Today’s topic is all about the grovel! So I asked around to see which grovel scene readers most wanted to see and Making Chase won by a landslide.

Chase Brothers: MAKING CHASE by LAUREN DANE
Copyright 2007, Lauren Dane
All Rights Reserved, Samhain Publishing

“Oh stuff it!” Cassie pushed her way past. “This has gone on long enough. Tate is worked into a frenzy in there and none of you are helping!”

“Of course you’d take his side.”

“This isn’t about sides! All of you get the hell out of here.” Tate thundered out onto the porch, anger sparking in her eyes. She looked at her siblings and then Matt. “All of you. I want to be alone and I don’t need or want anyone speaking for me, thinking for me or taking responsibility for me. How dare you all pack Matt’s things and make that choice for him and for me.”

Matt nodded. “They’re just trying to help, Venus. They love you.”

“And you! You don’t know a damned thing about it.” She pushed Anne gently but firmly out and slammed the door, locking it. “None of you has the right!” she yelled from the other side of the closed door and turned out the porch light.

They all began to argue until Shane’s cell phone rang. He answered, listened and started laughing as he snapped the phone shut.

“That was Tate Murphy, she’s called the Sheriff to file a noise complaint about a public nuisance in her front yard.”

Matt scrubbed hands over his face. This had all spun out of control so fast. He didn’t want to be arguing on her, their lawn, he wanted to be inside, holding his woman.

“Y’all go on home. I mean it. I’m going in there to work this out with Tate. If you love her like you say you do, you’ll know she loves me and I love her too. We’re gonna have arguments and she’s going to be hurt and I’m going to be hurt. That’s natural and normal and truly, no one deserves normal more than Tate. So go. Please. I’m sorry I’ve upset you all and we can all work this out later but Tate is in there alone right now.” Matt sighed as he looked at the front of the house.

“Please,” Cassie added. “Please guys. You know they’re good for each other. I know you’re hurting for her but you’re the ones who started packing all this up. It wasn’t her idea. She’d have done it herself if she’d wanted to. It’s just a fight. God, if you all only knew how many fights Shane and I had our first year together. Okay,” she grinned at Shane and he laughed, “still have. Tate is a strong woman and Matt’s easygoing but they will have disagreements. If you gang up on him every time it happens, they’ll never make anything work. Let them make up. If they don’t, you know where Matt works. If you can get to him before Polly does, you can kick his ass.”

Matt heaved a sigh of relief, ignoring the comment about his mother. Okay so his moving out hadn’t been Tate’s idea.

Her siblings moved and Matt nodded at them, reaching out and squeezing Cassie’s hand when he passed. He unlocked the door and opened it slowly. When nothing took his head off, he went inside and found her scrubbing the tile in the bathroom.

“Hey Venus. Whatcha doing?”

“Scrubbing the tile around the toilet.”

He leaned around. “Tate, is that my toothbrush?”

“Hmpf.”

Ouch. “Oookay. Well, luckily there’s a spare in the medicine cabinet then. Will you talk to me?”

“I already did.”

“Tate, not that I don’t like the view and all, your ass looks particularly lovely and I can see your breasts coming out the top of that shirt reflected in the shower door, but can we move this to the living room? Our bedroom? Someplace we can be face to face?”

“Matt, what are you doing here?” She turned and tossed the toothbrush, yep his, into the trash and took off the yellow rubber gloves, laying them under the sink.

“I live here. I told you I’d be back.” He held a hand out to help her up but she ignored it and stood, brushing her hands off on the front of her pants and left the bathroom.

He followed her into the living room where she took the chair so he sat on the table, leaning in and taking her hands in his.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with this insanity with your father alone for all these months. I can’t imagine how scared you must have been to keep it secret.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it? Your fucking family moves my shit out onto the porch and you scrub the toilet with my toothbrush after you hide something important from me for five months and all you give me is an okay?”

“Who’s got the fuck habit now, buster? Anyway, my family did that, I didn’t. And what’s more if you’d been here, they couldn’t have done it now, could they? And don’t you call them my fucking family, only I get to do that. I’m beginning to wish I’d fucking gotten in my car and headed to Atlanta for a few weeks like Liv did.”

“And Marc went insane with worry!”

“Yes, because it’s always about you people!”

“Back with that you people thing? Liv is from my side of town too!”

“Oh shut up! I mean you people with penises, not you rich people. God. Look, you asked me to tell you. I did. And then you ran off. You can’t expect me to just be all, hi honey, nice to see you, want a beer? when you come back. You’re the one who’s always all, I hate it when you try to run off and then you did.”

“You’re right. I was hurt and I needed to be away from here for an hour or so. God knows why I imagined hell wouldn’t break loose if I left.”

“You left, Matt. When things got bad you left. I may have been wrong for not telling you, and I’m sorry I hurt you, I am. But I’ve been trying really hard to make a go of this. Even with all the insanity, even knowing you don’t tell me everything to protect me, I stay and I try and today I trusted you enough to tell you and you threw it in my face and walked away.”

“I felt like a failure out there on our porch this afternoon. You hid this from me when you should have been able to come to me and let me protect you. It shouldn’t be the other way around.”

Her anger softened and her eyes searched his face. “You’re not a failure, Matt. My family is just too messed up. I’m messed up. You deserve more than that. Better.”

“I want you to stop that talk right now. There’s no breaking up here so quit it. I told you I’d be back. Okay, so I handled it wrong. I should have stayed and we could have talked it through without all the packing and yelling. But we’re together, Tate. We’ll work it out.”

She listened to him and took a deep breath. The tentative smile fell away and her eyes narrowed. “Why do you stink of booze? It’s hard to concentrate right now with you smelling like that. Bad memories I suppose but I’d really rather you not go out and tie one on when you’re pissed. I don’t mind drinking, I do mind coming back so bad off you smell like a brewery.”

He laughed and then tried to get serious again. “Sorry.” He put his hands up. “I’m not drunk. I had three sips of one pint of beer. Nathan threw the rest on me. Why don’t I go shower and change and we can continue this?”
The corner of her mouth slid up a bit. “Nathan threw a beer on you?”

“Yeah. I thought he was going to pop me one and I’d have had to pop him back and you’d have been really mad at me for giving your baby brother a black eye. Luckily, Shane interceded so no blows were thrown.”
“Hmpf. Go on.”

He wanted to go to her and give her a kiss but his clothes stuck to him and now that she’d pointed out the smell it began to make him feel slightly nauseated.

“I’m saving the snuggles and sugar for after I’m cleaned up. But I’ve been running a tab.”

When he finished showering he found she’d moved many of the boxes back into the house and was in their bedroom putting his clothes into drawers.

He approached her from behind wearing only a towel and put his arms around her.

“I could have done that.” He kissed the top of her head.

“It gave me something to do. Anyway, my family made the problem, I’ll undo it. They really didn’t get most of your clothes. I was in here so they didn’t touch what was in the closet and dresser. I think they took stuff out of the laundry. I’d done a load earlier today.”

He turned her and his chest constricted a moment as he looked at her face, the features he loved so much. He could have lost her over something silly. That was untenable.

“First things first. Tate, we’re going to fight sometimes you know. But unlike what Beth might think, I’m not your mother. I’m not going to abandon you. I shouldn’t have left. I’m sorry. My feelings were hurt and I was upset with myself too, I needed a bit of space but I should have handled it differently.”

He’d moved her back toward the bed and with a flex of his hips, bumped her onto the mattress.

“If I thought you were like my mother I’d have done more with your toothbrush than scrub the tile with it. I love you, Matt but I’m not a doormat. Even if I gave in to my father, I’m not someone you can walk all over. I won’t allow it.” She put her fingers over his lips as he loomed over her. “But that’s not what you did so calm down. I’m just saying that’s not what you did and that’s not who I am.”

Frustrated at being unable to pull her t-shirt off, he grabbed hold of the neck and ripped it down the middle. “That’s much better.” He kissed the exposed mound of each breast and her skin broke into gooseflesh.

“I’m sorry I hurt you with this whole thing about my father. I would never want to make you feel like a failure. You’re not. You’re my hero in so many ways. You do make me feel safe.” Her voice shook and got breathy as he traced along the edge of her bra cup with his tongue.

He kissed her, nipping her bottom lip quickly. He sighed, rolling off her long enough to rid himself of the towel and start yanking on her jeans.

“Venus, I love you. We’re together and we’ll learn more about each other as we go. You will stop giving that bastard money, do you hear me? I will pay the next month’s mortgage on this house. I’ve been here three months and you haven’t let me pay my share. We’ll work it out with your brothers and the school and with Shane to make sure the kids are safe.”

“It’s hard to concentrate when you’re naked and ordering me around.” She may have complained but she lifted her ass so he could pull her pants and panties off. She sat up, removed her bra and tossed the ripped t-shirt aside before pulling the blankets back.

“Tough. Now you’re naked too.”

Be Sure to Visit Today’s Other Snippeters!
Megan Hart:Read in bed!
Rhian Cahill
Eliza Gayle
Jody Wallace
Mandy M Roth
Lissa Matthews
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Shiloh Walker>
TJ Michaels
Lauren Dane

Today’s prize is a copy of MAKING CHASE – Winner will be announced in the Monday Winners Post 🙂