Echoes 04

Isabella Rossi would make an iceberg envious with her ability to stay pristinely frozen.

After...

that

night... Chase and his mother-in-law didn't just go back to their old relationship, they took that relationship and decided that it now needed some extra-thick padding. They were like mere roommates. No, they were like roommates who'd met on Craig's List and made sure they had completely different patterns so any interaction was minimized as much as possible, and labeled their food so the other couldn't touch it, and split the utilities two ways, and...

In other words, ships passing in the night without even a perfunctory foghorn to acknowledge each other's existence.

Chase went back to what had worked before, ignoring the uncomfortable truth that it hadn't, in fact, worked at all, and buried himself in his job. He kept up his end of Isabella's forced bargain too, and still did what he could to locate his wayward wife. And kept it up. And kept it up... over months. Months of existing in a displaced pocket universe with no light or sound. Just clicks. Click, click, click, groan, click, frustrated bellow, click, click, fist slamming the desk, click, click...

He was zombie Chase now, and he was slowly going insane.

Isabella, well, he frankly wasn't sure what she was doing with her time. He knew she'd kept up with the video games, but her days of asking him for any kind of advice were done. She lived in the gym too, trying to sweat out her human emotions, if he had to guess. He could commiserate with that, at least; the heavy bag became his shining salvation nearly every day after work. Beyond that, though, the woman was shut in her room, incommunicado, which suited him just fine. It did. Really, it was fine with him. It was.

Still, no plan is perfect, especially the ones that are less plans, and more a type of unspoken pact to suppress the urge to off yourself. Two heavenly bodies orbiting each other will eventually, after eons, either crash together or fly apart. Crash or fly... it has to happen. You can't break the laws of nature.

__________

"Chase!" If the gasping out of his name was a punch to the gut, then the sight of Isabella exiting the bathroom without a stitch on was a knife to his chest. Without a stitch... dripping wet... shimmering in petrified perfection...

Good god, snap out of it man.

Chase was feebly trying to force himself back to reality.

She probably won't find it all that endearing if you drool on yourself, she's weird that way.

He shook his head. Why did that thought seem familiar? It didn't matter, there was definitely something else demanding his focus right then. "Bel... Isabella, I didn't realize you were..." The woman still seemed unaware of her nudity, and just gaped like a fish out of water. The sexiest fish from the hottest sea...

Stop it!

"I... no one replaced any towels this week, and I was... was already in the shower... so I..." She gestured vaguely at the linen closet. "I forgot that you'd probably be coming back now. We... we've been..."

"On autopilot." Chase finished the thought, then gave an involuntary laugh. "It must have deflated."

The next sound he heard was... crystalline. It was flawless in both its beauty and its wounding sharpness, and that was probably the first time in history anyone had ever applied that metaphor to a snort.

"I remember that movie!" She kept laughing, and he kept aching. "Elizabeth made me watch it years ago. I thought it would be moronic, and it was, but god, it was so funny. Like, when that guy jumped out the window... or when that one beats the hell out of all the pamphlet people..."

Chase's grin was sweet agony. "Or when the guy asks the other to pinch him in that bar, and then the dancing scene..."

"Right?" Isabella put a hand on his shoulder to brace herself as she kept laughing. "Wow, it's been so long, we should watch... we..."

A good many things occurred to her at once as the remembered past, that fleeting little golden age, inevitably gave way to the dismal present; the first apparently being that she was still naked, which caused her arms to pull back as fast as possible and cover up her naughty bits. The second was that she was acting human to the man she'd chewed up and spit out, and that couldn't stand for a second longer, which meant any further wish on her part was shut down at the source.

Chase wordlessly opened the linen closet and snatched out a towel, then thrust it at her without looking. At first. After a second, he couldn't help but glance down at her. If her face looked pained, like, really, deeply distraught... well, self recrimination is a strong emotion, and he was sure that Isabella was kicking herself for forgetting for a moment that she didn't want to give him the time of day.

She took the towel in her hand, but, for a heartbeat, Chase didn't let go, and they just stood there staring at each other without making a peep. When he finally loosened his grip and turned to leave, he heard a strange sound coming from her that he couldn't--wouldn't--identify, and headed to his bedroom, shutting the door definitively behind him.

__________

The next time he talked to Isabella, he didn't talk to Isabella. She talked to him. If informing him of what was going to happen counted as talking.

It was a week later and he was, as per usual, coming in from a session at the gym. His...

guest

, met him in the foyer with her hands on her hips, her gaze nothing but pure challenge.

"Six O'clock. Tomorrow."

Chase's imagination went completely wild. He couldn't help it. What he could help, though, was his response, and his response was to not respond; verbally, at least. He watched her instead, brows raised expectantly until she huffed in frustration and kept going.

"That's when you should plan on something else to do. Something not here. Do I need to say more?"

He just shook his head and moved past her.

No, you fucking do not.

__________

Fuck her warning, fuck her icy heart, and fuck her fucking. Chase and Isabella had now slid right past the new year, and he'd barely noted it.

That's

what his pale existence had come to; shuffling through meaningless days with no end in sight until one or both of them eventually broke. Well, if this was her finally making a move, then he was ready with a counter-move. He would not make it easy for her. He would not tip over his king and concede the game.

Sitting in his office after everyone else went home, he ordered his thoughts until he knew exactly what to do; after all, he'd done it once before. He was going to go home and be right there when Isabella had bad sex with whichever sad sack she'd plucked from the ether this time. He was going to remind her what she could have had, goddamn it. He was going to show

someone

, finally, that he was more than a nice, safe starter dick to be used until they were ready to dump him and move on to bigger and better things. Not this time. Not this time.

Don't drive angry

. A wise man once said that to a rodent, but Chase was stuck in his own recurring loop, and he was bound and determined to get out of it as soon as possible. His trip home was full of near-catastrophes, but he got there; Six on the dot.

Just as before, Isabella and her fuckbuddy had already begun by the sounds from the--

yet again--

open bedroom. Instead of hollow noises and empty urgings, though, Chase was able to pick up full sentences. Well, half-full.

"Use your fingers... no, here, press on..." A low grunt of impatience. "Just... I'll move your hand to where you need to put it. Hey, stop pulling away. I'm telling you, this is the right way--"

What came next did nothing to quash Chase's anger. Quite the opposite.

"Bitch, I'm not your fucking middle-school boyfriend! What the fuck do you think this is?" The deep growl raised the hairs on Chase's arms. "Listen, you found me, you're hot, I'm fucking hung... and I'm going to make you squeal like a pig. End of story."

Isabella... Isabella laughed. It was a mistake. "Been there, done that.

Stud

." The sarcasm dripped from her. "I'm telling you what I want from you, and you--"

The sound of the slap was nothing less than a starter's pistol to Chase.

The next few moments were mostly lost in a red haze. He was aware of the guest bedroom door slamming open like a thunder clap, of a big, ruddy-faced man turning his way with shock and fury, and, clearest of all, Isabella sprawled on her bed in her bra and panties, her hand wiping blood away from her split lip, wide eyes rolling to look at him as the fear slowly gave way to hope.

"Who the fuck--"

Slam

. Fist on face ended that inanity right then and there. Then, round two of fist on face made sure that any further stupid questions were dead on arrival. Round three was for bolstering the lessons of rounds one and two. Round four? Well, that was just pure fun.

The entire time, Isabella didn't say a word. She just propped herself up on her elbows to watch unblinkingly. When Chase was satisfied that he'd gotten his message across, he grabbed the nameless asshole by his hair and wrenched the man's head up.

Sometimes history really does echo.

"You think about doing anything to her ever again, of getting even a tiny bit of revenge, I'll finish this." The promise came out in a long hiss. "I'll finish you. I will find you, and that will be the end. I know what you're thinking right now, too, but remember, cops have to play by the rules, and getting out on bail is a thing."

The bloody mess managed a nod, which was good enough for Chase, and he hauled the sack of meat to his feet, managing to wrangle him through the house and right past the front door with a literal boot to the ass.

After slamming it shut, Chase had to take a moment; the adrenaline was still pumping and his lungs were working like bellows. He actually thought he might pass out, he was so wound up. At least, he'd thought he was. When he finally turned away from the door, he found out what being wound up truly meant.

The arms wrapping around him like anacondas and the lithe body crashing against his forced an involuntary

oof

from his mouth, but the perpetrator didn't stop. Isabella's momentum as she threw herself at him,

into

him, drove his back to the door, which he used as a much-needed base against which to support a pair of suddenly-shaky legs. His mother-in-law's sobs into his chest absolutely soaked him, and he absolutely didn't care.

"Thank-you, Chase, oh god, I was sure..." Her words were muffled by her refusal to separate herself from him for even a second, but he could make them out. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou..."

"Shhh." There was no stopping his own arms then, and he returned her embrace while softly stroking the back of her trembling head. "You don't have to thank me. I'd never let something... something like

that

happen. I'd never let anything horrible happen. Not to you. Not even if it killed me."

Isabella's sobs graduated to heart-wrenching wails and she clung to him tighter, which was fortunate because her legs became unable to hold her weight at that same instant. Chase smoothly scooped her up then and carried her down the hallway; not to her bedroom, neither of them were ready to face that again. No, he took the rattled women to the place that had always been a refuge to him, setting her down on his own bed gently.

Neither of them could know that, in that moment, it ceased being Chase's bedroom and became

their

bedroom. At least, for a good length of time that was marked by more happiness than it had any right to be. But C'est la vie.

__________

"Please don't go."

Don't worry.

The thought was sincere, but Chase wasn't quite ready to voice it. Instead, he smiled down at Isabella, newly woken in his arms from sleeping the entire night away like the dead, and brushed a mussed lock of her black hair from across her eyes. The fact that she was ready to beg him to stay the second he moved like he was going to get out of bed, many hours after they'd retreated there together, had him worried that she really didn't get much sleep after all.

"Belly, I don't... the last thing I want..."

Dammit, just say it, stubborn idiot.

Nope. Not yet. He wasn't

that

big a fucking saint.

"I'm about to be no good to you, the mattress, the sheets... nature isn't calling, it's hammering down the door."

Oooh, smooth. Piss jokes always win the ladies' hearts.

He waited for it, hoping beyond hope, and she gave it. The soft snort was mellifluous. "...yeah. Me too." She lifted her face to his, giving him a quick, chaste, utterly fantastic kiss on the cheek. "You use the big one, I'll take the one off the garage." She sat up a bit, her face smoothing to seriousness. "Then we both come back here. I mean, right here. This bed, under the covers. I'm not... I'm not ready to leave..." She pressed her face to his bare chest. "I need this to not be done yet. If you can just put up with me for a little--"

"Deal." He kissed her on the head and slid out from under the covers. With a wink and a grin, he walked out. "Get ready for the sequel;

Cuddlenator 2, Lazy Day

." The snort that followed him was anything but soft this time.

Chase discovered two things when he was done and at the bathroom sink; dried blood left a stain even on skin, and bareknuckle boxing was not exactly pain-free. Well, less discovered than

re

discovered. This wasn't his first rodeo, after all. One thing that was new though was that it truly didn't matter.

I'd do it again every day for the rest of my life if I had to.

Still, he was rubbing his hand surreptitiously as he reentered his bedroom, and Belly, back and under the blankets like she'd said, looked at him in concern. "Chase, are you hurt?" She sat up, holding a sheet to her neck. "Forget what I asked, if you need to go to the hospital..."

"I'll be fine." He smiled reassuringly. He hoped. "I mean it. I do train for this, you know." Trying to cut off further expressions of concern from her, as much as they put butterflies in his stomach, he resumed his place next to her on the mattress. She watched him for a second, then conceded and followed suit, snuggling up next to him as soon as he was situated. It was just like the whole of the previous night, when her ripe, chiseled body was tight against his, the only thing between them being her thin, lacy... wait a minute...

Not just like!

Chase's eyes widened and his mouth went dry. "Belly... what happened to your underwear?" He hoped the arm around her bare shoulders... bare everything... wasn't as twitchy as the rest of him felt.

"What I hope happens to yours." Her fingers were marching playfully down his abs to play at the elastic band of his boxer briefs. "Vanished and never seen again." And just like that, the elastic band was not the thing she was playing with anymore. The new object of her attention could no longer be contained by mere stretchy drawers, and a contented sigh slipped past her lips as her fingers brushed the sudden mushroom head that rose to life to meet her touch.

As her fingers traced his length, she scooched even closer to him, pressing her breasts to his side so that the flesh of those magnificent globes spilled across his abdomen. They were both breathing heavy then. They both wanted it, but were they both ready for it?

"Isabella... I'm about to say something monumentally stupid, so get ready." Chase gave a wheeze that he was trying to pass off as a thoroughly unconvincing chuckle. "Are you sure you want this?"

She stopped her fingers and looked right into his eyes. "How can you ask me that when you've... asked me that?" She smiled at his confusion, then languidly raised herself up and straddled his waist. The blankets slid down her graceful back until they pooled below her heart-shaped bottom, and she braced her hands on his chest as she faced him, making herself comfortable in his lap... to the extent that the trooper standing at attention below would let her. "What I mean is, how could I not want this from a man who has it in him to ask? Who's willing to forego his own pleasure to be sure that I won't regret what follows?"

She leaned over in slow motion, her ruby lips descending to his after an aching eternity. The long, drawn-out kiss was beyond any that the two of them had shared in their more fraught moments of the past year and change. Even without the tongue.

When Isabella finally leaned back, there were unshed tears in her eyes. "If I'm a child, then I'm a child. I'll call it a redo; my real childhood was shit anyways." She reached up and cupped his cheek. "Chase Ventris, I am head-over-heels in love with you, and I can't keep running from that. I won't. Not anymore."

Chase didn't answer, but she didn't seem concerned with that right away; her focus was on undulating her hips in just the right way so that his dick was sliding between her sculpted ass cheeks. Once she got the positioning and rhythm right, she was posed so that her rich hair was sweeping to and fro across his chest.

The feeling of it was so soft. So sensual. Chase laid back, squeezed his eyes shut, and just enjoyed it. Then, Isabella stopped her hips, pausing for a second before lifting them up precipitously. "Chase," the name was honey dripping from her lips, "I want it. I want

you

." She raised lids that had fallen when she'd become lost in her own sensations. Her eyes were swirling with a torrent of emotion. "I've never wanted anything more in my life."

Right there, in that moment, Chase... blinked. "Belly... I don't..." He swallowed. "I want to. God, more than anything, but..."

Certain that he'd just ruined his future with this beauteous creature professing her love, Chase felt his chest constrict. Then Isabella smiled, and he could breathe again. "I know. I think I might have been a little disappointed if you said anything else." She stroked his cheek with pure, grateful affection. "I will never try to force you into anything, never try to make you into anything other than the honest,

good

man that you are, but I will say this; you don't owe Elizabeth. She made a choice." Her mouth puckered sourly then, and she glanced away for half a second. "So did I, but I'm here and I can try to fix it." She bent down for another long kiss. "If you let me, I'll spend the rest of my life fixing it."

Chase let out a long, pent up breath--ragged and rattling--a release of months and months of poison that'd been living in his heart... then gave his soon-to-be lover a brilliant smile. "It ain't broke, so don't fix it."

Isabella's relieved, gushing grin was in place for about a breath before it morphed into a wide

O

of surprise as he slid his length into her wet and waiting channel. Foreplay was amazing fun, but sometimes getting right to the fucking was what just had to happen.

Chase reveled in the feel of the mature woman's slim hips in his hands as she began rocking on top of him, a long hiss escaping through her clenched teeth.

Holy hell, I'd almost forgotten what this was like...

"Sweet girl, you feel fucking fantastic." He reached up and lightly tweaked one swaying nipple, and Belly groaned, her hips picking up steam.

Shit, maybe too fantastic.

It had been over a year, and the manual release valve he'd been making do with only went so far.

Okay, baseball... grandma league baseball... in a rendering plant...

"Chase, oh god... my love..." Isabella leaned down for a kiss, and this time there was

plenty

of tongue. Gentle rocking became needful pile driving, and she squeaked into his mouth, a staccato series of high-pitched grunts that went faster... faster...