“You know what I don’t get? What the big fucking deal was.” It was all Chase needed to finally let out the steam he had carried around for weeks, anger that had kept him solitary and withdrawn. “I go to the ballparks and chicks are screaming, ‘Spank me. Spank ME!,’ They carry signs, they have shirts made. They send naked pictures of their asses to the Kings’ website. It’s not like I set up a video camera in our . . . MY room and did a Kim Kardashian. She was always so annoyingly pious.” His rant done, his spleen vented, he seemed to relax. Then he acquiesced. “Sorry if I stepped on your toes, you’re the boss.” He checked the clock on the wall. “At least for another fifteen minutes. Can we get back to work?” As Logan took the extra weight off the bench press Chase gave one last puffed-up sneer. “What made her think she was so damn special anyway?”
Logan bit back a smirk of his own. You did, my friend, you did, he thought.
CHASE ENTERED HIS APARTMENT, THREW his wallet on the table, and took off his shirt, wiping down his chest with it. He skipped showering at the gym, deciding to jog home, figuring the fresh air could only do him good, as fresh as the air got in New York City during September at any rate. He wandered into the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of water, and downed it. After spending a few seconds flexing his pecs, he walked over to the phone to check for messages. Relieved at hearing nothing but a dial tone, he returned it to its cradle, yelled out to Lena that security was on its way to pick him up and he’d be ready in twenty minutes. Then he headed to his room to shower.
“Hello, Chase,” she said just as he was walking into his closet.
As soon as he heard her voice, she saw him visibly stiffen. His back to her, he took a minute to place his control firmly in check before he turned around to face her.
There she was, every bit as pretty as he remembered. Only tan. Damn her. He was spending night after sleepless night with haunted visions and she was soaking up the sun somewhere. She looked downright healthy. The little bitch. He waited till he was sure his voice wouldn’t give him away before he spoke.
“Came to return my keys, did you? You could have left them with the doorman.”
Amanda, seated in a chair in his bedroom, looked at a man she didn’t know. The Chase standing before her now, though still the sexiest man she had ever seen, was the same man with the icy stare that she’d felt through the television only a day ago. This was the man she created, and the time for her running was over. It was her turn to step up to the plate.
“I missed you.” There, good job, Amanda. That oughta do it. You can sweep me up in your arms now.
“Really? How very kind of you to say. I’ve been right here, all along. Good old Chase Walker, spanker of wayward women.” His voice was drenched with sarcasm, his hulking, shirtless body still dripping with sweat. Both gave her strength, for entirely different reasons. And if she was smart she’d be scared, but she was finished with her head leading, and there was only one place her heart wanted to run.
“This is all your fault, you know,” she said, confrontational in response, crossing her legs.
“My fault?” He was incredulous, his self-control starting to give way, and they had barely even begun. “My fault? What was my fault, Amanda, why don’t you tell me? Oh, that’s right, I saw a hidden camera and decided to spank you in front of it. Then I called security and told them to alert the media.” Afraid if he continued, he might actually strangle her, he made his way toward the door. “Look, I have a game in six hours, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to cut this short.”
She was up in a flash, refusing to let him duck out of the fight. She marched right up to him, poking him in the chest. “Don’t make like you’re the victim here! You’re the one who couldn’t wait twenty minutes. Twenty stinkin’ minutes.”
He backed away from her and she thought he might exit stage right. She followed closely behind him and jumped in response to how loud the door was when he slammed it. It sent the clear message to anyone within the apartment: Stay away from this room. He rounded back on her. “You sure didn’t seem to mind when I was doing it. And I think there’s a tape somewhere to prove it!” he shot back at her, starting to ball his hands into fists.
“How dare you! Of course you would have no problem joking about it. It only made you more of a national hero, you pompous oaf!”
He grabbed her by the shoulders, violently shaking her, stopped only when her eyes grew wide and frightened. “And do you know why that is? Do you? Because I stayed here and looked everyone in the eye as they judged. I took the phone calls, I made the statements, laughed at the jokes. I tried to protect the person I loved. I didn’t go running to my daddy, begging him to hide me like I committed some sort of criminal offense.” He released her abruptly, as if touching her disgusted him. He stomped over to the other side of the room, hoping it was enough distance between them. “You think this happened only to you, Amanda? It happened to me, too. It happened to us. For all the words of togetherness we ever shared, I was the only one who seemed to mean them.” Then, with remarkable ease, he punched a hole in the wall, the plaster crumbling in response to the unleashed fury. He looked at the destruction and lowered his head, his hands on his hips, and she could tell by his heaving, he was trying to hold back the rest of the rage.
She should have been terrified. She should have run. But every word he spoke was the truth, and though the reasons were different, they both were to blame. Determined not to cry, she cautiously joined him and laid her small hand on his granite bicep, gently urging him to turn to her.
“You’re right, Chase. But where do we go from here?”
He didn’t want her so close, didn’t want her to touch him, but she kept ever so slightly pulling, until he dropped his arms and she slid into him, her arms curling around his waist and up his back. Placing her ear on his slick chest, she waited to hear his heart regulate itself. As if his arms had a will of their own, they wrapped around her. He rested his cheek on the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her, the mixture of perfume and shampoo he knew so well. He closed his eyes.
“I don’t want to love you,” he said despondently, almost to himself. “It hurts too much.”
“I can make it up to you. Please let me try,” she pleaded, her pride no longer relevant inside his strong embrace, the safety she had been looking for all along.
He exhaled and his tension eased a bit. His arms had been without her for too long. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked wistfully.
“You’re going to make me pay, in all the best ways,” she teased, sensing the worst of it was over.
“I don’t even know where to start, little girl,” he said, making the shaky attempt to pick up where they’d left off, although they both knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Start right from the beginning, when Alan Shaw told me to get out of town.”
His arms noticeably began to stiffen around her.
“Wait. What?”
Chase felt like he’d just been plunked in the rib cage by Justin Verlander’s fastball. Right on the tattoo of her he could no longer bear to see. He set her apart from him.
“What did you just say about Alan Shaw?”
Amanda could tell in one look that whatever her answer was, it was going to be the wrong one.
He repeated a disbelieving “Alan Shaw told you to get out of town?”
He asked it the same way he would if he were accusing her of having an affair, all gut reaction. The tone of his voice alone was enough to cause panic. She nodded.