Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2) Read online

  “In your arrogant, annoying way,” she said, and his smile relaxed a little into more genuine humor. “Did you just one up my own tragedy?”

  “Your tragedies are wussy.” But his eyes flickered as he tried to joke, and his attempt at a grand, dismissive gesture came off wooden.

  Yeah, so…yeah, she was an idiot, to try humor for that. Some things humor just didn’t work for. She squeezed his hand again and settled onto the floor, leaning against the table.

  He was quiet for a long time, just gazing at her hand over his and stroking it slowly with his thumb. “Sorry,” he said eventually, voice a little rough.

  “Seriously, don’t make me hit you.”

  A little smile came back. He squeezed her hand and let it go, picking up the needles again.

  She felt stupid now, to have made such a big deal out of her jacket. Even if he should not take over her choices and ruin her beautiful jacket. But still…it was only a jacket. It wasn’t friends lying dead in the mountains.

  But watching him slowly and painstakingly try to heal that unhealable wound in the leather, she didn’t stop him.

  Maybe healing unhealable wounds was something they both needed to know how to do.

  The reality of this big, sexy, hard-willed man who clowned and teased and who…what? He had to be part of a counterterrorism unit. Or working for the CIA in some capacity. That was the only thing she could figure. What the hell else could a military man from Texas whose eyes flickered when she mentioned Navy SEALs be doing in France breaking into restaurants his president might be visiting and then, if she was right, getting them shut down? Bastard.

  A laughing bastard who…had spent most of his adult life in Afghanistan and Iraq, maybe? One of those guys who fast-roped into compounds in the middle of the night and took out the enemies of their country and…got shot at. Stepped on mines. Killed people.

  That Hindu Kush event that still ate at him…he was upset because his commanders had refused to let him go die, too.

  She rested her folded arms on the table as she watched him. Under the table she shifted just enough that her knee tucked against his thigh. Human touch.

  He had gotten the needles threaded and was checking the instructions on his iPad. Now he was starting the stitching, which apparently required two needles going at once in opposite directions.

  Blue eyes squinted in concentration, so that she could see exactly how they had squinted time and again to leave those lines at their corners. Sun-streaked brown hair a little shaggy for a military man.

  “Did you have a beard recently?” she said suddenly, startled.

  He glanced at her, then focused on his twin needles again. “What makes you ask?”

  “Your skin is paler on your jaw line. Less tanned.”

  He gave a little nod of acknowledgement and a shrug.

  “But…you mean you really are a civilian?” Or had been one long enough to grow a beard, tan around it, and shave it off? Did people in the military get to wear beards these days?

  He didn’t say anything. She needed to do some Internet research on U.S. special forces.

  “You have complete files on me, don’t you? And I don’t know a thing about you.”

  “Not a thing?” he asked quietly.

  Okay, maybe some things. She knew he was cocky and with good reason. She knew that physically he couldn’t conceive of an insurmountable challenge. She knew that a siren-like alarm in the morning threw him into high stress alert, and that in that state of alarm, his first instinct was to cover her body with his own. And that a minute later, he had played the clown as if nothing of any importance had just happened.

  She knew he felt bad that she had gotten hurt. She knew that he wanted to save people, but he didn’t need her to be weak so that he could satisfy his own superhero complex. He wasn’t one of those guys who would try to keep her small to make himself feel strong. No, he’d always give her a wicked grin and a challenge, a yeah, I know you can do it.

  She knew he loved the way she challenged him, too. He wasn’t threatened by her strength at all. If anything, he tried to help her be even stronger.

  She knew that he was so incredibly pig-headed that he was almost oblivious to opposition. Like it never even occurred to him that he couldn’t stride through any and all obstacles, human or otherwise, and get what he wanted.

  Kind of like her.

  Which might be why she had an unfortunate tendency to find that characteristic so hot.

  But most cocky guys didn’t care about anyone their arrogance rode tank-like over. Caring about getting her in their bed and satisfying their own ego was not the same as caring about her.

  Yet here he was, sitting on her floor, awkwardly and carefully trying to stitch together the sleeve of her favorite jacket. Instead of just buying her a new one, and by doing so dismissing what mattered to her as insignificant.

  “If you weren’t so annoying, I might like you,” she said.

  One corner of his lips kicked up. “Too tepid. Who wants to be liked?”

  She rested her head on her folded arms, watching him work. His thigh was warm against her knee, under the table. “First time?” She nodded at the sewing without lifting her cheek off her arms.

  “I’m a little OCD about my gear. So not entirely. But now that we can use Steri-Strips, I don’t get nearly the practice sewing in the field that I used to.”

  Steri-Strips…for pulling wounds closed instead of setting stitches. She searched his face. “Uh…is that a joke?”

  “Dark humor.”

  Hmm.

  Dark humor filled the kitchens. They were, after all, dealing with dead bodies all the time. But…animal bodies.

  Flames and burns and knives and tempers but not bullets.

  She dropped her splinted hand under the table and let it rest on his thigh, the thumb and fingertip that were mobile stroking his jeans in a soft, repeated motion.

  “You ever seen a magician do one of those tricks where he holds up something tiny—his closed fist or whatever—and then starts pulling a scarf out of it?” Chase said suddenly, roughly, focusing hard on the sewing.

  What? She nodded against her arm, waiting.

  “And the scarf just pulls and pulls and pulls until silk is flooding everywhere? This impossible amount to have fit into that tiny a space?”

  “He’s got it on him all the time. Hiding it up his sleeve or something. That’s the trick.”

  Chase pushed that comment away with a motion of his hand. “I kind of like to keep the soft, silky, fragile things in a really tiny space.”

  “Things?”

  “Emotions,” he said very roughly, trying to push the word away with his hand even as it came out. “Whatever. But it’s like you’ve started pulling. And I’m a little afraid of how much you might pull out.”

  Yeah, no freaking kidding. What a perfect analogy. She tightened her belly, to prepare for the blow. “So are you going to run away?”

  He gave her a look that said he’d never run from danger in his life. “You wish.”

  Well…sometimes, maybe, she wished he would run. It was scary for her, too. He’d brought so much havoc to her life already. What if he got to her? What if she ended up letting soft, fragile things out and he ripped them? Or then ran off with them? Took a casual knife to them without even taking the time to find out if they were important?

  Came back and tried to mend them.

  “See, the first night,” he said, “that was easy. Hot blonde in leather throwing knives at me…of course I could see you were the woman for me. And trust me, it really was no hardship to go all out after you. But then—”

  “I know how hook-ups work,” Vi cut him off. The last thing she needed was to hear him spell out his thought process the next morning. Well, I tapped that and now I’m ready to move on. “I know all about how easy it is for a guy to fall for me and how hard it is for him to deal with the actual me.”

  He stopped his work on the leather to look at her a moment.
His eyes narrowed. “Pff. You’re easy.”

  Vi sat straight up. “I’m what?”

  “All I have to do is make you mad. You love being mad. I’m talking about me. I’m hard. In fact, right this second, I can’t figure out how to deal with me at all. If you keep pulling all those emotions out like that, I’m actually”—he dropped his voice dramatically, peering over his shoulder as if to make sure no one could overhear—“deathly afraid I might be complicated.” He shuddered.

  “You think you’re more complex than I am?” Vi demanded, outraged.

  A tiny smile curved his mouth. “See? I told you you liked to get mad.”

  Vi folded her arms, her splint getting in the way. “You are harder to deal with than I am,” she stated, incredulous. She pretty much defined high-maintenance, damn it!

  He slanted a glance at her. The creases showed in his cheeks. “I’ve got you wrapped around my little finger,” he bragged outrageously.

  Vi pounced up onto her knees. “You have got me wrapped around your little finger?”

  He held up one pinky and made a twirling gesture, smug.

  “Allow me to demonstrate exactly how simple and easy you are.” Vi leaned forward.

  Chase gave her a look of polite interest. While struggling to hide those dimples.

  She laid her hand flat on his chest, fulminating.

  He looked down at it. His mouth curved like the cat that swallowed the canary.

  She pushed.

  He didn’t budge.

  She pushed harder.

  It didn’t even seem to affect him. No yield in his body at all.

  She frowned at him.

  He smiled at her, and then very slowly let his body curl away from the table, his abs tightening to keep the motion so controlled, until he was resting against the couch behind him.

  And instantly heat swept through her, at that yielding. He was, she had to admit, incredibly hot. Broad shoulders, hard chest, a ribbed, flat stomach, all covered right now by nothing but a thin T-shirt. Arrogance and humor and heat, building, focusing on her. She could feel it. See it in his eyes.

  See? Easy.

  She stroked down his chest over his stomach, just to feel that hard ripple. He took a deep, slow breath. Still smiling a little.

  She ran her hand along the line of his jeans, letting the tip of her fingers slide under the band.

  His smile slipped away, but then he caught it back. “Shh,” he murmured and took her hand, setting it on his shoulders. “You’re in too much of a hurry. I don’t have to be that simple.” He stroked her hand down over his arm and flexed a little for her.

  Wow. Biceps like that made a woman glad to be alive. She flowed into movement suddenly, straddling him. He tilted his head back against the couch, breathing slow and deep, watching her under short, thick lashes. She was close enough that she could actually see that “kitten scar” on his cheek, so fine that she kept wanting to brush it away because it looked just like a stray hair had gotten caught there.

  She touched the scratch left by her own nail, suddenly somber. Then touched the spot on his jaw where her fist had landed.

  “Honey,” he said suddenly. “You’re worried about the wrong thing. My buddies and I try to kick each other’s asses all the time, just to keep sharp. In fact, sometimes when we’re bored, during some lull in training, we do things like throw rocks at each other’s stomachs and whoever flinches first loses.”

  They had macho contests in the kitchens, too—who could pick up a hot skillet in his bare hand, who kept working through the worst injuries.

  Actually, considering that she did the same thing, it was a little annoying to think of that trait as “macho.” A woman could be tough and still a woman. Hell, she had some older friends who had been through labor.

  Without drugs or anything.

  “Some people are just idiots,” she said.

  He smiled.

  “This would be your training in hotel security?”

  He laughed. And then corrected: “We used to do that. When I was in the military.”

  “Oh, purée,” Vi muttered. Her thumb traced over his square, stubborn jaw.

  He shifted a little into the caress, like a big cat, his eyes half-closing.

  Yeah, see? You’re easy. She ran her hand slowly down his throat, caressing the strength of it like something precious and vulnerable. When her thumb came to rest in the hollow, stroking, his eyes closed all the way. A deep breath moved through his body.

  So easy. She spread her fingers over his breastbone. A great heat and strength radiated from him, spreading through her body. She wanted to get more of it. Knead it to her and into her, absorb it everywhere.

  Her splinted right hand rested chunky and awkward on his left shoulder. It was with her left hand, the hand that was just a little less confident, just a little less capable, that she had to work her wiles.

  That was okay. I can take you left-handed. I can take you with one hand tied behind my back.

  She could feel his arousal, so fast and so hard that he must have been at least partly aroused before she ever made a move. Now he was definitely aroused, and she twisted her hips against him in a slow figure eight, savoring how much he wanted her. And I’m still in control, ha.

  Yeah. Easy.

  She ran her hand down his hard biceps, curved her fingers over the defined triceps, trying to get all of him. It frustrated her no end that she couldn’t just sink both hands into him, and to make up for it, she bent suddenly and nipped his left shoulder. Mmm. Better. Stroking and rubbing down over his right arm with her unbroken hand, she used lips and teeth and little teasings of her tongue to explore his left arm, too.

  God, she loved to savor things with lips and teeth and tongue. That little hint of salt on his skin tasted delicious.

  “You have the most incredible texture,” she breathed involuntarily. All that muscle and heat and resilience, the softness of his hair against the hardness of his thick skull, the silk of his lips, and the bristle of his jaw line. She could touch him forever.

  His eyes were dilated, already a little dazed. “You have no idea.” His hands rubbed over her butt, down her thighs. “About incredible texture. You probably take your own for granted.”

  He probably took his own for granted, too. How odd. When it was so amazing. Her hand stroked down to his strong wrist, and she hooked her splinted hand under his other forearm and bumped that up higher so she could explore that with her mouth, too. She nipped a knuckle and sucked the tip of his index finger into her mouth, curling her tongue around it.

  He made a wounded, hungry sound, his hips rocking up into her.

  Mmm. Every texture and pressure and pleasure of his body was delicious. She loved arousing him. His hand curved against her head, and she nestled her face into it to suckle the base of his palm as she slanted a wicked look up at his face. “You might be right. Slow might be fun.”

  “Did I say slow?” His voice sounded thick and heavy. “What I must have meant was…honey, you can do anything to me you want.”

  She grinned and teased the base of his palm with her tongue. “I know.”

  “God, you are glorious.” He sank his fingers into her damp hair and brought her head to his, kissing her. The first kiss grew into another and another, stretched into a long gluttony of kisses that could have been one or could have been a hundred ways of shaping their mouths to each other, tasting and seeking and finding out what they each liked.

  They seemed to like everything. Hard and soft, open and closed, teeth and silk, tangling and elusive.

  Less and less elusive. Deeper and hungrier until she twisted her face into his throat for breath. God, he smelled good. Just this himness plus vanilla.

  Vanilla. Something about that delighted her whole body, that instead of smelling of sand and sun and all the places he must have been, he smelled like someone who carried a homesick scent of cookies with him in his aftershave.

  She kissed him for it, kissing down over the holl
ow of his throat and lingering there, while his hands flexed into her butt and stroked up her back and down her thighs and back to her butt again as if that was their homing place, gripping her, rocking her into him as his hips thrust up to hers.

  She nuzzled her face close to his ear to whisper: “How complicated are you feeling?”

  “Pretty damn simple,” he admitted. “And easy.” His hips rocked up to hers. “Or hard.”

  She laughed low into his throat and stroked a heavy hand down his chest.

  He drew her hips against him, to and away, to and away. “How about you?” he asked, deep.

  She laughed again, into his skin. Simple. So simple. Everything falling away, outside this space of him and them. His heat and hers, his skin and hers, the way his hand sank into her hair, the hint of the prickles of his chest hair through his T-shirt as her face rubbed over it.

  She pulled at the hem of his T-shirt with her good hand, frustrated that she couldn’t just grab it and rip.

  He arched up and pulled it off, this long, gorgeous reveal of ripped abs taut with the motion, of heavy shoulders, of the curl of hair across his chest and the fine V of it down to his jeans. She followed it, running her fingers through that hair for the pure pleasure of its texture, following it as it grew finer and softer over hard abs, as those abs sucked in to try to lure her fingers under his waistband.

  She toyed there, laughing low in her throat. “Complicated, are you?”

  He grinned up at her. “Honey, you’re making me feel like myself again. As straightforward as a man can be.”

  She kissed under the hollow of his throat and lower, lower, following pleasure, all the pleasure of his body, the tickle of hair, the hardness of muscle, the warmth, the surprising silk smoothness of his skin on his back and ribs.

  The way he flinched a little as she lingered over his ribs. “You’re ticklish,” she said in delight, playing her fingers ever so lightly over the spot that had made him flinch.

  He flinched again and grabbed her hand. She brushed his ribs with the two unsplinted fingers on his other side, laughing as he reacted involuntarily.

  “All right, now.” He rolled them over suddenly, pinning her to the floor between the couch and the coffee table, holding her good hand above her head. “Two can play at that game.”