His fingers dug in as he dropped his head and touched his mouth to mine before he let me go, I moved away and turned my attention to the potatoes.

* * * * *

“You gonna memorize the pattern of my chest hair or are you gonna get off me and read until two in the morning?”

At Chace’s question, I stopped doing what he said I was doing, running my eyes and fingertips over his chest hair and I tipped my head back to look at him.

I was on top of him wearing one of my nighties. He was under me, not wearing anything. He’d made love to me. I’d cleaned up, come back to bed and climbed on top of him. Thus commenced my avid perusal of his awesome chest hair.

“The house smells like my perfume,” I said quietly and this was no lie. I’d cleaned it up while Chace did the dinner dishes (even washing!) but the smell was still strong.

“I’ll buy you another bottle tomorrow,” he muttered, his hands moving over my skin low on my back and my booty. He’d slid up my nightie to gain access and, as ever, this felt nice.

“Chace,” I whispered then didn’t know how to go on so one of his hands dipped low and cupped my behind.

“Promised I’d try not to get that pissed again,” he reminded me softly.

“It isn’t that,” I told him.

“What is it?” he asked.

I took in a breath and let out the words. “You impersonated me with my friends.”

“Yep.”

I blinked.

That was his reply. Yep.

“But –”

“They were all over you and didn’t lead in slow. First it was about me and how you weren’t with me but I was with someone else and it degenerated from there. I get why you’d be pissed but I think you get why I did what I did.”

“How would you feel if I did something like that to you?”

“I was doin’ somethin’ fucked up, like lyin’ to my friends about you or puttin’ my life in jeopardy, I got caught out, I hope I’d have the balls to own it and take my licks.”

This fraking sucked because it was a really good answer.

I had no idea I scrunched my nose thus communicated this to Chace until his body started to shake under mine, his arms closed tight around me in order to slide me up and I focused on his face to see he was smiling.

When he got me face to face with him, he left one arm angled across my back, hand cupping one cheek of my bottom. But his other hand lifted and he tucked my hair behind my ear, his eyes watching before his hand cupped my jaw and his thumb stroked my cheekbone and lips.

When he started doing this, he asked gently, “Why’d you tell them I was with someone else?”

“Well, um… because, uh –”

“Faye.”

Frak.

“It was after that kiss at the Station that went bad,” I said quickly.

I saw his eyes flash with remorse but I powered through.

“They knew I’d been crushing on you for a while. The whole mission with finding out who killed Misty was about easing your pain and getting you to notice me. So, I had decided I was going to avoid you at all costs after that happened at the Station and that meant avoiding discussing you with them. So I lied and said you’d moved on. I didn’t share when things happened for us because I wanted to make sure it was real and good and might last before I blew up their pretty bubble. We’ve never met but we care about each other a whole lot so I didn’t want to blow up a bubble that would just as quickly burst.”

“This bubble isn’t gonna burst, baby,” he whispered and my body melted into his.

“I hope not,” I whispered back.

His eyes dropped to my mouth as his thumb slid over my lips and he muttered, “Best kiss I ever had.”

My head tipped to the side and his eyes came back to mine as I asked, “Pardon?”

“In the Station. Best kiss I ever had.”

I melted more into him and whispered, “Chace.”

“Fought the pull of you. Lost.”

Oh God. I liked that.

“Honey,” I breathed, my hand sliding up his chest to his neck.

“Was comin’ home from Deck’s, saw your lights on, late. Didn’t even think about it. Stopped and sat in my truck on the street lookin’ up at your apartment, wonderin’ what you were doin’ up so late. Five seconds later, there you were on the street, oblivious to everything. Told myself not to follow you. Followed you. Fuckin’ glad I did.”

“You knew where I lived?” I whispered.

“Knew where you lived. Knew where your parents lived. Knew what you drove. Knew where you worked. Knew what you ordered at the diner. Knew everything I could know about you.”

Oh my God!

That was huge.

My fingers dug into his neck and I kept whispering when I said, “Chace.” But I couldn’t think what else to say.

“Best thing I ever did, goin’ after you,” he whispered back. “Got my dance with you. Led to different kinda dances with you. Best thing I ever f**kin’ did.”

His words affected me so deeply, since I couldn’t hold it up anymore, I dropped my head and buried my face in his neck.

His hand at my jaw slid back into my hair and his head turned so his lips were at my ear.

“Love your hair, Faye,” he murmured.

And I loved everything about him.

Absolutely everything.

I didn’t tell him this. I lay on top of him, feeling the power of him under me, the warmth of his hand on my behind, his fingers sifting through my hair and I memorized every nuance of it.

Finally, Chace broke the silence.

“You gonna read or fall asleep on top of me?”

“Fall asleep on top of you,” I muttered into his neck.

His hand fisted gently in my hair, his fingers dug into the flesh of my bottom and he replied, “Works for me.”

It worked for him.

Touched by an angel.

I sighed. After a while, my thumb running back and forth under his jaw in a mindless caress stopped, this telling Chace I was asleep.

* * * * *

Chace

Chace stared at the ceiling, Faye curled into him, asleep after he’d rolled into her and took her to his side to turn out her light, taking her with him when he twisted to turn off his.

The Elite.

A good nickname.

This meant her friends knew who these people were.

What they didn’t know was that these people made it their business to know everything.

Everything.

Most especially everything that might make them vulnerable.

“Fuck,” he whispered, Faye stirred and he forced his body to relax.

She settled.

Chace didn’t.

Chapter Sixteen

Perfect

I was in a dither.

A fraking dither!

It was a multi-faceted dither starting with the fact that Chace would be at my place in fifteen minutes to drive me to Aspen to have dinner with his mother. It was Saturday night and I’d again left the library early, leaving it in the hands of a volunteer so I would have time to come home and get ready.

It also had to do with the fact that it had been nearly three weeks since Malachi got out of the hospital and even though in every way he was a normal kid, so far as interacting with Jarot and Robbie in a (somewhat) healthy way, he still hadn’t spoken a word (this being the unhealthy part of how he interacted with Jarot and Robie).

Now even the psychologist was concerned. Everyone was. Even Chace couldn’t hide his concern. Malachi was communicating a lot more, this being writing things down on a notepad. But he wasn’t talking.

My dither further had to do with the fact that Chace and I had been together over six weeks and even though all that was good, no, fraking great, he hadn’t shared his “dark” with me. We were cool. We were awesome. But that bomb was always below the surface and I never knew when the fuse would be lit and it would blow.

And my dither had to do with the fact that last week, Chace’s temper boiled over again. But this time, luckily, it wasn’t directed at me.

It had to do with the fact that he finally tracked down and confronted the President of the City Council, Cesar Moreno about what was going on at the library and why Moreno was avoiding him.

I knew Cesar and his family, we weren’t great friends but everyone in town knew him. He was a good guy. His wife Isabella was one of those ladies who was a lady, all class, soft spoken but still sweet and approachable. Both his boys were fantastic baseball players. He was a great City Council President. Even my Dad liked and respected him.

But when Chace found him, unfortunately, he didn’t hand Chace any bull.

What he told Chace was that he was avoiding him, and thus me since everyone in town knew I was with Chace, as he dealt with the issue “in-house”. This issue was that there was a member of the Council who wanted to close the library not because of funding issues. This was just what they were telling me to prime me just in case things got out of hand. But because there were books in the library that she deemed “inappropriate” including the Twilight series, Harry Potter (due to them having such “heathen” topics as vampires and magic) and a variety of art books what Cesar told Chace she described as having “nudie boobies”.

Cesar did not share who she was.

This did not mean Chace didn’t blow his stack to Cesar and me.

“We don’t need a f**kin’ powder keg like this one on top of all the other shit happening in this town,” he’d growled, prowling through his family room, his phone in his hand while I sat on his sectional, drinking wine, keeping my mouth shut and watching him.

He’d made this statement in between calls to who I surmised from his side of the conversation were Tate, Wood, Krys, Ty and my Dad.

In other words, lighting the match on that powder keg his own danged self.

But it was the call to my Dad that alarmed me. Dad would lose his mind if he knew the library was in danger of being closed down and why. Not only because his daughter would lose her job but because he abhorred censorship.

I was not wrong about Dad losing his mind. Chace got off the phone with him and my phone immediately rang.

It said, “Dad Calling,” and his greeting was a shouted, “I didn’t do two tours with the Marines only for my hometown to close down the library because of nudie boobies!”

I tried not to laugh anytime anyone said the words “nudie boobies” but I didn’t succeed at this and thus often got scowls from Chace whenever it came up seeing as Chace didn’t think anything was funny about this situation.

Needless to say, Dad was angry but Mom was quietly angry which was way worse. Therefore, Cesar Moreno got a visit from her the next day. Also Krys and Laurie created petitions and they were now all over town.

Cesar was not pleased. The bulk of the work cleaning up the Police Department was done but he needed a break and not another huge drama on his hands (this he told Dad). But also, he had hope that he could nip this in the bud without it blowing up into a huge deal. That said, considering the fact that whoever this woman was had not backed down in weeks, that hope was dwindling.