Just for the Summer (Chasing Carolina #0.5) (7 page)

“Do you hear a female voice? No! Now drag your ass across the lawn and go knock on his fuckin’ door,” Becca snaps at me, whipping her hand out towards their house.

Resting my hands on my hips, I glare down at her. “What about you, miss bossy pants? Why don’t you drag your ass over there right beside me and talk to Parker?”

Huffing out a loud sigh, Becca jumps to her feet. “Unlike you, I’m not chicken shit. I’ll march my ass over there, bang on the door, and take exactly what I want.”

Laughing, I roll my eyes at Becca and her overdramatic behavior. “Fine, let’s do this. You’re lucky I’m still kind of drunk.”

I’M JUST HEADING UPSTAIRS
to shower, when I hear a knock at the door. Parker and Vance are in the kitchen making a frozen pizza, so I keep climbing the stairs, figuring they’ll get the door. I pray it isn’t Sophie and her friends showing back up here. If so, I’ll pretend I’ve had too much to drink so I can avoid her.

“Chase!” Vance hollering my name causes me to stop mid-step.

Shit
.

“What?” I shout back down the stairs to him.

“You have a visitor, douchebag; that’s what.”

Sliding my hands over my face, I go back down the stairs, preparing myself to fend off Sophie, but I’m shocked when I find Ashlynn and Becca standing in my kitchen.

She looks just as beautiful as she did earlier tonight, except now she’s even more stunning standing before me without a drop of makeup, her blonde hair up in a messy bun, and wearing adorable, cotton, heart-covered shorts and a red lace tank top.

“Ashlynn, what are you doing here?” Walking towards her, I rest against the kitchen island and take her in, my eyes roaming over every inch of her. A ghost of a smile forms on my lips as a tiny grin appears on her face.

She loves it when I stare at her; I can see it in her eyes as she stares back at me. She’s like an open book, revealing everything she’s feeling in those beautiful blue eyes.

“I wanted to see if maybe we could go somewhere and talk.”

Pushing myself off of the island, I walk towards her and grab the door handle. “Sure, let’s go outside.”

Becca is grabbing Parker’s hand, leading him into the living room as Ashlynn follows me out onto the wraparound deck. It looks like they’re going to do some talking too, or maybe not so much talking…but things are looking up for us, so that’s a plus.

As soon as I shut the door, Ashlynn follows me to the railing of the deck and stares down at the dark beach. Standing next to her, I rest my forearm on the banister and face towards her. I have an overwhelming urge to touch her, so I reach out and run my hand slowly down her back.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

Spinning, she gazes up at me with her face glowing in the porch light, making her beautiful face appear angelic. She’s so damn gorgeous.

“I wanted to talk to you about you…us. I really like you, and I think you like me, or at least I thought you did.”

How can she even doubt that? I thought I made it pretty clear yesterday I liked her.

She lets out a soft sigh before continuing. I don’t dare interrupt her, since she’s finally talking to me again. “You’re so hard to read…God…I know I’m rambling. It’s just…yesterday was so much fun, and then I saw you with that other girl and I didn’t know if I was imagining everything between us.”

I need to hold her, show her my feelings for her are real. Reaching out, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me. At first, she keeps her hands down at her sides and just stares up at me with her big blue eyes sparkling.

“You weren’t imagining anything, Ashlynn. I really like you…I think more than I’ve liked
any
girl. It’s pretty crazy and making me question my sanity, because I find myself thinking about you every single second of the day.”

I can’t believe I’m really saying all of this to her. I think hell froze over the day I met Ashlynn, because just in the matter of three days, I’ve turned into a totally different person.

“Is that so?” she asks with laughter in her sweet, soft voice. “If you like me so much, what were you doing with that girl last night?”

Ahh, hell.
I was a dumbass for thinking I wouldn’t have to confess I’d messed up.

I inhale deeply and then exhale slowly as I try to think of the best way to go about this without Ashlynn getting pissed off, kneeing me in the balls, and then hauling ass back to her house.

“I fucked up. Plain and simple. After y’all left last night, the guys wanted to go out, so we texted some girls we’d met the night before. It was stupid. The truth is I wanted to go out with you last night, but I didn’t want to come off as overeager, because we all know girls love it when guys play hard to get.” I give her a devilish smirk and relax a bit as she smiles back up at me and finally wraps her arms around my waist.

Holding her in my arms feels perfect. We feel perfect.

“Well, playing hard to get does work, Chase, but there’s a difference between leaving me wanting to see you again, and just being a plain asshole, going out with another girl, and making me never want to see you again.”

“What about you and Mr. ‘Ain’t I just irresistible with my British fuckin’ accent’?” I’m feeling defensive and don’t think before speaking like usual. I mentally cringe as soon as my question comes out, but damn, she’s pissing me off.

I’m a guy for Christ’s sake. We’re bound to mess up. We will definitely not just mess up once or twice, but a whole hell of a lot of the time. We’ll do more shit wrong than we ever do right, but that’s just life. Women just have to learn to accept that and find a way to like us anyway, because there’s no chance in hell I’ll ever be perfect.

She slaps my chest before hooking her hands back around my waist. “Oh stop! Liam is very nice, but there’s nothing going on between us. I met him this morning while Nikki and I were getting ready to go for our run. He asked if we had plans tonight and we said no, so he invited us to go out with him. You were with your little friend from last night, so I saw no reason I should tell him no.”

I suddenly feel sick at the thought of my major fuck-up last.

I don’t know why the hell I brought Sophie back here last night. It was wrong on so many levels. The entire time, I was thinking about Ashlynn, even while we were having sex. I was three sheets to the wind, but that’s no fucking excuse. I still knew what I was doing, and knew it was wrong, but I still used Sophie to try to push the thoughts of Ashlynn from my head and it backfired. Being with her only made me think of Ashlynn more, and then I felt like the world’s biggest asshole afterwards.

I’ve never regretted anything in my life, but for the first time, I actually regret something I’ve done.

Pushing the thoughts of Sophie out of my head, I focus on Ashlynn. “Sophie means nothing to me. I don’t plan on ever seeing her again, but you, on the other hand, are someone I want to get to know
very well
before you leave to go back to Georgia.” I slide my hands down to her ass, giving it a gentle squeeze, pressing her into my now semi-hard dick that’s tenting my shorts.

Her eyes open wider and her mouth forms a small O. It’s taking everything in me not to lean over and kiss her perfect lips.

“I’m not gonna lie. I really want to get to know you too, every single inch of you…but we gotta take things slow. I just got out of a relationship, and this whole casual thing is new to me. I don’t know if I can be what you need me to be, but I’m going to try.”

“I’m okay with that. I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing anything you don’t want to do. We can agree tonight to forget about the mistakes of yesterday and focus on all the fun we can have for the next three weeks. We can make the most of the time we’ve got and go from there. If you’ll let me, I’d really like to take you out on a date tomorrow night.”

I just asked her on a date. Who the hell am I, and where is the Chase who never goes on dates?
Sure, I’ll go out with a girl if we’re with a group of people. Normally, I just work my Kenzington charm to get her into my bed afterwards and then move on to the next girl, but with Ashlynn, everything’s different. Plus, she just made it very clear I won’t be fucking her anytime in the near future, but still, I want only her.

There’s some crazy ass shit going on in my head right now.

“You want to take
me
on a date?” she asks, furrowing her brows and wrinkling her adorable little nose up the same way she did yesterday on my boat.

I guess she’s just as shocked as I am. Nodding my head, I give her ass another squeeze. “I do. So what do ya say? Will you go on a date with me, so I can prove to you there’s more to me than this womanizing asshole you’ve seen so far?”

Rolling her eyes, she lets out another soft sigh, making my dick jump again. Fuck, my hand is going to be getting a lot of use until I wear down the walls around Ashlynn and get her to finally give into me.

I just hope for my dick’s sake that its sooner rather than later, especially since our days together are numbered. I want to be with her as much as I can before it’s time for us to go our separate ways.

“I guess I can go on one date with you, and for the record, you had your moments yesterday when I didn’t think you were a total asshole. I actually had a lot of fun with you and your friends out on your boat, and I’d really like to take you up on that wakeboarding lesson sometime.”

“You just say the word, and baby, I’ll take you out on my boat and teach you anything your little heart desires.” Releasing her ass, I bring my hands up to cup her head. I slowly slide my left hand to the nape of her neck, and with my right, I rub the pad of my thumb across her bottom lip. Her lips have been teasing me for days, and I don’t think I can wait any longer to finally taste them and feel her mouth against mine.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” I say barely above a whisper.

She lets out a shaky breath as her hands roam up my back, fisting my shirt. “I would love for you to kiss me.”

I don’t give her a second to change her mind. Leaning down, I press my lips to hers, pulling her body against mine. Her lips are soft, and the second they touch mine, I feel my dick completely harden to the point it’s painful. I walk her towards the house, pinning her against the wall beside the front door.

I grind my hips into her, causing a light moan to escape her lips and vibrate into my mouth as she parts her lips, allowing my tongue access to hers. Tilting my head, I start kissing her harder, and slide my tongue into her mouth, twisting my tongue with hers and savoring her taste. She tastes like sweet tea. I will never drink sweet tea ever again without getting a raging hard-on, because all I’ll be able to think about is the delicious taste of it on her tongue.

Her hands find their way to my hair and I growl into her mouth as she fists it, pulling me even closer. Fuck, this girl has me spinning. I was buzzed when she got here, but now I feel drunk. This feeling consuming me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my entire fucking life. No alcohol or Mary Jane can make me feel as high as I’m feeling right now. This kind of high can only be reached from a hit of Ashlynn. Right now, I can’t get enough of her.

With one hand, I dig my fingers into her scalp, eliciting an erotic moan from deep in her chest, and with my other hand, I slide under her tank top and feel her shiver against me as I explore her smooth, warm skin. Gripping her exposed hip, I squeeze her and grind into her harder. Her moans mixing with the roar of the ocean is the perfect summer song.

Just as I feel her giving into me, her kisses turning more passionate and aggressive, making me practically cum in my fucking pants, the door opens and Vance pops his head out, shouting, “Chase, you still out here?” giving me a fucking heart attack.

Ashlynn releases my hair and brings her hands to my chest, pushing me away, and then adjusts her tank top and gets to work fixing her messy bun.

Perfect fucking timing, asshole.

“Yeah, I’m right here. What do ya want?” I snap at him as I adjust myself in my shorts.

He gives me a knowing grin and drags his gaze from me to Ashlynn, who’s blushing a deep cherry red right now. “Sorry to interrupt, bro. It’s just the pizza’s done, so I thought I’d let you know.”

I run my fingers through my hair and let out an aggravated groan. “Thanks. I’ll be right in.”