. Pure and simple, pleasure-filled torture. “I’m…going…crazy.”
“Good.” The power of her admission whipped through him, unleashing a darker side of him he’d only been dimly aware of. He whirled her around and molded their bodies together, cupping her buttocks and jerking her up against him so that every point of pleasure aligned in just the right spot. He saw surprise and a flicker of fear flash in her eyes. Then the look darkened to passion as he crushed his lips with hers.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders, then went limp as he rocked her against him, angling the kiss deeper. Yes, this was what he wanted. To feel her go pliant in his arms. To hear that soft, helpless little whimper in the back of her throat as she gave herself up to him. To taste the hot need on her mouth. To know that her thoughts were consumed with only him and no one else.
Steady, he cautioned himself. This woman, unlike any other, could so easily shatter his control.
He lowered her onto the bed and eased her legs apart with his knee. Josie felt a rush of hunger so intense it nearly drove her over the edge. With lips and hands and fingers, he explored every inch of her body. With a firm grip, he held her in place as his fingers tested her readiness. In and out they moved, demanding her response, wringing every ounce of emotion she was able to give and then some.
The sultry air felt too thick to breathe. She writhed, restless, panting, as sensations flooded her. Her mind balked at total submission while her body reveled in the hot glory of being taken. Deep muscles clutched inside her and she throbbed with tension.
His chest slid sensuously across the mounds of her breasts as he skimmed his body lower, raining hot, wet kisses as he went. She knew his destination and thought to stop him, but the pleasure was too intense, her trembling limbs too weak.
His tongue brushed her inner thigh, torturing, teasing, lingering a shocking breath away from the core of heat that craved him most.
Her hips arched off the bed and she was helpless to stop the tide that flooded her senses. Brilliant starbursts rocketed through her making her limp with a weightless euphoria that was beyond description. Her fingers wound themselves in his hair, tugging.
“I need to touch you.”
“I’d like nothing better, sugar, but I’m about at my limit.” He eased back up her body, then reached for his pants on the floor, fumbling in the pocket with unsteady hands, searching for the foil packet he’d had the fore-thought to bring along.
“Last time you caught me off guard and I wasn’t prepared.”
And the results of that error had produced a son.
The intrusion of reality nearly shot the mood, and Chase couldn’t allow that. With single-minded intent, he pulled her to him, sweeping his hands down her body to the very center of her heat.
He drove her back into the storm of passion so quickly, her breath caught in her throat. He was done with teasing and gentleness. With lips and hands, and at last his body, he demanded with a ruthlessness that was both arousing and unexpected.
They writhed and thrashed against the bed, dark pleasures seeking to appease and be appeased. She’d never been so filled, so heated, so high. She thought she’d soar. She gripped him as he pumped into her, holding on to him against a world that seemed to be shattering.
“Look at me.”
His words seemed to come from some far-off place. Her chest heaved, as did his.
“Josie, look at me.”
Her eyelids fluttered open.
Chase gazed at her flushed face, felt the power of what they were doing, as well as the risk and uncertainty. That uncertainty drove him to push her limits…both their limits. She whimpered as he eased slowly out, then in again, grinding their bodies as close as humanly possible. The fire in her green eyes matched the raging heat in his own. He needed to put out that fire in a way that would brand her as his without question.
“You’re mine,” he groaned, and felt pure, raging satisfaction as he unleashed the wildness within him and plunged into her, hard and fast, taking them both over the edge of an obscure destiny.
Josie trailed idle fingers along Chase’s sweat-slicked chest. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so lazy, so sated…and so full of her own power. Making love with Chase Fowler was an erotically exhausting experience, a demonstration of limits that could stretch beyond even the most wicked of imaginations.
The only dark spot to the pleasure still radiating through her body was the reverberation in her mind of Chase’s possessive words. You’re mine. She was mature enough to realize that part of her attraction for this man was physical, and honest enough to admit that deeper emotions were involved. Yet she wasn’t ready for possessiveness.
She needed time to think, to put the relationship into some kind of perspective.
Then again, she could very well be getting ahead of herself. Chase wasn’t an easy man to read. His blue eyes held secrets, masked his thoughts. She wasn’t sure what he expected of her in the long run, and that frightened her. Especially when just the thought of his passionate skill could wipe out her better judgment in an instant.
To continue in this vein was a dangerous trek. Although the path promised heaven, it could very well lead her straight to hell, sucking away the fragile thread of her acceptance in this town like a house built on quicksand.
She wondered if she could handle a casual affair with a man who was so deeply, irrevocably entwined in her life.
Sitting up, she searched for her robe, then remembered it was lying on the living room floor. She opted instead for Chase’s shirt, slipping her arms through the oversize sleeves and doing up the buttons as she stood.
“There’s a carton of butter brickle in the freezer that’s calling to me. Want some?”
Chase scooted up in the bed and cocked an eyebrow. “Worked up an appetite, huh?”
His teasing caused her skin to heat. Yes, she was hungry, but she could also use a little distance.
“Gonna disappear on me again?”
This man could earn a living at mind reading, though in this case he was a little off course. Thoughts of that night four years ago swooped down on her like a hawk. “I can’t very well do that. We’re in my house.”
He grinned. “In that case, I’d love some ice cream. I’m partial to chocolate if you’ve got it.”
She didn’t want to place any significance on the fact that J.T. loved chocolate, too. Scores of people loved chocolate. Still, her thoughts were snagged.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, her hip touching his. “Chase, why did you make love to me four years ago?”
“Because you asked.”
She knew there was more to it than his flippant reply suggested. She could see it in the sub
tle shift of his eyes, the way he wouldn’t quite meet her gaze. Just as she knew that her own reasons had been far deeper. “Do you always oblige strange ladies in the middle of a raging storm?” she pressed.
Dimples appeared in his beard-stubbled cheeks. “Whenever I can. You have to admit, sugar, that was some storm…and not only outside.”
Josie sighed and looked away. Lord, yes, she’d admit it. But not verbally. Her reaction to him all those years ago had haunted her daily.
“Hey.” He reached out and gently brushed the hair back from her shoulder. “This is important to you, isn’t it.”
Josie shrugged. “I’ve never done anything so reckless in my life. I guess I need to justify it somehow.”
“J.T. is your justification,” he said quietly. “You explained all that over at the airport the other day. I said it then, and I’ll say it now. My brother was a lucky guy.” He touched her chin when she would have looked away.
“I think we were both on about the same emotional roller coaster that night. I’d just buried my mom that morning, and instead of hanging around to console my dad, I’d gone off to pick up a Cessna for a buddy of mine. The plane was a piece of dirt and I’d had to set her down in a cotton field. I wasn’t thinking straight that night. I shouldn’t have been flying an unfamiliar plane. I should have been home, where I belonged. But I was angry…and hurting.”
He paused, and Josie had the feeling he was about to say more. Then he shook his head. “When I think back on it, it scares the devil out of me imagining what could have happened to you if that stranger on the road had been anyone but me. But you were gutsy. I admire that.”
His admiration made her feel buoyant and strong. If there was one flaw in her character that she truly couldn’t stand, it was her unshakable, underlying need for acceptance. But ingrained, negative habits were difficult to overcome. She still felt one step behind, constantly on guard with a burning desire to prove that she was good enough—good enough for the town and good enough to bear the Alexander name.
And now, with Chase in her life, the tightrope of security she was walking was beginning to fray. “Most folks wouldn’t consider what I did gutsy. Or admirable.”