Chapter 29
29
It’s not a kiss. Or not one that I’ve ever experienced. Because Charlie kisses me with every millimeter of his body. With the command of his lips, with his teeth, which coax my bottom lip from my top, and his tongue, which meets mine with confident strokes. He kisses with the tips of his strong fingers as they curve behind my ears, angling me exactly where he wants. With the arch of his back, bending over me, engulfing my senses, and the press of his knee, urging my legs apart. With each sound I make, he adjusts. Kisses me deeper, moves his hands to my waist, bringing me closer.
When his lips travel to the underside of my jaw, I tilt my head back. His groan vibrates against my chest. I feel his fingers in my hair as he releases it from its knot. Without thinking, I reach up to tidy it. Charlie’s hand comes around my wrist, and I pause, meeting his eyes.
“Leave it,” he says, looking at me with a hunger I don’t know how to handle. “I don’t think you realize how beautiful you are.”
“Whereas you know exactly how beautiful you are.”
Charlie’s lips quirk, but his voice is serious. “I mean it.” His eyes are hooked onto mine like they’ll never let go. “The day we met, I thought you were the most radiant woman I’d ever seen.”
I laugh. “Radiant?”
“Radiant. Dazzling. Incredibly gorgeous. Hot as hell. Sexy as fuck. Take your pick.”
His tone leaves no room for argument. “Until I told you off.” I wasn’t exactly pleasant that day on the dock.
It’s just a nice face. It’s literally the last thing that would make someone attractive to me.
He grips my hips, and I can feel the heat of his hands through the thin fabric of my shorts. “When you told me off, I was ready to drop to my knees and put my remarkable face between your thighs.” He pulls me against his erection, and my mouth goes dry. “That was the first time I thought about making you scream my name.”
Charlie’s thumbs dip under the hem of my shorts. “I guess I beat you, then,” I say. I run my hands over his shoulders and arms, up and down, marveling at all that muscle at my disposal.
“How so?”
“Because,” I say, sliding my hands under his T-shirt, exploring the twin divots at his lower back. He hisses when I run my nails over his skin, and clamps his bottom lip between his teeth, pressing me more tightly to him. “I wanted you when I first saw you handle a cucumber in the grocery store.”
A laugh erupts from his chest as entrancing as the setting sun. “Alice.” He kisses my nose, then my mouth. “I told you.” Then the hinge of my jaw. “Trouble.”
“In my defense, it had been a while since…” I don’t want to say Trevor’s name. “It had been a while.”
Charlie studies me, sweeping my hair over my shoulder and wrapping it in his fist while he kisses me thoroughly. There’s no teeth or tongue, just the tender caress of his mouth on mine. It’s the sweetest way of being consumed, savored like the last bite of homemade chocolate cake. He leans back just enough to look me in the eyes when he says, “I’m going to make you come so many times, you won’t remember a time when you went without.”
I laugh, but it dies in my throat when Charlie’s hands grip my backside, and he hoists me off the floor, guiding my legs around him.
“Show-off.”
“I think you’ll like all the ways I can show off for you.” He lowers me slightly so that he’s pressing against me in the exact right spot. I rock against him, and I wonder if he can tell how ready I am. There’s fabric between us, but not much.
“I want you like this,” I tell him, reaching between us for his waistband. “Now.”
He shakes his head and walks us toward the sofa. “Not now.”
I pull back, scowling. “I don’t understand. I thought we agreed.” There’s a term for what this is, but I’m pretty sure my brain has relocated somewhere between my thighs, so it takes a moment to recall it. “Friends with benefits,” I proudly exclaim when it comes to me.
Charlie lays me down on the sofa and then hovers over me. “I want to do this differently than I would have in the past. I want to be careful.”
“Meaning what?”
“The people I share benefits with aren’t typically my friends.” Charlie smooths a finger over the frown lines between my eyes. “This is new for me, too. I want to go slow. Maybe we should stick to crossing off number five tonight.”
Kiss a cute guy.
“I’m not sure I’d describe you as cute ,” I tell him. “And I want those five thousand orgasms you promised.”
He smiles down at me, and I touch the dimple in his left cheek.
“Is this a negotiation, Alice?”
“Is this how you negotiate?”
“This and a nice tie.”
I prop myself up on my elbows so I can nip his bottom lip. “Maybe we should add a tie next time.”
“Trouble,” he says before kissing me again. I get lost in his mouth, in the weight of him pressing me into the cushions, in his expensive smell mingling with that of the wood, wrapping itself around my memory. With one large hand on my upper thigh, Charlie pushes my legs wide enough to settle between them. My hands move to his backside, desperate to keep him close. I raise my hips and tilt my neck back, because even just this feels incredible.
“It could be fun,” Charlie says. “Fooling around like seventeen-year-olds.” He lowers his lips to my neck and sucks. Hard.
He presses into me, and I squirm beneath him as he continues to kiss and bite and suck my neck, and then it dawns on me what he’s doing. I push him away, laughing.
“ Do not give me a hickey, Charlie Florek.”
His eyes sparkle like fireflies. “I think it might be too late.” He examines his handiwork. “You have three.”
“Is this what you did when you were seventeen? Go at someone’s neck like a vampire?”
“No. When I was seventeen, we’d probably both be undressed by now.” He huffs out a dry laugh. “Actually, we might be getting dressed again at this point.”
“That sounds fun.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m having a pretty good time here at first base.”
I cackle. “Oh my god. I forgot about the bases.”
Charlie’s smile smothers mine. “That laugh,” he says, and the sound dissolves on his tongue.
I wrap my legs around his waist, and we set a rhythm with our mouths and our hips, and I hear myself gasping. The sounds I make are unfiltered and unfamiliar, breathy and then guttural. I’m not thinking about what Charlie might like. I’m not performing, like I have in the past, trying to make it good for him. I’m just me, which makes it even better. It’s liberating. I’m so into it that my kisses become clumsy, and my teeth knock against his.
“Sorry,” I say when they clack a second time.
Charlie tilts my head back. “Don’t apologize.” He drags a finger down my throat, and I shudder. “I like unraveling you.”
He keeps his hands to my face and neck and limbs, but I’m not going to last much longer. Desire is twisting more tightly inside me. It’s a multisensory experience, almost too much with the friction and Charlie’s smell, the way he breaks our kiss and looks at me like I’m someone important, the taste of him on my tongue. When my legs start to shake and my breathing turns ragged, Charlie whispers in my ear, “Just like that, Alice Everly.” My skin pebbles, and then all the tension building in me shatters.
I close my eyes as Charlie brushes the damp curls away from my forehead. He kisses me once, tenderly, and when I open my eyes, I find him staring down at me, concerned.
“I don’t think that qualified as first base,” I say, panting. Not that I’d made it even halfway to first when I was seventeen.
Charlie chuckles. “I honestly have no idea where that falls.”
I reach between us, running my hand over the thick length straining the soft fabric of his pants. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, and his eyelids flutter closed for a moment before he takes my hand in his, kissing it.
“Not tonight,” he rasps.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” I say. “I got what I wanted.”
He leans over me, resting his forehead on mine. “So did I. And these are my favorite comfy pants. I don’t want to get them messy.”
I hum. “I do believe there are options for keeping them clean.” I raise my eyebrows meaningfully, and he laughs again.
He taps me on the nose. “Trouble.”
Quickly, I nip the end of his finger, and his eyes widen. “You just bit me.”
“Touch my nose again, and I’ll bite harder.”
“Is that so?” He kneels between my legs.
“It is.” I sit up, and he flicks the end of my nose.
“How dare you.”
But before I can react, he has my arms pinned in one hand and is tickling my ribs with the other.
I shriek his name and laugh so hard, I cry. It’s not long before I’m on top of him, trying to make him laugh. Charlie isn’t very ticklish, but he is smiling. I pause for a moment, touching my aching cheek.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asks.
I look down at him. “I’ve been smiling too much,” I tell him.
Charlie’s eyes flash with delight. “No such thing.”