I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2) (34 page)

As I walk away from Kyle Tanner’s house, even in my wrecked state, I realize something. Tonight I may have stumbled, but I got right the fuck back up. I stopped when it mattered. So maybe I have changed a little.

And that means there’s hope for me, after all.

Chapter Twenty

Kay

When I return to the farmhouse I’m surprised to find Chase and his brother have not yet returned from the airport. Full dark has fallen and more than enough time has passed to account for the return drive from Pittsburgh. I step out of my car and glance around. There’s definitely no truck in the driveway. And the house is dark, closed up tight.

I lean back against my car door and try to reason out what might be causing Chase and his brother to be delayed. I checked the flight status earlier and I know Will’s flight came in on time, so the only thing I can come up with is that Will was probably hungry and they stopped somewhere to grab a bite to eat.

But why is Chase’s phone turned off?

I suddenly wish I had Will’s number, because, I don’t know, something feels off. And if I had Chase’s brother’s number I could find out what’s going on.
Maybe.

I decide to try Chase again.

In the darkness, with a background symphony of frogs singing down at the creek, I dig my cell from my purse and call Chase’s cell once again. But like before when I was leaving the church, the call goes straight to voicemail, which means his phone is still turned off. Again, I can’t imagine why Chase would purposely shut down his cell. Maybe his battery died.

I push off the car door and reluctantly go up to my apartment. Truth be told, I am not myself. I’m still reeling from the episode at the cemetery—seeing my mom and learning the truth. Doug unlocked the patio door.
Unbelievable.

Four years wasted, four years spent believing something that wasn’t true. I carried so much blame. I lost my mom’s presence in my life. And why? All because Doug Wilson kept a secret of his own, one that could have changed so much. Has it come too late? Where will we all go from here?

I can’t even consider. In fact, I try to block out the events of the evening for now. I need to behave as if nothing is wrong when Chase and his brother finally do arrive. Later, once Will is asleep, I’ll share with Chase all that has happened and ask him for his opinions.

Up in my apartment, I flip on a lamp and toss my purse onto the sofa. I head back to the shower, unzipping my dress—dirtied and wrinkled from my time at the cemetery—along the way.

The hot water does a good job of reviving me. I actually start to feel more emotionally balanced by the time I’m dried off. With a renewed calm, I slip a blue eyelet lace dress—the one I know Chase loves—over my head. I don’t bother with makeup or shoes; I just go back into the living room and plop down on the sofa.

The minutes tick by silently as I wait for my boy and his brother to come home. At some point, I glance over at the kitchenette.

Should I make some food?
I wonder.

If I’m mistaken about their delay, and Chase and his brother haven’t stopped to eat, they may very well be hungry by the time they get here. But just as I stand, with the intention of making at least a couple of sandwiches, my cell phone buzzes.

I glance down, see Chase’s name flash across the screen, and answer with haste.

“Chase, is everything all right?”

When my boy slurs my name as a response, I know immediately something is very, very wrong.

“Oh my God, what happened?” I ask, panicked. “Are you okay? Is everything all right with Will?”

“No,” Chase begins, his voice drifting, like the phone’s slipping out of his grip, “nothing is right, baby.”

My heart races with fear. “Chase, please, you’re scaring me. Tell me what’s going on.”

He exhales audibly. “Will wasn’t on his flight, Kay. He, uh, changed his mind, he’s staying in Vegas. Sometimes plans change, you know.” He laughs. “And I’m sorry, baby. I wasn’t planning on going there, but something came up with his girl, and Will didn’t show. So I did it, I went there. And it was the wrong thing to do.” Chase sounds messed up, he’s barely making sense. And I know, I just
know
, it’s not solely because his brother has blown him off.

“Where are you?” I ask carefully. “Do you need me—?”

“I always need you, baby girl,” Chase kind of chuckle-slurs.

Now I know for sure he’s been drinking, a lot. Or he’s done something else. I pray it’s not the “something else.”

I breathe in deeply. “Chase, let me come get you. Just tell me where you are, okay?”

He lets out a long sigh. “I’m at the church, Kay, out on the front steps.” He pauses and for a moment stillness hangs in the air. “I walked here from Kyle’s house,” he adds at last.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Chase at Kyle’s means only one thing, my boy has fallen. I don’t judge though, I just tell Chase to wait for me there, and then I disconnect. I slip on some shoes, grab my purse, and leave to go pick up the pieces of the man who sounds as close to broken right now as I’ve felt all evening.

Ten minutes later, when my obviously fucked-up boy gets in the car, he’s all over me, kissing and touching. He can’t get close enough, it seems. “Touch me, baby,” he says as he leans across the console and drapes himself all over me.

Chase is beautifully disheveled. His face is angelic, but his hair is devilishly tousled. And his eyes are bleary-blue, bloodshot. There’s also no mistaken that Chase smells of alcohol and weed.

“What did you do?” I ask. I need to know just how far down he’s fallen.

“Hmm?” he replies distractedly as he settles back into his seat.

I drive away from the dark, empty parking lot, silently thankful the carnival ended yesterday.

As we head to the house, it seems Chase can’t decide what he wants to do. He leans back over the console and kisses down my neck. His hands are busy, one on the back of my seat, keeping my erratic boy somewhat upright, and one slipping under my dress. Chase caresses between my thighs and I swerve a little. Thankfully, this drive is going to be a short one. And good thing this stretch of the road is completely deserted this time of night.

My boy’s fingers travel higher. But when he slips under the edge of my panties, I have to say something. It’s either that or drive off the road.

“Stop,” I murmur. “I can’t concentrate when you do that.”

Chase chuckles, smug that he has this effect on me. He’s exceptionally cocky in this state, I note. I push his hand away. But my effort is half-hearted at best.

I know this is where I should be firm, resolute. Chase has tripped and fallen tonight, and I should refuse his advances. Wait until morning. But I’ve fallen too, just in a different way. So what does it matter? Both of us are messed up, in our own ways. Maybe that’s why my body responds so strongly, urging me to encourage, not discourage. So I quit resisting. But when we reach Cold Springs Lane, Chase sits back of his own accord. He closes his eyes.

I turn into the driveway and cut the ignition. “I screwed up tonight,” Chase says as he scrubs his hand down his gorgeous, but tortured face.

“Why?” I whisper. “Why didn’t you just come home after you found out Will wasn’t coming?”

He glances over at me and shakes his head. “I don’t know, baby. I don’t have a good reason. I felt overwhelmed, I guess.”

I start to think he’s not going to elaborate, but then he sighs and says, “I disappointed Will again. He still wanted to fly out to visit, but he wanted to bring his girl. I said no and he flipped. He said I’m like our mother. He said I may as well still be in prison.”

“Oh, Chase.” I place my hand on his forearm.

Chase pulls at his hair as he rakes his fingers through the strands. “I just keep letting that kid down, Kay. I didn’t tell you my mom told me Will used the money I gave him to buy weed. He lied to me. You were right to be worried.”

I squeeze his forearm and his muscles flex of their own accord beneath my hold. “I’m sorry, Chase.”

“It doesn’t matter. When I left the airport I wanted to forget, forget everything. I wanted to feel numb, like I used to in the past. I felt lost, I guess. It was stupid, I know, but I couldn’t stop. I drove to Kyle’s.”

“What happened there?” I whisper.

Chase admits he drank…a lot, hard liquor, vodka. Then, he tells me he got high. He smoked with Kyle and his friends. Not too much, but still. My once-addicted boy did something he hasn’t done in years—and that in and of itself is significant. With Chase’s history I know what potentially comes next—more drugs, harder drugs—coke, pills, God knows what…

With this in mind, I ask, “Was that it? Did you do anything else?”

“No, but…” Chase presses his lips together and looks over at me. “I almost… Uh, Kyle chopped up some lines and…and I was going to. Fuck, Kay.”

My boy turns away and I lean as far as over the console as I can and wrap my arms around him. “It’s okay,” I whisper. “You didn’t do it, though, right?”

“I almost did, baby. I was so fucking close, rolled bill in hand, bent over that shit.”

I freeze. I remain perfectly still with my arms around my guy.
How did he stop?
I wonder.

“And then I thought about you, sweet girl,” Chase whispers, as if he’s answering my thoughts.

He relaxes into me. “I walked out, left Kyle in the bathroom with the coke he’d just cut up. He had said when we first went in that I’d like it…and I was sure I would. I wanted it in my body, that’s for sure. I was ready to feel like I used to, wasted, uncaring. I can’t lie to you about that, sweet, sweet girl.”

I rub the back of his neck, play with his hair. “It’s okay, Chase. You didn’t do it, you stopped.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to do it. I wanted to shut everything out, get lost. But then I realized I care too much. I care about Will, I care about my life. I don’t want to fuck it up again.”

Chase straightens and I lean back some, so that we’re sitting and facing each other in the darkened car. “But mostly it was you who stopped me, Kay,” Chase continues. “You give me strength, even when we’re not together. You save me…you’ll always save me, baby girl. Just knowing you love me like you do.”

His gaze holds mine, and I can’t help it, I have to touch him. Leaning forward, I cover his face in kisses. I kiss him and lick him, sloppy and wet, and he loves it. The skin under my lips tastes so good, so right…so Chase. My boy groans under my assault, and then he pushes me back into the driver’s seat, coming right along with me, hands roaming my body, lips covering my neck, the whole way. “I need you, baby,” he groans into my ear. “Let’s go inside.”

I need him just as much right now, though I don’t tell him why. I’ll wait until he’s sober and not high to share with him the events of my own tumultuous night. Not to mention, I am sick to death of talking…and thinking. I long for an escape as well.

We end up in my apartment, since it’s the closest to where I’ve parked. Clothes are discarded hastily, a hodgepodge of fabrics left trailing from the living room to the bedroom. By the time we tumble together onto the bed, we are both naked, bare, in body and soul.

I’ve never experienced Chase fucked up like this, and it’s definitely different. He’s more aggressive than usual, which is saying a lot. He’s rough and crude, with his mouth and his hands. But I like it, it makes me wet, it makes me want him in this coarse way. “I don’t want it easy,” I tell him.

He smirks, cocky, drunk, high. “Good, you’re not getting it easy, baby. You’re getting fucked hard, harder than all the other times when I went easy on you.” My boy flips me over onto my stomach and hoarsely says, “Scoot up. Hold on to the headboard. You’re gonna need to.”

I grab at antique iron bars, and tremble with anticipation. I want him. I want him like this. He pushes me deep into the mattress with his weight. His skin burns heated against mine as he covers me with his body. I am breathless. His arousal jabs at my ass cheek, letting me know he’s more than ready. And so am I. I try to shift to feel him where I want him, but I can barely move.

Chase doesn’t let up. In fact, he does the opposite, gives me his full weight. He knows I love feeling him on me like this, so encompassing, so consuming.

Chase scoops up my hair and licks the nape of my neck. “Is that too much, baby? Am I crushing you?”

“No, I like it.” I gasp. He chuckles and eases up slightly.

“Is your pussy wet for me?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see. I want to feel.” He reaches down between our bodies and slides his fingers along my slick core. I am soaked, so turned on. Chase groans, “Fuck, Kay.”

His fingers leave me and I feel him handling his length behind me. He nudges at my sex. “Spread your legs some more, sweet girl.” His voice is husky and thick. “Open up for me.”

He taps my ass with his cock, and I do as he asks. With no further warning, he sheaths himself inside me with one hard thrust. “Fuck, Chase, God,” I yell out, gripping the headboard bars.

He slams in deeper and holds still, making me squirm, which serves to harden him even more. This is a lot of Chase. But I want it. My boy buries his face in my shoulder, and his teeth graze my skin, making me shiver.

“Tell me what you want, baby.” He bites down hard. I whimper and he lets go. “Ask me for it,” he demands.

His cock is stretching me to capacity, while his whole body crushes me. I feel invaded, taken, conquered, and I love every bit of it.

My boy bites down once more where my skin is still tender from his first bite. I cry out, “I want you to fuck me, Chase. Fuck me.”

I rotate my hips beneath him, arching my ass up into his hips. He pulls out all the way—pauses—and reenters me on yet another long, hard thrust. “Yes,” I hiss into the pillow.

My boy’s mouth is at my ear, and he whispers, “Do you like my cock in your pussy, Kay?” He moves his hips, sliding in and out, in and out.
So good.
“Say it, baby. Tell me you love the way I fuck you. Be dirty with me.”

I like this dirty Chase, this crude and irreverent man. I want to go where he’s taking me. I need to be dragged down to where he is so we can build ourselves back up, together, stronger.

So I tell my boy the absolute truth, I share with him that I love everything he’s doing and I want even more. When I say, “I like the way you fuck when you’re messed up like this,” my boy groans, and then he pounds into me harder still.