Chapter Three

Chloe wanted nothing more than to drop her bag on the bedroom floor, throw herself on the bed, and curl up into a tight bal . But the wood floor looked real y expensive and she'd already dripped on it enough.

Heading for the bathroom, she put her bag down on the tiled floor, then stripped off her wet, dirty clothes and put them in the sink. She would have loved to throw them away, but she didn't have much with her and knew that she'd need them again in the near future. The best she could do for the time being was to wash them out and hang them up to dry. Of course, she knew the house must have a washer and dryer, but spending the night in a stranger's house - not even the stranger who'd brought her here, but a brother she'd never met - was more than enough charity.

When she was final y na**d, she moved to the shower and was reaching in to turn on the water when she noticed the huge whirlpool tub. She almost moaned aloud at the thought of lying in the warm water with jets massaging her legs and spine and feet.

Chloe looked back almost guiltily at the bathroom door before realizing she was being sil y. It was locked and she was final y alone. Since Chase was insisting she stay here tonight, what was wrong with availing herself of the facilities? At least those attached to her bedroom.

She hadn't been in a tub like this since she'd left -

No. She wouldn't let herself think of that tonight. Chloe knew she didn't have the luxury of pretending everything was okay - not by a long shot - but deep inside she felt safe. For one night, in this beautiful house, surrounded by grapevines.

She supposed, a few seconds later, that it was precisely that glorious sense of safety - and the memory of how nice it had been to feel so warm and protected in Chase's arms - that had her body acting so off-kilter when she stepped into the hot water.

Her skin felt extra sensitive as she slowly submerged her h*ps and then legs and back into the large tub. Sighing with pleasure, she laid her head on the curved rim of the tub and looked up through a skylight that was pinging with the rain from outside. A heavy, heated throbbing pulsed at the tips of her breasts, which felt even ful er than normal. And between her thighs...she was burning up down there.

Heck, she'd been on fire from the moment Chase had held the ice pack against her cheek in his brother's kitchen.

Both she and the girl in his bed had the same taste, it seemed.

Thinking of the na**d stranger - El en, she'd said her name was - and her crazy offer to get it on three-way style had Chloe unexpectedly grinning as she scooted down in the tub and tilted her neck backward to get her hair wet in the hot water.

Mmmm, that felt good. She reached for the fancy bottle of shampoo by the side and began massaging the sweet-smel ing liquid into her hair.

Chase had clearly been surprised by the na**d woman - and by the fact that she wasn't at al fazed by the idea of more than one person in her bed.

Chloe's grin shifted into a semi-frown. Not just because she hadn't thought people actual y did that, but because she couldn't understand El en's thinking.

If Chase had been hers, she wouldn't share him with anyone.

The shocking train of thought stopped Chloe cold. Soap dripped into her eyelashes and she dunked herself under the water, hoping to wash her unwelcome thoughts away, too, while she was at it.

What was wrong with her? Was she real y that blockheaded? That ful of fantasies and foolish dreams?

The only person she should be trusting, for a very long time, was herself.

And yet, hadn't she been doing some verbal sparring with Chase out in the living room and kitchen? Borderline flirting, when she should have been wary. And then, when they'd found the na**d woman waiting for him on the bed, she hadn't been able to hold in her laughter. Final y laughing again had felt too good. She'd had to let it out. Amazingly, for a few moments, she'd almost felt like her old self.

Once upon a time Chloe had been a sensual woman. She hadn't been one of those girls who was afraid of her own body. She'd loved being kissed. Caressed. She'd loved other things, too. Things her ex-husband had told her were bad. Dirty. Things she was supposed to be ashamed of.

Just because she'd done a crummy job of picking a husband didn't mean those urges, those desires, had ever real y gone away.

They'd just gone into hiding.

And Chase was, quite obviously - and unfortunately - a master of hide-and-seek.

Chloe couldn't believe her body had decided to leap to life now. Tonight of al nights, she should be focusing on getting sleep and food and figuring out what to do next.

Instead, she was lying in the bath thinking about Mr. Hotstuff with his green eyes and wicked grin. Not to mention the ridiculously great body - tal , broad-shouldered, muscular - that those eyes and grin came on.

Frustration ate at her. She had a bad feeling that if she got up out of this glorious tub, instead of sinking into what was sure to be a fantastical y luxurious bed, she was going to be tossing and turning with unrequited lust al night.

No, damn it. When she'd left her now ex-husband, she'd vowed to take care of herself. At the time she'd believed that simply meant money and jobs and housing. Evidently, she thought with a slightly rueful shake of her head, it also seemed to mean that if she was feeling unaccountably horny, she was going to have to take care of that, too.

She shifted in the tub at the somewhat shocking thought and as the warm water floated over her curves, she tried to figure out how long it had been since she'd enjoyed sex. Since she'd been able to explore her body and give in to its natural needs. How long had she been ashamed of her sexual appetite?

If only the answers weren't al so painful.

No. She wouldn't go there tonight. Not after what she'd already been through.

Tomorrow would come soon enough. But tonight...wel , maybe tonight was her chance to start taking some much needed strides to reclaim a part of herself that she'd been forced to deny for too long.

Closing her eyes, forcing herself to relax deeper into the warm tub, Chloe put her hands just above her br**sts and held them there, feeling the quickening beat of her heart.

Slowly, she ran her hands down her chest, over her ful breasts. She sucked in a breath at the pleasurable sensations that shot through her as her fingertips found her nipples.

God, she used to love having her br**sts played with, feeling a tongue lave them, a man's lips suckling and tasting. When she'd been younger she could almost make herself come just from playing with her br**sts while fantasizing about a gorgeous man making love to her.

She hadn't conjured up those fantasies in a long time, but tonight it was only her and her hands and a tub ful of steaming water. No one was here to tel her she was a whore for liking what she liked.

Drawing on long-buried sensual memories, she let her mind drift to a scene where she was in a man's arms and his head was bent down over her breasts. She moaned as she plucked at her ni**les in time to his imagined sucking. And then he lifted his head and she gasped as a flush of arousal hit her right between her thighs.

Because the man looked just like Chase.

Chloe should have stopped touching herself right then. She knew she should have had the self-control to get up out of the tub, to go get the sleep she so desperately needed.

But she'd gone without for so long. Far too long. She was thirty years old and heading straight toward her sexual prime, wasn't she? It was one more reason to be angry.

This was one more part of her life to reclaim.

She was safe here. Tonight she had a chance to feel normal again. And she was going to take it.

Even if the gorgeous face of a man she'd just met - and was impossibly tempted by even though every last brain cel she had knew better - was the very man who was about to have her crying out with ecstasy in a few minutes.

Keeping one hand on her breasts, she let the other slide down over her rib cage, then her stomach, until she reached the thatch of soft curls between her thighs. It was instinct to let her legs fal open in the water, to probe the throbbing mass of nerves between her thighs with her fingertips.

Her breath quickened as she slid her fingers down lower. Even in the water she could feel how slick she was, how ready she'd been since practical y the first moment Chase had touched her.

She didn't have the first clue how she could have reacted like that to a complete stranger. Given what had just happened to her, the bruise stil throbbing on her cheek, shouldn't she have been flinching and hating the feel of his hands on her?

But she hadn't been anywhere near hating Chase's touch. Far from it, considering she'd been far more tempted to rub herself against him than shove him away.

As her fingers swirled against the hard nub, her mind flitted back to that moment when she'd looked down at the thick bulge in his pants. Sex had been good once, good enough that she could stil imagine the kind of pleasure a man like Chase could give a woman.

Sinking so deep into the water that her nose and mouth and eyes were barely above the surface, her feet slid out further when she accidental y kicked something in the tub and the jets kicked into overdrive.

Chloe's eyes flew open as the bubbling streams assaulted her sensitive skin. At first it was too much, too many sensations coming at her at once, but then, as she got more used to the water moving across her sore muscles, she found herself growing even more relaxed.

Quickly, she realized that if she lifted her legs up so that her knees were bent and her feet were flat on the bottom, two of the jets on either side of the tub shot straight between her legs.

Lifting her h*ps into the jet streams felt decadent. Sinful.

And just plain good.

Moving her hand from between her legs back to her breasts, she cupped one in each hand as the water worked between her legs in the nicest possible way.

She rocked her h*ps up and down as she got closer and closer to the sweetest orgasm she'd had in a long, long time. Chase's face appeared again and she didn't even bother to stop herself from fantasizing about his kiss, about his large hands on her instead of her own.

A strange sound tried to work its way into her subconscious, but she was too far gone to pay it any attention. And then Chase's name was on her lips as her entire body tightened down and then exploded in a thousand delicious pieces, her h*ps bucking closer to the wonderful y strong jets, her fingers tightening on her own breasts. Oh God, she loved this feeling and suddenly couldn't think why she'd gone so long without it.

She was about to relax deeper into the tub when her brain rewound back to that moment when she'd been coming. To the sounds she'd heard, but dismissed as her body flew over the edge.

Opening her eyes, she was stil disoriented enough from her orgasm for a few seconds that she was sure she couldn't be seeing what she was seeing: Chase, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, one hand on the doorknob.

Surprise - and dangerously strong lust - were written al over his face.