Page 40 of Playing with Forever (Players Club Sinners #1)

Andrea

V iolet went out of town for the weekend with some coworkers who were also her friends—some kind of we need to go camping in Joshua Tree before we kill all our clients and burn the casino down type thing—and to be honest, I was kind of grateful.

I loved my sister, but she was hovering, and between Violet and the nonstop bodyguards, I needed space. A weekend to myself at home would do me good.

Saturday was fine, except for the part where Ford awkwardly knocked on my door and asked me if I knew I could still go out somewhere if I wanted. I wasn’t on house arrest.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “Go away.” Then I slammed the door in his face.

That had felt really good to do. Ha.

The bodyguard who introduced himself to me on Sunday as Garrett was some newer guy I didn’t know, but he’d clearly been informed by Chase that his ass was grass if anything happened to me, because he did a whole perimeter sweep and checked my house before he went back to his car.

Once, I would’ve found it funny that a guy was so scared of Chase. Now, I just wanted to call Chase and tell him that if he was still so fucking paranoid, he could damn well just watch over me himself.

I went to bed on Sunday night, dreading the next day. Going into work could be a good distraction, and probably one I needed, but I just wanted to keep hiding away from the world.

Then, as if my subconscious wanted to punish me, I had a nightmare.

Chase was drowning in a pit of sand, and I couldn’t tug him up, no matter how hard I tried. I kept pulling and pulling, but he was still sinking under. I begged him to help me help him, but he wouldn’t even look at me. The sand swallowed him up, and I screamed, and screamed, and—

I jolted awake.

My breath was coming hard and fast. I stared up at the ceiling, trying to calm myself down. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a bad nightmare like that. All of this with Chase was seriously getting to me.

Maybe that was the real issue, at the end of the day. Chase was hurting over something and I wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let me. He’d literally rather be swallowed up, and hurt me as well, than address whatever the issue was. I wasn’t just brokenhearted over him. I was worried about him.

But if he wouldn’t talk about it, I couldn’t make him.

I got up out of bed to get myself a glass of water to calm my nerves.

Luckily our place was small. I couldn’t imagine how I’d handle a big house right now, everything dark and empty and echoing.

I grabbed a glass and filled it with water without even turning on the light, standing in the dark kitchen, enjoying the peace.

An odd scraping sound reached my ears.

I froze.

It was quiet—maybe I had imagined it?

There it was again. It was a sound that was familiar, but it took me a second to place it, because, I realized as my blood went cold, I’d only ever seen/heard it in movies.

Like horror movies.

Someone was picking the lock on the back door.

The glass of water nearly slipped out of my hand, but I clamped down and managed to set it in the sink. I couldn’t let this person know I was awake.

Trembling all over, I tiptoed in my pajamas to the front door. My heart hammered in my throat. I winced as I slowly undid the lock and turned the handle. Once the door was open, I slipped out, running across the street to the car that was parked, faithfully, on the opposite curb.

I banged on the rolled up window, and the bodyguard jolted, dropping the book he was reading. “There’s someone trying to get in to my place!”

To his credit, Garrett moved damn fast. He rushed out of the car and ran towards the house. I followed at a distance, burning with curiosity over who it could be even while simultaneously terrified that someone had tried to break in while I was alone and vulnerable.

There were crashing noises from inside the house and then the sound of the back door slamming. I hurried through to see a dark hooded figure hopping the back fence, the bodyguard just exiting the house to tear after him.

I waited in my doorway, trembling in the aftermath because I was fairly certain that whoever it had been was my stalker.

After a few minutes, the bodyguard came back, already on the phone to someone. He shook his head at me as he approached. “Whoever the guy is, he was fast. And I didn’t get a good look at him because of the hoodie he was wearing.”

Shortly thereafter, I could hear sirens in the distance and sighed.

Yeah, the police would have to be told about this.

They arrived just a few minutes later, but they weren’t the only ones.

A familiar car screeched to a halt in front of my house and Chase sprinted out, eyes wild.

I figured Garrett must have called him, along with the police.

“Andrea!?”

I was sitting on my front stoop at that point, in my bathrobe, feeling horribly embarrassed as police officers swarmed my place. “Hey.”

He reached me and immediately pulled me up so I was standing, checking me over for injuries. “You’re okay?” he asked frantically. “You’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine, Chase—”

Before I could say anything more, Chase was rounding on the bodyguard, his expression livid. “What the hell is wrong with you? The guy gets into her house and you were doing, what, a fucking crossword puzzle?”

“Chase!” I snapped in shock. “Garrett was in the car out front. How was he supposed to know that there was something going on at the back door? He chased the guy. He was right there the moment I called for help, leave him alone!”

Chase jammed his fingers through his hair and scowled. “Ford never should have let some wet-behind-the-ears guy take over surveillance tonight—”

“And this wouldn’t even be a problem if you didn’t kick me out, you idiotic jackass!” I finished heatedly.

Several officers stared at me for a moment, and then went back to what they were doing. My face burned with embarrassment, but I squared my shoulders and faced Chase down.

“I was safe when I was with you, but you made it clear that you didn’t want me around anymore,” I said, my anger rising. “That’s your choice, okay, fine. But I’m on my own now, and that means I’m going to do things my way. That also means that I might get hurt. You don’t get a say anymore.”

“You’re not alone,” Chase said, his voice low and rough with emotion, contradicting the closed off man I’d left behind that day I’d walked out of his place. “You’ll always have me to protect you.”

I jabbed him in the chest with my finger. “You protected me best when you had me in your bed.”

Garrett made a strangled noise and quickly found somewhere else to be. I didn’t blame him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Chase insisted, lips pressed into a firm line. “You’ll always have me there to protect you.”

He wasn’t making sense. None of this did.

“No, I don’t. You can’t have it both ways, Chase,” I said, confused by his words, and his behavior.

“What is wrong with you? You can’t be there for me and also push me away!

And I’m not going to stand around for weeks or months or years while you figure your shit out, because if there’s one thing I can thank you for, it’s teaching me that I deserve to stand up for myself, because the right person will appreciate it.

I know my worth now, so thank you, and that means I’m not going to—”

Chase grabbed me and yanked me to him, crushing his mouth to mine.

I gasped in surprise as he kissed me senseless.

My train of thought came to an end as my brain shut down.

Goddamn him for being such a good kisser.

I melted against him, my fingers curling into his t-shirt as I clung to him, kissing him back.

The police radio went off and I jolted, shoving Chase back as I came to my senses. I stared at him in shock. My lips tingled and my heart pounded. I couldn’t even begin to process what had just happened.

I shook my head and went inside my house while the police wrapped up outside, my body shaking. I didn’t understand what was going on. Why would Chase say those things to me and kiss me like I meant something to him?

“Andrea…” Chase followed me inside.

I whirled on him, feeling raw and confused after that kiss. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to go back and forth with me like this, playing with my emotions!”

“Andrea. Do you have any idea how lucky you were?” Chase’s gaze held mine, and he looked genuinely distraught. “If you hadn’t woken up for that water, you could be dead right now.”

He sounded shaken. Like he’d seen a ghost, and maybe he had.

Maybe it had been mine. “And do you want to know why I woke up in the first place?” I asked, swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat.

“I had a nightmare. About you. I dreamed you were sinking,” I whispered, feeling the hot sting of tears in my eyes as I remembered the vision.

“I couldn’t pull you out, because you wouldn’t let me.

I couldn’t save you. You chose to just… get swallowed up. ”

He flinched, and for a second I saw it—his soul stripped bare. He appeared to struggle internally with something, his jaw clenched and his eyes clouded over with memories. When his gaze finally came back into focus, his expression was somber.

“The police are going to go,” he said quietly. “Why don’t we make some coffee. I want to tell you something.”

I hesitated, but the vulnerability on his face wasn’t something I’d ever seen from him before and it softened my anger toward him. I wasn’t ready to forgive him for pushing me out of his life, but I could sense that this was important to him, and I needed to hear what he had to say.

With statements given and evidence taken, the police finally cleared out, and the poor guy assigned to watch me went home for the night. I brewed coffee, and Chase and I settled down on the couch.

He was silent for a long moment, leaning forward, hands clasped between his widespread legs, his gaze on the floor. He seemed to be trying to figure out what to say and I waited patiently for him to speak.

“I have these nightmares,” he finally said quietly.

“It’s always the same and they always feel real to me.

I have a lot of shit that I carry from my time in the military.

An assignment that went sideways, losing people I cared about because I couldn’t control the fact that we’d been given bad intel.

These soldiers were my responsibility, and they died. ”

My throat tightened, and I reached out and grabbed one of his hands. Much to my relief he didn’t pull away, just laced our fingers together tighter.

“I’ve gone to therapy for my PTSD but… I don’t know, I still feel pretty fucked up.

” He exhaled a long breath and met my gaze.

“And these nightmares I have…there have been times when I’ve woken up with my hands around a pillow, because in my dream I was choking out an enemy, and the possibility of me doing something like that to you scares the shit out of me. ”

It was hard to hear what he was saying, but I sat beside him, silent, letting him finish while I listened.

“All I wanted to do was protect you from me,” he continued. “I thought I was doing the right thing, that if I pushed you away now, it would hurt less than if I let you all the way in and failed you later. The thought of ever hurting you, Andrea…” He shook his head and shuddered.

I’d never heard him sound like this, like the emotion was choking him. It made my heart, my lungs, my very bones ache.

I gently disentangled our hands so that I could move over, climbing right into Chase’s lap and looping my arms around his shoulders, holding him tightly.

He stiffened at first, startled, then slowly, achingly, he relaxed against me.

His arms locked around my waist, his face pressing into my throat like he needed the contact just to breathe.

“I thought I could do this alone,” he whispered against my neck. “I thought I had to…until you.”

“You’re not alone, Chase.” I took his face in my hands, needing to look into his eyes.

“You have me and I’m not going anywhere.

But you need to stop pushing me away, because I’m going to keep coming back, until you finally see what I already know.

You’re not broken. You’re just a man who’s been through hell.

And I’ll walk through it with you, in any way you need, if you let me. ”

“It’s effort, Andrea,” he said gruffly. “I’m not going to pretend it isn’t going to take work.”

“And you’re worth that effort, Chase.” I said, meaning it.

“You are worth it, to me . I promise. Yes, you are my dom, you are in charge when we’re playing, but that’s not what I want our relationship to be all the time.

I want us to be equal. You take good care of me, so let me take good care of you. Let me be there for you.”

Chase tightened his grip on me, then kissed me again, but this time it wasn’t desperate, it was reverent and sweet. Like he was finally coming up for air and choosing to believe that he could truly have it all.

“Take me back to your place, Chase,” I murmured against his lips.

“I won’t let you leave again, if I do,” Chase warned me, but he was grinning now. “I don’t plan on letting you go ever again.”

“That sounds good to me,” I whispered. I kissed his cheek, and pressed our foreheads together.

We stayed like that, holding each other for a long, long time.