Kristen Ashley - Breathe

She was a craving.

Chace buried it and asked, “He keeps coming around?”

She blinked and asked back, “What?”

“This kid, you said you’ve tried to approach, the times you didn’t chase him down the street, he kept coming back?”

He saw her bubblegum lips twitch but she nodded and added her, “Yeah.”

“Right,” he muttered, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out his phone. “He comes back, you don’t approach. You call me.”

“Call you?”

“Yeah,” he bent his head to his phone and activated it, saying, “I wanna get a look at him. See if I know him or who his kin might be. Maybe find a way to make my own approach.”

“He doesn’t look familiar.”

Chace lifted his head and looked at her. “You lived here your whole life, Faye, but still, it’s likely I’ve met more folk around here than you have.”

“This is true,” she said softly.

Christ.

Cute.

“Give me your number,” he ordered.

She blinked.

Then she whispered, “What?”

“Your phone number. Give it to me. I’ll call you, you’ll have mine you can store in your cell.”

“Can’t you just give me yours and I’ll program it in my cell?” she suggested.

“I could. But, darlin’, things the way they’ve been…” he trailed off, shook his head and let that speak for itself. She might live in her books but the shit that’s gone down, he knew from the limited conversations they’d had, had not escaped her notice. “I’m not big on surprises. You need to call me, when my phone rings, I like to know what I’m dealin’ with before I answer it. I got your number, it’ll come up on caller ID.”

She nodded and pressed her lips together before she said quietly, “That makes sense.”

Then she stood there staring at him.

“Faye, your number?” he prompted and her body gave a slight start.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Right.” Then she gave him her number.

Chace punched it in and hit go. Her purse rang and he heard her making the moves to pull her phone out but he disconnected the call before she answered it. Then he hit buttons and programmed her into his phone while he heard her hitting buttons programming him in hers.

This meant access to Faye Goodknight’s voice whenever he wanted it.

Fuck.

He buried that as he shoved his phone back in his pocket and looked again at her.

“I also need you to bag a book he’s stolen and bring it to me,” he told her.

Her head cocked slightly to the side and she asked, “Why?”

“’Cause he might have hit the system. We can lift prints, we might find out who he is which might lead us to where he is.”

“Oh,” she again whispered, then another, “Right. Okay. I’ll do that.”

“Try not to handle it too much.”

“Uh… Chace, our books, at least some of them, are handled a lot.”

“We’ll sort out what we find, don’t worry about that.”

She nodded again.

“I need a physical description of the kid too. I’ll give it to the boys. They can keep their eyes peeled.”

More nodding then she described the kid and his behavior. Nothing she said struck him as familiar to any kid he’d seen. Seeing as everything she said was not good, if he’d seen him he would have noted him.

When she was done speaking, he started.

“I’ll talk to the boys, see if they’ve seen anything or heard anything. I’ll also do some digging to see if any reports were made. Way things were, they could have been ignored or buried. I’ll do what I can to uncover it if they have. Tomorrow, I’ll call Child Protection Services to see if they’ve had any reports we haven’t acted on or any at all. I’ll also swing by the school to talk to the principal and ask him to talk to his teachers to see if any of them have concerns, either reported or unreported. In the meantime, you bag a book he stole and call me. Tell me when you can bring it in. When you do, I’ll have an artist here who can take your description and give us a picture we can go on. That all good with you?”

“A police artist?” she asked, again looking at him with that expression of adorable, effective wonder.

“A police artist, yeah,” he answered, expending not a small amount of effort to ignore her look. “You might not think you’re good at describing someone but they’re trained to pull it out of you and they’re good at what they do.”

“A police artist,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Chace replied.

“And fingerprints.” She was still whispering.

“Yeah, Faye, got no clue who this kid is. Gotta do something to find him, find out what’s happening to him and put a stop to it. We don’t have a name. We don’t have an address. So we have to work with what we’ve got.”

She was still whispering when she repeated, “Put a stop to it.”

Now, Chace was confused. She seemed stunned. Not in a bad way, that wonder was still clear in her expression. But stunned all the same.

“Uh, yeah, Faye. That’s why you came here and reported this, isn’t it? To put a stop to bad shit happening to a kid. So, let’s set about doin’ that, yeah?”

He stopped speaking and she said nothing, just stared up at him, those blue eyes big and locked on him.

But Chace was done. Done with this conversation. Done with gathering info and giving detail on what they were going to do. And especially done with being in a private room with the town’s pretty librarian looking at him like he parted the Colorado River so she could get to the other side without the unnecessary hassle of getting wet. Something only her own personal miracle worker could offer her.

But Faye Goodknight was not done.

He’d know this when suddenly she was not two feet away but in his space. So far in his space, her soft body was pressed the length of his, her arms were around his shoulders, one hand curled around the back of his neck, fingers in his hair, putting pressure on to bend his head. And last, her mouth was pressed hard to his.

What the fuck?

He put his hands to her hips to push her away, his mind filled with how he could do that as gently as possible when her tongue came out and the tip touched his lips.

And at that, Chace’s body and mouth made another decision before his mind could catch up. This being his arms closing around her tight, his mouth opening over hers, his tongue spiking out, pushing hers back into her mouth and then he kissed her, very hard, very wet and very, very deep.

She didn’t taste like bubblegum.

She tasted like bubblemint. Sweet and fresh and fucking fantastic.

He kept one of his arms locked tight around her waist while he slid the other hand up her spine, her neck and into her hair.

Fucking hell, silk.

Better than he imagined.

Better than he could even dream.

He bent forward slightly, arching her over his arm, forcing her body deeper into his and she moaned a sweet, soft moan against his tongue.

It was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life.

In some faraway, vague recess of his mind that wasn’t intent on her body pressed against his, the feel of her hair in his hand, the taste of her on his tongue and what all that was doing to his body, he realized she had no clue what she was doing. She was along for his ride. A willing, eager participant, giving, opening herself to him and doing nothing more but letting him take what he wanted.

It was, by far, the best kiss he’d ever had.

And on that thought, his brain caught up to his mouth and body and he tore his mouth from hers as he curled his fingers into her waist and shoved her back roughly.

She retreated three steps, her body not in control with the force of his shove, before she righted herself.