Chapter Seven

As Chloe threaded her fingers through his hair and pul ed his face down to hers, it took every ounce of control Chase possessed to keep his hands on the rail.

But when her lips touched his, just a whisper of a kiss...his control was lost.

He wanted to touch her everywhere at once, but it was a straight shot from the rail to her lower back and the curve of her hips.

Her mouth was so soft, so damn sweet, as she pressed one kiss after another against his lips. If he could, he would have prolonged the gentle exploration. But he'd been waiting too damn long for this kiss. Running one hand up her spine, he cupped the back of her neck and held her captive beneath him while he tasted her.

She gasped against his mouth, and somewhere in the back of his head he started to wonder if he was hurting her. And then he felt it: Her tongue coming out to stroke against his.

Jesus, he'd thought about this moment a thousand times in the past twenty-four hours, but nothing he'd come up with, nothing he'd envisioned in his fantasies, even came close to the reality of how soft, how sweet, how sensual kissing Chloe real y was.

Chase had always loved kissing. To his surprise, most women liked to rush past that part of their sensual dance. But as far as he was concerned, a kiss could be just as good as ful -blown sex.

Better, even.

Especial y when he was kissing Chloe.

He could spend hours on her mouth and, judging by the way she was kissing him back, he had a feeling she would be up for exactly that.

Slowly stroking his tongue against hers, he reveled in the taste of her, the feel of her, the little moans of pleasure she was making as they connected so intimately. Pul ing back slightly, he gently sucked her lower lip in between his teeth for a nip, being sure to give her upper lip the same treatment.

And then their tongues were back at it until she did the same to his mouth, tasting, taking, nipping, biting his flesh so perfectly.

"Chloe." He groaned her name against her lips and she licked across his before looking at him, flushed and lovely and awash with desire.

"I've never been kissed like that before."

The innocence of her words, the look on her face - like she'd just experienced heaven - had him taking her lips again. Devouring them.

Chase didn't have any idea how long they kissed like a man and a woman who were starving for each other, but al the while he was intensely aware of the soft press of her br**sts against his chest, her ni**les peaked and aroused, along with the sexy curve of her h*ps where he was holding her against him. He was torn between continuing to kiss her and tasting his way down her incredible body.

Just then she shifted slightly in his arms, pressing her br**sts and h*ps even closer into him, and the decision was taken away from him.

He'd been blessed enough to see her beautiful na**d skin when he'd walked in on her in the bathtub the previous evening. But he hadn't been able to touch her. He hadn't been able to run his tongue over her. He hadn't been able to kiss every dip and curve.

Now, he could have al that.

Chase began to run kisses over her face, across her cheekbones, over her chin, down to her neck. He licked into the hol ow of her col arbones and felt her weight come more firmly against him, as if she could barely hold herself up.

Chase had learned early on how to elicit a sensual response from women and he'd always enjoyed their pleasure as much as his own. But Chloe's response - and his need for her - was different from that of any other woman he'd been with.

He ran his tongue over her skin again and the softly desperate sound she made had him moving his hand from where he'd been cupping her neck down to a thin, silky strap on her shoulder. She was soft, so damn soft that he almost lost the thread of what he was doing, but then she took a deep, shaking breath, her br**sts moving against his chest, swel ing up beneath the top of her dress.

And he remembered exactly why he needed to slide the strap off her lovely skin.

A picture of her br**sts - water from the bathtub beading and sliding over her soft flesh - was forever imprinted on his brain. And now that he was just seconds away from touching, tasting them, Chase could barely get his hands to work right.

He needed to get the straps off.

And then, silk was sliding down over her shoulders and he didn't even need to give her dress a yank, because Chloe was two steps ahead of him, lifting her arms from the confines of her dress and shimmying her upper body so that the bodice slipped one inch, and then another, and then one more stil , until -  holy hell, he'd never desired anyone this much - her ni**les popped out from beneath the thin fabric.

Chase froze as he drank her in. Her br**sts were perfect, ful and round, beautiful y natural in the way they lay against her chest.

And her ni**les were cherry red, just like her sweet mouth, and tipped up to him with desire.

Final y coming unstuck, but stil utterly mesmerized, his hands warred with his mouth for the pleasure of being the first to touch her.

His hands won by a hair as he reached out to cup her breasts.

"Oh God. Chase."

He tore his gaze away from her breasts, from the contrast of her pale skin against his tanned fingers, to see that she was staring intently at exactly the same thing. Her eyes lifted to his a moment later and the look in them had him dropping his mouth to hers again, her br**sts stil in his hands.

Their kiss took on a different sheen this time, the desperation for each other kicking up another notch. Chloe was rubbing her br**sts harder against his hands, almost as if she were begging for something.

For more.

"Watch, Chloe." Pul ing back from her mouth, he trained his gaze back on her br**sts as he ran his thumbs over her nipples. "Look how responsive you are to my touch."

She whimpered as he caressed the taut flesh again, harder this time, and then again. Her skin puckered beneath his thumb.

"Please."

He barely heard her request, the sound more a breath than a word, but he needed the exact same thing she did.

Chase bent his head down and she arched her back to make herself more available to him. In one smooth motion, he laved his tongue over her nipple. A part of him wanted to spend the rest of his time there, with his tongue on her breasts, running it across every inch of her soft skin, over both peaks.

But his lips, his teeth, had other ideas, and it was barely a moment later that he was closing his mouth down over her nipple, swirling his tongue over her even as his teeth lightly scraped the rigid flesh.

She made a soft moan, then, that had him throbbing dangerously in his jeans.

There was nothing feigned about her response. Chloe was pure sensuality, just as he'd known she would be. He'd watched her come in the bathtub, and yet, being a part of that pleasure tonight, being the reason she was drowning in desire, put what he'd been feeling for her in another stratosphere entirely.

They'd talked about being friends - she'd told him how much she needed that - but he'd spent the last twenty-four hours in a constant state of arousal for her, and he couldn't stop himself from bunching her skirt up his hands and running one hand up her bare thigh.

Turning his attention to her other breast, his mouth closed down over the peak just as his fingers found her panties, damp with arousal.

"Yes," she gasped as he tugged on her breast with his lips, moving his hand up over her pu**y so that he could slide in beneath the thin fabric.

He needed to touch her slick flesh, needed to be inside of her some way, somehow, right this f**king second.

Worries, concerns, reservations - they al flew out the window as he slid his fingers down and found her slick, na**d folds. She was practical y bucking in his arms, arching into his mouth, widening her legs to give him better access to every part of her. He could feel how plump, how wet she was, and nothing could have stopped him from moving past the hard nub of her clit, down between her labia, until he'd slid a finger into her, slow and deep.

Her inner muscles clamped around him, once, then twice, and he realized she was going to come just like this, with nothing more than his mouth on her breasts, and his finger inside her clenching heat.

She was tight, so tight that he'd felt his finger stretching her flesh as he'd entered her, and the thought occurred to him that he might be hurting her.

But then she began moving in slow circles on his hand, the heel of his palm bumping up against her clit, his finger driving in deeper with every thrust, and it was pure instinct to slide out of her and push a second finger in before she could catch her breath.

Moments later, Chloe was crying out and her muscles were clamping down on him in a beautiful, out-of-control rhythm, a living, breathing orgasm beneath his mouth and hands.

Her cl**ax seemed to go on forever, from one peak to the next, and Chase felt like the luckiest guy on the planet. He wanted to do nothing from here on out but make her come. Watch her come.

Listen to her come.

He'd give up everything for her, if he had to. And it would al be worth it, just to be witness to such overarching, al -consuming pleasure.

He'd noticed how beautiful y she came in the bathtub the night before, but it was nothing like experiencing it first-hand.

Amazingly, when she final y settled back down in his arms, instead of being sated, she looked up at him and said, "Please, Chase. More. I need more."

He knew just what she was asking for - she wanted him to take her, right then and there on his brother's porch in the middle of the vines.

Chase had never wanted anything so bad.

Only, when she'd been asking for more, her words had slurred together. Just the slightest bit.

But he heard it.

Worse, her eyes were unfocused. Blurry. And not just because of her orgasm.

Chase didn't want to have to ask himself if she was drunk, if she wasn't total y in control of what she was doing with him out on his brother's porch.

He wanted to believe that the slurring had everything to do with how good he was making her feel and not the number of times her wineglass had been refil ed. He could do anything he wanted to her right now, turn her around on the balcony so that her ass was pressed up against his groin while he lifted her skirt and pul ed down her panties. He could fil his hands with the perfect, heavy weight of her br**sts while he slid into her from behind. And both of them could get what they desperately needed.

But, damn it, he just couldn't do it.

Not when he knew he'd never - ever - be able to live with himself if this went even further and Chloe woke up in the morning not knowing what she'd done.

He couldn't be one more man to take something away from her.

Fuck.

He needed to stop this. Now.

Not wanting to startle her, he slowly moved his hand from between her legs, letting the dress fal back down. A moment later he was pul ing up the bodice, covering up br**sts that he would kil to taste again.

"What are you doing? Why are you stopping?"

"I think it's time to get you home to bed."

Her mouth moved into a sensual pout. "I'm not tired, Chase. Not yet."

Sweet Lord, it was hard not to take another kiss from that mouth. Even harder not to rip off her dress and take her right there on the wood-plank decking.

"You're lovely, Chloe, so damned lovely, but I can't take advantage of you like this."

The pout turned stubborn. "You're not taking advantage of me. I'm the one who kissed you, remember?"

This was even harder than he'd thought it would be. Because the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her feelings. He didn't want her to think he didn't desire her like crazy.

"I want this more than you can imagine, but I need you to be completely with me."

"I was with you." She lifted her mouth back to his, whispering, "I'm stil with you," against his lips.

"No, sweetheart." He dragged his mouth away from hers. "I don't want you to look back at this tomorrow morning and hate me because I took advantage of you when you were drunk."

"I'm not drunk!"

"You're not completely sober, either," he made himself say in a gentle voice.

She looked crushed. Completely crushed.

Hating it, Chase said, "You don't know how hard this is for me to do."

Her steps were mostly steady as she turned and began to walk away from him, but every now and then she seemed to catch and right herself on her heels.

Chase knew he was right to have done what he did.

But it didn't make him feel any better. Not because his c**k was stil throbbing, painful y, behind his zipper. But because he could feel Chloe's hurt and embarrassment radiating from her during the silent walk back to the guest house.

She didn't so much as look at him as she waited for him to open the front door. Even though he was desperate to reach for her, to pul her against him, he let her walk past.

"We'l talk in the morning."

She stopped, then, looking at him over her shoulder for a moment. Her bright eyes were dul ed now. Without saying a word, she walked into her bedroom and closed the door with a soft click.

And as he got into an ice-cold shower and took his shaft in hand, even as he focused on the mental picture of her br**sts in his hands, even as he remembered the taste of her ni**les on his tongue, and the feel of her aroused, slick flesh pushing and squeezing against his fingers, Chase couldn't stop wondering when the hel honor had become his goddamned duty in life.

What the f**k was wrong with him?

He'd had a warm, wet, and wil ing woman in his arms just minutes ago.

And he'd walked away from her.