Worth the Chase (4 page)

Great! Fucking great! I wanted to scream, to punch something, to expel the anger building inside of me, but I knew I deserved it. I had earned this hate.

“To me she’s different, she’s better than the others. I might not ever admit it to her, or anyone besides you, but she’s better than them. I feel something with her that I have never felt,” I huffed out.

Chance remained silent for some time before finally speaking, and when he did, I was in a knot over what to fucking do.

“My advice is that you leave her alone. Let the pieces land where they will. You got what you wanted, move the fuck on. I need to be able to do my job and help her get to the top by tutoring her.” I lifted my head from my hands. He wanted me to leave her alone? After the night we had just shared? I wasn’t sure that I could do that.

“I don’t know…” Chance’s hand landed upon my shoulder squeezing it tightly.

“I don’t care if you don’t know if you can do it or not. Just do it anyway. She deserves better and more, and I won’t tell you that again.” His eyes narrowed, and I knew he was being honest. He wouldn’t tell me again. If I crossed the line again, he would make it known.

The anger within me stilled as I listened to him leave the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

I wanted to be angry at him, to lash out and say ‘you can’t tell me what to do’, but I knew that this was all on me and that he was watching out for Gia. He knew the damage that I could cause, hell the damage I had already caused. No one knew me better than my brother, and he knew Gia had a better chance at surviving all of this if we just let last night be a distant memory.

One night.
That’s all it was. That’s all that it would ever be. I needed to push the memories to the back of my mind, to move on from whatever feelings I thought I had towards her. I never went for the same woman twice. She wouldn’t be any different.

She’s just like them. She’s not better than them. She just wanted to use you, just like they did.

I talked her down inside of my head, knowing that if I didn’t my obsession to lay claim to her would never stop.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my bedroom, lying in my covers that smelt just like her. It was disturbing for even me, but it would be the last time I would ever smell her upon my sheets.

My mind lingered to the events from the night before even though I repeatedly told myself that I needed to forget them. I just couldn’t, they were embedded in my thoughts.

I could see her chest moving up and down, shallow breaths filtering in and out. She was beautiful, magnificent in the simplest of ways. Her face was scrunched up, wrinkles formed on her brow. I had to stop myself from reaching out to rub them away. She shouldn’t be worried, not while dreaming, not while in my bed.

“You don’t know how beautiful you truly are,” I whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear myself speak.

She stirred lightly, rolling over to face me. My heart was beating out of my chest as I stared at her, waiting for the moment that her eyes would open and she would know I had been watching her sleep.

This was different for me. Everything about Gia was different for me. I never let them stay after sex, and I most definitely never lingered around long enough to watch them fall asleep. Yet here I was, forcing myself not to reach out and touch the contours of her face.

The moonlight poured in through the window above us silhouetting her body against the bed. Looking at her I knew she was everything I needed in life, but the very last thing at the same time.

A complete and utter contradiction.

Gia caused a fire to stir in my chest, but with the same token made me want to burn her with that very fire. The feelings she caused in me I had never felt before, and that made her dangerous. No, it made her more than dangerous.

It made her loveable.

It made me capable of love.

If those two things happened, there would be no coming back from it.

Something drew me back to the present, call it my conscious or just the fact that I shouldn’t have been thinking about her. My eyes drifted over to the spot where she had laid just an hour ago, and I knew it was time to let what I had experienced go.

Getting off the bed, I stripped it bare before reaching into my closet and pulling out a fresh set of sheets. I picked up the remnants of our night shared and headed toward the trash. These sheets couldn’t just be washed. Yea her scent would be gone, but every time I looked at them I would remember what happened and that just couldn’t happen.

Gia wasn’t allowed under my skin anymore.

Chase Winchester was
back.

The days between Taylor coming and my time studying with Chance seemed to dwindle down. Two weeks had passed since my night of intense passion with Chase. I wanted to say that not every waking minute revolved around him because it didn’t, but I almost always thought about him. It didn’t help that everyone on campus seemed to chant his name.

I had three days before Taylor got here, and we had less than two weeks to get moved into our new place before the fall semester begun. During all of this I needed to stay prepared for my Advanced Biology test I had been studying for all summer, so letting my mind drift to Chase wasn’t something I should allow, but rather something I couldn’t help.

I wanted to be a Bio-Chemist and there was no time for fucking up. When I finished my junior year, I had decided to stay ahead of my other classmates by doing something they weren’t even thinking of. While everyone else went home for the summer, I found a tutor and stayed at school, going over my textbook and study guides all summer. This was my last year of college, everything was crucial if I wanted to succeed and be at the top of my class. I needed to not only be at the top but to stay on the top all year long if I wanted to have numerous internship offers after graduation while continuing my studies to receive a Ph. D in biochemistry
. 

I glanced up at Chance from across the table in the library. I didn’t want to see Chase every time I looked at him, but what could I do? I’m sure he didn’t want to be a spitting image of his brother. But hell, what could he do?

My eyes glided over his hair, which was cut in the same style, his muscular build and tone in voice were very much the same. It was like looking at Chase, without him being Chase. It was wrong, yet so right.

“Is there something on my shirt?” Chance smirked at me then gazed back down at his book. I shielded myself from him, knowing I had been caught staring. If Chance knew about the night I had shared with his brother he never mentioned it. In fact, he never brought anything up about that party. Either he didn’t know or he just didn’t care.

“You know you don’t have to be shy if you want to stare ate.” Chance was getting all flirty with his tone. I used to think maybe he had a crush on me but realized rather quickly that he was this way with all the girls.

“I wasn’t staring at you.” I paused trying to find a comeback. “When did you become so self-absorbed?” I asked tilting my head at him, happy that I had found something to make him stop and think. The smile fell from his face as he seemed a bit flabbergasted at my words.

“Wow,” Chance murmured.

“What? I wasn’t staring at you. I thought for sure you had been hanging around your brother far longer than needed,” I added, hoping that would lessen the blow of what I had said. I didn’t mean to be a bitch or to say hurtful things to him. Sometimes my mind was locked in bitch mode. You know the one where all you want to do is protect yourself against others?

He shoved back from his chair, his seat scraping across the marble flooring of the library study room.

“I was fucking with you, Gia. If you ask me, it’s you who seems to still have a hard on for my brother.” There he was calling my fucking bluff. Did I like Chase? No, not really. At least I didn’t want to like him. In all honesty, I didn’t know what I wanted with him. He was unpredictable, crazy, and if you add in how I was raised he was everything I shouldn’t want.

Unsure of what I should say I narrowed my eyes, which only lasted a fraction of a second because not even a minute later a hand landed on my shoulder and I turned around with my foot ready to crack someone in the balls.

When my eyes landed on Taylor’s small frame and her fiery red hair, I burst with excitement. She looked so young but so mature, so much like her mother but with her dad’s demeanor.

“Where you going to kick me, in the vag?” she questioned with an eyebrow raised. I laughed loudly, wrapping her in a hug.

“For sure!! I wasn’t expecting you for another three days. How did you even find this place?”

“Well, I went by your room. I remembered where it was from when I visited last year. Your RA was monitoring the halls, and I asked her where this building was after texting you and asking what you were doing.” She gave me a small hug back, and as I pulled away I realized she was staring at Chance with curious eyes.

“Oh, I forgot you were still here. Chance this is my best friend, Taylor. Taylor, Chance, my tutor. The one I was matched with at student services.” I introduced them, but neither one of them reached a hand out in greeting. They simply stared at one another, their eyes saying just how attractive they found the other.

Moments passed and neither one of them spoke a word as I stood between them in all my awkwardness, before realizing someone had to say something.

“Hello…” I snapped my fingers at both of them, pulling them out of their crazy love drunken stares. Chance blinked quickly and then cleared his throat, being the first to break free out of the trance.

“Uhh...” he stumbled over his words, and I almost broke out in laughter. I had never seen him so bound up over a girl before. Who knew little innocent Taylor would be the first to do so.

“It was nice meeting you, Taylor. Gia, I’ll text you the time and place for our next meet up.” Chance rushed out as he closed his book, pulling his backpack on in record time. And then he was gone. I stood there questioning what kind of spell Taylor had put him under and how in the hell could I learn how to do it.

“That was weird, did you see the way he...” I started to say but was halted as I turned back to look at Taylor. She was still watching him as he walked out of the room. What the hell is going on here?

“Taylor, are you okay?” I asked.

She shook her head slightly, pushing the fog away I’m sure. “I’m fine. I just have never… what’s he like?” The way she spoke told me she was under the Winchester spell too. The same one Chase seemed to have wrapped me in. Except when Taylor looked at Chance it was with longing, when I looked at Chase it was a cross between wanting to fuck his brains out or punch him in the throat.

Her cheeks warmed over as she realized I was still staring at her, watching her movements wondering what kind of crazy it was that she was thinking about.

“Stop staring at me,” her voice met my ears, pulling me from my thoughts.

“I’m not staring. I mean I can’t believe you’re here, but I also can’t believe you were looking at him the way you were.” My voice was full of shock.

“How can you focus with him tutoring you? I mean… I just…” I laughed out loud not really sure how to explain it to her.

“Chance is different, more... I don’t even know how to word it properly. His brother, now that’s a whole different can of worms.” I answered her while getting the rest of my stuff together. I hadn’t meant to leave things the way I had with Chance because in all honesty I considered him a friend, but if he thought he knew me he was wrong. I wasn’t hung up on Chase. I couldn’t be.

“Well, my day just got twice as good. If there are two of those walking around, I don’t think there will be a chance of me maintaining that 4.0 I promised my mom.” I wanted to laugh at all the naivety that was Taylor. She had no clue the trouble that I could get her into. No idea the kind of things that took place in college. She was new, young, and what the guys around campus would consider fresh meat. Bottom line, Chance wouldn’t be the only guy on campus with his eyes on her.

Not wanting to talk about Chase or Chance a moment longer, I shifted the subject to our housing situation. Taylor had gone ahead and rented out the place she was scoping out on the high end of town. The entire downstairs basement was ours to do with as we pleased while the kitchen and living room would be the shared common areas. Since I was already used to sharing any and all space I had with a roommate I didn’t find it to be strange at all.