Emancipating Andie

Chase knew, on some level, that this was coming. He knew it the second the words left Andie’s mouth earlier that night. He just didn’t expect that it would be this soon. But maybe it would be better to get this over with. Maybe it was early enough that something could still be salvaged.

He stood from the couch, bending to duck out his cigarette as he placed the bottle back on the table, and he finally straightened, rubbing his eyes roughly with the heels of his hands before ru

Chase approached his door, feeling the instinctive set of his jaw as he steeled himself for whatever was coming now.

But as he pulled the door open, his mind went completely blank.

There was nothing that could have prepared him for this.

She stood at his threshold, her eyes red and swollen, and although her face was still streaked with tears, it was expressionless; her eyes were impassive, her posture perfectly still.

Chase stood frozen, staring at her. It seemed like an hour had passed before any coherent thought returned to him, and at that moment, he realized he should probably say something. But as she met his gaze from behind that blank expression, Chase found himself struggling to find words. A simple apology would never be good enough for what he had done, but it was the only thing he could think of in that moment that made any type of sense.

Before he could even attempt the words, Andie lunged forward, shoving him with such force that he went stumbling back into his living room. Chase struggled to steady himself, and as soon as he regained his balance, she drove forward again, her palms making contact with his chest hard enough to send him reeling back into the wall.

“You don’t just do that!” she yelled, her voice hoarse with emotion. “You don’t just show up in someone’s life and screw it up like that! I was fine before you!”

Chase pushed himself off the wall, completely stu

“You think you can do whatever you want at the expense of other people? That you don’t have to care about anyone but yourself? Chase only lives for Chase, right?” she shouted, gesturing at him angrily. “You think that just because you’ve been hurt, you don’t have to consider other people’s feelings anymore? That you get to flip me upside down on a whim and then just walk away?”

He stood immobilized beneath her glare, his heart pounding in his chest. He deserved this. He deserved every second of this and more. He would stand there and take whatever she needed to dish out, giving her the only kind of reparation he could.

She roughly swiped the hair out of her eyes, her chest heaving.

“I didn’t imagine it, Chase,” she said, her voice softening and trembling in a way that caused a sharp pain in his chest. “So what was it? Did you just want to fuck me?”

Except that.

He would take anything she had to give, except that.

He could stand there and let her tear him down, let her call him out for everything he was and wasn’t, but he would not tolerate her demeaning herself. He would not stand by and let her diminish what he felt for her, or let her believe, even for a second, that this was just about sex.

That he would think so little of her.

“Andie, don’t.”

“No, tell me,” she said, shifting her weight as she folded her arms, putting on an air of mock intrigue. “I know I didn’t imagine it. Whatever this was between us. So what was it? Did you just want to screw me and send me back to him? Let him handle the actual relationship while you had your fun? Did it suddenly get too serious for you?”

He swallowed, his chest stinging with a familiar pain, and he realized the last time words had cut him this way, they had come from his father’s mouth.

“Stop it, Andie,” he said, his voice low.

“Well then tell me what this is about!” she shouted, throwing her hands up in frustration. “I deserve an explanation, goddamn it!”

Chase could feel heat pooling in every surface of his body, feel his hands shaking. He had no idea what was coming, and he was afraid to move, afraid to open his mouth for fear of what might come out.

So he stood there, his eyes on her, and said nothing.

Andie stared at him, waiting for an answer, but after nearly a minute of silence, Chase watched as the bravado slowly left her body; the anger melted from her expression, and suddenly she just looked defeated.

He looked on in horror as her eyes welled with tears, and when she spoke, her voice was trembling. “You’re a coward,” she said before she turned and headed toward the door.

He had let her leave once. He would not make the same mistake again.

In three long strides, he crossed the room and grabbed her arm, turning her quickly as he pulled her back toward him. She stared up at him, her eyes wide with alarm, and before he could even think about what he was doing, he brought his mouth to hers.

He felt her arms come up, and for a split second, he thought she might hit him. But instead they slid around his neck, her fingers snaking into his hair as she pulled his mouth against hers, and in that second he stopped thinking altogether.

His hands came to the small of her back, pressing her body against his as he continued to kiss her, causing her torso to bow with the force of it. When he felt the arc of her body, the way she was yielding to him, he began to pull back, but her hands in his hair curled into fists as she pulled him back toward her, asking without words for what he was giving her only seconds before.

With a soft moan he obliged, kissing her fully, their lips and breath combining with renewed urgency. Andie’s hands were still tangled in his hair, and he could feel his own fingertips digging into the flesh of her back beneath her shirt.

Every second of built-up tension, every ounce of forbidden longing, every illicit desire, had finally found an outlet; he could feel her readily submit to it in his arms, fueling his own surrender, giving it free reign as the onslaught of repressed emotions exploded between them.

Chase brought his hands up to her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks, trying to show her through the frenzied kiss that this was more than just physical for him, but he couldn’t stop kissing her long enough to say the words.

As many times as he fantasized about this, Chase had never imagined her lips would be this perfect; every time he removed his mouth from hers, he found himself leaning back in just to feel them again. She actually tasted sweet, and he could already feel himself getting drunk off of her.

Getting addicted to her.

He ran his thumbs over her cheeks again, and she pulled back slightly, looking up at him. This time as he leaned back in, he took control of the kiss, slowing it down, brushing his lips against hers, parting her lips with his own, pulling back ever so slightly before allowing their mouths to make contact again.

With a tiny whimper that broke Chase’s heart and mended it simultaneously, she followed his lead, kissing him with the same reverence with which he was regarding her, and suddenly they were both present again, so achingly aware of each other, of every breath and sound and touch.

He brushed his lips against hers again, fighting every instinct in his body as he pulled away from her, lifting his hand to brush the hair away from her face.

“Chase,” she whispered, her voice a mixture of desire and confusion, and he leaned forward, kissing the tip of her nose as he tucked her hair behind her ear.

“How could you not know?” he whispered, and she looked up at him with those eyes that owned him from the first day he looked into them. “You have to know how I feel about you, Andie.”

She dropped her gaze, a slight blush coloring her cheeks, and Chase brought his fingers beneath her chin, lifting her face back to his.