The Look of Love (The Sullivans) - Chapter 2 (+ Audiobook & Exclusive Commentary from Bella)
I hope you enjoyed meeting the Sullivan family in Chapter 1 of The Look of Love. If you missed my first post, just click on the link below.
Before I post Chapter 2, I thought I’d give some background on my inspiration for the series — and where I was when I wrote the opening words of the series than has sold millions of eBook, paperback, hardcover and audiobook copies around the world in ten languages.
A decade before Bridgerton debuted on Netflix, I was already a huge fan of Julia Quinn’s historical romance series about the family. It was 2011 and at that time, almost no one was writing about big contemporary families. That was when the Sullivan family came to life inside my writer’s brain. I decided to write a series about eight close-knit siblings in the San Francisco Bay Area and their widowed mother. I made one other huge decision at that time—to indie publish the entire series. I vowed that no matter what, even if no one bought the books, I would write and publish contemporary romance about all eight San Francisco Sullivans. Fortunately, people did and up buying the books. Lots of them! 😍
I still remember exactly where I was when I started writing The Look of Love. I was on the road to Legoland in San Diego with my husband in the driver’s seat and my young daughter and son in the backseat. I put my headphones on, put on the song Dynamite by Taio Cruz, opened my MacBook Air on my lap, and started typing. The words flowed so fast, I couldn’t believe it. I was having so much fun, in fact, that I was actually giggling out loud in the passenger seat as my fingers flew across the keyboard. Somewhere deep inside, I already knew something special was happening as the Sullivans came to life on my laptop screen.
And now, enjoy Chapter 2 of The Look of Love (The Sullivans).
Note: You can also listen to THE LOOK OF LOVE for free!
CHAPTER TWO
copyright 2022 Bella Andre / Oak Press, LLC
Please Note: My books are sexy and emotional love stories. Which is to say there will be lots of scenes where the hero and heroine are smooching (and doing much, much more!) in nearly all of my posts. 😍
Thank God, thought Chase, she had finally agreed to come with him. That motorcycle had scared the crap out of him. He hadn’t had a moment to think—he’d just reacted and now he was incredibly relieved that he’d been able to save both of them.
Now, his instincts as a gentleman had him reaching for her backpack.
She immediately jumped back a foot. “Please, don’t.” She carefully banked that quick flash of fear before saying, “I can carry my own bag, thanks.”
The way she’d leaped out of his reach as soon as they’d gotten back onto the pavement could hurt a guy’s ego if he let it. At the same time, Chase knew it was just plain good sense for a woman to be on her guard with a strange guy in a situation like this.
Unfortunately, as she walked to his car, he found himself unable take his eyes off her sweetly rounded curves.
But any guy with sisters, especially two very pretty sisters like Lori and Sophie, who got into more scrapes than he was comfortable thinking about, gave an extra bit of consideration to his interactions with women. Chase and his brothers might like to play, but none of them would ever do anything dangerous or take a woman against her will. No, fact was, they’d much rather have their women begging for it.
And this was no time to be thinking about sex. Not when he had a half-drowned woman on his hands—well, in his car, at least—since he’d promised her his hands weren’t going to come anywhere near her.
Despite knowing the leather interior of his BMW was never going to be the same after the water and mud hit it, Chase didn’t hesitate to open the passenger’s side door for her and wait while she slid inside. Once she was seated safely with her bag clutched tight on her lap, he closed the door and ran around to the driver’s side, jumping in behind the wheel.
Steam rose in thick waves from their clothes, and condensation quickly covered the inside of the windows, making the car feel even more intimate than it already was. So intimate, in fact, that Chase couldn’t help but notice that his surprise passenger smelled good, like rain and freshly bloomed flowers. He turned on the heat to try to make her more comfortable and asked, “Do you want some dry clothes to change into?” He figured he could give her something from his own bags in the trunk.
Even as she shivered, she simply said, “No, thank you, I’m fine.”
Clearly, she was anything but fine, but at least the heat was now blowing out of the vents onto both of them. Hoping the heat would keep her from catching a cold, he decided to try to coax some important information out of her.
“Where were you headed?”
She was already so tense, yet at his simple question, she tensed even further on the seat beside him.
Instead of answering him, she said, “If you could just take me to the nearest motel, that’d be great.” She paused for a moment before adding in a softer voice, “Someplace cheap would be best.”
With his previous plans for a fun and relaxing evening falling apart one soaking-wet minute at a time—along with the fact that he was trying to repress the way the stranger’s scent was driving his senses crazy—Chase’s voice was gruffer than usual as he offered, “Look, I’ve got a free place for you to stay for the night. We can call road assistance from there.”
It would be better to wait until she was dry and warm again to break it to her that even though road assistance would be able to pull her car out of the ditch, they probably wouldn’t be able to make it run again. Heck, not even his brother Zach, who was a genius with cars, was likely to get too far with her hatchback.
“Thanks for the offer,” she said, her words still wary, but firm, too. “Really, a motel is fine.” She shrugged, an outline of moving shoulders in the dark interior of his car. “And don’t bother calling road assistance,” she said with clear resignation. “At this point I might as well leave my car in the ditch until I can arrange for it to be hauled off for scrap metal.”
The exhaustion in her voice fought with an underlying strength for dominance. Chase couldn’t help but be impressed with the fact that while she clearly didn’t have the money to deal with any of this, she wasn’t sitting in his car crying about it.
Chase knew he should just take her to a motel. Lord knew she’d told him to do that more than once already. But there was no way he could leave her in some dank motel in the middle of Napa Valley. Not if he wanted to be able to look at himself in the mirror in the morning without seeing the word asshole written across his forehead.
Besides, every instinct he possessed told him she needed more help than just a ride to a motel.
Of course, Chase had learned early on from his mother and sisters not to mess with what a woman wanted. He knew better, knew this woman would be pissed off with what he was about to do.
But none of that, none of the warning buzzers that were going off in his head, were enough to stop him from deciding to help her anyway.
He turned the key in the ignition, and as he carefully pulled back onto the road, he realized he didn’t know her name. Considering he was going to be taking her to the warmth and comfort of the large guesthouse at his brother’s winery—whether she liked it or not—he figured a couple of formalities wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“I’m Chase Sullivan.”
No sound came from the passenger seat and, inexplicably, he found himself fighting a grin. Chase, along with his five brothers, had been magnets for women since adolescence. When, he tried to think, was the last time a woman hadn’t thrown herself at him?
Then again, this one hadn’t told him anything at all, had she? Not her name or where she was headed.
Something was definitely up. It would be a much better idea if he could let it go, take her to a motel so that he could get on with his night of meaningless sex with Ellen at the winery, whom he’d called when he’d left his mother’s party to let her know he was on the road and heading to Napa.
So then, why wasn’t he doing just that?
And why did he feel strangely drawn to this complete stranger?
Chase let the silence ride out between them, knowing she’d only answer if she felt comfortable enough with him to do so.
Finally, he heard her sigh a beat before she said, “My name is Chloe.”
Chloe was a very pretty name, and she was a very pretty woman. He normally would have told her both of those things, but she was so touchy she’d probably take it the wrong way. He also noticed she hadn’t told him her last name.
She craned her neck to look out the window at a dimly lit sign. “Where are you going?” she asked, panic clearly threaded through each vowel. “I’m pretty sure town is in the opposite direction.”
Fortunately, right then he saw the Sullivan Winery sign, hit the remote to open the gates and started up the narrow road. Marcus had built his winery on the most beautiful land in all of California’s wine country. On a clear day, if you hiked to the top of the highest hill, you felt like you could see until forever.
If he could only persuade her to stay the night in Marcus’s guesthouse, Chase believed there was no way Chloe was going to be able to resist the beauty all around her come morning. And, hopefully, the picturesque surroundings would help ease her worries enough that she would open up to him and let him help her with whatever trouble she was dealing with.
“This is my brother’s winery. I know he’d want you to stay here, too.”
“Chase.”
Her voice held a strong note of warning, but it certainly didn’t stop him from liking the way his name sounded on her lips.
“I told you to take me to a motel.”
He thought about the different ways he could respond, if he should make excuses or be placating. But sensing she’d see through his bullshit in a way most women rarely did, he simply said, “Marcus’s guesthouse is closer. Nicer, too.”
She made a barely muffled sound of irritation. “Do you always ignore what people want and do what you want to do anyway?”
Again, there were several possible responses. But only one honest one. “Pretty much.”
“Your mother must be so proud,” Chloe said sarcastically.
He liked the way the words rolled right off her tongue, as if she was getting a little more comfortable with the idea of being alone in his car with him, but a moment later, judging by the way she shifted uncomfortably in the seat, he guessed that she was worried about her off-the-cuff response.
Speaking as easily and gently as he could, he said, “Fortunately, I have five brothers and two hellcat sisters to distract her.”
He hoped she’d give another unguarded response to that piece of information and was glad when she turned back to him and said, “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. Eight of us in all.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to take in her wide eyes and grin at her.
She shook her head and made another little sound that had his blood heating despite himself. “Your mother must be a saint.”
Good. He’d managed to distract her for a few moments, long enough to pull up to the guesthouse. At least this time she hadn’t seemed to be worried by what she’d said to him—or how he would react to it.
“Look,” he said softly, “I know you’d rather not be here, but I can’t see how it makes sense to pay for a room in some motel on the side of the freeway when there are five empty bedrooms right here.”
“I don’t know you,” she said again.
Knowing he couldn’t argue with that, he agreed, “I know you don’t. And, trust me, if you were either of my sisters I wouldn’t want you to trust some guy who picked you up on the side of the road in the middle of a rainstorm.” As her body shifted yet again to face him in the car, he noted her obvious surprise at the way he’d agreed with her innate wariness of him. “That’s why all I’m going to do is get you settled, and then I’ll leave and head over to my brother’s main house on the other side of the property.”
Chase waited for her to say no again. And the truth was, if she flat-out insisted on going to a motel, outside of throwing her over his shoulder and chaining her to one of the beds in his brother’s guesthouse, he knew he was going to have to do what she wanted.
Jesus, he couldn’t believe how hard he was having to work to push aside the flare of desire that tried to shoot through him at that whole tied-to-the-bedpost scenario he’d just come up with. Lord knew if Chloe saw her impact on him now, she was going to start clawing at the car door so that she could run screaming into town to get away from him. Thank God it was dark enough that she hopefully wouldn’t notice his very obvious attraction to her.
“So,” she said slowly, drawing the one word out, which had the unfortunate result of drawing his eyes to her full, expressive lips.
My God, she had to be one of the most beautiful women he’d met in months. Maybe ever. And beautiful women were his job. Chase was completely stunned by his reaction to her. Not only by how strong it was, but also by how quick it had happened. He barely knew her, had just met her on the side of the road. Not to mention the fact that she clearly wanted less than nothing to do with him. And yet, none of these things made him any less drawn to her…and to wanting the chance to get to know her better.
“You’re not going to stay with me?”
Ah, finally. It was the first time she hadn’t argued with him or told him she couldn’t stay here. Seizing the moment, he said again, “I’ll just get you settled, and then I’ll head over to Marcus’s main house for the rest of the night.”
Before she could change her mind, he reached across for her bag, but she shifted and opened the passenger’s side door, moving out into the rain before he could help her with the damned thing. For some crazy reason, it had become a goal for him to carry it for her. He wanted to get her to trust him enough that she would accept his help.
She moved quickly to the covered porch of the guesthouse that Chase had stayed in many times over the years. It was so familiar to him, and yet as Chloe took in the facade of the beautifully designed stucco house with the tiled accents that had been flown in straight from Italy, the comfortable yet elegant outdoor furniture and the thick golden-toned wood front door, Chase felt like he was seeing it again for the first time.
His brother’s winery truly was a wondrous place, and Chase found that he was very glad to be able to share it with Chloe, at least for one night when she clearly needed both beauty and warmth.
His brother’s housekeeper had left the front light on for him, and he was graced with his best view of Chloe yet. Her hair, which had started to dry just a little in the car, really was like silk, so glossy she could have made a mint in shampoo ads. She also had a truly gorgeous figure. Not too thin, but with beautifully lush curves that made his fingers itch to touch her.
What the hell was wrong with him? He needed to stop thinking like that. Especially given that he’d taken her to his brother’s place to help her out of a bad situation, not to help her out of her clothes.
As she waited for him on the porch, one hand clutching her bag tightly with the other placed over her right cheek again, Chase had to wonder why she was always hiding her face like that.
He had a bad feeling about it.
Knowing it wouldn’t help her feel any more comfortable around him if he was scowling at her, he worked to focus instead on the way the porch light bathed her in a faint glow. Making a mental note to set up some shots with the models he’d be working with the following evening right where she was standing, he walked up the steps and headed for the front door.
“Let’s go inside and warm up,” he said, holding the door open for her.
“At least your mother taught you one thing,” she murmured as she moved past him.
“Wow,” she breathed as she stopped on the threshold to look around the beautifully decorated living room. “What a beautiful house.”
Marcus definitely knew how to provide every luxury for his guests. Chase wasn’t the only one who liked to come up to Napa to spend the weekend with Marcus, and he knew how much his brother loved having his family there with him.
“I know Marcus would want you to make yourself right at home,” he told her, just as her scent wrapped itself around him again.
It was a hit of potent sensuality. Problem was, she was a gorgeous woman and he was a man who adored gorgeous women. But then her bag bumped against the door frame, pushing her hips into his groin, and he barely stifled his groan in time.
Jesus, if he didn’t know better, if she were any other woman, he’d think she’d done that on purpose. But given the way she all but threw herself across the room and away from him, he knew there was nothing intentional about her effect on him.
It had only been a month since Chase had had sex, but his body was reacting to Chloe like it had been a year.
A gust of wind blew rain up onto the porch, and Chase closed the door before it could blow inside. Chloe was standing awkwardly next to the kitchen island as he moved slowly into the room.
He worked to keep his eyes from devouring her as he asked, “Are you hungry?”
She shook her head, her hand back over her cheek.
“Thirsty?”
“No.”
“Let me get you a towel and some dry clothes now,” he said in his gentlest voice, hoping she’d at least let him do that for her.
“You said you had a place for me to sleep tonight,” she reminded him. “That’s all I need.”
As she spoke, her hand slipped on her face. What he saw at the edge of her palm made him sick to his stomach.
“You’re hurt.” It wasn’t a question. “You told me you weren’t hurt, but you are. Let me take a look at your face.”
She tried to take a step back, but the granite kitchen counter held her where she was. “No,” she insisted, “I’m fine.”
He could see how hard she was trying to be tough and strong. But didn’t she get it? He was right here offering to help her. And he wasn’t going to let her keep suffering if there was something he could do to make things better for her.
Not moving slowly this time, not bothering to make sure he didn’t spook her, he crossed to her and put his hand over hers.
The first touch had both of them sucking in a breath, and he swore her pupils dilated a split second before she wrenched out of his grip with a strength that surprised him.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come here with you,” she said as she began to rush across the room.
But Chase was faster, pulling her into his arms before she could get away. He was just registering her soft heat, the press of her full breasts against his chest, the heated vee between her legs that so perfectly cradled his groin, when he fully saw what she’d been hiding from him.
“Jesus, Chloe, did that happen in the car? Why didn’t you tell me how bad you’d been hurt? Did your face hit the steering wheel when your car landed in the ditch?” He narrowed his eyes as he studied the bruise close-up. “Or did something else cause this?”
The huge mottled bruise was all the colors of the rainbow with a long scratch through the center. Tears sparkled in her eyes, but they seemed to be more from frustration than due to any pain she was feeling.
“It hasn’t been my best night.”
Yet again, she hadn’t answered his question. But he figured it was pretty safe to assume the bruise hadn’t been caused by her hitting the steering wheel when her car had crashed into the ditch. Any other woman would have been crying, but not this one, even though she’d clearly had a hell of a night so far.
“No kidding,” he said softly.
The more he looked at her, the angrier he got about the bruise. He’d fought with his brothers enough times to know how bad it must hurt. And he’d also been on the receiving end of enough shiners from his brothers to know what it looked like when someone’s fist collided with your face.
But even though he was filling up with absolute rage at the thought of anyone hurting Chloe like this, he knew better than to make a big deal out of it.
He wasn’t going to bruise her pride…not when someone had already done a hell of a job on her face.
“Did you put any ice on the bruise?”
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t have a chance.”
When she clamped her lips shut as if she’d already said too much, he reluctantly let go of her and moved toward the kitchen.
Glad that he’d stayed in Marcus’s guesthouse enough times to know where things were, Chase quickly found a box of plastic bags in a drawer by the sink. He went to the freezer to fill it with ice, then wrapped the whole thing up in one of the clean, soft, colorful kitchen towels he found in another nearby drawer.
Chloe hadn’t moved from the spot where he’d stopped her from running. He could easily bring her the ice, but he knew it was important that she start to trust him—at least a little—if he was going to be able to help her. And every instinct he possessed had been screaming out from that first instant he’d spotted her that her damage was a hell of a lot bigger than just losing control of her car in the rain.
It sucked to be right sometimes.
“I don’t bite. I promise,” Chase said as he offered her the ice pack.
The very last thing he expected her to do was drop her gaze to his throbbing groin, raise an eyebrow and say in a rather sarcastic voice, “Really?”
Glad to see that any remnant of the tears that hadn’t come were long gone, and surprised as hell at the way she’d just acknowledged his obvious attraction to her, he let loose his grin at her pointed comment.
“What I should have said is, I won’t bite unless—”
She held up a hand to cut him off and finished his sentence. “Unless I want you to.” She said it like she’d heard it a hundred times before. “Whatever. I don’t want you to. Not now. Not ever.” Her words were tired, hard, but thankfully, she chose to move toward him rather than further away. “I’ll take the ice, though.”
He handed it to her, and she was starting to thank him when she pressed it against her cheek a little too hard and gasped in pain.
“Here,” he said, his chest clenching at the way her breath had hissed from her lips and her face had gone white. “Let me.”
Moving closer again, he slid the fingers of his left hand beneath hers while cupping the back of her head with his right. He expected her to pull away from him, to tell him she could take care of herself, to insist that he keep his hands off her.
Instead, he was in for another surprise when she said, “You’re good at this,” in a soft voice that did nothing to stop the southerly flow of blood to his groin.
Chase was surprised to realize the ice had finally broken between them. All because of the attraction he couldn’t control and her sarcastic comments about it.
Who would have thought that would do it? If anything, he’d been sure it would make her run.
What other surprises did she have in store for him?
And would she stick around long enough for him to discover them?
“Five brothers, remember?” he said with a small smile. “Although my sisters were the ones who usually left the worst bruises when we were messing around.” He grinned. “Little brats.”
She looked up at him then, and this time he didn’t have any hope of controlling his reaction to the shot of desire that rocked him. Her eyes were extraordinary, a vibrant green along the rims of the pupils, but filled in everywhere else with blue. He’d already thought she was beautiful. But now he realized that word didn’t even come close to describing Chloe.
“You like your brothers and sisters a lot, don’t you?” she asked in a soft voice.
He dropped his gaze to her mouth as she spoke, taking the chance to further appreciate the full curve of her lower lip, the sweet Cupid’s bow of the upper.
No question about it, even though he’d only just met her thirty minutes ago, he was on his way to totally and completely losing his mind over this woman. One who obviously came with baggage.
He’d never been a man much interested in baggage. Looked like the universe was playing a fast one on him tonight.
Because he was definitely interested, despite all the reasons he shouldn’t be.
“Do I have something on my mouth?”
Her irritation was, thankfully, fused now with a faint amusement at how clearly mesmerized he was. At this point, he’d rather have her laughing at him than running from him.
He refused to let himself think of later, trying like hell to keep his brain from heading toward the direction it was dying to go…the one where she was naked and he was tasting every inch of her beautiful skin.
First things first; he had to get her to agree to actually stay the night.
And not to run at first light.
“No,” he told her in a low voice, “your mouth is perfect.” A flush spread across the side of her face he wasn’t covering with the towel and ice. “And, yes, my siblings are great. I was a really lucky kid to have them around growing up.” He thought about his mother’s party and the pictures he’d taken of his brothers and sisters. “With eight of us in one small house together, we fought a lot, but we laughed even more.”
Chloe’s expression filled with longing before she turned her head away and lowered her lashes so he couldn’t see into her stunning—and expressive—eyes anymore.
“My cheek feels better now, thanks. I’m pretty tired.” He could see from the dark shadows beneath her eyes just how exhausted she really was. “Could you show me where the bedroom is now, please?”
He wanted to keep her there with him and keep asking her questions until she finally agreed to tell him who had hurt her. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to guess that she was running from someone. Every cell in Chase’s body wanted to protect her, but even though that initial icy barrier that she’d put up between them had thawed slightly, he knew she wasn’t anywhere near ready to trust him yet.
“The bedrooms are just down the hall,” he told her, but though it was long past time to let her go, he couldn’t do it. Her warmth, her soft curves, felt too good, too right, for him to back away just yet.
Chloe, unfortunately, had no problem moving out of his arms.
Since the odds were pretty good that a guy had done the number on her face, he wondered, was she married? Was this the work of an abusive husband?
Chase wasn’t in the habit of scanning ring fingers for diamonds, but he didn’t think before glancing at her left hand. He didn’t even try to be subtle. Hell, she’d already seen that he wanted her. Felt it, too. He’d promised to keep his hands off her for the night. But he’d said nothing about the future. And he needed to know if she was being beaten up by the guy she was married to.
She was holding her hand clenched into a fist, but he couldn’t see a ring.
Good. That meant that once he found out what had happened to her, once she started to trust him, there wasn’t one single reason he couldn’t begin a slow and steady seduction.
When he finally looked up at her face, she was staring back at him with that same irritation he’d seen in her eyes earlier, only with none of the accompanying amusement this time.
Busted.
“The bedroom?” She lifted an eyebrow. Way up. “You were going to show me where it is.”
He put his hands on her bag. “This way.”
She reached for it, too, and they played a ridiculous game of tug-of-war over the army-green canvas bag for a few seconds. Chase knew he should just let her continue carrying it, but she couldn’t have been more than five-foot-five to his six-three, and he figured he outweighed her by about eighty or so pounds. He could carry the damn bag for her.
Still clutching it tightly in both her fists, she said, “You’ve really got a thing about carrying my bag, don’t you?”
He was holding firm to his side as he replied, “I was going to say the same to you.”
She dropped her hold on the bag so fast he stumbled back with it.
She shook her head and muttered, “I’ve never understood why men feel like they have to be so macho.”
“Wanting to help you with this bag isn’t macho.”
She looked like she was on the verge of laughing—the first time he’d seen anything approaching a smile on her beautiful face—as she countered, “You sure about that?”
“Maybe it’s just that my mother taught me right,” he countered, throwing her earlier words back at her.
He didn’t wait for her to argue some more…not when he was getting way too close to planting a kiss on that lovely smart mouth, whether she wanted him to or not. Either that, or find a way to actually make her smile. Or, better yet, to find out what her laugh sounded like.
He led the way down the hall to the master suite where he’d been planning to sleep. The other bedrooms were fully decked out with high-end mattresses, but he wanted Chloe to have the very best.
Chase opened the door and was about to reach for the light switch when he realized it was already on. It took his water-addled brain longer than it should have to realize that the bed wasn’t empty.
And a naked woman was waiting for him on it.
Oh, crap. He’d forgotten all about Ellen, but Marcus’s winery manager obviously hadn’t forgotten about him. If things had gone differently tonight—way differently—he knew he would have been psyched to find her already stripped down and ready for him.
Only, after meeting Chloe, Chase was about as unpsyched by Ellen’s naked presence in the house as he could be.
Ellen’s eyes were wide as she looked between him and Chloe. Clearly, surprise had her frozen in place on the bed as it took her a minute to remove her iPod headphones. Obviously, the music had masked the sound of Chase and Chloe’s conversation in the living room, and Ellen had had no idea that Chase wouldn’t be walking through the bedroom door alone.
Before he could think fast and get Chloe the hell out of there, she stepped out from behind him. He waited for her to gasp in outrage, for her to do the inevitable—grab her bag from him and run back out into the rain.
But all that came was the low sound of her laughter. The very sound he’d been hoping to hear just seconds earlier…only he hadn’t thought it would happen like this.
“Maybe,” she said through her undisguised mirth, “there’s another bedroom I could take?” She chuckled again. “Out of hearing distance, if at all possible, please.”
He shot her a look that said she was crazy. Chloe couldn’t seriously think he was going to have sex with Ellen while she was in the house, did she?
But then he lost hold of the question entirely as her ongoing laughter wrapped itself around his senses.
God, he loved the sound of it. So easy. Straight from her soul. And her smile was absolutely beautiful.
Ellen was still stark naked on the bed, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Chloe. He’d wanted to kiss her practically from the moment he’d met her. Now he wanted to kiss her senseless and make her smile, hear her sweet laughter again, just as much.
“Chase?” Ellen finally spoke, her voice a little higher pitched than usual. “Who’s she?”
Ellen was only just moving to cover up now, and as she did so he noticed she wasn’t really his type, after all. He much preferred Chloe’s curves to Ellen’s taut muscles. And dyed-blonde curls had nothing on brown hair that picked up the light as it shifted across her shoulders and back every time Chloe moved.
“I’m Chloe.”
Chase was more than a little surprised by how amused she was by the whole thing. Clearly, she was enjoying watching him deal with this predicament. Which was, he suddenly had to admit, pretty funny.
“Chase picked me up tonight.” She nodded in his direction and added, “You know the story—girl in trouble on the side of the road meets guy in a flashy car.”
Ellen looked more confused than angry as she wrapped a robe around herself, which he supposed made sense since it wasn’t like they’d been planning to do more than have a little no-strings fun with each other tonight. She looked at Chase and seemed to be trying to make up her mind about something before saying, “With you being a photographer and running with all those fast crowds, I should have figured you were into this sort of thing.”
Feeling as if he’d stepped into some kind of surreal scene being shot for one of his brother Smith’s movies, Chase had to ask, “What kind of stuff do you think I’m into?”
“You know, ménages and stuff,” Ellen said, then bit her lip as she obviously thought over what she believed to be the new development in their evening. She turned her attention from Chase to Chloe. “Nice to meet you, Chloe, even if this is a teensy bit unexpected. I’m Ellen, by the way.” She paused to take a deep breath before saying, “You’re very pretty.”
Chloe looked utterly bemused by the way Ellen was looking at her, clearly trying to size up her future performance in bed, since she now thought that was the kind of thing he was into.
“Thanks, I guess,” she said to Ellen, “and you’re pretty, too, but I don’t think I’m up for any threesomes tonight.”
The easy way she said it had Chase’s brain spinning off in all sorts of crazy directions. Had she done a ménage before?
Just the thought of someone else touching her had him seeing red.
He’d never gone looking for serious, had been perfectly happy with one-night stands in the past. On the road as much as he was, keeping things clean and simple fit his life best, and Chase had never envied his colleagues who had a wife and kids at home waiting for them.
But from the first moment he’d seen Chloe, he’d wanted to protect her. Now, he had to wonder, could he already want more? Even though he’d only just met her, he knew attraction could come in an instant.
Could connection come that quickly, too?
“Oh, my God,” Ellen said suddenly when she finally saw Chloe’s bruise. “What happened to your face?”
Chase hated to see every bit of humor leave Chloe’s face.
“I’m fine,” she told Ellen, before turning back to him to say, “I’ll find another bedroom myself. Goodnight.”
Chase wanted to go after her, but he knew he had to deal with Ellen first.
“Is she okay?” Ellen asked after Chloe had closed the door behind her. “That bruise looks really nasty.” Before he could answer, she asked, “Has she seen a doctor? And did you really find her on the side of the road?”
He ran a hand through his wet hair, wishing he could answer Ellen’s questions.
Instead, all he could tell her was, “She’ll be okay.” He’d make sure of it. “Look, tonight’s not going to happen anymore.”
Ellen smiled at him, their almost-fling instantly forgotten. “That’s probably for the best, considering I work for your brother.”
Chase was glad they both agreed that they’d just narrowly averted any potential problems.
“She really is very pretty.” As she gathered up her clothes in her arms and headed for the en suite bathroom, she winked at him and teased, “Pretty enough that I actually was considering that three-way for a moment there, even though it’s not at all my usual style.”
“No.” His response was instinctive. “That never would have happened.” He was never, ever going to share Chloe with anyone.
That was, if he ever managed to persuade her not only to open up and tell him what had happened to her, but to stay long enough to see if the initial sparks between them could turn into something more.
Problem was, he thought as he walked out of the bedroom to let Ellen put on her clothes and headed down the hall to make sure Chloe had settled into one of the other bedrooms all right, he had a feeling persuading Chloe to trust him enough to give him a chance wasn’t going to be an easy task in the least.
Thanks for reading! You can read and listen to Chapter 3 here —> CHAPTER 3!
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