“I want you to be happy.”
“You sound like my mother.” Gin’s phone chirped again and
she looked at it with surprise marking her pixie features.
“What?” Anne prodded.
“It’s Seth. He wants to take me for coffee at
Books-A-Million. What do I say?”
“What do you
want
to say?”
“I don’t know. I’m so confused.”
“When all else fails, it’s free coffee.” Anne grinned.
She bit her lip. “I don’t know if I can talk to him now.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll keep wondering if he’s the mystery guy.”
“Ask him,” Anne said with another shrug.
“What if he says yes? Worse, what if he says no?” Then she
scowled. “What if he won’t tell me?” She fidgeted as if she was suddenly
uncomfortable in her own skin.
“Gin, look at yourself. I think you like him more than
you’ve let on. You’re driving yourself nuts.”
“Did I tell you I think he kisses like all the heroes in all
the novels we’ve read? I swear, I stopped breathing.”
“Symphonies and fireworks?” She decided not to remind Gin
that she knew how he kissed.
“Yeah.”
“And you’re seriously debating
not
going to have
coffee with him?”
“It’s going to be awkward.”
“Sometimes those awkward, unsure moments are the ones that
will burn themselves into your brain forever.”
“Fine, but if this goes poorly, I blame you.” Gin was
texting him back before she even finished speaking.
“You always do.” Anne hugged her.
Chapter Eleven
Anne tried to avoid Chase the rest of the day.
She cleaned up her painting supplies and locked herself in
her room. When he knocked after his afternoon classes, she told him she was
working.
Which she wasn’t. Not really. She was literally watching
paint dry and deciding how best to approach the topic of no more sex with him.
Finally, after she didn’t come out for dinner and then tried
to ignore him again an hour later, he wouldn’t be put off.
“Come on, Annie. What’s wrong?”
“I’m just working,” she said through the door.
“Then why is your door locked? There’s never been a locked
door between us.”
There’d never been cock between them either. She snorted to
herself.
She took a deep breath and, even though she still had no
idea what she was going to say, opened the door.
“See, I knew you were full of shit. What’s going on?” he
asked as he stepped into the room, his presence sucking all the air out of the
space.
Damn, but he was wearing that belt buckle again. The one
he’d been wearing when he helped her move. How was she supposed to think when
the gateway to heaven was lit before her like a runway with that thing?
“I am not full of shit. I had to wait for my canvas to dry
before I can add the other layers.”
He raised a brow. “No, what you were doing was avoiding me. I’ve
pissed off enough women to know the difference between creative seclusion and
avoidance. I thought we could tell each other anything. Did fucking change your
mind about that?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“There. See, that wasn’t so hard. You told me you changed your
mind. Wanna tell me what else you changed your mind about?”
No, not really. But she didn’t exactly have a choice. Games
were for children, and despite the fuckery that was the frat party, Anne was no
child. She and Chase were both adults who’d made a mistake and the only way to
get past it was to own it.
Not that she thought she ever
would
get past it. What
she felt for him, it welled inside her like a hot spring, bubbling up and
searing through her veins every time she looked at him, thought of him.
Loving Chase had never been hard, but being
in love
with him was excruciating.
She took another deep breath and felt like she was drowning.
“You were right.” Anne shrugged helplessly.
“I’m always right, Annie-belle. But to what specifically are
you referring?”
Anne met his gaze and his eyes were warm, teasing, but she
wasn’t up for the usual banter. She had to break her own heart and she just
couldn’t do it with a smile.
“These last couple days have been really good.”
“But?” he prompted when she didn’t say anything else.
“But you were right. I can’t handle it. Me and all my talk
of ‘a little fucking between friends’ and I can’t handle it. Not with you.”
“Who
could
you handle it with?” His eyes narrowed.
“I don’t… Do we have to do this?”
“Yes. I think we do. Just like you thought we had to explore
this thing between us, I think it’s only fair that we both understand why it
didn’t work.”
God, she’d half hoped that when she talked to him, he’d beat
her to the Grand Confession. That he’d say he loved her and wanted to be with
her and… So much for being an adult. Anne felt as if she was still the same
girl she’d been in high school in so many ways. Believing in fairytale endings
at her age. Ridiculous.
“You know what? Let’s get out of here. We’ll have a late
picnic just like we did when we were kids, off some country road in the middle
of the night.”
Her brain told her it wasn’t a good idea and her mouth
opened, but all she did was nod her stupid head in agreement. It seemed she was
a masochist because she kept doing these things that she knew would hurt like
hell, but couldn’t stop herself.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re going to get out of answering
the question.”
She slipped into her shoes and followed him out to the
truck. Anne was sure he’d continue to question her during the drive, but he
turned on the radio and left her to her thoughts. He stopped at a little gas
station on the way out of town that fried chicken guaranteed to be either the
best you’d ever eaten or a raging case of dysentery. Odds were pretty even
either way, but when it was good, Anne thought it was nothing short of divine.
Anne didn’t like all of this time to think. She should have
just spewed out that Gin was telling the truth, that she loved him, then
watched his eyes widen in shock and his mouth gape open like a large-mouth bass
out of water and promptly shut the door in his face.
Trepidation was a boa constrictor around her whole body and
it tightened when he slowed the truck and found a place to park off a seemingly
hidden dirt road. As she got out of the truck, Anne decided she didn’t think
she was going to be able to eat any of the chicken, even though the scent of it
made her mouth water.
This was one of her favorite things, a night picnic. Of
course, when they were younger, it had been an evening picnic and they’d always
used the blue blanket he’d just spread out for them. It had seen them through
many a lengthy conversation about the meaning of life in a quiet country field
under a starry sky. She ran her hands over the worn weave of the fabric and
wondered if these times between them would ever be the same.
Anne breathed deeply again, fighting for air. The night air
was sweet with the scent of mown grass and a tree full of apples ready for
picking. She took a long drink of water from her bottle and didn’t mind in the
least when some trickled down her chin. It was such a cool relief that she
poured a little in her hand and splashed some on her face and dabbed at her
neck.
“So are you going to tell me now who you’d rather have
casual sex with?” Chase had leaned back against the wheel of the truck and
pulled her legs across his lap.
Anne was glad she was done drinking or she would have
choked. “That’s not what I said.”
“Explain it to me, Anne.”
“I only said I couldn’t do it with you.”
“You
did it
plenty with me earlier.”
Anne blushed and then bit her lip. Damn it, but she still
hadn’t figured out how to stop biting her lip around him. Or thinking about him
naked. Or imagining fucking him. Or—
She rattled herself out of that train of thought. “I did,
and I want to do it again.”
“So what’s the problem? We’re having a good time. I like
fucking you. You like fucking me. Where’s the conflict? And why do you want to
do it with someone else?”
She opened her mouth, but again nothing came out. Like
turning on an old faucet that just shuddered, shaking the pipes until someone
turned it off. But Anne finally found her voice. “You’re stuck on that, Chase.
If it’s just casual, what does it matter if it’s with someone else?”
It was his turn to have nothing to say. The silence
stretched out for what seemed an eternity, but Anne knew it couldn’t have been
more than a few seconds. “So, it’s Seth? Are you in love with him?”
Men could be so dense. She would have laughed if she hadn’t
felt like crying. “When I kissed him—” she began.
He interrupted her. “Do you remember when you asked me to
tell you my fantasy?” Chase drew his finger in lazy circles around her ankle.
“Yeah, you said you’d already lived it.”
Chase didn’t seem to hear her. “Do you remember sometimes
we’d go swimming in Potter’s Pond after our late-night picnics?”
“I’d love to be there now.” Anne dabbed a bit more water on
her neck. She was hot and getting ready to spill her guts; it made her face
flush and her palms sweat. If he wanted to give her a moment of reprieve, she’d
let him.
“After every time we went, I swore I’d never go back. It was
too hard to keep my hands off you, Anne. You never pushed me away, either. All
those times when you let me carry you in the water, laughing and teasing. The
feel of your wet, slick body against mine—I was so afraid you’d feel how much I
wanted you, but one of my fantasies was that you
would
feel and you’d
realize you wanted me too.” He traced higher on her leg, his fingers warm and
strong.
He’d already admitted to her that night in the kitchen that
he’d fantasized about fucking her, but she hadn’t realized for how long. It was
nice to hear, and she had another confession of her own that would be easier to
share than admitting how she felt about him. “Remember the time when Laura and
Grant came with us? You’d been goofing off with her in the water like you did
with me and when it was my turn to be tossed and you caught me…” Anne didn’t
know how she wanted to phrase the rest of it—how hard he’d been.
“That was you. All you. I didn’t think you’d noticed.” He
grinned.
“Oh, I noticed. It was something I’ve thought about. The
what ifs. What if I’d clung closer instead of being embarrassed and jealous?
What if I’d kissed you when you caught me? There was a moment there that could
have been a kiss, that split second when we were both out of breath from our
little play struggle…”
“You were jealous?” He was incredulous.
“I was green like spinach. I hated her after that. I felt
like she was taking some part of you away from me, and you were mine.”
“You say these things so easily—”
“The same way you talk about how much you like fucking me?
Emotions are sensations too, Chase.”
Anne relaxed her knees and they parted slightly as his
caress moved up behind her knee and down again. Each touch made her skin
hyperaware of his every movement.
“Tell me another one,” she said breathlessly.
His hand strayed to the inside of her thigh and back down.
Anne didn’t want to try to form coherent thoughts, she was too wrapped up in
the way he was touching her and imagining the things he was saying.
“How about you tell me instead, Anne?” His fingers continued
to play against the back of her knee and she shivered. “Tell me, or I’ll stop.”
She’d come here to tell him she couldn’t do this and here
she was, spread out before him and wanting, needing him yet again. Chase’s
touch was an addiction, just like a drug.
“I imagine what that first time would have been like with
you on the Fourth of July, instead of Grant. How carefully you would have
touched me, how you would have made sure it was all the things I’d dreamed of,
with candlelight and roses instead of hurried fumblings in the back of a Monte
Carlo. How you would have made love to me like a man instead of a boy trying to
get his rocks off. My fantasy is that one of those many nights you came over
and slipped in my window, I had asked you to be my first.”
His body had gone taut and his hands stilled on her flesh.
“Anne, I’m a man
now
, and I can hardly keep control when you say things
like that. I’m sure the fantasy you have of me outshines what it would have
been if you’d asked.”
“Would you have been my first?” she questioned softly, her
lashes brushing her cheeks as she looked down. “If I’d asked?”
“Yes.” He tilted her chin up so she’d look at him. “I’ll do
anything you ask.”
“So, what would you have done? Tell me. We’re in my room,
I’ve told you I have something important to ask you and I tell you I want you
to be my first. What do you do?”
“Is this an erotic choose your own adventure?” he teased.
“Or you could show me.” Anne regretted it as soon as the
words were out of her mouth. Not because she didn’t want him to, but because
she knew this was where she should stop. If she was ever going to, it had to be
here. Tonight.
He pulled her into his lap. “And it would be just like that,
wouldn’t it? I’d be afraid to answer, afraid it wasn’t real, and you’d think I
didn’t want you.” Chase pushed her hair out of her face and brushed his
knuckles against her cheek. “I’d tell you your skin was like silk and cream,
too fine for my dirty hands. But I’d touch you anyway because those words from
your lips won’t let me do anything else.”
Chase kissed her softly, his lips moving over hers with a
reverent tenderness, and she melted against him. In that moment, she was
completely his to mold and shape as he pleased.
“And I’d kiss you, taste your lips and the sweet promises on
your tongue.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist to support her weight as
he eased her down on the blanket. “I’d lay you down on this blanket in your
room and I’d have you imagine this place, here and now, with fireflies and the
scent of summer apples, the stars above like the candles you’d dreamed of.
There are no rose petals, only the vibrant grasses beneath us.” He scraped his
lightly stubbled cheek across hers and buried his face in her hair. “What would
you do, my Annie? Would it still be your dream? Would it be enough?”