I let my lip go and answered softly, “Yes.”
“Perfect,” he replied then he moved to the door but stopped at it and turned to me. “Know this, babe, something goes to shit and it ends between you two, you’ll never find a better man. Not ever. You may think you will, he may convince you that you will, but you will not.” He paused then finished softly, “Ever.”
With that parting shot, he jerked his chin up at me, opened the door and disappeared.
I realized I was holding my breath.
Then I realized I had yet another reason to be in a dither.
“Fraking great,” I muttered.
* * * * *
“You okay?” I asked softly into the cab.
We’d hit the Aspen city limits ten minutes ago and were winding our way up a mountain road filled with seriously exclusive properties.
My dithers had not totally died except one.
Chace fraking loved my hair and he loved, loved, loved my dress and shoes. He made this perfectly clear using his mouth but not to form words. He also used his fingers and I’d had a very quick, very hard orgasm while pressed into the wall beside my front door caused by Chace’s hand down my panties coupled with Chace’s tongue in my mouth.
So that was one down.
I hadn’t shared about Deck because Chace seemed tense and I didn’t want to make him more tense and pissed or worried so I decided to tell him about Deck later.
So I was focused on one dither and that was Chace being tense about dinner.
“I’ll be happy when this shit is over,” he answered.
I would too, for him.
“She’s gonna have the spread, honey, someone cookin’ for her, someone servin’ us. She’ll go all out,” he warned me.
I’d never been served in a home before by anyone other than the owner of the home. It would be weird but not torture.
So I replied quietly, “All right, Chace. That actually sounds kind of cool.”
He turned into a handsome, curving drive that was lit on both sides with those lights that rose out of the turf. “Food’ll be rich, complicated and there’ll be a lot of it. You don’t like somethin’, don’t be polite and eat it. Just eat what you like.”
“Okay, honey.”
He kept winding up the drive to a large, rambling house set into a mountain backdrop lit full on by lights at the front. The brick was a lovely mixture of whites and pinks. The landscaping, even under the melting April snow, was supremely attractive.
“She’s in your space, you’re uncomfortable, give me a sign and I’ll take care of it.”
“I’ll be fine, Chace.”
“Don’t worry about what I’ll think, just give me a sign,” he reiterated while he parked.
He turned off the ignition, I reached a hand out and curled it around his thigh and his eyes came to me.
“I love you.”
Every centimeter of air in the cab of his truck went still as he stared at me by the dashboard lights and I stared back at him.
I said it.
I meant it.