Kristen Ashley - Breathe

“He’s not local, Frank,” Chace said quietly. “He’s a professional. He could be from anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Frank replied quietly then in a normal voice, “Old Man Harker’d pitch a fit, he knew this shit was goin’ down in his wood.”

Frank was not wrong about that. Old Man Harker died seven years ago, luckily before the major garbage started piling up at the CPD and they found a serial killer lived local. He’d given his wood to the city before that, he was that proud of it and he loved Carnal. Knowing blood had been spilled and mouths had been raped in a spot where Harker and many others in town thought a miracle had occurred, he’d lose his mind.

Luckily in this instance, he no longer had a mind to lose.

“This isn’t why I’m callin’,” Frank went on.

“Yeah?” Chace prompted.

“Like you asked when you called in yesterday, had the interns run the name Malachi. They report nothin’ comes up. No one is lookin’ for this kid. Or at least, if they are, they haven’t reported him missing.”

“Could be a fake name,” Chace muttered.

To which Frank asked incredulously, “Malachi?”

“The kid reads four, five books a week, Frank. So yeah, Malachi.”

At this, he felt Faye’s hand press into his chest and he dipped his chin to look at her to see he had her full attention.

Thus he muttered into the phone, “If you don’t have any more, Frank, appreciate the call but gotta go.”

To this, Frank asked searchingly, “Faye still there?”

Jon had opened his big fucking mouth.

Not a surprise but damned annoying.

“Gotta go,” Chace repeated.

“Right,” Frank murmured, a smile in his voice and Chace couldn’t see it but he bet it was knowing.

Jesus.

“Thanks for the call,” Chace told him.

“Not a problem. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday with Faye,” Frank replied.

He definitely would.

And yeah, Frank’s smile had been knowing.

“Later,” Chace gave his farewell.

“Later, buddy,” Frank gave his and Chace disconnected.

“Malachi? A professional?”

She didn’t even wait for him to toss his phone on the table which was what he did before answering.

Once he’d shifted into her, did that and brought them back, he told her, “Asked the interns to run the name Malachi, see if anyone reported him missing. They did. Nothing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It could mean a lot of things, honey. What it means most is that we gotta talk to this kid. He’s not registered in school. He’s not reported missing. He’s like a ghost and kids aren’t ghosts unless serious bad shit is going down. We gotta push the breakthrough tomorrow and get him talkin’. You gonna be up for that?”

She nodded immediately and Chace ran his hand up her back, pulling her closer as he did and dipping his face to hers.

“You gotta go gentle but you gotta get a good result. If you don’t, I’m steppin’ this shit up another way. We need him safe. We need him fed. So, it sucks, baby, but we need him in the system.”

She slid her bottom lip to the side and bit it. She often bit her lip. She often licked her lips. He’d learned to read why she did both. He didn’t see the slide and bite often but it usually meant she was either very nervous, feeling more than her normal shy or a little bit scared.

“He’ll be okay,” Chace assured gently.

She let her lip go and asked quietly, “What does stepping stuff up mean?”

What it meant was setting Deck on the kid. Deck would find him. Deck wouldn’t be outrun because he wouldn’t give up. And Deck would likely scare the shit out of the kid.

He didn’t tell her that.

Instead he said, “I’m still figurin’ that out. But we’ll hope we break through tomorrow. Yeah?”

She nodded.

Then she changed the subject.

“A professional?”

He shook his head and told her softly, “Police business, honey. Can’t talk about that.”

“The murder last night,” she guessed.

“Yeah,” he answered and she pressed in closer as her eyes went from holding his to studying him.

“That was unfun,” she whispered.

“It was but it’s also something I can’t talk about,” he replied.

“It brings up Misty,” she pushed and Chace sighed.

“Yeah, baby, it does.”

“You should –”

“No,” he cut her off.

She pressed in closer, opened those bubblegum lips of hers to say something and serious as fuck, she got closer, in his tee, with him on his couch, she pushed it, he’d give her anything she wanted.

So he had to shut this down.

“Give me this,” he said quietly and quickly she shut her mouth. “This day, with you after what you gave me last night. This one day, you and me and food and TV and champagne with the hamburgers I’m makin’ tonight and all of it good. All clean. All normal. All right. No Misty. No murder. No history. None of that garbage. Just us. You had what you had to give me last night to give once and I had it to get once. We shared that and it was beautiful. So let’s keep it beautiful, just us for a day. Tomorrow we can try to talk to abused kids and let the world back in. Today, tonight, give me,” he tightened his arm around her and finished, “this.”

“Okay,” she whispered immediately and he hadn’t even had to use the word “baby”.

Chace stared down into those blue eyes in that pretty face with those extraordinary cheekbones all of it surrounded by her fantastic hair looking up at him with warmth and understanding in her eyes and he knew in that instant he was falling in love.

Christ, he could have none of the beauty that met his eyes, her heart-shaped ass in his bed, the gift of her virginity and only have her giving in last night and just now when he needed her to and calling her folks to ream their asses about hassling him and it would have started happening.

But he had all of that and her being a geek, her imagination, her humor, her immense care for a kid she didn’t know and fuck him, he wasn’t teetering. He was halfway gone.

Ty and Tate had this. One was a brunette. One was a blonde. Neither of them were shy.

Both of them gave this.

Jesus. He got it.

And he had it in the curve of his arm.

Fuck, he wanted to make love to her.

Fuck.

He couldn’t without maybe causing her pain.

So he did what he could. He kissed her. He did it soft, he did it long, he got his hands up her shirt and she got her hands up his.

When he broke the kiss, he asked her softly if she wanted popcorn and to watch another episode of Psych. She grinned at him huge because she did.

Before they settled back in the couch with a bowl of microwave popcorn and cans of soda, he informed her she was again spending the night.

Not that it was a question.

But her answer?

She directed another huge-ass smile at him.

Then she whispered, “Okay.”

Six oh three the next morning

“Baby, wake up.”

I drifted out of sleep, my eyes opening and at what I saw, I was certain I was still dreaming.

Chace, sitting on the edge of the bed in a pair of those long, loose running shorts and one of those skintight running shirts that had the awesome stitching and a collar that went halfway up his neck, both navy blue.

How had I never seen this? I’d been avidly watching him for years. I’d even seen him run and this was on numerous occasions. He was usually wearing track pants and one of those tops with the half-zip at the throat (an outfit that was also awesome but not near as awesome as this one) or loose running shorts and a tee. Granted, if I got a look at him somewhere mid- to end of run, his shirt was plastered to him with sweat. Which, for Chace, was a good look.

Still.

This was much better.

I pried my eyes from the muscles outlined rather spectacularly by his shirt and blinked at his face.

When he had my eyes, he spoke softly, “Goin’ for a run. When I get back, I’ll take a quick shower. We’ll hit the store, pick up some shit for Malachi and grab a coffee before we go to the library.”

I wasn’t keeping up. I was in a haze from sleep, doing that sleeping next to him (which was yummy) and him looking super, double-dose hot in the morning. I couldn’t process the English language.

Therefore, I murmured, “What?”

He grinned and that didn’t make things better.

Then he leaned deeper into me so his grinning, handsome face was close. And, incidentally, so was the skintight shirt and the muscles it covered.

Therefore there was no way I would process his, “I’m goin’ for a run. We got shit to do when I get back and not much time to do it in so get your shower, I’ll grab a quick one when I get home and some food and we’ll move. Yeah?”

As he spoke, my eyes drifted down his chest and when he stopped speaking, some part of my brain registered it was my turn so I asked, “How do you get a shirt that tight on?”

“Faye,” he called and my eyes floated back up to him. When they hit his, his eyes moved over my face and he muttered, “Fuck, you this cute and sleepy when I talked to you all those times on the phone?”

“Probably,” I answered since it was a question but it also likely wasn’t the truth. He wasn’t looking hot sitting on the bed with me when I was talking to him on the phone. He was somewhere else just sounding hot. Now I had both.

“Fuck it,” he muttered like he wasn’t talking to me then carried on, “I’ll run after work.”