It’s all I can rationalize as I jog up the walk, needing her more than I’ve ever needed someone before.

No fucking regrets.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Chase

“CHASE?” GUNNER’S VOICE AND THE slam of the door that follows takes me by total surprise.

He’s supposed to be at the bar. He’s not supposed to be home until two in the morning.

In an act of desperation, I take all my work—notepads and endorsement contracts and . . . freaking everything I have on the desk in front of me—and shove it into my oversized bag so he doesn’t see it.

“In here,” I stutter and snap my laptop shut before tripping over my bag—which in turn regurgitates some of its contents back out. With haste, I shove it back in and practically jog to find out why he’s home.

“Gunner? Is everything okay?” I ask as I clear the family room to find him standing there. His T-shirt has a small sweat-darkened V around his neck and his chest is heaving, but it’s the look on his face that owns me. Confusion. Melancholy. Need. “Gunner?”

He crosses the room towards me and without a single word, wraps his arms around me, pressing my back to the wall, and kisses me.

There’s desperation to the kiss. Urgency. An underlying emotion I can’t place.

“I just need you right now, Chase,” he says when he comes up for air. “I just fucking need you.”

Our eyes meet, and I know in that moment anything he asks for is his. After the emotion with Joey today and the look in his eyes now, it’s clear he’s struggling and needs connection.

I don’t know what I can offer besides getting lost in us, but I’m here. I’m his.

He doesn’t say another word. Instead he kisses me again, the pace a little slower, the emotion in it almost palpable.

“Chase,” he whispers as he pulls my shirt over my head and closes his lips over my bra-clad breast. “I just need you.”

“I’m here,” I whisper as I pull his shirt off too.

There’s no forethought to our actions. No planning to move to a bed or make sure we’ve given each other equal foreplay. There’s just him and me and this swell of unexpected pain that’s drowning us whole.

My hands run over the lines of his body. Sculpted edges marred with raised scar tissue. My lips express words I don’t speak. My body pressed tightly against his, showing him that I’m here for him however he wants or needs.

Words are irrelevant as we move toward the bedroom. The only break in kissing is when clothes are discarded. The only breath of air is the other’s exhale.