The Sanchezes were rich.
The Ramseys weren’t.
Elena Sanchez was gorgeous and popular.
Chase didn’t exactly look like he’d been hit in the face with a brick, but girls like her didn’t hang around boys who wore faded jeans, dusty boots and beat-up cowboy hats.
Of course, that didn’t mean boys in faded jeans and Stetsons didn’t enjoy watching pretty girls in their pricey clothes.
And Chase had watched Elena plenty. Not that he’d admit to such a fact, even if his brother put him in a headlock and threatened to dunk him in the disgusting, algae-covered water trough he hadn’t gotten around to cleaning yet.
Chase huffed a nervous, indecisive breath and tapped the heel of his boot a couple more times on the floor. He’d never have the courage to go up to her at school, with so many other kids around, but maybe here he could.
This was a Christmas party. Everyone was in a festive and possibly more receptive mood than usual.
So maybe …
Glancing around, he took a couple tentative steps away from his post against the wall. His mother and father were chatting with another couple on the far side of the room. His brother was dancing with some older, attractive girl, smiling and swinging her around in the center of the area designated for just that purpose. An eight-piece orchestra was playing high-brow music, interspersed with the occasional holiday instrumental.
And over by the punch bowl stood Elena with a few of her friends. They looked familiar, too. He thought their first names were Tisha, Leslie, Stephanie and Candy, but wasn’t sure of their last names. Not that the specifics mattered; they were all part of the country club set.
He took the long way around, skirting the crowd, scuffling his feet when he should have been taking long, confident strides. But his brother was the smooth one with girls. Chase liked them well enough, and most of the time, they liked him back, but they also tended to be the tomboy type and were more friends than girlfriends.
Elena definitely wasn’t the tomboy type, but she would be the first girl he’d asked to dance … if he ever got around to it.
He was at the edge of the buffet table now, only a yard or two away from her. A man walked past, bumping into Chase without apologizing or even acknowledging the slight. Typical of this crowd, Chase thought. If you weren’t one of their own—namely rich and powerful—then you might as well not exist.
Shaking off the thought, he took a deep breath, pulled his hands from his pockets and stepped forward.
It took a moment for Elena to notice him. She was dressed in a pretty red velvet dress with white lace trim. One side of her long black hair was pulled up and pinned in place with a sprig of live holly.
Her friends, however, noticed him right away. The four of them fixed him with cold, snooty stares, as though he’d just tromped in from the cow barn, covered head to toe in manure.
He ignored them, keeping his attention firmly locked on Elena.
“Hey,” he said, sliding his hands back into the front pockets of his dress pants, bunching up the bottom of his matching jacket.
She glanced at him, then at her friends, then back to him. “Hello.”
Her response could have been warmer, but it wasn’t exactly glacial, either. He pressed on.
“Um … are you having fun?”
Another shifted look to her friends. Her expression remained impassive, not terribly interested, but also not as offended as the others in her little clique.
“Yes.”
Dragging his hands from his pockets, he straightened his suit coat and wiped his palms on the sides of his slacks.
“So, do you want to dance?” he asked on a rush, feeling his face heat and resisting the urge to yank at his tie.
Her brows rose and she slanted a sideways glance at her girlfriends, who now had their arms crossed over their chests and were scowling at him. One of them threw her head back and laughed.
Chase almost told her she sounded like one of his father’s mares when she whinnied, but at the moment he was more concerned with Elena’s answer to his question.
Elena gave a snort, crossing her arms and hitching a hip in a perfect replication of her friends’ poses. “I don’t think so,” she told him in a snotty, highfalutin tone.
Her green eyes flitted down to the floor, taking in the pair of cowboy boots he was wearing. They were his best pair, black and polished to a shine, but they were still boots instead of leather dress shoes.
She lifted her head, once again meeting his gaze. “Why don’t you go dance with one of your horses?”
Her friends burst into hoots of laughter, huddling together to share their amusement at his audacity in daring to approach one of their own.
Chase felt as though he’d been doused with a bucket of ice water. His cheeks heated and his stomach lurched sickeningly.
Without another word, he turned and shouldered his way through the crowd, rushing outside into the chilly night air. Even in Texas, the nights could get cold, especially in December.
But he didn’t care; he wasn’t going back inside. He would sit in the car and wait for his parents and brother to decide to leave the party, but no matter how cold or hungry he might get, he wasn’t going back in that big house—or anywhere near Elena Sanchez ever again.
Hours after their frantic, explosive coupling against the sitting room wall, Chase and Elena were wrapped around each other in the center of the king-size bed, sheets tangled about their naked bodies. The muted noises of the outside world mingled with their breathing to lull them both to sleep.
Chase honestly hadn’t thought his legs would ever work again, never mind other parts of his anatomy. He’d thought he’d expire right there on the carpeted floor—sweaty, drained, clothes askew, with Elena sprawled half on top and half beneath him.
But within the hour, he’d somehow found the strength to climb to his feet and help Elena to hers, too.
He hadn’t intended to do anything more than get her into bed, but then he’d caught a glimpse of her flushed skin and her half-exposed breasts through the opening of her fluffy white robe, and he’d realized that where Elena Sanchez was concerned, there was no such thing as being completely exhausted—or completely sated.
He’d started kissing her in the doorway of the bedroom, and before they’d crossed the threshold, they were tearing their clothes off the rest of the way and stumbling for the bed.
Now they were once again pleasantly worn out, and—for the moment, anyway—satisfied. She was tucked along his side, her head on his shoulder, one leg thrown across his thigh. Her breathing was shallow and even, and her long, midnight hair fell over his arm like an expensive silk scarf.
She was probably sleeping. After everything he’d put her through this evening, he wouldn’t blame her if she slept straight through the rest of their time in Vegas.
And he sort of hoped she was, because after what he’d seen earlier that day, and all the old memories that had been assaulting him ever since, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from saying, “I saw you this afternoon.”
He felt her inhale sharply in startlement, then shift closer, her chin rubbing absently against the top of his chest.
“Hmm?”