Chad's Chase (Loving All Wrong Book 2) (13 page)

As I traipsed under a tree arcade, I spotted a bench swing under a sprawling, flourishing maple tree and directed my steps toward it.

Although the night was dark, when I reached the bench swing, the ground light was adequate enough for me to discern it was made of oak, and had words carved into the top wood:
Margaret & Ford—Souls Enshrined, Engrafted and Entwined
.

With an eye-roll, I clapped my ass down on the swing and pressed my back over their names. The idea of love didn’t repulse me. It was because I knew I would never experience that with anyone. Souls enshrined, engrafted and entwined—whatever the hell that even meant.

The very prince of my dreams when I was younger had turned out to be the villain. And that’s when I stopped believing in fairy tales.

But that love thing must be a real good thing why people chase it so hard, so fervently. Love was either the best thing that could happen to a human, or the worst damn thing.

For me, the only ‘real good’ I feel in my shitty life was during sex. And that ‘real good’ was usually fleeting. Once I came, it was all gone, like a fading essence, and all I want to do was chase it, catch it and plant it within me. Which was the reason I craved sex so much. To make the ‘real good’ last as long I could before it evaporated from me like steam dying in cool air.

A rare small smile tugged at my lips and I shook my head. But hell, I did feel something more than ‘real good’ last night. With
him.
What I felt with him inside me, on top of me, surpassed great, bordering on extraordinary. And the ‘after’ feeling lasted longer. It didn’t leave immediately. It lingered. Stayed a while. And only faded because he moved.

Because the feeling was
within
him. The second he got off me, the feeling didn’t vanish, it just changed, from ‘extraordinarily great’ to ‘real good’. And that ‘real good’ didn’t leave until I was out the room.

I bit down on my lower lip, hard and punishing, crossing my arms and hugging myself tight until my ribs hurt, an attempt to distract myself from acknowledging that: it wasn’t the sex that made me feel that unprecedented euphoria. It was
him
. Just him.

Whether I was fucking or fighting him, he was undeniably, uncontrollably mind-consuming.
He
made me feel
great
.

Sure, he also made me frightened, uncertain, and sometimes petrified. But the overriding emotion was irrational desire.

After I’d hit him and run last night, he hadn’t chased after me like I expected him to. Didn’t threaten me or send the club manager to fire me. In fact, I didn’t see him at all after that. Which was something to worry about.

I might have crossed the line with that uppercut. So avoiding the club for a week at most and plotting a new move seemed shrewd.

Plotting. Pfft. The amount of clear opportunities I’d had to kill him and didn’t. Last night was another easy kill. And instead of taking advantage while he was vulnerable, I took off.

I was losing focus and perspective, caught up in depression and self-loathing, knowing I have a task to complete but, subconsciously, failing on purpose.

The Voice would call again soon, and he wasn’t going to be pleased to hear of my failures. And the last thing I should be doing right now was giving him reasons to believe I was a liability instead of an asset.

The truth was, while I still wanted freedom, I no longer wanted revenge. Revenge wasn’t looking all that appealing anymore.

I wanted something new, something more, something sweeter than revenge could ever be. Chad.
Alive
. And mine.

I was between a rock and a hard place. How did I eliminate the one person who made me want things I’ve never wanted before? Made me feel things I’ve never felt before?

The bench swing suffered a steady and forceful push from behind, and before I could register what was happening, my body was flying forward through the air.

I landed in the grass with a muffled thud and an “umf”. Senses momentarily scattered, I rolled over on my back with a groan, my limbs protesting with small winces of pain.

Before I could gather the energy to spring up and assume a defensive position, my attacker was already straddling me.

Carefully, I opened my eyes.

Holy shit.

Those eyes. Those black, undead eyes. Those obsidian pools of nothingness, beautified with abnormally long lashes. Those wide, tempting lips peeled back in a snarl.

“Did that hurt?” he questioned.

“Not even a little bit,” I replied, braving it.

Strong, long fingers instantly fisted around my throat, tightening, squeezing… “Does this hurt?”

My breathing was cut off completely, and my veins felt like they were swelling, about to implode at any minute. A heaviness behind my eyeballs was practically forcing them from their sockets.

Holy hell, he was killing me.

Still, I managed to give an infinitesimal shake of my head.

Clearly frustrated with my obduracy, he made a growling noise and released his grip on my throat. As I moved my hand toward my aching throat, he promptly grabbed my arms, yanked them straight at my sides, and pinned them down with his knees—which hurt like a motherfucker. The man weighed a freaking ton.

I clenched my fists and curled my toes to stop myself from crying out like a virgin getting penetration for the first time. “You said you’d never hurt me.”

Those empty eyes narrowed to scary slits as he roughly cupped my chin and held my face in place so I had nowhere to look but into the infinite blackness of his eyes. “Judging by the way you fight, you’re trained. So you do know that an uppercut done the way you did it could have killed me, right?”

I didn’t respond. But I did know. There were uppercuts for fighting and knocking someone out. And uppercuts for killing with a single blow. But I wasn’t an MMA fighter. I was trained to kill. Not knock someone out.

So, yeah, I knew what I did. Which was why I ran. Nevertheless, we both knew my intention wasn’t to kill him. If I’d been aiming to kill him, I would’ve channeled my swing more towards the throat and less towards the chin.

Still, he asked, “Were you trying to kill me, Blood?”

My turn to narrow eyes at him, because I knew he knew the answer to that.

“Answer me!” he said in a hushed growl, squeezing my face harder.

Through squished lips, I said, “If I were, you wouldn’t be straddling me now, would you?”

Releasing his hold on my face, he sighed, frustrated, irritated, those damned sexy lips forming a pinched O for the air to pass through.

The man was straddling me, inflicting pain on me with his knees pinning my arms, and, in the midst of all this, all I could think about was how much I wanted those lips on mine again.

A rush of white-hot arousal pooled between my legs, and I squirmed beneath him.

Chad misunderstood my squirm. “You’re hurting. I’m sorry. But…before I let you go. Tell me…”—his gaze shifted from mine to the grass, and his chest rose and fell, as he let out another exhalation. Then his gaze came back to me—”
Do
you want to kill me?”

What? Did he really just ask me that? Did he know? Did he know it was
me
?

No. He couldn’t. There’s no possibly way he would’ve allowed me to get this close to him if he knew. This was Chadrick fucking Niiveux. He would’ve killed me ages ago if he knew.

I
could
understand him questioning who I was, considering I fought like a man and showed no fear to his face. Maybe he was just suspicious of me and a little leery. If he knew, one hundred percent, that I was his once-upon–a-time reading buddy, back for revenge, no damn way in hell I’d be breathing right now.

I didn’t answer with a yes or a no, because I figured, if I lied to his face like this, he’d be able to tell. “Swap the L’s with S’s in the word ‘kill’.
That’s
what I want to do to you.”

As his gaze drifted down to my lips, warmth supplanted the emptiness, supplanted the threat in his eyes. But it didn’t stop him from gritting out, “Answer my question.”

I didn’t. I was stubborn like that. “Kiss me, boss.”

Slowly, steadily, he breathed through his lips, gaze still on my lips. “Whatever you’re doing, stop. Unless you want me to fuck you right here in this garden with no regard for the residents.”

My core throbbed, and I squirmed again, licking my lips. Clit pulsing heavily with need. “That’s.exactly.what.I want.” As I hiccupped those words, I moaned out loud, thrusting up my hip in impatience, simply because I couldn’t help it.

Chad made me feel. Just feel. And he wasn’t even trying. He was just like any other human being, yet his mere existence affected me in ways I never knew possible. He made me so damn hot and feverish.

With a deep, throaty sound, he unpinned my arms and dove forward, his lips colliding with mine in unsuppressed, unleashing greed. Good knowing he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

Hand still keeping my face in place, he raped my mouth, while I raised my weak hands to his hair. His dirty-blond hair was soft and silky. Enough hair for me to greedily grip and tug.

His groan vibrated against my lips at the rough pull, but he didn’t stop kissing me. Our tongues like two vicious, poisonous snakes chasing each other. Both wanting to win, but neither having legs to rise up and dominate the other, so instead they slid against each other in stimulating rubs, soothing each other, pleasuring each other, compromising, learning to live with each other.

I could kiss this damned man for hours.

One large hand dipped down between us and grasped the hem of my tank. Our kiss broke only long enough for him to rip the tank over my head. No bra was underneath, so my breasts bounced free to the air and his hot stare.

This garden was open to all the residents on the complex, but we didn’t care. It was dark, and we seemed—
seemed
—to be the only ones awake anyway. The sprawling maple tree yawned over us, providing fake security. If anyone so happened to be strolling by and saw us…who cared? All they had to do was turn around and get the fuck out the garden. Because right now, us two people were far too hot and starved for each other to give a shit.

Garnering some strength, I raised my hips, pressed my palms flat against Chad’s chest, applied force and pushed him over on his back until I was straddling him.

He let me. He trusted me. Which was fucking stupid. He shouldn’t trust me. At all.

Just as he did with me, I grasped the hem of his thin, black T-shirt and hauled it over his head. His blond hair was left ruffled, sticking every which way.

Hot ass fucker.

Leaning down, I kissed his neck, all over his neck, bit and nibbled. Kissed down to his sternum. His skin was so taut, his body so hard.

He felt so good. So goddamn good it was driving me wild. I couldn’t stop thinking that over and over in my head because it was the truth.

He. Felt. Good.

I kissed over his tattoos that were once again drowning in the dark, kissed over his washboard abs. I just kissed and kissed and kissed
everywhere
. Because I’ve never kissed a man’s body before. And this might be the only male I’ll ever want to kiss, so I was reveling in it. Enjoying it while it lasted.

“You’re hungry,” I heard his voice rumble, sounding half-strained, half-amused.

“You have no idea,” I whispered to his abs.

Chad jackknifed up and grabbed my face again, plunging his tongue into my mouth. My breasts squished against his chest, nipples hard like granite, aching to feel his mouth on them. And as though he could read my mind, his mouth divorced mine and moved in to propose to my breasts, sucking and fondling, relieving my ache. Tossing my head back, I ground against him. Against his tauntingly hard erection.

Holy shit. I don’t think I’ve ever been this insanely turned on. Been this hot for anyone. The feeling was so fucking amazing, I think I might weep when this was all over.

Chad drew back and tapped my arm with two fingers. “Stand up. Get rid of your footwear.”

Wasting no time, I stood up, my feet on either side of his, and kicked off my sports slippers, then looked down at him, hands at my sides, waiting, panting.

Bringing his hands up to my waist, he curled his fingers into the waistband of my sweats and panties, then dragged them down my legs. When they hit my ankles, I stepped out of them and he set the pieces of clothing aside.

Now I was fully naked, standing above him, staring down, while he sat jackknifed on the grass, staring hungrily at my sopping wet folds.

In a sudden flash, he palmed my ass cheeks, yanked me forward, and buried his tongue between my folds. I briefly lost my balance, but quickly regained it by holding onto his head.

The bolt of pleasure that jolted through me when his mouth sucked on my clit had me crooning like an owl among the trees. Chad ate me rapaciously, just like that. His tongue waging an unfair war with my clit, beating it into submission, finding its weaknesses and dragging them to the surface.

My knees buckled, and I fought to keep myself steady when he bit the tip of my clit, the rich nerve end, and I came instantly in a fit of shudders and nonsensical blabbering.

Oh my God. Oh my God.
Chad. This man… I wanted more.

While I tried to catch my breath, I became vaguely aware of the clinking of his belt buckle and the sound of his zipper undoing. The tear of a packet, silence, and then suddenly I was being yanked down.

Right down unto his erected cock.

I wasn’t prepared for it, so I screamed a little at the searing pain that lanced through me. But it was good pain, because he felt big and righteous inside me. He fitted, felt right. Like he belonged there all along.

“You okay?” he solicitously asked.

I leaned in and kissed him so he’d know just how okay I was. He was a lot rougher tonight than he was last night, but who was complaining? I enjoyed him both tender and rough.

Clasping my hips, he gently urged me in an undulating motion, and I followed his directions. Somehow, it was as if he knew of my inexperience with men. Maybe he wasn’t bluffing last night. Maybe he
could
see through me.