"At least you're not gnawing your arm off in your attempt to leave without waking me," she said quietly. "Can you dress any faster, Chase?"
Kia drew the silk sheet over her breasts, surrounded by the smell of Chase and of sex, and watched him solemnly. It wasn't even daylight, and he was already leaving.
She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was barely two, wickedly cold outside, she was certain, and he was rushing to dress and leave before she awoke. Now, wasn't that good for a girl's ego?
"I need to get back to the apartment," he said as he fixed his slacks and adjusted his belt. He tossed his jacket on the end of the bed before moving to her.
"Of course you do." She smiled, rather insincerely she knew, but it was hard to be sincere when she could feel the hurt rising inside her.
He couldn't even spend the night with her, she realized.
"I'll see you soon," he promised.
She stared into his eyes, and read things there she didn't want to see. His desperation to leave, his regret. Regret that he was leaving? Or regret that she had awakened before he could escape her?
"Of course you will." She kept her arm tight over her cheek and refused to let him see the hurt that came with that particular state-merit. "You know, Marcy Stephens bragged quite horribly about the nights you and Cameron spent in her bed. She swears Cameron was the one who escaped moments after his release and you were the one who petted her through the night. She must have managed to get the two of you mixed up."
There was that scar across Cameron's cheek, though. That would have been hard to do.
A frown flitted across his brow.
"Go," she told him softly. "Before it gets much later. I'm sure you have an early meeting or something in the morning."
She could almost see him latching on to the excuse.
"Ian keeps us busy." His voice was soft, not exactly latching on to it, but he wasn't denying it either. "Call me if you need me."
"I will." She would never call him under these circumstances; she would make certain she didn't need him.
She kept her lips from trembling as he leaned closer and gave her a quick kiss before jerking his jacket from the bed and leaving.
Silence filled the apartment after the latch of the door fell and the hollow beep signaling the security reengaged. She pushed the sheet aside and dragged herself from the bed, shivering in the chill of the room as she pulled her heavy robe from the chair on her side of the bed and shrugged it on.
She belted it tightly around her, the heavy material shrouding her from neck to wrists to ankles. It kept her warm when there was nothing else.
She stared around the bedroom and blinked back the tears quickly as her breathing hitched and she fought to hold back the pain.
He wouldn't even spend the night with her.
She pushed her hands into the pockets of the robe before walking slowly into the living room.
The gas logs were still lit, their faint light guiding her way to the couch where she normally slept. She lifted her blanket from the back of the couch, placed her pillow against the arm of the couch, and curled against it.
Behind her, the overstuffed cushions gave her the illusion of warmth, of someone behind her. She stared into the wall of windows and watched the sky. Sometimes she watched the sun rise and pretended those golden rays were warming her as they warmed the earth.
For the past two years, she had only grown colder inside, and lonelier. She had lost something inside herself that she wasn't certain how to find any longer. She had thought it was her courage, but after the past night, she knew it wasn't courage.
It was her ability to trust, to care, until Chase held his hand out to her and told her he wasn't playing games with her. That he wanted her. That he wanted to share her.
Perhaps one of them should have given this nonrelationship a bit more thought, because she could feel it slowly destroying her.
It wasn't the sharing, it was the loss. When Chase walked away, it meant she would awaken alone, dreaming his arms were around her.
That knowledge that there was nothing to hold on to throbbed inside her like a vicious wound. There hadn't been anything to hold on to in far longer than the past two years, and she hadn't even realized it. Until tonight.
As she stared out the windows, she didn't count the minutes or the hours. She stared, and remembered Chase. Touching her, holding her, his eyes locked with hers, her imagined feeling that he was touching not just her body, but her soul.
That she was touching him, that her touch went deeper than his flesh.
She was really quite good at fooling herself, she decided. Because for a few precious moments tonight, she had imagined he felt more for her than desire, more for her than the other women he had taken.
Those women he had spent the night with.