SWNOVELS Chance: Chapter 47
“Are you sure you feel up to this?” Chance asked as he carried Rory inside, her legs wrapped around his waist, her mouth on his neck, his jaw, then on his mouth again so that neither of them could speak for a long moment.
“Yes. Definitely,” she whispered between kisses. “I need you, Chance.”
He needed her, too, but he didn’t want to hurt her. Not after what she’d been through. She’d been in a wreck, been scared for her life, watched a man get shot and tried to save him, then had to escape a burning building while dizzy and sick.
She’d had three days to rest, but was it enough? Emma said it was. He told himself Emma was right while Rory dragged his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor.
“Slow down, kitten,” he said when she went for his fly. “We’ve got all night.”
“All night doesn’t mean you take your time, Chancey Pants. It means you go for it like you might never have another shot. Then you do it again.”
His heart squeezed hard. He took her hands in his and stopped her from ripping his jeans off. “Baby, it’s not a race, and we aren’t in danger.”
He tugged her into his arms and held her against his chest. He could feel the tension in her body, the fear, and he hated it. He wanted to erase it and make her feel safe. Always.
He took his time, kissing her, caressing her, undressing her and worshipping every inch of her. The tension in her body leached away until they were finally locked together, limbs and breaths tangling as they made love in her four-poster bed with guitar music playing on the Bluetooth speaker.
She came first, crying out so sweetly as her orgasm rocked her. Chance was right behind her, pouring himself inside her as her walls gripped him, milking him for every last drop.
They lay together, breathing hard, happy and satisfied.
Rory propped herself on an elbow and gazed down at him. He tucked her hair behind her ear.
“I need to say something,” she said, frowning.
His heart hitched. “You can say anything to me, kitten.”
He meant it, too. Even if it hurt, he wanted to know.
“I spent some time on social media today. Looking at Mark and Tammy’s profiles, their pictures.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t know what I was looking for. Maybe somebody vague booking about being unhappy. I didn’t see any of that, but there was something else I didn’t see. Them looking happy. There are no family pictures that don’t look staged. The kids are always perfectly groomed, the background is always just so. There was no mess, no joy that I could see. Not that people have to live their authentic lives on social media because of course they don’t.”
“Social media isn’t real life, Rory.”
“I know. I post about the Dawg all the time, because it’s my job to market it, and I stage the hell out of the photos I share. But the Dawg is a business. My personal profile may go for weeks without an update. Not Tammy’s. She’s always posting. Like she’s trying to convince herself as much as anyone.”
She sighed. Chance didn’t know where this was going, but he didn’t want to interrupt her because he sensed she had a point that was important to her.
“Anyway, I wasn’t unhappy or upset looking at her stuff. When I looked at Mark’s pictures, I didn’t feel any of that old hurt I used to feel. Which, honestly, I think has been more about my lack of control over life than about the event itself. Yes, I was hurt when he ditched me. But I think I spun that hurt into something it wasn’t over the years. I built a brick wall around my heart and vowed it would never happen again. But you can’t stop things from happening. You can’t protect yourself from life.”
“Baby—”
She put a hand over his mouth, stopping him from talking. He’d been about to tell her that she couldn’t spend her life fearing people, that she didn’t need to because she had him.
“I’m not done. I was scared to feel vulnerable and out of control ever again. And I still am because who wants to feel that way, huh? But I also know that if I don’t share myself with someone, if I don’t let myself feel the gift of love, then I’ll only live half a life instead of the rich, full, messy life I’m supposed to live.”
She dragged in a breath and let it out again. “What I’m saying here is that I love you, Chancey Pants. It scares me spitless but I do. I want you in my life for the rest of my life. I trust you to take care of my heart, and I trust you not to boss me around too much.”
She took her hand off his mouth. She looked sweet and vulnerable at the same time, and he hurt for all the heartache she’d ever endured in her life. All he wanted was to make her endlessly happy.
“I love you too, Aurora Harper. So fucking much it hurts.”
She grinned mischievously. “Say Roll Tide for me then.”
He laughed. “Honey, it’s no contest. I’ll Roll Tide until the cows come home if it make you happy.”
“Nah, just kiss me again.”
He happily did.
A week later,Chance bought a ring. It wasn’t a big ring because Rory wouldn’t want that according to Emma. She had to work at the bar and she wouldn’t want to catch it on anything. Not to mention she was still a farm girl at heart. There were chickens and a garden to tend, a new master bath and laundry room to start building, and Clyde to maintain, though God knew Chance was going to do his best to keep her from doing any of it while she was pregnant.
Before he asked her for a long engagement, he was going to tell her about his job. His real job. Not the part about potential Armageddon, because that wasn’t allowed, but he could tell her what he was doing was important and necessary.
He’d cleared it with Ghost, who’d sighed and put his head in his hands. “You know the drill, Wraith.”
“I do, sir.”
Just like being in HOT. Operators hadn’t been allowed to tell their spouses what they were working on or where they were going when they deployed, but spouses knew their military person was a part of a special ops group. And that’s what he had to tell Rory.
When the time came, he took Rory to the range after hours. The guys were all there. Emma was there too. Rory blinked in confusion when they walked in and she saw everyone waiting.
“I feel like I’ve walked into a secret meeting,” she said with a laugh.
Chance squeezed her hand. “Kinda. I need to tell you something, kitten.”
“I’m all ears, Chancey Pants,” she said, taking a seat beside Emma.
“Uh, well, the six of us aren’t quite what we seem,” he began.
“No shit, Sherlock,” his beautiful lady replied. “If you plan to tell me y’all are working undercover or something, no duh.”
Chance blinked. Throats were cleared. Somebody coughed. Emma snorted. Ghost literally groaned.
“I didn’t say anything,” Chance blurted to his guys. “I never said a thing.”
“I didn’t either,” Emma said. “But I could have told you Rory already worked out that y’all are up to something. She works in a bar, you adorable idiots. Talks to all kinds of people all the time. She observes and she’s good at listening. She’s exactly the sort of person who’d put two and two together if she spent any time with you guys. Which she has and did.”
Rory shoulder bumped her friend. “Thanks, bestie. That’s a lot of nice stuff you said.”
“Well it’s true.” Emma folded her arms over her chest. “If they didn’t want you to know there was something going on, Chance should have kept his pants on.”
Which, coincidentally, was partly how Emma had guessed they were more than they seemed a few months ago. Because he’d had to take his pants off to show her his gunshot graze, not to mention the slice in his arm she’d had to sew up. And all of it in the middle of the night, which was totally not suspicious.
“Let’s not be hasty,” Rory said. “I like him with his pants off.”
Chance wasn’t the kind of guy to blush, but he could feel an uncharacteristic heat blooming inside. “No talking about my pants.”
“It’s what’s under your pants that’s interesting,” Rory added. “But I’ll quit now.”
Thank God.
The guys were snickering. Chance took a moment to glare at them in turn. Once the snickering was under control, he told Rory what they agreed he could tell her. It was the same thing Emma knew, which is that they were a special ops team reporting to the highest levels of government. Secrecy was vital because it was their lives on the line if their mission was compromised.
She took it seriously, which he knew she would once the jokes had gotten out of the way. When he finished, she came to his side and put her arm around him, facing his friends.
“I would never—never—do anything that would endanger any of you. I love Chance, and I love Emma Grace because she’s my bestie, and I’m seriously very fond of you guys. In fact, I probably low-key love you guys, too. Not like I love Chance, though there have been some books I’ve read where very interesting things have happened and—”
“Babe, no.”
Emma had turned her face into Blaze’s arm. She was shaking with laughter. Of course she was. She knew the kinds of books that Rory read.
“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, you saved me and Idgy from a psychopath, you were there to help fix the garden the instant Chance asked you, you helped put in the alarm system and cameras, and you showed up for me when I was about to turn into a slab of bacon. I owe you so much, but mostly I owe you for including Chancey Pants in your group when you moved here so I could meet him. He’s changed my life and I’m grateful for it.”
There was a knot in his throat. Chance fumbled in his pocket as he dropped to one knee. There was no better moment than when he had his family to witness his devotion to this woman.
When he brought the ring out, Rory slapped her hands to her mouth. He could see the tears glistening in her eyes.
“Aurora Harper, I love you. I want you to marry me at some undetermined date in the future, when you’re ready, and I want to live with you for the rest of my life. We can have the world’s longest engagement if that’s what you want. You don’t ever have to plan a wedding. And if you do, we can have it without bridesmaids if that makes you happy. Or we can just be engaged for the rest of our lives. I don’t care, so long as I spend it with you.”
Rory stretched one shaking hand toward the ring. When she held her hand still, he took that as his cue and slid it on her finger. Then he dragged her into his arms and kissed the fire out of her right there.
“I love you, Aurora.”
“I love you, too, Chancey Pants.”