Stripped (Guilty Pleasures #2)(16)
Author: Adriana Hunter

“I have scars from her, real scars. She bit and scratched and tore me up, in more ways than one. We came together with such force, it was all consuming, for me. I thought for her. She was all I could think about.” Chase looked down, worrying the label on the bottle again.

“She left at the end of that summer. Packed up without a word, was gone before I knew it. Her daddy said she’d decided, just like that, to go back to live with her mother in St. Louis.” He paused.

“I was going to ask her to marry me.”

I reached out, touching his shoulder. He flinched and I pulled my hand back.

“I left for New York then, got a job, applied for college. Got accepted for the following fall. My father was so angry with me; he didn’t speak to me for over a year. We’d finally gotten things pretty much patched up, but then he and my mom were killed.”

He finished his beer, setting the empty bottle on the porch floor.

“College wasn’t where I belonged either, but I was damned if I would come back here as a failure. So I stuck it out, managed to get through that first year without killing myself. Like I said, it was insane. I pretty much tried to drink my way through most of it. I also discovered all those pretty girls, needing nothing more than my charming smile to come with me, let me bed them and then send them on their way. Never saw them again; can’t tell you their names, probably didn’t ask. It made me feel better, just using them like Mandy used me. But in the end, there was always this huge whistling hole in my heart.”

He stretched his arms over his head. “I found the bondage clubs about the same time I was flunking out of college. There was a great deal of release for me, in being a dominant. The mental and emotional discipline helped me work through a lot of the pain.”

The memory of Chase’s methodical, almost prayerful, way that he used the ropes on me in the club came back.

“It helped me focus, helped me get my head out of my ass.” He laughed suddenly, startling me.

“And it’s sure the hell a great way to have sex with women, with no strings attached. You know that, or you did until Jake overstepped his boundaries.”

I flinched in the dark, the swing jumping erratically.

“So he did break his rules.” I heard Chase’s laughter again, darker this time.

“Jake shouldn’t be a dominant. He’s not cut out for the role. He doesn’t have the strength for it or the discipline.”

Anger flared instantly. “You don’t know what my relationship with Jake is like. You have no call to comment.”

“I struck a nerve, I guess.” Chase shifted on the swing, setting it to rock in a sickening arc.

“You’re right, I don’t know about your relationship, but I do know about his previous one. It was a failure, the girl disappeared. It wasn’t pretty, from what I understand.”

“You knew Jane?” I remembered Jake had said she’d taken him to Chase’s club.

“I didn’t, but Stacy did. They worked at the same club. She said Jane talked incessantly about Jake, his shortcomings, his brutality, how he abused her rather than being a true Dom who is all in control at all times.”

I drew a sharp breath. “That’s not true. That’s now how it happened. Jake told me the whole story.”

I could feel Chase’s eyes on me in the soft dark. “I’m sure he told you his side of the story, by his lights. You know the saying. There’s three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth.”

“Jake’s not like that, not at all.” My voice was shaking with anger. “You can’t know the truth.”

“Darling, you can’t either. You can only know what he’s told you.” He spread his hands. “I can only know what I’ve been told. You’ll have to make up your own mind about him.

“But I can tell you, from seeing him at the club, my first impressions are usually pretty damn accurate. He’s not cut out to be a dominant. You’re going to be the one getting hurt here and I don’t want that.”

My anger boiled over. I got off the swing, kicking over Chase’s beer bottle, sending it spinning across the floorboards of the porch.

“You don’t need to look out for me. I can do that myself.” I was breathing hard, my voice rough, fists balled at my sides.

Chase stood, crossing the short distance between us. His hands were on my shoulders, fingers digging into my skin. I twisted against him, but he only held me harder.

“Abby, you’re the most important thing in my life right now. If you got hurt and I could have stopped it, I couldn’t live with myself.”

I wanted to spit at him. “You’re just jealous. You want something someone else has, like a possession, like your horses…your damn fillies. It’s not me that you want. You just want what belongs to Jake.”

Chase’s face was inches from mine, his breath hot on my cheeks.

“I want you because I love you, Abby.”

Chase lowered his head, his mouth seeking mine. I twisted my head, trying to avoid his kiss, but he found my lips anyway.

And in that instant, I was lost. I stopped struggling against him, instead throwing my body against his. He let go of my shoulders and my arms were around his neck, my fingers in his hair, pulling him to me.

I wasn’t looking for the truth anymore; this was for me now. I wanted Chase, urgently, on some deep level that I didn’t really understand, didn’t want to understand. I only had need and desire.

His lips raked over my mouth, his hands holding me against the length of him. We were locked in this grip for what seemed like an eternity, my body instantly heated and aching for release.

Chase broke away, scooping me up in his arms. The screen door slammed against the side of the house, almost torn from its hinges as we went into the house. He turned down the narrow hallway, pushing a door open with his shoulder.

He set me on my feet, my body sliding down his, every inch of me wanting contact with him. There was an instant where I could have run, the fleeting image of Jake in my mind, but it was gone in a heartbeat, consumed in the passion and lust that ran through my veins.

My fingers tore at Chase’s t-shirt, pulling the hem from his jeans, sliding my hand beneath, over his flat stomach. He pulled the shirt over his head, tossing it in the corner and my hands moved higher, over the broad expanse of his chest, my mouth descending on his hard dark n**ples, biting and sucking.

Chase’s hands were searching for the buttons on my shirt, finally just tugging it over my head. I felt his hands at my br**sts, and there was no hope for the bra this time. It came away in two pieces in his hands, dropped unceremoniously to the floor.

We broke apart briefly, struggling with zippers and snaps and buttons on jeans. Chase yanked mine down my legs, my panties carried along.

I reached greedily for Chase’s erection, peeling back his jeans, my hands wrapped around the shaft of his cock. I met his eyes, hot and intense, his lips pulled back in a feral smile that would have scared me had I not matched the one I knew was on my own face.

He had my br**sts in his hands, palming my hard n**ples, making me arch against him. I let go of his cock, sliding my hands up his body, pulling his face down. My mouth found his, lips and tongue and teeth teasing, prodding, biting, unrestrained.

Chase’s hands moved down my back, cupping my ass, pulling me hard against his body, his erection rubbing against my stomach.

In one swift movement, Chase picked me up, tipping me across the bed, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist as he stood between them. He leaned forward, brought his mouth down on mine again, his hands planted on either side of my face, his fingers tangling in my hair. His kiss was brutal, lips grinding against mine, bruising them against my teeth.

His c*ck brushed against my body, up my thighs, tantalizingly close. Chase stood up then, pulling me by the h*ps to the very edge of the bed, bracing his knees against the mattress.

I looked up at him in the dim light spilling in from the open door behind him. His face was in cast in shadow but his eyes caught the light, boring down on me with an intensity that only made the fire inside me burn hotter.

“Oh, Chase!” I stretched my arms up, reaching for him, aching to feel his body against mine, to feel him inside me.

He drove himself into me with a hoarse cry, his body slamming into me, pushing me up the bed. His fingers dug into my hips, pulling me back to the edge of the bed, denying me the chance to hold him, to be crushed by his body.

“I want to watch you.” Each word was accompanied by a thrust of his c*ck into my body.

“I want to see you while I’m inside of you, Abby.”

I flung my arms over my head, letting him take me on his wild ride. He grabbed my legs, pulling them up his body, my heels resting on his shoulders, fingers caressing then pinching the insides of my thighs.

It was hard and fast, Chase taking no prisoners. The breath tore from his throat, his face contorted in a grimace that could have been as much pain as pleasure. There was no other sound from him but his harsh breathing.

My own body rocketed toward some dizzying peak. I pulled against Chase with my legs, arching my back, twisting myself against his body, his hands beneath my ass now, his fingers in my flesh.

When I came it was with terrific speed, my hands pulling the covers loose, my body arching up against Chase. He kept up his frantic pace, his eyes never leaving me as I flung myself against him, against the bed, every muscle taut. I felt him inside me, my body contracting around his cock, feeling every contour as I jerked and moaned beneath his hot gaze.

Only then, when I was on the downhill slide of my orgasm, my body fluid and yielding, did he lower himself to me, letting me wrap leaden arms around his neck, finally letting me kiss him.

He tore his mouth away; his final deep thrust into me accompanied by a sound of release…conquest. Buried in me, he shuddered violently, his h*ps grinding against me, the familiar flooding warmth of his orgasm filling me.

I held him against me then, his body covered in sweat, breathing hard. We stayed like that a long time, until he finally pulled away from me.

He looked down, his eyes unreadable in the dim room. I saw him hold out his hand and I took it, following blindly as he led me up the stairs to his own room.

We crawled into his big bed, under the sheets and blankets, arms around each other. I thought he’d fallen asleep; his breathing had changed, regular and deep. But then he spoke.

“You had other questions, didn’t you? About me, I mean. Ask if you want. I’ll tell you what you want to know, everything, no matter what it is.”

I was quiet a long time, long enough for him to say my name.

“I’m awake. I’m thinking.”

His laugh rumbled against my ear. “Okay. Just checking.”

“You said you had a sub, but something happened. What happened?”

“She fell in love with me. That simple. She wanted more than I could give her, way more than I was ready to give. She came into my life at a time when I’d decided I was never going to love any woman again. I cared about her, I did. But as a submissive. I cared about her safety, her pleasure, her well being. But I couldn’t love her. I finally told her she had to leave.”