“I’m tired of being interrupted,” he whispers. “Can we go inside?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KAYLA
With a nod from me, we’re running up the steps of a different staircase, leading us past the last house in the estate, across front yards, until we reach his doorstep. Chase leans back against the door, pulling me in with a smile. He traces the seam of my lips with his thumb, drawing a shaky breath from me before pushing the door open behind him.
The house is dark, except for the light of the party going on outside. I follow him down the hallway, and he nudges me through the doorway ahead of him. The dim light from a floor lamp fades on as I hear the flip of the light switch. When I turn around, Chase is leaning against the door with his hands behind his back, watching me.
Waiting.
He’s put all his cards on the table several times. This choice—this movement forward—is mine to make. Uncertainty clouds his eyes as I step closer to him.
“I want you, Chase…” I say, pulling out the first words that come to me. That’s all it takes. He reaches me in two steps, our lips colliding as the last of my reservations disappear. Tipping on my toes, I pull him into my mouth deeply while he palms the back of my head. Our tongues twirl in a dance meant just for us, and I’m wondering why I resisted this for so long.Why did I deprive myself of this?We spin around the room, finally landing with him pushed up against the wall. My hands wander under the hem of his shirt, the ripple of muscles smooth against my fingertips.
And then he’s pulling my hands away, holding them at the wrists. “Wait, wait,” he says breathlessly, touching his forehead to mine.
“I thought…” I start to pull away. A thousand paths of doubt swirl through my head as I try to make sense of his sudden halt. I thought he wanted this. I thought he wantedme.
“Don’t…” he says softly. “Don’t run, just…give me a minute. Let me catch my breath. Form some thoughts.” After what feels like forever, head still tipped to mine, he drops my hands and cradles my face, stroking my chin with his thumb. He looks at me, unblinking, and smiles softly. “I want to know you, Kayla.”
I drop my eyes, suddenly feeling a little too bare, too intimate. Wanting someone in a moment of heated passion and wanting to know someone are two vastly different things, and I didn’t account for the latter.
He lifts my chin until our eyes meet again and smiles. “I want to know your favorite things, and your hopes and dreams. I want to know about your family, about your past. I want to know why you look down whenever I say something too direct and what makes you scratch at the side of your thumb. I just…need you to let me in a little bit. Okay?” Bringing my hand to his lips, he kisses my thumb, then my wrist, and looks up expectantly. Watching. Waiting.
“Okay.” My voice is barely a whisper, but the spread of his bright smile rivals the light show beginning in the night sky behind me.
“Let’s watch.” He turns off the lamp and guides me to the bed, right down into his lap. I lean back against his chest, and his arms wrap around me, feeling just as nice as they did on the climbing wall. The French style doors across from us make a perfect frame for the fireworks outside as theboom-crackle-hissfills the silence we’ve fallen into. He nuzzles my neck and breathes me in before kissing my shoulder. “You smell like apple pie…” He chuckles quietly.
“What?” I giggle, shaking my head. “You really are getting rusty.”
“You do. Like vanilla…cinnamon and apples,” he says between the kisses he places up and down the side of my neck. “And butter…”
“I do not!” I snort, twisting to look at him.
Laughing then, he pulls me back against him. “Okay, maybe not that last one.” He laces the fingers of his left hand over the back of mine and plays with my thumb ring.
“Do you always wear this?” Chase whispers.
I nod, temporarily losing my ability to speak as warmth spreads through me at the feeling of his breath on my ear. “It was my great-granny’s. I never take it off.”
“Mmm.” He brushes his lips against my shoulder again, making my breath shudder. Colors explode and sizzle outside the glass doors—red and bright white fading into the dark night sky—and none of it rivals the simmering anticipation here in this room.
“What’s your favorite color?” I ask, realizing there are so many basic things we don’t know about each other. So many things I’ve avoided out of fear.
“Green, like your eyes.” He snuggles into my shoulder, kissing my neck again.
The hair on his face tickles against my skin, and I giggle, shaking my head. “I’m serious. What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue—but light blue. Sky blue,” he says. “What’s yours?”
“Green, like my eyes…” I joke.
He laughs, his chest vibrating against my shoulder as I snuggle in closer. “Makes sense. You look good in green… You look good in blue too.” He brushes his lips over the skinny strap of my light blue dress. “Everything, really…”
Turning my chin with his finger, he tips myface up and kisses me slowly, taking his time like he’s savoring all of it. I break away, spinning in his arms to fully face him, before pressing into his kiss again. Now that I’ve admitted to myself that I like him, now that I’ve kissed him, I can’t get enough. When he finally pulls away, I’m breathless.
“Tell me about your family,” he whispers, brushing his thumb along my jawline.
