Breathe

Chapter Seventeen Always

It was very late when we hit my apartment, after one in the morning.

The drive had been silent, Chace’s mood not lifting, not in the slightest.

The very much shorter walk up my stairs to my apartment had been silent too.

I was wandering the space, turning on lights, trying to decide what to do, what to say and wishing I could go to the bathroom and call Laurie, Lexie, Krys or Twyla to ask when Chace spoke.

“Headin’ home.”

I was standing on my side of the bed, turning on the light but at his words, like a shot, my back went straight and my eyes cut to him standing in his coat by the door.

Since the night he took my virginity, we never slept apart. Not once. We never even went to bed without the other.

Not once.

I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

“What?” I whispered.

He didn’t repeat himself.

Instead, he said, “You go on to your folks tomorrow without me. I’ll call you Monday. Maybe Tuesday.”

Monday?

Maybe Tuesday?

A chill slid over my skin even though I still had my coat on but I didn’t move a muscle and stared at him.

He finished, “Later, Faye.”

Later, Faye?

No kiss. No touch. No darlin’, honey or baby.

Just later, Faye.

He was at the door when I called on a stammer, “I… you… Chace, what’s going on?”

He turned at the door and leveled his eyes on me. “Need space, you do too. This is happening fast. Too fast for me, where I am. Too fast for you, this bein’ your first relationship. Just slowin’ us down, givin’ us time, takin’ that time to sort my head.”

Sort his head?

What was there to sort?

My heart started pumping so hard, I could actually feel it.

“I… I don’t… it doesn’t feel fast,” I told him cautiously.

“Well, it is,” he told me firmly then he was done and I knew it when he started to turn back to the door, muttering, “Call you Tuesday.”

He didn’t move in slow motion but it felt like he did as thoughts collided in my brain.

Lots of them.

Too many.

Weeks of them.

And they did this so fast it felt like my head was going to explode.

Then I felt my shoulders square with a snap and I stated, “You’ll call me Tuesday.”

He looked back at me and, sounding impatient, he confirmed, “Yeah. That’s what I said. I’ll call you Tuesday.”

“I’ve seen you every day, slept beside you every night for weeks and all of a sudden I not only won’t see you but I won’t hear from you for two days.”

“Right,” he replied.

“You told me I wouldn’t sleep without you,” I reminded him and finished, “Ever. Now you’re saying I won’t sleep with you for two days?”

A muscle worked in his jaw but he didn’t speak.

My heart started racing.

I changed tactics.

“What if I don’t want to wait until Tuesday?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Faye, it’s late. I’m wiped. We’ll talk Tuesday.”

“Would it matter to you that I’d rather you didn’t leave right now but we either talk about whatever’s obviously seriously bothering you or you allow me to see to you in other ways?”

“No, it wouldn’t because I’m tired. I been thinkin’ on the way home and I’m tellin’ you the way you can see to me is to give me space. So, you’ll give me space and we’ll talk Tuesday.”

I’d give him space. He decided and that was it.

It hit me just then that Chace decided a lot and that was it.

And it also hit me that whenever my girlfriends told me their boyfriends needed space, they didn’t need space, as such, they needed something else entirely.

So I made a decision, my first in our relationship.

“No we won’t,” I announced and his brows drew together.

Then he took in a calming breath, clearly tamping down his irritation that he was dealing with his inexperienced girlfriend and he explained, “When I say I need space, Faye, when anyone wants space, it’s important to give it to them.”

Oh no.

Frak no.

He might be my first pretty much everything but I wasn’t seventeen and exploring the ways of the world. I was twenty-fraking-nine, not stupid, I had my own opinions, my own desires, my own needs and they were just as valid as his.

Last, I was suddenly so over this I could scream.

I didn’t scream.

I invited, shrugging off my coat, “Great, take a lot of it.”

He turned fully away from the door and asked, “What?”

“Take a lot of it,” I repeated, moving and tossing my coat on a stool as I made my way to the kitchen. “You want it. You have it. But don’t bother calling me on Tuesday.”

His barely there patience slipped when he declared, “Jesus, Faye, it’s fuckin’ late, I’m fuckin’ tired. I’m tellin’ you what I need so you can read into that what I don’t need is a fuckin’ drama.”

“No drama,” I pulled open a cupboard to nab a wineglass. I closed the cupboard, turned to him but didn’t look at him as I reached for the bottle of wine on my counter, finishing, “Just giving you space. Plenty of it.”

“Fine,” he stated as I squeezed the plastic thingie Chace had shoved into the bottle last night and pumped the air out of so the wine would keep, heartbreakingly sad I was doing that because Chace had done it like he always did it and my earlier decision meant Chace would never do it again.

“But don’t call Wednesday,” I told the wine.

“Jesus.” I heard him clip.

“Or Thursday.” I kept at it as I poured my wine.

“Fuckin’ hell, Faye.”

“Or Friday,” I went on as I turned the bottle in my hand to stop the flow without it dripping.

“Faye, this isn’t a big deal.”

Not to him.

But it was to me.

Though he obviously didn’t care.

I set the bottle on the counter, lifted my eyes to him and concluded, “Or at all.”

His body went visibly solid and his mood again blanketed the room as his eyes locked on mine.

I kept talking.

“You’re right, you didn’t say it but I get it. I’m inexperienced. I need guidance in this relationship business. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.” I took a sip of wine, held his gaze as I did, lowered my glass and swallowed. “But you don’t have to know about relationships to know that no matter how wonderful a man may seem, how he makes you feel, it is not okay for him to keep things from you. It is not okay that, even though he’s going through serious stuff in his head, he lashes out and rips you to shreds. It is not okay that, although he’s more experienced than you, he doesn’t guide the relationship but controls it with an iron fist. So you want time and I have no say in the matter? Take it. A lot of it.”

His expression shifted and at the shift, I braced.

“You’re makin’ a bigger deal of this than it is, honey,” he said softly but didn’t move toward me. “After what happened tonight, I just need some time to get my head together.”

“What happened tonight?” I asked.

Chace didn’t answer.

When it was important, Chace never really answered.

“Right,” I muttered, my heart squeezing and it didn’t feel good at all. I took a sip of wine and didn’t get what women were always talking about in regards to drinking wine during heartbreak. It didn’t make me feel even a little bit better.

Maybe I needed more of it.

Like, a case.

Chace didn’t move.

“You aren’t leaving,” I prompted, pleased with myself that my voice didn’t crack because tears were rushing up my throat.

“I’ll call you Tuesday,” he whispered.

I lifted my wineglass his way and invited, “You do that.”

He didn’t move.

I took another sip of wine.

When I lowered my glass, reading me yet again, he noted, “You’re not gonna answer.”

“Nope,” I replied, sounding shockingly cavalier considering my insides were bleeding.

“Faye –” he started, taking a step toward me.

I shook my head and lifted a hand his way. “Unh-unh, no. Door’s the other way, Chace.”

He rocked to a halt, his chin jerked down and to the side in a motion that made it look like he’d been struck then he righted his head and reminded me, “You told me you’d never show me the door.”

“I changed my mind,” I fired back.

He studied me a moment while I hoped to all frak I gave nothing away then remarked, “You know my family’s fucked up.”

“No. I know your mother is mentally ill and I know this is not in her control, it isn’t her choice. It’s an illness like any other illness and it’s nothing to get tense or be embarrassed about. If she had diabetes, cancer, it wouldn’t reflect on her in any way. But because she is how she is, you are how you are, thinking I’ll judge her or maybe both of you because of something out of either of your control. That’s not nice and I don’t like it.”

“Faye –”

I interrupted him. “And I don’t know about your father. You’ve told me some but not all, definitely not what would drive you to behave the way you did tonight. For your mother’s sake, it seems a not difficult thing to do, putting up with him for fifteen minutes to shield her from that emotion. He seemed capable of doing that for her. But obviously, whatever it is runs deeper. And obviously, you don’t intend to share it with me.”

“It is deeper,” he shared, just not much because he didn’t go on.

“No kidding?” I asked, hiding my despair behind sarcasm.

“Give me time,” he urged quietly.

“How much do you need, Chace? A year? Ten? Twenty?” I shot back, now hiding behind anger.

“It isn’t pleasant,” he whispered.

“So is a lot of stuff in life,” I replied. “Clue in, I am not your mother. Yes, I read. And yes, I do it a lot. And yes, I did it before you because life can suck and living in a fantasy world is a lot more fun than living in the real world sometimes. This was not a weak choice, it was an informed one. The cops in my town were dirty, my father was getting pulled over all the time because he didn’t like it and didn’t mind saying it but didn’t have the power to stop it. Innocent men like Ty Walker were being extradited states away to stand trial for murders they didn’t commit. Women who weren’t all that nice but still, that doesn’t matter, were being murdered. My friends got cheated on by their boyfriends or dumped after they slept with them or lied to or broken up with for what seemed no reason at all. You know I can go on. There’s not one thing wrong with saying, ‘To hell with that garbage,’ and immersing myself in worlds where happy ever afters are guaranteed or things are so fantastical, you know they’re not real, even the bad stuff. But that doesn’t mean I’m weak or fragile. It doesn’t mean I’m incapable of living my life. Everyone finds things they enjoy so they can escape. I’m not a freak. Even you do it with your sports. Part of me likes that you want to protect me from unpleasantness but part of me feels like it’s a slap in the face that you think I can’t cope when I can.”

He took another step toward me saying, “It’s worse than you could expect.”

“Okay,” I returned instantly. “Maybe it is. But you not sharing tells me you don’t trust me to be able to handle it. Which means you don’t trust me to hold up my side of the relationship. Which means we don’t actually have a relationship. I don’t have to have had one to know that both people in a relationship have responsibilities for keeping it strong and making it thrive and part of that is taking each other’s backs. You have mine but refuse to allow me to take yours. I’ve been cool. I’ve been patient. I’ve given you time. You want more, take it but don’t drag me with you as you struggle with this crap, Chace. Because the longer we’re together the more you should get to know me, come to the understanding I can handle it and trust me. You aren’t even close to that. That tells me you won’t be. So you want to keep your dark secrets, let them eat at you, fine. But don’t make me watch it happen.”

“So what you’re sayin’ is, hours ago, you told me you love me and now, I want a couple of days to get my head straight, you’re breakin’ up with me,” he said low, a warning. A warning I no longer gave a frak about.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Just like that?” he asked.

“No, it’s never happened to me before but I doubt after I fell head over heels in love with a wonderful man who kept important things from me, I’ll get over it just like that. I’ll drink with my girls and cry and wonder if I made the right decision. Then another man will come along, he won’t be as wonderful as my first love, but I suppose I’ll eventually get over it and move on.”

This was the way, way, way wrong thing to say and I knew it when the air went from smothering to stifling and Chace moved.

I tried to keep my cool as I watched him shrug off his coat and throw it over the footboard of my bed and I did this by sharing, “It’s cold, Chace, and the door’s the other way.”

His eyes sliced to me and he clipped, “Stop that shit.”

“What shit?” I asked

“The cold, remote Faye. It’s shit,” he answered.

“You’re right. It is. It’s a façade to hide the fact my heart is breaking. But, whatever. That isn’t your problem anymore. Now, can I point out, you told me you need space but you’re still fraking here?”

“Another man is not gonna come along,” he informed me and I stared.

Then I asked, “What?”

“You are not movin’ onto another guy,” he crossed his arms on his chest and finished, “Ever.”

“That choice is not yours.”

“Yeah it is,” he returned swiftly. “You can’t give away what’s mine.”

“You aren’t getting this, Chace, but just now, I took it back.”

“Can’t take back what’s mine either.

God! He wanted to go, why wouldn’t he just go?

I had to shut this down.

“I thought you were tired,” I reminded him.

“Thought of movin’ on,” he stated and I was back to staring.

Then I thought I got it, it hurt but whatever. I had wine and, tomorrow, I’d call the girls and then, in about fifty years, I’d get better so I invited, “There’s the door. Move on.”

“Was this close to it,” he continued.

“Chace –”

“Then you came back into town.”

I felt my head jerk in surprised confusion.

Chace kept speaking.

“Decided with one look at you, I’d put up with it, all the shit that was gettin’ worse at work ‘cause my end game would be you.”

Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

“The town’s sweet, cute, quiet, pretty librarian in my bed, my ring on her finger, enjoyin’ it as I taught her how to enjoy it, plantin’ my babies in her, building a family.”

Holy fraking frak!

He was saying what I thought he was saying!

No, he was saying more.

I stopped breathing.

He continued talking.

“One look, at the grocery store, you in the aisle, your nose in a book. Stared at you, so fuckin’ cute, but I had no clue how you could shop and keep your nose in a book. But there you were, doin’ it. You looked up, saw someone you knew, smiled at them and I knew eatin’ all that shit at work would be worth it when I was ready to make my play. That cute in my bed. That hair. Those eyes. That smile. Definitely worth it. So I ate it, bidin’ my time, gettin’ the wild out of me so all I’d give you was sweet. You’d move to Gnaw Bone, Chantelle, I knew you would so I could kiss that bullshit good-bye, get myself out of it without takin’ you away from the folks you loved when I claimed you.”

Holy frickity fraking frak, frak, frak!

I forced air in my lungs.

Chace moved toward me and kept talking.

“Waited too long.”

I watched him come to me, my heart beginning to beat harder and my feet no longer not moving because I was trying to be cool but because I was frozen solid with shock. He came to a halt one foot from me so I tipped my head back to look at him.

He lifted a hand, pulled the wineglass from mine and set it on the counter with an alarming-sounding clink.

I looked at the glass in a vague effort to ascertain that it wasn’t broken then I tilted my head back to look back at him, mouth open but I didn’t say a word.

He did.

“He touched you.”

I blinked because I didn’t understand his words.

“What?”

“He touched you,” Chace repeated.

“Who?” I asked.

“My father. He wasn’t only in your presence, you, my Faye, mine, cute and clean and sweet, he touched you. Took your hand, held it,” he stopped speaking abruptly, sucked breath in through his nose then bit out, “Put his mouth on you.”

Okay, now, what on earth?

“So?” I asked quietly when he said no more.

“He likes kink.”

I blinked again because these words were unexpected and also I didn’t know what they meant.

“What?”

“Kink,” he ground out then, “Sex, darlin’, can get adventurous and you don’t carry on with this bullshit play you got goin’ on, we’ll have time, I’ll show you how and we’ll explore that in good ways that we both like. But it can also get weird. To each their own. I don’t give a fuck what someone does to get off. What I do not need to know is that my Dad likes it weird and when I say weird I mean sick-fuck, turn your stomach,” he leaned into me for emphasis even though he put undeniable verbal emphasis on his final word, “weird.”

I didn’t want to know this. I didn’t want him to know this. I didn’t know why he was sharing this. And I didn’t want to know how he knew this.

But he told me.

“Misty and a girlfriend took an assignment from Arnie Fuller and they did that shit to my Dad. They also taped it. They also blackmailed him with it. And I’ve seen that tape.”

My mouth dropped open as my stomach clenched and bile filled my throat.

I closed my mouth to swallow it down.

Chace’s eyes moved over my face and when they locked on mine, he whispered, “Yeah. That unpleasant enough for you, Faye?”

It definitely was.

“I –” I started.

“Gets worse,” he cut me off and I blinked again.

Worse?

How could that possibly get worse?

Chace told me.

“Her play, soon’s you get over the shock of learning that jacked up shit, you’d figure out. But still, I’ll tell you. She used that tape to get money from my Dad. Arnie used it to get my Dad under his thumb and Misty used it more to get my ring on her finger. They played that tape for me and told me the way. Either I marry Misty and tow the dirty cop line or my Mom sees that tape. So I wind up with a fuckin’ wife who did my Dad dirty in more than one way. I got that shit burned in my brain and her slut ass sleepin’ in my fuckin’ bed. Top that, through that shit, I know what they’re doin’ to Ty, I know why and I can’t do one fuckin’ thing to stop it or my Mom pays. In the end for all I know, I got no shot at anything, Misty doesn’t let me go or shit doesn’t get cleaned up. No future. No family. No you. Nothin’ that I wanted, wanted all my life, important things like a woman I loved in my bed and kids we made under the roof I provided by doin’ good work I was proud of. Just a bitch in my bed and a Dad who cheats on my Mom and how he cheats a memory I will never, ever erase.”

Oh my fraking God.

“Chace –” I whispered.

“You want more?”

My heart seized.

“More?” I breathed.

“Yeah, Faye,” he leaned in deeper, “more.”

I didn’t but I would take it. Still, he didn’t give me the chance to accept or refuse.

He kept right on going.

“Before Misty, before she did that to my Dad, I was Frank. I did what I could for the citizens of this town knowin’ things were gettin’ ugly but keepin’ my nose clean. I worked my brothers, hopin’ they’d turn from the dark side. After they had me, after I saw that tape, I had no choice but to join their ranks. My mother saw that, tonight, she was good, tonight, you helped her keep it together but she saw that, Faye, trust me, she’d unravel. Hospital stay. My count since I could remember, she’s had four. One lasted six months. This would destroy her. If by some miracle she got better, she couldn’t live with him. Problem is, she can’t live without him. Knowin’ that, knowin’ she had nothin’ good to get out for, she might never recover. I don’t want my mother in a hospital the next thirty years. I got no choice. Keep my mouth shut, take my envelopes filled with dirty money, look the other way and step up when they gave me an assignment.”

“You returned the money,” I reminded him quietly. “It said so in the papers.”

“Yeah, but when my father’s cronies, The Elite, got their shit in another mess, this mess involving Arnie, a mess that had to be sorted with muscle behind a badge, they sent me. With no choice, I went.”

I didn’t understand.

“Chace, I don’t –”

“A man tried to horn in on Arnie’s blackmail and extortion business and they sent me to talk him down. Except, to talk him down, I had to use my fists and with that tape in an envelope ready to be couriered to my mother, I had no choice but to do it.”

I understood then and, involuntarily, my feet took me a step back and, not that he could, but still, Chace didn’t miss it.

“Yeah,” he whispered, his face as hard and harsh as his voice, “see that dark gathering now, don’t you, baby?”

“You went to Internal Affairs,” I whispered.

“Yeah, I did. I took as much of it as I could stomach then I swung my mother’s ass out there and went to IA. Fun choice, my mother’s mental health or my ass.”

“And the town,” I added.

“Yeah, and the town. Detective Chace Keaton, the courageous hero who brought down a band of dirty cops. They hid the fact I was one. They hid the fact that for years I did shit or didn’t do shit I should have when people were getting fucked. Not just a little, like your Dad gettin’ pulled over, which, by the way, Faye, I knew was happening but couldn’t stop. But a lot, like Ty Walker losin’ five fuckin’ years of his fuckin’ life rotting in a prison states away, doin’ time for a crime he did not commit. Your Dad said when a wrong’s bein’ done, you’re no person he’d want to know if you don’t do what you can to make it right. You live by that too and I’m that person you don’t wanna know.”

“Chace, you did something,” I reminded him.

“And, before, I did other things, Faye. I was that wrong.”

“You were forced to be.”

He shook his head. “A stronger man would not have been forced to be.”

“Your mother –”

“I could have walked away,” he told me.

“I wouldn’t have,” I returned instantly.

At my words, his body jolted.

I kept talking.

“Someone intended to harm my Mom, Dad, Liza, the boys, any of my family or someone I loved, I’d do what I could to stop it. Anyone who loves someone would.”

“Even lie down with filth?” he asked, disbelief heavy in his tone.

“Whatever it took,” I answered.

He shook his head. “No, darlin’, easy to say, harder to do.”

“I don’t mean it was easy, I mean I would do it.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can. You were raised by Silas and Sondra Goodknight. You would make the right choice. I was raised by Trane and Valerie Keaton. I made the wrong one.”

“You made the only choice.”

“In hindsight, everything seems clear but at the time, it was not and I had choices. I just didn’t make the right ones.”

“You loved her and your hand was forced. It took you a while but you eventually saw your way clear and got the town clear and, incidentally, it’s debatable if that was the right choice since I can assume it made her more vulnerable than she already is.”

“And before that, Faye, I beat a man into givin’ me shit he was holdin’ over a bunch of men who didn’t deserve that effort.”

I felt my flinch and saw his face get harder when he caught it but I powered through.

“You did it for Valerie.”

“I did wrong.”

“You did what you had to do.”

“Yeah, and it… was… wrong.”

But I’d had enough.

And so had Chace.

It was time to break through.

“God!” I threw up my hands, losing it. “Do you not understand that the power behind the love of your actions for your mother and, what you don’t get, Chace, also for your father is a beautiful thing you should be proud of?”

His body locked.

I didn’t catch it. I was on a mission and was already too far gone.

“Do you not think that I don’t think that, if you loved me that much, if you turned your back on everything that was you in order to protect me, that I wouldn’t love you more? Love you more because you loved me so much you’d do everything you could to keep me safe? Even going so far as losing you? But what you don’t get, Chace, is that you never lost you. What they did was wrong. What you did was right.”

Chace didn’t move, not even to twitch and I still didn’t catch it.

I was on a roll.

“If you made another decision because you were all fired up to be the man you had to be, to protect the future you wanted, that would have been selfish. The choice you had was no choice at all. Save someone you love from a breakdown or save a town and your own ass. You’ve lived your whole fraking life protecting her. You’d been conditioned since birth to make that play. But even so, you actually took the harder road to do the right thing even if it meant you were forced to do wrong while you were on that road. It was selfless, it was brave and it was heroic. More so because, God willing, Valerie will never know you had to do the things you did to protect her. So she’s shielded from that too, knowing the way she is that she can’t help meant her son went through that for her. So you did it knowing you’d not even earn her gratitude. You did it knowing all you’d get is shit but she’d have peace of mind.”

Chace just stared at me, unmoving.

I kept ranting.

“If my father knew this, he’d admire you. If my mother knew this, she’d adore you. If the town knew this, they’d revere you more than they already do.”

“Right,” he said softly. “You think you got that figured out then what about Misty?”

“What about her?” I snapped.

“She was my wife. I treated her like shit. I cheated on her and, in the end, I didn’t protect her.”

Not this again!

“Fraking heck, Chace!” I clipped. “She wasn’t your wife, she was your albatross! Your prison warden. Ty spent five years behind bars. You spent six in a different kind of prison. It isn’t even sane what she did to you, thinking you would get over it and fall in love or attempt to find even minimal contentment in that kind of arrangement. I couldn’t wrap my head around what she did to Ty and I really can’t wrap my head around what she did to you. It was the same and yet it was worse. You didn’t like her so you didn’t pretend to like her. You didn’t marry her for love so you carried on with your life like she wasn’t there. She bought that by doing… doing…” I faltered, too beside myself to find words then sallied forth, “what you would call seriously jacked up shit. When she was alive, you didn’t give her a thing she didn’t deserve including what happened to end her life. That is also not on you whether you shoulder it or not. Shouldering it is your decision, not your responsibility, not your curse. Your decision. One you can also decide not to do. No one, but no one who thinks clearly, and they don’t even have to love you like I do, would disagree with me.”

“Baby –” he started on a tortured whisper but I was still gone.

“No!” I snapped, lifting a hand between us. “I’m not done. I know you’re older and more experienced than me but what you need to know is that if you trusted me with that information about your father, as vile as it is, it would have given me the tools to handle tonight a lot differently. I could have avoided his touch so that wouldn’t upset you and I could have smoothed our departure so your mother wouldn’t get distressed. If I was aware of the situation, I could have finessed it. Which I will do in the future if we have a future that doesn’t include me wanting to kick you in the shin or attempt to shake some sense into you even though you’re bigger and stronger than me and if I can control my desire to punch your father in the nose!”

I was working myself up and getting louder as I carried right the frak on.

“I mean, I can’t believe this! This is your dark? This is your big secret that’s going to drive me away? This is what’s eating you? The fact you’re a good man, a fantastic son and when faced with impossible choices that would bring most men to their knees, you carry on being wonderful, taking care of runaway, abused kids, teasing your new girlfriend, making her feel like a princess and giving her amazing orgasms?” I leaned into him, eyes narrowed, “Seriously?”

Then I wasn’t leaning into him anymore because I was over his shoulder, he’d turned and was prowling to the bed.

“Chace!” I snapped at his back. “I’m not done ranting!”

He bumped me on his shoulder. I sucked in breath as I flew through the air, landing on my back in bed and I didn’t get another breath in me before he landed on top of me.

“You’re done,” he growled in my face.

“I am not,” I hissed in his.

Then I was since he was kissing me hard and the fingers of one his hands were pulling down the zip at the back of my dress.

Okay, that kiss was good, better than most and they were all super good so that was saying something. Apparently, heightened emotions made for effective kisses.

Still, when he tore his mouth from mine, I ranted on, if a little breathlessly, “I’m not done straightening you out.”

Chace’s response was nonverbal. His body arced away from mine and whoosh! My dress was pulled over my head, taking my arms with it. When it was gone, Chace’s hand was on my belly, his eyes on my body.

“Knew it, that dress, you sittin’ next to me all night, knew you’d give me this later,” he muttered to himself, his hand gliding down my belly so his fingertips could trail the waistband of my panties.

He liked the undies. Nice to know but nothing new.

“Hello?” I called and his eyes came to mine. “We’re fighting, remember?”

Two things happened at once. Chace’s lips came to within a breath from mine and Chace’s hand slid into my panties.

I stopped breathing.

“Get ready, baby, you’re about to get something new.”

“And that would be?” I asked tartly (but still breathlessly which took the sting out of my tart, unfortunately), putting my hands on his shoulders, preparing to push.

“Make up sex,” he answered, his fingers in my panties moved in a way I liked and my belly plummeted and my fingers, instead of pushing (frak!) curled into his jacket.

I fought his pull and informed him sharply, “We aren’t done fighting.”

“Yeah we are.”

“No we’re not.”

His middle finger slid hard over my clit and then glided deep inside and it felt so fraking good, I gasped, my hips jerked but the rest of my body melted under his.

I was hazy but I could still feel his lips smile against mine before he muttered, “Oh yeah we are.”

Then he kissed me and we were.

Done fighting that was.

We weren’t done with other things.

Sex, as I’d mentioned before, was awesome.

Make up sex was out of this world.

Heightened emotion didn’t only make for effective kisses, it made for effective everything.

I didn’t think either of us held back during sex. Sometimes Chace controlled the intensity. It was rare but it could happen that I might get a little timid with nudity but Chace had a mind to that and never pushed.

But after you’d almost just broken up with your boyfriend who you loved even though his best friend told you not to. After he’d shared with you he’d taken one look at you and knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you then let you into his deepest, darkest secrets that were way deep and scary dark. After that, you didn’t think of anything.

Not anything.

But each other and using that emotion and anything else you had to make the bad go away and bring on the good.

And the good was good.

It was all hands, mouths, fingers, tongues, rolling, yanking at clothes, tugging at shoes, tossing them away, then clenching, scratching, licking, sucking, biting, positioning, gasping, groaning, whimpering and growling.

Then Chace took over and did me on my knees and two seconds before I would find it, he pulled out, dropped to his back beside me, yanked me over him and he made me ride him. Which I did, hard, my eyes on him hooded, my hips moving fast, grinding deep, my hands sliding over his chest.

Then I was on my back, Chace’s hips pumping between my legs, he was up with one hand in the bed, arm straight, one of my knees hooked around it, the other hand between my legs, thumb right where I needed it.

And, oh God, it felt good.

So good I was this close again and it wasn’t going to be good. It was going to be fantastic.

Chace drove in deep, stayed planted and ground his hips into mine.

“Faye,” he growled, I forced my neck to right and tried to focus on him. “No one gets in here but me,” he declared, making his point grinding deeper into me.

“Okay,” I breathed.

“No one, Faye.”

“Okay, honey.”

He pulled out, slammed and ground in again. “Ever, Faye.”

“Ever, Chace.”

He pulled out, slammed and ground in and ordered, “Say it again.”

“Ever.”

Another slam and grind then, “My name, baby.”

“Chace,” I whimpered, shifting under him, so fraking, fraking close.

He released my knee and fell to his forearm in the bed beside me. It shoved under and his fingers curled around the back of my neck.

I instantly wrapped my leg around his hip, tipped my head up and, his lips against mine, he whispered, “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Always?”

He wasn’t thrusting hard and grinding deep. His rhythm was smoother, gentler, beautiful and I finally focused on him, my arms gliding around him to hold tight.

“Always,” I whispered.

Chace slanted his head and kissed me, his tongue sliding into my mouth and I came.

I took him through it, after it and, when his thrusts grew faster, more powerful, driving deep, I felt it and loved it after he buried his face in my neck and groaned low against my skin.

He started gliding in and out and I took that too, loving it, before he slid in deep and stopped and one of his curls came to my attention. My hand moving of its own volition slid up his back, my fingers closed on it and I gave it a little tug, giving myself a little happy shiver doing it.

“Apparently,” he started in a mutter, talking to my neck, “I wasn’t tired.”

I closed my eyes, let his curl go and circled his hip with my other leg so I could hold him tight with everything I had available to me.

“But unfortunately,” he went on, “when you’re way pissed, you lay off the geek references so you make way too much fuckin’ sense.”

That meant I got through.

Thank you, God, I got through.

I opened my eyes and dipped my chin so my lips were at the skin under his ear, the skin of my upper lip tickled by his unruly curls and I whispered, “Chace.”

His head came up and I caught my breath at the look on his face, warmth, regret and something else, something huge, something that made my heart skip.

“I should have told you earlier. I should have trusted you. I should have read all the things you were sayin’ to me with the way you were with me, for me and with Malachi and knew you could handle it. I was wrong, baby, and I fucked up. But I love you, Faye, and protection going hand in hand with love is all I know,” he admitted quietly.

My chest depressed as my eyes started stinging.

What I saw on his face was love.

He loved me.

Loved me.

“You love me?” I whispered, just to confirm.

“Fell in love with you in a grocery store aisle and you didn’t even know I was there.”

“I probably did,” I confessed and his lips tipped up but it wasn’t teasing and sweet, it was strangely sad.

“Then you did but I didn’t know. You wanted me, I wanted you, I sat on what I wanted and fucked up my life.”

“You didn’t fuck up your life, Chace.”

“If I moved on you when I wanted to, you’d have been in my bed the last seven years and Misty wouldn’t have seen it. Ty wouldn’t have –”

I squeezed him with all my limbs and whispered harshly, “Stop.”

He shut his mouth.

I went on, “Nothing can change what happened but one thing can change and that’s you feeling that the world is on your shoulders. Another thing that’s all you know since your Mom is ill and has been your whole life is thinking you’re responsible for everything around you, that you can fix it, make it better or at least cushion everyone’s fall. Your Dad, when you were growing up, should have protected you from that too. Proving he’s not only the worst father in the world but also the worst in history, he clearly didn’t.”

“I won’t give him much, honey, but you live with that in your house, it’s impossible to shield a child from it.”

“That’s debatable and you’re right, I didn’t live it but am I right that he didn’t try?”

Chace slid out of me, rolled us to our sides, pulled my hair away from my face but kept his fingers in it before he answered quietly, “You’re right. He didn’t try.”

Both his arms closed around me tight, gathering me closer even as his hand didn’t leave my hair but his legs tangled with mine and he carried on.

“Not to get you riled up again but I get him. It’s different, girls and boys. A man will want his son to step up.”

“Maybe so but I know I’m not wrong when I tell you it’s different also between children and adults. Children aren’t expected to step up until it’s time to teach them to be adults. But before you do that, you have to let them be children. It’s a guess, but you never got that.”

He closed his eyes and tipped his head so our foreheads were touching but not before I saw that raw look wash over his face and I finally got it.

And I hated it.

He opened his eyes, pulled his head back half an inch and confirmed what I just figured out.

“I never got that,” he whispered.

I stared in his beautiful face, feeling his awesome chest hair teasing my breasts, his powerful arms around me, his heavy legs tangled in mine, his heat seeping into me. I took this all in and instead of it along with the end of our fight, the knowledge of his love, the lingering orgasm soothing me, I got pissed.

And when I say that, I mean, I… got… pissed.

So this was why I informed him, “You know, even Darth Vader had the good grace to ask Luke to join him on the dark side.”

Chace blinked then his arms got tight.

But it was too late.

Way too late.

I was gone.

“I mean, they were fighting to the death and he cut off Luke’s hand but still, he gave him the fraking choice.”

“Faye –” he started, my name trembling with humor but this was lost on me.

Totally.

“But Trane Keaton?” I asked then immediately answered, “Noooooooo. He doesn’t ask. Just drags you right in. No hand extended. No, ‘Chace, I’m your father. Join me on the dark side,’ giving you the opportunity to say, ‘Never!’ Not for him. No. He just shoves you right in!”

“Honey –”

I tore from his arms but only to sit up, smack him in the chest and rant on.

“I mean, seriously? You saw a kinky sex tape he starred in! How can he even look at you much less kiss your girlfriend’s hand? Gross! Darth Vader didn’t have a girlfriend. He gave all his attention to quashing the rebellion! As he should!” I started yelling. “Until this moment, I never would have thought I’d say up with the Empire but, here I am, saying it! Darth had a mission and one had to ask oneself, considering the Emperor was wrinkly and seriously ick, what the frak? But you could see deep inside Darth was struggling. Because deep inside he was Anakin. There’s no Anakin in Trane Keaton!” I shouted then I found myself on my back in the bed with Chace on top of me.

“Baby, calm down,” he whispered, grinning.

His grin was lost on me since I was focused on scowling and declaring, “I do not like your father.”

“All right, darlin’.”

“Darth Vader’s a better father which states exactly how bad your father is,” I declared.

“Okay, baby.”

“And let’s just say it’s good I’m not a trained Jedi because I’d get my light saber, jump in my T-65 X-wing Starfighter and hightail my ass to Aspen and call him out if I was.”

His mouth twitch was also lost on me as he murmured through it, “Yeah, honey, that’s good.”

“He might still have it, even being advanced in years, but he’d be no match for a light saber,” I added authoritatively.

“Probably not,” Chace muttered.

I kept scowling.

Chace kept grinning but he did it with his body shaking on top of mine so I knew inside he was laughing.

“This isn’t funny, Chace,” I told him something he had to know way more than me.

“It wasn’t, not for thirty-five years, it definitely wasn’t. Then, two minutes ago, it became fuckin’ hilarious.”

I sucked in an annoyed breath.

Chace kept grinning.

I sucked in another annoyed breath.

Chace asked, “T-65 X-wing Starfighter?”

“The combat spaceship of the Rebel Alliance,” I snapped.

“T-65 X-wing Starfighter?” Chace repeated.

“Have you seen Star Wars?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“More than once?” I pushed.

“Yeah,” he said, still grinning.

“Then, if you have, you know about the X-wing Fighter. Everyone knows about the X-wing Fighter seeing as it, Luke and The Force destroyed the Death Star.”

“Yeah, baby, I know about the X-wing Fighter. I just had no fuckin’ clue it was called the T-65 X-wing Starfighter.”

“It’s not classified information, Chace. You can read all about it on Wookieepedia.”

His body started shaking again, as did his voice when he asked, “Wookieepedia?”

“Stop making fun at me when I’m pissed,” I snapped.

“Wookieepedia?” Chace repeated, his body now rocking, taking mine and the bed with it.

“Stop making fun of me!” I yelled, slapping his arm.

Suddenly his hands framed my face, his body, my body and the bed ceased rocking and he had my full attention mostly because he was all I could see.

“I just laughed about my Dad for the first time since I was sixteen and Deck and I talked trash about him in Deck’s basement, gettin’ drunk and Deck givin’ me space to let off steam. Now, and probably forever, if the occasion arises, I’ll look at my Dad and see Darth Vader and wanna laugh my ass off rather than wantin’ to rip his head off, somethin’ I thought would be impossible. Until now. Now, after six fuckin’ years of feelin’ buried under shit, I see it through your eyes and finally feel clean. For the first time in six years, I feel free. I feel relief. I’m relieved to let that shit go. I’m relieved to know you got the strength to take it. I’m relieved to know you can be with my Mom and make her at ease. I’m fuckin’ beside myself you’re in love with me. I’m pleased you know you get that back from me. What I’m not, baby, is makin’ fun of you.”

Oh yeah, I broke through.

“Okay,” I whispered, my arms sliding around him

“And I never would,” he went on.

“Okay,” I whispered, my arms locking tight.

“You’re cute and you make me laugh and honest to Christ, lookin’ back, except with Deck, I don’t remember doin’ it and feelin’ it comin’ from me free and clean all my fuckin’ life.”

Oh man. Seriously. I broke through.

“Okay,” I whispered, tears again stinging my eyes.

“So let me enjoy laughter without slappin’ my arm and gettin’ all pissy when that laughter finally feels real.”

“Okay,” I whispered yet again then started deep breathing.

Chace stared in my eyes.

I stopped deep breathing and bit the side of my lower lip.

Chace’s eyes dropped to my mouth as he murmured, “Wookieepedia.”

I let my lip go and informed him, “Later when things are, um… less intense, I’ll need your opinion on whether Greedo or Han shot first.”

Chace’s lips tipped up as his brows drew up and his eyes came back to mine, “Is my opinion a deal breaker?”

Nothing with Chace was a deal breaker.

Not anymore.

Still.

“Um…” I mumbled.

His hands at my head pressed in, his thumbs sliding over my cheekbones, one coming to land on my lips as his face got super close and the lip tip faded clean away before he whispered a thick, rough, “Fuck, Faye, but I fuckin’ love you.”

Okay, I didn’t like curse words all that much.

But that sounded really, really good.

“I’m glad,” I whispered back.

His thumbs moved back over my cheekbones then his chin lifted and he kissed my nose before he muttered, “Go clean up, honey, so we can get some shuteye.”

I nodded.

Chace rolled off.

I walked to the bathroom, cleaned up, walked out, went to my dresser and pulled on a new nightie. This one super tight, stretchy and purple that had lace at the cups, was sheer everywhere else and I added the lacy, string-bikini panties that matched.

When I turned to walk back to the bed, Chace’s eyes were on me but aimed low and they didn’t move from my body even as I moved.

I lifted a knee to plant it in the bed and his eyes came to mine.

“Seriously?” he asked a question I didn’t know the answer to.

So I answered, “Um…”

Chace lunged.

We didn’t get shuteye for some time and when we settled, I had the nightie on but the panties were on the floor.

My apartment was dark, we were on our sides, face to face (or my face in his throat, his in the top of my hair), bodies tangled and I was two steps from dream world when he murmured, “Han shot first. Greedo didn’t have a prayer.”

This was the right answer.

Han Solo was badass and Chace knew it.

Therefore, because of that and other more important reasons, I fell asleep smiling.