I looked into Chase’s eyes when I spoke. “I overheard some of your conversation with Sam today from the bathroom.”
He swallowed his mouthful of food. “Okay.”
“Can I ask you something that’s probably none of my business?”
He set down his carton on the coffee table. “What’s on your mind?”
“Are you…able to move on?”
He’d told me he wanted to try. But trying and actually putting the past behind you were two very different things. I should know.
“To be honest, the last seven years, I had no idea I wasn’t moving on. Thought what I was doing was moving on.”
“You mean sleeping with women?”
He shook his head. “Yeah. I was standing in place a long time. Not letting go.”
“But you think you’re ready to move on now?”
“I think it took me this long to realize what moving on meant. It doesn’t mean forgetting what you’ve left behind. It means making her a memory and deciding to have a future without her in it.”
“Wow. That’s sad and beautiful at the same time.”
He took my hand. “This feels right. So, to answer your question…am I able to move on now? It feels like I already have.”
Chase was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch. Setting my container down on the table next to his, I climbed over him, straddling his hips, and gently kissed his lips.
“That was a really good answer,” I whispered.
“Oh yeah? Do I get a prize for the right answer?” Chase’s thumb brushed gently along my jaw.
“You do. You get your pick of rewards. Tell me how you’d like to receive yours, and your wish is my command.”
I felt his cock harden beneath me. “Any way I want?”
I nuzzled into him. “Any way you want.”
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled hard, gaining access to my neck. Leaning in, his tongue licked its way from the top of my throat down to my collarbone. Reaching the soft spot between my neck and shoulder, his teeth sunk in, not breaking the skin but strong enough that I suspected I’d have a mark tomorrow.
I moaned, and Chase ground up, pushing his erection into me with a groan.
“Does any way I want include tying you to the bed for days?”
Just as he pulled me down to him again, sealing his mouth over mine, his cell phone began to ring.
“That’s you,” I mumbled into our joined mouths.
“Ignore it.”
His hand slipped under my blouse and found my pert nipples, which made ignoring the ringing cell easy. But then thirty seconds after it stopped, it started again. Someone really wanted to reach Chase.
“Don’t you even want to see who it is?”
His dexterous fingers unhooked my bra. “Don’t care.”
But when his phone stopped and started a third time, even Chase couldn’t ignore it any more. He groaned and reached into his pocket to dig his cell out.
“Shit. It’s my brother-in-law. He never calls. I need to take it.”
I leaned back and gave him room.
“What’s up?”
I heard a man’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words.
“Isn’t it too early?” And then, “Yeah. Okay. I’m on my way.”
He swiped to end the call.
“What’s going on?”
“My sister’s in labor. She’s a month early, but her water broke, and they said the baby is far enough along that it’s safe to deliver. Sounds like she’s going to have him really soon.”
“Wow. That’s exciting.”
Even though it had sounded like he was going to leave right away, Chase made no immediate attempt to move. So I prodded him.
“Go. I’ll take a rain check on tonight. Besides…” I teased. “I didn’t have any rope anyway.”
“Will you come with me? Keep me company. Meet my new nephew?”
“Sure. I’d like that. Let me quick clean up so Ugly Kitty doesn’t polish off the rest of the Chinese food, and we’ll go.”
***
Evan, Chase’s brother-in-law, had just given us an update and gone back in to his wife. He’d been dressed in blue scrubs and a hat with matching blue paper booties over his shoes.
“How is what he was wearing any different than street clothes?” Chase asked. “He just walked through the hospital and out into the waiting room wearing that outfit. It’s not like it’s any more sterile than what I’m wearing now.”
“You have a point,” I said. “Maybe they just make the father wear it so he feels like he’s part of the team.”
“Maybe. But if I know my sister, Evan’s the only teammate she’s berating right now while she’s in labor.”
I shrugged. “That seems fair, if you ask me. He didn’t have to walk around carrying a bowling ball for nine months, and doesn’t have to suffer through labor. The least he can do is take some abuse.”
Chase smiled at me. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
We were the only two in the waiting room, so I pulled my legs up and snuggled into him. Chase pulled me closer and wrapped an arm around me.