Chapter 36 Cole
Cole
The next morning, a server set up breakfast on the balcony.
Sunlight glittered on the plates and silver lids.
The heat yesterday had worn us both out.
I’d gone to make tea after dinner and come back to find Charlotte asleep on the couch.
She hadn’t even stirred when I’d carried her to bed. I grabbed my phone and made a call.
Theo’s growl reached my ear. “Why the fuck are you calling me this early?”
“I need your help.” I spoke quietly so as not to wake Charlotte.
“I’m hanging up.”
“Wait. I need information. An old art teacher of Charlotte’s. It was a long time ago, but I’m going to send you the details, and you’re going to dig up dirt.”
Theo sighed. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Morning.” Charlotte tightened her dressing gown and stepped out onto the balcony. Her eyes fell on the food laid out. “What’s all this? It looks amazing.”
“Await further instructions and then get the fuck on with it,” I said into the phone and hung up.
Charlotte gave me a disapproving look. “You’re so charming on your work calls. I’m glad you don’t talk to me like that, or we’d have a big problem.”
I pocketed my phone. “I don’t need to talk to you like that. It’s not my fault I’m surrounded by incompetence.”
She laughed. “You’re the boss from hell. You know you catch more flies with honey?”
“Why would I catch them when I can swat them?” I grabbed a couple of cups. “Coffee?”
“Please.” She grabbed a pastry and dropped to sit in the chair next to me. “Back to the grindstone today? I suppose someone’s got to do it. Your employees aren’t going to shout at themselves, are they?”
Church bells rang in the distance. Charlotte put her bare legs up onto a chair and crossed her feet at the ankles.
The sun gilded her chestnut hair. I tried to drag my gaze away from her.
I had work to do, but fuck it. Yesterday had been the best day I could remember.
I wanted more, and I’d arranged a treat for her. I had to be there to see her face.
“No work, but I’m not letting you hijack my tour this time.”
Her eyebrows shot up as she buttered a piece of toast. “You’re coming out with me again?” Her face lit. “Good for you. All work and no play makes Mr. Ackroyd a dull boy. What are we doing?”
I dragged my gaze from her lips and sipped my espresso. “Patience, Mrs. Ackroyd. It’s a surprise. You’ll have to wait and see.”
I knocked on the door of the address my PA had messaged. A slim woman with dramatic streaks of white in her black hair opened the door. She wore an apron covered in clay stains.
“Signor Ackroyd? I’m Rosa.” She inclined her head and flashed a polite smile. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Charlotte flashed me a confused look. Rosa led us into a bright art studio.
Light poured in through tall windows, illuminating a row of potters’ wheels.
The musty scent of clay clung to everything.
The mess made my skin crawl. Cool air hit my face, and it was a welcome relief after the sweltering heat outside.
Charlotte surveyed the studio and a smile touched her lips. “Pottery?” Charlotte took the apron that Rosa handed to her. “Please tell me you’re doing it too?”
Rosa offered me an apron, but I waved it away. “It’s not about me.”
Charlotte took the apron and pulled it down over my head. “No way, signore. You’re not getting out of it. If we’re here, we’re both doing it. I want to see you getting your hands dirty.”
“I booked this for you.”
Her eyes glinted with chiding. “I’m not doing it on my own. Don’t be boring.”
“I’m thirty years old, Charlotte. You can’t peer-pressure me into doing pottery.”
She laughed. “Then I’ll guilt-trip you. I don’t want to do it on my own. Just try something different. It’ll be fun, and it will make me happy.”
I sighed. Fine. It wasn’t my preference, but if it made her happy. There probably wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for that. I held my arms up and let her tie the apron around my middle.
“You’ve shaped on a wheel before?” Rosa asked.
Charlotte nodded and took a deep inhale. “That smell. I’ve missed it.”
The room reeked of wet dirt, but from the look on Charlotte’s face, you’d think she was smelling a bouquet. Charlotte’s gaze traveled over me, and she smothered a laugh.
“Something funny, Mrs. Ackroyd?”
“Just you in an apron. I never thought I’d see the day.”
You and me both. I rolled my eyes. “Stop laughing, or you’re on your own.”
She zipped a finger across her lips. “I’ll stop.”
Charlotte drifted to the sink and admired the shelves crammed with pots of different shapes and sizes. Rosa hovered around, watching us. Three would be a crowd. I wanted Charlotte all to myself.
I kept my voice low so Charlotte wouldn’t hear. “My wife knows how to do this. You can leave us.”
Rosa’s eyebrow hitched a fraction. “You booked a private lesson.”
“Right, and I’ll pay double if it’s even more private.”
She shot me a disapproving sidelong glance. “I’m afraid I can’t leave you unsupervised.”
“Did I say double? I meant to say triple.”
A small knowing smile curved her lips. “Very good, signore. I’ll leave you in peace.”
We sat on rickety wooden stools next to each other.
Charlotte shaped a tall, smooth cylinder beneath her palms. I had a rotating heap of mud, wet clay all over myself, and absolutely no idea what I was doing.
Clay clung to my palms and hid under my fingernails.
I flexed my hands, wishing they weren’t so filthy, frustrated that I couldn’t just relax and go with it.
“How does yours look like that? This is impossible,” I said.
She glanced at my gray lump of shame and smiled like a benevolent primary school teacher admiring a dried pasta creation. “You’re doing great. It just takes practice.”
Her fingers glided inside the spinning cylinder on her wheel, shaping. The gentle rotation hummed around us.
She lifted her gaze from the pot to me. “Tell me about your mother.”
Jesus. Now? Where had that come from? My throat tightened. Those weren’t memories I wanted to dredge up. Not here. This was supposed to be a fun day.
Her eyes were on me, patient and expectant. “You don’t have to talk about her. Not if you don’t want to.”
I shifted on the stool and it creaked on the stone floor. An ache pierced my ribs. I never talked about these things, but opening up to Charlotte about my family had felt like a relief before. I’d kept so much from her when we were kids. She deserved more.
I cleared my throat. “She was a musician. A flutist. My father said he fell in love with her when he saw her in an orchestra in Prague. He brought her to London. I think she must have been happy at some point, because I remember her singing in the kitchen.”
Charlotte’s smile was charmed. “A musician? How lovely. That must be where you get your love of music from.”
“Maybe. She was many wonderful things until my father destroyed her with his criticism, his neglect, and his womanizing. When she lost Penny, it sent her into a spiral. Rather than take care of her, my father left her alone with three kids. She was working hard in rehab. She would have been able to turn things around.”
Charlotte’s voice was soft. She stopped her wheel and reached for me. Her clay-covered hand hovered over my arm. “I’m so sorry.”
Bitterness twisted like barbed wire inside of me. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Pity my father. I’m going to make him pay.”
“You know the best way to get revenge? Find your peace. Your father’s punishment is that he has to be him. You can make a choice to be nothing like him.”
“I’m not a good person like you.”
“You can be anything you want to be. You can let all of this anger inside go if you want to.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“No, it’s definitely not easy.” She threw another glance at my pile of mud and gave me a faint smile. “Don’t stop your wheel. Here. Let me help you.” She got up, grabbed her stool, and sat behind me. Wrapping her arms around my middle, she took my hands and put them on the clay.
“Like this.”
She interlaced her fingers with mine, smooth and wet. “Think of it like a negotiation. You must learn when to apply pressure and when to ease off. Let the clay lead you. If it goes wrong, you start again. It doesn’t matter. At this stage, it’s nothing but potential. Just like you.”
“Me?”
She chuckled, soft and warm. “Yes. You.”
You’re a Thorner. Men like us don’t change. I was set. Brittle and unmalleable. Full of cracks and imperfections.
As the wheel spun, her hands were firm, guiding my palms over the clay. “We’re always unfinished. There is always an opportunity to reshape.”
Her breath was warm on the back of my neck. God. I couldn’t get this woman out of my mind. Did she feel this way about me? This incredible yearning, like a sickness?
“Look how well you’re doing,” she whispered.
I twisted to capture her lips with mine.
It was an instant collapse and death for the pot taking shape between our fingers, but fuck it.
Our mouths met in a passionate kiss. We were both splattered with wet clay, but I couldn’t care less.
I just needed her. I lifted her into my arms, carried her to a table, and deposited her with a soft thud.
“We can’t do this in here,” she said, wrapping her legs around my hips.
“Then why have you opened your legs for me?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t be an arsehole.”
I kept kissing her as I fumbled to drag a condom packet out of my back pocket. My sticky fingers trembled, trying to get it open. We were both too messy and frantic.
“Fuck it,” she cried. “I’m on the Pill. Just pull out.”
No, I didn’t have sex without a condom. This woman drove me crazy, but I had to keep some scrap of control.
“Don’t you dare move,” I growled.
I dashed to the sink, rinsed the clay off my hands, and sheathed myself.
“You’re killing the vibe,” she cried.
I strode back to her and hiked her apron and sundress around her hips. “Where were we?”
She gave me an amused look as she lifted off the table enough for me to pull her underwear down. “You were about to fuck me, but you got freaked out about the condom.”
“Ah, yes. I remember now. Lie back.”
She glanced behind her and did as I instructed. I lifted her legs and propped her feet on my shoulders. Lining myself up, I slid my cock through her wetness. All this sass. She wouldn’t be sassing me when I fucked her senseless.
“Remember when you told me sex was off the table?” I took her weight in my hands. “This is me filing a motion to put it back on.”
With one hard stroke, I penetrated her without mercy.
She gasped and arched her back. “Stop being so smug about it and file harder.”
I slipped a finger between us to work her clit. “Keep sassing me and I’ll file you so hard you won’t be able to walk straight tomorrow.”
I circled her slick flesh with my finger. God. It felt so good to be so deep inside her. Another moan escaped her, and her eyes rolled back. This was all I wanted. To study how to make her breath hitch and her knees shake. To worship her. To be a fucking servant to her pleasure.
Her hips bucked as I pounded her. “Someone could walk in.”
“So what? Let them see who you belong to. You’re mine, Charlotte. You know that, don’t you? My wife.”
“Fake wife. I don’t belong to you or anyone.”
I slowed my pace to lazy, shallow thrusts. Teasing her with just the tip of my cock. Trying to drive her as fucking wild as she made me. I looked down and watched myself moving so painfully slowly inside of her.
“Please.” Her voice was a breathy moan.
I held still. Her perfect pussy made my cock throb with the need to slide home. “Please what?”
She ground against me and clawed at the table. “You said I never had to beg you for anything.”
“Orgasms are the exception.” I stilled with my thumb on her clit, pressing lightly. “Admit that you’re mine.”
“Fuck! You’re a maniac. Just get on with it. Anyone could walk in here.”
“That just makes it more exciting, doesn’t it?” I pushed into her again in one long, slow stroke, getting off on her squirming. “Tell me you’re mine. Tell me you’re not faking.”
She slipped her fingers down to her clit, but I held her wrist by her side. “You don’t get to come yet.”
Her eyes widened in shock, and her whole body shook. “You’re not serious?”
“Deadly. Tell me. Say the fucking words,” I instructed.
She frowned. “That’s not what we agreed.”
Her defiance only made me want to pound her into submission. I grabbed her ass, lifting and holding her wide open for me, and drove my cock deep. I punctuated each word with a merciless thrust. “Tell” thrust “me” thrust “you’re” thrust “mine.”
“Oh God,” she moaned.
“God’s not going to help you, Charlotte. Only you can help yourself by saying the words.”
A red flush climbed her neck. She ground against me desperately.
The feeling of her tight, hot pussy throbbing around me was going to fucking destroy me.
She was giving herself to me, whimpering and shaking.
But it wasn’t enough unless I heard her say it.
I don’t care about control. I don’t care about anything but you.
What will it take to bring you back to me?
“This doesn’t feel fake to me.” I was going to come any second, but I needed the answer. “Does it feel fake to you? Please. Don’t make me fucking beg. Just put me out of my misery and tell me. What is it going to take for you to forgive me, Charlotte?”
She writhed on her back on the paint-stained table, her fingernails digging into the wood. She spoke between desperate gasps of air. “It’s not fair to conduct negotiations with your cock inside me.”
I thrust into her in sharp, rapid strokes, looking down to take in the view as I pounded her. I fucked her like we could fuck the building to the ground around us, like I could fuck her hard enough to make up for all the ways I’d hurt her, and forget everything that had come before.
I rubbed her clit firmly with the pad of my thumb.
A series of agonized cries left her lips.
Her orgasm face tipped me over the edge with her.
We came together, breathing hard and panting.
I pulled out and lifted her to face me, perched on the edge of the table.
My lips found hers and we kissed in a clash of tongue and desperation.
I rested my forehead against hers and tried to slow my breathing.
None of it was fake. Not to me. Every moment with her felt like the only thing in my life that truly wasn’t.