Chapter Eleven

The moment they stepped inside the guest house, Chase kissed Chloe the way he'd been dying to kiss her al day. He kissed his way from her sweet mouth to the pulse point in her neck and felt her heart race beneath his lips, his tongue.

"You have such lovely, soft skin." He slid the straps of her silky top from her shoulders. "Such lovely, responsive breasts." He pressed kisses over the swel s that rose up out the top of her bra. "And you make such lovely little sounds when I'm kissing you."

When he looked back into her eyes, they were dark with desire. Along with the growing emotion she simply wasn't able to hide from him.

He'd wanted to take his time with her tonight, wanted to love her slow and easy, take al night if he had to. Instead, he was saying, "I can't wait another second," just as she said, "Hurry." She slipped her panties off as he yanked off his pants and boxers.

"Please tel me you have a condom," she said and, thank God, he did have one that he'd stashed in his pocket that morning just in case an opportunity arose to sneak away from the shoot and make love to her.

A moment later he was sheathed and lifting her up so that her dress bunched up around her waist. She had her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs around his h*ps as he drove into her.

She gasped out his name and he found her mouth and kissed her. But it was more than a kiss.

And what they were doing together was so much more than a quick f**k against the front door.

Her tongue laved the spot on his shoulder where she'd bitten down into a tendon as she'd come apart in his arms. "I didn't mean to hurt you." She looked stunned by what she'd done to his skin. "I've never done anything like that before."     Beyond glad that she was starting to real y let herself go with him, he said, "You're the one who's going to have bruises from the door if I don't get you into the bath right away."

Her legs stil wrapped around his hips, he carried her through the house to the bedroom.

Continuing to the bathroom, he kept her right there on his lap as he turned on the taps and tested the water. "Perfect."

After pul ing her dress off and removing her bra, he lowered her into the tub. She seemed reluctant to let go of him.

"Aren't you coming in, too?"

He didn't say anything at first, just let himself drink her in. He loved the way she'd held onto him. Being with her like this was so natural, so right.

Chase knew he could never be with a woman who spent her life worrying about what she ate, about whether or not she had cel ulite or a little extra flesh on her stomach. He spent al day with women - and men - who were obsessed with what was on the outside.

Chloe's natural self-confidence, which he was watching return by leaps and bounds with every hour that passed, along with her very real beauty, was the perfect antidote to al of that self-conscious preening. He loved the fact that her nails weren't painted, that she wasn't waxed bald between her thighs, that she hadn't dyed her hair or whitened her teeth. She looked like a woman should.

"You're staring at me."

"Yes, I am. And you're so lovely I'm going to be staring a whole lot more."

She blushed. "Come join me in the tub."

But even though he was desperate to get in the water with her, al day he'd been thinking about the conversation they'd had that morning.

"Remember that first night I found you in the tub?"

"I honestly don't think I'l ever be able to forget."

"You're in the bathtub again." He paused. "And we know each other better now."

"We certainly do," she said softly.

The question hung silently between them: What would have happened that night if she'd trusted him? And was there any chance that she trusted him enough now for what he was asking her to do?

There was only one way to find out.

"I've wondered a thousand times how that night could have played out differently," he told her in a low voice.

And then he saw it - renewed excitement and arousal moving across her beautiful face. Looking down at the water, she licked her lips and took a deep breath. When she looked back up at him, she was transformed: A sensuous creature from head to toe.

"Why don't we find out?" She didn't give him any time to catch his breath before she said, "I think I'm going to soap up now." Her voice was husky, and almost enough to have him forgetting about the whole thing and just diving in there to pul her down over his c**k again.

Instead, he made himself take one step back, and then another, until he was backed up against the sink. He yanked off his T-shirt and stood there na**d, his c**k throbbing hard against his stomach as he watched her reach for the soap.

That first night when he'd walked in on her in the tub, he should have left the room immediately. But wild horses couldn't have dragged him away.

Hel , the entire house could have been fal ing down around them and he stil would have stood there, unable to do anything but stare at Chloe in awe.

Tonight, he was standing again in the bathroom, watching her slowly, sensuously, begin to run a bar of soap down her outstretched legs. She had such smooth skin, such pretty thigh and calf muscles, such lovely toes.

Slowly, she lowered her leg back into the water, then lifted the other.

His c**k was a living thing against his lower stomach, a heartbeat away from dragging the rest of him across the room and into the tub to get at her.

Knowing he had to hold onto something to keep from reaching for her, he grabbed a towel off the rack beside him and gripped it tight enough to tear it in two.

Chloe didn't need to look at Chase to feel the heady strength of his desire from across the room.     She loved how powerful she felt, teasing him this way. And she loved the fact that he wanted it just as much as she did.

God, she thought with a barely repressed moan, it was going to be good when he final y joined her in the tub.

It was so tempting just to give in to that need, to throw the soap down and reach out for the gorgeous man standing on the other side of the bathroom watching her with utter lust.

But the anticipation of that moment would only make it sweeter when it final y came.

Stil , she had to work real y, real y hard to keep her voice steady as she continued to play their sexy game. "Just give me a sec, okay? And then you can hand me that towel." She couldn't repress a smal smile as she looked at him and said, "You don't mind waiting, do you?"

"No."

Not bothering to hide her grin at how strangled the one short word had sounded, she dipped the lavender scented bar of soap back into the water.

Once wet, she began the slow process of running it over her col arbones, and then lower, and lower stil .

Her ni**les had already beaded tightly beneath the heat of his gaze, but as she came closer and closer to the taut tips of her ful br**sts with the suds, she couldn't believe how much more sensitive her skin felt. Almost as if one touch from her soapy fingers - combined with the devastating desire in Chase's eyes - would be enough to have her crying out his name.

The soap slipped from her fingers and water splashed up onto her face.

Chase's voice came from across the room, low and borderline desperate. "I think the bar of soap slipped between your legs."

She had no idea what came over her then, how on earth a wanton seductress could have taken her over so quickly. If ever there was a time and place for reticence - for fear - to lift their ugly heads, it was here. It was now. And the truth was, a large part of her was shocked by how her hidden desires were bubbling up one after the other with Chase...and that she was actual y letting them out.

The smart, rational thing would be to end the game right away, before it went any further. She should be doing everything she could to keep the truth of who she real y was from Chase, should be making sure that he could never come back one day in the future and hurt her with it.

But when she looked up at him, she simply couldn't find a way to reconcile al of those fears with the beautiful man clutching the towel for dear life.

And, ultimately, her body didn't real y care about her latent fears at present. Not when such beautiful satisfaction awaited her in his arms.

Which was why she found herself saying, "Maybe I would have better luck looking for it on my hands and knees."

Chase blew out a pained breath. "I'm not sure I'm going to survive this."

Moving slowly, careful y, in the slick and soapy tub, she sat up until she was kneeling. Water streamed off her breasts. Despite the warm water, the room was fairly cool and her ni**les were beaded.

Reaching into the water for the soap, she said, "Ah, there it is, slippery little sucker."

A moment later she was going ful y onto her hands and knees, lifting enough out of the water that she could feel cool air rushing between her thighs, over her bel y, before picking the soap up and moving back into a kneeling position.

She could hear Chase's heavy breathing as she pushed her wet hair off of her chest and shoulders with her free hand, then ran the bar of soap over her col arbones, over her arms, across her stomach, and then, final y, her breasts.

She ran the soap over a nipple and as it stiffened into an ever tighter point, he groaned. The truth was, Chloe could barely stifle her own whimper of need as she asked, "Everything okay, Hotstuff?"

She had no idea how she managed to ask the question in such a steady voice.

He choked out a strangled laugh at his nickname. "Everything is perfect." His voice wasn't quite as steady as hers. He nodded at her na**d body in the tub. "You're going to be real y clean."

Yes, she would. Because she wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot.

Cupping her hands in the water, she lifted them and poured water down her chest. Suds washed down over her br**sts and rib cage and stomach.

When she'd washed the soap off of her chest, she picked up the bar of soap and looked straight at Chase. A muscle was jumping in his jaw and his hands were tightly fisted on the sides of the towel.

She couldn't see his hard-on behind the towel, but she didn't need to.

"Just one more place I need to get nice and clean." She didn't take her eyes from her hot voyeur as she lifted up so that her bottom and the upper half of her thighs were out of the water. She moved her knees apart several inches in the bottom of the tub, then took the soap and placed it just below her bel y button.

Chloe felt like she was al nerve endings. The soap slipped away from her again, but this time she wasn't about to retrieve it from the bottom of the tub. She desperately needed to touch herself and her breath left her lungs in a rush as her fingertips brushed over her clitoris.

"Don't stop." Chase's breath was coming out just as fast as hers. "Please don't stop."

And as she let her fingers continued stroking, sliding through her wetness until she could feel the tremors building from way down deep, suddenly he was there with her, his large body wrapped around her, his warmth taking away any chil that remained. In one hard stroke he pushed inside her to the hilt and she pushed back into him just as hard, wanting him even deeper, even closer.

The water splashed al around the room as he held her steady with one arm around her waist while driving into her again and then again as she begged him for more, more, more until the orgasm she'd been teasing him with joined with Chase's impending release, swel ing big enough to break through her entire soul like a tidal wave.

Chloe smiled at him as he dried her off and Chase loved the way she leaned into his touch, rather than away from it as she once had. Picking her up, he moved to the chair in the corner and pul ed her onto his lap. She curled into him like a contented kitten.     "Thank you for trusting me."

Her head shot up from where she'd had it against his chest. Wariness crept back into her expression as she said, "I like you. A lot. But - "

He should just keep his damned mouth shut. He should enjoy what they were doing and give her more time. But damn it, he was ready now. And he wanted Chloe to be ready, too.

"I know you won't trust me completely yet. Even if I don't like it, I understand. At least, I think I do." He waited for her to say something about what had happened to her. He worked to push down the disappointment, but he knew he'd blown it when the words, "I don't want no-strings-attached," shot out of his mouth.

She immediately stiffened on his lap and tried to pul away. Just as he'd known she would. "But that's our agreement."

"No. I never agreed."

"You did!"

"You wanted no-strings-attached and I was hoping I could convince you otherwise. Just like I'm hoping you'l al ow yourself to trust me completely one day."

"I'm not looking for a relationship. You know that."

"Yes, but I don't know why. Tel me what happened."

"I didn't run from one guy to end up diving straight into a relationship with another one," she began, and he could hear the reticence in the tone of her voice, could see how much she wanted to end their conversation in the lines that appeared at the sides of her mouth.

Her hand lifted to cover her cheek again and it nearly kil ed him not to put his hand over hers and pul it back down.

Which was why he'd never admired her more than he did when she dropped her hand and said,

"But you're right. It's not fair for me to be so vague. Not to tel you why." She sighed and her eyes grew even darker. "In a nutshel , I was married and it wasn't great."

"Even from the beginning?"

She shook her head. "No. At first it seemed great. Wel , okay, at least." She scrunched up her nose. "Honestly, I've asked myself that question a hundred times. Why did I fal in love with Dean in the first place?" She took a deep breath, one that shook through her al the way to his lap. "You know what I think I've figured out?" she asked in a very soft voice.

More glad than he could ever express that she was final y talking to him like this, he gently replied, "What's that?"

"When we were looking at your family picture, every time you talk about them..." Her words fel away momentarily before she continued, "I wanted that. So badly. I wanted to be part of a family that was warm and fun and loved me."

"You were an only child?"

She nodded. "But it wasn't just that. My parents have never real y been that open with their feelings. I know they love me, but I can't remember ever hearing it. I don't remember many hugs."

Chase's heart broke for the little girl inside of Chloe that longed for those hugs. He wanted to make up for each and every one of those hugs she hadn't gotten, starting now.

"When I met Dean I was young and stupid and desperately looking for that warmth." Her eyes lifted to meet his. "Turns out I had awful instincts, at least I did when I wanted something so badly to be true that wasn't." She shrugged as if she was trying to make it al less of a big deal. "He was nice at first. And I was so happy to final y feel like I had somebody. That I was part of a team. But, we weren't real y a team. After a few years, Dean started to control me, what I did, who I saw. He liked keeping me as a pretty possession. Like his fancy house and his shiny car. I was just one more pretty thing to bring out from the locked cabinet to show off to people."

Chase wanted to say a thousand different things to Chloe about how stupid her ex had been. He wanted to tel her it wasn't her fault for believing he was a better, kinder man than he actual y was. He wanted to rage at the unfairness that her ex had turned on her.

But he didn't want to do or say anything that would make her stop talking to him. So he forced himself to swal ow it al and simply ask. "When did you decide to leave?"

"One day I was sitting at the country club with a bunch of his friends' wives that I real y didn't have anything in common with, and I realized I'd been entirely swal owed up by him. I tried to talk to him about it, but he wasn't interested in listening." She swal owed hard. "That was the first time he scared me."

Chase worked to keep his muscles from tensing with rage beneath her. "What did he do?"

"Nothing physical. But he'd started drinking more and more and it was like he wasn't listening to anything I'd said. When I woke up the next morning, al of my quilting stuff was gone. My fabric.

My machines. Everything."

This time Chase couldn't stop himself from saying, "What an asshole."

Her mouth was tight as she said, "A few weeks later, after I final y accepted what the rest of my empty life was going to look like with a man who didn't actual y love me, I filed for divorce and I moved to Lake County."

"Somehow you must have known it wasn't safe for you to stay in the city."

She shook her head, saying, "No," then paused, frowning. "Maybe. Maybe that's why I felt like I had to leave." Her frown deepened. "I love San Francisco," she told him, "but I felt like I needed to start fresh. I didn't want his money, I just wanted my freedom back. Freedom to work on my quilts.

Freedom to choose my own friends. Even the freedom to wear ratty jeans or shoes that don't have a designer name on them. My apartment never real y felt like home, though, even though I wanted it to.

Even though I needed it to." She blew out a breath. "But that was okay. I told myself I could eventual y make it home, because I thought filing for divorce, leaving him, and moving away had worked. I didn't hear from him for months, so I thought he'd accepted the divorce." She moved her hand up to her cheek and touched the fading bruise. "Evidently, he hadn't."

"What happened the night I found you?" Chase could hardly get the words out between clenched teeth.

Her eyes darkened. "I was getting ready to paint my living room when I heard someone at the door." He could feel the shock of that memory radiating from her tight muscles. "Dean was standing there and I was so surprised to see him I let him in without thinking, without even once second guessing that I wasn't safe with him. But then I realized he was drunk. I don't know how I could have forgotten how much he was drinking toward the end, but I had. I don't know, maybe I made myself forget things I didn't like remembering."

"That's natural, sweetheart."

But it was like she couldn't hear him, couldn't do anything but relive what had happened with her ex-husband.

"He said, 'You're not getting away from me. You're mine.' I couldn't believe he had the nerve to come to my new town, to stand in the middle of my apartment and tel me that. I didn't think not to be angry, not to say that I wasn't his. I told him to go away, that we'd talk later when he wasn't drunk."

Chase knew what came next. "Nothing worse for a drunk than hearing that he's a drunk."

She nodded. "He told me to shut up and said that he'd made the mistake of letting me get away with too much when we were married and that this time he wouldn't."

Chase echoed the words, "This time?"

She closed her eyes. "His exact words were, 'You're coming home with me right now. And this time you'l do what I tel you to do.'"

Chase barely bit back a string of curses as she continued, saying, "He'd never been like that before, never just outright scared me. But I didn't want to back down, didn't want him to think he could control me anymore. So I told him I was already home. I told him I wasn't going anywhere with him and that I wanted him to leave. Now." Her words hol owed out even more than they already were. "He lost it and grabbed my hair and when I pul ed away, he punched me."

She lifted her hand to her cheek, but he was already there with his, cradling her soft skin, wishing like hel that she'd never had to be hurt. Knowing he never wanted her to be hurt again.

"I was stunned for a minute. I honestly couldn't believe what he'd just done. I kept waiting for him to start apologizing, to admit that he was completely out of control. But the look on his face, it wasn't sorry. It was like he was final y victorious, looking at me there with his mark on my face. I was so freaked out that he was going to do it again or something worse, that I didn't think, I just grabbed the nearest paint can and swung it at him.

And then while he was down, I grabbed my bag and ran."

She was shaking from recounting the story to him and he hated that he'd asked her to go there, that he'd made her relive it al .

"Chloe, sweetheart, you're al right now."

She closed her eyes tight. "Do you know what I was doing the whole time I was driving away in the rain? I kept wondering, why was I so stupid?

That's probably why I crashed into the ditch. Because I couldn't pay attention to anything but that voice in my head that said I should have seen it coming."

"Looking for the good in people is never stupid."

She opened her eyes. "But being blind and na?ve is." She gave him a smal smile that never reached her eyes, before moving her hand from her face to his. "I know you must have guessed some of this as soon as you saw the bruise on my cheek. But thank you for not pressuring me to cal the police. I wil . I know I have to. For once in my life, I've got to fight for myself. For my own life. And know deep inside myself that I can win that fight."

From the moment Chase had met Chloe, every last one of his protective urges had come to the fore. Again and again, he'd wanted to jump in and take care of everything for her.

Never more than right this second. He wanted to get in his car and track down the bastard and make sure he never came near her again, make absolutely sure he never had another chance to lay a hand on her.

Only, damn it, he knew that if he did that, if he wrapped Chloe up tight and made sure everything was soft and easy for her from here on out, wasn't that nearly as bad as the way her ex-husband had stolen her freedom from her?

How the f**k was he going to find a way to love her without smothering her need to be free?

"You'l win." He knew it with every fiber of his being.

Her fingertips moved across his lips. "So much faith in me," she said softly. "I'm so glad you were the one who found me in the storm."

But they both knew that didn't real y change anything. Because he couldn't just tel her, "Hey, you know what? I think you're ready for a new relationship." Not when she'd just made it abundantly clear to him that she wasn't.

As if she were reading his mind, she said, "So if I can't be your girlfriend, is that it?" Her words were soft, but clear. And steady, even as she added,

"Does that mean this is over?"

Chase had never been so torn between what he wanted...and what he knew he should do. But she'd just been completely honest with him, despite al the reasons she could have come up with not to trust him.

He owed her the same.

"I should say yes," he final y gritted out against her fingertips. "If I had one single ounce of decency, I would say, yes, it's over." He took her hand in his. "But obviously I'm just as much of a scumbag as any other guy, because the thought of not touching you again, of not kissing you again, of not making love with you again..." His gut clenched tight, as if an invisible fist had gripped it. "I can't even imagine it."

He held her gaze, knowing his was as dark, as heated, as hers. Chase knew he shouldn't keep pressuring her to give him things she wasn't anywhere near ready to give, even as he said, "If the choice is to take what you're offering or to walk away, I choose this. I choose you. I choose whatever you're wil ing to share with me. Even though I'm never going to stop wanting more from you than just awesome sex. Even though I'm always going to want to change your mind."

"Chase, I - "

He put a finger over her lips. "I know you're not ready and I know I shouldn't push you, but damn it, I can't help the way I feel. I can't stop myself from loving you."

Chloe's eyes eyes got big at the word love and a moment later when she scrambled off his lap with sudden, fierce strength, it took everything Chase had to let her go.