19. Gwen
Every moment since I got home this afternoon has been so tense, I feel like I’m being torn at the seams. We spend the entire drive back in absolute silence, Charlie’s grip on the wheel so tight that his knuckles are white under the ink. The car inches slowly through evening traffic out of the city.
For the last few months, I could convince myself I’d been imagining the feeling of his eyes on me when I’m turned away, the unending current of electricity between us. But not tonight. Every touch was a second too long and an eternity too short. I feel out of my mind with need and frustration, each emotion feeding the other until I’m clenching my teeth to resist acting on them.
And that fucking kiss. It’s ridiculous and cliche and reminiscent of an early 2000s rock ballad, but I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to be kissed like that. And Charlie’s reaction—like it wasn’t just a requirement of our agreement, like he wanted me to kiss him. Like he wanted me to want to kiss him.
This isn’t fucking fair, I think as we pull into the driveway. It’s not fair that his actions are so at odds with his words, or that I’m so attracted to him I interpret every lingering glance as lust. It’s not fair that I’ve convinced myself he wants me, too.
I don’t wait for Charlie to open my door as we pull up to the house. I feel childish, nearly stomping as I make my way to the front porch. I put the code in wrong twice before I can press my thumb against the reader, Charlie too close behind me, the warmth of his body only fueling my angry-horny fugue state.
As soon as I’m inside, I march straight to the kitchen and throw my coat on the counter, pouring myself a glass of water from the tap and trying to calm myself down. I’ve never been particularly good at calm, though. I’m especially bad at it when I can hear the object of my frustration calmly hanging up his jacket, taking off his shoes, even collecting my coat from the counter and putting it away properly. It’s maddening.
I know he’s standing there. Probably leaning against the peninsula, his eyes searching the tension in my shoulders and the way I roll my neck for the answer to how to navigate this.
“Gwen….” he starts, his voice so soft and kind.
I drop my glass in the sink and whip around.
“Don’t.”
Even though I’m desperate for answers, I can’t face them right now. I’m too angry at him, too afraid I’m about to be embarrassed, too worked up. My blood is boiling under my skin, and I know I’m reacting irrationally, but I can’t stop.
“Please, I want to talk, to explain?—”
“Explain what?” I cut him off, checking his shoulder as I walk past him, moving around the kitchen table, trying to put space and heavy furniture and anything between us. “You’re going to explain what happened at that dinner? How that kiss was part of our business arrangement? We’re a means to an end for each other, right?” I laugh and tilt my head to the ceiling, the sound slicing my throat like shards of ice, hot tears welling behind my eyes. Fuck being an angry crier.
Charlie is quiet for so long that the rushing in my ears finally ebbs, my pulse slowing just enough to let reason slip in and force me to wipe my eyes. When I lower my head, he won’t look at me, and the pit in my stomach grows until I feel like it’s swallowing me whole. Embarrassment slams into me, hard and fast and cruel, replacing anger so quickly it makes me nauseous. I read too much into all these insignificant moments—his hand over mine at the pig farm, and the glances across the table, and his fingertips on my spine. I can’t believe I was so fucking stupid. He told me what he wanted that first night. I’m the idiot who couldn’t keep my shit together.
He’s gripping the counter’s edge so tight, so still he has to be holding his breath. His head is bent, and his hair hiding his eyes, and I suddenly miss the tiny apartment Ana and I were holed up in before all of this. At least there, I could disappear. At least there, I knew who I was to everyone around me.
Charlie still hasn’t said anything, and now I think he doesn’t know what to say. How do you respond to your rent-a-wife when she’s just overstepped your boundaries by one hundred fold? I’m getting whiplash from how quickly my emotions are changing, but I can’t force him to apologize for not wanting me the way I want him.
“Charlie, look, I’m sorry, okay?” My voice is high and pleading and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to end our arrangement now. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Sure, Ana’s done with treatment, and her bills are paid, but the last few months have done a number on me, and I don’t want to lose him. “I misunderstood some things that happened between us and it was so inappropriate to get upse?—”
“Stop.” His voice is weak and begging, but he still hasn’t lifted his eyes. I’m rooted to the floor, unable to move. “Of course….” His hands squeeze the counter even tighter as he forces a breath out. “Of course I want you, Gwen.”
When he finally looks at me, all I can see is desperation. A deep well of something he’s hidden deep for so long, it’s nearly iced over. Physical pain couldn’t put this look into his eyes.
“Every single touch from you is torture I beg for. I’ve wanted you since the second I saw you, and instead of acting on that, I opened my fucking mouth and offered you money and support in exchange for your friendship.” I want to say something, anything, to quiet the guilt clearly gnawing at him, but he pushes off the island and stalks toward me like he’s afraid I’m about to run. Like he needs to hold me still with his own hands. “I made it impossible, because no matter how much I wanted you, and no matter how much interest I thought you showed, I could never be sure I wasn’t holding too much over you. And I was never certain that you would feel you could say no and everything would stay exactly the same. That you and Ana would still have all the support in the world, and we could still be partners and work together and be…be friends.”
Every goddamn cell in my body wants to fold myself around him. I want to drag my fingernails against his scalp and soothe him. To make sure he knows I never thought he would use the money for Ana against me. To tell him to match his breaths to mine.
“I know, Charlie,” I say on an exhale, closing the distance between us by a step. We’re so close I could reach out and touch him. “I don’t know how to convince you it’s true, but I want you. I don’t feel like I owe you this. I don’t feel obligated. I know you would never ask this from me in exchange for everything you’ve done. You’re not Ben. You’re my Charlie.”
He looks at me like he can’t believe me. Like he doesn’t know how. I reach out my hand and lace my fingers through his, squeezing.
“Please believe me. Please trust me,” I whisper, desperation in my voice.
Because that’s what I am. Desperate to touch him, to kiss him again, to feel his skin on mine, to break the tension that’s been building for months. His fingers slip into my hair, cradling my head and tilting it so I can’t help but look directly in his eyes.
“I want to be whatever you want, whatever you need,” he murmurs, and my heart clenches.
“I just want you, Charlie,” I say. I don’t know how to explain that I don’t need anything else.
He hesitates for just a moment, like he’s waiting for me to balk or pull back. And then his lips are on mine again.
The fire he ignited at that table is rekindled a thousand times over as he kisses me. I pull my hands from his to grasp the back of his neck and force myself closer to him. My lips open on a gasp as he moves his hand to my thigh, slipping under the slit of my dress and yanking my leg up around his hip. Tongues and teeth and lips meet, both of our breaths heavy and heartbeats loud as he kisses down my jaw and lifts me, pushing me onto the dining table.
My legs fall open for him on instinct and he stands between them, kissing down my neck and chest until my back arches and I have to lean on my hands to support myself.
“So fucking beautiful,” he whispers against my skin, teeth nipping the swell of my breasts and the slope of my shoulder. “Every goddamn day, but especially today. Beautiful and confident and charming and brilliant.”
I can’t form coherent sentences. Yes, and Charlie, and please slip out of me on moans and heavy breaths as one hand slips further up my leg and the other pulls down the strap of my dress. I can feel how wet I am already. My hips lift, seeking his touch, and he pulls away to stare down at me. His eyes are wild, hair mussed and cheeks flushed, and there’s no denying he needs me as much as I need him. It’s intoxicating in a way I’ve never felt, in a way that’s addicting.
“I want to touch you,” he whispers, his fingers tracing the slit in my dress, hiked up so high it’s nearly exposing me. “Can I touch you, Gwen?”
I tilt my head back, reveling in his voice, the feeling of his fingers on my body.
“I need to hear you say it, mia filettatura,” he says, drawing my eyes back to him. I nod frantically, and his hand grips my thigh harder.
“Yes, please touch me,” I beg, my chest heaving.
His eyes trace my figure once more, disheveled and needy, before he leans down and grips my hips.
“Arms,” he says, his voice gravelly, and I latch myself around him. My mouth is on him before he can say anything else, and he carries me to our room as our teeth and tongues clash, consuming each other.
He lowers me slowly onto the bed, crawling on top of me as his mouth seeks out mine, like it’s impossible to separate. The desperation is mutual, our hands mapping every inch of skin, mine pulling at the button down shirt still tucked into his pants.
When he moves backward to stand at the foot of the bed, I think it’s to catch his breath. He unbuttons his shirt, and when I sit up to help, he takes a step back.
“Take off your dress, Gwen.”
There’s something in his tone that’s wrong. Off. The look in his eyes has changed. Still hungry, still dark and filled with lust. But there’s something calculated in his expression, like he’s thinking three steps ahead.
But I don’t want controlled, commanding Charlie. I want him to let go under my touch. I want him out of his mind with pleasure, like I know I’ll be.
I tilt my head at him, watching him unbuckle his belt before I reach out and stop him.
“What just happened?” I ask, pulling his hand away from his waistband.
A flicker of something vulnerable passes over his face before he reverts to that look. It reminds me of when we sat in the living room of the pig farm with Emily and strategized Kayden’s torture. Or of how he looks when he’s teaching me how to aim a gun.
“I want to see you, to touch you,” he says, and even though I know that’s true, it feels like that’s not the whole truth. I shift up onto my knees, pulling the strap of my dress back over my shoulder.
“You’re lying,” I say, tugging at his hand and searching his gaze. “I mean, there’s something else. Something changed.”
He’s frozen solid, his expression a mask. My whole body is on edge, but there’s a feeling in my chest I have to listen to.
“Nothing…” he stumbles a little, taking a step back. “Nothing changed. I want you. You said you want me. If you’ve changed your mind, we can stop.”
His voice sounds almost robotic, and my chest clenches.
“It feels like you’ve changed your mind,” I say, trying to keep the accusation out of my tone. Charlie opens his mouth to argue, but I stop him. “Your whole demeanor shifted as soon as you stood up. Like you started planning out how you were going to touch me.”
His brow furrows, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before he can find an answer.
“I guess I was doing that. But I want to be what you need.”
I shift so I’m sitting cross-legged, aware that my neckline is pulled low and my hair is disheveled, but I can’t keep touching him without understanding.
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” I say, patting the space next to me on the bed.
He looks a little bewildered for a second, but finally sits down next to me.
“When we’re together, I…” he stutters, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m in control. That’s the person you know me as. Decisive, vindictive, exacting. I want to be the man you want.”
The feeling in my chest gets tighter as his eyes meet mine, filled with confusion. It’s rare for Charlie’s emotions to be clear on his face, but this is a moment of true vulnerability.
“You are not just those things.” I press my fingers into his palm and slide them so we’re interlocked. “There’s so much more to you than that. You can be cruel and kind and everything in between. You go into the world and willingly bloody your hands for what you know is right, and then you come home and cook for me and quiz Ana on SAT questions. This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve been soft with me, Charlie.”
He squeezes my hand, his eyes dropping to where they’re interlocked.
“It’s not just wanting to be soft, Gwen.” He takes a deep breath, like he’s fortifying himself for something. He’s afraid, I realize. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Charlie afraid before. “I want to give everything to you. I want to hear your voice telling me how to move, how to touch.” A silence, just two beats too long. “I want to submit. To you. Here.”
He’s shaking under my fingers and I can feel his pulse ripping through him like a tide.
“Is there something wrong with wanting that?” I ask, cradling his cheek with the hand not grasped in his.
His Adam”s apple bobs with a hard swallow.
“Submission is weakness.” He nuzzles his chin into my palm like his body’s natural reaction opposes his words. “I force submission from people all the time. I bring them pain and terror, and when they finally break for me, they have lost. And if I give that to you, you’ll control all of me, and I don’t know who I’ll be anymore.”
My heart feels like it’s in a vice, his words pained and vulnerable. I think about the way he touched me tonight, every kiss and breath. And the moment that stands out more than any other is the way the word please sounded, him begging me to let him touch me.
It’s never been something I’ve consciously thought about before. No former partner has ever asked me to submit or to take control. Sure, I feel more comfortable making choices for my everyday life, but it was never something that bled into my bedroom, or my partner’s, or the walk in at work. But when I think about Charlie begging for me, heat fills my chest like a bonfire.
“I think I would like it,” I say as I drag my fingernails down his neck, shoulder, arm. “My life has been nothing but chaos until I met you. Controlling what I can has always felt good, natural. I don’t want the demanding, decisive version of you. I want you, whatever version is the most honest. Whatever version brings us the most pleasure.”
He shakes his head like it’s not possible to believe.
“Even if that was true, I couldn’t put that on you. I promised to take care of you.”
A familiar heaviness tugs at my chest at how much he’s thought about this, how careful he is that he never adds to my burden. Since the moment I met him, Charlie has been softening every blow that comes toward me, making the parts of my life he can influence as easy as possible. And I think I’ve done that for him too—given him a soft place to land in a world that’s purposefully, necessarily hard. Taken care of him in the ways I’m able to. Met his viciousness. But maybe this is another thing that I can give him that feeds me, too.
“But Charlie,” I whisper, leaning my body into his, “you looked so pretty on your knees for me.”
He takes a moment, but eventually he meets my eyes. Fear and desire battle in equal spades in his expression, and I wish there was some way to convince him of how I feel.
“Are you sure?” His voice shakes as he asks, and I squeeze his hand.
“We’ll take it slow. Just be together in whatever way feels natural,” I murmur, sliding closer to him on the bed and resting my head on his shoulder. “There are no expectations here. We can figure this out together.”
The tension in his body loosens, and he sighs as he wraps his arm around my hip and pulls me close. It feels good to be wrapped around each other like this. Right. When it seems he’s finally relaxed, I shift and rest my forehead against his.
“Can I touch you, Charlie?” I ask, placing a featherlight kiss against his lips. He chases my mouth as I pull away, nodding. “I need to hear you say it.”
He opens his eyes and looks at me like he can’t believe what’s happening is real.
“Please, Gwen.”
Even though my body is pleading for me to go fast, I do my best to honor my word.
With my hands cradling his face, I press my lips to his. The kiss is slow and gentle, sweet and perfect. Charlie plants his hands on the bed, gripping the comforter like he’s afraid to move. I kiss his lips, his jaw, the column of his throat, every leaf of the olive branches inked on his neck. His breathing is heavy, and his shoulders shake a bit, and I wonder if it’s fear or restraint. I fiddle with a button on his shirt, enjoying the way his breath sharpens when my fingernails brush his chest.
“Can I do this?” I ask, releasing the first button. He grips the bed tighter.
“Please,” he whimpers, and I acquiesce.
Pushing the shirt off his shoulders, I trail kisses down his arm and back, up his neck, until I’m back at his mouth.
Each time we move to a new item of clothing—his belt, his undershirt, his pants—we go through the same process. I ask, he begs, I press my mouth to every inch of skin I can find. If I thought moving slowly would relieve the tension, I couldn”t have been more wrong. Every touch from me makes his voice more desperate the next time I ask for permission. Every inch of control he gives up to me fills me with a sense of euphoria I can’t explain. Like his trust is an aphrodisiac. When Charlie’s in nothing but his boxers, I slip off the bed and stand in front of him, a near perfect inverse of our positions on the kitchen table.
“Do you want to touch me, Charlie?” I ask, and when he nods, I reach forward, pull his hand, and place it on my hip. “Go ahead.”
With reverence, he runs his hand up my hip to my ribs, the soft silk of the dress slipping under his touch. My eyes are closed, soaking in the feeling, when I feel his lips on my shoulder, the inside of my elbow, my fingertips.
“Can I do this?” he asks, finding the zipper on the dress in the middle of my back.
“Yes.”
His eyes don’t leave mine as the dress falls off my shoulders, skimming my hips and pooling on the floor at my feet. He leans forward and takes my face in his hands, kissing me again and again.
“Perfect,” he whispers against the skin of my neck.
I stand there in front of him, in only my underwear and these ridiculous heels, and let him touch me. He kisses and bites, grabs and brushes, everything eager and soft, slowly ratcheting me higher and higher. I can’t help but latch my fingers into his hair as he pulls my nipple into his mouth, the slightest tinge of pain heightening my already-overwhelming pleasure.
He kisses down my sternum, bracing my ribs with his hands so that when I arch back under his touch, he’s supporting me. He keeps moving down, tongue and lips and teeth, until he’s nipping at the top of my underwear.
“I’m going to touch you now.” He says it like a question, looking up at me, nearly all the fear gone from his expression.
“Yes, now, please.”
I feel like I’m going to come apart the second he does, my body humming with pleasure. But he doesn’t touch me, not where I need him. He just rests his hands on my hip and shifts me toward the bed so we’ve switched places yet again. And drops to his knees.
He lifts my foot and places it on his chest, undoing the strap and removing the shoe before kneading his thumbs into my arch. It feels so unspeakably good, I can forgive the fact that it relieves some of the tension in other parts of my body. He repeats the process with my other shoe, placing kisses on the inside of my calf.
“I thought about this earlier,” he says under his breath, teeth skimming the inside of my thigh. “About what you would do if I touched you like this.”
I don’t know if I say me too out loud, but he grips my legs a little tighter and shifts me so my ass is perched at the end of the bed.
“Please let me make you come,” he begs, and the sound of his voice alone has my back arching. He kisses the inside of my knee. “Please.”
“Yes,” I pant, letting my legs fall further open. “Make me come, Charlie.”
He doesn”t waste a second. Almost before I realize what’s happening, he slips my underwear down my legs, baring me to him. I would be self conscious being exposed around anyone else, but I can’t when he’s looking at me like that. Eyes wild, shoulders tense, vibrating with his own need.
I was right, all those weeks ago. His inked hands do look good against my skin.
“Fuck, so fucking perfect,” he says before spreading me open with his hands and licking me from pussy to clit.
We groan together, the pleasure at finally being touched where I need him overwhelming, making me delirious. He takes his time, finding the rhythm and motions that have my hips lifting off the bed. My legs are slung over his shoulders, his head trapped between my thighs as he sucks on my clit.
I know I’m saying something, moaning his name or maybe nonsense, and I fall back against the bed, which only allows him to bury himself closer. My body feels strung like a bow, toes curled against his shoulder blades, stomach muscles coiled, fingers clamped in the sheet above my head. I’m hovering around the edge of the orgasm of a lifetime, but can’t seem to fall over the ledge.
Just when I think I’m going to lose all the momentum we’ve built, Charlie presses a finger inside of me, pumping along with the rhythm of his mouth. My back arches, my breath catching in my throat as he adds a second finger, groaning as I squeeze my thighs around his head.
He moans, and it”s the vibration against my clit that sends me over the edge. My stomach clenches and heat unfurls through my whole body as my orgasm rips through me. I can feel my pulse in every inch of my skin as pleasure sinks into my bones, blacking out my vision momentarily.
Charlie slows his movements, working me through every wave of pleasure, extending my climax until I’m shaking, my muscles exhausted. I slowly relax, feeling Charlie’s lips on my thighs, murmuring words I can’t hear over the rushing in my ears. When I can muster the energy, I sit up and run my fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp until he lifts his face toward me.
“Come here,” I ask, my voice rough and low.
He peppers kisses over my entire body as he stands, finally taking my mouth with his. I can taste myself on his lips and open further to deepen the kiss.
I scoot further back on the bed and he chases my mouth, crawling over me and settling on top of me as I lay down. I can feel his cock, hard and trapped in his boxers, as I wrap my legs around his waist.
“Gwen, please, I can’t—” Charlie starts, but cuts himself off on a groan as I pull him closer, grinding my center against him. He drops to his elbows, drawing my bottom lip between his teeth as he grinds against me. He’s already working me back up, the exhaustion from moments ago forgotten under his body.
“I want you, Charlie,” I pant into his shoulder as he kisses my neck, likely leaving a mark. “I want this, us, together.”
He pulls back to hover over me, and I brush his hair out of his face.
“How do you…” he hesitates, glancing down at my bare body and then up at the ceiling, cursing something in Italian that I don’t understand but makes me smile. “Can you tell me how you want to fuck me?”
A spark lights up under my skin at the thought of asking for exactly what I want, of knowing he’ll give it to me. A thousand scenarios flash through my mind, each one hotter than the last.
But something stops me from asking for them. Because even if I don’t get all those fantasies, if we decide tomorrow this was a bad idea, I want this intimacy with him more than anything else.
“Maybe for tonight we just feel out what seems natural,” I say, tracing the tattoo of Hermes on his ribs, face agonized and turned toward the heavens. Charlie shudders under my touch. “If that’s okay with you?”
He presses a kiss into the crown of my hair, and I feel my heart skip a beat.
“Yes, that’s okay with me,” he mutters into my hair. “We have lots of nights ahead of us.”
I flush, my heart now pounding loudly in my chest. I refuse to read further into his words, to let the oxytocin fool me into taking them at more than face value. Partners, friends, and fucking. Mutual gratification.
My stomach dips, but I chase the feeling away by pressing my lips to Charlie’s and trailing my hand down his chest, to his stomach. I brush my hand over his cock, desperate to feel him, and he curses into my mouth.
“Please, mio filo, you’re torturing me,” he moans, his hips jerking, forcing his cock into my hand.
“Ironic,” I laugh, reveling in the blissfully pained look on his face. “I am getting addicted to the sound of you begging, though.”
“I have no issue begging for you, Gwen,” he says, and my name sounds a bit like a prayer on his tongue. “All I’ve wanted to do for months is beg for you to touch me, to let me touch you. And I’ll keep begging for you until you tell me to stop.”
His words thrum through my body. I’m painfully turned on, my pussy clenching around nothing, desperate for him again.
“You have condoms?” I ask, slipping my hand against his cock again.
He nods repeatedly, seemingly unable to react coherently to my question until I release him. He shakes himself, kisses me once, and then hops off the bed. When he returns from the bathroom, he tosses a handful of silver wrappers on the nightstand, keeping one tucked between his fingers.
“Optimistic,” I taunt, but my teasing tone disappears as soon as lowers his head between my legs again, working me with his mouth until I’m soaked, pleasure warming my skin.
“I should have said something before we started, but I’ve been tested since my last partner and everything came back negative,” he says as kisses up my stomach, resting his head on my sternum and looking up at me.
“It’s been years, but same here,” I reply, running my fingers through his hair again. His chest rumbles, and I can’t help but laugh at how much he looks like a pleased cat. “I’m not on birth control, though.”
“That’s okay,” he says, pressing a kiss to the space between my breasts. “You’re sure you want this?”
I slip my fingers beneath the waistband of his boxers, tugging them slightly.
“Just as much as you do,” I say, leaning up to kiss the hollow of his throat as I work his boxers down his hips.
“I promise you, that’s not possible,” he breathes, but before I can argue, he captures my lips with his own, helping me remove the last of his clothes.
I barely register the floral tattoo wrapping up his left thigh as he sits back. I’m mesmerized by him. The muscle and scars and ink, all making Charlie who he is. A vicious man with a soft soul. Someone who believes in fate.
He hands me the foil packet and I carefully tear it open. The wrapper disappears onto the floor with our clothes, and I carefully roll the condom on to his cock, stroking him as I do. He hisses at my touch, his breathing turning labored, and when I finish, he grabs my hand and laces our fingers together.
I watch his face as he positions himself at my entrance and slides into me, slow and deliberate. The feeling of him inside of me is so good, so full, words escape me. He keeps his eyes on where we’re joined until he’s fully seated. We both take a few deep breaths, adjusting to the feeling of being this close.
“You okay?” I ask when he doesn’t move for a few minutes.
He looks at the ceiling again and then back to me, a pained smile on his face.
“I have possibly never been better in my life. Just need a moment.”
Something about him nearly losing it so quickly fills me with a sense of pride that’s probably toxic. I lift my hips off the bed, rocking myself on his cock. Pleasure and laughter rip through me in equal spades as Charlie grips my hips to still me.
“Gwen, I need to feel you come around my cock, and I can’t do that if you keep doing that,” he groans, and I think about ignoring him. About seeing how quickly I can make him come. Of overwhelming him with pleasure again and again, until he doesn’t know if he’s begging for more or for me to stop. But I resist the temptation and relax my hips back onto the bed.
After a minute more, he moves to brace himself over me, lifting one of my legs high around his hip along the way. Slowly, he withdraws himself to the tip, holding himself there as he kisses the juncture of my neck.
“You are incredible.” I feel his words more than I hear them as he slides back into me, forcing my back to arch as he fills me. “Beautiful.” Another thrust. I clench the hand wrapped in his, and he moves them both near my head, not holding me down, just pressing our bodies closer. “Fucking Christ, Gwen, you feel better than I imagined.”
His mouth is on my shoulders, my neck, my breasts, urging me closer and closer to another peak. I moan his name into his shoulder, leaving marks with my teeth, unable to stop myself from clawing closer to him.
He doesn’t stop. Words and bites and kisses. Every time he thrusts into me, our bodies pressed tightly together. I hear my name over and over, whispered and moaned against my lips, and with his teeth wrapped around my nipple, and into the place where my shoulder meets my neck. It’s too much, too good, too close.
My orgasm hits me without warning, stronger than the last one, pulling me under like a riptide. I feel myself clench around Charlie, fingernails digging into his back, chanting his name into his neck.
His lips find mine, and he murmurs something that sounds like yours until he stills, breath caught and muscles tight, forehead pressed to mine.
After a moment, he lets out a breath, and we’re panting against each other, skin sticky with sweat. Charlie kisses my lips, my cheeks, my forehead, any skin he can reach without shifting his position. When I finally collect myself, the last waves of my orgasm receding into a tingling sensation in my limbs, I can’t help but laugh.
I feel his smile even as I keep my eyes closed, his own laugh huffing against me where his lips meet my skin. He shifts gently, slipping his cock from inside me, prompting me to moan involuntarily. He rolls over next to me and immediately tugs me on top of him, cradling me against his chest and pressing his lips to the top of my head.
“We should clean you up,” he says, his words muffled by my hair.
“In a few minutes,” I mumble against his chest, my pounding heart soothed by the slow rise and fall of his chest.
“Okay, just a few minutes.”
I must drift off, the adrenaline drop and comfort of Charlie’s arms lulling me to sleep, because I wake a little while later to him lifting me from the bed, an arm under my legs and around my waist.
“I can walk,” I yawn, trying to blink the haze from my eyes.
“And I can carry you,” he says simply, propping me on the edge of the tub and starting the shower.
We rinse off together, silent and sleepy, a few lazy kisses exchanged here and there.
He does the same thing three more times that night, after every time we wake up tangled together, desperate for each other’s touch.