Archive of Our Own

“You waiting for someone, darling?” purred a low voice.

Chase blinked as Nana, in her Liuqi persona, melted out of the crowd in front of him, partially obstructing his view of the room. They were supposed to be pretending they didn’t know each other as they cased Los Santos’ newest nightclub (and potential den of new crime), but if she was making contact, it was probably urgent.

He wasn’t T-bag tonight—the mask and tracksuit would’ve been out of place among the clientele here at Club Eclipse. Instead he was Rush Fleetwood, financial consultant from San Fierro in town for the weekend, and Rush would never turn away the company of a beautiful woman.

Chase as Rush gave Liuqi a lingering once-over. She wore a tight, high-necked, long-sleeved, navy blue dress that covered up her scars, clung to every curve, and ended mid-thigh, revealing what seemed like miles of shapely long legs shod in killer black heels. She’d opted for a black wig tonight, shoulder-length with thick blunt bangs. And she must have had someone helping her get ready for the op tonight because this was more make up than he’d ever seen her wear—dramatic smoky eyes with outrageously long false eyelashes and bold dark red lips. If he didn’t know Nana so well, she’d be nigh unrecognizable.

He smirked, settling back against the booth seat. “Waiting for you, sweet thing,” he said, in Rush’s gravelly baritone. “Join me?”

He’d barely finished his question before she sat down, practically in his lap. She cupped his face in one hand and leaned in to speak into his ear, keeping her face between his and the rest of the club. “Luca Santos and the Batchelors just walked in,” she murmured urgently, tone at odds with the way she was stroking teasingly at his jawline with her fingertips; an outsider looking in would only think she was whispering sweet nothings into his ear.

God damn it. Luca Santos, always at the scene of the frickin’ crime. He understood why she’d broken with their plan now. Shelby and Hilby’s Bo and Gan identities were solid and she looked sufficiently different that they probably wouldn’t recognize her, but the most they’d done for him was slick his hair back and chalk some gray into his beard, temples and hair to try to make him look a little older. Chances were pretty good that the Batchelors might recognize him

“Shit,” Chase hissed, shifting to curl one arm around her waist, leaning in to maintain the facade of a canoodling couple and hopefully hiding his face more effectively.

He’d chosen this spot because of its view of the front entrance, as well as its proximity to the side entrance leading to the private rooms where the criminal underworld was supposedly meeting to wheel and deal. It was just his luck that said location was now blowing up in his face.

“Where are they right now?” he asked, nuzzling his face into her neck. It’s for the cover, he told himself. It’s for the cover, it’s for the cover, it’s—huh.

She was wearing perfume.

She never wore perfume.

The scent filling his nose was dark and earthy and…ah, hell, he didn’t know a thing about fragrances and what exactly he was smelling beyond the fact that it was making his head spin a little in a way that had nothing to do with the stress of the situation.

He felt her shiver, then giggle and pretend to look away coyly in order to sneak a glance over her shoulder. “At our 10 o’clock,” she reported back, breath tickling his ear as she toyed with the collar of his shirt. It was his turn to fight a shiver. “They’re definitely taking stock of the crowd.”

“Shit,” Chase repeated. “If they’re here just to mingle that’s worse.” God, please let them be here for a meeting, he begged silently; at least that way they’d only have to worry about making sure they didn’t clock him for so long.

“Oi, mates.” Shelby’s voice, still in Bo’s exaggerated twang, was hushed but urgent over the comm tucked in Chase’s ear. “You’ve got incoming. Looks like the Batchelors are being led to the lounge area.”

Chase snapped his head up to meet Nana’s equally panicked eyes. In his peripheral vision, he could just make out a clump of white-suited figures heading in their direction.

“Can you guys get out of there?” Hillby asked worriedly. He also sounded like he was trying to keep his voice down from wherever he was stationed in the club.

“Not enough time,” said Shelby, voice clipped. This was Captain Shelby speaking, not Bo. “They’re about 6 or 7 meters away, it’ll be suspicious if they run off now.”

Meters?! Damn it, Shelby, this was Los Santos, what was that in normal—

Chase didn’t get to finish his thought before Roku Nana, with a muttered “So sorry about this,” swung a leg over to straddle him, grabbed his face in both hands, and planted one on him.

“Planted one on him” was perhaps a generous way to put it. It was more like she was shoving their faces together. It was kind of terrible, he wasn’t gonna lie. Her mouth against his was firmly closed and his lips were being mashed uncomfortably against his teeth. It couldn’t have been more clear that she didn’t know what she was doing and honestly…given everything he knew about her? Yea, that tracked. He supposed he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t have a lot of experience in this domain, but damn, this was both figuratively and literally painful.

Over the comms he heard Hillby’s gasp of delight and an amused “Well, that works” from Shelby. He groaned internally.

They were never, ever living this down.

This was not how he expected their first kiss to happen. Not that he’d been thinking about it. In fact, he’d been trying very hard not to think about kissing her at all. Not until he’d…anyway, what was done was done, it was happening, and if they were going to do this, he wasn’t going to spend however long this was going to take getting his lips continually crushed, like, damn, Roku Nana, chill. They needed to make this look convincing. For the cover.

He sat up a little, cupping one hand around the back of her neck (reminding himself not to disturb the wig), and the other around the curve of her jaw, gently easing her back until he could mutter against her mouth, “Hold on, hold on, let me just—”

Breathing shakily, she backed off slightly, letting him guide her face to a better angle before he pulled her in by the back of her neck. Sliding the hand he had on her jaw to her chin, he used his thumb to apply just the slightest bit of pressure, encouraging her to open her mouth, letting him fit his lips between hers. He sipped gently at her bottom lip, then the top one, keeping the movement slow and exploratory, teaching, coaxing. Like this, do you understand?

When he kissed her bottom lip again, she tried to mimic him, tentative and questioning. He hummed in approval, lightly massaging the back of her neck in reassurance. Yes, like that.

She made a soft noise in response, sliding her hands down his neck and curling them around the lapels of his blazer, drawing him closer as she kissed him back. She was a little surer now, still questioning but in a curious rather than uncertain way.

Somewhere behind them, quiet at first, then louder as they drew closer, he heard a woman’s voice, most likely the hostess’, saying, “...if you’ll just wait here, Mr. O’Goode will be ready for you in no time I’m sure. Can I get you gentlemen anything to drink in the meantime?”

Their kissing slowed to a standstill as they strained to hear the conversation.

He breathed out through his nose in relief when he heard several familiar voices decline the offer of drinks. So they were here for a meeting, which meant they just needed to sell this for a little longer. Thank god.

Chase slid his hands down to her hips, squeezing reassuringly. They still had a show to put on. He tilted his head the other way, meeting her lips with more pressure now and she matched him with an honest, if unpolished, enthusiasm that sent a thrill deep into his core. His hands seemed to have developed a mind of their own, sweeping up and down the length of her spine, measuring the span of her ribcage, the narrow of her waist, the round of her hips,and flirting with the curve of her backside.

She pulled away, gasping for breath, and he couldn’t help but chase after her, already missing her. “Sorry,” she whispered, panting, breaths puffing against his lips as she rested her forehead against his.

He kissed her, sweet and brief, nuzzling his nose against hers. “S’ok, just breathe through your nose, baby,” he mumbled against her mouth, unthinkingly.

She jerked in his arms, breath stuttering, and made a choked noise. It took a half-second for his brain to replay what he’d said and another for his heart to drop into the pit of his stomach as panic started to bubble up.

“I—” he started, intending to apologize, when she threw her arms around his neck with a whine and caught his lips in a desperate kiss, hungry and wanting. He met her with equal ferocity, relief suffusing his entire being, gathering her up until there was no space left between them and still wanting her even closer.

It was ok, he told himself. It wasn’t them. They weren’t Chase McCarthy and Roku Nana right now. It was Rush Fleetwood and Liuqi.

That was Rush’s teeth, biting gently into her lower lip.

That was Rush’s tongue, licking and soothing where he’d bitten.

That was Rush’s hands on her bare thighs, caressing taut muscle under smooth skin.

That was Rush dragging kisses up her jawline, behind her ear, grazing her earlobe with his teeth while she shuddered and gasped sweetly.

Those were Liuqi’s nails, scratching at his scalp, the sensitive skin at the back of his neck, sending sparks of sensation down his spine.

That was Liuqi’s pulse, fluttering like a hummingbird against his lips.

That was Liuqi’s hands in his hair, dragging his face back up to hers.

That was Liuqi’s scent in his lungs, mysterious and intoxicating.

It was easy to lose himself in the character, in long drugging kisses and wandering hands. The background music and chatter went away, his world narrowing until it was just the two of them. He drank down her sighs, every involuntary noise she made, reveled in the sounds of their lips meeting and parting. She was warm and alive in his arms, passionate and eager, a pleasing weight in his lap. God he’d never get enough—

He was rudely pulled out of his reverie by a hand shaking him by the shoulder.

“Oi, oi, get a room you two,” he heard Shelby drawl, smug and amused.

Chase and Nana sprang apart, startled.

“Uh, what?” she gasped, adjusting her dress and pulling down the hem where it’d ridden up.

“Are they—” Chase started, trying to turn to see if the Batchelors were still around.

“Oh, they’ve been gone for a bit,” said Hillby, who looked like the proverbial cat who got the cream. “We’ve been trying to comm you for a good 5 minutes but y’all were a bit…distracted.”

“Um,” said Nana.

“Uh,” said Chase.

Shelby tossed a wildly patterned bandanna at him. “You got a little something on your…” Shelby smirked and pointed at his mouth.

Chase scowled, face burning, but wiped his mouth with it all the same. Then he stopped and looked at Nana and…oh. That lipstick was gone.

“Um, here,” he said awkwardly, moving to wipe at her face, before pausing, uncertain. “Your uh, lipstick.”

It was hard to tell in the dim light of the club, but he had the suspicion she was blushing just as violently as he was. She took the bandanna from his nerveless fingers. “Thanks,” she said, weakly. “Um, let me just…” She wiped at his face where presumably he’d missed some of the lipstick smears, before trying to fix her own face.

Hillby and Shelby’s snickers in the background were not helpful.

“Is it…am I good?” Nana asked when she was done wiping her face, unable to meet his eyes.

Chase cleared his throat. “Um, you just have…I’ll just…” He paused, then used his thumb to rub at a stain left on her chin. “There. Uh…all good.”

“Oh. Thanks.” It seemed to occur to Nana that she was still in his lap because she suddenly scrambled off of him, apologizing.

“No, it’s fine. Um, a-anytime.” The implications of what he said sank in and he rushed to clarify: “I mean, not that there’s going to be—I just meant—”

“No, no, I know what you meant!”

“I wasn’t suggesting—”

“No, yea, you’re totally fine—”

“Y’all are adorable,” said Hillby, fondly.

They paused in their frantic attempts at mutual reassurance to glare at him.

Hillby raised both hands defensively. “What? It’s true. Stop trying to kill me with your eyes!” He shuffled back and behind Shelby a bit.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the night off?” said Shelby. “Bo and Gan can handle this.”

“What? No!” Chase protested.

“I can stay, it’s not a problem—” Nana began.

“Don’t make me make it an order,” Shelby warned. “McCarthy, you know you can’t stay. Might as well take Roku with you.”

“I’m sure y’all can figure out something to do for the rest of the night,” Hillby teased, then squeaked and retreated behind Shelby again under the combined force of Chase and Roku Nana’s death glares.

“Go, have a nice night,” said Shelby. “Pretend like you’re annoyed that we were taking the piss out of ya and have Rush take his lady friend home.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Chase.

Chase clenched his jaw, breathing out hard through his nose. “Fine,” he bit out. “Let’s go, babe,” he said, louder, in Rush’s voice, taking her hand.

Nana…Liuqi allowed him to take her hand, helping her up off the seat, and after the barest hesitation, tucked herself under his arm against his side.

They made their way out of the nightclub, Nana pretending to be slightly tipsy and stumbling, leaning most of her weight on him until they reached the silver Supra he’d gotten specifically for this cover. He unlocked the doors and helped her in before getting into the driver’s seat.

He didn’t start the car immediately, trying to get his bearings. Trying to figure out what he was supposed to say now.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Nana said first, breaking the silence, voice hushed and almost…ashamed. “For springing that on you. I didn’t mean to…to force myself on you or—”

“No, no,” Chase rushed to reassure her. “It was…that was quick thinking. You did a…you did a good job. I’m…it was fine.”

“...right,” Nana said quietly, still sounding unconvinced.

“It wasn’t even us, really,” Chase continued. “It was our covers. You know?” He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince harder—himself or her.

“Right…yea, sure,” she replied, after a beat, and he couldn’t tell if she actually believed it or if she was just playing along.

Chase swallowed. “So like…we’re good, right?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her turn to look at him. And after a few seconds, he looked over to meet her gaze.

She looked very solemn in the dim light, shadows obscuring half of her face, already made unfamiliar by her wig and make up. There was very little of his Roku Nana…of the Roku Nana he knew here, and he could almost believe his own lie—that all this happened to other people.

The silence stretched, ponderously, eating away at his nerves.

“We’re good,” she said quietly, at last, expression still inscrutable.

He searched her face for any clues as to what she was really thinking. She gave nothing away.

“...ok,” he replied. “That’s…good.” He cleared his throat and started the car, engine purring to life with a muted hum. “I’ll, uh, drive you home.”

She huffed a small laugh. “We live in the same apartment building.”

That was good right? A little laughter, a little levity? They were totally good.

“Well, yea, but you know what I mean,” he said, guiding the car out of the parking lot.

“Right…thanks, Chase.”

“Anytime.”

So…maybe they weren’t good.

Or rather, Chase wasn’t good.

He threw the covers off and sat up, finally conceding that sleep wasn’t coming anytime soon.

He was an idiot. He was a goddamn idiot for thinking that they could come back from this, or that he could compartmentalize and pretend it happened to someone else. Because all he could think about was kissing her again. It was like opening Pandora’s fricking box and he didn’t know how to…put it away again. If he even could.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and got out of bed, intending to get a glass of water. He was halfway to the kitchen when he stopped dead in the middle of his living room space.

He didn’t often experience epiphanies at 2 in the morning, but it struck him all of a sudden that she was all over his apartment.

Here was the couch he’d bought after they’d spent two full Saturdays visiting furniture shops, trying out dozens of seating while debating the merits of leather vs performance fabric, as part of their mutual resolution to remedy the sad “male living space” state of their apartments.

His coffee and end tables were flea market pieces that he’d been prepared to pay full asking price for, until Rikka, horrified and vaguely offended, cut in. (The haggling session that followed was both terrifying and impressive and he’d honestly felt quite sorry for the seller when he paid the final negotiated amount.)

She’d gifted him that print of a car driving down a rainy city street when he’d gotten his first commendation and they’d bickered for a full 30 minutes about the best place in the apartment to hang it. (She’d won, of course, and it hung now above the bookshelf he’d ordered off Marketplace.)

If he opened his cupboard to get that glass he was looking for, he’d find the same set of dishware that she owned, because they were on sale when they’d gone shopping at W mart.

His fridge held her favorite drinks, his pantry was stocked with her favorite snacks.

There was a half-chewed rawhide toy on the rug in front of the TV where Buddy liked to lay while they binged Brooklyn Nine Nine, plus a basket filled with more dog toys next to the entertainment center. He even had treats and a water dish in his kitchen and it wasn’t even his damn dog.

He’d spent how many months trying to tell himself that he wasn’t sure if he was ready to let anyone else in after Parker? And here it was: the undeniable evidence that she was already absolutely and inextricably entwined in every single aspect of his life.

He really was an idiot.

He jumped when the sound of his doorbell split the contemplative silence of the apartment. Befuddled, he checked the clock just to confirm it was, in fact, ass-o-clock in the morning. Once he established that indeed it was and also that he was awake and not experiencing a fever dream, he cautiously padded to his door and took a peek through the peephole.

It was Rikka.

He inhaled sharply, stepping back. What was she doing here at this time of night? How had she known he was even awake? Had he summoned her somehow? What—

She was knocking now, a quiet rap-rap-rap.

He took two seconds to smooth down his hair, then fumbled to unlock his door with clumsy fingers. He took a fortifying breath and eased the door open, squinting against the brightness of the hallway lights.

Rikka blinked owlishly at him, barefaced and familiar again, chewing nervously at her lips while wringing her hands. She was wearing a faded gray police academy shirt with bunny-patterned sleep shorts and…were those fuzzy cat slippers?

“Um,” she said.

“Uh…hi,” he responded.

They stared at each other in awkward silence for several long seconds, until she blurted out, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Uh…yea, I—” his voice cracked, scratchy despite having gotten no sleep, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “Me too. Um. Obviously.”

“Right...obviously…” She trailed off and looked at the floor.

He waited for her to elaborate and when she didn’t, he scratched at his neck and stepped back a half-step. “Do you want to come in or…?”

Her head snapped up and she looked slightly panicked. “No! I mean—” she cleared her throat and lowered her voice again, clearly trying to be mindful of the neighbors. “No, thank you. I um…I just needed to say something and I’d prefer to have a quick escape route, if needed.”

A sense of unease began to grow in the pit of his stomach. “Um…wh-why would you need to escape?”

She flushed and looked down at her hands, picking at the skin around her nails. “It’s not because—I don’t think anything bad…that you’ll do anything or that I’m afraid of you, per se. I just—” She blew out a frustrated breath, clearly struggling to articulate her thoughts. “I just…want to be able to get away so I can die of embarrassment in private instead of in front of you if…if this doesn’t go well.”

“Ok…” he said, dubiously, dragging the syllables out. The sense of unease continued to grow. “If…yea, if it makes you feel better, I guess?”

“Right…thanks,” she said, nodding jerkily. “Chase, I—” she closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths, centering herself. When she opened them again, she looked him in the eye, resolute. “I can’t pretend tonight didn’t happen.”

He blinked, dumbstruck and feeling a little like he’d been smacked in the back of the head with a shovel.

“And—and maybe you were just doing what Rush would do, but I…I wasn’t playing a character.”

There was an odd ringing sound in his ears, not unlike feedback from a mic. His mouth and throat were suddenly very dry even as his palms grew clammy and a flop sweat began to break out across his back.

She kept on rambling, oblivious to his stunlocked condition. “And I haven’t forgotten what you said about how you needed more time and that you weren’t sure if you were ever going to be, you know, ready for…” she trailed off, swallowed audibly, then said, in a small embarrassed voice, “I guess…we’ve always just implied it, instead of saying it directly so…I think I should just say it. Um.”

He realized with a pang that her hands were shaking. She must have realized what he was staring at, because she suddenly shoved them behind her back, squaring her shoulders defiantly. It made him feel unbearably fond. That was just like her to let fear goad her into doubling down, damn the consequences.

She might have been able to hide her shaking hands, but she couldn’t hide the trembling in her voice or the sheen of tears in her eyes, “You are…the most important person in the world to me. We spend all of our time together at work and outside of work and somehow…you’re not tired of me yet.”

She said it with so much…wonder, like it was some great gift he bestowed upon her and not like spending time with her was the easiest fucking thing in the world. It made him so angry and so sad sometimes, the way she acted like she was some kind of emotional burden on him, as if being around her wasn’t the best part of his day, because he knew who’d made her that way and he couldn’t fix it for her because everyone responsible was dead. He could feel his own eyes start to burn, his throat swelling up with emotion.

“And I’ll…I’ll always respect your boundaries and wishes, and if all you ever want to be is…is best friends and partners then…that’s what we’ll be. But tonight I—” her voice caught and she took a moment to breathe through it before continuing, “tonight I caught a glimpse of…of what we could be and I…it was everything I didn’t know I could have. And I can’t lie to you…I want it.”

She broke his fucking heart, looking at him like that, hopeful and terrified but so determined. He wasn’t built like her. She transmuted her fear into action, bulldozed her way through her own misgivings and sometimes her better judgment. But Chase? He shut down or he ran, because he was a coward at his core. Even now, despite everything in him screaming at him to go to her, he stood frozen, still clutching at his door with white knuckles.

“I’m sorry if I’m being selfish or if I’m making you uncomfortable. I just want you to know that—” she swiped at her eyes impatiently, as if annoyed by her own sentimentality, “that I want every day with you, and every part of you. The chases, the boring paperwork…laughing with you on the couch, watching you play with Buddy and Winter.” She laughed a little before sobering.

“I want the hard days too,” she continued, quiet and raw and wistful, “when you’re being crabby because your back and knees hurt and you’re being stubborn about slowing down and taking it easy. Or when you’re telling me off for jumping into a situation without thinking first. Again. But also I…” her breath hitched, and her voice was thick with tears when she said, “I want to be able to…to hold you and be as close to you as I want, whenever I want. And I—I just really want to be able to kiss you, like, all the time.”

She was so brave. She was so fucking brave and she didn’t even know it, would deny it if he pointed it out.

It was funny. For all her talk about being avoidant and emotionally unavailable, she was almost always the first one of the two of them to bare her soul. Even early in their partnership, before they really knew and trusted each other, she could tell when he wasn’t doing well and she reached out, in her own stilted but sincere way, to try to comfort him. And she never stopped reaching for him, never seemed to be afraid to make herself emotionally vulnerable to him, and it was a gift that staggered him every time. God, he didn’t deserve her.

But she was being so brave and maybe he could borrow a little of her courage for himself. Because damn if she wasn’t saying everything he was feeling and had been too afraid to admit to himself until tonight’s 2 AM epiphanies.

There was so much he wanted to say to her. He could have told her she was the most important person in the world to him too. That there was no one living who knew him better or was closer to him. How her fearless honesty humbled him and how sorry he was for making her wait because his emotionally constipated ass couldn’t get out of his own way.

He could have stumbled his way through saying all of that, but it seemed to him much more straightforward to simply do as the lady wished.

It was the work of a moment to finally unfreeze and step out into the hallway, catching her up in his arms and finding her mouth with his, trying to pour everything he felt and couldn’t say into the kiss.

Objectively, it probably wasn’t the greatest kiss. They were both crying a little and he was probably kissing her too hard, squeezing her too tight. But she was clutching him back just as desperately, all fire and longing, and it all just felt…fucking perfect. There were no cover personas here, no careful fictions to preserve in order to “protect” their partnership. Not anymore. Just Chase and Rikka and the truths you can only lay bare in the quiet, still hours of the night.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before it occurred to him, dimly, that they probably shouldn’t keep making out in the hallway of their apartment building. He stumbled backwards into his apartment with her, mumbling an apology when he shut the door too roughly behind them, the sudden slam making her startle and gasp.

“Wait, wait,” she panted, stopping him with her fingers on his lips when he pressed her back against the door and leaned in to kiss her again.

“What? What is it?” he asked, immediately trying to back away to give her space, suddenly afraid he’d overstepped. She made an inarticulate noise of protest, hands clutching fistfuls of his old Celtics shirt to keep him close.

“No, no, I just…what does this mean? Is this…is this a yes, you’re ready now or…?”

He almost laughed, but held it in. This was all new to her, he reminded himself, and he wasn’t exactly amazing at communication, but she deserved to hear the words if that’s what she needed to put her doubts to rest.

“It’s a yes,” he confirmed fondly, leaning in to kiss her sweetly, reassuringly. He cupped her face, using his thumbs to wipe the lingering traces of tears off her cheeks.

She melted into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “So we’re—” she started, then made an “mmph!” noise when he cut her off with another kiss. Not to be deterred, she pulled back slightly and continued, “are we dating now?”

This time he did laugh. “Yea, baby,” he chuckled, smiling into the next kiss, “we’re dating.”

She made another inarticulate noise against his mouth and pulled away to hide her face in the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“You don’t like that? Me calling you baby?” he asked, rubbing his hands up and down her back. He had a pretty good idea she didn’t hate it at all, but it was fun to tease, and the way she shivered when he said the word again only lent credence to his theory.

“...nooo,” she said after a long moment, muffled against his neck. “It’s…fine.”

Chase hid a smirk in her hair. That was exactly the tone she used when she liked something and was embarrassed about it. “I’ll stop if it makes you uncomfortable,” he offered nonchalantly.

She grumbled a little and tried to burrow her face even deeper into his shoulder. “M’not uncomfortable. Just…don’t use it in front of other people.”

He grinned and kissed the top of her head. “You got it.” She was so cute when she was being…what did Muscat call it? Tsundere? Anyway, he needed to kiss her about it, so he coaxed her out of her hiding spot, lifted her face to his and did just that.

It felt like a miracle—Rikka, warm and pliant in his arms, the floral scent of her shampoo in his nose, her lips moving softly and sweetly against his, her heartbeat and her breathing syncing to his own. It felt decadent, too good to be true, and the idea that this could be his new normal? Filled him with both elation and terror at the same time (though elation was winning for now).

“Mmm, do you think—?” she asked, in between kisses, “we should—tell people yet?”

He sighed. Clearly he wasn’t doing a good enough job of keeping her mind on more important things. “Do you want to?” he asked, leaving soft, sucking kisses on her jaw, then her neck, and starting to walk her towards his couch.

“I, um,” she said, distractedly, shuffling backwards, trusting him not to steer them into any hazards, even as he snuck his hands under her shirt at the small of her back. “I—oh!—I kind of…want to keep things private…for a bit.”

“Absolutely, we should do that,” said Chase, running his hands over the skin of her back, tracing gently along the raised paths of old scars.

“And I know Shelby and Hilby are going to be so annoying about thi-is,” her voice hitched on the last word as Chase gently raked his fingers down her back, while smearing a kiss at the hinge of her jaw.

“Mmhmm,” he agreed, turning to sit down on the couch and drawing her down into his lap,

“And I don’t want them to have the satisfaction,” she continued, straddling him and well, well, well, wasn’t this familiar?

“A hundred percent, I’m with you,” he replied absently, slipping one hand under her shirt again to palm her back, the other cupping the back of her head to draw her into a deep, lingering kiss because she was entirely too coherent and focused on the wrong things right now. She moaned against his mouth, pressing close, and there…that was much better.

She broke away, gasping for air. “I just think—”

“Rikka?”

“Yes?”

“Stop talking.”

“Right.”

And indeed, there was very little conversation to be had for the rest of the night.