Only Pleasure(92)

"If it's all over tomorrow and he asks me to leave, then it will have been worth it, Mom. I hid all this time, not because of Drew, but partly because I can't stay the hell away from Chase any longer."

"He's going to break your heart." Cecilia sighed.

"Probably." Kia's voice was soft. "But at least I'll know, Mom. It won't torment me any longer."

"Knowing could torment you worse."

Kia shook her head at her mother's sympathetic look.

"I don't think it could," she told her. "He's tormented me for years, Mom. Now, I just have to deal with it."

She saw the understanding in her mother's face then, the elemental woman-to-woman communion  ; she understood that Kia could do nothing other than reach out for what completed her. If she managed to live long enough, because it sure as hell looked like someone wanted her dead.

Chase wasn't certain how the hell he managed to survive the hours, too many fucking hours, with an apartment full of people keeping him away from Kia.

He watched her as she helped her mother put together sandwich trays from the food that was delivered. She was still too pale, too fucking wounded.

He would never forget, as long as he lived, the feelings that had swept over him as he realized she was more worried about him than she was about herself.

She had been brutalized in that apartment. Her very existence ripped to shreds and threats sprayed in blood-red letters on her walls, and she had been worried about him.

And then later, hearing her admit she loved him, that she fully expected him to ask her to leave when this was over. Equal parts anger and lust had filled him.

She was wrapping herself around him in ways he knew he was never going to recover from. Because he couldn't imagine letting her out of his life now.

When her parents finally left, leaving them alone in the silence of his home, he turned to her, watching as she stacked the dishwasher, her movements graceful, though she appeared tired.

Hell, she was exhausted. It was nearly midnight. The detective had arrived for her statement, and that had worn her down. Her parents' worry and concern hadn't helped much. Her mother's pleas that she return with them to their home had been even harder on her, Chase thought.

Chase watched as she closed the dishwasher and set it to start before straightening up. Her expression was somber, her eyes still too dark, too filled with fear.

She had changed out of the slacks and sweater she wore upon arriving at the apartment into a lounging set her mother had brought her. The soft, thin black velvet pants and long-sleeved loose black top made her look even paler.

"You're tired, Kia," he told her as she turned and stared back at him quietly. "Let's go to bed." He held his hand out to her.

Kia inhaled slowly. "I think, for tonight at least, I'm sleeping in the guest room."

His brow arched. "Really?"

Kia hadn't exactly started out with that decision. Over the past few hours it had evolved, a knowledge that she was too vulnerable right now, her emotions too close to the surface.

"I really need to get up early and get in to the office. I've been away too long already for a job I only just started again."

"And sleeping with me is going to change that how?" His arms went over his chest and he scowled.

"One has nothing to do with the other." She shrugged and pushed her hands into the pockets of her loose lounging pants.

His eyes narrowed on her. "You're exhausted, Kia. Let's go to sleep. Just sleep. I promise."

He held his hand out to her. She stared at it suspiciously. She felt so off balance, on the verge of tears again, and she didn't want to cry. What she wanted she couldn't allow herself to have tonight. Because giving in to it could very well mean giving in to her need to beg him, just for a little while, to lie to her. To tell her he cared, because, right now, she needed so desperately for him to care.

She was weak. She had always been weak where Chase was involved.

"I need to be alone, Chase," she whispered. "Just for a little while."

Just long enough to convince herself he was doing this, keeping her with him, just to be protective, not because, maybe, he could love her.

"Well, isn't that just too damned bad."

Before she could avoid him he swung her into his arms and he was striding through the open area of the converted warehouse to the bedroom in the back. He stepped into the room, kicked the door closed behind him, and dropped her on the bed.

"That is just so juvenile," she snapped, pushing her hair back from her eyes as she stared up at him.

"Look, dammit, I don't have to fuck you just because you're in my bed," he half snarled. "I know how to sleep with you without it."

"I'm still surprised you know how to sleep with me," she snapped back, her voice rising as she glared up at him. "You're like a damned yo-yo, Chase. How the hell am I supposed to keep up with you?"