A Debt Repaid (1) by N. Isabelle Blanco, Nyddi

God, the way he was holding her left very little room for doubt. His request, the way his heart seemed to race for her…
    Aria flattened her hands against his chest and tried to push him away. “Chase, I have to go—”
    He splayed his hand across the middle of her back, pulled her close again, and grabbed her chin with his other hand.
    Nothing about his hold was rough. Yet something about it brooked no argument, left her with no choice but to freeze. Fear was beating a constant tattoo along her insides. She forced herself to look up into his eyes and almost gasped at what she saw there.
    So much intensity. Lord. Douglas never stared at her like that.
    “Stop.” The muscle in Chase’s jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together. “Just stop fighting this for two seconds.”
    “This?” she asked, trying to distract him from his request. She couldn’t promise him what he wanted. Aria couldn’t leave that door open between them. It was all supposed to end after that one date.
    It had to end there.
    But could she even go on that date now, knowing how she felt about him? With the suspicion of how he was feeling for her? Could she go knowing that his lips were so full, and how much she wanted to feel them—damn it, they were just a breath away from her own.
    She closed her eyes, pathetically, trying to block him out.
    “This,” Chase whispered, and God help her, she tasted that word as it ghosted across her lips.
    Her heart, his heart; she couldn’t even begin to tell who’s was beating hardest. She didn’t dare open her eyes. Chase smelled too fucking good and she wouldn’t be able to resist the visual of him, so close.
    Her resistance was hanging on by a fragile thread. The attraction between them was alive. A frantic, violent, greedy pulsation that seemed to grow stronger every second that it was denied.
    “This thing between us, Aria.”
    God, what had she done?
    Why’d she asked him to clarify that one point of all things?
    He trembled before tensing, locking down his muscles in order to remain in control. His next exhale was on purpose, there was no way it wasn’t.
    Aria whimpered at the taste of him, hating him.
    “I think it’s more than obvious what’s between us. But , as I’ve already told you: You feel this, Aria. You don’t want to feel it any more than I do, but you do.”
    Behind her closed eyes, Aria watched as another wall crumbled, becoming nothing more than ash. One less defense. With one simple statement, he somehow took away any hope she had for denial. Left her exposed in front of a very brutal truth.
    A truth that she didn’t dare explore lest she fall apart.
    Or worse: give in.
    “Open your eyes.” His voice was calm. Deceptively so. “Aria, open your eyes for me.”
    Coward that she was, she refused to give him that.
    “Open your eyes. I want you to look at me before I kiss you.”

 
     
     
    HEARING THAT HE was going to kiss her swarmed through Aria and attacked her most basic, most primal of instincts.
    Suddenly, it was all about him. How good he smelled, and the heat coming off him. Add that to the fact that she knew damned well how attractive he was, and how weak she was against it.
    To her chagrin, her hands had gone right back to fisting his blazer. When she couldn’t stop herself from licking her lips, Chase gave a low groan. Chagrin morphed right back to self-loathing. The man in front of her had forced his way into her life. In the eyes of the law, she was still married, never mind that her husband hadn’t touched her in months.
    None of that mattered in the face of how much she hungered for him or how deep that hunger went.
    She knew that, soon, nothing would matter. Nothing except tasting him. Experiencing him. There was no denying that part of her—a very large one—was ready to beg him to take her mouth. Take it hard. Fast. Like no one ever had before. She’d only ever been with Douglas and, physically speaking, Chase was just so much more.
    “Give me