Page 12 of Eye Candy

CHAPTER 6

CAROLINE

Things that were sexy:saxophone solos, garters, high-cut thongs, and men with glasses.

Things that were not sexy: identity theft, getting spirit gum in your baby hairs, and goddamnchess.

There was so little I could do with chess! It wasn’t a sexy game and I barely knew how to play. Taking my top off had been a bold start and I regretted not saving that for a big finish. Not that Chase was affected anyway. He wasn’t checking me out at all. Not my neck, not my lush tits in their thin bra, nothing. He was too busy concentrating on the chessboard.

Not holding someone’s attention when half naked was a new experience for me.

I didn’t like it.

It was clear Chase didn’t like Teddy, now he wasn’t proving susceptible to Summer tactics either. Frankly, I was running out of characters.

Suddenly a huge grunt echoed through the loft, bouncing off the brick. “Gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

We leaped to our feet.

“What the?—?”

“Shh!” Without thinking, I reached out and clutched the front of Chase’s sweater. “Don’t wake Mi—uh, my special friend.”

The sound rang out again. “Kahhhhhhhhh… GOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRR!!!”

Minnie needed a doctor—there was no way that snore could be healthy.

Chase’s eyes darted around the apartment. “What the fuck? Is someone snoring?” His expression took on a suspicious edge. “Who’s here?”

I blinked at hisfuck.He said it easily, naturally. The idea that Chase might have profane depths at odds with his buttoned-up exterior made my belly flip as I imagined other scenarios in which that word left his lips—dark, clandestine scenarios in which I teased him until he snapped.

Abruptly, I let go of his sweater and tried to remember why I was here. “Yes. That’s snoring.”

Despite the tension of the moment, Chase reached up to fix the dips my grip had made in his expensive sweater, tugging until it was smooth again. “Who’s snoring in your apartment?”

“My lover.” I sent a quick mental apology to Mrs. C and the slumbering foghorn that was Minnie. “He’s sleeping. He needs to replenish his electrolytes. You know how it is.”

Chase shook his head. “Not really. I’ve never had casual sex. But of course, I wouldn’t judge someone else for doing so.”

This guy.

“He said, judgmentally,” I jibed.

Chase’s eyes flashed with a sternness I found very interesting and wanted to explore, but Minnie let out another grunty exhale.

“GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!”

The windows rattled, and the thick globes of the chandelier suspended from the ceiling of Mrs. C’s apartment quivered like they were alive with the fury of a masked composer’s sexual frustration.

Chase moved around the coffee table and tugged me towards him. Argument died on my lips when I realized he was moving me out from underneath the chandelier.

We were standing so close now, I saw what had looked blue from a distance, through the filter of his glasses, was actually much more complex. One iris was dark blue, the other was mostly blue with a large brown flare toward the base. Mesmerizing.

The pale scruff on his jaw caught the light, glinting. When he exhaled, his breath hit my forehead, and I went soft in his arms. I hadn’t meant to, but his embrace was secure without being crushing. Safe. The kind of hold I’d craved through months of stress trying to find burly work, stay afloat, and keep my worries a secret from Dad, Mike, and Lyssa. Sucking in lungfuls of the cologne I was obsessed with, I inadvertently pressed closer.

Being in Chase’s arms was nice.

His eyebrows, a russet kind of clay color, bunched together over his nose. Was that his habitual expression or just the one he wore when he looked at me? He was too beautiful for such an expression, although I loved being the cause of it.

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