Lost Hart, page 4
Brock choked on his beer, but that didn’t seem to stop him from laughing. “God, I love you woman. No punches pulled, just how Chase needs it.”
Chapter 4
Every Wednesday night, Stacey and one of her best friends, Emma, went for a run. Rain or shine, wind or hail (okay, maybe not hail), they geared up, put on their headlamps and reflective gear and went for a much-needed, energizing run.
Emma’s husband, the gorgeous, brilliant, wealthy James, stayed with all their children (he and Emma had twin girls, Claire and Grace, who were about eight months older than Thea) while the mothers got their exercise. He fed the kids, bathed them and had Stacey’s children in their pajamas by the time she and Emma returned home sweaty, red-faced and feeling like they could take on the world.
Where Emma found James, Stacey would like to know.
She wasn’t sure they made men like James Shaw anymore.
At least, she hadn’t been able to find one.
Her late husband had never offered to watch Connor while she went for a run. Ted rarely felt comfortable to be left alone with his kid at all. It’d always struck her as weird, but eventually she accepted his preferences, and when Ted was home, the three of them were always together. Then Ted would leave for two weeks—to go be with his other wife, Freya, it turned out—and Stacey would be back to doing things all on her own. It was actually easier when Ted wasn’t home because she had one less person to pick up after. He was also a really picky eater—pickier than Connor—so when Ted was away, they could eat what they liked.
Thankfully, today was Wednesday, and after running into Chase at Joy’s house earlier in the day, Stacey was in desperate need of some girlfriend time. Not that she hadn’t been rehashing the Chase stuff for months with Emma, but a lot of it had been put to rest over the last while, simply because he was out of sight so, for the most part, out of mind, as well.
At least she liked to pretend he was out of mind.
Until she struggled to sleep and their one incredible night together came back into her mind and she was forced to grab one of her battery-operated stress relievers and take a withdrawal from her spank bank.
“Was it awkward?” Emma asked, not nearly as out of breath as Stacey was as they climbed the hill just down the street from Emma and James’s lavish home.
“Incredibly. I also hugged him when I saw him, which I know just amplified the awkwardness.”
Emma’s curly blonde hair was tucked into a ponytail and a white cap, but beneath her headlight, Stacey could see her friend’s hazel eyes go wide. “You hugged him?”
“It was instinct. I’m in love with him. I haven’t seen him in five months, and the last time I saw him, we’d had sex. Well, I mean, besides when he came by the house, saw Rex there and then left.” She let out a long sigh. “The man treated me like a one-night stand. A piece of meat. And yet I’m still in love with him? What does that say about me?”
Stacey was wearing her black running hat and headlamp, along with her gray leggings, a black, long-sleeved Sugoi shirt and a white vest. It’d been chilly when they first started, but as they continued to climb the seemingly never-ending hill, her body began to get warmer and sweat started to sting her eyes.
“I mean, when it comes to men, I really know how to pick ’em. First Ted, the polygamist, and then Chase, the dick dip and dasher.”
“Dick dip and dash?” Emma asked, throwing Stacey some amused side-eye.
“Yeah. Dip your dick, and then dash before they cling. If it’s not a saying, it should be.”
Emma made a noise of impatience. “This is all so messed up. I wish men would just talk. You know? If men talked even a fraction more than they do, the world—relationships, marriages, governments—would be so much better off. I doubt the world would be involved in half the wars it’s in right now if men talked more and compared dick sizes less.”
Stacey nodded. “Imagine how peaceful the world would be if women were in charge?”
“Sing it, sister. Look at all the countries in the world run by women. They’re not at war. Coincidence?”
“I think not,” Stacey panted. She was struggling to do much more than hum her responses.
“Instead, they just grunt, buy a bigger missile than the other guy—because dick size compensation and all that—then they get mad or butthurt or whatever and leave for five months.”
“True dat.” They reached the top of the hill and, like always, stopped to stretch and take some much-needed deep breaths.
“Honestly,” Emma started, adjusting her blinking green safety light on her vest, “I think you should just go to his house, knock on the door and demand he tell you what the hell happened back in September. Don’t leave until he does. Otherwise, you’ll always be left wondering …”
“Like was it the sex?” Stacey asked, lifting her arms above her head and lacing her fingers over her ponytail to bring more oxygen into her lungs. “Was it bad? I mean it’d been a while for me, and I’d just had a baby, so things definitely weren’t as tight as they’d once been, but I didn’t think it was bad.”
“It wasn’t bad.” Emma’s head shook. “I’ve never even had sex with you, but I know that it wasn’t bad. You said you had sex three times.”
“Yeah, but maybe the first time sucked so he was like, Let’s try this again. Maybe the first time was a horrible fluke. And then he thought the same thing after the second time, and the third time sucked so much he just couldn’t bear the thought of doing it again and he left. Went to find some young, tight college vagina that hasn’t pushed out two children and has been growing cobwebs ever since.”
Emma snorted and swatted her. “Shut your hideously beautiful face right now. The sex was not bad, and don’t you dare say it was again.” She jerked her chin, and the two started running again. “Chase has been through some shit.”
“Yeah, I know. Joy mentioned one of his missions from a few years back really messed with him. She said it’s not her story to tell though.” She reached out and grabbed Emma’s shoulder, stopping them both from running. “Do you know?”
Emma’s head shook, and they started running again. “No. I’ve heard whisperings that he may have been kidnapped or something during his time in Peru, but I don’t know the details. The Hart brothers are tough nuts to crack. Heath is the easiest, but even he’s changed since he was taken hostage for ransom.”
Yeah, that had been a terrifying and dark time for all of them.
“Joy has invited everyone over for Saturday night dinner next week—including me and the kids.”
Emma sucked air in between thinly parted lips. “Oh, awkward. You haven’t seen much of Rex lately, have you?”
“No. He’s been away on a lot of jobs. Was down in Seattle with Heath for a while working that Russian mobster job, then back up here for a while running surveillance. Now I think he’s up in the Yukon, no idea why. Joy just tells me what she knows, but as you know, it’s not much, based on how tight-lipped her sons are. She says he’s back next Friday, which is why she wants to do the dinner Saturday night.”
“You gonna go?”
“Can anybody say no to Joy?”
Emma’s chuckle was wheezy. “Good point. Things between you and Rex okay?”
“They were never not okay. As you know, Rex is a great guy and a really good friend …”
“But you love Chase.”
“But I love Chase. Even if I did like Rex beyond friendship, I couldn’t be with him after I’ve been with Chase. It just wouldn’t feel right. I could never come between the brothers like that. But I don’t love Rex—at least not the way I love Chase.”
She wasn’t sure she’d ever loved or would ever love anyone the way she loved Chase.
Which was so fucked up, given the way everything had transpired. They hadn’t been on one date. Had kissed that one time, had sex that other one time, and then he vanished without even a wave goodbye. And yet, in their few months together, she fell in love with him anyway.
She didn’t mind that he was quiet or stoic.
Still waters run deep, and she knew that for a man like Chase, his waters probably ran deeper than most.
They came to their halfway point, which was where they always stopped to do another stretch and take another deep breath. Emma turned to Stacey, put her hand on her shoulder and leveled her hazel gaze directly at Stacey’s brown one. “Then I suggest you tell him. Before it’s too late and he heads off on another job—or worse, falls for someone else.”
After a delicious dinner made by his sister-in-law, some much-needed and sorely missed playing with his niece and nephew, Chase climbed back into his truck and returned to his cold, nearly barren apartment.
Seeing Stacey—not to mention her kids—had fucked up his mind for the rest of the day. He’d done his best to push all his feelings aside and focus on his family, focus on hearing about Zoe’s preschool and how Zane loved his daycare, but no matter what, his thoughts always drifted back to Stacey.
That’s how it’d been for the last five months. Particularly when he was alone in his bed or in the shower and he knew Charlene and Bobby-June were in their room.
The last thing he needed was for the charge he was hired to protect hearing him jerking off in the shower. Not that he was loud or anything, but either way, that wasn’t something he needed.
Stacey had fueled his fantasies, his daydreams and his night dreams. Her soft body, the little noises she made as he made her come, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear—always on the left side, and always with her pinky finger—and wrinkled her nose when she was thinking extra hard. Everything about her turned him on. Everything about her made him want her more, made him conjure up the memories of their brief but incredible night together.
He turned on a few lights in his place, retracted all the blinds to open up the place and stripped down to nothing, tossing his laundry into the hamper. He didn’t fucking care if anyone saw him through his windows. He wasn’t ashamed of his body, but he couldn’t have the blinds drawn. That was just one more layer between him and the outside world. He also didn’t have a proper bedroom, since his place was a studio-style loft. Less walls, the better.
He turned the water on in the shower and let it get warm. He even had a see-through shower curtain. Since it was just him, what the fuck did it matter? And it kept the space just a little more open. He was a big guy, and these micro-loft condo bathrooms didn’t lend much in the way of open and spacious.
He glanced at himself briefly in the mirror as it started to fog up. He’d peeled his wool cap off and could see a faint shadow forming on his scalp. He needed to shave. He also needed to shave his face. He was fine with the scruff, particularly since the thicker it got, the darker it got—unlike Heath’s beard, which was just a blond fluffy mess on his face if he didn’t keep it cropped to his jaw.
He hopped into the shower and pulled the curtain closed, letting the much-too-hot water soothe his aching muscles. Economy-plus seats were not designed for men his size. And as hard as he’d tried, he’d been jammed into a window seat to boot, forced to contort himself like a circus performer to accommodate the girth of the man in the middle seat.
They’d only had one night together, but that night had stuck with him for five long, lonely months. He’d been determined to keep things professional with Stacey. She was a new widow, a single mom and her family was in danger. But a woman like Stacey proved impossible to stay away from.
They’d taken the kids to the park in the afternoon. Not something he’d been keen on doing since there was a threat out there, and they had been approached by Spiros Petralia once already, but Connor was driving Stacey nuts, so they walked up the street to the nearby playground.
Connor had fallen from the top of the slide, taking a tumble and cutting his chin pretty badly. Chase, of course, had scooped him up and they raced to the hospital, where the little guy needed four stitches.
He’d been a trooper through the whole thing—letting the doctors do what needed to be done, all with a brave face and stiff upper lip. His mother, on the other hand, like most mothers when their child was in any kind of peril, was a basket case, and Chase had to do more in the way of calming down Stacey than he did Connor.
Once they got home—after McDonald’s for dinner as a treat—she put Connor to bed, nursed Thea until the baby passed out, and then they were alone. He wasn’t sure how it started, but before he knew it, she was straddling him on the couch, asking him to take away the pain, to take away her fear and just help her feel… normal.
Chase couldn’t remember the last time he felt any kind of normal, so he wasn’t sure how he could help her feel it herself. But when she pulled her nursing tank top off—the one with the built-in bra—and arched her back, what red-blooded man would be able to resist sucking those nipples into his mouth like they were damn lollipops?
“Just for the night,” she kept saying. Even though how anybody could get their fill of Stacey Saunders in one night was beyond him. He took her three times, made her come a hell of a lot more.
They’d only gotten one night.
Just one.
But that one night had changed everything.
After making her come enough times she passed out in his arms with a smile on her face, Chase fell asleep, too. But he wasn’t out for long, and woke up in a cold sweat and with heart palpitations so severe he was sure she could hear them while she slept.
He’d had another dream.
This time he was back in solitary confinement. In the dark with nothing but the rats and cockroaches as his companions. Noises from beyond the door were eerie. Wails of sorrow and pain. Cries for help. Screams of the criminally insane.
As his brain began to play tricks on him, those cries turned into howls, and the scratching of the rats’ nails on the wall sounded more like the scraping of long, sharp monster talons.
Rats didn’t snarl, but he could have sworn he heard a snarl and felt the hot breath of a beast on his neck right before he woke up, his chest and forehead damp, pulse thundering.
Stacey had drawn the blackout blinds, and the room was dark. She’d turned off the bedside lamp.
He’d panicked when he opened his eyes. The walls instantly began to close in around him. The dark fucked with his eyes, causing things and creatures to appear where he knew there weren’t any.
A funny thing, the brain. He knew in the logical part of his mind that the things he was seeing didn’t exist, but the fucked-up part of his brain made them appear anyway. And that just fucked him up even more. He could tell himself all day long that the things weren’t real, that monsters didn’t exist, but when he saw them, when they blinked at him and made noises, it became tougher and tougher to discern what was real and what was just him losing his mind.
A big part of him thought he really was going crazy.
And when he woke up in Stacey’s bed, in the dark with the blackout blinds pulled down and the door closed, the monsters began to reveal themselves.
Nobody deserved to know those monsters besides Chase, least of all Stacey. She’d had a rough enough year as it was without having to endure Chase and all his fucked-up baggage.
What grown man was afraid of the dark? What grown man believed in monsters and couldn’t sleep in a bedroom with the door closed?
He wasn’t right. He wasn’t whole. And he definitely wasn’t right for Stacey.
He couldn’t give her the family she wanted, the whole man she deserved.
So, since the Petralia threat had been pretty much neutralized and he was only really hanging around Stacey and the kids because he wanted to be with them, he did what he figured was best for Stacey and her family.
He let Brock know he needed a break for the day to collect his thoughts, to figure out a way to let her down, even though he’d already fallen in love with her. But when he returned, Rex was there with Stacey and the two were … cozy.
He remembered carrying Stacey down the hallway to her bedroom, laying her down gently and covering her body with his. She’d reached for him, tugged furiously at his shirt and pants, demanded he get naked so she could feel all of him.
She’d paused for a moment when she realized she didn’t have any condoms. Neither did he.
He didn’t need them.
But he wasn’t ready to tell anyone—even Stacey.
He was still coming to terms with his fate. With the ramifications of his choices and all that he’d gone through for those soul-crushing six months. Saying it out loud would only make it feel more real.
More permanent.
So they pulled out.
The first time, she’d let him finish in her mouth, the second time on her chest, and the third time her back. He always cleaned her up afterward, and she’d smile at him as he brought the warm washcloth from the bathroom and gently mopped up his spill.
She’d joked just before falling asleep with her head on his chest that they’d have to buy condoms at the drugstore the next day, and he’d nodded, agreed and stroked her back. That was the first nail in the coffin of their budding whatever.
Thoughts of Stacey’s luscious tits bouncing back and forth beneath him as he hammered into her brought him to the edge of reason, to the edge of sanity. He remembered the look in her eyes as she wrapped her mouth around his cock and let him finish in her mouth, the sexy curl of her lips as she swallowed and licked the remaining drops away with her tongue.
Back in reality, he opened his eyes through the thick spray of the shower and looked down. Like always, thoughts of Stacey and their night together had his cock hanging hard and heavy between his legs, the precum dripping from the tip getting washed away with the pummeling water. He took his length in his fist and slowly stroked it from root to crown, squeezing the head until it turned a deep, dark purple.
He felt his balls tighten. Heat pooled in his lower belly, and sparks flew behind his now-closed eyes as he took a deep breath and finally released his load. His hand paused on his shaft as the orgasm hit him full force, his cock pulsing with each spurt. After he reached his crescendo, he opened his eyes and began to stroke himself again, working out the last bit of cum, prolonging his pleasure for as long as he could.
