Chapter 31 Charleigh
Charleigh
Charleigh peels Alexander’s arm off her as stealthily as she can, then slips from the bed.
Pale morning light nudges through the curtains.
It’s dawn; she needs to pee but doesn’t want to wake him, so she tiptoes to the bathroom, practically floating across the carpet.
Alexander’s been all over her since their spat after the fish fry.
Feral.
Wanting it all the time.
Not that she doesn’t, and she loves his hunger for her, but, whew, the man needs to give it a rest. Give her a rest.
The day after the fish fry, when she stumbled in hungover from Jackson’s, she rode with Alexander downtown, not a word exchanged between them.
He dropped her at the salon so she could get her hair done while he stocked up on ammo at Smithy’s.
They were barely home and through the back door when he came up behind her, lacing his arm around her belly, lifting her skirt.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nellie’s not home.” He panted in her ear.
With his foot, he toed the back door shut, then marched them a few feet over to the eat-in dining table. He tugged Charleigh’s panties to one side and traced his fingers over her until she could barely breathe.
Bent over the table, they had frantic sex.
Afterward, she turned around, wrapped her arms around his neck. “What was that all about?”
“I don’t like fighting with you,” Alexander said, his slate-blue eyes spearing hers.
She slid her hands down to the tops of his shoulders, guided him into a chair. Straddled him. “I don’t like it either. Not one bit.”
“So,” he said, his voice low, “let’s not fight, then.”
His lips grazed her neck, and before she knew it, they were at it again, Alexander holding her up by her hips as she bucked against him.
Charleigh creeps from the bathroom now, down the hall to Nellie’s room.
She cracks open the door, peers inside.
The air smells like a combo of cigarettes and Jean Nate, and Nellie is curled on top of her Laura Ashley comforter into a tight ball, still dressed in last night’s clothes: a black miniskirt with fishnet tights and a Bangles sweatshirt with the neck cut out.
Charleigh grins, remembering poking her head in last night, catching Nellie dancing, actually smiling.
Has to be over a boy, Charleigh thought.
She knows these things.
And that it’s probably not Dustin.
Charleigh closes the door, her mouth still curled upward.
She’ll take a happy Nellie any day. It’s a rarity.