Chapter 39
CHAPTER 39
C HARLIE
Emily lies sprawled out on her back on our bed, her gorgeous naked body on full display for me. As I rest on my side, my head propped up on my hand, I lazily stroke her skin over the fading blue and purple marks scattered over her hand and shoulder on her right side where her body took most of the brunt when she flew into the car door and window in the accident.
“See, I told you I was okay to have sex. It’s been a week and a half since the accident. I’m almost all better.” Emily grins up at me, apparently pleased that I finally gave in and we made love—very carefully—this morning.
I can’t take my eyes off the reminders of the accident on her skin, though. I’ll be grateful to see those bruises gone. “Does it still hurt?” My voice is soft, hushed.
“Only a little bit. It’s not bad.”
I think she’s telling the truth, but there is a part of me that fears she’s downplaying the pain, so I’ll worry less.
There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask her since I got her home, but I’ve held back, not wanting her to feel any pressure. But I can’t wait any longer.
I reach up and gently grasp her chin, turning her head until she’s looking at me. “Stay with me.”
Emily smiles. “I am staying with you.” She lifts her eyebrows in a quizzical look.
“I mean permanently.” A small gasp escapes her. “Stay with me. Move in. We’ll get all of your things out of storage, and we can use whatever you want and sell the rest or something. We can keep all your stuff and get rid of mine. I don’t care. I just want you here.”
“Really?” she whispers, her doe eyes enormous.
“Really. I want your presence felt everywhere here. I want to know I’ll go to sleep next to you at night and wake up with you in the morning. I want to help you plant your garden every year, take pictures of you standing next to sunflowers each season, see you cook in the kitchen I designed for you. All of it. I want all of you, Emily.”
“Yes,” she whispers. Then, louder, “Definitely, yes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she answers. “I have a condition, though.” She wears a devious smirk on her face.
I narrow my eyes at her. “What’s that?”
“I want to get a puppy. One of those labs from the lady Annie got Bean from.”
I grin at her. “You want a dog?”
“Yep. And don’t get mad, but I already kinda put a deposit down on the litter that will be ready to go to their fur-ever homes in three weeks.”
“You what?” I’m sure my mouth is hanging open.
She shrugs. “It happened before we broke up. I figured I’d bring her home and ask forgiveness afterward. I’d have a companion when you were working a twenty-four-hour shift. And if I wasn’t living here anymore then I wouldn’t have to ask. So….”
She looks so damn cute trying to bat her eyelashes at me and wearing the pouty little smile that makes me think all kinds of dirty thoughts about her sweet mouth.
“And if I agree, what will you give me?” I tease.
“Mmmm”—she quirks one eyebrow and a corner of her mouth up making a show of scratching her head like she’s thinking hard—“I might be able to think of something.”
I rise up to my knees and position myself between her legs, using my body to spread them for me, holding her sultry gaze in mine. “It’s only fair if you get a puppy, I get to play with your pussy.”
Her pupils dilate with lust, and I spend the next five minutes caressing and flicking her clit with my finger, varying the pressure, all the while holding eye contact with her. Before long, she’s writhing under my hand.
“Oh God, please. Please, Charlie,” she begs. Her whimpers are so damn hot.
I love watching her when she’s like this, overwhelmed with pleasure and grasping for her release.
“Please what, baby? Tell me what you want.”
“Make me come. I need to come.”
“Do you want to come on my hand or my face?”
She tugs her lower lip between her teeth and it’s so fucking sexy. “Your face,” she whispers. “But you don’t have to.” Her cheeks are flushed pink.
“Oh, believe me there’s nothing I want more right now than for you to squirm against my mouth while you come, sunshine. You never have to worry about whether I want to go down on you, because I love it. Just keep watching while I do it and you’ll see that. Okay?”
She nods and I lower my mouth then swipe my tongue through her warm folds. Her loud moan has my dick growing hard again. I work my tongue around her clit, circling it and flicking it with the tip as I slide two fingers inside her, filling her. When I find her small, raised patch of rough skin with my fingers and rub across it back and forth, she explodes with her orgasm, screaming out wildly and bucking against my face. I continue working her with my mouth and fingers until her body calms.
“Make love to me, Charlie. Please,” she says in a soft voice between panting breaths.
I reposition my body so my steel hard cock is at her entrance, and slowly slide into her. “God, you feel so good, baby.”
She simply mewls in response as she takes all of me and I slip in and out of her.
I lean over her to kiss her, careful not to put any of my weight on her body. I want to consume her moans and whimpers with my mouth.
When my lips touch her full, soft ones, it’s like all is right in the world. We kiss with light touches at first while I slowly make love to her, but when she whimpers and licks across my bottom lip, something feral in me needs more.
I cup her cheek and allow my tongue to push through the slight opening between her lips, then deepen the kiss as I explore her sweet mouth.
As if she can’t get close enough, she lifts her head off the pillow and pushes up against my mouth. When the kiss becomes more passionate, frantic almost, I adjust my thrusting to match the intensity and pace of what our mouths are doing.
“I’m close again,” she tells me. “God, this feels so good. You feel so good.”
“Come for me, baby. Come on my cock.”
That’s all she needs to hear, and she unravels into a beautiful symphony of moans, groans, and thrashing beneath me.
“You’re so beautiful, Emily. So fucking gorgeous.”
Her response is incomprehensible.
As the spasms of her pussy begin to let up on my cock, my orgasm roars through me as my dick twitches inside her and my warm release fills her. When I stop seeing stars, I collapse to the side and gently pull her on top of me, holding her to my chest.
I lean down and kiss the top of her head. I’m irrevocably, madly in love with this woman. The truth is, I always have been, I just never thought I was what she needed—what was best for her. But like she says I see her, I realize she always sees the best in me as well.
Her sunshine will always push away any darkness and fear I have that I’ll turn out like my father. Because darkness can’t exist when there’s so much light—and Emily Flynn is light epitomized.
* * *
EMILY
“Uaah,” I growl out and grip tighter to Charlie’s muscular, warm chest as he tries to wake me. I’m comfy. We’ve made love twice today already and my body is deliciously spent. So, there’s nothing I want to do more than continue napping on his chest in the afterglow of our amazing start to the day.
Well, almost nothing. And Charlie knows exactly what will get me out of bed.
“C’mon, babe. If you want to be at Ben’s when he brings Trina home from the hospital, we have to shower and go.” His voice is gentle, and he strokes my hair with his large hand, occasionally placing tender kisses on my head and forehead. Anyone who doesn’t realize how damn sexy that is hasn’t had the right man doing it.
Begrudgingly, I roll off of him.
“I’ll go start the shower so it’s warm for you. Come in when you’re ready.”
I give him a five minute head start and then join him in the shower. Since I have to hold my right arm away from the water because of my cast, Charlie puts shampoo in my hair for me. As I’m lathering it into my hair the best I can with one hand while I wait for him to finish rinsing his body so he can help me, something strikes me. He never technically answered me about the puppy.
“Hey, you didn’t say yes or no about the puppy. It’s a yes, right?”
Charlie just laughs. “Of course it’s a yes. I’m pretty sure I can’t say no to you about almost anything. Plus, I’d love to be a dog parent with you. It’ll be good practice in case we decide to have kids.”
My fingers freeze in my hair, and I wait a second, then open my eyes to find him staring at me, an impish grin on his face.
“That freak you out a little bit?”
“Um. Not freak out so much as shocked. You’re… you’re talking about being with me long term.”
Charlie takes over lathering my hair for me and it feels amazing. “Of course, I am. I told you, you’re it for me. I was an idiot when we were younger and I never told you how I felt. Then I ended things like a fool a few weeks ago, but I’m not making the same mistake a third time. It’s you and me from now on. I’m gonna love you with all that I have. It doesn’t mean we won’t have hard times or problems to work through, but we’ll get through them together. Because I’m yours and you’re mine. Now turn around and tilt your head back so I can rinse your hair.”
I do as he says and soak up the tenderness. A girl could get used to this kind of treatment. While he rinses my hair, a thought occurs to me.
“So, does that mean you definitely want kids?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. I never really gave it a lot of thought before. I didn’t want anything with anyone but you, and I thought I lost my chance with you, so I didn’t think about it much.”
Oh. My. God.
He scrubs my loofah along my back. “I think I’d be happy either way. How about you?”
“Uh. I don’t know. I used to think I wanted a few kids, but now I don’t know. I guess that’s good. We can give it time and figure out what we want—or don’t want—when the time comes.”
“Sounds perfect to me.”
I jump and let out a yelp of surprise when he delivers a light smack to my ass.
“Now finish showering and get that cute ass moving.” The lightheartedness of his tone brings a smile to my lips.
I turn around to face him again. “Yes, sir.” I tease. A low growl escapes him and, by the look he gives me, I know he’s a little turned on. “Oh, someone likes that, does he?” My tone is clearly flirty, and I give him a saucy wink.
He leans in, kisses me and steps out of the shower. “Someone likes a lot of things about you.”
An hour later, Charlie and I have picked up takeout from Trina’s favorite Chinese restaurant and parked a few houses down from Ben’s, so we can surprise her when they get home. We let ourselves in with the key code Ben gave us and are waiting in his living room for them to arrive.
About fifteen minutes later, we hear the keypad beep and then Trina walks in, not seeing us right away because she’s looking over her shoulder at Ben.
“Seriously, I had surgery ten days ago. I’m not an invalid. If I say I want to go out to lunch, then I’ll go to lunch. You’re not the boss of—” Trina, now looking forward, stops dead in her tracks. “Em,” is all she gets out before she starts crying as I make my way over to her and hug her. She grips me so tight. “I’m so sorry you got hurt. It was all my fault. I’m supposed to protect you and I didn’t.”
Ben closes the door and I look up at him over her shoulder. He, unsurprisingly, looks stunned. Trina doesn’t cry—at least not in front of anyone. Not for years now. Ben looks acutely uncomfortable, shifting his weight, hands in his pockets, looking around like he wants to escape.
I imagine Charlie looks much the same.
“Tri, we talked about this when I visited you in the hospital, none of that was your fault. You had a stalker. If anything, it’s my fault because you took me to the cemetery. And, gosh, you probably saved us both. Let’s be honest, if I was driving, we’d have probably crashed into the guardrail and gone over the drop-off. At least you got us through that section.”
Trina chuckles through her tears.
“Too soon, Emily,” Charlie says, his voice rough.
“It wasn’t either of your faults. And at least the asshole is in jail now. Bail’s been denied until his arraignment. With everything we have on him, he’s not seeing the light of day anytime soon.” Ben sounds sure, so that makes me feel better.
“I still can’t believe it was him,” Trina whispers.
“Well, I fucking can,” Ben hisses from behind her.
Trina finally releases me from her hold but grips my hand like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
I look over at Ben and say, “I’m with Trina. There’s no way I would have thought the guy she danced with at the Valentine’s fundraiser would have been such a creep. Charlie and I were dancing right by them and, of course, I eavesdropped.” Trina and Charlie both chuckle at that. “He seemed charming and respectful.”
“Yeah. Well, let’s not talk about him any more today. He’s where he belongs and today is about celebrating Trina coming home,” Charlie says.
Trina drops my hand and she walks over and wraps her arms around Charlie, resting her head on his chest. He returns the hug and looks at me and Ben—we’re all pretty wide-eyed since I’m usually the only person Trina hugs.
After Trina releases Charlie, Ben lightens the mood by walking over to Trina, smiling broadly, and asks, “My turn?”
Instead of one of her usual and expected sarcastic replies, Trina rolls her eyes at him and gives him a hug—albeit a quick one but, still, it’s a hug. Ben grins like a fool.
“So, I’m guessing all this hugging means they drugged you up before you left the hospital?” Charlie’s teasing gets everyone laughing.
“C’mon, let’s eat. We brought your favorite Chinese takeout. We can eat on the patio. Get you a little vitamin D.”
Trina’s paleness is almost alarming.
We sit outside, eating our fill and making light conversation for another half hour before voices float on the air coming from around the corner of Ben’s house. Seconds later, Annie and Shayna appear, followed by Finn carrying a cooler and Jack carrying what appears to be a large cake.
“Welcome home!” Annie and Shayna shout in unison.
I’m momentarily worried this might be too much for Trina, but when I look at her, she’s smiling and looks pleased. Maybe she just needs some normalcy in her life.
Shayna and Annie go inside to cut the cake and Finn passes out cold drinks, leaving the cooler by the table, then takes a seat.
“Finn.” Trina’s seriousness gets all of our attention and everyone else stops talking. Finn looks up at Trina, a questioning look in his eyes. “Thank you. I’m told your quick thinking and assessment skills likely saved my life.”
“Thank you, Captain. I appreciate your words. But I just did my job like you all taught me. And any of the crew would have done the same.” Finn’s cheeks are pink, and he looks down at the table.
And Trina… snorts. “Are you kidding? Neither of these old guys”—she points to Jack and Charlie—“are limber and agile enough to climb through a tiny rear window like you did. Thank God, you were there. I think I’m gonna tell Chief that they all need to start doing yoga.”
Everyone chuckles and Charlie feigns offense, “Hey, I’m limber.”
“Yeah, and I’m agile as fuck,” Jack teases.
“He most definitely is,” Annie chimes in as she walks out with cake. “What are we talking about?”
“Ew,” Trina and Ben say at the same time.
Annie and Shayna take seats at the table with the rest of us so we can all have our cake together.
“Oh, Emily, I meant to ask. Did you stay off your phone and your e-reader for the three days the doctor said you had to because of your concussion?”
I dart my eyes up to Charlie and he’s frozen, hand poised in the air holding a fork with a piece of cake on it, his eyes wide. He sets the fork down.
“Three days? Is that so, Annie? She was supposed to stay off them for three days?”
“Yeah. Let me guess, she didn’t last twenty-four-hours,” Annie says.
Charlie narrows his eyes at me, and I grin, batting my eyelashes innocently.
“Oh, she lasted”—Charlie pierces me with his eyes—“But I’m wondering why she’s been making me read to her from that smut book you all are reading for book club. And not just for three days, but all week.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me.
I shrug. “It’s more fun when you read it. Especially the spicy scenes. Sorry, not sorry.”
Just like we didn’t all go through one of the most harrowing times of our lives a week and a half ago, we’re all smiling and laughing.
And it feels so damn normal it’s amazing.