Taking Chances (Taking Chances #1)(30)

I blushed fiercely and crossed my arms over my chest. “I was uh, just coming to get more towels.”

He reached into the closet and pulled out a few. Dropping all but one on the floor next to me, he shook out the one still in his hand and wrapped it around my shoulders. “How are you?” He brushed his fingers across my cheek and down my neck causing me to stifle a moan.

“Huh?”

Chase chuckled against my neck and lightly pressed his lips to my throat. “That good, huh?”

I blinked a few times and pushed away from him, ignoring that smirk I loved so much, “Why do you keep doing this to me?”

“What do you mean?” He went to wrap his arms around me, but I stepped out of his reach.

“This!” I pointed to an outstretched arm, “You can't keep doing this. I'm with Brandon now, you have to stop.”

His face fell into an unreadable mask and he dropped his arms to his side.

“No more notes, no more touches, no more putting your lips on me. This isn't fair to me. Do you have any idea how crazy you're making me?”

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have asked that, his eyes lit up and that stupid smirk was back. “Really now?”

“Chase I'm serious, this has to stop.”

“Give me one good reason why I should.”

I huffed and wrapped the towel tighter around me, “I told you, I'm with Brandon now.”

“I said a good reason Princess.” He deadpanned.

“That's a perfectly good reason! And it's the only one you're going to get.” I bent down and picked up the towels, when I stood back up he was right in front of me.

“Harper.”

“No Chase,” I shut my eyes so I wouldn't get distracted again, “Please just – just don't. I really like Brandon. Besides, you have plenty of girls who are fine with being treated like shit by you, I'm not one of them. Go find another brainless bimbo to screw and get out of your system.”

I heard his sharp intake of breath, but kept my eyes closed until I was on my way back outside. Setting out the dry towels, I flopped onto my stomach and tried to forget about Chase. Brad fired up the grill a little over an hour later, and Bree was lying out next to me as the guys talked about going surfing tomorrow. It was easy enough to keep my eyes off Chase's bare chest, but the stupid goose bumps wouldn't go away and Brandon was taking forever to get here. I was so focused on where Chase was, not even five feet away, and trying to hold a conversation with Bree that I didn't even notice Brandon until he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off the ground. I shrieked and kicked for a second before I realized it wasn't one of the other guys about to throw me back in the pool, which had happened two more times since my hallway encounter with Chase.

Brandon just laughed and pressed his lips to mine, “Mind if I steal you away for a few minutes?”

I didn't miss the fact that Chase abruptly stopped talking, “Not at all, I'm yours for the next three days.”

We were in the house before he spoke again, “We need to cover you up sweetheart.”

“Why? Do you know how long it took Bree to talk me into wearing this thing?”

He set me down on his bed and slowly raked his eyes over my body. Heat spread across my cheeks and I had to force myself not to cover myself. “Remind me to thank her for that later, but I don't have enough patience tonight to continue watching the rest of the guys look at you like they want to eat you.”

I frowned and ran my fingers down his cheek, “Bad day babe?”

“Something like that.” he snorted and dropped his head to mine.

“You wanna tell me about it?”

“It's not a big deal, just people trying to piss me off.”

“Like...?”

He kissed me hard and crawled onto the bed to hover over me, “Don't worry about it sweetheart, it's nothing I can't handle.”

I just stared at him for a few minutes, hoping he'd elaborate, he didn't. “Fine, I'll go change so we can get back out there.”

Brandon's eyes warmed and the corner of his mouth tilted up. “I just got my girl alone again, I'm not ready to share her just yet.” He bit at the hollow at the base of my neck and let his teeth lightly graze across my collar bone. The shivers I never seemed to be able to control surged up my spine, causing him to grin. “I love knowing I do that to you.” His husky baritone voice was enough to make it almost happen again.

Bringing his mouth to mine, I tried to take advantage of our current situation by pulling at his bottom lip with my teeth, he groaned and slid in between my legs, pressing his body firmly against mine. I pulled his shirt over his head and trailed my fingers down his back, a shiver of his own made me giggle and repeat the trail. His lips followed the bikini top's string down my chest, when he reached the swell of my breast a hand found the ties on my hip for the bottoms and started to pull the string but suddenly froze and pulled away.

“Maybe you should go change, we need to get out of the bedroom.” He looked down my body again and stepped away, “Like now.”

After I changed into actual clothes, we joined everyone outside as the burgers were coming off the grill and I tried not to look for Chase, who was now gone. First thing Brandon did was thank Bree for her hand in my earlier outfit, she winked at both of us before running back to the side of some new guy named Ryan. We grabbed our dinner and Brandon pulled me onto his lap, always keeping one of his hands on me. The guys started in on a small game of football once we were done, while Bree and I cleaned up all the leftover food. Brandon came bounding into the kitchen and pulled me in for a sweaty kiss.