Just One Night (2 page)

Music from the reception floated across the breeze and she followed it, steering clear of the walkway that lead the way from the creek to the barn in favor of the thick carpet of grass.

Her heels sank into the soft earth and she slid them off, looping the straps over a finger.

Cool and dewy, the grass slid between her toes as she inhaled the scents of her childhood. Her daddy’s prize horses in one direction, the rushing creek in the other. She closed her eyes and she was a kid again. A kid who wanted to escape this little town, a kid who was always in a hurry to grow up but had no idea what the real world was really like. No idea how lonely she would be away from home.

As she neared the barn, she stopped to slide on her heels.

“Looks like somebody’s been up to her usual slutty antics.” Emily Wright leaned against the side of the barn, arms crossed.

Addy looked around and almost groaned. No one else was out here. She was cornered.

Déjà vu
all over again.

“Less than eight hours between touchdown and quickie,” Emily said. “That must be some kind of new record, even for you.”

“If you’re suggesting I left the wedding to fuck the entire male population of Louisville in the last hour—” She held up both palms. “—busted!”

The two women stared at each other for several long seconds. With long blond hair and big blue eyes, Emily was attractive. Addy always thought she’d be prettier if she spent more time smiling and less time scowling. Of course, she had no hard evidence.

“Where is Chase?”

“Aw, shit.” Addy propped her hands on her hips. “Was it my night to watch him? I totally forgot.”

“Do you know
I
am his date tonight?” Emily asked.

Addy’s stomach pitched. Shame warmed her cheeks. Words of denial sat on her tongue, but she swallowed them back and did her best to hide her shock.

She hadn’t exactly asked Chase about his status before she gave him a dental checkup with her tongue.

All the more reason to leave town tomorrow
, her reasonable self advised.

Emily’s eyes glistened a bit in the low light of the setting sun. Addison almost felt sorry for her. “I can make your life hell.”

Almost
, Addy thought.

Male laughter rose up from round the corner, then the deep rumble of Chase’s voice.

“Sounds like your date’s over there,” Addy said, nodding. “Hurry. He must be real interested in spending time with you if he didn’t even tell you where he was.”

Emily looked Addy up and down disapprovingly. “Watch yourself, princess.”

Once the other woman stomped away, Addy squeezed her eyes shut. Of course, Emily had to be the one to catch her sneaking back to the reception. The woman lived to screw with her.

Two years ago Emily had seen Addison leave Chase’s house after midnight. Emily had witnessed Addison’s walk of shame after Chase told her to take a hike.

“What do you think you’re doing with him?” Emily had asked from her front porch.

The summer night had turned cool and there was rain in the air. In a tank and shorts, Addy shivered. She rubbed her arms as she walked down Chase’s front steps. “Visiting a friend.”

“Fuck buddy’s more like it,” Emily said, spitting the words.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her stomach churned and a sour taste grew in her mouth. She’d been so selfish. She’d wanted Chase so long and so badly, she hadn’t stopped to think about how it would affect his life if they were caught.
Just one night
, she’d said.
Our secret.

The street light cast hard shadows across Emily’s face. She leaned over the rail. “I’ve been watching you. You’re no good for him.”

Goose bumps rose on Addy’s arms and she rubbed at them, swallowing hard. Addy had been twenty-one. There was no law against her sleeping with an older man. Not that it mattered. “My relationship with Chase is completely innocent.”

“Think Mr. Duval will see it that way when I tell him I saw you sneaking out of an ex-con’s house in the middle of the night?” The words rolled off her tongue slowly, deliberately. “What do you think he’d do to the man who’s screwing his little girl? Give him a promotion?”

Addison froze, the lump growing in her stomach. She could deny it, tell her father her relationship with Chase was innocent, but it wouldn’t matter. Chase would be fired on the spot. And where would he land after that fall? Part of some gang? Running a chop shop and dismantling stolen cars? “What do you want from me?”

Emily had blackmailed Addison into leaving Decadence Creek without seeing Chase again. And Addy had let her because when she’d asked Chase to be with her, to be with her a single night, he hadn’t been willing to give her even that.

Two years later and the memory still ate at her. She took in a shaky breath and slipped back into the reception.

She accepted a drink from a server and smiled at Great Aunt Louisa as she passed with her walker.

Two years later, Addison could see the truth. She’d left to protect Chase. She’d stayed away because his rejection had broken her heart.

His office smelled like coffee, disinfectant, and…motor oil. But there was another scent there too. Something richer, deeper. Something like Chase.

Addison ran her fingers along the top of the battered walnut desk and closed her eyes. A deep breath in through her nose and she almost expected to find him in the room.

This was where she filled with the dull, aching loneliness of growing up the only daughter in a family of boys. Where she’d fallen in love with Chase. Where she had tried, and failed, to make him love her.

“Poor little rich girl,” she muttered.

Chase had refused to look at her as anything other than a kid…until tonight.

Addy took her glass of champagne across the office and lowered into the upholstered chair. When she’d left the reception, Emily and Chase had been dancing, and the sight had made her stomach churn.

Emily and Chase? She frowned.

Meanwhile, she couldn’t stop thinking about his kiss, his hot eyes on her mouth. The man did something to her. Most of the time, she was a completely rational human being, but when Chase Montgomery turned those hot eyes on her, he triggered something primal. Made her feel like a cat in heat.

Her fingers ran over her shirt, whispered across taut nipples and down her belly. She closed her eyes and let her hand slip lower, grazing fingertips over bare legs and flirting with the edge of her skirt. She thought of his eyes—dark, intense, eating her up like he might never get another chance.

With a sigh, she grazed a hand along the inside of her thigh, imagining that kiss again. Imagining that night two years ago—but in a world where he’d granted her request. Her pulse accelerated with the fantasy and she brushed her fingers higher up her thigh.

At the scrape of the opening door, she drew in a sharp breath and her eyes flew open.

Addison stilled as Chase walked into the office, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. His hot eyes settled on her. His lips parted.

She wanted to rub against him and purr.

His eyes drank in her face then travelled south to where her hand lay against the soft skin of her inner thigh.

Something like pain colored his features. Their gazes collided for a moment before his dropped south again. Her blood pulsed, hot and hard, gathering at the apex of her thighs.

Raw hunger contorted his features as he centered his gaze on her hand.

She inhaled a shaky breath and shifted her hips forward, allowing her thighs to part.

His eyes flashed with heat. Hunger. His pupils dilated as he stared at her exposed panties.

Acting on instinct more than good sense, she drew her hand higher, shifted her hips lower and traced the edge of the lace between her thighs.

“Jesus.” He exhaled the word more than said it.

His chest rose and fell with his quickening breath. His nostrils flared as he centered that heated, hungry gaze right between her legs. Her own breathing quickened and she opened further for him.

This was a dangerous game she hadn’t intended to play, but she couldn’t turn back now. Didn’t want to.

She slid a finger under the lace’s edge, felt her own slick, wet heat.

“Addy.”

God, she loved the sound of him saying her name, particularly now, laced with desire and pain, two syllables drawn taut with sexual awareness. Need.

She licked her lips as he finally returned his gaze to her face. “Chase,” she said.

That was all for a moment. Two names uttered into the silent office, tangling in the humid air.

His eyes dipped again, briefly, to her bare legs, to her inner thighs, to the wet lace of her panties, her fingers still teasing their edge.

The air between their bodies hung thick with lust.

He swallowed. His tie hung loose about his collar where he’d unfastened the top button. He shoved at the sleeves of his black dress shirt, already rolled to his elbows, exposing thick forearms, strong and muscled from working on engines.

She pushed herself out of her chair. She couldn’t let this happen. She wouldn’t be that selfish.

She was halfway to the door when he shackled her wrist with his hand. “Stop.”

Chase knew the image of Addison spreading her thighs for him would be branded into his mind for all eternity.

He stared down at her mouth now, her flushed cheeks.

A thousand times he’d wanted to kiss her, to touch her. He’d never given in.

His first year on the job, she had strolled into his office at every opportunity. She’d sat on his desk wearing a skirt up-to-there and a come-hither smile. He hadn’t touched her.

She’d driven back across the river every Saturday morning during her time at University of Louisville. She’d shown up on his doorstep offering chocolate muffins and hot coffee, torturing him by wearing sundresses that exposed more thigh than they covered, and he hadn’t touched her.

He hadn’t even given in to the temptation two years ago when he found her naked in his bedroom, reaching for him in the dark. He’d wanted to. He’d wanted to settle himself between her thighs and give her what she’d come for. Wanted to give her more. He’d wanted to take her face in hands and watch her eyes as he came inside her. But he’d kept his hands off. Because she was too young. Because he owed her father the world.

Because he wasn’t fucking worthy.

Chase released her arm only to find himself touching her lips. Glossy pink, just like Addison. Young and fresh, and so fucking sexy. “Two years ago, you offered me one night.”

She licked her lips. “Yes.”

“Does that offer still stand?”

A slow smile curled her lips. “Yes. One night.”

He cupped her face in his hands. “It won’t be enough,” he said, lowering his mouth to warm, sweet lips.

“Just tonight,” she insisted softly.

“I’ll take it.” He put his mouth on her neck, needing to taste her, cupped a breast with his hand.

“What about Emily?” she asked.

He pulled back. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

Her eyes focused on his mouth. “So it’s okay if I do this?” With one hand, she released the button of his pants.

He groaned and pulled her against him. “All night long I’ve wanted to strip you bare until you were in nothing but those strappy red heels.” He squeezed her ass. “I want those legs wrapped around my waist. I want to be inside you, Addison.”

She moaned softly, and the sound nearly undid him.

He took a step forward, pressing her into the door. His mouth met hers as his hard cock pressed into the softness of her belly. In a breath, she opened beneath him and their tongues slid, tangled, tasted.

God, she was sweet.

He slid his hands behind her head, cupping her face as he savored her. She pulled his shirt from his pants and slid her hands under the fabric.

A moan slipped from her mouth, the sweetest sound. He dropped a hand to the hem of her dress and drew it up around her waist. His hand slid between their bodies and found the lace of her panties damp. He groaned, a primitive hunger whipping through him.

He slid a finger under the lace and inside her. Hot and tight.
Jesus.

She moaned in response and rocked her hips, directing his hand, nibbling at his ear as he moved his fingers inside her.

“More,” she whispered.

Something snapped in him at the word. He needed to feel her, to possess her. Now.

He yanked at her panties, tearing them away and tossing them over his shoulder.

He dropped before her, knowing this was foolish. Too fast, too impulsive, too dangerous. But her soft moans filled the small office and her hips tilted instinctively toward him, and he had to taste her.

He pressed his mouth between her legs and she gasped. He drew her clit against his tongue, rubbing, tasting her, before pulling back.

“God,” he murmured. He wasn’t a praying man, but the taste of her wet sex on his tongue was enough to inspire a whole new religion.

She stared down at him, lips parted, her breathing shallow. His free hand went to his jeans, unzipping them.

“Please,” she murmured, pulling at him.

He stood and pressed his mouth to hers as he slid on a condom.

With the protection in place, he slid his hands behind her, then he hesitated.

She curled her nails into his back, her hot, open mouth sucked at his neck.

He watched her eyes as he lifted her hips and slowly settled her on his erection. He slid into her slowly, letting her adjust to him.

She took him in, and he found her neck, tasting her sweet skin as he moved inside her.

He braced her against the wall and Addison rocked against him, squeezing tight around his cock as he filled her, stretched her, drove into her with all the growing desperation he’d felt for her in the last five years.

She pulled a hand free from his shirt and took a fistful of his hair, drawing his mouth to hers. She sucked at his bottom lip, then moved her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Harder.”

He obeyed because he couldn’t refuse. His fingers dug mercilessly into the bare flesh of her ass, and as he buried himself deep in her body. With each thrust, she let out a little cry. He felt the orgasm build within her, squeezing him at she climbed closer.

He couldn’t hold off much longer. “Come for me, baby.” And she did. Her sweet heat convulsed around him and her whimper filled the office.

Three hard, relentless strokes later, he followed her, coming hard and fast inside her, wishing he never had to pull out.

He rested his head in the crook of her neck and caught his breath.

After a few breaths, he brushed her hair to the side and pressed his lips against her neck. He withdrew slowly, careful as he lowered her to the floor.

After disposing of the condom, he pulled up his pants and tugged her close. His hands rested on her waist. Jesus but he didn’t want to let her go. “Are you okay?”

She bit down on her lip, but it couldn’t hide her smile. “I’m spectacular.”

His chest ached a little and he pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. “Next time, you’re going to be naked.”