Head Over Heels

attack.

And still he wasn’t hurrying. Pushing him so that he sat back on his heels, she dropped to straddle him right there on the shower floor.

“Chloe-”

She rocked her hips until she had what she wanted, his erection poised at her entrance. “I’m on the pill,” she panted.

He ran his hands up to her breasts, then to her ass, yanking her in, angling her so that they were better aligned, the whole time kissing her to the point of madness.

And breathlessness.

But breathing was completely overrated, she assured herself, and then he slid home with one sure, shocking push of his hips, filling her to the hilt, and she didn’t need to breathe at all.

They gasped in tandem pleasure. God, the pleasure. He rasped his thumb over her, just above where they were joined, and then again. She cried out, arching against him as the orgasm hit her hard and fast and utterly unexpectedly. Shuddering, she writhed against him in exquisite torture, her body completely under his control.

Heaven.

For one beat, there was such incredible heaven, but in the next, the tightness in her chest spread and completely shut off her air supply, and the dots that had been dancing at the edge of her vision closed in. She heard Sawyer’s sudden and urgent “Chloe!” but it was far too late. She’d already faded to black.

Chapter 12

“A guilty conscience needs no accuser.”

Chloe Traeger

Sawyer spent the next half hour in a state of unaccustomed panic. After Chloe had passed out, he’d run with her to his truck, where he’d found her inhaler on the seat. She’d come to enough to use it several times, and now sat in the passenger seat insisting she was fine.

Ignoring her, Sawyer drove toward town, intending to take her straight to the ER.

“Don’t,” she said. She was wearing sweats-his. He’d grabbed dry clothes from his house. “I’m okay.”

“Chloe-”

“Look, I’m still paying off my last two ER visits.” Her voice was rough and ragged, and she didn’t look nearly steady enough, but she put a hand on his arm. “Please, Sawyer. Just take me home. I have a portable nebulizer there and can give myself a breathing treatment.”

He opened his mouth to demand why the hell she hadn’t had her inhaler on her, but he decided to save that fight for when she didn’t look like a slight breeze could knock her on her ass. Against his own instincts, he drove her home and settled her in on the cottage couch, watching as she gave herself a breathing treatment.

At least she had some color back to her lips. That helped, but Christ, he’d never forget the way they’d turned blue, or how she’d gasped, hands at her throat, fighting to draw air into her lungs.

His fault.

“Mr. Magic Eight was right on once again,” she rasped over the rumble of her nebulizer.

“What?”

She let out a low, wheezy laugh. “The Magic Eight app. The love advisor, remember? It said you wouldn’t get laid, and that I would. Of course, I didn’t get laid laid, but close enough. I mean, I finished and you didn’t get to…”

“Christ, Chloe.”

“And now you can confirm I don’t sound like a mule in a tar pit, right?”

“You stopped breathing.”

“Only for a minute.”

Head spinning, he dropped it into his hands. “Only for a minute,” he repeated dully.

“Yeah.” She paused. “Too soon?”

He’d been mentally flogging himself, and she was joking around. He shoved his fingers through his hair and resisted pulling out the strands by the roots.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Too soon. Sorry. Sawyer, look at me. I’m fine.”

He gently pushed the nebulizer mouthpiece back in place. She’d passed out from lack of oxygen, and she was comforting him. “Why wasn’t your inhaler on you?”

“Because nothing was on me. We got naked, remember?”

“Fuck, Chloe.”

She had the good grace to look sheepish. “Okay, so I didn’t exactly realize what was going to happen, or that I’d need it. I told you, I’d been on a sex moratorium.”

“No, you absolutely didn’t tell me that.”

“Oh.” She grimaced. “Well, I started to. I told you I couldn’t.”

Okay, she had told him that. And he’d mistakenly-and cockily-believed she’d meant that she couldn’t orgasm with a man.

Which mean that he was an ass. A complete ass.

“And technically, it’s not that I can’t orgasm,” she said, waving the mouthpiece. “Obviously. It’s just that the experts recommend measuring your peak oxygen flow and having a portable nebulizer handy.”

“Okay. So why didn’t we do that?”

“Well, for one thing,” she said, “that doesn’t exactly scream spontaneity and excitement, and second, I didn’t plan on having sex in your shower, it just happened. Which proves point number one.”

“Never again, Chloe,” he said flatly. “I don’t want you to ever again be without that inhaler. Do you hear me?”

She gave him a smart aleck salute that made him narrow his eyes and open his mouth, but before he could say a word, the front door opened and Tara and Maddie came rushing in. Maddie was in the lead, wearing jeans and a USC sweatshirt that Sawyer recognized as Jax’s. She sat at Chloe’s side and hugged her. “You avoided the ER this time.”

Barely, Sawyer thought grimly.

Tara, cool and calm as ever, squeezed in past Sawyer to get closer to Chloe, patting him on the arm as she did, probably assuming that he’d rescued Chloe. If she’d known the truth, he knew he’d have been on the receiving end of a blistering verbal and well-deserved attack. No one did pissed-off-Southern-belle slash protective-mama-bear better than Tara.

But for now, Tara leaned over Chloe and kissed her cheek. “I should have sat on you earlier when you left all half-cocked, making yourself as scarce as hen’s teeth. You were wheezing even then.”

Chloe left the nebulizer mouthpiece in but rolled her eyes as her two sisters continued to mother and baby her, while Sawyer wondered if they had any idea just how strong she really was.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Tara asked Chloe. “What were you doing, and why in God’s name are you streaked with…mud?”

A faint blush tinged Chloe’s cheeks, and her eyes locked on Sawyer. Slowly she pulled the nebulizer mouthpiece out to speak, but before she could, Tara pushed it back into place.

“No, don’t.” She fussed at the blanket over Chloe’s legs. “It can wait, especially if you’re going to tell me you were rock climbing or-”

“She was with me,” Sawyer said.

Three sets of eyes landed on him. Maddie’s and Tara’s were both curious and completely nonjudgmental.