A Debt Repaid (1) (8 page)

She swallowed hard and knew the bastard felt it against his hand. That and her frantic pulse pounding through her artery. “Why would you even ask? Don’t you always have ways of looking into things like th-that?” Every touch made it harder and harder for her to talk. To think. It was obvious in her tone. He affected her.

No, affected
was too simple of a word. She was being destroyed on the inside. It was a hot, vicious throbbing, one that rattled every inch of her.

She hated her weakness. Hated how starved her body
was. It’d been so long since she had any physical connection; she knew she was up against a very basic need. The need for affection. Any type.

Damn him, but she
was on the verge of purring with every pass of his thumb.

She hated, hated,
hated
herself for it.

In the reflection in front of her, she saw the intense way
Chase stared at her neck, his look one of fascination.

Almost as if he
was hungry for it.

The pounding between her legs became worse. It was a battle between her will and
what she wanted.

“I do have ways,” he said after a while. Those dark eyes remained focused on where he
touched. “But I decided to wait and ask you in person. I wanted to afford you your privacy.”

How nice of him. So he had methods of spying on her, but he had chosen not to use said methods.

Just hearing those words pass Chase’s lips should’ve been enough to send her flying right out that door.

There
was no such thing as flying for her. Aria couldn’t move. She was convinced that if Chase passed that spot on her neck one more time—

He did.

The only thing that stopped her legs from buckling was the fact that he captured her stare with his in the reflection.

Every muscle in Aria’s body froze, her attention rapt.

“Is everything okay? With the house, and…” He didn’t finish, but then again, he didn’t have to. His eyes had dropped to her left hand, still wrapped around the doorknob.

Her wedding ring seemed to glint in the bright white light.
Aria pulled her eyes away from her ring. She had no idea why she still wore it. She’d told Douglas to get the hell out yesterday.

Not that she
was in the mood to divulge that to Chase. It was her last barrier. Her last defense against the madness she was going through.

So she lied instead. “It’s fine… everything, is… fine.”

If he caught the hesitation in her response, he gave no sign. No, instead, he became angry. No, he was more than angry. Chase’s body was vibrating with some intense energy that she couldn’t define. He stared at her from beneath a tensed brow, his eyes boring into hers through the reflection.

“I worry about you.” The soft way he said those words were so at odds with the
look he gave her. Then, his hold on her neck became tighter. Chase pulled her until she almost stumbled back into his chest. Voice gone rough, he leaned down enough to murmur in her ear, “All the damn time. Every day. I can’t stop it… I wonder if you’re okay. If you need anything.” Chase closed his eyes and exhaled.

Aria held back her gasp as her skin responded to the
feel of that exhale.

“I… I don’t,” Chase paused. The way his jaw tensed, the hardening of his brow—that pained expression and the way he squeezed his eyes shut.

She hadn’t known him for very long, but she’d already realized how flat… how
monotone
he could be at times.

Not right then. Aria
was fascinated by what she saw. His entire face transformed as unknown emotions took him over.

He
was beautiful. It didn’t matter that he was pained by whatever he fought. It captivated her to see his facial expressions change like that, as much as his touch did her body.

Chase opened his eyes. When he spoke, he did so slowly, as if he
were trying to remain calm. “I don’t like this feeling, Aria. Not this one. The constant worrying about you, wondering if you’re alright. I’m not used to this.”

Oh, God.
This time, it was Aria’s turn to close her eyes. No matter what she did, she couldn’t escape the images replaying in her mind. It didn’t take a genius to realize that he’d been damaged by whatever had happened to his mom when he’d been a child.

She’d seen it happen to a lot of people. They either self-destructed in chaotic explosions of fury that ruined their lives one event at a time—or they shut down
in order to stop feeling whatever pain was still eating at them.

There
was a big chance that she was wrong, but it made sense. Thinking back on how flat he could be, it was either one or the other. He was either an expert at hiding his humanity, or he he’d shut down his emotions to survive.

A terrifying conclusion came next, the kind that had her eyes shooting wide open and her heart accelerating.

He was feeling. Not only was it obvious, but he had just told her so.

She
was the reason.

Her logic and fear screeched at that, refusing to accept that she
was the cause.

Her gut laughed at her with almost maniacal glee.

She felt Chase’s hold on her neck shift—he turned her around, fast. It took her a second to register the feel of his arms around her, the heat of his chest against her face.

He palmed the back of her head
softly, pressing her further into him.

His heart
was beating even harder than her own, a loud, incessant pounding in her ear that heated her blood until it felt like her skin was burning.

“I need you to make me a promise,” Chase said, squeezing her tight. “If, for whatever reason, you can’t… if anything happens and you need any sort of help, anything at all Aria, you’ll come find me. Promise me.”

Waves of emotion caught her unaware, starting at her feet before rushing through the rest of her. Her heart sputtered. Aria’s mind seemed to split in four separate directions, clueless on how to handle the million different things she was feeling.

Unable to stop herself, Aria raised her hands. She worked her arms through his tight hold so she
could clutch his blazer. Eyes squeezed shut, she hung on for dear life, wondering how she was going to be able to walk out that door considering she didn’t feel her legs.

She
was so aroused. For
him. Since the day they met, always for him. She wanted that man, someone she’d just met, more than anyone and now he was hitting her with that request of his.

Either he
was a brilliant actor, one adept as all hell at hiding his emotions, or he didn’t feel at times. And, oh God, the way he was holding her left very little room for doubt. His request, the way his heart seemed to race for her…

Aria flattened her hands against his chest and tried to push him away. “Chase, I have to go—”

He splayed his hand across the middle of her back, pulled her close again, and grabbed her chin with his other hand.

Nothing about his hold
was rough. Yet something about it brooked no argument, left her with no choice but to freeze. Fear was beating a constant tattoo along her insides. She forced herself to look up into his eyes and almost gasped at what she saw there.

So much intensity. Lord. Douglas
never
stared at her like that.

“Stop.” The muscle in Chase’s jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together. “Just stop fighting this for two seconds.”

“This?” she asked, trying to distract him from his request. She couldn’t promise him what he wanted. Aria couldn’t leave that door open between them. It was all supposed to end after that one date.

It
had
to end there.

But
could she even go on that date now, knowing how she felt about him? With the suspicion of how
he
was feeling for her? Could she go knowing that his lips were so full, and how much she wanted to feel them—damn it, they were just a breath away from her own.

She closed her eyes,
pathetically, trying to block him out.

“This,” Chase whispered, and God help her, she
tasted
that word as it ghosted across her lips.

Her heart, his heart; she
couldn’t even begin to tell who’s was beating hardest. She didn’t dare open her eyes. Chase smelled too fucking good and she wouldn’t be able to resist the visual of him, so close.

Her resistance was hanging on by a fragile thread.
The attraction between them was alive. A frantic, violent, greedy pulsation that seemed to grow stronger every second that it was denied.

“This thing between us, Aria.”

God, what had she done?

Why’d she asked him to clarify that one point of all things?

He trembled before tensing, locking down his muscles in order to remain in control. His next exhale was on purpose, there was no way it wasn’t.

Aria whimpered at the
taste of him,
hating
him.

“I think it’s more than obvious what’s between us. But
, as I’ve already told you: You feel this, Aria. You don’t want to feel it any more than I do, but you do.”

Behind her closed eyes, Aria watched as another wall crumbled, becoming nothing more than ash. One less defense. With one simple statement, he somehow took away any hope she had for denial. Left
her exposed in front of a very brutal truth.

A truth that she didn’t dare explore lest she
fall apart.

Or worse: give in.

“Open your eyes.” His voice was calm. Deceptively so. “Aria, open your eyes for me.”

Coward that she
was, she refused to give him that.

“Open your eyes. I want you to
look at me before I kiss you.”

HEARING THAT HE was going to kiss her swarmed through Aria and attacked her most basic, most primal of instincts.

Suddenly, it
was all about him. How good he smelled, and the heat coming off him. Add that to the fact that she knew damned well how attractive he was, and how weak she was against it.

To her chagrin, her hands had gone right back to fisting his blazer. When she
couldn’t stop herself from licking her lips, Chase gave a low groan. Chagrin morphed right back to self-loathing. The man in front of her had forced his way into her life. In the eyes of the law, she was still married, never mind that her husband hadn’t touched her in months.

None
of that mattered in the face of how much she hungered for him or how deep that hunger went.

She knew that, soon, nothing would matter. Nothing except tasting him.
Experiencing him. There was no denying that part of her—a very large one—was ready to beg him to take her mouth. Take it hard. Fast. Like no one ever had before. She’d only ever been with Douglas and, physically speaking, Chase was just so much more.

“Give me this, Aria. Open your eyes so I can kiss you. Let me see if it’ll be as good between us
as I think it’s going to be.”

For some reason, knowing that she
wasn’t alone in her lapse of reason made her head spin. Her heart beat as if it’d just received a fresh infusion of alcohol. No. She was more than drunk. This went beyond any sort of high. A single push of her heart was all it took for the madness to spread.

She needed those lips. God, she needed that kiss he
was about to give her and she needed it right the fuck then.

Her eyelids fluttered open. The blue in his eyes consumed her entire vision.

The first brush of his lips against hers was atomic. A vicious nuclear mushroom went off inside her, breaking apart everything that made her female and scattering the pieces.

His lips were softer than she’d thought they’d be. So damn full. She wanted to bite his bottom one.
Feel it ghost across one of her hardened nipples.

Aria choked on a moan.

Chase pulled away and let his head fall back. She watched as his powerful neck tensed up. The sound that left him was… God, that sound. She was going to let me him take her. The way her pussy contracted from the agony of wanting him left her with no other option.

She wanted that big, beautiful man between her legs. Deep inside her, his lips on every inch of skin she offered.

He lowered his head and the expression on his face made her lips part. An accusation. A sexy, hungry accusation combined with his almost black eyes.

Fuck.

She sympathized with him. Her expression was probably a perfect replica of his right then.

You. You did this to me.

His hands trailed down her back. They wrapped around her waist, spanning it, and all she could think about was arching and feeling every inch of him.

Every. Inch.

Was he hard for her?

Chase’s stare remained focused on her mouth. His tongue trailed along his bottom lip, wetting it, right before he bit it.

She couldn’t stop herself from whimpering and doing the same.

“God, Aria.” He gripped her neck and held her still. Bared his teeth. His tongue peeked out to wet his lip again as he lowered his head, and she knew: this time, he
was going to give it to her. All of it. Whatever it was.

She pushed her way out of his grip, surprising them both.

He froze, his almost wild stare following her.

Her nerves, atoms, her damn skin, it all screeched with fury.
Trembling, she reached behind her, grabbing the doorknob.

Chase snapped out of it as soon as he realized what she
was doing. “Aria.”

“I… I can’t. Chase, I can’t. I have to go.” She flung the door open and all but stumbled out of it.

People, everywhere. Somehow, she had to keep it together until she was out of sight. She didn’t try looking back to see if Chase tried to follow her. She just prayed like hell that he didn’t.

The floor beneath her feet
felt like it was changing, becoming unsteady. Something was leaking out of her, invisible yet tangible, and without it…

She
was never going to fucking be the same again.

By the time Aria made it to the elevators and pushed the button, she
was praying harder. She prayed for strength, and that Lori wouldn’t appear out of nowhere and see her. That Chase wouldn’t follow her. That her
damned
tears wouldn’t fall.

That the freaking elevator would get there already!

As soon as she heard the
ping
and the doors slid open, she shot inside. Aria didn’t turn around, not even as she pressed the button for the lobby, but she felt all the stares boring into her back. Whether she was imagining it or not, she didn’t care.

The elevator had to descend eighty-four floors to reach street level. At any moment, someone
could come on board. They’d see her and the pathetic state she was in.

Aria didn’t care about that either. Funny
how it could take all of a person’s will to keep it together sometimes. She just didn’t have any concentration left over to worry about people’s opinions. The feeling of the floor liquefying was still messing with her balance. Stumbling, she made her way straight toward the wall.

Her thoughts
were jumping all over the pace. She’d been shaken in her life before. Finding out who Douglas truly was had obliterated a ten-year-old foundation. Without it, she’d been drifting day-by-day, trying to get by until she figured something out. Simple things, like who she was, and what she’d do with the rest of her life.

Aria pressed her forehead into the cool elevator wall and flattened her sweating hands against it. Eyes closed, she stood there, trying to ignore the whirlwind of noise in her mind and what it
was all telling her.

Whoever
was watching her on the security feed was probably having a field day with her.

Stupid, stupid, stupid
. She’d asked for a glimpse of who she was, and this was what she’d gotten.

When Aria agreed to marry Douglas, she’d built her whole life around being his wife.
Barely anything more. All she had, outside of her husband, was a few friends, and her volunteer work at the soup kitchen. She’d been with him ten years, married for eight. She was only twenty-six.

She’d never had a chance to grow up on her own, to figure herself out. The collapse of Douglas’
façade had triggered a destruction within the walls of her own.

It’d been the scariest thing to ever happen to her. Back then, the floor beneath her had weakened, though, not liquefied. And that
was the damn point. Groaning under her breath, Aria slapped the wall with her hand, right before the elevator arrived at the lobby.

The doors opened. Aria eased off the wall as fast as she
could considering her reality remained in full-spin. The people waiting right outside the elevator stared. Everyone seemed to. She ignored them, her eyes focused forward.

The realization of what her life now was torment
ed her the whole way.

She’d prayed to learn something about who she
was. Well, she’d glimpsed it inside that office.

Chase had made her wanton. Straight-up wanton. And
, even worse, lust hadn’t been the only factor in her reaction to him. There’d been so many emotions.

She’d cared. Way too much. Aria had lied to herself throughout the years she’d been married. She’d convinced herself that she’d loved a man, that in reality she only cared about. Douglas hadn’t been her grand-passion, or anything close to that.

Up in that office, her body had responded as if…as if…

She
couldn’t even finish the damned thought without shame washing over her.              

She
was lusting after, and developing some type of attachment to a man she’d just met. A man that had it in him to blackmail and spy. Plus, it’d only been a few weeks since she’d found out what her husband had been up to and their marriage had collapsed.

That’s
what type of person she was. No better than her soon-to-be ex. Talk about smack in the freaking face.

The sun
was in full glare when she stepped out of the building. Squinting, she walked down the block. Aria had been lucky enough to find parking two blocks away from the building. For some reason, that gave her so much relief. She couldn’t imagine waiting in the building’s parking lot
,
while one of the attendants brought out her car.

Once inside her car, Aria squeezed down on the steering wheel. Same as she’d done the day she’d confronted Douglas.

And met Chase.

She stared at the dark blue car parked in front of her, fighting back sudden nausea. Douglas had been a bastard. There was no denying that or justifying his actions. What he’d done to her was disgusting. What he’d done to Chase’s company even more so. Lord only knew what he’d done to others.

“So why do I
feel guilty?” Aria mumbled to herself. She was weak in the face of what she felt for Chase. She’d never wanted a man as much as she wanted him. Her entire psyche was unprepared to deal with that kind of temptation.

And
, yet, the idea of giving into that hunger made her hate herself. Douglas might have done her wrong, but she was still married to him.

Her wedding ring caught the sun
light, glinting again, as if reminding her.

No matter how God damned horny Chase made her, she
couldn’t explore it. His scary issues aside, just thinking about sleeping with him sent the word “whore” on a gleeful rampage through her conscience.

Her hands
shook as she turned the ignition. In her mind one thing was clear: she couldn’t go on that date with Chase. She did feel
guilt
at the idea of backing out. He’d agreed to leave Douglas’ worthless ass alone even if she didn’t go.

Of course, Chase might change his mind if he got angry enough.

Maybe her transformation—or whatever the fuck it was—would be complete in a few days. Maybe then she’d become the type of woman that wouldn’t care.

The most horrible part
was that she wasn’t so sure how adverse she was to the idea anymore. After all, not caring about self-judgment, what the world would think of her, or about the consequences would mean one thing: She would be able to explore Chase.

She’d be able to give in.

And fuck him,
her conscience reminded her with a sneer.

She might become that woman and she
could go as far with Chase as she wanted. But she wasn’t that woman yet, and there was no way she could pretend to be. So there was no other option. She couldn’t go on that date. There was no telling what she’d let him do to her if she was near him again.

Or what she would do to him.

Alright. It’s official. I’m losing my fucking mind.

She had to get out of there. Away from that building and what it now represented to her.