14. Chuck
14
CHUCK
I plant my hand against the door, holding back for a second before I push it open. For a moment, I consider just leaving her to rest—but I know, after everything that happened yesterday, I need to clear the air, and this seems to be the best time to do it.
Dax and Callum are out scouting the area to check for any remnants of the shooter who came after them earlier this week. I know they’ll take their time. Dax won’t be able to rest until he knows for sure that we’re not in any more danger, at least for the time being, and that gives me a good hour or two alone with Charli. An hour or two that I intend to make the most of.
I knock on the door and push it open—inside, I see her lying in bed, staring at the window. The bedside light is on, and I can’t tell if she’s awake or not.
“Charli,” I murmur. “You sleeping?”
“No,” she responds with a sigh, turning over to face me. “I know I should, after everything, I just…can’t.”
I move toward the bed, sitting down at the edge of it and reaching over to rest a hand on her leg beneath the covers. I half expect her to flinch away, but she doesn’t. After what she told us yesterday about her ex, it seems damn close to a miracle that she doesn’t want to shove any man who comes near her as far away as she can get them. But she trusts us.
“Why not?”
“Can’t stop thinking about…about everything,” she admits, propping herself up on a pillow behind her. Her eyes are ringed with dark circles, and it’s clear from a glance that she’s not doing well. I squeeze her leg slightly, and she smiles, though it doesn’t seem entirely convincing.
“About what?”
“About…about him. James,” she confesses. “And you guys. And how much trouble I brought to your door by turning up like this out of the blue…”
She shakes her head, and casts a look toward the window.
“It’s not fair,” she adds softly. “It’s not fair that you—that you have to deal with all of this. You guys came out here to get a new start away from everything, and now?—”
“And now, we’ve decided we want to help you,” I remind her. “You gave us the choice. Remember? And we chose to help you.”
She looks over at me again and smiles slightly. “I know,” she replies quietly. “And I—I’m so grateful for that. I just…I can’t help but wonder if you really know how bad James is going to make this. When he doesn’t get something he wants…”
She shakes her head. I raise my eyebrows at her.
“Charli, we’re SEALs,” I counter. “I promise whatever your shithead of an ex has planned, it’s going to be nothing compared to what we saw out there in the field.”
She smiles, a little more sincerely this time. “Of course,” she murmurs. “I forget with you sometimes, you just seem so…so calm.”
I chuckle. “I was in comms,” I tell her. “I had to keep a cool head, no matter what was thrown at me.”
“Why did you choose that?” she asks curiously.
I shrug. “Our father was a SEAL, and he was in active service,” I reply. “And I saw the weight that put on his shoulders. I wanted to do my part, don’t get me wrong, but I felt like I would be better off working the more technical side of things. Callum and Dax, they were the ones who went out there and…”
I trail off. I still don’t know the extent of what my brothers saw in their respective time fighting. Neither of them talk about it much. What I do know, I’ve gleaned from reports and documents I’ve pulled from their files, and that’s enough to confirm to me that I should never go bringing it up.
“They both really struggle with it, huh?” she asks, and I nod.
“Dax especially,” I reply. “Just like our dad. He got injured, and he was never the same again. Never felt like he belonged anywhere. Always blamed himself for what happened.”
She shakes her head. “God, I know this sounds crazy,” she breathes. “But I know how he feels. I mean, I know I didn’t go through anything as bad as he did, but that—that feeling like you’re responsible for all of it. That you’re alone in the world. I—I know how that feels.”
Her voice cracks, and I move my hand to cover hers.
“Hey,” I murmur. “You’re not alone anymore, okay? You have us. And we’re not going anywhere.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, and she leans forward to wrap her arms around me. I hold her close, breathing in the scent of her. Being this intimate with a woman, it’s still something I’m getting used to again, but I can’t get over how well she seems to fit against my body, into my arms, like she was made to sit right there.
When she pulls back and gazes up at me, I can see something else in her eyes. A flash of what was there last night, when the two of us fooled around in the greenhouse before we were interrupted. She reaches up to rest her hand on the back of my neck, and gives me this small, sweet smile.
“You know, last night, you said that we weren’t done,” she reminds me playfully. “Did you mean that, or…?”
I don’t bother replying in words. Instead, I cover her mouth with mine and kiss her again, pulling her against me with more purpose this time, snaking my arms around her waist and gripping tight, silently trying to let her know that I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. None of us are. None of us want to.
But right now I’m not thinking of anyone but her.
I pull the covers away and toss them onto the floor, moving back on top of her and pushing her down onto the bed. She feels so small, so delicate beneath me, and another surge of protectiveness rushes through my body. But it’s mixed with something else this time, something more demanding, something I want nothing more than to give in to. And as her hand traces down to the small of my back, I know she craves the exact same thing.
Her legs part and she lifts her hips to press them against mine, my cock already swelling from her attention. I didn’t get a chance to release my tension last night, and it’s all built up inside of me, driving a passion through me that I haven’t felt in a long time.
I growl against her mouth, pushing her hands up over her head and pinning them there as I flex my hips against hers and let her feel the full hardness of my cock pressed to her through her jeans. She lets out a moan against my lips, a promise that she wants this as much as I do, and I keep her wrists pinned in one hand as I move down to undo her pants and push off her underwear.
Soon, she’s stripped to the waist beneath me, and I just have to pause for a moment to admire the woman all laid out underneath me like this. It has been so damn long since I’ve been with a girl, and until now, I’ve been fine with that. But suddenly, the sight of her right here in front of me, it sends a rush of need through me that I can’t even begin to control.
“Fuck,” I mutter, kissing her again, my hand moving to my fly to unzip my pants so I can finally feel her from the inside out.
Pulling my straining erection into my hand, I press it against the entrance to her pussy. She’s already soaked, as though this is what she’s been waiting for since the moment we were interrupted yesterday. And I’m more than willing to give it to her, any way she wants it, any way she needs it.
Grabbing her hips, I pull them up toward me as I sink into her gorgeous pussy for the first time, letting go of her hands and listening to the deep sigh of pleasure she lets out at the sensation of me inside of her.
“Oh, fuck, that feels so good,” she gasps against my ear, her voice ragged with want. I pull back and thrust into her again, grabbing her thighs to push them back and allow myself even deeper into her.
She hooks her ankles around my back, pulling me into her, our bodies pressed flush together as our mouths find each other once more. Our tongues are moving against each other as I move into her hard and deep, letting the sounds of her moans and gasps guide me. It’s like something wild has overtaken me, something I can’t control. I usually pride myself on being able to keep my head even in the craziest situations, but being with her, I can’t even hope to try.
I wrap my arms around her, shifting so I’m fucking her right into the mattress. The sensation of her warm, wet pussy wrapped around my cock is intoxicating, and I know I’m not going to be able to hold out much longer before I go over the edge. Judging by the way her breathing is starting to come harder and faster against my ear, I doubt she will either.
“I want to feel you come, baby,” I tell her, mirroring my words from last night—but this time, I’m far less in control, the sentence coming out more a demand than encouragement. She moans again, and our lips crash together again as I move harder and deeper into her, needing more of her, needing as much of her as I can get…
And then I feel it, the tension of her pussy spasming around my cock. She cries out, so loud I wouldn’t be surprised if Callum and Dax can hear it from wherever the hell they are—but I don’t care. I plunge into her one last time and hold myself there, stilling inside of her as her slit throbs around my length over and over again.
And that takes me over the edge. Knowing that she’s coming for me, on me, knowing that whatever we have is enough to get her to go over the edge, it’s the last inch of mental stimulation that it takes for me to finish. I grind myself against her as I come, filling her to the very brim with my seed, not wanting to miss a second of this.
I hold her there for a long moment after the two of us are done, breathing in the scent of her, feeling the warmth of her body against mine—listening to her ragged breathing as she slowly, slowly starts to come back down to earth once more, her hands resting on my shoulders, her mouth just an inch or two from mine. After a moment, I can feel her smiling, her heartbeat pounding in her chest as she tries to make sense of what just happened.
“That was…” she begins. But before she can speak, I kiss her again—she doesn’t need to say a damn word. I already know what she’s thinking. And as I pull her against me once more, I feel her shiver happily into my body, sinking against me like there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.
And right now—I feel the same way.