“Do they?”
“Sing-alongs, of course.”
“I should have known.”
She smiled, putting a blanket back over her lap, thinking of it as a sort of flannel shield. “You should know these things about me. Really, you should know everything about me.”
He cleared his throat, and the sudden awkwardness made her think of all the things he didn’t know about her. And the things that he did know. It hit her then—of course, right then, as he was standing in front of her—just how revealing what had happened earlier was.
Giving a guy pleasure like that...well, a woman didn’t do that unless she wanted him. It said a lot about how she felt. About how she had felt for an awfully long time. No matter that she had tried to quash it, the fact remained that she did feel attraction for him. Which he was obviously now completely aware of.
Silence fell like a boulder between them. Crushing, deadly.
“Anyway,” she said, the transition as subtle as a landslide. “Why exactly are you here?”
“I told you.”
“Right. Checking on me. I’m just not really sure why.”
“You know why,” he said, his tone muted.
“You check on every woman you have...encounters with?”
“You know I don’t. But you’re not every woman I have encounters with.”
“Still. I’m an adult woman. I’m neither shocked nor injured.”
She was probably both. Yes, she was definitely perilously close to being both.
He shifted, clearly uncomfortable. Which she hated, because they weren’t uncomfortable with each other. Ever. Or they hadn’t been before. “It would be rude of me not to make sure we aren’t...okay.”
She patted herself down. “Yes. Okay. Okay?”
“No,” he said.
“No? What the hell, man? I said I’m fine. Do we have to stand around talking about it?”
“I think we might. Because I don’t think you’re fine.”
“That’s bullshit, McCormack,” she said, rising from the couch and clutching her blanket to her chest. “Straight-up bullshit. Like you stepped in a big-ass pile somewhere out there and now you went and dragged it into my house.”
“If you were fine, you wouldn’t be acting like this.”
“I’m sorry, how did you want me to act?”
“Like an adult, maybe?” he said, his dark brows locking together.
“Um, I am acting like an adult, Chase. I’m pretending that a really embarrassing mistake didn’t happen, while I crush my regret and uncertainty beneath the weight of my caloric intake for the evening. What part of that isn’t acting like an adult?”
“We’re friends. This wasn’t some random, forgettable hookup.”
“It is so forgettable,” she said, her voice taking on that brash, loud quality that hurt her own ears. That she was starting to despise. “I’ve already forgotten it.”
“How?”
“It’s a penis, Chase, not the Sistine Chapel. My life was hardly going to be changed by the sight of it.”
He reached forward, grabbing hold of her arm and drawing her toward him. “Stop,” he bit out, his words hard, his expression focused.
“What are you doing?” she asked, some of her bravado slipping.
“Calling you on your bullshit, Anna.” He lowered his voice, his tone no less deadly. She’d never seen Chase like this. He didn’t get like this. Chase was fun, and light. Well, except for last night when he’d kissed her. But even then, he hadn’t been quite this serious. “I’ve known you for fifteen years. I know when your smile is hiding tears, little girl. I know when you’re a whole mess of feelings behind that brick wall you put up to keep yourself separate from the world. And I sure as hell know when you aren’t fine. So don’t stand there and tell me that it didn’t change anything, that it didn’t mean anything. Even if you gave out BJs every day with lunch—and I know you don’t—that would have still mattered because it’s us. And we don’t do that. It changed something, Anna, and don’t you dare pretend it didn’t.”
No. No. Her brain was screaming again, but this time she knew for sure what it was saying. It was all denial. She didn’t want him to look at her as if he was searching for something, didn’t want him to touch her as if it was only the beginning of something more. Didn’t want him to see her. To see how scared she was. To see how unnerved and affected she was. To see how very, very not brave she was beneath the shield she held up to keep the world out.
He already knows it’s a shield. And you’re already screwed ten ways, because you can’t hide from him and you never could.
He’d let her believe she could. And now he’d changed his mind. For some reason it was all over now. Well, she knew why. It had started with a dress and high heels and ended with an orgasm in her shop. He was right. It had changed things.
And she had a terrible, horrible feeling more was going to change before they could go back to normal.
If they ever could.
“Well,” she said, hearing her voice falter. Pretending she didn’t. “I don’t think anything needs to change.”
“Enough,” he said, his tone fierce.
Then, before she knew what was happening, he’d claimed her lips again in a kiss that ground every other kiss that had come before it into dust, before letting them blow away on the wind.
This was angry. Intense. Hot and hard. And it was happening in her house, in spite of the fact that she was holding a blanket and Oklahoma! was on mute in the background. It was her safe space, with her safe friend, and it was being wholly, utterly invaded.
By him.
It was confronting and uncomfortable and scary as hell. So she responded the only way she could. She got mad, too.
She grabbed hold of the front of his shirt, clinging to him tightly as she kissed him back. As she forced her tongue between his lips, claiming him before he could stake his claim on her.
She shifted, scraping her teeth lightly over his bottom lip before biting down. Hard.
He growled, wrapping his arms around her waist. She never felt small. Ever. She was a tall girl with a broad frame, but she was engulfed by Chase right now. His scent, his strength. He was all hard muscle against her, his heart thundering beneath her hands, which were pinned between their bodies.
She didn’t know what was happening, except that right now, kissing him might be safer than trying to talk to him.
It certainly felt better.
It let her be angry. Let her push back without saying anything. And more than that...he was an amazing kisser. He had taken her from zero to almost-there with one touch of his lips against hers.
He slid his hand down her back, cupping her butt and bringing her up even harder against him so she could feel him. All of him. And just how aroused he was.
He wanted her. Chase wanted her. Yes, he was pissed. Yes, he was...trying to prove a point with his tongue or whatever. But he couldn’t fake a hard-on like that.
She was angry, but it was fading. Being blotted out by the arousal that was crackling in her veins like fireworks.
Suddenly, she found herself being lifted off the ground, before she was set down on the couch, Chase coming down over her, his expression hard, his eyes sharp as he looked down at her.
He pressed