Kristen Ashley - Breathe

“You’re beautiful, baby,” he said softly in my ear, one of his hands gliding over my belly. I suspected, through the shadows and over my shoulder, he was looking at me.

God, I hoped he thought so.

“Okay,” I repeated quietly, not as sure about that one.

“All mine,” he muttered. “Christ, finally, all mine.”

I closed my eyes, pulled in breath and relaxed deeper against his chest.

I felt him shift, his lips at my neck he kept muttering, “Thirteen years, all mine.”

That meant something, what I said to him. I knew it. Since after I said it, he showed me by making himself vulnerable to me, I knew it had to mean a lot.

But his words made me realize it meant a lot.

And that meant a lot to me.

I swallowed and turned my head toward his lips. They touched my forehead then his arms gave me a squeeze.

The tub filled.

When it was time, Chace moved us both forward and turned off the taps then settled us back. When we were settled, his hands glided over my wet skin, light, sweet, soothing, lovely.

The water, the orgasms, Chace and his hands, any vestiges of tension left me. I melted into him in the semi-dark.

His hands stopped roaming, both his arms wrapped around me and we sat in the tub, silent, together.

That was, we did until I drifted off to sleep, my arms over Chace’s, my head turned, my forehead tucked in his throat.

I didn’t know if I was asleep for an hour or two minutes before we were up then I was up as in, again cradled in his arms.

He was gentle and quick with toweling me off and pulling the nightgown over my head.

He did the same with himself but quicker then I was back up and he was carrying me to the bed where he laid me. I watched in sleepy fascination as he pulled on a pair of burgundy, flannel, drawstring pajama bottoms.

Drowsily, I decided he was hot naked. He was hot in clothes. He was also hot in pajama bottoms.

Not a surprise.

He came to my side and switched off the light then I heard it as he rounded the bed and I rolled as he did. The bed moved as I watched his shadow enter it. He flicked the covers over us and he stretched out on his back.

But he didn’t settle on his back because I felt his hand shove under me and I was hauled to his side. His arm curled me close, pressed tight down his side and I had no choice (not that I would take another one) but to rest my cheek on his shoulder and snake my arm across his flat abs.

“So you’re a cuddler?” I whispered.

“No,” he replied.

I blinked at the shadowed planes and angles of his chest.

“Uh…”

“Or I wasn’t until about two seconds ago.”

My belly melted and my heart flipped.

“You move away from me, Faye, you’ll be right back where you are right now,” he warned, his voice quiet, soft but low and serious.

Weird.

Hot and sweet.

But weird.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“You stay close,” he ordered.

“Okay, honey.”

“Okay,” he muttered and his arm around me got tighter.

My arm around his gut gave him a squeeze.

He fell silent.

I stared at his chest.

Then I called, “Chace?”

“Yeah?”

I licked my lips.

Then I said quietly, “Thank you for making that beautiful.”

He said nothing.

Then he rolled into me, pressing a knee between my legs so I was forced to hook one around his hip and both his arms gathered me close and held me tight.

“Sleep, baby,” he whispered and now his voice was quiet but hoarse.

“Okay. ‘Night, honey.”

One of his hands slid up my spine and into my damp hair then it slid through.

And back.

Then he whispered, “’Night, baby.”

His hand slid through my hair.

And again.

Moments later I fell asleep pressed deep and held tight to Chace Keaton.

Chace’s eyes opened and he blinked away sleep.

The strong Colorado sun was fighting his curtains and, as usual, winning.

Chace felt his body get tight.

Something was wrong.

He stared across the pillows at the empty bed.

He was on his side, one hand shoved under the pillow at his head, his other arm thrown wide.

No Faye.

Instantly, it felt like a hand reached in and gripped his gut in an iron tight fist.

Not a man prone to fanciful thoughts, not one he could recall in his life, it still hit him that the way his life had swirled down the toilet, it wouldn’t be a surprise that the last three weeks had been a dream. A cruel, twisted, dream.

A taste of sweet.

The touch of an angel.

A trace of a miracle.

Then gone.

He smelled bacon frying.

The moment he did, he rolled, threw back the covers, angled out of bed and prowled out of the room, down the hall, through the arch and toward the kitchen where he took five steps then stopped dead.

Because Faye Goodknight was standing at his stove at the island.

Faye Goodknight.

In his house.

In his kitchen.

At his stove.

All this the morning after she gave him her virginity and spent the night in his arms in his bed.

She was wearing the shirt he wore yesterday. It was unbuttoned and only partially covered the sexy as all fuck sapphire blue silk nightie that had thick lace at the top and, he’d seen last night but couldn’t see now, another rim of thick lace at the hem as well as deep slits up each side. A nightie the likes of which he figured no virgin would wear. The likes his ex-virgin was definitely currently wearing.

Her head was turned slightly to the side to take a sip from one of his coffee mugs.

But her eyes slid to him and she didn’t take a sip.

She lowered the mug to the counter by the stove and snapped, “You spoiled the surprise.”

“What?” he whispered, unable to make his voice louder but she still heard him because she answered.

“I’m making you breakfast in bed.” Her eyes moved the length of him then came back to his. “Or I was.”

Her words and her tone jerked him out of his stupor and he kept prowling toward her.

Her pretty, makeup-less face lost its mock annoyance and she stared at his advance, her body turning toward him as he rounded the island. She looked like a doe caught in headlights, just as terrified, just as frozen and just as cute.

She forced out a, “Chace –” but that’s as far as she got before he hooked her at the waist with an arm and yanked her into his body. He drove his other hand in her hair, cupped her head, tilted it to one side, slanted his then he took her mouth.

When he did, he took his time.

He didn’t break the kiss until he’d had his fill.

Or his fill for now.

When he lifted his lips from hers, he opened his eyes to see hers follow suit far more slowly. She did this often. Chace liked it. It made her look like she was waking from a really good dream.

He slid his hand down to curl it around the back of her neck and he whispered, “Mornin’, baby.”

She blinked and he watched her lick her lips, his gut clenching a good way this time, a fucking good one and she breathed, “That sounds a lot better in real life.”

Chace grinned.

“Not that it isn’t good on the phone,” she hastened to add.

Chace’s grin turned into a smile.

“Or that the phone isn’t real life,” she continued.

Chace just kept smiling.

“Just that it’s better in person,” she finished.

Chace’s body started shaking with his chuckle.

He might be amused but she was absolutely not wrong.

He bent his head, pressed his face in her neck and whispered against her skin, “You feelin’ okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied and his arm gave her a squeeze.

“Inside,” he clarified gently. “Okay?”

“A little achy,” she told him quietly. “Not a bad achy. Just a heretofore unknown, um… achy.”

“Bath didn’t help,” he muttered.

For some reason, his words made her relax deeper into his frame.

After this, her soft musical voice came at him, still quiet. “It isn’t bad but I’ll take some ibuprofen with breakfast.”

He lifted his head and looked down at her in his kitchen, his shirt, his arms in the morning.

He was wrong.

Or maybe it was just that yesterday, she was fucking pretty.

Today, she was beautiful.

And today, she was his.

She tipped her head to the side.

“Do you have any?”

He wasn’t following.

“Any what?”

“Ibuprofen.”

Right. She was achy.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Good,” she muttered, her eyes drifted to the side and then came back to him. “Bacon, honey.”

“Right,” he whispered, bent his neck, kissed her nose and let her go.

She turned to the bacon.

He moved to the cupboard where he kept his vitamins and painkillers.

“So, making lemonade out of lemons, now I get to ask you since you’re awake instead of springing it on you,” she started. “Do you like poached eggs?” He grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen, looked at her as he closed the cupboard and saw she was grinning at him over her shoulder. “I make world class poached eggs.”

Chace felt his lips tip up. “World class?”

“Well, they haven’t been sanctioned thus by a cordon bleu panel but my Dad calls them that.”

He moved in behind her, slid an arm around her, hand gliding over his shirt and hitting the silk of her nightie at her belly as his other hand put the bottle by her coffee mug.

In her neck he muttered, “Yeah, I like poached eggs.”

That got him a breathy, “Good.”

He kissed her neck and moved away to get himself a mug for coffee.

“Honey?” she called as he was pouring it. His head turned her way to see her face soft, her ear dipped to her shoulder, her crystal blue eyes intent on him. “Hazelnut half and half,” she went on quietly. “Thank you for thinking of that. My favorite.”

Clearly, her father hadn’t phoned since his visit and briefed her about their plans for next weekend. Or if he did, he understandably didn’t share that part.

Chace was going to have to tell her about Silas Goodknight’s visit. He’d intended to do it last night.

He’d do it that morning.

After he very quickly ate her world class poached eggs.

And after he, not very quickly, ate other parts of her.

Then he’d tell her.

* * *

Something Chace learned about Faye the night before was that, with very few inhibitions and minimal coaxing to get her beyond them, Faye trusted him and had zero issues with giving herself to him, giving into what he was making her feel and enjoying the fuck out of it.

This was something that held true that morning after poached eggs, coffee and enough light, non-taxing conversation to ascertain that she was, indeed, comfortable with him in his house, his shirt and her nightie.

Which meant he was open to picking her up, carrying her to the couch and making short work of getting her excited and squirming under him so he could pull off her panties and give her a very hot, very long orgasm using his mouth between her legs to do it.

But something he learned about Faye that morning after he made her come, moved over her, settled them both on their sides, held her as she came down and their after oral sex whispers went from little bits of nothing to him telling her about her father’s visit was something that surprised him.

That was that Faye Goodknight had a fucking explosive temper.

It was, like everything about her, cute.

But it was also seriously volatile.

He learned this when he shared about her father and felt her body go rock-solid in his arms as he watched her eyes narrow.

His arms around her tightened in an effort at containment when he quit talking and she asked in a quiet voice that was not her usual sweet, cute quiet but a dangerous quiet, “Pardon?”

“Honey, it’s okay” he assured her. “He was doin’ his duty as a Dad and it ended well.”

She said nothing for several long seconds.

Then, as if he didn’t speak, she repeated, “Pardon?”

“Faye –”

He got no further because she tore out of his arms, sitting up abruptly. She rolled the half an inch she had to the edge of the couch which meant she nearly fell over the side. Moving quickly, if angrily, she somehow managed to get her feet under her, straightened up with her head bent, whipping around, taking her gleaming sheets of hair with it so they flowed with her movements.