Slow Burn Cowboy(76)

“How?”

“It’s a penis, Chase, not the Sistine Chapel. My life was hardly going to be changed by the sight of it.”

He reached forward, grabbing hold of her arm and drawing her toward him. “Stop,” he bit out, his words hard, his expression focused.

“What are you doing?” she asked, some of her bravado slipping.

“Calling you on your bullshit, Anna.” He lowered his voice, his tone no less deadly. She’d never seen Chase like this. He didn’t get like this. Chase was fun, and light. Well, except for last night when he’d kissed her. But even then, he hadn’t been quite this serious. “I’ve known you for fifteen years. I know when your smile is hiding tears, little girl. I know when you’re a whole mess of feelings behind that brick wall you put up to keep yourself separate from the world. And I sure as hell know when you aren’t fine. So don’t stand there and tell me that it didn’t change anything, that it didn’t mean anything. Even if you gave out BJs every day with lunch—and I know you don’t—that would have still mattered because it’s us. And we don’t do that. It changed something, Anna, and don’t you dare pretend it didn’t.”

No. No. Her brain was screaming again, but this time she knew for sure what it was saying. It was all denial. She didn’t want him to look at her as if he was searching for something, didn’t want him to touch her as if it was only the beginning of something more. Didn’t want him to see her. To see how scared she was. To see how unnerved and affected she was. To see how very, very not brave she was beneath the shield she held up to keep the world out.

He already knows it’s a shield. And you’re already screwed ten ways, because you can’t hide from him and you never could.

He’d let her believe she could. And now he’d changed his mind. For some reason it was all over now. Well, she knew why. It had started with a dress and high heels and ended with an orgasm in her shop. He was right. It had changed things.

And she had a terrible, horrible feeling more was going to change before they could go back to normal.

If they ever could.

“Well,” she said, hearing her voice falter. Pretending she didn’t. “I don’t think anything needs to change.”

“Enough,” he said, his tone fierce.

Then, before she knew what was happening, he’d claimed her lips again in a kiss that ground every other kiss that had come before it into dust, before letting them blow away on the wind.

This was angry. Intense. Hot and hard. And it was happening in her house, in spite of the fact that she was holding a blanket and Oklahoma! was on mute in the background. It was her safe space, with her safe friend, and it was being wholly, utterly invaded.

By him.

It was confronting and uncomfortable and scary as hell. So she responded the only way she could. She got mad, too.

She grabbed hold of the front of his shirt, clinging to him tightly as she kissed him back. As she forced her tongue between his lips, claiming him before he could stake his claim on her.

She shifted, scraping her teeth lightly over his bottom lip before biting down. Hard.

He growled, wrapping his arms around her waist. She never felt small. Ever. She was a tall girl with a broad frame, but she was engulfed by Chase right now. His scent, his strength. He was all hard muscle against her, his heart thundering beneath her hands, which were pinned between their bodies.

She didn’t know what was happening, except that right now, kissing him might be safer than trying to talk to him.

It certainly felt better.

It let her be angry. Let her push back without saying anything. And more than that...he was an amazing kisser. He had taken her from zero to almost-there with one touch of his lips against hers.

He slid his hand down her back, cupping her butt and bringing her up even harder against him so she could feel him. All of him. And just how aroused he was.

He wanted her. Chase wanted her. Yes, he was pissed. Yes, he was...trying to prove a point with his tongue or whatever. But he couldn’t fake a hard-on like that.

She was angry, but it was fading. Being blotted out by the arousal that was crackling in her veins like fireworks.

Suddenly, she found herself being lifted off the ground, before she was set down on the couch, Chase coming down over her, his expression hard, his eyes sharp as he looked down at her.

He pressed his hand over her stomach, pushing the hem of her shirt upward.

She should stop him. She didn’t.

She watched as his strong, masculine hand pushed her shirt out of the way, revealing a wedge of skin. The contrast alone was enough to drive her crazy. Man, woman. Innocuous porcupine pajamas and sex.

Above all else, above anything else, there was Chase. Everything he made her feel. All of the things she had spent years trying not to feel. Years running from.

She couldn’t run. Not now. Not only did she lack the strength, she lacked the desire. Because more than safety, more than sanity, she wanted him. Wanted him naked, over her, under her, in her.

He gripped the hem of her top and wrenched it over her head, the movement sudden, swift. As though he had reached the end of his patience and had no reserve to draw upon. That left her in nothing more than those ridiculous baggy pajama pants, resting low on her hips. She didn’t have anything sexier underneath them, either.

But Chase didn’t look at all disappointed. He didn’t look away, either. Didn’t have a faraway expression on his face. She wasn’t sure why, but she had half expected to look up at him and be able to clearly identify that he was somewhere else in his mind, with someone else. But he was looking at her with a sharp focus, a kind of single-mindedness that no man, no one, had ever looked at her with before.

He knew. He knew who she was. And he was still hot for her. Still hard for her.

“You are so hot,” he said, pressing his hand flat to her stomach and drawing it down slowly, his fingertips teasing the sensitive skin beneath the waistband. “And you don’t even know it, do you?”

Part of her wanted to protest, wanted to fight back, because that was what she did. Instead, everything inside of her just kind of went limp. Melted into a puddle. “N-no.”

“You should know,” he said, his voice low, husky. A shot of whiskey that skated along her nerves, warming her, sending a kick of heat and adrenaline firing through her blood. “You should know how damn sexy you are. You’re the kind of woman who could make a man lose his mind.”

“I could?”

He laughed, but it wasn’t full of humor. It sounded tortured. “I’m exhibit A.”

He shifted his hips forward, his hard length pressing up against that very aroused part of her that wanted more of him. Needed more of him. She gasped. “Soon,” he said, the promise in his words settling a heavy weight in her stomach. Anticipation, terror. Need.

He continued to tease her, his fingertips resting just above the line of her panties, before he began to trail his hand back upward. He rested his palm over her chest, reaching up and tracing her lower lip with his thumb.

She darted her tongue out, sliding the tip of it over his skin, tasting salt, tasting Chase. A flavor that was becoming familiar.

Then she angled her head, taking his thumb into her mouth and sucking hard. His hips arched forward hard, his cock making firm contact, sending a shower of sparks through her body as he did.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said, every word raw, frayed.

“I might say the same about you,” she said, her voice thick, unrecognizable. She didn’t know who she was right now. This creature who was a complete and total slave to sexual sensation. Who was so lost in it, she could feel nothing else. No sense of self-preservation, no fear kicking into gear and letting her know that she needed to put her walls up. That she needed to go on the defense.

She was reduced. She had none of that. And she didn’t even care.

“You’re a miracle,” he said, tracing the line of her collarbone with the tip of his tongue. “A damn miracle, do you know that?”

“What?”

“The other day I told you you didn’t look like a miracle. I was a fool. And I was wrong. Every inch of you is a miracle, Anna Brown.”

Those words were like being submerged in warm water, feeling it flow over every inch of her, a kind of deep, soul-satisfying comfort that she really, really didn’t want. Or rather, she didn’t want to want it. But she did, bad enough that she couldn’t resist.

But it was all a little too heavy. All a little too much. Still, she didn’t have the strength to turn him away.

“Kiss me.”

She said that instead of get the hell out of my house, and instead of we can’t do this, because it was all she had strength for. Because she needed that kiss. And maybe, just maybe, if they didn’t talk, she could make it through.

Chase—gentleman that he was—obliged her.

He angled his head, reaching up to cup her breast as he did, his mouth crashing down on hers just as his palm skimmed her nipple. She gasped, arching up against him, the combination of sensations almost too much to handle.

Yeah, she did not remember sex being like this. Granted, it had been a million years, but she would have remembered if it had come anywhere close to this. And her conclusion most certainly wouldn’t have been that it was vaguely boring and a little bit gross. Not if it had even been in the same ballpark as what she was feeling now.