Chapter 14 #2
My head falls back as he stretches me with his fingers, all while licking and biting his way up and down my throat.
Glasses rattle overhead, but before I can suggest we should shift to lean against the door, he breathes, “Need you on my mouth, Char.” His voice is rough, strained, and his hands shake as he shoves my skirt even higher. “Need you soaking my fucking tongue while you come for me.”
Before I can fully recover from the hotness of that announcement, he’s on his knees, dragging my panties to the floor before guiding my leg over his shoulder.
Then his mouth is on me—hot and wet and hungry—and the room turns upside down.
My hands fly to his hair, holding on tight as he kisses my pussy with the same intensity with which he devoured my mouth.
Every stroke of his tongue, every moan of encouragement, even the way he grips my ass so tight it hurts a little as he rocks me forward, pinning me to him, is as tender as it is raw, desperate.
He isn’t just trying to get me off. This is an offering, an act of worship that fills my chest with feelings I’m not ready to name.
Feelings that make tears sting at the backs of my eyes even as I begin to tremble…
“So damned sweet,” he rumbles against my swollen skin. “Fuck, baby, I can’t get enough of you. Never going to get enough of you.”
“God, Nix. God, it’s so good,” I whimper as my pressure builds low in my belly, tight and coiling.
Winding tighter, tighter…
I buck into him, chasing the bliss bearing down, and he meets me at the edge, circling, sucking, moaning against my clit until the vibration tips me over. My orgasm rips through me, hard and fast, stealing my breath as my head falls back.
An almost tortured sound of pleasure wrenches from the back of my throat, joining the rattling of the glasses on the shelf. I arch closer to his mouth, sex pulsing against his tongue in waves as he continues to devour me with a single-minded devotion that leaves me boneless.
He doesn’t stop until I’m gasping, oversensitive, and so desperate for his cock, the need in my voice is scary as I demand, “Pants off. You need to get your pants off. Now.”
He rises to his feet, the sight of his lips wet with my come and the hunger filling his dark eyes, the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.
I reach for the close of his jeans, but I’ve barely managed to free the top button when he catches my wrists and gently, but firmly, guides my hands away.
I jerk my chin up, searching his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” His voice is rough, but his gaze is steady. “I just want you sober the next time I’m inside you. Sober and clear on the fact that this isn’t a ‘just one more time’ kind of thing.”
The words land heavy.
A declaration.
A demand.
His thumb strokes over the inside of my wrist, even that innocent attention enough to make me throb. “I want to be the man in your bed, Charlotte. For real.”
I exhale and think about trying to convince him that this conversation should wait.
Think about telling him that I’ve never wanted any man as much as I want him.
Think about dropping to my knees and returning the favor, just to keep my mouth too full to say things I might regret when I sober up.
He steps back, fastening his jeans before adjusting himself with a slight wince. “Come on. We should get back before they send a search party.”
“Are you sure you don’t need something to take the edge off?” I ask, casting a pointed glance at the thick ridge behind his fly.
He exhales a shaky laugh. “Nah, I’ll be okay. I’ll think sad thoughts on the way down the hall.”
“I don’t want you to think sad thoughts,” I confess, my voice husky and wobbly at the same time.
I sound like a woman torn, but that isn’t really true anymore.
I’m not torn. I want Nix. I want him in my life and in my bed and wrecking my plans for the foreseeable future.
No, this isn’t about being torn anymore.
It’s about being scared.
All this time, I thought I was brave. I thought I was the kind of woman who was whole, grounded, and ready to claim the love that’s meant to be hers the moment it came her way.
But maybe there’s a reason I picked a man like Teddy the first time around. Maybe there’s a reason I haven’t been looking too hard for someone to replace him. Maybe the thought of being truly, deeply, wildly, vulnerably in love scares the shit out of me.
My inner control freak is certainly spiraling as we slip out of the storage room and make our way back down the hall.
When we reach the main part of the bar, there’s none of the familiar noise or chaos to lose myself in. There’s just the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard, floating above awed silence, singing mournfully about “eyes that have never seen what mattered.”
My gaze finds the small stage, where Beatrice stands beside Blue, gazing up at him as she finishes a verse of one of my dad’s favorite duets. He always said the song reminded him of Mom, of how loving her always made sense, no matter how crazy or hard things got.
As a kid, I didn’t get it.
And I’ve never liked this song.
I told myself it was because it was cheesy and old-fashioned, but as Blue’s rich baritone wraps around Beatrice’s crystalline soprano like a lover, I suspect that I was lying to myself about that, too.
Maybe I didn’t like this song because, deep down, I didn’t think I’d ever find a love like this.
A love that feels like the only thing I’ll ever need…
But as I stand here, tears rising in my eyes again, I can’t deny how much I want that.
I’m beaten and battered, just like the people in the song, but I’m not broken.
I still have a heart so full of love and hope, and I want someone to share it with.
I want to stand naked in my cheesy, old-fashioned longing, to drop the “always on the ball” mask and confess that there are still so many things I don’t understand.
Things that, as I age, I’m beginning to think I’ll never understand.
I want to be honest. Scary honest. Ugly honest, and I want someone to love me anyway, even when I’m just…me. Just secretly confused, flawed, still faking-it-until-I-make-it Charlotte.
I turn to look at Nix, expecting him to be watching his sister, but he’s not.
He’s looking at me.
Our gazes lock and hold, and for a moment, it’s like looking in a mirror.
I’ve been telling myself we’re so different, but maybe we’re actually the same.
Just two people who thought they’d never find what they were looking for, working up the strength to seize the opportunity the universe has unexpectedly tossed in our laps.
By the time the song ends, the entire bar is still, silent.
Even the bartenders.
Even the bachelorette party.
And I swear, one of the bikers by the pool table wipes away a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand before he starts to applaud.
Nix and I join in, clapping hard and long, but we don’t cheer.
No one else does, either. I suspect it might have something to do with the lump in our collective throats.
Mine takes a long time to dissolve.
It isn’t until Sierra takes the stage, blushing as she mutters, “Well, this is going to feel silly after something like that, but…here goes nothing,” and launches into a perky version of “It’s Raining Men,” that I finally trust myself to turn to Nix.
“Think you’ll be ready to leave soon?” I ask. When he nods, I add, “And maybe dropping Beatrice at your apartment before we head back to my place to talk?”
He nods again, slow and steady, but he doesn’t speak.
Maybe he’s afraid to break the spell.
Maybe he’s right to be afraid.
But as he takes my hand, leading me back to our friends, where we offer our untouched Trash Pandas to Parker and Makena, it feels like something’s shifted between us.
We’re moving into something new, something I may come to regret every bit as much as I regret all the time I wasted chasing after Teddy, but I don’t think so.
No, if this crashes and burns, it’s going to hurt a lot more than anything Teddy ever put me through.
It might, in fact, be the nail in my “still hopeful for happily ever after” coffin.
Or the only thing you need to know, a hopeful voice whispers in my head.
It’s that voice I cling to as we gather our things and say our goodbyes, heading out into a cool autumn night that suddenly feels electric with possibility.