Falling for the Chase

Episode 53: Morning After

Episode 53: Morning After

The morning light streamed and spread across his exposed skin, gold against gold, and he let out an exhausted yawn. Chase's eyes scrunched up automatically as he turned onto his side and was greeted by the full effects of the sunlight. He felt his heart stop beating at the realization. It was past dawn; the sunlight already having risen and coming onto the scene to have its moment.

That meant...

His thoughts were interrupted by the bathroom door opening and closing.

His tired eyes felt a new strength of renewal as they cleared and captured the highest definition image of Valentina right out of the shower.

Jesus Christ, he thought in silent derision at her heavenly state. Just how much was she trying to kill him?

He could hardly form a sentence much less a meager greeting of "good morning," as she came closer to him.

He was officially breathless.

"Hi," she greeted softly, her eyes looking the brownest he had ever seen them.

The man didn't know what to say in response so all that came was a repetition of her own word, "Hi," very coarsely and unsure of himself.

That brought a laugh out of her so he didn't feel like a complete nincompoop after saying it.

"How are you feeling?" She asked and he had to swallow the urge to shoot back that he should be the one asking that question.

Truthfully, he was a tiny bit bitter that she even had the ability to walk after their endeavors last night. Not to mention she had managed to wake before him looking so effortlessly beautiful and tamed. He caught his reflection in the mirror and noticed that his appearance was the opposite of hers.

Just who screwed who here?

As if the universe heard his relatively unflattering thoughts, Valentina lifted the white towel to her hair and fixed him in a lazy gaze.

"You need to leave."

"What?" He asked in disbelief.

She gathered his scattered clothes off the floor while managing to keep the towel wrapped around her body secured.

Coming back up, she chucked the items at him. "One night, remember?"

They fell on his chest with a thud that echoed inside his heart.

One night of forgiveness...

She had been serious about it.

He didn't know why he had some silly, naive hope that she hadn't been.

Stripping away all the contents of her heart and the emotional discussions they had, Valentina was still hell-bent on not getting back together with him that easily.

It was one thing to claim her body versus her heart.

He hated how defeated he felt knowing that she had now closed all access to getting to it.

Swallowing the instinct to wrap his arms around her waist, lay her down on the bed and drown in her scent while trying to persuade her otherwise, he groaned and dug his face into the pillow. "This is why I didn't want the sun to come up." He mumbled inaudibly.

"What an ominous thing to say," the woman chuckled, not at all affected by what she was doing to him.

How much she was breaking him down after being the only one to pick up the broken fragments of him and piece them back together.