Chapter 5

5

Chad was leaning over her when her eyes popped open. Genesis yelped and tried to jump up. His hands wrapped around her arms and he held her still. Had she always been so skittish?

“Shh. You’re okay. I was just fixing the blanket.”

“Is she okay?” Worry shot across her face as she looked toward Chantal. “Does she need me?”

“She’s fine. Sleeping. She’ll be out of here in the morning.” And Genesis needed to go home, herself. Rest. But Chad honestly wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight yet, either. Just not tonight.

“Where’s Gene? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. I sent him down to the cafeteria. He needed a break.” Her brother had refused to leave Chantal’s hospital room. Chad had had to threaten to ban him from the hospital entirely if Gene didn’t at least take a walk to the cafeteria and eat something.

There was a wildness in Gene right now that Chad didn’t fully understand yet. Everyone had known it would take a SWAT team to get him out. Something had certainly changed in Gene out there.

“I should… ” Genesis tried to stand, rubbing at her eyes. She grabbed the glasses off the table and slipped them onto her cute little nose. And blinked up at him like an owl. Heat hit her cheeks as one small feminine hand spread against his chest. “Yikes. Not much personal space in here?”

He didn’t want there to be. Chad wanted to pull her straight into his arms and taste that sassy mouth of hers. He bet the woman kissed as passionately as she did everything else.

Something had snapped between them in her powder room. Some wall or barrier, or something that had kept him… apart… from her for years. He hadn’t let himself notice it when he’d been so worried about his sister and Gene, now he could.

Chad wanted her. It hit him like a ton of bricks that he wanted the passion that was Genesis Hiller.

Passion for anything had been missing in his life lately.

He just… had a routine. A life that was exactly what he’d planned it to be. Lately, it had started to feel like something was missing.

At least since his brother Charlie had remarried, anyway. Charlie was happy now. In a way Chad’s brother hadn’t been in decades. It was hard not to envy that.

Chad had felt empty lately. Maybe even for years now.

He didn’t feel that way at the moment. At all.

There was passion in him now.

The lusty kind.

He wanted to carry Genesis off somewhere they could be alone, strip her naked, and do things to her he doubted any man had ever done to her before. And then start all over again.

Genesis had an innocence about her. One that told him volumes. Even at her age. And had his body tightening with the hunger to be the one to debauch that innocence.

He couldn’t help himself. He used his hold on her elbows to pull her up, out of the chair. And against him. It was late, they were almost completely alone, and he was so curious…

“You should… what?” The fingers of his left hand tangled in her ponytail. He pulled her closer. Until every inch of her was pressed against him. “Genesis… You… ”

“What? And what exactly are you doing? Do you just need a hug or something?”

“That’s not what I want from you.”

Innocent hazel eyes stared into his. For the longest time. Like she didn’t have a clue what he meant. It hit him like a ton of bricks right then.

Hell, she didn’t get it.

She was almost nine years younger than he was—but she wasn’t a child. There had been men in her life before. He knew that; had met at least one or two of her exes before.

He seriously doubted those had been platonic relationships at all.

Did she seriously not realize he was turned on by her?

“Genesis… damn…”