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They moved together like silk against flesh. A slow, easy glide, their bodies brushing, burning.
"I've missed you," he whispered, and her heart nearly broke all over again.
"Have you?" She couldn't submerge the threat of disbelief in her voice. "You could have called. "
Was that surprise that flickered in his eyes? Surely it wasn't. He was a man, fully mature; he knew women, knew their bodies and all the right things to say. Surely he knew the need for more than the orgasms he could give.
"Would calling have been enough for you?" he asked, his hand resting on her hip.
"It would have been a start. "
She needed more, and she knew it. And he should know it.
He pulled her closer, his steps leading them deeper onto the dance floor and pressing his erection more firmly against her stomach.
Kia felt her knees weaken at the feel of his arousal, at the sight of it in his brooding gaze. Chase was hungry, very hungry. She knew that look, had seen it on his face as he took her, felt it in his touch as he held her.
And it was just the hunger.
"I need more than a few phone calls, Kia," he finally told her. "I'm a man, not a teenager. "
"Are we going to argue the rules of a relationship, Chase?" She shook her head at the thought. "You're making excuses, and we've gone far past that stage. If you want to walk away, then I won't try to hold you. But if you want more from me, then there are things I need as well. "
She couldn't afford to let him break her, to allow herself to be broken. She had spent two years attempting to atone for something she hadn't been the cause of, fearing herself and society because she had lost the confidence she needed to make friends, or to keep them.
Realizing how far she had allowed herself to sink was frightening. Even more frightening was the knowledge that Chase could destroy her as Drew had never imagined destroying her.
"Why isn't the pleasure enough, Kia?" he asked her then, staring down at her, watching her so closely that she wondered if he could see clear to her soul. Or if he even wanted to.
"Pleasure alone lasts for such a very short time, Chase," she said. "When the pleasure's gone, what's there left to hold on to?"
His expression hardened. "I thought you had already learned, Kia, what you're holding on to is an illusion to begin with. You want love, don't you? You want to turn this into an emotional roller coaster that could destroy both of us. "
She shook her head slowly. "It's only a roller coaster if you want it to be," she said softly. "But I want more, Chase. I want more, or I want none of it at all. Because when the pleasure is gone, all I have left is a cold bed and the same life I had when you walked into it. Plus the knowledge that something is missing. And I'm tired of that someth
ing missing. "
She paused as the music drew to a close and moved from his arms before the orchestra swung into another slow tune.
"It's 'not enough for you either," she told him then, knowing it, feeling it so deep inside her that the knowledge was a part of her. "You want it to be. You wish it were. But both of us know it's not. And that has the potential to destroy us. Not the emotion itself. "
"I wish you wouldn't walk away, Kia. " His voice was stony, his gaze cool, those light green eyes becoming icy.
She smiled sadly. "I wish I didn't have to walk away. "
And she did. She turned and moved toward her parents, to where they stood with her aunt.
She had made her appearance, she had mingled, she had danced, and she'd had her single glass of wine. And she'd had enough.
It was far better than she had done in the past two years, she told herself. She wasn't hiding, she wasn't afraid of the social niceties, and she did not fear the whispers that followed her.
Turning back, she watched as Chase moved onto the dance floor again, this time with a debutante who was no doubt cooing and simpering at the honor of dancing with one of the princes of society.
Kia sighed with the saddened realization that that girl could have been her six years before Believing she was so poised, so strong, and so impossible to hurt. And she had learned different.
"Kia, sweetheart, your aunt and uncle are coming to the house after the ball. " Her father drew her attention back to him. "You should join us. "
"I think I've had enough for the night already, Daddy. " She gripped his arm and reached up to kiss his cheek. "Gould you have the limo brought around for me? I'm heading home. "
