Chapter 15
Fifteen
NIX
Ican’t shake the feeling that everything’s about to change.
Absolutely everything.
The certainty pulses through my veins, soft and insistent, as I navigate the familiar route from my apartment to Charlotte’s place in the Garden District.
Bea’s probably already dead to the world in my guest room, and she always sleeps with noise-cancelling headphones on, but the need to be alone with Charlotte—completely alone—was too strong to deny.
And Bea certainly didn’t seem to mind.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
She’d practically kicked me back out the door the second we got upstairs, insisting I couldn’t keep my “true love” waiting.
“We’ve only been dating a little while,” I insisted, more to keep my own hopes in check than concerns over my little sister’s romantic assumptions.
“Time is a construct,” Bea said, swaying a little on her feet, clearly feeling her final Turkey Tickler.
“This entire ‘reality’ is a construct. Fuck their rules and their logic and all the rest of it. All that matters is what you feel right here.” She pressed a palm to the center of my chest, nodding sagely before she added, “Yep. You’re in love.
This is the rhythm of a heart that knows it’s found what it’s looking for. ”
“Bea, I—”
“Go,” she cut in, eyes shining. “Fight for her. Fearlessly. Don’t let anything stand in your way.
” She pulled her hand from my chest, grinning as she added, “And don’t let me see your ass around these parts until tomorrow morning, pardner.
Preferably late tomorrow morning. Charlotte works too hard.
You should convince her to sleep in for once and let you take her to breakfast.”
I teased her about sounding like a cowboy and laughed, but it felt forced, and when I insisted, “I’m just driving her home. I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so,” Bea and I both knew that was a lie.
Just like I know I’m going to have a hell of a time telling Charlotte “no,” if she invites me upstairs after our “talk.” I meant what I said—I want her in her right mind and both of us on the same page before we sleep together again—but maybe sober isn’t completely necessary…
I mean, I’m obviously sober. I wouldn’t be driving if I weren’t. I had a soda when we arrived at the bar and never got around to drinking the one cocktail I ordered. And Charlotte is a woman who knows her own mind, even when she’s a little tipsy.
And God…I want her.
I want her so badly it’s making my teeth ache and my throat tight.
I’ve barely said two words since we left my place.
Come to think of it, she hasn’t been too chatty, either.
I glance her way, startled to find her studying my profile with an unnerving intensity. “Hey,” I say, exhaling a soft laugh. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” she murmurs, but she doesn’t stop staring.
Really staring.
“Okay.” I shift in my seat. “So, you’re not trying to see through my skin?”
“No. That wouldn’t be helpful,” she says flatly. “I have a pretty good idea what’s under your skin. I have less of an idea why you do what you do.”
My brows lift. “In what way?”
“Why the older women?” she asks softly. “I know I’m not the first. From what I’ve heard, it’s kind of a fetish for you.”
“You’re not a fetish,” I say firmly, not wanting her to think that. Not even for a second. “And you’re actually younger than the women I used to date.”
“Not that much younger,” she counters.
“At least five or six years,” I say. “And you look even younger. The first time we were together, I thought you were my age, or damn close to it.”
She makes a soft, amused sound. “Liar. Sweet, but still a liar.”
I shake my head, insisting, “No, seriously. You can ask Parker. The first time I texted him, asking for your number, I mentioned that you weren’t…” I trail off, worried I might be about to step in it.
She cocks her head. “That I wasn’t what?”
“That you weren’t the kind of woman I was looking for,” I say, adding quickly, “That I thought I was looking for anyway.”
“An older woman,” she clarifies. When I nod, she adds, “Which leads me back to where we started. Why? Why did you want to be with an older woman and only an older woman?”
I sigh, debating how honest to be with her. But after the way she looked at me in the bar after Bea and Blue finished their song, after seeing everything I’ve ever wanted in a partner in her eyes…
I owe her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“I could never make it work with women my age,” I say, keeping my eyes on the road.
“They always seemed to think I was a little…off or something. A little odd. I was serious when they wanted to be silly and silly when they wanted to be serious. There was always this disconnect. That wasn’t there with older women.
I’ve always had an easier time getting on the same page with older people in general, even when I was a kid, and honestly…
” I shrug, lips twitching as I add, “Well, the sex was better. Way better. Older women aren’t afraid to tell you what they want. Or how to please them.”
“And you certainly aim to please,” she says in a sultry, gently mocking way.
I glance her way. “I do. Is that wrong?”
“No, it’s one of the things I like best about you.” She unbuckles her seatbelt.
Before I can ask what she’s doing, she leans across the cab, bracing a hand on my thigh as she drags her teeth across my bicep. Then, she bites down. Not hard. Just enough to make my breath catch and my cock jerk in my pants.
As she settles back into her seat, refastening her belt, I ask, “What was that for?”
“Because I wanted to,” she says. “I’ve been wanting to bite you since you bit my neck in the supply room, and I think it’s time I started paying more attention to what I want. What I really want, not what people have told me to want. Not what I’ve told myself to want, even. What I really want.”
“And what do you really want?” I ask, my voice rough. “Other than to bite me? Which I’m totally on board with, by the way. Bite me as much, as often as you want, and I’ll happily return the favor.”
“I want you to spend the night,” she says. “Even though I’m still a little drunk. Probably too drunk for a serious talk and definitely too drunk for your new ‘sober’ rule.”
“It wasn’t a rule, it was—”
“Doesn’t really seem fair to make a rule like that without asking me first anyway,” she cuts in. “Especially when you’d just made me so wet and desperate for you to fuck me.”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel.
I want to pull over right now. Want to drag her into my lap and finish what we started in that storage room. Want to make her come again, on my cock this time, and even harder, until she’s shaking and breathless and all her walls fall away.
“I’m still wet,” she adds as we round the corner into her neighborhood. “You should feel my panties. It’s embarrassing.”
“Charlotte,” I beg, a prayer for mercy.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she says as I pull into her driveway and cut the engine, the sudden silence making me very aware of the blood rushing in my ears.
Between my legs…
“It does matter,” I say, fighting for the strength to hold the line. “I meant it. Before we’re together again, I need to know it’s because you want to be with me. Not because you need to take the edge off or to fuck me out of your system or—”
“No,” she cuts in, “I didn’t mean that. I meant…” She trails off, chewing on her bottom lip in a way that makes me ache to kiss her. “I meant that it doesn’t matter if I’m sober or not. I want you.”
I pull in a breath, bracing for the “but.”
“I always want you,” she adds, the vulnerability in her green eyes sending hope whispering through my chest. “Every time I see you. Every time you text. Every time I think about you, which is way more often than I’d like to admit…
” She glances down at her hands, continuing in a softer voice as she slowly laces them together.
“Even before we made this deal. After that night in the garden, when I’d refused to give you my number and was fairly certain I’d never see you again…
I still thought about you.” She looks up, pinning me with a look that echoes in my bones. “Still wanted you.”
“I want you, too,” I say. “For way more than a night. I know it might not seem like we have a lot in common from the—”
“I want to talk,” she cuts in, her gaze still locked on mine. “I really do. And I promise we will. But first I need you to come upstairs and fuck me like you mean it.”
What blood remains in my extremities rushes south, determined to give her everything she needs.
Everything I’ve got.
“Then we’ll talk, and I’ll be brave and honest, I promise. But first…” Her lips quirk into a smile that’s a little shy, a little wicked, and instantly makes me fall a little deeper in love. “First, I really need your dick, because it’s my favorite dick ever.”
“Ever?”
“Ever,” she confirms.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Strawberry.”
She exhales a shaky laugh. “Does it matter that I haven’t known many dicks? I mean, considering I’m forty, it’s actually kind of a pathetic number.”
“There’s nothing pathetic about it. Or you.” I swing out of the SUV and jog around the front, pulling her door open a beat later. “It’s still the best compliment ever.”
She takes my hand, grinning as she threads her fingers through mine. “I mean, I did go through a little ho phase in college.”
“Does this mean you saved your big ho phase for me?” I ask, kissing her up the walk to the porch.
“Yes,” she murmurs against my lips, the words transforming to a moan as I haul her closer. “Already hard,” she breathes, her fingernails digging into my neck. “I love that you’re always hard.”
“When you’re around? Pretty much.”