15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Remington James
R olling over, I drape an arm across Cal’s bare back. A little lick to his bicep makes him laugh before tucking me back under his arm. “Shhh… go back to sleep.” He has a baseball tournament in a couple of hours, but I just want to tie him to the bed.
Charlie’s sleepy moan makes me smile, as I pull him tighter to the other side of me. Last night was aggravating and… surprisingly hot (once we got to Cal’s townhouse). We gave up on the Drive In after Grady was bombarded, and Wilder had a seizure.
Leaving Wilder to get a ride from Grady. Not the right kind of one. Unfortunately. He’s acting aloof towards his former best friend, still hurt by the past.
Headway was made on all fronts. Well sort of. Cal needs to come around to accepting Wilder. That might take an act of God. Or persuasion from Charlie. Who knew witnessing one of Wilder’s seizures would make him decide to trust what I told him. That I had proof I couldn’t share that Wilder Lee didn’t hurt his sister. And they seem to have a pact over the necklace. Like telling me will activate some crazy doom. It’s ludicrous.
“Why are we awake?” Charlie mutters, pulling me in more tightly. “It’s still darkish.” The sky is just starting to lighten, birds chirping. I won’t be able to fall back to sleep as I lay here running my hand through Cal’s hair, my other hand over Charlie’s arm.
The craving for them not sated in the least, I say temptingly, “Playtime?”
Cal pops an eye open. “Damn, baby. How can I say no to that?”
Still naked from our escapades last night, I pull the bedsheet away from me, kicking it to the foot of the bed and off both these fine specimens. My hand rubs its way down Charlie’s abs to his hardening dick. Cal rolls out of bed telling us he’ll be right back.
Nestling close to him, his erection resting against my thigh sandwiched between his legs, his delicious sigh melts into a moan of need, “Tell me this will never end.”
I can’t. That ticking time bomb in my heart cautions me against it. Instead, I kiss him while replying, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
I do. Feeling a love that’s all consuming. Definitive. Linked to both Charlie and Cal no matter what the future might hold.
Slipping back into bed, Cal kisses my shoulder, “Darling, lovebug, honey, honey bunny, sweetie, Remikins, sugar pie…” His kisses pepper my shoulder inching their way to my neck. Knowing that I’ll get needy as fuck. Now is not the time for pet names. Even if he’s being adorable.
Commence breathing palpitations. My body writhing against Charlie’s. He catches my mouth, his teeth grazing over my bottom lip. “If you keep that up, I’m not going to last.”
In a sultry tone, I say, “That’s the whole point. Make my eyes roll back in my head, my pussy convulse, and my brain short circuit. I know you can…”
“Say less…” He catches his breath, before running his tongue along my bottom lip. Rolling a condom on, he shoves Cal’s hand away from my clit, his thumb taking over, two fingers dipping into me. “Rem, you’re drenched.”
With Cal’s hands on my nipples, his mouth gives heated attention to the side of my neck, Charlie’s dick slides into me. I buck back, my breath stopped, momentarily, as he stretches into me slowly. Backing out and back in, rubbing me just right. Cal’s hands move to wrap around my waist holding me still.
We move in sync, our bodies familiar with each other. Both raw with intimacy and racy pleasure. My muscles contract around Charlie too quickly because watching him works me up to dangerous heights. Cal pulls me away to lay back. He wipes me down gently with a towel, slow kisses, his hand on my ass cheek massaging it. His dick penetrates me with a swift stroke. Getting my bearings proves difficult as he pounds into me. Charlie cautions, “Ease up, man.”
Cradling me from the side, I’m repositioned, causing Cal to slip out. An angry look passes to Charlie for interrupting us.
I pull Cal down to face me on his side, my hand holding his cheek. “I need you… I need you…,” I say in a fevered plea to him.
A stuttered breath passes from him, before he blinks, leaning in to kiss me. “How did I get here? How do I deserve you?
I stood firm for years-love was for idiots. It blinded a person. I didn’t falter. Not until the day Cal touched me and my legs shook.
Cal Truitt, Charlie Gibson… one of them could be my undoing now, and right this minute the scales are weighing on the side of “worry about it later”, because I’m intertwined in them. Our hearts locked together.
Oh no. Deep breath.
Seated at the end of our dock Nat and Mitch sit with their heads close. Charlie warned me this was a possibility. That they’d seek each other out again. Fun times.
Pulling my rainbow-colored crochet bikini top back into place, I contemplate going back inside. But I want to know how Mitchell has been. I haven’t seen him since a brief visit to Charlie’s after his parents left.
Cursing over the flurry of bugs, I step onto the dock causing the creaking telltale sign that I’m approaching. He looks over his shoulder at me. A weak greeting leaves him. With dark circles under his reddened eyes, Mitchell looks tough.
I sit down on the other side of Natalie. Mitchell asks me, “You met my mom, huh?”
I’m still shook up over Wilder defending her, after her harsh words about him. “I did, at Lala’s funeral. I’m sorry you couldn’t make it.” Charlie had filled me in about the hangover he was sleeping off that day. Embarrassing really. He’d claimed to love Carlotta but couldn’t even honor her memory by keeping it together. Okay, that was judgmental. Some of Charlie may be rubbing off on me… not the best attribute either.
Mitchell looks over the lake, still turned away from me. “She said Charlie called you his girlfriend, but aren’t you dating Cal?”
Yeesh. Okay. “About that.” I toss the stick I’d been holding for Droolius back towards the shore. “I’m seeing them both.”
Natalie’s head swivels in my direction, her mouth dropping open. “Nuh uh. Since when?”
I try to explain, in general terms, what has transpired, her face flushing redder as I go on, “... it’s complicated.”
She whispers to Mitchell before turning to face me, “You treat me like a baby. I’m tired of it. No one tells me anything, and I tell you everything. Everything, Remi.” She bursts into tears.
“Nat?” I don’t know what to say. Do I baby her? Am I part of the problem when it comes to the way she acts?
“No one takes either one of us seriously,” Mitchell says in a sad voice. It hits me like a freight train. They are remarkably alike. Underestimated, treated as fragile.
My words back up inside me, while I focus on my feet dangling in the water. What do I say? She’s right. I’m an asshole. Did I trick myself into thinking I was more capable, smarter, responsible? Labeling her inept? I never make time for her; she offers while I decline. She tells me every last detail of her relationships, her day, her observations, and I barely tolerate her.
Jesus Christ. I’m the fucking worst.
I would tell myself constantly she lived a charmed life… what did I know about it? I never listened.
Suddenly, I turn, giving her a bear hug that makes her gasp. My voice chokes up, “Nat, I’m sorry. Really stinking sorry.”
Our crying while clinging to each other forces a piece of my heart back into place. I convinced myself for so long that Natalie hated me. Hearing from Uncle Skip about what our mom’s did…it cemented the belief that she despised me. But I never tried to be her friend, much less cousin or sister. I gave it no effort.
Natalie carefully wipes below her eyes, so her mascara doesn’t smudge. “Mitch, tell her.”
I wait to hear what he’s got to say, but it’s like he’s in a trance staring at the water. “What is it?”
My patience runs thin waiting for him to speak up. He finally says, “No. She won’t believe me anyway.”
He knows something. Did Carlotta confide in him?
“Mitch, did… did you and Lala talk before her accident? About Katie or Sara?” A sense of dread washes through my entire being, begging that he doesn’t say something that will break me.
He pulls a knee up wrapping his arm around it, resting his head. Mumbling he says, “No.”
Natalie tugs on his shirt. “You need to tell Remi what you told me.”
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, “I really wish you would. It sounds… important?” I smack the mosquito on my thigh, blood smears across the frog holding a baseball mitt, a heart shaped ball squeezed inside it. “Mitchell?”
“It’s probably nothing. Uh,” Nat and Mitchell whisper, “I don’t think you should date either Cal or Charlie.”
Tears spring to my eyes. “That’s a weird thing to say, Mitch. Why?”
He scratches his arm, trying to meet my eyes but dropping them to the dock. “They’re both leaving soon.”
Tick, tick boom.