Game (Gentry Boys #3) Read online

  “I want you, Chase.”

  “That’s a start. Tell me why.”

  “Because you’re all I think about since the first time you touched me.”

  “Louder, sweetheart.”

  “Because no one has ever made me feel like you do!”

  Chase started pumping harder, faster. “And no one ever will.”

  “No! I’m crazy about you.”

  He wrapped me in his arms as our bodies strained against one another before we found the rhythm. We were in perfect sync and it was rough, hard, and incredible. I clamped my own hand over my mouth as I started to come, unable to stop my own noise. Chase took my hand away and kissed me. He waited until I’d quieted and then he groaned, our mouths still fastened together as he pushed and pulsed inside of me.

  Chase kissed me once more, gently this time, and then rolled to his back, pulling me with him. He stroked my hair and exhaled deeply.

  “Steph, you don’t even know, baby. You have absolutely bewitched me.”

  I propped myself up on one elbow and looked at him. “You mean that?”

  Chase touched my cheek. “Yes. Just like I meant it when I said I’d give you anything you want.”

  I kissed his chest. “I just want you.” I felt a low rumble in my stomach. “And maybe some breakfast.”

  Chase threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, yanking his boxers back up. “Come on. Before King Kong devours everything in sight.”

  I blushed as Chase watched me throw on a t-shirt and shorts. I didn’t know how to get used to capering around naked in front of him.

  He opened the door still only wearing his underwear. “After you, my lady.”

  Truly was removing another cookie sheet full of cinnamon rolls from the oven. She was wearing a full-skirted apron and looked fabulous as always. She grinned brightly when she saw us together.

  “Morning, sleepyhead,” she waved. “This boy’s been impatiently waiting on you for hours.”

  Chase smiled charmingly. “And she was worth the wait.”

  The sound of a piece of furniture being kicked startled us all. Creedence was sitting at the kitchen table. He was also glaring at Chase, who put his arm around me and glared back.

  Creed shook his head and stared down into his coffee cup. I didn’t know what was going on between the brothers but had the uneasy feeling it had something to do with me.

  Truly pretended like nothing was wrong. She offered us each a plate of warm cinnamon rolls and then brought some to Creed. He stopped being a sour shit long enough to squeeze her around the waist and nuzzle her breasts. She kissed his forehead and hugged him before returning to the kitchen.

  Chase insisted on hauling me into his lap at the table. It seemed like he was planning on ignoring Creed. Really, I didn’t know what Creed’s problem was. We weren’t exactly BFF material but I thought we’d already made peace with one another. I decided to try and lighten the mood.

  “So are you concentrating on country music?” I asked Creed as I nibbled on a cinnamon roll and pushed Chase’s hands away from my crotch.

  “What?” Creed grumbled before taking a drink of coffee.

  “Seems like you’re acquiring quite a following. I caught the tail end of your performance at The Hole.”

  “I know,” he said, giving Chase another hard look. “If you’ll remember I saw you too. Both of you.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Truly spin around in the kitchen. Creed looked up at her. She must have been issuing some kind of silent warning because he nodded slightly.

  “What time is it?” Chase asked, his hand somehow under my shirt.

  “It’s a quarter to ten,” answered Truly as she prepared another batch of cinnamon rolls.

  Chase stretched and yawned. “Shit, I’ve got a class in an hour.” He pushed his face into my hair and inhaled deeply. “You gonna be on campus today?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got finance and economics.”

  Chase kissed my neck. “Meet me later?”

  I shivered as his lips traveled over my skin. “Just say when.”

  Dimly I realized Creedence was openly scowling at us just as Truly was watching with utter fascination. Somehow I didn’t care though. Evidently neither did Chase. He picked me up and started carrying me back to the bedroom.

  “When,” he whispered and I loved the feeling of being carried in his strong arms. I loved the things he did to me when we returned to my bedroom and I didn’t even try to be quiet about it this time.

  Twenty minutes later I was kissing Chase goodbye at the front door.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he whispered, lifting me up as my legs went automatically around his waist.

  “I don’t want you to leave me,” I whispered back and couldn’t believe I was saying something like that to anyone, let alone to a guy I’d had mixed feelings about up until very recently. But now I knew. I knew how people fell quick and hard. There was nothing rational about it. That was why it was so powerful.

  I kissed him again, soulfully, passionately, and unwrapped my legs from his waist. He watched me back away with a look of regret.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said, reluctantly letting him go.

  “You’re damn right you will,” he replied quickly.

  Suddenly Chase glanced back to where Creed was still sulking at the kitchen table. “You need a ride?”

  “No!” Creed yelled.

  Chase kissed my hand. “Somnium de me.”

  I didn’t understand. “What?”

  He smiled vaguely. “Latin. Means ‘dream about me’, sweetheart.”

  “I’m awake, Chase.”

  “Are you?” he muttered and then swooped in for another intense kiss.

  I don’t know, Chase. I really don’t. I don’t know where this is going. I just know that I can’t get enough of you.

  After he finally left I closed the door, leaning against it and trying to catch my breath and calm my heartbeat. It took me a moment to notice Truly was standing in the living room. She had her hands on her hips and a smile on her face.

  “Damn, Steph,” she said.

  I nodded weakly. “I know.”

  Creed wasn’t even going to pretend to share her enthusiasm. He sat at the table staring at his uneaten cinnamon roll. Truly came around behind him, kissing him on the cheek. She glanced from one of us to the other.

  “Think I’ll go jump in the shower and get changed. You kids be nice to one another until I get back.”

  Creed ignored me when I sat at the table. I waited until I heard the sound of the shower starting. I’d be damned if I was going to tiptoe around him in my own apartment.

  “What the hell is your problem?” I said, irritated and also honestly curious. I doubted Creed acted like this every time his brother got together with a girl.

  Creed crossed his arms. His expression was stony. “I don’t have any problems, Stephanie.”

  “I must just be enjoying your naturally sunny disposition then.”

  He shook his head. “You’re one to fucking talk, mafia princess.”

  I felt my face growing hot. He didn’t know a damn thing about me. Not a goddamn thing. “You think I’m not good enough for your brother?”

  Creed didn’t hold back. “I don’t think you’re good for each other.”

  I was still offended. “Well who the fuck died and made you the love czar?”

  He shrugged. “You asked, Stephanie.”

  “Sorry I did.” I got up from the table. “Have a nice day, asshole.”

  I slammed the door to my bedroom. Creed’s words rankled. Even though I’d known Chase for months we were suddenly going so far so fast. The intensity he was showering on me was almost as startling as my reaction to it. If either of us had any sense we’d slow down.

  But I didn’t want to slow down. I knew Chase didn’t either.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Chase

  I watched for her. We always met by the fountain after she was done w
ith her finance class. I had finished my world mythology lecture a half hour ago but I didn’t mind waiting. People sifted around my periphery and some of them I knew. They called my name and I waved only half-heartedly because they didn’t matter to me.

  When she came into view our eyes locked immediately. When Stephanie Bransky smiled, my fucking heart stopped every time. Just yesterday Saylor had wistfully told Steph that she looked different these days. It was true. These past two weeks, since the night that sealed everything between us, Stephanie had a brilliantly sexy confidence about her. She was actually wearing clothes that fit her now instead of slack garments that hid everything.

  “Baby.” I opened my arms and she jumped into them. I lifted her and kissed her deeply, knowing people were staring. Let them fucking stare. Let them wish they had what we had.

  It had always baffled me before, this rumor of true love. There was no other subject more heavily examined throughout history, literature and even legend. Lust was formidable but it was only a pale echo of the dominance of the heart. Love was as much inspiration as it was sweet insanity. I knew that now. I had told her so last night. I told her I loved her and felt the fissure break inside of me when she said it back. Then I possessed her, taking her body even harder than she’d taken my heart.

  Stephanie finally untangled herself from me. I took her backpack from her shoulder and carried it as my arm went firmly around her and we walked together in the sunlight. Steph peeked up at me through her hair. Sometimes she still seemed surprised by the depth of my feelings, surprised to find me always there and wanting her. But I could admit when I’d been knocked on my ass. All the stories were true. Love was indomitable.

  And sometimes ruinous.

  I stopped walking.

  “What’s wrong?” Steph asked and I felt a shiver even though the day was warm.

  “Nothing,” I told her, kissing away her concern. “Let’s go get some lunch and then lay in your bed for the rest of the afternoon.”

  She ran a hand down my chest. “I’ve got a paper to do.”

  “You’ve got me to do.”

  Steph faced me and slipped her arms around my waist. “And you come first,” she said.

  “I’ll come first if you insist,” I teased and she laughed.

  She asked if we could go for pizza and I agreed even though I wasn’t hungry anymore. I knew where that bad thought had come from. It came from the same place all bad things came from. It came from Emblem. It came from watching a woman who had once been a beautiful, gifted artist devolve into a ruined shell. It was the story I was born into; me, Cordero and Creedence. A long time ago, before he was spread out all over a highway, Uncle Chrome had told me part of it, the part that he knew anyway. My father was his younger brother. Apparently it had started sweetly when violent, troubled Benton Gentry tossed aside the rest of his admirers for a radiant girl who had suffered a shattering family loss and was deposited in the middle of a crappy prison town in the desert. Chrome said he never saw Benton get hit by a lightning bolt the way he did when he first laid eyes on Maggie Kendrick. Maybe he’d wanted to protect her at first. Maybe he’d even loved her, before it all turned into a nightmare.

  From my earliest days I remembered always thinking that my father hated my mother. He hated her as much as he hated us, or maybe he hated her because of us. She’d given him three sons and every drop of her life’s blood but it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. And he took it.

  “Chase.” Stephanie was suddenly worried, sliding around to my side of the booth and putting her arms around me. I felt a tremor in right leg and balled my fists as I tried to keep it at bay. Yesterday Creed asked me if I’d been to a meeting lately. I told him to go take his own fucking inventory.

  “What’s wrong?” Steph asked, stroking my cheek. “You looked like you were going to be sick there for a minute.”

  The tremor of rage and weakness subsided. I unclenched my fists and touched her. I kept my voice light and easy. “Lust sickness, honey. Put me out of my misery, okay?”

  Stephanie wasn’t deceived. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said, rubbing my arm and planting a kiss on my shoulder.

  I put a napkin over my pizza, soaking up the grease. “Some demons are better left muzzled in their cages. Give them a voice and you give them too much.”

  She nodded and bit her lip. “I know,” she whispered, looking away as I paused in the act of lifting the pizza slice. Steph didn’t say shit just to commiserate. She didn’t agree just for the sake of agreeing. When she said ‘I know’ it was because she really knew. I was sure there were things that troubled her, things that had nothing to do with me. Sometimes I had to suppress the urge to drag it out of her so I could fix it.

  But I didn’t really have that power. I didn’t have it any more than she did.

  “I love you,” I said suddenly and wondered how long it would take for the words to stop sounding so surprising. They needed to be said right now though. They brought light into darkness when they were true.

  She gave me a happy smile. “I love you too, Chase.”

  Girls had told me that before. Some of them scattered those words around like fallen leaves. I had never said it back. I wasn’t a liar in that way.

  Stephanie swallowed a bite of pizza and started telling me about how Truly was trying to get her a job at Cluck This. Apparently, after Saylor quit a few weeks ago they were short on waitresses willing to stick around. I was surprised since Steph didn’t really seem like the waitress type.

  “How come?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Got to make some money somehow. I talked to my academic adviser about landing an internship next semester but that’s three months away. I ought to do something in the meantime.”

  Stephanie refused to talk about her bookie days. They’d only ended recently and I got the hint they’d ended badly. Since it was a sore subject I stayed away from it. My buddy Al might have been able to tell me. After, all he was involved with the same shit. But I never mentioned Stephanie’s name to him, even though I’d talked to him a fair amount recently as I started to get the hang of sports betting. I had made a pretty penny on the recent World Series but football seemed to be the biggest windfall. I remembered that this weekend the Cardinals were going to be playing the 49ers and made a mental note to give Al a call later, when Stephanie couldn’t hear. I felt mildly guilty for not telling her about any of it. But if she had bad memories, I didn’t want to dredge them up. Plus she’d warned me once about betting. She said if gamblers were really in the habit of winning all the time then there wouldn’t be bookies. I knew what I was doing though. I knew how to get out of the game before it started holding me underwater.

  I ran my hand up and down her leg. “You can practice by serving me.”

  She gave me a contemptuous look. It was insincere. I could tell from the blush in her cheeks and the way she squirmed in her seat. “Does everything have to turn dirty with you?”

  I twirled her hair around my fingers. “I am just trying to nurture your career aspirations.”

  She was battling a smile. “So you think I should abandon the whole business degree thing?”

  “I think you should let me help you.”

  “But Chase, you’ve already been so generous. When I think of all the ‘help’ you’ve already given me I almost can’t fucking breathe.”

  Now she was getting dirty and I had to shift my dick around to ease the ache. Stephanie climbed into my lap. I had never been reluctant about sex but she seriously drove me fucking nuts. If she thought she could get away with teasing me then she had another thing coming. I pulled her legs around me so that I had her positioned in a wide straddle. We were in a back booth and there weren’t many people around but we were still in public. Yet I wasn’t going to let that fact dissuade me from sticking my hand down her shorts.

  Stephanie shuddered because she wanted it but then she glanced around and decided to be shocked. “Chase,” she warned, pulling away.

&
nbsp; “You started it,” I growled and got her shorts all the way open. “Now you’re gonna learn that you can’t stop me from finishing it.”

  She was breathing hard. She didn’t want to stop me. “I already knew that,” she whispered in my ear.

  Then I looked up and suffered a boner killer. Cordero was standing four feet away and staring at me.

  “What are you up to?” he said and laughed.

  Stephanie was embarrassed. She slipped off my lap and kept her head down as Cord slid into the booth next to me.

  “Great timing, bro,” I muttered.

  “Shut up,” smiled Cord. “I probably just saved your ass from getting arrested.”

  Cord was all set to give me some more shit. He was enjoying this. Typically the shoe was on the other foot and I was the one hassling him. But he glanced over at Stephanie’s red face and decided not to add to her mortification.

  “You on break?” I asked smoothly, squeezing Steph’s hand under the table to let her know it was no big deal.

  “Yup. Just stopped by to grab a late lunch. I’ve got another four hours before I can head home to the little woman.” Cord was an amazing artist. He’d finally started putting it to good use when he began working in a tattoo shop shortly after he reconnected with Saylor. It was a good paycheck and he was good at it. He also evidently practiced on himself. I could swear that boy was sporting more ink every time I saw him.

  I shoved my slice at him. “Take mine.”

  “Look at you getting some manners, Chasyn.” Cord took a bite. His blue eyes shifted from me to Steph while he chewed. He swallowed and took a long drink of my soda.

  Stephanie tapped my shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

  I watched her as she headed for the women’s bathroom. Some dude sitting alone looked up from his phone to watch her pass. I could tell he liked what he saw. He licked his lips and I wanted to kick him. He needed to return to his goddamn status updates or whatever the fuck he was doing. That girl was all mine.

  “Shit,” Cord said and shook his head, taking another bite of pizza. “You’ve got it bad. Never thought I’d see the day.”