Chase lifted her luscious body into his arms and carried her to his car. He fastened her seatbelt as she breathed his name. "Chase?"
He pulled back, thinking she was awake, but her eyes were still shut. "Yes, Lovely, I'm here." She sighed, reaching up to his face, and pulled him closer. His heart was pounding as she brushed her lips across his cheek to just below his ear and inhaled deeply. Her hand fell, and she turned her head to rest against the seat. After leaning against the car for a few minutes to calm down and put his thoughts back together, Chase drove to the dorm area.
When he carried her into the dorm, he had to enthrall a group of females so he wouldn't be seen. No males were permitted in the dorms at night. Her room number was on the key he'd fished out of her pocket. Once inside her room he saw a note on her bed. Chase laid her down and picked up the note.
BE SAFE! I'll be back tomorrow afternoon.
He spied a box of condoms on the bed, and his blood boiled. She was being left alone to have sex with a guy who didn't even care enough to see her home safely. Be safe? What a joke! Chase struggled to understand why he felt so possessive and protective of Danielle. She made him crazed. He'd never been territorial like he was around her, and she wasn't even his friend, much less a girlfriend. He decided to leave her there and do his best to move on. He'd done his good deed for the year and it was time to go. She must have loved the guy who'd left her that night. He shook his head and went for the door.
She stirred on the bed. "I'm too hot," she whispered and began to disrobe. Before he knew it, she had her shirt off and was in the process of shimmying out of her jeans. She sniffed the air. "Chase, where'd you go?"
"I'm here, Lovely." Maybe he could just stay a little while to be sure she was well. Yeah, that was it. He wasn't making an excuse to stay near her. No, he was just staying until he was sure she wasn't going to be sick. He shut the door and locked it.
A sliver of moonlight spilled from the window across her body, revealing the perfect peaches-and-cream skin of her abdomen and her black panties. She weakly patted the bed next to her in an irresistible invitation.
Chase climbed in next to the delicious heat he'd been craving for weeks. She nuzzled in closer to his chest, and he wrapped his arm around the sweet curve of her hip. He brushed the hair out of her face and took the opportunity to freely absorb her perfect features. This was the face that haunted his dreams.
She opened her eyes and leveled him with the full force of her ice-blue gaze, combined with her skin against him, and the scent of vanilla and lavender. She turned her head, brushing his cheek with her soft lips, and told him, "I can smell you. You smell like happiness and sunshine."
The smile that crossed his face threatened to crack it. She was perfection, and knowing the attraction was mutual made him feel a little less insane. Chase didn't moon over females. He got what he needed, whether that was blood, sex, or a combination of the two, and he moved on. He didn't obsess and he never begged. He didn't have to, but something about this female made the blood drain from his head and gather in his rod every time he thought of her. Her rejection still stung, but at least he knew she was thinking of him as well.
"Why did you do that?" she spoke with her lips near his ear, sending chills over his skin.
"What did I do, Lovely?" He tensed, hoping he hadn't somehow offended her. She'd invited him into her bed, after all. Christ, if this little contact offended her, she'd be horrified by what he really wanted to do to her.
"You make me think of you, dream of you. Why?" she asked with a furrow in her lovely brow. It seemed her drunken mind wanted to speak a sober tongue, as the saying went.
"I've been dreaming of you also, my Lovely. Every minute of every day, since the first night I found you," he admitted. He couldn't take it anymore. He turned his face to find her lips, soft as petals. She kissed him back so sweetly, stroking him with her little pink tongue. He feared he would lose his heart right there in her arms. He ran the back of his hand down the bare skin of her side and further down past her lace panties. The waves of goose bumps rising and falling on her tender flesh made him want to follow them with his mouth.
"Do you want me, Chase?" she whispered around wet kisses.
Chase's mind swam with the thought of having all of her, but he wouldn't do that tonight. She was drunk, and he couldn't violate her trust that way. He'd taken too much from her that night. He already invaded her private thoughts, and she likely wouldn't remember it. "I do, Danielle, but I don't think this is the best night."
She giggled and threw her leg up over his hip.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
She was quiet for a moment. "I like hearing you say my name." She sobered. "You're not the first to turn me down."
"What is that supposed to mean?" He wasn't turning her down. He just needed to wait for her to be there with him mentally before he crossed that line. Who in his right mind had turned her down?
She rolled the rest of the way to straddle him and laid her face against his neck. It was not in a sexual way, but affectionate. "Lucas never wanted me either. I thought boys were supposed to be horny. Two years together, he never wanted me, not really. I feel like such an idiot for begging him to show me love." She sighed deeply and slurred, "There must be something wrong with me. Something is definitely wrong with me."
Chase's breath caught in his throat. The most alluring creature he'd ever laid eyes on had to beg for attention? How could the other male not want her every minute of every day?
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with you, Lovely, nothing at all." She snorted disbelievingly. He didn't argue the point. She drifted off to sleep, and he held her all night. He watched her breathe and played with the streaks in her hair. He daydreamed about what they could have together. He inhaled her seductive scent and eventually relaxed enough to fall asleep himself.
Chase woke in the morning to the sound of the door slamming. He jumped up to find Danielle's friend scowling at him.
"What did you do to her?" Olivia shouted.
"What? Where is she?" Chase was confused, and his Lovely was nowhere in sight.
"I don't know. She called me crying and said she had to go away for a few days. That I shouldn't worry about her. She said I should ask you to leave, before Lucas comes looking for her."
"How long ago was that?" Chase jumped up and picked his shirt up off the floor.
"Fifteen minutes ago, maybe," Olivia snapped.
Chase took off out of the room and ran smack into a large, blond wall at the door.
Olivia called from behind him, "Lucas, what happened to you last night?"
Chase realized he was eye to eye with the competition, and shock floored him. This was the male she'd referred to not wanting her the night before. Lucas was the reason she'd rejected him. He was the boyfriend waiting for her at home … and he was human.
Lucas moved first, having no idea Chase had spent the evening with Danielle. Stepping around the offending human, Chase followed Danielle's scent down the stairs and out the front door, wishing he could move at full speed, but there were too many witnesses. Her scent led him to the other end of the courtyard and into another dorm. She'd entered a male dorm building. He stalked up the stairs, still following the vanilla trail, until he reached the door where she had entered.
He could hear her crying inside as a male voice consoled her. Then she gasped and whispered, "He's here, Jared. Tell him I'm not here." She retreated into the bathroom.
"Who is here? What are you talking about?" Jared asked through the bathroom door.
"I can smell him. Tell him I'm not here," she whispered.
"Smell him?" Jared was confused.
"Just open the damn door," she hissed.
Chase stood there, trying to decide if he should force his way in or obey her wishes. The door opened to yet another blond human male. It was beginning to piss him off.
"I want to speak to Danielle," Chase told Jared, and he put a touch of mental compulsion behind the request.
Jared stepped out of the way in a daze.
Chase entered the room and grabbed a pen and paper from the desk to scribble on. He entered the bathroom and found Danielle curled up in the dry bathtub, crying. He leaned over to kiss her forehead.
"Please call me when you're ready to talk. I'm sorry if I offended you. Nothing happened between us last night, Lovely. I swear. Please don't be angry with me. I just wanted to protect you." Then he walked away, leaving his cell number behind. He wanted to scoop her up and carry her home with him. He wanted to be the guy she turned down other males for, but she didn't want to see him and his pride wouldn't allow him to stay.