I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2) (28 page)

I do as he asks and he slips my dress over my head in one smooth motion. “Lay back, baby, let me see you naked before me.”

The small lamp by the bed is still on and when I acquiesce to Chase’s request I know he can see all of me. I am laid bare and open. He blazes a path with one hand down my stomach. When he reaches a hip, he grips tightly, and rocks me a little on the mattress, like he’s testing out for when he fucks me. I can’t help but moan out his name.

“Baby…” He leans down and parts my lips with his own. Our tongues touch.

I could kiss this man forever. But he begins to kiss lower, down my chin, down my neck. I arch up and he places a hand under me, at the small of my back. He moves my body into his kisses as his mouth travels between my breasts and down over my abdomen, then lower still, to where I need and want him so very badly.

His breaths caress my sex, promising and hot. I cry out his name, tell him how very much I want what he’s about to do.

“I know, baby,” he replies, and then he kisses my clit, very softly.

He uses only his lips at first, but then his tongue darts out and he licks where he’s just kissed, over and over and over. “Oh, Chase,” I rasp. “Yes-s-s.”

Chase’s hands move my hips in unison with the rhythm of what he’s doing to me. When he senses I’m close—and I am—he keeps one hand on my hip, while the other trails down to below where his mouth is nudging me closer and closer to release. Chase slides a finger into me while he sucks on to and pulls my clit into his mouth, all while gripping my hip tightly, hard enough to leave a mark. It’s too much amazing sensation, I cry out in pleasure and tumble over the edge. Chase licks and kisses my sex as the last shudders of orgasm wrack through me. Slowly, he moves up my body until he reaches my mouth and kisses me deeply.

When we break for air, I am smiling, smiling and saying over and over in my head, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

And maybe I say it out loud, since Chase is saying it too.

And while he tells me “I love you back, baby girl,” he’s parting my legs to accommodate his body as he settles on top of me.

My all-encompassing boy is above me and on me, elbows at either side of my head, keeping his weight from crushing me. Somewhere in all my bliss I notice he’s ridded himself of his jeans. We’re skin to skin, completely bare, with my boy’s hard and throbbing pressing into my soft and wet.

I raise my head, allowing our lips to meet. Chase kisses my mouth open. I taste me on his tongue, but I also taste Kir and a hint of chocolate. While my tongue explores Chase’s mouth, he pushes his cock to my core. Our bodies are so close, pressed together, but it feels nowhere close enough.

I twine my fingers in his hair, then trail fingertips up and down his back. When I settle my palms on his inked wings I try to press Chase closer. But his body is on mine as close as he can be. There’s no space between us, but it’s
still
not enough. I shift and the tip of him pushes into my entrance. I sigh.
That’s better.

“You feel so good, sweet girl, I can’t wait to be inside you,” Chase whispers into my ear.

“Then don’t wait,” I say back in a sex-husky voice I’ve never before heard coming from my mouth.

Chase holds where he is, partially inside me, pressing and throbbing with the promise of more. He leans back so our eyes meet. He watches my reaction as he pushes into me another inch. I gasp. He’s big, and he stretches me wide with his girth. But I want to be opened up like this for Chase; I want him to stretch me to my limits. My body belongs to him, it’s his for the taking, and the sooner he takes me the sooner he can mold me to fit him.

I nod quickly, and Chase pushes into me more, stretching and filling me with his love for me, making us one. He’s almost in completely, but I know there’s still more to go. I close my eyes and feel, just feel. Because
this
is how love should feel. It’s like nothing I’ve ever known before. It moves me, it consumes me. It’s so overwhelming in fact that, for a second, I choke up.

Chase stills. “Are you all right?” he asks. He cups my chin and his thumb brushes over my kiss-swollen lips.

I arch up. “I’m good.” He shifts and I moan. “It’s just…I want all of you, Chase. Give me everything.” I gasp. “Don’t hold anything back.”

My boy knows what I mean. I want more than just his body.

“I’m already yours, Kay. I have been for a while now, long before I let you know. Maybe I’ve been yours from the day we first met, who knows? It sure feels like maybe I have.”

I feel Chase’s words as they fill my heart, mending the broken pieces. And then I feel
him
when, with one powerful and love-fueled thrust, he fills me all the way, like I’ve never been filled before, stretched and pulsing, coming apart once more. Coming still when Chase starts to move,
really
move.

My love gives me everything he’s got, using all his hard and all his muscle, using his love and his trouble, his good and his bad. My boy fucks with intensity, and I finally become enlightened as to what crazy-good sex really is. But I know I’m getting more from Chase than anyone has ever gotten from him in the past. He also gives me more than I’ve ever received from anyone in my past. This man gives me friendship, he gives me hope, and he makes possibility real. Frankly, in many ways, Chase has given me back my life. Maybe I’ve given him his life back too.

I look into my boy’s blues and hold his gaze as he moves inside my body, more slowly now, more deliberately. He mouths, “I love you.”

I say it back.

And with Chase loving me slow and easy we both come—together as one—in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Chapter Thirteen

Chase

I dream my girl has me in her mouth, and it feels so fucking good that I don’t want it to stop. I wake up kind of groaning and quickly realize this is not a dream.
Praise Jesus.

Shit, Kay’s lips wrapped around my cock may be the best thing I’ve ever felt. No, check that, this is second best. Nothing could top being inside her last night.

But…fuck.

My girl does some swirling motion with her tongue, and I know I am not going to last much longer.
Christ.
I try to warn her, give her some time to move, but she stays right where she’s at, rocking right along with my increasingly erratic thrusts. When I explode, she takes everything I give her.

After I recover, I brush back her hair, since she’s still leaning over my cock. “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” I say.

She sits back, touches her mouth, and smiles shyly.
Did she like it?
Shit, I think so.

“I wanted to,” she replies with a shrug. “Although I’ve never before…uh…”

Sweet girl has just sucked my dick with abandon, but discussing it makes her blush. Could she be any cuter?

I chuckle and pull her back to my body. “Never what, baby?” I want to hear the word she’s reluctant to say come out of that warm, sweet mouth.

She presses her cheek to my chest and whispers, “Swallowed.”

It’s probably selfish and possessive as hell, but I’m secretly thrilled to hear she’s never done that for any other guy. Hopefully, I’ll remain her only. Guess that makes me territorial too, but it’s just how I feel. Besides, it’s not all one-sided here. I shared a first with Kay last night too, and I tell her now.

“Last night was the first time I ever did the deed without a condom.”

She glances up at me, a kind of surprised expression spreading over her features. “Really?” she asks.

I smile down at her while caressing her back. “Yes, really, and let me tell you, Kay, you felt amazing. Incredible.”

She places her chin on my chest. “Well, until last night, I’d never done it without a condom either.”

My territorial, thrilled-to-hear-this meter goes up another notch. And all of this is nice to know—important, of course—but not nearly as monumental as our most important shared first: neither of us has ever been in love before.

We talk about this now.

I guess it shouldn’t, but it surprises me to discover all these feelings are just as intense for Kay as they are for me. This love, so powerful and consuming, is so much bigger than the both of us. On this, we agree.

“You’re in my soul, Kay,” I confess.

My girl covers me with her naked body. She straddles my hips and leans down to place her hands on my cheeks. “God, I love you,” she tells me as she cups my face.

And then I spend the next few minutes reveling in the kisses she showers on my lips, along my jaw, and down my neck. My hands travel down to her ass as I lift my hips off the mattress and press my growing arousal against her sweet spot. I want Kay to feel all my need, all my want, all this crazy fucking love I have for her. My girl presses back, slick and ready against me, letting me feel, in return, all her need, all her want, all the crazy fucking love she has for me.

“Fuck, sweet girl.” I push up into her all the way, sheathing my cock. “Does this feel as good to you as it does to me?”

She nods against my neck. Even though I am deep, deep inside her, I remain perfectly still. “Say it, baby, tell me it feels good. I need to hear it. Make it real.”

“It is real,” she pants out. “It feels amazing, Chase.
You
feel amazing.”

She tries to grind down on my dick to create some friction, but I hold her as we are, just letting her feel me in her, as I feel her all around me.
Fuck.

When I can’t take it any longer—this not moving shit—I flip us over, never leaving her. I begin to move slowly as I settle on top. I just want to love Kay easy right now; she’s probably a little sore from last night.

“You own me, sweet girl,” I whisper as I s-l-o-w-l-y pull out almost all the way.

She gasps and arches up to me, so I ease back in a little. “You own
this
,” I tell her.

And since she so fucking does, when she keeps her hips raised, and slides herself down my length so that my cock impales her inch-by-agonizing-inch, I just savor the feel and let her do whatever the fuck she wants. She circles her hips and fucks me till she’s gasping and crying out my name. But when I see she’s about to tumble—she looks so damn close—I know I can’t let her fall until I tell her one more thing.

I place her hand over my heart and catch her gaze. While I am pushing inside her as fully as possible, I tell this woman I love so fucking much what is more important than even our joined bodies. “Baby, you own my heart, and it’s yours forever.”

The morning is pretty well shot by the time Kay and I finally leave my bed. Both of us were so wrapped up in each other we forgot today is Sunday. And that means we forgot about Mass.

“How pissed do you think Father Maridale will be once he realizes we both skipped Mass?” I ask Kay after we’re showered and dressed and just hanging out, rocking lazily on the swing out on the back porch. “I think he’s going to figure we’re together.”

She shrugs her shoulders, pulls her legs up to her chest, and adjusts her jeans shorts. “It’s our business what we do, Chase.”

“I don’t know about that,” I retort with a chuckle.

I then tell her how Father Maridale warned me not to hurt her. “I’m sure that meant I wasn’t supposed to get involved with you,” I add.

My girl does not appear happy to hear this. “I can make my own decisions,” she snaps.

Her lips set, and she stares out over the land, which is vibrant green and kind of sparkly under today’s exceptionally blue and sunny sky.

My girl bites her lip. Quietly, she asks, “Is that why you said you were ‘trouble’ the day we first kissed?”

I stop the swing’s lazy movement and turn to my girl. “What I said had nothing to do with Father Maridale. I mean, I tried to respect his wishes.”

I run my hand through my hair, take a breath, then cup sweet girl’s chin so she’ll look at me and see how serious I am about this. “I love you, Kay, but the trouble part I talked about is true. It’s not that I
was
trouble; I
am
trouble, baby girl. I’ll never really be right.”

Her hand rests on my back, right about where feathers that will never stop falling lie hidden beneath the T-shirt I’m wearing.

“I am broken, remember?” I reach back and press her hand to the falling feathers, the broken wings. “I may be healing, but I will never be whole.”

“You’d never hurt me,” she whispers, her hand sliding up to where the ink angel is kneeling.

God, I hope not
, I think. But to Kay, I just nod…and pray she’s right.

We sit back and I resume rocking for a while longer. Kay tells me she plans to go to the cemetery, but not until evening. I half-expect her to ask me to join her, which I’d do in a heartbeat. But though she hesitates and chews her lip in what I guess is contemplation, the invitation never comes.

I suspect her reticence has to do with the secret she’s been trying to share with me. I don’t care what it is; it won’t change my feelings for her. But she sure seems to believe it might. When she tried to tell me yesterday morning, and I sensed she literally wasn’t able to, it just about broke my heart. But her secret has to do with what happened the night her sister died, and that kind of shit runs deep. Her mother turning her back on my girl sure didn’t help matters.

Damn, I’d like to have a nice, long talk with that mother of hers, the coldhearted woman who abandoned my girl at her most vulnerable time. No wonder Kay can’t find her words, she obviously fears I’ll turn my back on her too. Never,
never
. I’ll always be here for my sweet girl, no matter what the fuck has happened in her past.

Now that the subject of Sarah has come up, Kay looks down and out. It’s such a beautiful day, though, and it’d be a waste to allow despondency to prevail.

I feel like we need to do something that will cheer Kay up, so I throw out, “Hey, would you want to go fishing today?”

My girl’s eyes light up. “Yeah, that sounds like fun.” She smiles slyly. “Besides, I believe we still have a bet, mister.”

Oh, shit.
Not the wager that would require me to sit in the front of the church between Missy and Kay if I don’t catch more fish than my girl. That is so not happening.

I scramble. “Well, I think that bet is off, babe. You’re already living on my property, and that’s what I was going to ask for when I won, remember?”

My girl pokes me in the arm and laughs. “When, not if? Aren’t you the confident one? You’re that sure you’ll win, eh?”

I nod, and she frowns. “Hey, there’s a very good chance I might actually catch more fish than you, you know. And that, my friend, would result in a victory for me.” She gives me a
take-that
expression. “I haven’t gotten what I want yet, Chase.”

“All right, all right,” I concede. But the whole time I’m acting all nonchalant with Kay I am telling myself I damn well better win this stupid-ass bet.

A half an hour later we’re down at the creek on my property. Kay’s sitting on one of the banks, clad in the tank top and jean shorts she had on earlier. She’s holding her pole, while I bait the hook.

“I knew you were going to freak out over the worms,” I say, quirking an eyebrow as I glance up at her.

“It’s not that I’m afraid of them, Chase. I just feel bad impaling them like that.” She glances distastefully to the end of the line, where I’ve done exactly that to one of the slippery buggers.

I laugh. “Oh, sweet girl, pitying earthworms.” I shake my head and kiss her cheek, before I sit back down and pick up my own pole.

“Do you think we’ll catch anything?” she asks.

I shoot her a sidelong glance. “It usually takes more than a minute.”

“Smart ass,” she mumbles.

Another few seconds pass, and restless girl says, “I’ve always heard it’s best to fish early in the morning. Isn’t this kind of late? It’s after two.”

“That would have been ideal,” I agree. “But we were too busy fu—uh, we were preoccupied this morning, remember?”

Kay blushes. “Yeah, we sure were.”

Baby girl’s cheeks are so red I have to turn my head to keep from laughing. What I wouldn’t give to know what part of what we did this morning she’s thinking about right now. Hopefully, all of it. I sure can’t forget a single moment. In fact, I soon realize I’d better direct my thoughts elsewhere, as I am starting to sport a rod that has nothing to do with fishing. I shift, adjust myself, and concentrate on the scenery.

It’s pretty down here by the creek. The banks are grassy and there are wildflowers up along the crests. The tall trees in the surrounding area provide a fair amount of shade where we’re sitting, but the sun is still shining brightly through the canopy of leaves above us.

I suddenly remember that I slipped the sunglasses I bought for Kay yesterday—the ones like the junkie destroyed—into the pocket of my jeans before we left the house. When I see my girl shielding her eyes with her hand, I figure the time is right to give them to her.

I take the sunglasses from my pocket and hold them out to my girl. “Shades?” I lift an eyebrow.

Kay glances down at what I’m holding and her caramels widen. “Oh my God, Chase, you bought me new sunglasses.” She takes her new faux-designer eyewear from my hand and holds them up. “They look exactly like the ones that jerk destroyed.”

“Yeah, I remembered you saying the day we met that you bought the pair I fixed at the dollar store up by Agway. I was up there yesterday, getting some of the stuff for your surprise, so I figured I’d stop in and buy you a new pair.”

My girl slips on her new shades and smiles over at me, looking quite cute and beautiful. “Thank you,” she mouths.

I kiss her cheek, and whisper against her skin, “You’re quite welcome.”

“You’re too sweet to me,” she says when I lean back, like maybe she doesn’t deserve this gesture. But she so very much does.

Over the next hour or so we catch a few fish. They’re all bluegills though, so we throw them all back in. Overall, when we add up everything, we determine I caught one more fish than Kay, so I win the bet.
Thank-fucking-Jesus.

Kay tells me to choose a new prize, since she already lives in my apartment. I say just a kiss will do. But one kiss leads to another, and then another, until we end up making out on the bank by the creek for the next thirty minutes. Not that I am complaining.

Later that evening, after Kay leaves for the church cemetery, I go out to the back porch, sit down on the swing that Kay and I were rocking in this morning, and call my brother.

Soon as he answers, Will thanks me for the money.

“What did you need it for?” I cautiously ask. I’m still worried he used it for something illegal.

And that worry is just about confirmed when my brother doesn’t answer. “Will?”

“What?” he mumbles, sounding put out.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” I warn.

He pauses, and then breathes out one long steady breath. “Everything is cool, okay? I am not being stupid.”

I have no choice but to accept his answer at face value. I am too far away to do anything else. I change the subject to something positive, the artwork he e-mailed me. I tell him how fucking fantastic it is, and add that I think he has the talent to eventually get his comic book published.

Will tries to play it off, but I can tell he’s pleased. I hear it in his voice when he gives me an enthusiastic, detailed summary of his apocalyptic-Vegas story line.

“I’m thinking about adding zombies,” he says excitedly. “Zombies are big right now. What do you think, Chase?”

Some invisible string tugs at my heart. It moves me to hear my little brother say my name like that, like he used to, like he did when he looked up to me—once upon a time, a lifetime ago. Maybe there really is hope in believing I can fully rebuild this relationship with my brother.