He wasn’t thrusting hard and grinding deep. His rhythm was smoother, gentler, beautiful and I finally focused on him, my arms gliding around him to hold tight.
“Always,” I whispered.
Chace slanted his head and kissed me, his tongue sliding into my mouth and I came.
I took him through it, after it and, when his thrusts grew faster, more powerful, driving deep, I felt it and loved it after he buried his face in my neck and groaned low against my skin.
He started gliding in and out and I took that too, loving it, before he slid in deep and stopped and one of his curls came to my attention. My hand moving of its own volition slid up his back, my fingers closed on it and I gave it a little tug, giving myself a little happy shiver doing it.
“Apparently,” he started in a mutter, talking to my neck, “I wasn’t tired.”
I closed my eyes, let his curl go and circled his hip with my other leg so I could hold him tight with everything I had available to me.
“But unfortunately,” he went on, “when you’re way pissed, you lay off the geek references so you make way too much f**kin’ sense.”
That meant I got through.
Thank you, God, I got through.
I opened my eyes and dipped my chin so my lips were at the skin under his ear, the skin of my upper lip tickled by his unruly curls and I whispered, “Chace.”
His head came up and I caught my breath at the look on his face, warmth, regret and something else, something huge, something that made my heart skip.
“I should have told you earlier. I should have trusted you. I should have read all the things you were sayin’ to me with the way you were with me, for me and with Malachi and knew you could handle it. I was wrong, baby, and I f**ked up. But I love you, Faye, and protection going hand in hand with love is all I know,” he admitted quietly.
My chest depressed as my eyes started stinging.
What I saw on his face was love.
He loved me.
Loved me.
“You love me?” I whispered, just to confirm.
“Fell in love with you in a grocery store aisle and you didn’t even know I was there.”
“I probably did,” I confessed and his lips tipped up but it wasn’t teasing and sweet, it was strangely sad.
“Then you did but I didn’t know. You wanted me, I wanted you, I sat on what I wanted and f**ked up my life.”
“You didn’t f**k up your life, Chace.”
“If I moved on you when I wanted to, you’d have been in my bed the last seven years and Misty wouldn’t have seen it. Ty wouldn’t have –”
I squeezed him with all my limbs and whispered harshly, “Stop.”
He shut his mouth.
I went on, “Nothing can change what happened but one thing can change and that’s you feeling that the world is on your shoulders. Another thing that’s all you know since your Mom is ill and has been your whole life is thinking you’re responsible for everything around you, that you can fix it, make it better or at least cushion everyone’s fall. Your Dad, when you were growing up, should have protected you from that too. Proving he’s not only the worst father in the world but also the worst in history, he clearly didn’t.”
“I won’t give him much, honey, but you live with that in your house, it’s impossible to shield a child from it.”
“That’s debatable and you’re right, I didn’t live it but am I right that he didn’t try?”
Chace slid out of me, rolled us to our sides, pulled my hair away from my face but kept his fingers in it before he answered quietly, “You’re right. He didn’t try.”
Both his arms closed around me tight, gathering me closer even as his hand didn’t leave my hair but his legs tangled with mine and he carried on.