Game (Gentry Boys, #3)(54)
Chase grunted and moved to his back, pulling me on top of him. “Sit up,” he ordered. “No, straddle me and sit.”
I did what he wanted although I was skeptical. “You can’t possibly be ready again.”
“Not quite. I just want to look at you. Let your hair fall over your tits like those paintings I showed you.”
Chase had enlightened me as to his often-repeated references to pre-Raphaelite art. He liked to tell me I resembled the ethereal beauties in those paintings. I very much doubted the likeness but cooperated with him anyway.
“Smokin’ hot,” he smiled, reaching over and grabbing his phone from his desk.
“Seriously? You’re gonna make a phone call right now? May I exit your crotch while you have a chat?”
“Raise your arms up,” he said, pointing the phone at me. “Now gyrate like you mean it, honey.”
“What in the f*cking hell do you think you’re doing?” I was suddenly cold as ice as I jumped off him and grabbed my clothes from the floor. I clutched them to my chest while Chase lowered the phone and stared at me.
“It’s nothing, Steph. I was just having fun with you. I wanted to have something to look at when I’m suffering from separation anxiety.” He frowned when he realized I wasn’t going to give in. “I thought it turned you on to know how much I always want you. Jesus, you know you can trust me. You know that right?”
I closed my eyes. My whole body was shaking.
“Take it all off. Told you I own you, bitch. Now you make this shit look good because you’re not paid up until we all come.”
“Don’t you ever f*cking do that again, you *!” I screamed and could barely recognize the sound of my own voice. I was gasping. I couldn’t breathe.
I heard Chase jump off the bed immediately. When I opened my eyes I expected to be met with an angry glare. I wasn’t being reasonable. Chase had no idea what had happened to me. Sure, the thing with the camera phone was an obnoxious move, but he just thought he was having fun with his girlfriend. He certainly didn’t deserve to be called an *.
“Stephanie,” he said and he wasn’t angry at all. He was concerned, and sad. He tore a blanket from his bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. I let him lead me back to the edge of the bed and then he pulled me into his arms, kissing my forehead. He asked me questions. He asked me who had hurt me and what had they done. I couldn’t answer any of them. Instead I did something weak and terrible, something that I knew scared the hell out of him because it was so unlike me. I leaned into his chest and cried.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” he said, stroking my hair as if I were a child. I heard the sorrow in his voice and hated the fact that I’d been frail enough to put it there. “I’m here.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chase
I wanted blood. I just didn’t know who the hell I wanted it from or why.
Truly was puzzled to see me hanging around Cluck This in the middle of the afternoon.
“Hey, stranger,” she said when she finally got a chance to breeze past my table. “Steph’s not in until later.”
“I know. She’s in class right now.”
Truly was even more confused. “You hungry?”
“Actually I was hoping you could sit down with me for a minute and talk.”
She nodded. “I can take my break in about twenty minutes if you want to hang around.”
“Great. I’ll take a plate of cheese fries and a Dr. Pepper while I wait.”
Truly glanced at me curiously a few times. She brought my order and I poked at it. Truly almost certainly figured I was here to talk about Creed. The tension between my brother and I hadn’t dissolved and we regarded one another with stiff politeness. I knew he was sorry for hinting that my involvement with Stephanie was just a distraction meant to displace my drug addiction. He seemed awkward when we were in the same room together and I could have let him off the hook but I just didn’t feel like it yet. Anyway, I wasn’t shadowing Truly because I wanted to talk about her boyfriend. I wanted to talk about her roommate.
Finally Truly took her apron off and made her way over with a sandwich and a soda for herself. “Boy, you haven’t touched your fries.”
I shoved the plate over. “You’re welcome to them.”
“Hell no. I know what’s really in that so-called cheese.” She sipped her soda and then smiled at me. “I would tell you but then we’d lose a good customer. Plus you’d have nightmares. So what’s going on? You didn’t come here because you were hungry.”
Of course Truly and I weren’t close in the way that Saylor and I were close but I felt like I could be straight with her. She was honest and she loved Stephanie too.
“What happened to her, Truly?”
Truly Lee’s face fell. “I don’t know, Chase. I really don’t.” She paused. “I hope I’m not betraying her confidence. I don’t think I am because she never really confided in me, not about that. She came home one night sobbing and then she kind of dropped her basket for a while.”
“What does that mean?”
Truly sighed. “She lost it a little bit. Poor girl was terrified and I don’t know if it was rational or not because she wouldn’t tell me the whole story. She denied that anyone had physically touched her but she said she’d been humiliated. She used that word, humiliated. I don’t believe she was talking about something trivial. Oh Chase, I’m so glad she found her way out of this illegal gambling crap. It’s the kind of mix that brings out the worst in men and Steph shouldn’t be in the middle of that.” She cocked her head and looked at me sadly. “Is she okay?”