Chase the Storm (13 page)

I spun with the pitchfork to toss the dirty sawdust into the wheelbarrow. Chase was standing outside the stall, not at allamused. The darkness that always hovered around him, in him, was flooding his eyes. I clutched the pitchfork, waiting for him to reprimand me for doing something wrong. He looked like he had when I’d seen him outside. He was still wearing his shirt with the sleeves rolled up and top buttons undone. The light blue plaid was glued to his chest and back with perspiration, and his jeans were held up by his leather belt. There was somethingmissing, though.

His hat.
It wasn’t onhis head, coveringhis eyes or the stress onhis face.

Stilling, my heart skipped the eternal beat it always did when he was near, and I stared at the way his damp hair stuck to his skin even though he’d clearly been running his hand through it. Confirming my suspicions, he reached up and channeled his longfingers throughthe strands.

I set the pitchfork against the wall and waited for the anger I knew was coming. For a long moment, the dry air hung thickly, filled with the tension that followed us around. He remained silent, occasionally taking his eyes fromme and lettingthemsettle someplace onthe ground, but they always worked their way back up my body, pausing on the healing bruise on my neck. The one I wore proudly and he looked at with shame. With each second that passed, my heartbeat quickened and I thought for sure he could hear, probablyevenfeelit vibrate throughthe barn. Then, like he always did, he turned and walked away.

The day continued without another word from him. I brought in the horses, all but Admiral, and fed them. Chase appeared a few minutes later, leadingAdmiralfromthe pasture to his stall. The hope I’d let myself fall into when Chase had come into the barn quickly diminished when he never looked my way. Not wanting to go inside, I walked to the end of the barn and propped myself against the door to watch the sunset. It had become a habit to watch each night as it decorated the sky with the brilliant colors oftwilight before setting.

Onlythat night, I wasn’t alone.

I didn’t have to hear his boots in the aisle to know he was standing behind me. Stiffening, I waited for him to get Admiral for their weekly Sunday ride to Owen’s grave. I wouldn’t be able to watch him tack up the horse and head off to visit the dead man I competed with. When he didn’t shove me out ofthe way, I relaxed slightly.

“The other night… shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you,” he apologized. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re nineteen, for fuck’s sake.” His voice was calm, calculated, but it lacked the coldness I’d heard init since that night.

My heart, that had been beating with hope, sank into my stomach. “Which is old enough to make my own decisions,” I countered softly, still not facinghim.

“And youngenoughto fuck up,”he returned quickly.

Nervously, I turned to him. When he didn’t bolt, I took a step toward him, leaving only a few feet separating us. Gathering what courage I had, I looked up at him, but his unfocused gaze fell somewhere over my shoulder. I went to touchhim, but he took halfa step back.

“Don’t,” he warned, bringing his troubled eyes to mine. In the blues that ranged from the sky to the depths of the ocean, I saw the despair I wanted to ease.

Not giving up, I placed the flat of my palm on his chest, relieved when he didn’t run. Pressing down on the buttons of his shirt, I felt his heart beatingas hard as mine.

“Is that what you think? That what happened was a fuckup?” I asked.

 

His lids closed at the question, but he made no move to take my hand fromhim. Patiently, I waited while he considered his answer.

“No,” he confessed, opening his eyes and baring the battered soul behind them.
“Thenwhat?”

The wild storm still raged inside him as he looked at me sadly. “I can’t fight it anymore. I thought I was strong enough but I was wrong,” he confided.

His words were cryptic and left me racing to decode them. “Fight what?”I gulped.

Lettingout a longbreath, he swallowed and kept his eyes onmine as he spoke. “My attraction to you, my
need
for you,” he confessed, trembling.

Gaining confidence with his admission, I closed the space between us, leaning in so close our lips were almost touching. “Don’t fight it anymore,”I requested into the hot air.

“We can’t be….”
“How do youknow ifyoudon’t give us a chance?”

Our eyes never left each other as he lowered his lips, grazing them over mine in the most tentative of touches. I melted against him when his hands found my waist, his blunt nails digging worriedly into my skin. Before he could pull away in regret, I wrapped my arms around his neck, carding my fingers through his silky hair, fisting it lightly. Feather light caresses of his mouth over mine fed an undeniable craving, and soon our lips smashed together in a demanding kiss, taking and giving with equal fervor. His tongue skipped permission and fiercely entered my mouth, fueling the fire that sparked around us. I let him have his way, deepening the kiss and exploringeverypart ofme he wanted. I was alreadyhis.

When his hands left my waist and cupped my ass, I groaned, encouraging him to touch me more. Obeying, he groped my cheeks, squeezing themfirmly, guiding me backward until I was trapped between him and Sampson’s stall. The familiar position was not lost on me, but it was completelydifferent fromdays before.

My head fell against the stall when he used his brute strength to lift me, knocking my hat to the ground. Instinctively, my legs went around his middle as he braced himself against me. Needing to feel more of him, I grasped the buttons of his shirt, yanking the middle and sending pearl buttons scattering along the aisle. I pushed the shirt off his shoulders, leaving it caught on the bend of his arms and groaning when our hot flesh finallymet. Unlike the night he’d come to me wearinghis finest clothes and aftershave, he now smelled like hay and horses. He ripped his mouth from mine, moving his lips along my jaw and I gave him access to where I wanted to feelhim.

“I’mso sorry,”he apologized against myskinwhenhis lips found the healingmark onmyneck, “for everything.”

“Shhh.” I silenced him, threading my fingers through his hair, keeping pressure on the back of his head to keep himfused to me. Not letting him pull away again, my legs tightened around him. When I felt his teeth scrape me, I begged. “Do it.”

He bit down, suckingthe skinbetweenhis lips and nippingit hard. A bolt of pleasure shot through my body, gathering in my groin. My cock was alreadyachingto be freed and touched, the pressure ofhis mouthjust enoughto keep me onthe verge, but not let me fallover.

His tongue lapped the renewed bruise, a salve on the mark I’d asked him to create. Lifting his head, he admired his work with a frown. Releasing his hair, I dragged a finger down his throat in a light caress, and he shivered at the touch. I affected him as much as he did me. Needing more, I moved against himas muchas possible.

“Take me,”I purred.

“Not here, not like this again,” he said with a shake of his head. Before I could argue, he unwound my legs from him and my feet landed on the ground. Stepping back, he put some space between us. “I’mgoing to do this proper.”

Shrugging out of the shirt, he let it fall to the ground and took my hand, tangling my fingers with his bare ones. With a racing heart, I let him lead me through the barn, the winds of change whistling around us as we walked hand inhand into the house and up the stairs.

In the dim light of his room, he stripped my clothes from me, and I watched while he did the same. We showered the day away, his hands sliding gently over my lathered body, even washing and rinsing my hair. Our lips met in many wet kisses, our erections rubbing together often, but when I went to ask for more, he backed off. Drying quickly, we left the towels onthe tiled floor and returned to his room.

Lying on his bed, my legs falling apart to welcome him between them, I looked up at him as he hovered above me. “Make love to me, Chase.”

As we came together again, reuniting after our brief time apart, the dayturned to night and Admiralgave a lonelywhinnyfromthe barn.
H
E GRUNTED
witheffort and pleasure everytime he slammed his hips into me. Sweat dripped from his face onto my chest as he looked down the planes of our bodies, watching where his cock disappeared into my ass witheachrollofhis pelvis.

Urgently, I clawed at his back, arching my body toward him, forcing his fierce thrusts deeper. Even though he was buried inside me, I couldn’t get close enough. His cock struck my prostate, and I pressed my head back into the pillow, my cries piercing the stillair, joining the resonance of grunts and bodies strikingas we met againand again.

“Chase, Chase,” I chanted, forcing my eyes to remain open and fixed on his as my untouched cock released, splashing warm come over myabdomen.

“Have to… move,” he hissed through clenched teeth. I hadn’t realized he’d stopped untilhe started again.

Nodding, I snaked a hand around him and pulled him down to me, our lips meeting in a passionate kiss. His hands were on the mattress next to my shoulders, but he lowered himself until he was flush on me. Shifting his weight, he moved a hand down my side to my ass, lifting it to change the angle.

“Fuck,” he panted against my lips. Lifting his head, he put his brow to mine, slowing, grindinghis hips erotically. My sated cock jumped at the seductive movement as I looked adoringly up at him. Sliding my hand around his shoulders to his face, I ran the pad of my thumb across his swollenlips. He pursed them, kissingthe calluses.

“You feel so good, I don’t want it to end,” he confessed, his lips movingagainst myfinger.

 

“It doesn’t have to,”I answered, and thenadded hopefully, “We can always do it again.”

There was a glint of the stormin his eyes, but he blinked and it was gone. Instead of replying, he began to move his hips in earnest again, driving into me with a firmrhythm. Right then I wanted nothing more than to feel him come inside me, watch his face contort in rapture as his cock emptied. The words I longed to say to him were close to falling from my lips, and only by kissing himdid I manage to stop myselffromtelling himI was inlove withhim. Our tongues met, and I felt himstillabove me.

“OhGod, Elijah,”he moaned, clenchinghis eyes closed.

Just hearing his velvet voice say my name at the peak of his ecstasy was almost enoughto make me hard again. His cock released deep inside me, fillingme withhis essence witheacherratic jerk ofhis hips punctuated by a grunt. He collapsed on top of me, panting as his semi-hard cock slipped from my used hole. Tilting my head back, I kissed him while I moved my hips so his cock remained against my sensitive entrance. He stayed still and let me work myself against him, my cock already lengthening. When our languid kisses became more frenzied, and I started clawing at his back to get himcloser, he broke the kiss, shaking his head and looking down at me. I lifted my head, chasing his lips, but he moved out ofreach.

“I can’t, not yet,” he apologized when he realized my growing need to have him again. Then he gave me a lazy smile, his white teeth flashing behind his lushlips. “I’mnot nineteenanymore.”

Not givingup, I kept moving my pelvis against him. “You could suck me,”I suggested daringly.

 

“I could,”he drawled, “or we could talk. We need to talk.”

I knew we did, but it scared me. I could only imagine the words he would say, the warnings of why what we were doing was wrong, the sadness his tone would have when the guilt of us being in his bed again overwhelmed him.

Since leading me to his bedroom, we’d let our bodies do the talkingtwice in fact. The only words spoken had been pleas of“harder” and “more” mixed in with the murmurs of how incredible we felt. There had been a short rest after our first time, our eyes closing briefly, but we didn’t wait long before reaching for each other again. Now that we were satisfied for a second time, he brought up the discussion we’d delayed. OnlyI wanted to delayit a bit longer, put offthe inevitable hurt that would surelycome withhis rejection.

Just as I was about to give in, he kissed my chin, then slowly moved down my body, pausing to suck a nipple, teasing it to a pert bud before continuing. Tucking himself between my legs, he burrowed his nose in the coarse hair framing my cock, breathing me in deeply before letting his tongue wander up the side of my erection. I hadn’t felt his mouth on me since our first night together and was eager to feel the wet suction again. Sliding his eyes to mine, he firmly wrapped his lips around the head, sucking hard. I lifted myself off the bed, my hands finding his disheveled hair.

“More, fuck, please more,”I whimpered to him.

Having mercy, he engulfed my cock, pulling it deep into his throat and swallowing before bobbing his head and setting an even pace. My hands traveled loosely through his hair, feeling the strands slip through my fingers before snagging them again. Keeping my eyes open, I looked down my torso to watch him, entranced with the way his lips looked around me. The feeling that had been gradually building in my groin was already in danger of exploding. I’d lasted longer than the thirty seconds of my first time, but if he hollowed his cheeks one more time, I would come undone. Like him, I wanted the sensations to last forever, but settled for hoping it wouldn’t be the last time I saw him looking up at me with my cock in his mouth. He moved a hand from my hip to between my legs, and the second his rough fingers made contact with the soft skin of my balls, mycock released inside the wet cavernofhis mouth.

“Chase,” I warned as I gave way to the euphoria he’d blessed me with.

I wasn’t aware he’d let me fallfromhis lips untilhe was lying next to me, propped up on his elbow and facing me. Tired fingers drew random patterns on the canvas of my abdomen as he waited for my breath to slow. Glancing down at his naked finger, I wanted to ask him about his ring—not why he had put it back on, but why he taken it off again. My saliva-coated cock lay on my hip as I turned my head to him, giving hima smile ofgratitude.

“Feelgood?”he asked witha smirk.

 

“Amazing.” I trembled. I thought my heart would calm after coming again, but it stillraced at his light touch.