Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2) Read online

  He drew his hand down over her ribs. She held her breath and tightened all her muscles in stern control.

  “Seriously?” He tried brushing more lightly, then pressing his fingers into just the most sensitive spots between ribs. She tightened as hard as she could. “Tough girl,” he said admiringly and kissed her.

  Just kissed her and kissed her, this long, luxurious pinning of her body under his as he savored her mouth as if he never would stop. And then, when all her body was relaxed and pliant under his, when her knees kept bumping against the table as she tried to wrap her legs around him—he dove his fingers into her ribs again.

  She yelped and jerked and bumped her elbow.

  He grinned in triumph.

  “Aïe.” She flexed her funny bone.

  He bent and opened his mouth over her elbow, kissing and tasting and sucking gently, until that vibrating numbness was lost in erotic sensation.

  It made her feel almost…precious. In the weirdest way, as if she could be tough and strong and still be precious to someone, too. It almost made her eyes sting.

  Merde, was he pulling emotions out of her? All silky and pretty and fragile?

  She tried to catch him and pull his head to her, to kiss all that nonsense back into sex, but he had her good hand pinned, and her splinted hand bumped futilely, unable to grip properly.

  He smiled and took her wrist gently, below the splint, then slowly brushed his lips and jaw all the way up the inside of her arm, from elbow to wrist.

  The prickles and silk of him shivered through her, over and over, dissolving her into all that mass of magician’s scarves, colorful and lovely and helpless before the power of his spell.

  Just a trick, not a spell, she tried to tell herself, but she kept getting lost in her own words. They fled away before sensation, as if her mind, too, was only silk and colors and yielding.

  Emotion. Hope. Wonder.

  Why are you here? Why does being pinned by you like this make me feel safe and wanted and hungry instead of caught in a power struggle?

  “Let me go,” she whispered, and his hand slid down from her wrist. He freed her with a caress of calluses down sensitive skin, tracing burn marks and spatters near her wrist, then the pale skin that was always protected by her chef’s jacket and hadn’t seen sun since she spent a week in Réunion after New Year’s. His thumb curved over her biceps, tracing the definition of arms that looked so much slimmer than his but were very strong.

  She was strong and used her body to its utmost, and he was strong and used his body to its utmost, and here they were—physically, she would always, always be outmatched by his strength. He would always be able to roll her under him and hold her down.

  Which was why a woman should keep a good knife and some heavy steel pots to hand, but…

  …thoughts of them, of any kind of strength, got lost in silk and colors.

  She pushed at him. He shoved the coffee table away to give them more room and rolled them over again, bringing her on top.

  Wow, what a fantastic view. That hard body stretched out for her, those gleaming, hungry blue eyes. Even his stubborn chin seemed a little less like something a woman would break herself against, right that second.

  She kissed it, to test. No, still hard. But the skin just below that jaw was so soft. His head arched back as she kissed it.

  Chase slid his hands under her cami, his palms and fingers rubbing up her ribs and belly as he pushed it up, up, until he came to her breasts. He cupped them through her bra, watching her face, watching his hands, enjoying both views.

  She shivered and stretched into his touch. Her half-dry hair slid over her shoulders.

  “Incredible,” he breathed. “Maybe I’m dead.”

  She had to pause at that, bracing herself off him with one hand.

  “You can break it to me if I am,” he said. “I’d be okay with it. I’d actually probably feel a lot safer that way.”

  “Well, of course you’d be safer,” she said. “If you’re dead.”

  His face relaxed into that grin. “Coward’s way out, you’re saying?”

  “Is there a reason we’re having a morbid conversation right now?”

  “Well…I figure if some people get angels and some people get ninety-nine virgins or whatever…I’d rather get you. You’re perfect.”

  “You’re such an idiot,” she said, to fight the upsurge of warmth and, well…honor. She was really his idea of heaven?

  “Well, to be honest, the other options always sounded like hell,” he confessed. “I’m really relieved someone thought up a special version just for me.”

  “Just shut up already,” she said, because she could feel a tide of color rising up her face, and she ducked down into him to hide it, kissing his chest.

  “I talk too much,” he confessed into her hair, his hand stroking it. “You make me babble.”

  He wasn’t always like that? Her cheeks heated more, and she kept her face firmly pressed into his chest because that heat just wouldn’t die down. It was just that he made her feel so, so…damn vulnerable and flattered and special.

  No man ever made her feel special. She always had to do it all by herself.

  She kissed his chest, very gently, just this little secret thanks, and petted the hard muscle, resting her cheek against him to watch her hand. She liked those springy curls of hair so much. The way his chest felt rising and falling under her hand in a deep breath. The way his abs tightened in response to her palm, the little round hollow of his belly-button—

  He covered her hand a moment, pressing it to his belly, and took another long breath. “Honey,” he said very softly as he let it out.

  And that was all. After a second, his hand slid away, releasing hers to explore again, and he undid the button on his jeans.

  How thoughtful.

  Her mouth curved a little at this very clear indication of what he wanted, and she nestled her fingers just at the top of his zip, running her thumb under the elastic of his briefs, toying with the tab of the zip.

  “Witch,” he said.

  “But you told me to slow down,” she reminded him, biting her lip.

  “Damn but you hold a grudge.” His hands moved to her butt, and he began to stroke them far too lightly up and down her curves, just grazing, not nearly enough pressure.

  She twisted against him.

  He laughed, deep and smug.

  “Are you challenging me?” she asked incredulously.

  “Really never saw a gauntlet I could resist picking up.”

  She slid her fingers under the band of his briefs, to the thicket of curly hair.

  His breath hissed. His fingers sank more firmly into her butt, and he pulled her against his thigh, drawing her up and down against that muscle in one long delicious rub.

  Challenge and play was so much easier than softness and intimacy.

  “Me, neither,” she murmured menacingly and trailed just her fingertips to the base of his erection.

  “Oh, baby.” He pressed toward her hand. She drew it instantly away. He tried to grab her hand.

  She laughed and wormed it under his butt, hiding it from him even as she kneaded that hard muscle.

  “I’m a poor, lonesome, war-weary soldie—security guard. And you should not be mean to me.” He tried for big, pitiful eyes.

  “Were you a puppy in another life?” The kind of puppy that grew up to be a wolf.

  “Were you a gorgeous siren?” He sank his hands into her hair and pulled her down to kiss her, taking his time, running his hands over her in deep, kneading strokes as he kissed her and kissed her.

  In the heat of those kisses, she forgot to tease him, her hand sliding past the loosened denim and under his briefs to cup his bare buttock, hot and smooth and curved against her palm.

  “Mmm.” A low, hungry-satisfied sound in his throat. “More.”

  “Greedy,” she breathed into his jaw.

  His fingers dug into her butt, rocking her against his pelvis as he thrust
up. “Oh, yeah, I want it all.”

  Yes. All. And that was what he felt like—all. All life, all humor, all energy, all challenge—everything she wanted, right there grinning up at her and daring her to take him.

  He made her want to toss those fragile, colorful, silky feelings up in the air and let them rain down around them, beautiful and joyous.

  She nipped his shoulder again, expanding into the joy of their bodies tangling and touching, and he got her cami over her head and threw it somewhere, then went to work on her bra.

  “Oh, God, yeah,” he said, as the cups fell away. He clenched his fist around the black lace and kissed it like an Olympic champion might kiss his gold medal, then tossed it away, too.

  She laughed, clasped her wrist above her head, and stretched, twisting her hips down into his as she did. Vivid and alive and thrilled to be her.

  “You are always trying to kill me,” he said, and lifted her suddenly to set her on the couch, coming to his knees between her legs so that he could cup her breasts and bury his face in them, kissing and sucking and squeezing as if he couldn’t get enough.

  You and me both. She slid her good hand down his back, trying to knead him in closer, trying to use her right arm to squeeze him in, too, since she couldn’t use her right hand. I can’t get enough of you either.

  One of his hands slid around her back to hold her to him, the other slid down under her pajama elastic to cup her bare butt. “God, I love you,” he said into her breasts, and the words rolled through her, like the roll of land in an earthquake.

  Damn him for saying things like that, so easily and so carelessly. Too cocky and too flippant to remember the damage he could wreak. She pushed the words away, into the compartment where she kept all his ridiculous marriage proposals, but it wasn’t as easy this time, as if some little part of her wanted to catch the words back out into the open and think about them as if they might be true.

  She thrust her good hand down and wrapped her hand around his penis like it was his throat, strangling.

  He made a harsh sound into her shoulder, and thrust hard. “Sweetheart…honey…gorgeous…” He really was babbling now, or almost, losing coherence as he yanked her pajama bottoms off. “So pretty, pretty, pretty…” His hands stroked over her bare, spread thighs as if they were a miracle, and then gripped too hard as she tightened her hand again to try to get him to shut up.

  Pretty and fine were one thing. Combining them with love was another. A girl could get all messed up that way.

  If she was stupid.

  If she let him get away with that crap.

  So she squeezed her hand down his erection hard, punishingly, trying to force him out of his mind.

  He made a sound that could not possibly be deciphered as a word, and slid his hands up her thighs, gripping them wide, thumbs massaging the lips of her sex, sliding down the folds, parting and playing and sliding back up.

  She jumped at the intimacy, and then she loved it, oh, hell, she loved it, her whole body trying to liquefy in reception. Even the strength of her grip wanted to go, and she fought it, tightening her hold and sliding up and down, because he was going to lose his mind this time, she was going to win over him.

  His head lifted, and his eyes locked with hers, darkened, vivid blue. He stroked his thumbs into her folds, delving into her.

  She locked her gaze right back, even though she wanted to toss her head back and close her eyes. Even though she wanted to sink and part and soften. She drew her hand down long, long, and slow, slow back up.

  He played with silk-moist insides, with her, with all the softened, inner, fragile parts of her.

  And she could only get at his hardness, only make it harder and harder, fighting it like an opponent she couldn’t beat.

  While her breath began to shorten, while her eyes began to tear with the battle, while she wanted nothing, nothing so much as to give in to all that building wanting, let everything about herself yield.

  One thumb still sliding and exploring among her folds, he found her clit with his other and began to play. He was watching her still. Almost there might have been the curve of a smile, but she tightened her grip again and that smile disappeared. He made a hungry sound of pleasure.

  That sound vibrated into her, gave him still more access, made her still more vulnerable.

  “I’ve got you,” he whispered. Damn him, he could still speak? “I’ve got you. It’s okay. Come on, baby, come on.” One thumb coaxed. The other slid deep into her, and she clutched on the delight of that invasion.

  Losing it. She was losing it entirely. Now she was clutching his penis like a drowning person, and she didn’t even care if the water was closing over her head because it was so damn beautiful with all those silky colors in it.

  “Oh, you’re so beautiful,” Chase whispered. “Come on, come on, come on.”

  And she did, jerking into it past resistance, hiding her face in her arms, falling back on the couch as her body seized and seized in the overwhelming joy of being her. In his hands.

  He milked her down from it slowly. He was steady and patient and thorough, letting her linger in it until finally she pushed his hand away and grabbed his hips. And then he kind of lost his mind. Rolling her under him on the couch. Lifting her and twisting her under him over the arm of the couch. Abandoning the couch all together and carrying her to her bed where he could have this great feast of her body, thrusting and taking and turning and taking another way, like he just couldn’t get enough.

  Until she grabbed him and held on with all her one-handed might, digging her fingers into his butt, lifting to him as she pulled him into her. “God, I love you,” he said again hoarsely, that bastard, his face so flushed, his fingers so hard they would have hurt, if she’d been less aroused.

  “Shut up,” she said, and brought one of his hands around between her legs, pressing his touch to her, because she was desperate again by then, and she came again while he did, crushing her to him with the force of it.

  Chapter 15

  Careless, arrogant idiot! Vi gripped her head, trying to focus the insult on Chase but feeling as if she was apostrophizing herself.

  Of course he was gone this morning. Of course a man said I love you when he was in the middle of sex and then panicked at what the hell he had gotten himself into after the arousal faded.

  She rolled out of bed and picked up the journal she had knocked to the floor when she woke precisely one minute before her alarm and flung out her hand to make sure it didn’t go off.

  Aarrgh. What the hell was wrong with her? Why did she keep letting him bring his B.S. into her life? A weakness for cocky guys and a belief that she could handle anything were not good excuses. Just because a woman can handle bullshit doesn’t mean she should.

  She slammed the journal onto the nightstand and stood still for a moment with her head bent.

  Actually, what the hell was wrong with him? The guy was completely inconsistent. Who showed up to stitch together leather and open his heart and then ran out before dawn?

  An emotional coward, maybe. Somebody who scared himself by all the emotions he was pulling out.

  Although he had locked his eyes with hers and said, You wish in a way that still vibrated in her bones like a challenge.

  And she never really had seen a gauntlet thrown down that she could resist picking up.

  She frowned at her leather jacket, stroking the sleeve. A worry woke up in her middle and started to stretch. What if there was some reason he had disappeared before dawn? Some reason to do with whatever his real reason for being here was?

  Oh, shit, he wasn’t doing anything else to her restaurant, was he?

  She yanked clothes on and hurried over there as fast as blasted public transport would allow, but the place was completely locked up and taped off. Nobody was around, though, so she went ahead and ripped the yellow tape and went in. Darkness and LED lights. Nobody there.

  She went through the walk-ins, in deep mourning for all the food spoi
ling. Damn it, they needed to let her back in here.

  The sight just fed her frustration and unreasonable anxiety, and she went out into the street again.

  Where two military-looking “health inspectors” were just climbing out of an unmarked car. “Mademoiselle Lenoir. We need to ask you to respect our request that you stay off the premises. You could compromise the investigation.”

  Vi scowled at them. “It’s my restaurant!”

  “Nevertheless.”

  She narrowed her eyes at them. “Have you seen Chase this morning?”

  “Who?”

  She glared at them and stomped off. Getting arrested, she had learned, was a huge hassle.

  But she didn’t really start to worry until one a.m., when no one had shown up at her door with boxing gloves or leather stitching materials or just a big shit-eating grin on his face.

  Also he didn’t show up by two a.m.

  And by three she knew he really wasn’t going to show up that night, and that it was incredibly demeaning that she didn’t even have his telephone number, and she was pissed at herself, and she managed to fall asleep.

  More or less.

  ***

  “Wow,” Célie said five days later. “Wow. I never would have pegged him for someone who would just disappear like that.”

  “Well, you know how guys are.” Vi kicked the pavement. They were waiting in line to get into a favorite comedian’s show. Vi could only scout new restaurant locations and fight with bureaucrats so long during the day, and while Au-dessus remained closed, she’d decided to take advantage of the miracle of having evenings free. She’d far rather be going out with friends than waiting in her apartment wondering if Chase would finally show up again. “They say I love you, I want to marry you when they want hot sex, but then they scare themselves and run off. Or I scare them,” she said sullenly.

  “You do scare most men, Vi,” Lina agreed. “But…he didn’t seem that easy to scare.”

  Vi shrugged, trying not to think about it. This comedian had better by really funny.

  “I think you’re choosing the wrong men,” Célie’s boyfriend Joss said. “Maybe you need to select the good guys. Or at least someone with guts.”