AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Six
The pressure from theplane ascending combined with the surprise of Chase’s kiss, squeezing my heart and fracturing the wall I didn’t realize I’d built there to keep him out. The clenching was exquisite and startling.
I didn’t know how to react. What to think, beyond this is incredible.
He broke the kiss, then dipped in for another and a quick peck, before finally pulling away. The intensity of his gaze sent another wave of fissures racing along the box around my heart.
“Annie? Say something.” Chase’s tone was a sweetly shadowed blend of command and concern.
“Me?” The question slipped out as my reality swarmed back into my thoughts. “You want me to say something.” I processed his words. “What about you? Did you decide to do this overnight? And if not, seems like you should have said something.” I wasn’t upset, just confused.
The plane leveled out, and my stomach dropped again. What was going on in my world?
One corner of Chase’s mouth tugged up in a half-grin. “I did. I’ve been flirting with you for years.”
“You talk like that with everyone.” It was true. No shame. Last week he practically wrote a soliloquy about how nice Grayson’s ass was. “I mean something obvious.” Apparently, I was a little dim when it came to the men around me and how they felt about me.
He glided his fingers down my arm, leaving goosebumps in his wake. “You’re my sister’s best friend. I thought it might be awkward.”
“Except, no one cares about that but you.”
“No?” He was studying me again with that penetrating gaze that wanted to burrow into my soul. “That hasn’t colored the way you see me at all?”
Beyond the thoughts of, he sees me as a sister and he’d never look at me otherwise? I shrugged. “No.” My denial was less than convincing.
He loosely gripped my fingers and ran his thumb along the back of my knuckle. A million tiny shocks of desire raced through me, and my mouth was suddenly dry. We got drink service on this flight, didn’t we? Why was I even thinking about that now?
Because my brain was bottlenecked on the Chase Hughes just kissed me thing.
“I’ve been thinking about it for months,” Chase said. “Rather, I’ve been thinking—daydreaming, fantasizing—about you for years. But I didn’t know how to bring it up. We have the same friends. If things get awkward between us...”
Our friends would take sides. I didn’t want that. But his assumption meant—“You expect things to not work out?” Were we breaking up? We weren’t even dating. How did we go from I’m interested to don’t make our friends choose between us? I was over-thinking things.
“I didn’t say that.” Chase’s calm tone was in stark defiance of my racing brain. He let out a light laugh. “You’re adorable. You know?”
“What?” Should I be offended? Complimented?
“My money says, right at this very moment, you’re starting to run variables through your head. As many as you can grasp. What I mean. What all of this means. What happens next. It’s one of the many things I adore about you.”
Complimented, I suppose? “Why now?” I still wanted that answer.
“Can I get either of you a drink?” The stewardess interrupted.
Whatever kind of juice they had on hand and vodka. A lot of it. Too bad I had to be in the office in a few hours. “Coke.”
“Cup of ice.” Chase’s gaze never left my face.
The stewardess handed us ice, and me a soda. I pressed the cool can to my face. It didn’t sap the heat away the way I hoped.
“I’m kind of glad you and Luke didn’t do more than just kiss.” Chase was calm. Collected. “In addition to the whole because I want you thing. If you’d slept with him, you might not want anyone else. Like me.”
—the hell did that come from? “I can draw a lot of assumptions from a statement like that, but my brain is already overloaded. Fill in the blanks for me.”
“He and I ran into each other at a bar a few months ago. We talked. We drank. We ended up in bed together.” Chase picked up an ice cube and dropped it again.
Fuck my imagination. Now I had a whole new wave of images to tease me. I knew they were both bisexual, but picturing them together... I should be jealous, shouldn’t I? Hard to tell, with the want racing through my veins. “Not your best story, but better than one that ends with a bad pun.”
“Ah, no. This story had a happy ending. Or a few. At least that night. The sex was great. He’s an attentive lover.” Chase traced a cold finger along my bottom lip. “I can compete, but you might not have given me a chance if you already knew what he had to offer.”
