Chapter 12

Liv

When I get home from my date, I park my car outside Chase’s house and quietly let myself in with the key he gave me.

Chase is sprawled on the couch in a pair of cutoff shorts and a T-shirt, his arm behind his head. Thoroughly relaxed.

He surveys me, a question on his face.

“What?”

“You don’t look very ‘third date.’ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t be coy,” he says. “Third date. You know, the sex date? You don’t look like you’ve had amazing sex.”

I roll my eyes. “There’s no such thing as that look.”

“There is. So, bad date?”

He’s so unbelievably cocky and irritating sometimes. An internal imp—or maybe an instinct for self-preservation—makes me say, “It was really fun.”

Chase’s expression doesn’t change. Which isn’t so surprising, but it still irks me.

“Where’d you go?” he asks.

“We went to see a play. Six Doors. Based on this novel that was super-popular a couple of years ago.”

“Ah, you went to the thea-tah,” he mocks airily, in a pretty damn good upper-crust British accent.

“It was really good.” That’s not a lie. It was a really good play. In fact, there was nothing wrong with the choice of venues, the play itself, the dinner afterward, or Kieran. But there was something wrong with my head. I kept—

I kept leaping ahead, to the part of the evening where I would debrief it with Chase. Then I’d catch myself and remind myself that I was with Kieran. Kieran. I was supposed to be enjoying my time with him, not cataloguing what I’d say about him to another guy, later.

“I’m sure it was delightful,” Chase says “Every girl loves the thea-tah. And din-nah afterwards, right, dahling?”

I smile at that. “Sushi.”

“Sushi. Of course. Takeout?”

I wince. “Yes.”

“At his place?”

Yes, but the last thing I want to do is talk with Chase about what happened at Kieran’s place. For so many reasons.

“None of your business.” I desperately hope that ends this thread of questioning.

“Oho! She got action, ladies and gentlemen!”

I flinch, internally. I shrug, and hope my face doesn’t give me away.

“Was it all you wanted and more?”

“It was—”

I look up and see his face. Corner-to-corner smirk. Somehow, I have no idea how, he knows it wasn’t a success.

For a moment, I teeter between hating him for mocking me and loving him for knowing, without my having to say it, that the date was a disappointment.

“I bet Kieran’s one and only flaw is that he’s a terrible kisser.”

Now I want to kill him.

Because he’s smug. And smirking. And because, of course, he’s right.

While Kieran is not a terrible kisser, he’s not a great one, either.

Or maybe we didn’t have the right kissing chemistry. I’m not sure. All I know is that during our two make-out sessions, I was unable to stop noticing everything. I mean, everything. Everything that was wrong with it (teeth clashing, tongue poking, that weird sipping thing he was doing) and everything I wished it were that it wasn’t (rocking my world, making me want more).

After a while, I had to tell Kieran the truth. That I didn’t think it was going to happen.

Not tonight? he’d asked.

I winced.

Oh. You mean, not ever.

As breakups go, it was bloodless. He was a good sport about it, further reinforcing my conviction that he should find someone who can appreciate him.

Chase is staring at me like he can see my thoughts, which is a disconcerting idea. “What?”

“Why do you go out with these guys you aren’t even really into?”

I’m about to snap back at him, but let’s face it, I said something pretty similar to him last night.

“Seriously, Liv, the only difference between me and you is that you string the guys along for a couple of weeks or months before you bail out.”

Oh, now wait a second. Them’s fighting words. “I don’t string anyone along.”

“You kinda do, though. I mean, you deliberately pick these great-on-paper guys that don’t do anything for you.”

I know it’s crazy, I know I should keep my mouth shut, but he’s really pissing me off. I cross my arms. “How do you know Kieran doesn’t do it for me?”

He levers himself off the couch, and my mouth goes dry.

My heart starts pounding at the look in his eyes—slow-burning and intense.

I instinctively take a step back. Because—well, a million things. Because if he’s about to do what I think he’s about to do, it would be a mess and a disaster. It would ruin our friendship and confuse everything and I don’t, can’t, want to like him the way I think I might like him—

“So Kieran ‘does it for you,’ ” Chase says slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.

I’m frozen in place, pinned by the heavy-lidded look.

“So when he gets close, you feel this?”

He does. Get close, I mean. His body is not quite touching mine, but it might as well be, because he’s brought every hair to attention, every nerve screaming to life.

“F-f-feel what?” I squeak. Even though I know exactly what he means. He’s talking about the heat that’s filled up all the available space in the room, all the emptiness in my body. That rich, melting sensation that has invaded me. The sweet swirl low in my belly, pulling me toward him.

He’s so close. All I’d have to do is tip my face up and lean in a fraction and we’d be kissing.

That thought sends a surge of heat across my chest and face and makes my legs wobbly.

His eyes on my face flash satisfaction. He saw me blush. “Well?” he demands. “Is this what it feels like?”

I’m frozen. I can’t speak.

“Yeah.” His smirk is gone. His eyes are dark and hot. “That’s what I thought.”

He wraps his hands in my hair. I feel the tug not only on my scalp but also in my nipples and between my legs. Despite my best intentions, I make a sound. Pretty sure it qualifies as a whimper.

You know how everything slows down during a dramatic event, like a car crash?

Yeah. That’s this kiss. I see it coming so far off, and I’m, like, forming words in slow motion. Nooooooo! Dooooon’t dooooo it! Not sure if I’m addressing this warning to him or myself, but neither of us is listening because I’m also trying to process the flood of sensation that being this close to him brings. My breasts tighten and my nipples pinch as the solid planes of his chest collide with me, and my mouth waters at the sharp smell of soap and the lemongrass-evergreen-wood-smoke scent of deodorant or cologne or whatever it is that makes him smell so damn good. And his skin itself. That scent doesn’t have a name, only an effect—like the last sigh you breathe out before you relax your body completely in bed, in total surrender.

And yes, that’s what I do: I give in, I give myself up. His mouth floats down to mine and settles softly but with total certainty, and I hear his sigh of satisfaction, and then I am lost to his lips, warm and commanding, and his tongue, which strokes into my mouth before I’m aware of opening it.

His hands leave my hair to map my waist and hips, and before I can stop him, curve around and cup my behind and tug me up against him.

Wow.

That is a lot of Chase.

Chase has alluded a few times to the extent of his Chase-ness, but this is proof, and I definitely whimper.

Which makes him groan.

That’s when my body really goes into overdrive. Because, whatever, I knew Chase was hot. I strongly suspected he could kiss a woman into stupidity.

But what I wasn’t expecting was how good it would feel to make Chase lose control.

Too good. Way too good.

I take a step back. And then another. And as I do—as the space between us widens and clarity returns to my fogged brain—I panic.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I—don’t—I don’t know.” He sounds genuinely uncertain.

“Are you just trying to prove a point?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Well, whatever it is, quit it.”

His head comes up, and his brows draw together. “I’m right, though, Liv. You have to admit that.”

“Right about what?”

“Tell me it didn’t feel…” He hesitates. “So fucking good.”

His words shimmy down my insides, lighting me up. I come so damn close to getting sucked back in—to the heat in his eyes and the magnetic pull coming off his bare skin.

Instead, I say, as calmly as I can, “Chase?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going upstairs. And this?”

“Yeah?”

“None of this happened.”

And I walk away.