Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(74)

She blinked and he watched her lick her lips, his gut clenching a good way this time, a f**king good one and she breathed, “That sounds a lot better in real life.”

Chace grinned.

“Not that it isn’t good on the phone,” she hastened to add.

Chace’s grin turned into a smile.

“Or that the phone isn’t real life,” she continued.

Chace just kept smiling.

“Just that it’s better in person,” she finished.

Chace’s body started shaking with his chuckle.

He might be amused but she was absolutely not wrong.

He bent his head, pressed his face in her neck and whispered against her skin, “You feelin’ okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied and his arm gave her a squeeze.

“Inside,” he clarified gently. “Okay?”

“A little achy,” she told him quietly. “Not a bad achy. Just a heretofore unknown, um… achy.”

“Bath didn’t help,” he muttered.

For some reason, his words made her relax deeper into his frame.

After this, her soft musical voice came at him, still quiet. “It isn’t bad but I’ll take some ibuprofen with breakfast.”

He lifted his head and looked down at her in his kitchen, his shirt, his arms in the morning.

He was wrong.

Or maybe it was just that yesterday, she was f**king pretty.

Today, she was beautiful.

And today, she was his.

She tipped her head to the side.

“Do you have any?”

He wasn’t following.

“Any what?”

“Ibuprofen.”

Right. She was achy.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Good,” she muttered, her eyes drifted to the side and then came back to him. “Bacon, honey.”

“Right,” he whispered, bent his neck, kissed her nose and let her go.

She turned to the bacon.

He moved to the cupboard where he kept his vitamins and painkillers.

“So, making lemonade out of lemons, now I get to ask you since you’re awake instead of springing it on you,” she started. “Do you like poached eggs?” He grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen, looked at her as he closed the cupboard and saw she was grinning at him over her shoulder. “I make world class poached eggs.”

Chace felt his lips tip up. “World class?”

“Well, they haven’t been sanctioned thus by a cordon bleu panel but my Dad calls them that.”

He moved in behind her, slid an arm around her, hand gliding over his shirt and hitting the silk of her nightie at her belly as his other hand put the bottle by her coffee mug.

In her neck he muttered, “Yeah, I like poached eggs.”

That got him a breathy, “Good.”

He kissed her neck and moved away to get himself a mug for coffee.

“Honey?” she called as he was pouring it. His head turned her way to see her face soft, her ear dipped to her shoulder, her crystal blue eyes intent on him. “Hazelnut half and half,” she went on quietly. “Thank you for thinking of that. My favorite.”

Clearly, her father hadn’t phoned since his visit and briefed her about their plans for next weekend. Or if he did, he understandably didn’t share that part.

Chace was going to have to tell her about Silas Goodknight’s visit. He’d intended to do it last night.

He’d do it that morning.

After he very quickly ate her world class poached eggs.

And after he, not very quickly, ate other parts of her.

Then he’d tell her.

* * * * *

Something Chace learned about Faye the night before was that, with very few inhibitions and minimal coaxing to get her beyond them, Faye trusted him and had zero issues with giving herself to him, giving into what he was making her feel and enjoying the f**k out of it.

This was something that held true that morning after poached eggs, coffee and enough light, non-taxing conversation to ascertain that she was, indeed, comfortable with him in his house, his shirt and her nightie.

Which meant he was open to picking her up, carrying her to the couch and making short work of getting her excited and squirming under him so he could pull off her panties and give her a very hot, very long orgasm using his mouth between her legs to do it.

But something he learned about Faye that morning after he made her come, moved over her, settled them both on their sides, held her as she came down and their after o**l s*x whispers went from little bits of nothing to him telling her about her father’s visit was something that surprised him.

That was that Faye Goodknight had a f**king explosive temper.

It was, like everything about her, cute.

But it was also seriously volatile.

He learned this when he shared about her father and felt her body go rock-solid in his arms as he watched her eyes narrow.

His arms around her tightened in an effort at containment when he quit talking and she asked in a quiet voice that was not her usual sweet, cute quiet but a dangerous quiet, “Pardon?”

“Honey, it’s okay” he assured her. “He was doin’ his duty as a Dad and it ended well.”

She said nothing for several long seconds.

Then, as if he didn’t speak, she repeated, “Pardon?”