In Deep: Chase & Emma (All In Book 1) (12 page)

Besides, other motives
were quickly jockeying for top position. The more I learned about
him, the more intriguing I found him. Yes, he burned with a fierce
intensity that could, maybe even should scare me off. Instead, I felt
thrilled by him. He truly amazed me with what he’d been through and
the goals he was fighting so hard to achieve. And when he turned that
intensity on me? Holy hell, I’d nearly burst into flames by the
side of that pool. I hadn’t seen him the rest of the day, but I
could still feel where our bodies had touched, where he’d pressed
against me. Hard, urgent, driving me out of my mind.

I’d gone out to
dinner with the women I’d become friendly with over the week, the
ones I’d headed out with the other night. And I hadn’t answered
Chase’s call. Maybe it was immature of me, but I felt so in over my
head. I needed some time to figure things out.

But my mind raced so
much I couldn’t sleep. Wide awake at two a.m., I laced up my
sneakers and went out for a walk, just from the hotel to the swim
complex and back. It was a safe area, and the distance wasn’t far.
Hopefully, it would be enough to calm my restless energy.

When I got to the swim
center, I saw a light on inside. Somehow, I knew who it was. Who else
would be up in the middle of the night restless with pent-up energy?

Despite the warnings
going off in my head—hadn’t I felt like I needed some distance?—I
walked in and found him in the pool, swimming laps. He stopped when
he saw me at the edge.

“Getting in an extra
work out?” I asked.

“What are you doing
here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He pulled up his
goggles and we looked at each other. Then he pulled himself out of
the pool. Even that looked like poetry in motion, such fluid strength
with all that water sluicing off of him, streaming down his ripples
of muscles.

“Give me a sec.” He
strode off to the changing room, then came out about three minutes
later in a T-shirt and shorts.

“That was quick.” I
looked at his wet hair. He’d been wearing a cap while he swam, so
he must have showered.

“Like I’ve said
before, I can be quick when I need to. But when I can, I like to take
my time.”

There was no mistaking
the double meaning in his words this time around. I looked down,
feeling shy and somewhat overwhelmed at how strongly I responded to
him. With a few words, he had my pulse racing.

“Let me walk you back
to your room.” He wrapped my hand in his and together we started
off, flicking off the lights and making sure the door was locked
behind us. The crickets were loud in the hot, humid summer night,
serenading us as we walked. Under the street lights, we traveled the
sidewalk. With the difference in our heights, you wouldn’t expect
it would be so easy to walk side by side. He had quite a bit more leg
length than I did. But, like so many other things between us, we
easily clicked, falling into step as if we’d been doing it our
whole lives.

There, in the middle of
the night with Chase, I felt a strange sense of peace. All the
jitters that had followed me throughout the day melted away at the
touch of his hand, the heat I felt radiating from his body. I just
loved being around him.

We reached the hotel
too soon. I wished we could keep on walking, but we headed into the
lobby and over to the bank of elevators.

“Third floor, right?”
he asked, still holding my hand, punching the key. I nodded, not
bothering to ask how he knew. By now I knew the man was interested in
me. He must have asked the front desk and thought about stopping by,
maybe had some time while I was out.

When we got to my door,
he stopped and reached out a hand to caress my cheek, then my chin
with his thumb. “We both have a lot on our minds,” he murmured.

I nodded, not wanting
to say good night, but not sure what I wanted to happen next. It felt
like something big was happening between us, something I’d never
experienced before. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

“Do you want to come
in?” I asked, looking at his chest.

“Do you want me to?”
He tilted my chin so I was looking up at him. He searched my eyes.

I closed them, feeling
too vulnerable. But I rested my head against his chest and he wrapped
his arms around me, holding me there so strong and secure I about
decided I wanted to move in. My new home: his arms.

“Yes,” I decided,
moving to take out my room card and unlock the door. He followed
behind me and I flicked on the light.

“Why is your room so
small?” he asked, sounding affronted on my behalf.

I looked around. It was
a standard room in a standard hotel, a double bed, bureau and TV,
plus a side table with a desk chair. Nothing to write home about, but
not upsetting.

“This is what
everyone’s room is like. Except yours.” I recalled he had a nice
set-up in a suite. Because he was one of the VIPs on the swim team?
Or because he’d paid out-of-pocket for an upgrade? I didn’t know,
and felt nosy asking.

“You’ll get
upgraded in the new hotel,” he assured me.

“That’s nice,
Chase, but not necessary.”

“Yes, it is,” he
insisted.

“Have you not stayed
in many regular hotel rooms?”

“Sure I have. But I
can’t stay in a suite with you in a box like this. I had no idea.”

“It hasn’t been
bad.”

“You’re too nice,”
he chastised, taking me in his arms again. “You should have thrown
a fit once you saw where they were putting me up.”

“I’m not big on
throwing fits,” I admitted. I’d grown up in a calm, drama-free
environment and had learned to love it. As much as Tori entertained
me with her ups and downs, I myself was no fan of drama. I hoped
someday I’d meet a man who felt the same way. And then it hit me.
Maybe I had.

“You’re shaking,”
he whispered into my hair, his hands along my back, and I realized he
was right. “Are you all right?”

All right? It was three
in the morning and I hadn’t slept at all. I felt so messed up and
confused about what was right and what was wrong. Half of me wanted
to jump him and have wild porno sex all night long. The other half of
me remembered how I’d felt all day and night before I’d seen him
again—like I needed a breather.

“I’m scared,” I
admitted.

“Of me?” he asked,
pulling back a few inches to look at my face.

“Of us.” I
swallowed, worrying I sounded crazy. I didn’t know how to express
what I was feeling.

“You don’t need to
be frightened.” He wrapped his arms around me again, nestling my
head against his shoulder, stroking my hair. “Nothing’s going to
happen that you don’t want. I know I’m intense. I can dial it
back.”

“It’s not really
your intensity that’s freaking me out. It’s mine. And I’m
feeling really confused and exhausted.” Where was all this honesty
coming from? I confessed thoughts to him I hadn’t even fully
formed.

“You need to get some
sleep.” He kissed my forehead, reluctantly pulling away.

“Don’t go,” I
found myself saying, grabbing on to his hand.

He nodded. “I’ll
stay if you want.”

I didn’t know what
exactly I was proposing, but I knew I wanted to be with him. He
reached over to flip out the light, then drew back the covers. That’s
the kind of moves you had with giant Olympic swimmer arms like his.
It made me smile and together we climbed in, finding each other in
the darkness, clothes still on, melting into each other’s body.

“Let me hold you
tonight, Emma,” he whispered, kissing my hair, pressing my cheek to
his chest. I could hear his heartbeat as we lay together, so steady
and strong. “I want to make you feel good. Let’s just sleep
tonight.”

I could barely believe
it, given how horny the man had made me in the closet, at the pool,
but against his solid warmth in bed, with his large hands caressing
my back, sure and slow, I felt sleep ease its way into my limbs. My
eyelids grew heavy, my thoughts fuzzy, my awareness narrowing to
sensory impressions. His heartbeat. The rise and fall of his chest.
His smell, a unique masculine musk I knew already on instinct. Plus a
hint of chlorine, which until now I’d never found sexy. Who knew
pool chemicals could combine into something so delicious, so sensual,
so dreamy…

The next thing I knew,
he was giving me a good-bye kiss the next morning. Standing already
at the side of the bed, he leaned down to my cheek. “Thank you,
Emma.” And he was out the door.

§

The flight home wasn’t
bad, just three and a half hours. My parents were waiting for me,
full of questions. They were so excited. We were such huge fans of
the Olympics and now I was getting a chance to be part of it all. I
wished they had the money to come join and watch in person, but a
trip to Rio plus a hotel during the highest-demand window the city
had ever experienced? Not going to happen.

“I know you’ve been
busy,” Mom explained, “So I’ve been saving these for you. Look
who’s on the cover!” She handed me a couple of magazines in the
back seat of the car as we drove back from the airport. Look who,
indeed. Chase Carter gazed at me from the cover of
People
magazine and
Men’s Health
.
On
Sports Illustrated
,
though, he had to share the space with a couple of his teammates. I
bet they would have sold more copies if they’d just featured him.

With those ice blue
eyes and his steely, locked gaze, you could feel the determination
radiating from his set jaw. The man was going to win gold, and he
would do it over and over again. The world was waiting.

Was that really the
same man who’d held me in his arms all last night as I slept? I
must have been dreaming.

“What’s he like?”
Mom asked. “Is he hard to work with?”

“Make him treat you
right,” my father advised from the driver’s seat. It was as if he
already knew he had to give me that kind of relationship advice.

I tried to answer their
questions as best as I could, but my mother knew me well enough to
ease up. “She’s tired,” she told my father, patting his arm.
“Let’s not pester her.”

“We’ll give her
some dinner first,” he agreed.

I felt like I hadn’t
slept in a week. I didn’t even make it back to my apartment after
dinner. I just crawled down the hallway like a little kid and fell
into my old bed. My room now shared space with a treadmill, but Mom
still kept my twin bed set up for the odd night I might want to sleep
over.

With Tori out of town
already in Rio, there was no one in my apartment to chat with so I
ended up spending the whole weekend. I didn’t need more time in my
head. I needed regular life and my parents offered that up in spades.
Trips to the post office, hardware and grocery stores, making fresh
summer salads, fixing loose doorknobs, they ran a tight ship and I
enjoyed getting pulled into their organized, efficient bustle.

I didn’t stop by The
Center for Sports Medicine, even though I would have liked to say
hello to some of my co-worker friends. There was too much risk I’d
get pulled into working with a client. Other members of the group
practice had happily taken over all of my patients during my
month-long absence, but if I walked in and someone had called in sick
or needed a break I’d for sure get called into line of duty. I
didn’t mind helping out my parents, but I needed my weekend off.

I kept my father
company while he tinkered with a bike in our garage. And when I said
bike, I didn’t mean motorcycle. To me, my dad was super cool, but
even I knew he wasn’t motorcycle cool. Once the bike was oiled and
ready, I hopped right on and headed out into the late afternoon
Florida sunshine. As a local, I didn’t go out in the middle of the
day to bake myself slathered in oil. What I loved were the late
afternoons, crowds subsided, lazy sunshine and last fading rays. Give
me a book and a beach chair and I was in my happy place.

When I got to the beach, my phone
blipped with a text. It was a photo of a beach. From Chase. I almost
looked around, half wondering if he were there. I texted him back.

Emma: Where are you?

Chase: Naugatuck. My dad’s house.
How’s Vero?

The best way to reply?
A photo, of course. I locked my bike and walked out past the dunes
onto the white sandy beach. I’d lived there all my life, but the
coastline never ceased to amaze. The crashing waves and cries of
gulls, the scampering clusters of sandpipers and white puffy clouds
against endless blue, it welcomed me home like nothing else. I
snapped a pic, which of course didn’t do it justice. Photos never
did. Someday I’d have to learn to paint. Maybe in my retirement I’d
head out every day with an easel and devote myself to trying to
capture even a fraction of the beauty of the ocean.

I sent Chase my version of
coastline.

Chase: I thought I sensed you
nearby.

The man really knew how to make me
smile.

Emma: Have you ever been to Vero?

Chase: No, Palm Beach though.

Palm Beach meant money,
money, money. About an hour and a half down the Atlantic coast of
Florida, Palm Beach boasted a jet-setting society crowd and expensive
boutiques on every corner. Vero had some of that, but a lot more
mid-range, family-friendly restaurants and shops. I’d heard of
Naugatuck, too. It was an exclusive island off the coast of
Massachusetts, the type of place you’d vacation after the IPO and
sale of your dot com.

Chase must come from money. Another
piece in the Chase Carter puzzle. I’d lost track of whether I was
putting it together with my blogger hat on, or whether it was just
me, Emma Nelson, interested single woman.

Chase: What have you been up to?