Chase
Kat’s body is stretched across the loveseat in my living room. One knee bends along the back of the couch, and the other lies straight out in front of her. The blood-red toes on her left foot bop along to the musical interlude of whatever crap is on the television in front of her, but she’s not watching it. Instead, she’s staring intently at her phone as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
It’s not. The person holding it is.
The word Sassy written in shining pink glitter extends across her braless chest. If I look close enough, I can just make out the dark pink circles of each nipple beneath the thin white fabric. I love it when she’s like this. A face as fresh and plain as the morning, her hair in a ponytail at the crown of her head. When she’s with me, she takes off the mask she wears for everyone else’s benefit. The version of her that’s meticulously put together.
That’s not my Kat. No, the girl I get is sloppy and silly. She dances in her bare feet while rapping the wrong words to Eminem. She packs me leftovers for lunch with notes inside, combs my grandma’s hair, and paints her nails. The delicate side she hides from sight shows in full, vibrant color whenever we’re alone. Within these walls, she allows herself the courage to break.
She grew on me like a fungus then blossomed into a flower before my very eyes. That’s the Kat I’m crazy about. The one reserved only for me.
We settled into this routine. This perfect co-living situation that fit together so seamlessly, I can’t imagine a time when she wasn’t here. She brought color to a home that was lifeless and drab, and reason to life that had none.
Without looking up, she lifts her feet, allows me to sit, and then places them over my lap. I watch her scan the small screen, the lighted background shining against her dark brown irises. Every few seconds, she swipes to the left. “What are you doing?”
“Just messing around online.”
I lean in just in time to see her swipe again. “Are you on a dating site?” The contempt in my voice is hard to hide. Kat and I have spent every moment together, pretty much, since the day we met. The idea that she’ll eventually end up dating someone never crossed my mind.
“It’s just Tinder.”
“You really feel like you’re ready to start dating again?” Panic sits on my heart, stabbing at the meshy membrane with a dull fork. The thought of her even looking at another man makes me wants to go on a jealous rampage. She’s been living in my house for the past five weeks, crawling into my bed when she can’t fall asleep. Kat’s mine. Whether she knows it or not.
“Dating?” She pulls her hair down, and all of mine stand up. The faintest hint of juicy, ripened fruit wafts into my nostrils. Why couldn’t she smell like powder or flowers? Anything other than apples. Because of Kat, the mere thought of a Granny Smith stiffens my cock to an agonizing mass. If I don’t do something about this soon, I’m going to spend the rest of my life in analysis. “No. I’m just looking for a little release.”
I raise an eyebrow, watching her feverish swiping continue. “You’re looking for a booty call.”
Her gaze leaves her phone and locks on mine. “Not everyone’s a sex camel like you are, Chase. I can’t just store it in my lady humps and feed off it in tiny increments.”
“I’m not a sex camel.”
“You’re right. You’re more a like sexual terrorist. My coochie has been on the no-fly list since the day I met you, and right now, it just needs a little extra mileage. I’m not looking for anything more than that. So,” —she lifts her phone and waggles it back and forth— “Tinder.”
The corners of my mouth turn down. I focus on the television, pretending to watch the Kardashians fight when really, I’m imagining what it would be like to drag Kat into my room caveman-style and lock her away. I’m a selfish prick. I can’t have her, but I don’t want anyone else to have her either.
“Should I get my lips done?” From the corner of my eye, I see her pressing her fingertips against her puckered mouth as she watches the TV alongside me. “I want Khloe Kardashian lips.”
“Your lips are fine.”
“Word to the wise, Chase. Never tell a woman she’s fine. Fine is the kiss of death.”
I turn to look at her. Your lips are perfect. Two plump little pillows that would feel incredible sliding over my erection. “There’s not a thing about you I’d change.”
“You’re biased because you’re my friend.”
I just know what I like. “Scout’s honor.”
She rolls her eyes and looks back down at her phone. Swipe . . . swipe . . . swipe . . . all to the left. Then one to the right. My heart sinks.
“You right swiped.”
“Ew, are you watching me? Creeper alert!”
I hold out my hand. “Let me see.”
“No.”
“Come on! Show me!” I reach out to grab the phone, but she jerks her arm back.
“No way, Jose!” That innocent giggle wraps itself around my heart and travels to my dick in an instant. My laugh. My girl. Fuck Tinder.
Gobs of hysteric cackling erupt from her chest when I squeeze her knee with my fingers. She squirms and writhes, attempting to tear my grip from her leg. My free hand moves to her stomach. The phone falls to the floor and bounces across the carpet, long forgotten.
When I shift to my knee in an attempt to avoid a karate kick to the face, her arms shoot up and grasp my shirt, pulling me down against her.
Frantic breath beats against my lips, her eyes wild with passion and fire. Face to face, her body trembles. Raven strands of hair stick to her mouth. I run my fingers down her cheek and slip them behind her ear. Those lips. Those fucking amazing lips are so close to mine I can almost taste them.
So close . . .
The first taste is everything. From this moment on, I’ll be jonesing for the rush. The softness of her initial gasp and the feeling of her chest as it swells then recedes slowly. It’s a high that can never be replicated, not in a thousand kisses after, but the addict in me will never stop chasing it.
A low growl rumbles in my chest. I fall into the moment, tongue-fucking her mouth with possessive hunger. The kind that steals and begs and burns full cities to the ground. Every whimper, every moan belongs to me. It’s my prize, and I refuse to deny myself any longer.
I want this.
I want her.
My fingertips graze along her side and travel the length of the smooth leg wrapped around my hip. Another groan echoes between us the minute my throbbing erection comes into contact with the heated seam between her thighs.
“Chase.” Her breathless whisper floats into my unyielding mouth. “Chase. We shouldn’t do this.”
It throws ice water into my burning libido. Tidal waves of guilt and embarrassment flood my insides. What the hell am I doing? I underestimated my feelings for her. The second my lips touched hers, all rational thought left my brain, and the only thing I could think about was making her mine.
I sit up on my haunches, looking down into liquid brown eyes and parted puffy lips. The rhythmic pulse in her neck matches the violent thrashing inside my chest. She felt it, too. The connection. The destructive eruption that exploded the second our mouths touched. It burst on our tongues like vinegar and baking soda. That’s what we are. Two people who are perfectly average on their own yet become volatile the minute they come together.
She felt it, and it terrifies her.
I watch her scurry to her room, dragging my heart behind her as she goes. She stops at the door and peers back down the hall, her dark gaze burning with reignited passion. Energy floats from her heated stare. It pulls me off the couch as she disappears through the doorway.
“Kat.” A slice of light from the hall filters into her blackened bedroom, casting my shadow on her floor. It cuts across her face, highlighting nothing but her almond eyes and a flowing swatch of purple hair turned blue in the dim surroundings. “The thought of you looking at other guys bothered me. I didn’t like it.”
“I was just looking.”
“It still bothers me,” I admit, sucking my lip ring into my mouth. Tell her how you feel. Tell her that you need to know what the rest of her tastes like. That you’re so fucking hungry for it, you can’t think of anything else but devouring her every time you see her. That the thought of anyone else touching her makes you so blind with jealousy you don’t even know who you are anymore. “If all you need is to get off, I could get you off.”
“Don’t mock me, Chase. It’s not nice.”
I step farther into the room. “I wouldn’t dare. I just . . .”—want you so bad it envelops every last piece of my soul— “don’t want you to get hurt. Do you trust me?”
“With everything I am.” Her voice is low and breathy, a hint of held back tears cracking her statement.
Blackness engulfs her smoldering gaze as I close the door, blanketing us both in pitch black before joining her on the bed. I don’t need to see her. I know her body by heart. Every dip and curve I’ve studied from afar. My hands know just where to go.
Dropping my lips to hers, I use my tongue to coax them open. Her body rocks beneath me, hips shimmying up to meet mine. I dip my pointer into the scrap of fabric she calls shorts. A whimper lodges in her chest as I glide across her stomach then pull them down her legs.
I run my fingertip across her smooth, damp entrance, teasing the tender folds before shoving into the wet heat that awaits. Her moan fills my mouth. She pushes her pelvis against my hand, her body opening for me like a flower greeting the dawn.
Her fervent whimpers grow feverish. I pump harder, faster, each time sliding them up to circle her swollen clit before sliding back in. She’s teetering on the edge. I hear it in her breathy moans and feel it in the quivering muscles squeezing taut, but she’s holding it in.
Breaking from her mouth, I dive between her legs, pulling her tender flesh between my lips. She tastes like sugar and sin. An intoxicating blend of pretty poison seeping into my blood. A heady flavor that’s slowly becoming my favorite addiction.
Her body tightens like a fist. My cock pulses with anticipation, begging to plunge into the warm, wet hole constricting around my fingers, but this isn’t about me. It’s about her. Kat’s divine pleasure, and my intense need to be the one to provide it.
Hot and wet, she rides my face, desperately clawing my scalp. It hurts like hell, but I refuse to stop. Not until my name stutters from her lips and that sweet honey drips across my tongue. I savor it, relish it. Every mewl, every whimper is mine to keep, and there’s no way I’m letting up. I’ve come too far to turn back now.
“Come for me, Kat,” I mumble against her, latching onto her throbbing bud. I tease it, tongue it, suck it into my mouth as her thighs slowly lock around my head.
“Oh, God . . . oh, Chase . . . oh, God . . .” Her words clip in a mewling chant that further drives my desire to please. A keening wail rips from her throat. She crumples in my hands, falling to dust like shattered glass.
I rise to my knees, her trembling legs falling limp on either side. “Night, Kat,” I tell her, untangling myself from her limbs.
“Don’t go.” She sits up next to me, her sweet breath fluttering against my cheek. “I don’t want you to leave yet.”
In the dark, I hear the rustling of clothes just before she runs her hands under my tee and lifts it over my head. I suck in a sharp breath as she fumbles with the string on my ancient pajama pants. My erection springs up, thick and ready. The breath I was holding trickles out slowly as her eager fingers play across the shaft and dawdle on the dolphin piercing hidden on the underside. “Does this hurt?” she asks, tugging on the ball just under the head.
Embers flare, glowing balls of burning flames blazing their way under my skin. Just like she has. “No,” I hiss, tipping my head back as her tongue suddenly runs up the side without warning.
I almost lose it right then and there. The soft slide of her tongue glides over each pulsing ridge, driving me insane. I want to twist my fingers in the silken tufts of hair tickling my skin and thrust my hips hard against her mouth, but I leave them balled in the comforter, trying my damnedest not to blow down her throat the instant she takes me in her mouth.
“Fuckin’ A, Kat,” I groan as she swallows me down, flattening her tongue against the tiny hunks of metal as she comes back up for air. The heat. My God, the heat wrapped around me is intoxicating. I’m drunk on the feeling of her mouth and the soft sounds she makes in her throat when she sucks me in deeper than before.
I lift her chin, sliding myself from her pillow plump lips, imagining how fucking sexy they look right now, puffy and pink, rife with saliva. They crash into mine, knocking me to my back as she grinds down on the base of my cock.
A little oral is one thing, but fucking her isn’t something I’m prepared for. “Please tell me you’re on the pill.”
“Of course I am,” she simpers, scratching her fingernails from base to tip. “And my doctor gave me a clean bill of health.”
That wicked tongue glides up the side of my neck as she slides down my aching cock, and I’m done. Drowning in a scalding sea of liquid heat. She splays her palms flat on my chest with a series of whimpers as she swivels her hips. I love that sound. The satisfied moans a woman eeks out the minute your body invades hers. It’s a symphony of the senses, a private concert just for me.
I let myself go. Forgetting my bullshit, ignoring the shouting voice of doubt blathering in my ear. The only things I concentrate on are Kat’s lilting screams of pleasure and the turbulent waves of her orgasm crashing down around me.
A growl rumbles from deep within me, and the animal hiding inside claws its way to the surface. I tighten my arms around her and slam her back to the mattress. A surprised gasp shoots from Kat’s lungs, and my own moans reply, raspy and rough. I pull her against me, breathing in her apple fragrance, taking her into my lungs the same way I drive into her body. With thirst, with power, with primal need. My muscles tense, and my shoulders and back grow firm and rigid as I come hard inside her.
We collapse, sweat-slicked bodies sticking together, a tangled mass of limbs and lips. Once with her will not be enough. We’ve barely finished, yet I already want more. But Kat doesn’t do relationships. She’s been very clear about that since the moment we met. I need to play this one cool. Pretend she’s just another hot fuck, like the hundreds before her. A warm, wet hole and nothing more. As much as it kills me, I have to be that guy again. If she knew for one second how much I felt, she’d only run. I need to dig down deep and be that asshole I swore I’d never be in order to keep her.