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“That’s horrible.”
“Yeah. Peyton went to the police, but they didn’t do much. Eddie didn’t speak more than a word or two here and there, and Peyton couldn’t let it go. She started following him at night to see where he was staying, thinking if she gave the police more specifics they might look into it further. I told her it wasn’t safe, but she didn’t listen. The day of our engagement party, Eddie showed up at the shelter with a broken nose and two black eyes. Peyton had figured out where he was staying, and went down there that night to see if she could pry more information out of others since Eddie didn’t talk much. She was supposed to wait for me at the train station.”
“Oh God.”
“I found her a few minutes too late. Eddie was cradling her and rocking back and forth, sitting in a pool of her blood. Knife wound. She must have gotten in the way of their game of beating up homeless people.” He took a deep breath in and out. “She was gone before they got her in the ambulance.”
My throat burned, and tears stung my eyes as they slid down my face.
Chase must have felt the wetness on his back. “Are you crying?”
The passage from my chest to my lips was clogged. It was hard to speak. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Chase. I can’t even imagine what you went through.”
“I didn’t tell you to get you upset. I wanted you to know so there’s nothing between us. I hate that the nightmares came back at all, but this is the first time I’ve felt anything more than physical for someone since Peyton, and I don’t want to screw it up before it even has a chance to get started.”
“You’re not screwing things up—just the opposite.”
Chase turned, pulling me from behind him onto his lap. Pushing a piece of hair behind my ear, he said, “I’m not the hero your brother is.”
My eyebrows drew together. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t keep Peyton safe.”
“Keep her safe? What happened wasn’t your fault. How could it be?”
“I should have been there with her.”
“Chase, that’s crazy. You can’t be with someone twenty-four hours a day to protect them. It’s not like you put the knife in the killer’s hand. People need to take responsibility for their own protection. That’s why I’m the way I am. My own experiences have made me even more aware of that. ”
Chase looked into my eyes, like he was searching for sincerity. When he found it, which of course he did because I’d meant every word I said from the bottom of my heart, he nodded and kissed my lips gently.
He exhaled, and I actually felt the tension leave his body. Checking the bedside alarm clock, he said, “It’s not even five o’clock. Why don’t we try to get some sleep?”
I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate or not, but I wanted to make him feel better, get his mind off of the sadness of the past. Neither one of us could change what had happened in our lives, but we could leave it there and move forward and continue to live. My eyelashes fluttered before I spoke from beneath them. “I’m not sleepy.”
“No?”
I shook my head back and forth slowly.
The timbre of his voice dropped. “What did you have in mind?”
“Maybe a little of this.” Dipping my head, I kissed his pectoral muscle. Working my way up, I alternated between gentle licking and sucking until I reached his jaw. My tongue trailed from one end of his beautiful mouth to the other, planting a soft kiss at the corner of his lips.
Turning his head to catch my lips with his, Chase kissed me deeply. The kiss felt different than the others we’d shared—more intense, more passionate, more meaningful. If our kisses were each a story, this was the one where the hero got the girl, and they rode off into the sunset.
For the next hour, we shared more than just our bodies. The sun had begun to rise, casting a golden hue across the room as Chase slowly moved in and out of me. It was beautiful and tender, and I felt it in a place I never knew another human being could touch—my soul.
***
We had an evening flight home after the second day of focus groups wrapped. After working side by side during the day and sleeping wrapped in each other’s arms, a feeling of melancholy washed over me as we drove to the airport. I looked out the town car window, lost in thought, as Chase spoke on an overseas conference call with one of his manufacturers.
He covered the phone and leaned toward me, pointing to a large billboard up ahead. “You want to go, don’t you?”
