All that exists in this world is Chase and me and what he is doing to my body.
While I draw deep breaths, I am vaguely aware of Chase rising to his feet. A moment later, he rips open the foil of a condom. I lean up again watching as he glides it on with ease.
Pulling me to my feet, Chase leads me to a big picture window overlooking the wilderness, with stars shining above the trees. Kissing my neck, he braces my hands on the back of his couch. He lifts one of my legs, so I’m partially kneeling on it.
His palms move over me, cupping my breast, and fingering me again. While I look down at the city, he enters me in one swift motion.
I cry out, reaching my hand over my shoulder to grab his hair.
He thrusts in and out, faster, harder, with a skill I’ve never experienced before. The fronts of his thighs press against the backs of mine.
As my insides begin to quake again, I hear his breaths quicken. He rides me, pushing us both toward the peak of a mountain taller than Denali.
And when I fall over the edge of pleasure again, I cry out. He groans as he thrusts into me one more time.
When the crackling fire’s light fades to soft gold and everything else disappears but our heartbeats and breathing, I stop thinking about the cameras, the polls, the competition.
There’s just us.
And that’s more than enough.
And the warmth of something real beginning to take root.
SEVEN
CHASE
The kitchen smells like caramel and coffee and her.
If I could bottle the morning and keep it forever, I would.
We’re officially closed today—no customers, no noise, no Tricia with a camera. Just me and Katelyn at the counter, sleeves rolled, hair messy, barefoot because she kicked off her shoes an hour ago. The radio hums low; sunlight drips through the window like syrup.
“Okay,” she says, balancing a spoon over the pot, “tell me this isn’t genius: pumpkin-spice cotton candy.”
I arch a brow. “Pretty sure that’s illegal in at least three states.”
“Illegal or brilliant?”
“Both.”
She dips the spoon, twirls, and holds out a strand of spun sugar. I lean forward, taste. It dissolves like sweet smoke on my tongue.
“Fine,” I admit. “Brilliant.”
“Say it louder for the people in the back.”
“Thereareno people in the back.”
“Then say it for me,” she says, smiling.
I do. I say it for her. For us.
We’ve spent half the morning testing ideas we dreamed up sometime between laughter and sleep last night—apple-pie nacho variations, cinnamon-swirl fritters, her idea for a maple-pumpkin latte that will ruin Starbucks for anyone who tastes it. Every time our hands brush reaching for a spice jar, my chest gets tighter.
It’s a good day.
The kind you don’t think about ending.
