Hard to Lose (The Play Hard Series Book 4) Read online

  No words.

  Just my hands relaying what I want. What my request is. And as if in perfect sync with my thoughts, she does what I want.

  She steps out of her shorts so that she’s standing in front of me in a black lacy bra, matching panties, and strappy sandals.

  Fucking perfection.

  “Gunner,” she says and tries to turn around, but is met with my lips kissing right above the swell of her ass in the middle of her back. My hands grip her hips, and I use my lips and tongue and stubble to taunt and tease the line of her spine. Each open-mouthed kiss a deliberate action. Slow. Methodical. Teasing.

  Torture for me on all levels.

  My fingers undo the clasp of her bra as my teeth scrape over the top of her shoulder. Her back arches and her head falls to my shoulder, as my hands slide to cup her breasts. To play with her nipples as my lips find the nape of her neck, then the underside of her ear.

  She speaks in moans, in gasps, in incoherent murmurs. In sounds that spur me on just as much as they turn me on.

  In motions—the bow of her back, the press of her ass into me, the shifting of her feet as I tease her every sense and create every sensation.

  My hands slide down her abdomen and dip beneath the waistband of her panties. They feather over her mound and then slide between the slickness awaiting me.

  It’s my groan this time when I find her so fucking wet as she spreads her legs for me. “Please,” she moans. My dick throbs against her ass, the need to bury itself to the hilt in that heaven owning my thoughts.

  Not yet.

  Not fucking yet.

  “Turn around.” My voice is gruff, edged with the need owning me.

  And I leave my one hand right where it is, fingers buried in the heat between her thighs as she turns to face me. Chase looks up at me from beneath desire-heavy lids, her lips parted, her cheeks flush, her eyes glazed.

  I lean in as if I’m going to kiss her but divert to her ear. “After I’m done with you, Chase, I assure you that kissing will never seem overrated again.”

  My lips close over her nipples. First one and then the other. Her hands slide through my hair and tighten with each suck, each lick, each tease. We take a few steps back, my hands pushing down her panties, until the tops of her thighs are against the edge of the pool table.

  I step between her legs and lift her up by the hips onto the table, shoving the balls to the other side so I can lay her down. We laugh as they ricochet back and gently hit her, but I don’t worry about them.

  There’s only one thing I’m focused on.

  Tasting her.

  Pleasuring her.

  I begin the same assault on the front of her that I did the line of her spine. Kisses. Licks. Scrapes of stubble. Down her abdomen, to her inner thigh, to the top of her mound.

  The scent of her arousal clouds my mind, owns my actions. I put my hands on her knees and push them farther apart to give me better access.

  Her moan is goddamn ecstasy as I lick my way down her slit and dip into her molten center. Her hand reaches for my hair again, and I welcome the pain as she pulls on it. Welcome, knowing what I’m doing to her as my tongue slides up and down, as I tease her clit before delving back down again.

  She’s heaven.

  She’s hell.

  She’s the temptation I can’t resist and the torture I willingly put myself through, so I can watch her come undone before I get mine.

  Her breaths grow shallow and her thighs tense against my shoulders as she comes. Her back arching, her hips writhing, her sex pulsing, my name a badge of success shouted from her lips.

  I come up for air from my insatiable need to have my mouth on her and simply watch her come down from her high.

  My body begs me to find mine.

  But the moment is too much to rush.

  She’s laid out on the table, hair fanned out against the green of it, her chest heaving, her eyes hazed with lust, and fuck if I’ve ever seen anything more stunning.

  Our eyes meet and there’s a moment where we stare at each other. Even as I pull my shirt over my head, the connection remains, as if there’s something we’re both saying but are afraid to put words to.

  She props herself up on her elbows and watches me as I undo my belt then unbutton my pants before shoving them to the floor. She keeps watching me as I jacket up and then run my hand over the length of my aching cock.

  “Chase,” I whisper as I lean forward.

  My lips meet hers. I can’t resist the need to kiss her anymore. Our kiss deepens as I take and demand. Fucking hell, the woman demands just as much in return.

  And I can’t hold back. With her taste on my tongue and her scent owning my thoughts, I bury myself inside her without a second thought.

  Our kiss stops.

  Our muscles tense.

  Our bodies freeze.

  Her moan owns the room as she adjusts her hips around me.

  The world stops for the briefest of moments, so that the only sound is the soft hum of music from the speakers above.

  Then I begin to move at a frenzied, desperate pace, unable to get enough of her. Her tongue. Her lips. Her hands. Her skin. Her pussy.

  This.

  Just this.

  Her.

  Just her.

  It’s all I can focus on as one of my hands holds the back of her neck and the other a cheek of her ass as we move together on the edge of the pool table.

  My beginning is her end.

  My exhale becomes her next inhale.

  Her tightening around me is my goddamn endgame.

  What the fuck is happening to me?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Chase

  Well, that definitely backfired.

  It’s my first thought as I wake up in my hotel room and come face to face with Gunner, sound asleep on the pillow beside me.

  I went back to the bar to prove to myself that this thing with Gunner was just sex. Just physical. And now I feel more tangled in him than the sheets wrapped around our legs.

  But how can I not?

  And why should I even try to deny whatever this twisty, turny, fluttery feeling I have is when I wake up to find him still warming the sheets beside me?

  That’s not normal for me.

  This is not normal.

  And yet, I can’t take my eyes off him nor deny the urge and desire to reach out and touch his face or the scars on his chest. To feel the bumps and ridges that mar him as I attempt to fathom the devastation he’s seen, and the unspeakable trauma he’s lived through.

  And it just goes to show that you never really know somebody, because all I’ve seen from Gunner is smiles and sweet charm. And up until last night and what Nix told me, I never would’ve known that there was turmoil beneath the surface. That Gunner struggles in silence and private from the things he’s experienced and seen.

  But isn’t that like most people? Everyone has things they hide from the world. The darkness that calls to them when it’s quiet and lonely.

  Is that why he keeps so busy? To keep the demons at bay?

  Is that why I keep so busy? To keep my demons at bay?

  I scoot closer and press a kiss to his chest, to his shoulder, and then snuggle into him. He reacts reflexively, pulling me against him with a murmured good morning before stilling when I press another kiss to his scars.

  And then another.

  His chest hitches as he holds his breath, but I press my hand against him so he knows I feel them—the ugly red ridges marring its surface.

  “Chase,” he murmurs.

  “These don’t scare me.” Another kiss pressed against his tensed pec. “They are a part of you and they don’t scare me.”

  I’m not sure how long we lie there like that, with him holding me close and my hands and cheek resting against the parts of him I can only imagine still remain a source of turmoil, but it’s quite a while. Enough time for me to start overthinking and questioning what the hell I’m doing, lying in a bed with a man cuddli
ng when I don’t cuddle—like ever—and when I have a mile-long list of shit to do.

  And it also makes me realize why I never stop, pause, think. Because when I do that, I see that although no one has ever seen my scars, they’re there. Gunner’s physical scars are fresh. And in some respects, his inner scars are too. But the loss of his dad so many years ago is an older scar that has contributed to who he is today.

  As do yours. But I won’t let anyone see those.

  Because you live as if they don’t exist.

  As if they haven’t contributed to who you are today.

  As if they will never see the light, find the place to heal.

  “You know it’s ridiculous that you’re staying here, right?” he finally says to break the silence bathing us, almost as if he knows I’m silently starting to freak out.

  “Not this again.” I laugh, thinking back to when he followed me back “home” last night to find out that my “home” was, in fact, the hotel.

  “Yes, this again.” He presses a kiss to the crown of my head and chuckles. “I told you I have a perfectly acceptable extra bedroom at my place that’s yours if you want it.”

  “And I believe I told you that there is no way I’m moving in with you.”

  His exasperated sigh fills the hotel room, as does the scrape of his stubble when he runs his hand over his face in frustration. “You wouldn’t be moving in with me. I . . . shit, I’ve roomed with a bunch of different characters in my time in the service. I’m looking at it as merely providing you a place to stay that’s not the local hotel.”

  I lean back and meet his eyes. “I thank you for the offer. I do.” I run a finger down the line of his chest. “But you told me you understand my independence and so—”

  “Independence and practicality are two completely separate things.”

  “I barely even know you, Gunner. I mean—”

  “You know the best parts of me though.” He grins and wiggles his hips against me.

  “I do believe I’m very partial to those best parts.” I laugh and roll over on top of him, taking the welcome change in topic. I push myself up to a seated position and straddle him. He grows hard beneath me, and it makes it very difficult to concentrate on him and this discussion and why exactly I’m saying no.

  “I’m not complaining one bit.” He adjusts his hips up so his hardness grinds perfectly against my softness.

  “From now on, everything I want from you, I’m going to tell you it’s overrated so that you kill me slowly with it.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Mm-hmm.” I sink my teeth into my bottom lip and nod as I take him in: his dark hair against the white pillow; his tanned, sculpted skin; the deep brown of his eyes that I keep telling myself not to get lost in.

  But it’s impossible. I seem to be getting swallowed whole by everything he is, and I’m at a complete loss over what to do or how I feel about it.

  “Are you telling me that last night I killed you slowly?” he asks with a cocky, lopsided grin, while I relive every glorious second in my mind.

  “Perhaps,” I tease and lean over to press a kiss to his lips.

  “Hey, Chase?” Gunner asks in between kisses as his hands find my hips and grab them.

  “Sex.”

  “Sex?” I laugh.

  “It’s completely overrated,” he grumbles, as I lift up and he positions himself at my entrance.

  “I see what you did there.” I sink down onto him. Inch by glorious inch.

  “What are you going to do about it?” he moans.

  “I guess it’s up to me to show you otherwise.”

  I rock my hips over him. His hands find my waist and guide me.

  Our eyes hold.

  Sure, we’re currently having sex—have had sex—but there’s intimacy to be said about this.

  To it being broad daylight, where I’m sitting atop him and all his scars are on display.

  And maybe, just maybe, some of my scars are trying to be seen too.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Chase

  “I don’t need a tour guide,” I say, looking at where Gunner is standing, shoulder resting against the doorjamb of my hotel room door.

  “I know, but you told Nix we were going on a date today so the last thing I want to do is stand you up on a date I never even asked you out on.”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  A smile toys at the corner of his lips. “Yes, you did.” He takes a step closer, smelling of soap and deodorant and everything desirable that is Gunner.

  When he left earlier after our morning romp, the last thing I expected was for him to return for the date I joked about last night.

  And now he’s here, looking like that, and all the work I have stacked on my desk—the work I desperately need to do—can suddenly be dealt with later.

  “I have work to do,” I say.

  “Ah, yes. The daunting thesis from our brilliant graduate student. New York University has a genius in their midst.” He gives me a half-cocked smirk that makes me want to snuggle in against him as a means to soothe the lie. “Should I call you Dr. Kincade, then?”

  “No. Please, no,” I sputter, my cheeks heating and head shaking. I never realized until this moment how ridiculous the thought of me being a psych major was.

  The last thing I like to do is to delve into my own mind and issues, let alone someone else’s.

  “Come play hooky with me.”

  “I have work to do,” I repeat half-heartedly.

  “It’ll be there later.” He takes a step toward me.

  “You don’t have anything with the boys today? The bar?”

  “No, to the boys. Yes, to the bar.” He shrugs. “So, see? We’ll spend our day together and then we can have that space—that Chase doesn’t do people time—tonight.”

  “You have this all planned out, don’t you?”

  “Indeed, I do.” His smile is like a little boy’s as he steps up to me. “Don’t I get brownie points?”

  “I think you’ve already been cashing in your brownie points.”

  “Brownie points are overrated,” he says and then smothers my laugh with a kiss.

  * * *

  “I should have warned you that I’m a horrific painter,” I say, looking across the table between easels at Gunner.

  “That makes two of us. I mean, she’s talking about fan brushes and techniques, and I’m over here just hoping that my painting will look better than a kindergartener’s.”

  Paint a portrait of your date or something that you associate with your date.

  That was our instruction when Gunner and I took seats across from each other amidst ten other couples here at Brushes ‘N’ Booze. It’s a modern barn on the outskirts of town, with enormous canvases lining its walls. They are bright and colorful—animals, flowers, everyday items—and they make the place feel artsy.

  Dotted around the floorspace are tables where two easels and chairs sit across from each other. The date table, as our host, Mimi, called them.

  “So we’ll get started in a moment,” Mimi says in her way too cheerful voice and adjusts her red horn-rimmed glasses. Her funky, personal style definitely reflects in the atmosphere she’s created here. “But I wanted to run over the gist of our event. It’s called speed painting with a little Brushes ‘N’ Booze spin on it. You have an hour to finish your painting.”

  “It’s timed?” Gunner laughs out incredulously, and the sound makes me feel so much more at ease knowing he’s already struggling like I am.

  “This was your idea.” I point my paintbrush at him and smile.

  “And in the theme of date night,” Mimi continues, “we’ll stop every five minutes for a random trivia question for you to answer about yourself to allow your date to get to know a little more about you.”

  Both our eyes widen at one another and we snicker. Neither of us knew about this component of the event when we decided to attend.

  “Could be interesting,” I say with a playful lif
t of my wine glass.

  “Let’s not hope they don’t play truth or dare,” he says, “or I’m in a whole lotta trouble.”

  “Are your truths that damning?”

  He smirks and that has my insides firing awake—but it’s not as if they aren’t already. I mean, look at him.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen and gentlemen, and ladies and ladies, your timer starts . . . now.”

  “And the pressure is on,” I stand and stare at the blank canvas in front of me, a mini panic attack starting over what to paint. It doesn’t help that our easels are staggered so that every time I look at the edge of it, Gunner is in the background, his good looks distracting me.

  And yet, I have to paint him or something that reminds me of him, when my painting abilities are subpar to my LEGO-building abilities.

  “The first five minutes are up, so it’s time for a date detail. Tell your date the one pet peeve you have. Like the one thing they could do that would annoy you.”

  “Ladies first,” Gunner says with narrowed eyes as he studies me.

  “Seriously?” I ask, suddenly hating being put on the spot.

  “I’ll go first next time,” he says and continues to work on what he’s painting of me. “We’ll switch.” He darts his eyes my way. “So what’s yours?”

  “There are so many to choose from.” I laugh and realize so far Gunner hasn’t done any of them. “I’ll go with slurping soup or the milk when someone eats cereal. The sounds drive me absolutely batty.”

  “Make note to self,” Gunner says, as he mock writes down a note.

  “And yours? What’s your pet peeve?”

  His eyes meet mine and amusement sparkles in them. “I get absolutely annoyed, furious, when someone cooks naked with just an apron and heels on.”

  “What?” I laugh as I stare at his grin.

  “I mean, it’s so unsanitary and most times the meal never ends up getting made because . . . well, for obvious reasons.”

  “Obvious reasons?” I ask and am on the receiving end of a devilish smile for an answer. “And do you get annoyed with this behavior often?”