Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
CHARLOTTE
I had officially lost my mind.
Like for real this time.
I’d slept with my fair share of men I probably shouldn't in the fifteen or so years I’d been sexually active, but this one ?
This one took the cake.
Nolan fucking Brinkley , Charlotte?
Are you serious?
It was bad enough that I’d done it once—and boy, had we done it—but here I was later the night of his “confrontation,” ready to do it again.
I was fresh off an everything shower , Kyran fast asleep with white noise in the background just to make sure he didn’t hear anything he shouldn’t, in anticipation of Nolan showing up at my front door again.
Insanity .
For real.
He didn’t ring the bell this time, heeding what I’d said about making sure not to wake Kyran. With so much happening in his young life, in such a short time, the last thing I wanted was him being traumatized by me having some revolving door of men in his purview.
In fact, Nolan was the first man I’d even dealt with in a remotely romantic manner since Kyran’s surprise arrival.
Which was probably contributing to my apparent inability to employ common sense.
For just a brief moment, I contemplated not answering Nolan’s text. It would be easy enough to simply pretend I was asleep and go right back to ignoring him again.
We had another week of shooting left for this finale episode, which was something to consider. It was going to be a bit longer than the others in interest of wrapping the show up as neatly as we could, which meant more time dealing with Nolan.
But—typically—when we were at work, we were there to work.
I could simply ignore him.
Right. Because that worked so well before?
Shit.
Instead of leaving him hanging at my front door, I pulled myself from my office chair—while I was waiting, I’d been going over script notes, reviewing shot lists, anything I could do to keep my mind occupied.
Opening the door for Nolan cleared everything coherent from my head.
Did the fact that we’d slept together now really make that much of a difference?
He swaggered past me into my house with all the confidence of a man who knew exactly the kind of sounds he’d pulled out of me last night and planned to revisit each one again—a possibility that made a shiver run through me as I closed the door behind him.
I hated this.
Badly.
Especially since instead of saying or doing anything, he took the opportunity instead to just…stare at me.
“What?” I asked, prompting a shrug.
“Nothing. This is just…it’s kinda…awkward, right?”
I blew out a sigh of relief. “Kinda?”
“Fine. Incredibly.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “You want a drink?”
“Please.”
I didn’t even say anything—I just led him to the kitchen instead of my bedroom as previously planned.
“Kimble bourbon okay?” I asked, pulling down glasses for us before going into the concealed cabinet over the fridge for my stash of liquor. Inconvenient, yes, but I had to make sure it was all out of Ky’s reach.
“Damn, straight to bourbon, huh?” Nolan chuckled. “I was thinking more along the lines of a glass of wine or something.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, are you a lightweight?”
“No—I thought you were.”
I shook my head, grabbing the bottle to pour each of us a shot. “Probably why this is awkward. We don’t really know each other, so it’s kinda weird to plan sex.”
He scoffed. “I’ve successfully done what your generation refers to as the sneaky link thing with people I knew much less about.”
“My generation?” I laughed, handing him his glass. “What does your generation call it?”
“A booty call.”
I nodded. “ Booty call is classic and absolutely still in the rotation,” I said just before I knocked back my shot, thought about it for a moment, then poured myself another.
Nolan watched me and then did the same, extending his glass for a second shot too. “Glad to hear we see eye to eye on something .”
“Agreed,” I said. “Maybe a little liquor is all it really takes for us to get along.”
“You mean, all it takes for you to get along—I’ve been cool,” he suggested. “You’re the one with the problem.”
“Bullshit,” I argued. “You’ve picked at me since the first time we worked together.”
“Picked at you, or did my job?”
I thought about it a moment before I answered. “Did your job, in the most annoying, condescending, nitpicking way.”
He laughed. “I don’t nitpick you, and I respect you too much to condescend—I’ll give you annoying though, because I understand—you’re an artist, and sensitive about your shit. All critique is annoying.”
“Only to the immature, right?”
“No.” He laughed again. “Even if it’s good critique, from someone respected, who knows what they’re talking about…it’s a reminder that everything you do isn’t perfect or the best. Which, even if you’re self-aware enough to already know and recognize that…it’s still irksome. Even if just because they saw it before you did.”
I…wanted to argue with that.
I was long past the point of crying over knowledgeable feedback—and most often, even the petty shit rolled off my back. I was confident in my work, I welcomed collaboration, and I was certainly not above adjusting things to be better.
But…he was right.
Honestly.
Even with people I adored working with, I did always feel that little twinge from their feedback or suggestions—one I wouldn’t quite describe as annoyance, but definitely something tangentially related—this feeling of damn, I wish I’d thought of that first.
And with people I didn’t really fuck with—like Nolan’s abrasive ass—it was downright grating.
I could admit when he was right—and he often was, which probably made it worse—but it was through gritted teeth.
Always.
“Maybe if you approached me like a teammate , instead of my boss, things would be different,” I proposed, taking just a sip this time—I needed to go a little slower.
“But I am your boss.”
“The hell you are.”
He grinned. “Fine—maybe boss isn’t exactly the right word. But if my role is showrunner , using your analogy, I’m still not really your teammate, mama. I’m…the captain. Because at the end of the day, all the responsibility for the script, the sets, the actors, the budget, all of that…it all comes back to me. Nobody else.”
Shit.
I guess he had a point.
“You could still be a little nicer,” I quipped, just wanting something to say more than anything.
Laughing, he grabbed me by the hand, pulling me to stand between his open legs. “If I were nicer, I wouldn’t be where I am, unfortunately. People take advantage, the work doesn’t get done or at least not done well. That’s not how you become an award-winning, in-demand showrunner. When people want it done right…they call me .”
“That’s so….”
“Confident?”
“ Arrogant. ”
“Is it arrogant, or is it the truth?”
“ Is it the truth?” I countered, and Nolan smirked, slipping a hand underneath the robe I’d put on to cover my nudity.
“I’m in your house, drinking your liquor, playing with your pussy,” he said, pushing two fingers into me, making me gasp as he pressed his thumb to my clit. “So…you tell me.”
Damnit.
My eyelids fluttered closed as his fingers started to move, and his free hand went to the tie keeping my robe closed.
“ Nolan ,” I warned, my hands going to his to stop him.
“Right,” he conceded. “Not out in the open, gotta respect the shorty.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “So…come on.”
There was nothing awkward about leading Nolan to my bedroom this time, and if I really interrogated it…I wasn’t sure the liquor had anything to do with it. It was too soon. There was just this…slightest little shift in understanding, one notch in the dial between one-sided enemies and lovers that just made it feel so much more… natural.
Nolan’s hands at my waist, pulling me close?
Natural.
His tongue in my mouth, trading the flavor of that bourbon back and forth with me?
Natural.
Him picking me up, hiking my legs around his waist, pressing me into the wall?
Natural.
Even his question of whether or not I was on birth control before he freed his dick from his sweats and plunged into me, nothing between us… natural.
And so, so good.
“ Shit ,” he groaned, dropping his head to my neck as he filled me up. “This might have been a fucking mistake,” he grunted into my skin.
“What?” I breathed out, hands draped over his shoulders. “What’s a mistake?”
“Doing this with no condom,” he chuckled, pulling back a bit before he buried himself in me again. “You feel so… shit .”
I didn’t even try to hide my smirk.
In fact, I took the opportunity to tease him, purposely constricting to keep him from pulling back again. My reward was the look on his face—a quite gratifying mixture of torture and bliss before I let him go.
I let him get a few strokes in before I did it again.
“Okay,” he groaned, pulling me away from the wall. For a terrifying moment, all I could think about was him dropping me, but he got me safely carried to the bed without unburying his dick before he crashed on top of me. “You wanna play those kinda games? Let’s play.”
Did I want to play games?
I honestly wasn’t sure until he started moving again, with deep, pleasurably punishing strokes that took my breath away. I couldn’t even pull together enough brain cells to fuck him back like I might want to.
Every time he hit bottom, pushing right up against that internal hotspot not many ever seemed to reach, all the thoughts in my head went scrambling.
I wanted to scream.
Hell, he deserved screams, but my subconscious knew better.
I damn near bit a hole in my bottom lip holding in all the blissful exaltations pouring up from the depths of my core as the point of orgasm rocketed closer. He hiked my thighs up over his shoulders, sweat dripping off his forehead as he fucked me.
That was when I had to grab the pillow.
Same one as the night before, just with fresh linens. I bit down on the biggest mouthful I could take, muffling my irrepressible sounds of gratitude and praise as he pushed me over the peak.
It wasn’t until a few minutes after he’d collapsed, panting, beside me that I realized—he still had his clothes on.
Not for long though.
He stripped down before he dove between my legs again—face first this time, making noises like a starving man as he devoured me. Forcing me to another orgasm took just long enough for his dick to be hard again, and he treated me to that too.
But…different this time.
Zero urgency.
Slow, lazy, tingle-inducing strokes with my thighs hooked around his waist and his tongue in my mouth, kissing me. The kind of sex you could be stuck doing for hours and never get sick of.
Which was…kinda scary.
I was not supposed to be comfortable like this with Nolan fucking Brinkley.
And yet…here I was, giggling like a maniac as he trailed kisses down my neck, to my breasts, and then back up, all while he slow-stroked me.
This was insanity.
But for now…I was embracing it.
* * *
My alarm jolted me awake.
Yes, jolted—I was so used to waking up at that time I was often awake a few minutes before it even went off, or already waking up, at least.
This time, it pulled me from a dead sleep straight into a reality of sore thighs and a sore jaw.
Which reminded me I’d sucked off Nolan Brinkley.
Truly wild behavior.
My bed was empty, so clearly I’d made at least one good decision last night—once the liquor finally kicked in, my inhibitions had left the table. I pulled my naked body out of my sheets, groaning at the remnants of last night that immediately began dripping down my legs, and went straight to my shower.
Twenty minutes later, I was alert and clean.
I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and then tackled the replacement of my linens. I tossed the soiled ones in the hamper at my door to take to my laundry room then dressed a bit more casually than normal—designer athleisure, but athleisure nonetheless.
After two nights of sex in a row, preceded by at least a year without it, my body was screaming about the increased activity. I needed to be comfortable.
A glance at the time told me I should be getting Ky out of bed and feeding him breakfast, so I set my sights on that as my next morning task.
As soon as I opened my bedroom door, my eyes went wide.
Nolan is still in my house.
I could hear him talking, laughing with someone— and the smell of breakfast was already in the air. Deep dread washed through me as I practically sprinted down the hall and around the corner to the kitchen, where the sight from the entryway stopped me in my tracks.
Nolan was at my island, sitting next to Kyran.
Eating breakfast.
Laughing it up.
I was too speechless to even get the “ What the fuck do you think you’re doing?! ” to actually leave my mouth.
I just stood there.
Stunned.
“Auntie Charlotte!” Ky shrieked when he saw me. “Mr. Butt Hole is here!” he giggled, and Nolan’s mouth dropped.
“Woooow, it’s like that?!” he asked. “I thought we were better than that, Ky!”
“Sorry, Mr. Nolan,” Ky responded, trying his best to sound sorry, but it came out in a tone that indicated he wasn’t sorry at all—jokes always superseded facts with him, a quality he’d unquestionably picked up from my brother.
“Whatever, man,” Nolan chuckled. “After I fed you and everything?” He stood from his seat at the counter, drawing my attention to the fact that he was at least fully clothed, thank God. “We ordered you breakfast too,” he informed me as he disposed of his takeout plate. “Ky said you liked waffles?”
“Uh…yeah.” I nodded. “Can I talk to you?” I asked, gesturing for him to join me back in the foyer.
He sucked his teeth. “I told you I was going to be in trouble,” he said to Ky, fist-bumping him. “If you’re finished, go ahead and go brush your teeth, and whatever else your Auntie asks you do in the mornings, okay?”
“Okay!” Ky agreed—with zero issue, unlike the grief he often gave me—running up to me for a quick hug and a good morning before he disappeared down the hall.
Only then did Nolan actually approach.
“I was going to sneak out—I swear,” he insisted, hands up. “He was in the kitchen already, cleaning up a little spill from trying to fix himself a bowl of cereal.”
“Oh hell.” I sighed. “I’ve told him he can just come and ask me.”
Nolan chuckled. “It might be good that he didn’t, considering the state we passed out in…”
“You…are probably right,” I agreed. “But still…I would’ve preferred he not see you here at all—especially spending the night.”
He shrugged. “He doesn’t know anything about that—I just told him we were visiting, and you were still asleep. We ordered from the diner up the street, and I helped him clean up while we waited for the delivery. No big deal.”
“You’re not supposed to meet families and do breakfast with a sneaky link.”
“I’d already met your nephew, and I’m not doing breakfast with you—I just ordered it for you. I already had mine, and I’m leaving, so…we haven’t broken any rules yet.”
I rolled my eyes. “You have a rebuttal for everything.”
“I do,” he agreed, leaning in to plant a quick kiss on my lips.
I hated that I didn’t hate it.
“See you on set,” he said, and then just… left .
Before I could say anything else.
I closed my eyes, trying to clear my head—this was such an expected start to the morning.
If I’d imagined this scenario playing out two weeks ago—even one week ago—it would’ve left me on the verge of dry heaving.
In the moment now?
It felt… wholesome .
I hated it.
“Auntie Charlotte—is Mr. Butt Hole your boyfriend?”
My eyes popped open and Ky was standing right in front of me, mouth covered in bubblegum toothpaste, waiting for an answer.
I sighed then grabbed him by the shoulders, steering him to the bathroom.
“Absolutely not .”