Chapter 11
11
CHARLIE
There’s a painting on the second floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, back in the corner of the twentieth-century European section. A woman brushing her hair. Pale pink flowers exploding from the window behind her, and her golden waves draped over her shoulder.
Nova looks exactly like that painting as she moves beneath me, her hair loose, flowers on her skin instead of the sheets behind her. Pleasure makes her light up like a solar flare, her body rocking against mine eagerly.
“Where do you need me?” I ask her, my voice rumbling out of me in a rough growl. I press my palm to her hip and let my thumb trail beneath her belly button to the heat between her legs. “Do you need me right here? Hmm?”
I can’t believe I get to see her like this. Bra twisted beneath her breasts and those damn sock/tight things slipping down her thighs. I want to take off her clothes until she’s nothing but bare skin and delicate ink. I want to leave everything exactly where it is.
I want too much, all at once.
“I thought you said no more teasing,” she breathes into my ear, the rasp in her voice making everything inside me pull tight. Christ, I can usually hold myself together better than this.
Not with Nova, apparently.
“It’s called foreplay,” I tell her with a laugh, my hips still grinding against hers. We’ve barely touched and it’s already the best sex of my life. I’m honestly afraid of what might happen if I take my pants off.
She lets out a low sigh and her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks. She moves against me harder, her leg curling around my thigh. I nip at her jaw. “You gonna come for me, Nova girl? So soon?”
“Don’t sound smug.”
I’m not smug, I’m captivated. She blinks open heavy eyes and watches me move over her.
“Put your mouth back on me?” She threads her fingers through my hair and guides me to her chest. I go very willingly, nuzzling at the rose on her sternum before dragging my jaw against her breast. I pinch her nipple between two knuckles and she makes a gasping sound.
“God,” she breathes. “That’s—um. That’s very good.”
I make a half-moon with my teeth just below her rosy nipple. I like leaving my mark next to all the others. Her back arches up. I grin. “Are you going to thank me for it?”
She smiles, tilting her head against the bed. We’ve somehow managed to flip ourselves so we’re almost hanging off the bottom, our legs up by the pillows. We’re impatient, grasping for one other. Shifting and rolling and tugging at whatever clothes are left. I brace one of my socked feet on the floor so I can drive into her harder, moving above her like we’re already fucking.
Her hands slip from my shoulder blades to my biceps, gripping me there. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I laugh and reach under her for the clasp of her bra, frustrated with the twisted lace. It gives and I fling it over my shoulder. “I like everything you do, Nova.”
Her face softens at that, a pleased little smile that’s completely at odds with that flushed and panting picture she makes beneath me. I slip my hand back between us to the front of her underwear, and her smile tumbles into a rough laugh.
“Thank you, Charlie,” she breathes right against my ear. She tips her legs open wider, and I nudge her underwear to the side, touching where she’s warm and wet. I make an embarrassing noise when I feel her, but I don’t care. It’s Nova. She’s already seen me moonwalk in a reindeer costume at the tree farm during the holiday season. I’m not trying to impress her.
I’m just trying to make her come.
“You’re so wet. Is all of this for me?”
She hums, eyes closed, hips moving into my touch. “I’m thinking about John Stamos.”
I grin. “He must be doing it for you, then.”
Nova’s eyes blink open, gazing up at me. “Yeah,” she breathes. She reaches down and curls her hand around my wrist, urging my hand harder against her. Her hips rock into me, controlling me from below. Taking her own pleasure.
It’s hot as fuck.
“Yeah, he’s doing it for me.”
I slip two fingers into her and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. I rub my thumb at her clit, rough circles that have her shutting her eyes again.
“Nuh-uh.” I move my thumb away and she whimpers. “Eyes, please.”
She lets go of my arms, dropping hers above her head and gripping the bottom edge of her bed frame. Her fingers flex around the metal. I reward her with my thumb back where she wants it.
“Who would have thought—” Her breath catches when I change the tempo of my strokes, little taps that have her feet scrambling against the bed. “God. Who would have thought you’d be so bossy?”
“Not bossy,” I mumble, watching the pink that blooms on her cheeks slip down her neck to the curve of her breasts. Her red rose looks like it’s glowing. “I just want to watch you come.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I shift down onto my elbow above her, hovering with my mouth over hers. Her whole body is trembling beneath mine. “Do you think you’re close?”
I drop a chaste kiss to her bottom lip and move my hand faster against her. Another finger. More sloppy circles. She doesn’t answer with words, just a sharp inhale through her nose.
“Yeah.” I smile. “Yeah, you’re close.”
“Again with the”—she moans—“smug. It doesn’t suit you, Charlie.”
“Sure it does.” I drop a kiss to the corner of her mouth, the curve of her chin, the secret little spot I’ve discovered below her ear. “I want it so bad, Nova. Probably more than you do.”
She laughs, fingers curling tighter around the edge of her bed frame. Her knuckles strain white. “I don’t know about all that,” she moans. “I want it pretty bad.”
I nod into her neck. “I can feel it,” I whisper. “I can feel you. You gonna take it?”
She grabs the back of my neck and pulls. My body goes tight like she’s got that hand on my dick instead. She tips her chin up and watches me with half-closed eyes, a flash of blue-green gray. Storm clouds gathering.
“You gonna give it to me?” she breathes, her lips curled in a smile.
“I’ve already told you. I’ll give you anything you want.”
I keep my hand steady against her, the other shifting up to sink into her hair spread across the comforter. She liked that earlier, when I tugged on her hair while we kissed. I loop it around my fist and urge her face closer to mine.
“You need me to put my mouth on you again?” I suck a wet kiss beneath her ear. “Want me to get on my knees?”
She laughs, something winded. “I think I’d like you on your knees.”
I nod. “Yeah, I bet you would. I’d pull you right to the edge of the bed so you could watch. Keep you close so I could still touch these pretty tits.” I drag my teeth up her neck and bite the lobe of her ear. “Come on, Nova girl. Tell me what you need.”
She doesn’t need me on my knees. She doesn’t need anything but a rough roll of my thumb against her clit and my words in her ear, listing out all the things I want to do to her. All the fantasies that I’ve stocked up in my chaotic brain, tumbling free in rough pants against her ear.
She comes with a whimper of my name, hands curled into fists and her face tucked to the side. I nudge her back to me with my knuckles at her chin, watching her crest and break.
“No,” I say quietly. “Keep looking at me.”
She moans as she trembles through the rest of it, her gaze fixed on mine. She’s beautiful. More than that. If I had the right words, I’d use them.
“Get a condom,” she orders me, flinging one limp hand in the direction of her nightstand. I practically fall off the bed following her direction, yanking the drawer completely out. A notebook and a couple of pens spill out across the floor. A box of tissues and a strip of condoms.
I grab for it and fling them on the bed.
“That seems ambitious,” she tells me, still blissed out and boneless across the edge of the bed. Her pretty underwear is twisted around her hips, one of her thigh highs scrunched below her knee. Messy hair and a hickey on her neck. I want to take a picture of her just like this and keep it in my wallet. Maybe blow it up and wallpaper my entire apartment with it.
“You said one night,” I say, crawling back to her. I grip her ankle and tug until she’s beneath me. “You didn’t say one time.”
Her eyes light up, delighted. “I guess that’s true.”
I grunt as I attempt to shimmy out of my pants without getting out of the bed. Her hands try to help, then get distracted and slip into my boxer briefs instead. I drop my forehead to her collarbone when she grips my cock. “Nova, I’m barely hanging on here.”
“I know. I like it.”
I move my hips into her touch for all of thirty seconds before it feels like too much. “Okay. Okay okay okay. Give me a second.”
I tumble my way off the bed again, an absolute mess, and kick my way out of my pants. I slip off my briefs and turn back to her. Nova is watching with her knees tucked to her chest, her underwear on the floor, her hair pulled over one shoulder. She’s lazy in her perusal of me, taking her time, holding me where I stand with her eyes.
“You’re, ah—” Her eyes flick back to mine and hold. She swallows. “You look good,” she finally says.
“Effusive praise.” I laugh. Her tongue skirts her bottom lip as I walk over to the bed, the tightness between my legs almost unbearable. This will probably last all of twenty-six seconds. I want her so badly I’m vibrating with it, all the way down to my bones.
I loop my hands around her ankles and then make sweeping brushes of my palms against her calves. I can’t get over her in these tights. I don’t think I ever will. “How would you like me?”
“Back to this, huh?”
I nod. Yes, back to this. I want to do exactly what she wants. I want to be everything she needs. Fuck getting out of her system. I want to be so far in her system I’m all she ever thinks about.
“It worked out so well the last time,” I manage.
“Up here, then.” She points at the headboard. One edge of her fitted sheet has come off. All her pillows are on the floor. I follow her direction and sit with my back against the black wrought iron frame. She shifts up on her knees and follows me.
I grab her hips in my hands, hissing through my teeth when she perches herself just below my cock.
“Hello,” she says, like we’re out at a picnic and I’m not a second away from spilling all over her stomach.
“Hi,” I grit out. I grab for one of the condoms, but she plucks it out of my hand before I can roll it on. She tears the wrapper with her teeth, then glides it over me with her palm. I think I might die. I tilt my head back and watch her with hazy, unfocused eyes. I can’t decide what I want to watch. Her hand around my cock or her inked thighs flush against my hips. The flutter of her pulse in her neck or the bare swell of her breasts, pink nipples a tease through the cascade of her blond hair.
I settle for those blue-green eyes, narrowed in amusement as her hand works me. I think she likes watching me suffer.
I know she does.
“How are you doing?” I ask, attempting to hold on to the thread of conversation.
She snickers. “About to be better.” She gives me another pump with her hand, then lifts herself on her knees. I grip the slippery material of the tights on her left thigh like I’m holding on for dear life. “How are you doing?” she asks with a tip of her chin.
“I’m—” The rest of my answer disappears as she sinks down, taking me inch by inch. She rocks her hips back and forth slowly, a deep exhale with every slow, sinuous movement. She has to stop halfway, her breathing harsh and her hands trembling.
It’s a relief that she feels it too. This…overwhelming…everything.
“You can take it,” I murmur. My chest is heaving and my fingertips are pressing bruises into her skin. She presses down another half inch. “There you go. You’re doing so good.”
She makes a sound. A huff or a laugh or a moan or a combination of all three. I can’t really tell. “ You’re doing so good,” she says back. Her fingertips trace shapes against my chest and she swivels her hips. “So patient.”
“Not really.” I laugh. I toss my head back and grip her ass in my hands when she nudges the rest of the way down, her hips flush to mine. I think about obscure tax forms. Deposit minimums. The return rate on that one stock I’ve been monitoring for two weeks.
I’m close already and all she’s done is let herself sink down on me.
“Charlie,” she whimpers, and something in my chest breaks off. I can’t get a deep enough breath. “Charlie,” she says again.
“I know,” I groan. I squeeze her ass and move her over me. Fuck. She feels incredible. My body is a lightning storm of sensation. Electric bolts of pleasure between my legs and in the backs of my knees and at the base of my spine. “Fuck, Nova.”
She nods and curls her fingers around my jaw. She tugs my face to hers.
“Kiss,” she slurs. “Kiss me while I fuck you.”
I nod. “Yeah, okay. Good. That’s good.”
I catch her mouth with mine as she starts to move, a gentle back and forth that somehow manages to wind me up even higher. My hands itch with the need to take. To push until we’re both mindless with the pleasure spinning cobwebs around us. But I like that she’s taking what she wants from me. Getting exactly what she needs from my body beneath hers.
“It’s good,” she tells me. “You feel good.”
“You feel better,” I mumble somewhere in her neck. I wrap my arm around her and drag my palm up her spine, anchor my fist in her hair and tug her head back until I can get more of her under my mouth. I trace the stars inked behind her ear with my tongue and her hips grind harder. “Can you go faster, Nova girl? I’m losing my mind.”
“No,” she says simply. She drops her head to the side and her hair tickles my thighs. She sighs so prettily, I’m suddenly right at the edge. “I want you to come like this. Nice and slow.”
I push my hips into hers. “Inside you?” I grit out. Just the thought of it has everything curling tighter.
She hums. “Mm-hmm.”
“Are you close?”
The ghost of a smile slips across her lips. “Yeah. Yeah, I really am.”
I push up with my hips while she grinds down, a smooth, rolling pressure that builds and builds and builds. I shift farther down the mattress and prop my knees up behind her so she can lean back, thumbing at the place between her legs when she does. I stare hard at the rose between her breasts. The light sheen of sweat on her skin and the way her chest bounces with every smooth movement.
She shivers and I grin. “John Stamos again?”
She presses her palms flat to my clenching abdomen and chases my touch, grinding harder but keeping that same slow, deep rhythm. “He’s really good with his hands,” she gasps.
I laugh and then groan at a particularly rough roll of her hips. My thumb works faster against her. Everything feels like it’s glowing iridescent, starlight dancing at the corners of my eyes. “You gonna come for me again, pretty girl?”
She nods and leans forward, trapping my hand between us until all I can do is nudge her gently with my knuckles. I cup my other hand around the back of her neck and hold her close. I want her mouth on mine when she comes. I want to feel the tremble that starts in her legs and rolls all the way up.
“After you come for me,” she says, and then she kisses me, a messy biting thing that has me groaning into her mouth. Desperation fuels me, the edge suddenly looming before me, my orgasm within reach. I hold her still with my hand at her neck and move her the way I need, triggering my orgasm in three rough jerks, a cascade of golden sparks. I grunt into it, a breathless, wordless exaltation of her name as I spin out of orbit.
When I manage to scrape the pieces of myself back together, Nova is still draped above me, little restless swivels of her hips against mine. She hums, pleased, when I shift my hand, fingertips rubbing. I touch her carefully until her legs are shaking at my hips, my body still inside of hers. That delicious, perfect tremble clutching tight.
“Like this?”
She nods, nose digging into my cheek, her mouth open against my jaw. Her teeth scrape and her hands curl into fists against my shoulders. “Almost there.”
“That’s it.” I brush a kiss to the corner of her mouth and she moans. Goose bumps pebble her skin and I smile. “C’mon, let’s see it.”
Her eyes narrow and she comes with a sharp inhale, her nose digging into my collarbone. Her hands clutch at whatever piece of me she can reach, and I cling to her just as tightly.
We lie there together afterward, sprawled across the middle of her bed. One of my legs is numb. Nova’s right arm is hanging completely off the mattress. Another corner of the fitted sheet pops up, and I think I left the bag of marshmallows open on the table downstairs. I blink up at the ceiling. I have no idea what to do with myself. I have no idea if my body is still in one piece.
“I’ve got bad news, Nova.”
I deliver it in staccato bits. I can’t figure out how to catch my breath.
She lifts her face from my neck and rests her chin on my chest. Her cheeks are pink and some of her hair is stuck to her jaw. “What’s that?”
“I’m not sure that worked anything out of my system.”
“Oh?” She lifts herself off me and slips to the bed at my side, one hand propped beneath her head. I match her position and trace the flowers on her thigh with my fingertip, all the way over her hip and back down again. “Should I be a little bit mean? See if it helps?”
I shrug. “Might as well try it.”
“That was the best you’ve got?” She snaps, voice sharp. “If I wanted a mediocre lay, I would have picked someone up at Applebee’s.”
I groan and flop back on the bed, my arm thrown over my eyes. My cock gives an eager twitch against my thigh.
Nova bursts out laughing.
“It didn’t work,” I mutter, peering at her from behind my bicep. “In fact, I think it’s worse now.”
She curls up with a pillow. “Does Applebee’s still exist?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one hanging around them, looking for prospects.”
“Prospects,” she snorts. “I’m not trolling through the streets, Charlie.”
“Thank god for me, you’re just trolling through tree fields.” I press a quick kiss to her shoulder, think about it, then lean forward again and drop a wet kiss to her neck. She squeals and rolls, and I follow her across the bed. I catch her mouth with mine and she laughs into me, hands clutching my back. We kiss for a long, languid stretch of time, her foot rubbing up and down the side of my leg and my fingers tangled in her hair. It’s probably how we should have started all of this, if I contained even an ounce of patience.
“What were you saying about one night, not one time?” she asks quietly.
I lean up on my elbows above her, then glance over my shoulder at the bottom of the bed. There are six condoms left.
“I need another snack first.” I drop a quick kiss to her mouth, then push out of the tangled sheets. I need carbohydrates. Electrolytes. Maybe an espresso from the fancy machine on her countertop. If I only get one night with Nova Porter, I’m going to make it fucking count. “Be right back.”
I get rid of the condom in a wad of tissues and grab my boxers off the floor. Nova watches me from the bed, limbs loose and tangled in the sheets. Curved halfway on her side, I can see a peony blooming across her rib cage, the same petals as the ones drifting across her shoulder blades. She nuzzles farther into her nest of sheets, some of her hair falling across those gemstone eyes.
I stop and stare, and then stare some more.
“Bring back the fudge stripe cookies that are in the cabinet,” she orders.
I shake myself out of my stupor and give her a tiny salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
I’m halfway down the hallway when she shouts, “The peanut butter too!”