Page 97 of Love Undercover
The air grew thick with her worry. “And if it doesn’t go to plan?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached up to brush the hair out of her face, trailing the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “I’m good at thinking on my feet.”
She raised a brow as the knot in her stomach tightened. None of it made her feel better or safer.
He picked up on her strain. “Please stop worrying,” he murmured, the sound of his voice a low rumble.
She studied the lines that fanned out from his eyes, a road map of expression, and noted that there were flecks of gold in the mossy depths of his irises. “I don’t know that I can stop.”
He took a slow breath, half-smiling. “That would be a permanent thing.”
Her heart stuttered as her brows crashed over her eyes. “A permanent thing?” she repeated.
“Sadie, I. . .” He looked down, his fingers flexing along her waist. “Things are different. Do you feel it?”
Her breath caught when he lifted his head.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He met her gaze with an intensity she felt down to her toes. “I thought I could just walk away. To keep you safe, I was prepared to take you home and leave with no backward glance.”
She trapped the oxygen in her lungs, keeping it captive to the words he had yet to say, that she wanted to hear.
“I know I can’t now. I’m going to make sure this whole thing ends for good, and then, if. . . if you want to see where this goes. . .” He looked down, his face actually flushing with embarrassment.
She put her hands against his cheeks, bringing his eyes to hers again. “I do, Chase.”
He grimaced. “If we do this, I can’t promise you a worry-free life.”
The pieces clicked into place then. That’s what he’d been getting at—that she would always wonder if he was safe. And he was telling her she’d have to make peace with that if this was going to become something.
She wanted to dive headfirst into it, promise that it didn’t matter. But she also knew enough about herself to recognize how often she made rash decisions, how impulsive she’d always been. And she wanted to be sure, wanted him to be sure. She didn’t want to mess this up with her thoughtless words and actions.
“I’m willing to give it a try,” she said, her voice solemn.
It sounded foreign, so at odds with what was shouting inside of her. But this was still so new, still so influenced by their circumstances, that it could easily be something that fizzled as soon as the dust cleared.
He nodded, his expression stoic, the knowing there in his eyes. His gaze traced over her face in such an intimate way that she felt the heat blossom low in her body.
That tug was always between them, something she might never get used to. It was hard to tell. She’d had a handful of serious relationships, and she didn’t dole out this kind of physical intimacy quickly or easily. But it was almost like her body had a mind of its own.
So when she lowered her face, bringing her lips to his, it wasn’t a surprise—though she didn’t understand how or why this felt so urgent all the time—that she’d broken her own rules so readily. As his hands wended around her waist, pulling her closer, bringing her flush against his chest, she wondered at the fact that they had known each other a mere few days.
But no one had ever made her feel so much herself, so accepted as she was. No one had devoured her the way that Chase had, the way she knew he would now as he slipped her shirt off.
“I want you so badly,” he whispered against her collarbone, brushing his lips along her skin, while his hands skated up and down her back, just caressing her for the heck of it.
She tipped her head back and slipped her hands into his hair, gripping. His lips made a languid trail across the swell of her breasts threatening to spill from her bra, back up to her collarbone, across her shoulder, up her throat, and back down again.
“It never stops. This ache for you,” he breathed across her ribs, peppering kisses across and down to her stomach.
Words wouldn’t form; she couldn’t communicate that she felt the same way, not while his mouth did these things to her, not when her body was screaming so loudly she couldn’t think straight.
It was possibly the last night of their lives. So she wanted to drink deeply of his devotion to her body, fall as far as she could into the abyss of his strength, his hands, his mouth, his tongue.
And so she did, long into the night.
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