I don’t try to stop the moan from escaping my throat when his tongue gently caresses my lower lip. He shudders and angles his head, his lips parting and gently teasing mine open. His tongue dips inside my wet heat, tasting me, and his other hand tightens on my hips as he returns the sound, moaning into my mouth.
My tongue dances with his, finding a rhythm that makes me squirm with need. I press deeper into his embrace. My heart is hammering so hard I think I might pass out. Chase curls his fingers into my hair, pulling gently, while I hold onto him like I’ll never let go. I never want to—I want him so badly, need him just as much as I needed him that night. He might have had enough that night, but my need will never end.
I slide my hand under the hem of his T-shirt, gasping at the heat of his bare skin under my fingertips.
Suddenly, he’s up off the couch and pacing the room, his hands fisting his own hair this time. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. “What’d you do that for?”
To my horror, my lip starts trembling. “You kissed me.”
“You kissed me first,” he says, dropping his hands and staring at me. When he sees the look on my face, he returns to the couch, but I jump up and walk over to my laptop before he can touch me.
“So, do you really want to research, or did you come over for something else?” I ask. I’m furious and mortified at once. Did I act like such a virgin that he knows? Is that why he ran away last time?
“I should go,” he says, standing again.
“Why am I not surprised?” I mutter.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. “You know what? Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know what she told you.”
I turn from my desk, my heart thumping even harder. “What who told me?”
“Lindsey,” he says slowly.
“Why would Lindsey tell me something about you?”
“Aren’t y’all friends now?”
“I mean, kind of,” I say slowly. “I sat with all of you at lunch, but we’re not…”
He fixes me with an inscrutable gaze, so intense it’s hard to breathe while he’s staring like that.
“Lindsey’s my girlfriend, Sky.”
A bucket of ice water couldn’t have chilled me faster. I can’t breathe at all for a second. I feel like he just body-slammed the air from my lungs. She’s not his ex. She’s his fucking girlfriend. I grip the desk behind me, afraid I’ll tumble over if I let go.
“Your…girlfriend?” I croak.
“I told you that,” he says, pacing the room. “I introduced you. Everyone in the whole fucking town knows that, Sky.”
“You introduced us,” I say through gritted teeth. “You conveniently failed to mention the girlfriend part.”
He stops pacing and faces me. “How do you not know that? You’ve been sitting with us for a week.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “As shocking as this may be, not everyone is thinking about Chase London every minute of the day.”
The truth is, aside from a few times when Lindsey has asked me about classes, I’ve felt like too much of an outsider to insert myself in their conversations. I only sat with them three times, anyway.
“I should go,” Chase says. He looks like he’s waiting for something, but I don’t know what he expects. Half of me wants to slap him, and the other half wants to beg him to dump her. I’ve seen them together. They act like friends. How was I supposed to know? He flirted with me. He gave all the signals. And yes, I kissed him, but I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.
And he kissed me back.
Not the kind of chaste little peck on the cheek I’ve seen Lindsey give him, either. He kissed me like…
No. I won’t think how he kissed me.
“Yeah,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and balling my hands into fists. “You should.”
His eyes search mine, but whatever he’s looking for, I don’t give it to him. He turns and walks to the door. Before he walks out, he turns back, raising an eyebrow in the most adorable way. It makes me want to scream.