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 cl*t and then glided deep inside and it felt so fraking good, I gasped, my h*ps 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 h*ps moving fast, grinding deep, my hands sliding over his chest.

Then I was on my back, Chace’s h*ps 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 h*ps 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 f**kin’ 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 f**ked up. But I love you, Faye, and protection going hand in hand with love is all I know,” he admitted quietly.