Craved: A Chosen Ones Novel (29 page)

He stared into my eyes the entire time he spoke. With each new sentence I felt my heart constricting even as it warmed from the inside out and even as a slow panic began to take form and then threaten to bubble up out of me.
 

He was right. The word relationship did make me want to bolt. His words, every single one he’d just said to me, made me want to bolt.
 

“Promise me Alex,” Chase said again when I didn’t respond. It was no longer a request. It was a plea and a demand rolled into one.
 

I opened my mouth again and sensible, smart, selfless words should have come out. I should have told him that I couldn’t promise him that along with so many other things. But all that came out was a singular, “okay,” that I breathed into his mouth just before his lips slanted over mine again. His lips pushed away whatever shadows of the past I had started thinking about. By the time they’d traveled down the length of my body and my hands were tangled in his hair as his head bobbed up and down between my thighs whatever worries I’d had, whatever I’d been thinking of was completely erased.
 

When Chase settled himself between my thighs, kissing me hard on the mouth, the taste of him commingled with me was so erotic, so enthralling that a need ignited inside of me to taste him on my tongue just as he tasted me. His rigid length pressed into me as it strained against the barrier of his sweatpants. I arched against it initially thinking of my own release but then imagining his.
 

It was then that it hit me. Every interaction we’d had thus far he’d been on the giving end and I’d been on the receiving end. He’d selflessly taken me to the edge of ecstasy then over it every time without so much as hinting at me reciprocating. Again, my heart did that melty, mushy, gooey thing as it contracted. But when it thudded in my chest something else came to life with it. A fierce need to give him what he’d given me. To take him to the brink of pleasure and make him lose control and go tumbling clean over the edge too. The thought of his hands twisting in my hair, of his face contorted with ecstasy, of him groaning in pleasure as I took him into my mouth did something to me. It made me feel bold and hotly, seductively feminine.
 

I pushed my hips against his and leverage his weight against mine. I pushed up and to the right with my right hip making us roll so that he was on his back and I straddled him. I pulled the shirt I wore over my head and let it fall to the ground beside the bed. I slept without a bra so the act left me completely nude. Chase groaned and my nipples hardened in anticipation when he raised his upper body up, his head on a direct path to my breasts. But I stopped him before he reached them, pushing him back down on his back. This was about him not me at the moment. I wanted to be the giver and him the receiver. I let my body fall on top of his and curled my arms around his neck. I took his earlobe between my teeth and he groaned again.
 

“I’m completely naked and you’re still mostly dressed,” I said into his ear. “I don’t think that’s fair.”
 

My hands went to the band of his sweatpants and tugged the tied string in the front loose. I lifted up off of him just long enough for him to help me slide his sweatpants off. I swallowed hard and my eyes damn near popped out of my head. The length of him stood hard and thick and erect. I mentally shook myself for staring wide-eyed.
 

Heat rushed between my legs at the million and one oh so bad but oh so good thoughts that raced through my mind. I wrapped a hand around the base of his length, like I’d done in the club and he groaned again. I pumped it in my hand as I nibbled his earlobe then licked a wet trail down his neck followed by hot kisses across his chest. When my head dipped lower to his rock hard abs, his hands tangled in my hair, gently pushing and encouraging my head to travel farther south but then he stilled them in my hair and tensed beneath me.

“Alex, what are you doing?” he breathed low and deep.

I looked at him with one eyebrow cocked, mimicking one of his signature looks. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“You don’t have to. I didn’t do what I did expecting you to reciprocate.”

I didn’t immediately respond. Instead, I bobbed my head farther down and ran my tongue from the base of his shaft to his tip. He shuddered hard beneath me. I smiled. Pleased that I could affect him so. “I know. Which is why I want to. I want to please you too…But I’ve…never done this before so you have to tell me if I’m doing it right and what you like.”

His body relaxed and his hands fisted in my hair again. When I repeated the motion, licking from the base of his length to the tip he shuddered again too. “Fuck Alex. Whatever you do will be right.”

Feeling more confident, I tightened my grip on him then covered him with my mouth. His hips jerked upward and he groaned again. From there feminine instinct took over and I found a rhythm that had him tightening his hands in my hair and thrusting his hips upward to match it. I sped up the pace and one of his hands left my hair to circle around mine tightly gripping it while I gripped him. His hand jerked mine upward.
 

“I’m about to come,” he growled out. I think he meant it as a warning of courtesy so I could pull away before he did, but I didn’t want to. Some feminine part of me that wanted to claim and be claimed by him drove me to keep sucking up and down hard on him until he was no longer groaning or growling but calling my name as he came.

As I lay my head against Chase’s chest, still straddling him, I purposely kept my head turned to the side when I spoke. “So I know what usually follows what we just did but—“

“Nothing needs to or has to follow what we just did. I’d be a douche to expect anything more just because,” he cut me off. He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned my head so that I was forced to look down at him.”Seriously Alex. We can go as slow, or as fast,” he smiled at me pointedly, “as you need to. You can sat whatever pace you want.”

I chewed on my bottom lip under the intensity of his stare. “And you’re really okay with that?”
 

His smile turned wolfish. “Oh, I’m better than okay with it. I think I found a new favorite past time—tasting you and hearing you make the maddeningly sexy little noises that you make when I do.” His smile grew wider, putting his dimples on full display in all of their endlessly deep glory. “And as for what you did to me, I was serious when I said it’s not an expectation that you reciprocate. It’s entirely up to you. You can do me when you want to, where you want to, for however long you want to, however many times you want to or not at all.”

I didn’t dare look down at my body. I was still nude and I wasn’t convinced that if I did I wouldn’t see a crimson blush spreading across it. “Gee, thanks for being so accommodating,” I drawled.
 

His grin went from unabashedly wolfish to shamelessly innocent. “You’re welcome.”

I punched him in his arm playfully and we both laughter.

 
My phone beeped letting me know I had a text message. I reached over and grabbed it off the table beside the bed.
 

“It’s Charissa,” I said checking the screen. “She texted the address of the convent and said Sister Helena is free to see us in an hour.” My stomach growled as I placed the phone back on the table.

“Hungry much?” Chase arched a brow at me.

“Starving. I admitted. “Somebody woke me up without breakfast then made me expend what little energy reserves I had left.”

His hand patted my bare bottom sending a little thrill zinging through my cells and making my hormones flare to life again. Not that they’d ever really died down in the first place. I was straddling a naked Chase who had the body of a God chiseled from marble and I was naked myself.
 

He must have felt the same thrill zip through him too because he pulled me down hard against him and kissed me just as fervently. When I shifted to try and extricate myself so that we wouldn’t get carried away and could get dressed and actually make it out of the room I felt his length grow even harder than it already was as it slid against my opening. I couldn’t stop the moan that rippled out of me even if I’d wanted to. I know what I’d just said or had tried to say, but in that moment if Chase grabbed a hold of my hips and positioned himself more firmly against my core, I wouldn’t have stopped him from arching up and doing exactly what I had hinted at me not being ready to do. Hell, I almost begged him to do it, but then I caught myself. And yeah I knew how completely contradictory and bi-polar that sounded.
 

He moved before I did lifting me up and sitting me gently on the bed beside him. “Come on,” he said swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. His voice had taken on a strange, almost strained quality. “We have just enough time to get you fed and make it to the convent on time.”

I headed for the bathroom a step behind him. If we could share a bed completely nude it made no sense not to share a bathroom too.
 
“You say it like I’m the only one that’s hungry?” I said offended.

When he turned to look at me
 
his eyes sparkled with mischief. “I could eat too but I’m not hungry. I took care of that need twice this morning.” He winked at me before turning away.
 

My mouth gaped open so wide I swear it hit the floor.
 

******

Sister Helena led us down one of the narrow halls of the convent. The eyes of every woman we passed in a black and white habit tracked us as we walked. The cheeks of a few even changed in hue. I repressed the urge to roll my eyes. Leave it to Chase to make even nuns momentarily forget their vows of chastity. The Sister made a sharp right and we followed her. She pushed a set of double doors open to reveal perhaps what was the only room with a splash of life within the drab walls of the convent. Books of all shapes, kinds and colors lined three of the library’s four walls from floor to ceiling. Paintings that looked like they belonged on display at the High Museum instead of being shut inside the gray stucco building were delicately hung on the fourth. Artifacts that looked just as priceless neatly sat on the long wooden tables that formed a box in the center of the room.

 
Sister Helena walked around an oblong shaped desk, knelt behind it, and reappeared with a worn leather book in her hands.
 

“Please, have a seat,” she said motioning to a set of high back chairs pushed slightly out from one of the wooden tables.
 

Most of Sister Helena’s frame was covered by the shapeless habit but the expanse of smooth skin exposed by the coif and bandeau that framed her face revealed her to be no more than forty.
 

Slender fingers flipped through the frail pages within the book that had been yellowed by time. She sat it down in front of us, once she’d found the handwritten words in faded black ink she’d been looking for.
 

“From the looks of it this book dates back to the middle ages and has its origins in Europe. How it made its way to a dusty attic in coastal Georgia I have no idea, but I would imagine if the binding could talk it would tell a tale of a rather interesting journey.
 
I’ve sort of made myself the keeper and restorer of the convent’s library that seemed forgotten about before I arrived here. I know we are supposed to give up all worldly passions, but I figure an obsessive love of books and historical manuscripts can’t be too bad,” she smiled at us guiltily. “Anyway, I met Charissa in college. We were both history majors. I didn’t join the convent until after graduation. We were roommates and we periodically keep in touch. Whenever something comes through in the donations that I think might be of interest to Charissa I give her a call and sit it aside until she can get down here to take a look at it. The book reads like a personal diary. Most of it is ramblings about life and grievances during the fourteenth century, but I did come across one entry that sounded religious in nature and I thought Charissa might like to see. Here, you can read it for yourself,” she said pushing the open diary closer to us.

 
It read:

The first seal shall be broken when the duty to protecteth the whole is forsaken to preserveth the life of one. The second seal shall be broken when the blood of an innocent flows to preserveth the same. The third shall be broken when two die in consequence to the actions of one. The fourth shall be broken when the one who reclaimeth duties abandoned spills the blood of he whom twice sacrificed on heaven’s behalf. Together the four will giveth freedom to those imprisoned and create a gilded cage around those who are free. From love will cometh death.
 

The consequences of choice cannot be undone. Free will is a burden not to be shouldered lightly. Behind every choice there is an action. For every action there is a consequence. Choice. Free will. Action. Inaction. Consequence.
 
He who has long coveted that which was never his, will see it attained.
 
Choice. Free will. Action. Inaction. Consequence.
 

The breaking of the fifth will free the newly imprisoned. Choice. Free will. Action. Inaction. Consequence. All must come full circle. All wrongs must be righted. All rights must be wronged. Death will claim the life preserved. The life of one will save the whole. Choice. Free will. Action. Inaction. Consequence. Hell will reign indefinitely on Earth and the usurper will sit on the throne. Choice. Free will. Action. Inaction. Consequence. From death will come enslavement. Choice. Free will. Action. Inaction. Consequence. In death there is freedom and salvation everlasting.

“Do all three types of handwriting appear throughout the diary?” I asked Sister Helena looking up from the ominous words.

“No, they do not. The rest of the handwriting appears identical to the first passage.”

“From the wording I’d say the later two were written centuries after the first,” Chase spoke up beside me.
 
“Who donated this?”