The Debt 10 (Club Alpha) (2 page)

She wasn’t prepared for his vigorous
defense of what he’d done to get to the top of his profession, and Faith
realized that she’d been wrong about him.
 
And not only that, but she hadn’t realized how smart he was.
 

His passion had somehow managed to turn
her on.
 
She felt excited, sitting
so close to him, feeling the burning sense of need and intensity that Chase
Winters brought to every facet of his life.
 
She’d never felt so alive as she did
when she was near him.

“I was wrong,” she said, after some time
had gone by since either of them had spoken.

She saw his thick shoulders slowly drop a
fraction, and his hands lightened their grip on the wheel.
 
“My past might have been different from
yours,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance.
 
“But nothing about my life was
easy.”
 
The final sentence he spoke
was choked with emotion.

Faith swallowed, her heart beating fast.

Chase had never sounded this raw, this
vulnerable.
 
And she loved that he
was sharing this side of himself with her.

Her expression softened.
 
“I made a bunch of assumptions about you
and I’m sorry.”

Chase nodded.
 
“It’s okay.
 
Everybody does it.”

“I don’t want to be like everybody.”
 

He smiled.
 
“You’re not.
 
Far from it.”

Now Faith was smiling too.
 
She loved that he’d set her apart from
the crowd.
 
She wanted to occupy a
special place in his heart more than just about anything.

“I’m glad you gave me that advice about
not taking the easy road,” she said, deciding it was true.
 
Now that the harsh sting of his judgment
had worn off, she realized that it had been pinpoint accurate.
 

Chase was right about her.
 

She’d been taking the easy path in a lot
of ways.
 
She’d been scared, and so
she’d made excuses.

 
“Yeah?” he said, seemingly pleased with
her change of heart.

“Who knows, maybe you’ll rub off on me.”

They were in Beacon Hill now, which was
Chase’s neighborhood.
 
The elegant
brick buildings and homes were somehow reassuring to her.
 
She felt a little bit like a princess
being carted around by her prince in his chariot.

“I don’t know if you want me rubbing off
on you,” Chase said.
 
“Right about
now, most people don’t think I have much right to be telling anybody how to
succeed.”

“Why?
 
Because of one game where your team lost?”

He laughed cynically, as they came to a
stop and parked outside of his building.
 
“There aren’t all that many games in one football season,” he told
her.
 
“And that was an important
one.”

She stared at him, worried for him in a
way that she hadn’t anticipated.
 
“You shouldn’t listen to the critics, Chase.”

He smiled softly.
 
“I don’t really.
 
I mean, yeah, it burns me a little that
people are so quick to write me off because of one bad performance.
 
Shit, I’ve had plenty of bad games since
I started playing football.
 
If I
took every loss to heart, I’d have quit a long time ago.”

“So you’re not nervous about your next
game?”

“The other guys are the ones who should
be nervous,” he said, his eyes locking on hers intently.
 
“Because now I’m going to make them pay
for what everyone’s been saying about me.”

***

It was strange being back inside Chase’s
Beacon Hill home once again.
 
As he
led her inside, she looked around at the familiar surroundings and reminded
herself that this was real.

You’ve
been here before.
 
And it was a lot
of fun
.

It caused her to smile a secret grin.

“What’s so funny?” Chase asked, glancing
over at her as he went to the refrigerator.

“Nothing,” she answered, her cheeks
already flaming from embarrassment over what she’d been remembering.

“Want a beer?
 
I’m having one,” he told her, pulling a
Budweiser bottle out of the stainless steel fridge.

“Sure, why not?” she said, agreeably
shrugging.
 
At this point, any
resistance she might’ve felt about doing this again was gone.

I’ve
been fired, I’m probably going to be homeless soon.
 
But right now, there’s no place else I’d
rather be.

She laughed a little at the thought, and
as Chase approached with the bottle of beer, he regarded her with a bemused
look.
 
“Come on, Faith.
 
Penny for your thoughts.”

She took the ice-cold beer and sipped it,
noting that it tasted smooth and good.
 
“I was thinking that I don’t quite mind being fired right about now.”

Chase grinned as he took a long swig from
his bottle, looking at her as he did so.
 
He swallowed and nodded.
 
“I
couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he told her.
 
His grin faded as he stood in front of
her, his hulking, masculine presence both intimidating and exciting all at
once.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” she
said.
 
“You could’ve at least texted
me after the last time we hung out.”

He took another swig from his beer.
 
“Truth is,” he said, sighing, “I was
hoping to forget about you, Faith.”

“Why?”

“Because, I don’t need any more
complications in my life right now.
 
I’m trying to keep shit simple.”

She watched him as he paced in front of
the table—the table upon which he’d so forcefully screwed her the last
time they were together.
 
Her
nipples stiffened just remembering it.

“Well I don’t want to complicate your
life, Chase.”

Was
that true, though?
 
Maybe she did
want to complicate it.
 
If she
wanted anything, it was to be a part of his world, his thoughts, to be one of
the few things he truly cared about the way he cared about football.
 

“You might not want to, but women always
complicate things.”
 
He stared at
her, challenging her to deny it.

“What if I’m worth it?” she asked.

His nostrils flared.
 
“What if I’m not?”

“I’m not sure what would even make you
say that.”

“Because, I know who I am.
 
You don’t know anything about my life
and the things that I deal with.”

“But you could try trusting me enough to
tell me a few things,” she offered.
 

“I don’t know about that.”
 
He suddenly put his beer down and then
pulled his sweatshirt over his head, dropping it on one of the hard-backed
chairs.
 
Now he was in a tight,
frayed white t-shirt that displayed his arms, his chest, and she could see the
tattoos even through the thin material—just faint shadows for now.
 

Faith could hardly stand to look at him
without feeling like she was being overcome with the need of him, the
desperation for him.
 
She didn’t
want him to sense it, so she turned away and went to the leather couch,
dropping into it and sipping at her beer.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him
walking towards her.
 
“During the
Green Bay game, I was out there getting my ass kicked,” he said, as if she’d
asked about it and he was only now answering her.
 
“I was getting knocked around by these
fucking animals, hitting me from all sides.
 
And you know what I thought during the
worst of it?”

She finally looked up from her beer,
forcing her eyes to meet his, even though it made her chest ache and her belly
fill with butterflies.
 
“What did
you think?” she said.

He didn’t break eye contact with her as
he responded.
 
“I thought to myself,
I just want to go home and have Faith waiting there for me.
 
I want to say fuck it to this crazy
sport, and fuck all the people trying to take shit from me, all the people who
want something from me—and to go and be with the one person who actually
seems to want to give me something.”

His eyes were so intent on her as he
stood there, the most physically stunning man she’d ever seen in her life.
 
And he was looking only at her, and he’d
just told her things that couldn’t be true.
 
It must have been a dream, or she was
actually insane and drooling in some loony bin right now, having a
hallucination about the most famous football player in the world saying these
things to her.

“I don’t even know what to say,” she
finally gasped.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“I’m just confused.”

“This thing with you isn’t supposed to be
complicated,” he said.

“So this is a thing?” she said, raising
an eyebrow.
 
“What kind of thing is
it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.
 
And then he moved to the couch and sat
down next to her, and she slid over to make room for him.

His massive body nearly took up every
spare inch, and his legs were touching hers.
 
She felt her skin break into goose flesh
as he made physical contact.

“I feel like maybe I’m losing my mind,”
Faith admitted, laughing a little.
 

“Why?”

“This just seems surreal.
 
I mean, you’re—you’re you.”

“Last I checked,” he grinned, his eyes
burning into hers as she looked away.

“And I’m just some average girl.
 
I don’t know why you’re with me.”

“Don’t say that,” he told her, reaching
out and touching her face gently, causing her to look at him again.
 
His hand was so large that she couldn’t
even fathom how he could touch her so softly, so kindly.
 

“Is it wrong that I care about you
already, when we hardly even know each other?” she asked him, finally meeting
his gaze.
 

“I like that you’d even say that to me,”
he told her, sliding closer.
 
His
hand dropped to her leg and slid up and down on her thigh.
 
“Say it again.”

“What?
 
That I care about you?”

“Yeah,” he said.
 
“Say that again.”

She smiled, blushing.
 
“I care about you.”

He moved forward, leaning towards her
now.
 
“Say it again.”

“I…I care about you, Chase.”

“Again.”
 
Now his lips were almost touching hers,
and she could see clearly the bruising and red scratches around his eyes, the
split lip that was somehow sexier than anything she’d ever seen.

“I care about you,” she whispered, her
heart beating so fast, as his lips pushed against hers, and his tongue entered
her mouth.

She moaned, having wanted this so badly,
having thought about him almost nonstop since the moment they’d met.

And now, he was with her, and he was even
better than she remembered.

His lips teased her, sometimes gently
sucking and then other times becoming suddenly aggressive, as if he wanted to
open her mouth wider so that he could taste her more and more and more.

And then his hands were sliding up her
legs, to her waist, holding her momentarily as he kissed her.

As they became more and more fervent,
Chase’s hands slid up and cupped her breasts through her shirt.
 
He leaned in, pressing his significant
weight against her, as she slid back on the couch.

Chase was on top of her now, his body
hovering over hers, his arms holding his body up as he kissed her more deeply
now—so deeply that she felt her pussy moistening in anticipation.

Faith reached up and grabbed his strong,
tight buttocks with both hands and then pulled him into her hips, as she opened
her legs and locked them around him.

He grunted appreciatively, pressing his
bulging cock against her pussy.
 
They were both fully clothed, but his pressure stimulated her, and Faith
turned her head and cried out.

“Fuck, baby, I want you,” he groaned and
then sucked her earlobe as his hands grasped her breasts, greedy, thumbing her
nipples.