Chapter 7
TEXT MESSAGE FROM NINA DORANTES TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:02 AM:did jackie leave with you?
TEXT MESSAGE FROM NINA DORANTES TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:04 AM:nvm found her!
Their second first kiss was soft and slow, just the tender pull of Reece’s lips against hers. His hand slid into Charlotte’s hair to bring her closer. She yielded entirely. Her body felt like it was made of spun sugar, weightless and fragile and sweet. The din of the backyard faded away until she heard nothing but his slight inhale of breath.
Reece groaned as he pulled back for a fragment of a second to rest his forehead against hers. And then another kiss, a deeper embrace that tasted like spearmint—he must have chewed gum before she arrived. She smiled against his mouth.
“What is it?” he murmured.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just this.”
She knew nothing but this. Nothing but Reece’s soft breath spilling against her cheek. Nothing but his arms around her, her hands pressed firmly against his chest. She could feel his heart pounding against his ribs. She shuddered and he held her even closer somehow, an unconscious effort to warm her.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
Charlotte didn’t know how to explain that she was the polar opposite of cold. Heat throbbed through her body like she’d never been kissed in her entire life. And she hadn’t, not really, certainly not like this: not a first kiss with someone she already knew could rule her and worship her until she was a gutted mess. Reece remembered everything that she liked and knew everything that she needed.
They weren’t picking up where they left off. They brought everything they learned while they were apart with them to this kiss, and to the next one.
As she struggled to form an answer, Reece pressed his lips to her neck, just below her ear.
“Oh, that’s not fair,” she whimpered.
He huffed a laugh against her skin. His teeth grazed a sensitive spot that never failed to scramble her brain.
“You don’t feel cold to me,” Reece teased. “But the hair on the back of your neck is standing up.”
“Rude.” She twined her arms around Reece’s neck, hugging him close.
He dropped a gentle kiss to her shoulder before finding her lips again. Pure delight leapt in her chest.
It was new, the way they touched each other now. No part of her held back. No part of her was too busy battling intrusive thoughts to appreciate how Reece tasted, how he smelled, how he felt against her. Tonight she breathed him in and gave herself away in return. Reece kissed her with a smile in his mouth and that overjoyed her, even as she craved more.
Reece pulled away and she whined like a newborn kitten plucked from a fleece blanket. He chuckled, rubbing his thumb across her cheekbone. “We’re in a public place,” he reminded her.
Charlotte knew.
Charlotte didn’t care.
She tugged the hair at the nape of his neck and he hissed through his teeth. “No one here knows who we are.”
“I don’t care what people think,” Reece said. He stole another kiss from her, making her gasp, making her think that private might be an excellent idea. “But we’re adults. We have other options.”
She liked the dark edge to his words, a promise for the rest of the night and what it might hold. His bare skin against hers, her nails marking his back, the tangy sweetness of his sweat on her tongue. Yes, other options. She wanted those other options.
Except…
“Oh no,” Charlotte said. “We have roommates.”
His mouth went slack. In all their newfound maturity, they forgot they were still operating in the reunion’s time warp. The rules were different this weekend, shower shoes and shared bedrooms.
“Shit, Garrett.”
Garrett would definitely not be cool with getting kicked out of his room so that Reece could have sex with his ex-not-quite-girlfriend.
“Jackie?” Reece suggested.
Charlotte dug out her phone.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM CHARLOTTE THORNE TO JACKIE SLAUGHTER, 12:07 AM:Are you okay to not go back to the room for a while?
Reece kissed her forehead while she waited for Jackie’s reply.
Worst-case scenario they could find a blanket and curl up under a tree. Or stuff themselves into Reece’s car. Charlotte winced at the thought of a seat belt shoved into her spine. Not exactly erotic.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SLAUGHTER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:09 AM:sure. don’t you dare touch my bed.
Thank goodness for understanding best friends whose idea this was in the first place.
Charlotte turned her phone to let Reece read Jackie’s text.
“I’m going to bake that girl a cake,” he said.
She twined her fingers through his. “Let’s go.”
Reece followed her through a side yard and onto Atwood Street. They rushed across the pavement. God help her, she felt giddy. Happy. Drunk off disco and Reece’s eyes glinting under the streetlights.
Had she ever held his hand before? Surely she had, dozens of times, but she took the opportunity to commit his touch to memory. His hand was bigger than hers, his skin a little dry from latex gloves and sanitizer at the veterinary clinic. She wanted to buy him moisturizer. She wanted to massage the sore spots from the heel of his palm. She wanted to suck on his fingers.
My name is Charlotte Thorne and I’m taking home the hottest guy in my graduating class.
“What’s so funny?” Reece asked. He gave her hand a playful tug until she turned to face him in the middle of the street. A mob of students walked around them in the opposite direction, following the noise of Atwood Street like party zombies. Charlotte and Reece stood together in the middle of the current, hands swinging intertwined between them.
“I was just thinking,” she said, suddenly bashful. It felt so childish, such a reduction of who he was. That kind of thinking led her to put him in a safe, impersonal box the first time around. But it was still the truth, and Reece’s crush baffled her just as much now as it did five years ago. “You could have anyone,” Charlotte said. She reached up to trace his cheekbone with her thumb. Reece leaned into her touch, nuzzling his temple into her palm. “And I’m taking you home with me.”
She could watch his face change colors for the rest of her life. The look Reece gave her belonged in a movie reel, not in the middle of Senior Housing.
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, his brow furrowing adorably. “Charlie, you are the only person who makes me blush.”
Molten pink gathered like cotton candy in her rib cage. How could that possibly be true? What made her so lucky?
He hesitated, another confession caught on his tongue like he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. Or if she was ready for it.
“You’re the only girl I want.” Reece laughed humorlessly, shocked by his own honesty. “You’re the only girl I can see.”
He stared into her eyes with a tenderness that didn’t belong amid the throng of Reunion Commencement. She barely breathed as Reece coaxed a runaway blond curl behind her ear.
It happened in an instant. The world tilted and slid like a cruel illusion. Some of its color bled away, eaten up by creeping black fear. Charlotte’s heart hammered in her chest. She closed her eyes.
Ben did that. Touched her like that. Caught her hair and eased it behind her ear after some pitch-perfect profession of love. She used to hear it as a declaration of loyalty and not a trap, not a glue patch for her wings to get stuck to.
You’re the only girl for me, Charlotte. You’re the only one who understands me. Just like I’m the only one for you.
For a dangerous moment her brain short-circuited, caught on the live wire of memory. Reece’s words repeated and twisted, the only girl I want.
Her, with her shitty life and her dirty hair. Her, with a job she hated and a mother she hadn’t spoken to in years. Her, dragging around emotional baggage monogrammed with her initials.
Reece was too kind, too caring. Too genuine to trust. Too good for her.
No.
Charlotte lassoed the snarl of panic and yanked it into submission. She took a deep breath and held it in her chest.
No. She wouldn’t do this again. She wouldn’t let echoes of her past sabotage her happiness. She had no need for the manipulations of an ex-boyfriend long since banished from her life. Even if Ben hadslipped past her defenses for a weekend, skulking just beyond this perfect moment.
Reece’s hand faltered and came to rest on her shoulder. He frowned at the terror playing out across her face. “Are you okay? You still with me?”
Charlotte nodded. He cupped her chin in his hand and studied her eyes, unconvinced.
The heat of his touch against her skin grounded her. She clutched his hand still woven through hers and made him her true north.
That broken, desperate person who Ben convinced her she was, it was bullshit. Nothing but a fun house mirror reflection of her worst fears, dangerous only when it looked just familiar enough for her to believe.
My name is Charlotte Thorne. I am twenty-seven years old. It’s going to be okay. I deserve to have fun.
“I’m here,” she said. “Just overstimulated.”
Reece didn’t ask questions. He guided her across the street and through the intersection with University Road. Charlotte let him tug her along as her brain knitted itself back together.
Just a trigger. A shard of memory that couldn’t hurt her anymore.
The other side of the street was quieter. A canopy of trees hung over the sidewalk, dampening the roar. The air smelled like the suburbs again, fresh dew and newly planted sod. Her panic dissipated as spring leaves swayed and whispered around them.
“Man, it was a real bacchanal back there.” Reece laughed at himself, making conversation while she put herself back together.
Charlotte felt a fresh surge of gratitude for his unflappable calm. Ever the perceptive guy, he didn’t push her to explain why she shut down. She added it to the long list of reasons why she liked Reece as a person.
He didn’t pry.
He sucked at pong.
He danced with her to bad music surrounded by strangers.
He looked at her like she was put on this earth to ruin his life.
He loved dogs.
“Do you go out much?” she asked.
“In St. Louis? Nah. I’m an old man now.” They turned onto the path back to Randall Dorm. Gravel crunched underfoot. Reece’s sneaker found a loose rock and he kicked it, sending it skittering into the underbrush.
Charlotte tucked her arm through his. She glanced up at his carefully still face—Reece looked straight ahead, his hands tucked neatly into his pockets.
“When did you quit drinking?” she asked.
Reece’s jaw tightened. Before she could worry that she’d overstepped, he answered. “Not long after graduation.” He licked his lips. “Binge drinking is a lot less fun when you’re doing it alone.”
It made sense now. Water pong at the party, no cocktail in his hand at the class reception, no alcohol on his breath when he hugged her good-bye last night. She’d suspected since Jackie’s announcement at dinner when he didn’t look surprised. Reece must have been giving her advice on how to support her dad.
Was that why Reece didn’t kiss her in the hallway? Because she’d had too much to drink, while he was completely sober?
Charlotte frowned. She rarely drank anymore, yet the second she returned to campus, she wanted a beer. She hadn’t questioned the impulse. Maybe she should have.
“Is it hard being back here? There must be triggers everywhere.”
Reece sighed. “Yes and no.” He unfolded their arms so that he could take her hand again, an anchor in an uncharted conversation. She hoped she was asking the right questions. “I’m not tempted to drink, but the guys have been weird about it. I think I’m a buzzkill at pregames.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She’d never been privy to the private drinking rituals of bros, and she didn’t want to insult his friends. “That sounds hard.”
“It is what it is. They’re good friends.” Reece squeezed her hand. “It’s not their fault they want to get wasted and I don’t.”
“What do you like to do instead? In St. Louis, I mean.” Charlotte cringed at the question as soon as it left her lips. It was such a small-talk question, like asking him about his major as they walked back to her dorm to hook up.
If she sounded vapid to Reece, he didn’t point it out. “For fun, you mean?”
“Yeah. Do you still play hockey?”
He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t want to risk an injury. But I still skate sometimes at the community rink. It’s meditative.” As he considered his answer, he traced his thumb across her palm. She shivered, ticklish. “In the summer I bike. Trails and stuff. You have to concentrate or you go ass over handlebars.”
“You mean like mountain biking?” She couldn’t imagine him in the woods, dirt on his knuckles, a helmet covering his face. Reece seemed too gentle, like a golden retriever who romped around the backyard, or at most, the dog park. He wasn’t an off-the-trail breed.
Reece laughed at her obvious disbelief. “What, did you forget I’m a jock?”
“No.”Charlotte gestured with her free hand. “It’s just rugged, that’s all.”
“I’m not rugged?” Reece waggled his eyebrows.
She scoffed. “That’s not what I mean!”
“I played hockey, remember. I could throw punches. And take them.”
Charlotte shoved him in the shoulder. He laughed as he swerved off the path before easily regaining his balance and returning to her side.
“Now you take care of sick cats!” she protested. “You gel your hair!”
“Ah, so now I’m domesticated.” He put his hands up. “I’ve gone soft.”
“You were always soft,” she spluttered. “And hard. A soft jock.”
A very undergrad-Reece smirk stretched across his lips. “Tell me more about how hard I am.”
Charlotte sighed, exasperated. “You are the worst.”
Reece wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head. She snuck her hand into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Nice job copping a feel,” Reece teased.
She pinched his ass in retribution.
They bickered and teased the rest of the walk back to the dorm, past the grand library with its hulking marble pillars, and the stone academic buildings fronted by manicured lawns. Charlotte noticed little of it. Hein’s campus faded into a muted New England blur of green and gray behind Reece’s profile, and for the first time in a long time, she relaxed.
TEXT MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SLAUGHTER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 12:26 AM:btw there are condoms in my makeup bag!! in the side pocket with my valtrex.
Charlotte felt a new twist of déjà vu as they walked down the hallway to her room. Everything looked exactly the same as it did last night, only now her hand was tucked neatly in the crook of Reece’s arm. Her phone nestled in her back pocket on silent.
The conversation they batted back and forth during their walk fizzled out as she retrieved her keys. Reece stood just behind her. She could feel his eyes on her neck, on her hair curling and knotting where it poured down her back. He watched in silence as she slid the key into the lock. She pushed the door open, the darkness of the room yawning in front of them.
She ignored the light switch on the wall—the overhead lamp would be too bright. Reece stayed in the doorway as she crossed the room to pull up the blackout curtain and let moonlight fall across the linoleum floor.
The door clicked shut behind him. At last, they were truly alone.
Charlotte hesitated at the window. She pressed her palm to the cool glass and watched the wind move through the trees. Leaves rippled in so many shades of gray, the moon leaching them of color.
Time warp again: It felt like fall, like the possibility of a new school year beginning. Nine new months to learn and reinvent herself. Nine months to storm across campus and demand adventures.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. Immortal on a September evening, her Doc Martens muddy and her shoulders bare.
She took a deep breath, and then another.
Even with her back to him, Charlotte never lost her awareness of Reece’s presence. She could hear the soft noise of his sneakers on the floor as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. He waited for her to turn around again, waited for her to be ready.
She was ready, she just needed a…a moment. She’d done this before—hell, she’d done this with him before—but tonight was something else. This ran the risk of mattering.
Reece cleared his throat. “We don’t have to…if you don’t want—”
Charlotte whirled around. She didn’t want to make him worry, not for a second. She owed him that much. “No, I want.” She laughed, the words clumsy but true. She wanted. She wanted so much more than she’d bargained for.
Reece stepped toward her once, and then again. She met him in the middle, her arms circling his waist as he took her face in his hands.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, hungry to reassure him. They were in this together, whatever it wound up being. Even if it was temporary.
“Me too,” he said.
Reece eased into a crouch on the floor before her. She placed a hand on his shoulder as he guided off her left shoe, and then her right. He didn’t seem to care that her toenails weren’t painted or that (oh shit) she hadn’t shaved her legs in three days.
Another thing she’d forgotten to pack for the weekend: a razor.
Once her feet were bare, Reece untied his sneakers. He lined them up beside her loafers underneath the bed. Then he stood, his full height making her feel wonderfully small. His eyes never left hers as he took off the flower lei and hung it from the bedpost.
Then, oh sweet mother of God, he took the bottom of his shirt in his hands and pulled it up over his head, revealing the lush expanse of his stomach. Charlotte’s stare caught on the smattering of hair that led down to the fly of his jeans.
Her mouth went dry. She skimmed her fingers down his chest, lingering on his belt buckle. Reece shuddered at her touch.
“C’mere,” he muttered before seizing her at the waist and dragging her against him. Their hunger from Atwood Street returned as he drew her lower lip between his own. She groaned and held on to his shoulders, bent over by the force of his kiss.
There was nothing soft jock about him now. Reece kissed the way he always had—with reckless appetite.
They were well matched. Charlotte wound a hand through his belt and pulled him flush against her. She could feel his hardness against her hip. Reece hissed against her lips, and she swallowed it, smug and satisfied.
He wanted her. He wanted her desperately, she hadn’t imagined it. She wasn’t wrong.
Reece found the buttons of her shirt. She stepped back to let him unfasten them one by one, shivering as her skin met the night air.
“Fuck,” Reece stammered. He stared at her breasts in disbelief.
She’d skipped wearing a bra tonight, not really needing one. Charlotte folded her arms over her stomach. She knew her body had changed since graduation, just like his. She wasn’t an insecure woman, but the last time Reece saw her naked, she still had the metabolism of a teenager.
“What?” she asked as he appraised her. She hated the defensiveness in her voice.
“You are so gorgeous.” He ran his knuckle across her clavicle and down her breastbone. Then he traced a line over the small swell of her breast to the firm point of her nipple. Charlotte arched her back as her self-consciousness dissolved under his touch. “So beautiful,” he continued. “I thought I remembered you, but…”
“I’m softer now,” she said with a wry smile.
Reece kissed her, slow and deep. He pulled away to brush his nose against hers. “I like it.”
Their pants followed their shirts to the floor. Undressing together wasn’t awkward or clumsy; they’d done it dozens of times before.
“Shit,” he said, patting the nonexistent back pocket of his underwear. “I just realized—condoms. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry.” Charlotte found Jackie’s dresser in the darkness. She felt her way through the makeup bag and retrieved a metallic wrapper. “Jackie has some.”
She put the condoms on the bookshelf and sat down next to him on the bed. He kissed her shoulder, his movements languid.
“Should we talk about it?” she asked.
Reece leaned back against the wall. “Sure.” He did some mental math as he wiggled his toes. “It’s been…four months? Since my last STI screening. Nothing new to report.” His teeth caught the moonlight, his face bare of shame or awkwardness. He gave her a playful smile as he added, “My sex life isn’t thriving now that I live with my mom.”
Charlotte tried to remember her last checkup. She’d gotten tested once her relationship with Merielle was over, and she didn’t have much to account for since then. “My last test was in August, no positives.” She didn’t need to elaborate, but she couldn’t help herself. “No one to jeopardize that either.”
Reece took her hand from where it rested on her knee and brought her palm to his lips. Her fingers curled inward at the just-so graze of his mouth against her skin. “How has no one in that city noticed how incredible you are?”
“I haven’t really…been trying,” she admitted, her voice a ribbon of muddled concentration and desire.
Reece tugged her across the bed to straddle his lap. “Is that so?” His mouth teased the sensitive flesh where her shoulder met her neck. She writhed unintentionally, rocking against the hard ridge of his arousal. So little separated them now, just his boxer briefs and her cotton undies.
She tried to remember his question. “Too tired from work. Not…interested.”
It took Herculean effort to string together a sentence while Reece laved kisses against her shoulder. She deserved an award: remembered words when seduced by her ex after a dry spell.
“Hmm…” Reece took her shoulder in his hand and tilted her backward to find her nipple with his lips. He licked and then sucked the hard peak. Lights went out one by one in Charlotte’s brain. The machinery that operated her anxiety and recollection of basic grammar whirred to a stop.
Reece grazed her nipple with his teeth before letting it go, the cold air scorching her skin. “You like that,” he purred as his mouth moved to her other breast. His fingers flexed at her throat. He was gentle with her neck but the slightest pressure there brought to mind his strength. She felt herself get wetter at the thought of his hand pressing down harder.
“I do, yes,” she managed.
“You have no idea,” he said in between kisses, “how much I have wanted this.” His hand at her hips tightened, dragging her forward in his lap. “How much I have thought about this.” She held back a groan at the friction between their bodies. She rocked forward again, matching the tempo he’d started. “How much I have tried to remember…every…detail of you.”
The idea of Reece scrounging for memories of their short-lived relationship was erotic and laden with meaning. Charlotte took his jaw in her hand and turned his face up to hers, not sure what to say but needing to say something. “I’m here” was what came out, a firm statement of now and I’m sorry.
She had also thought about him in the city on lonely nights when she snuck her hand under the waistband of her pajamas. She thought about his green eyes finding hers over the swell of her stomach. When she found herself stuck on some first date from hell, she remembered how Reece teased her to the brink and then watched her come apart, smug satisfaction curling his mouth.
His thumb found her pulse point, thundering at her throat. “I know,” he said. “And I’m not letting you go. Not until I’m satisfied.”
Then he was kissing her again. Charlotte gasped and he swallowed the sound, his nails biting into her hip. She remembered how tortured he looked last night, his restraint threatening to snap as she pressed herself against the wall. All of that tension burned through their bodies. All of that desire surged through her, finally unbridled.
Thiswas the Reece she knew in college. This was the Reece she’d never forgotten—the Reece who challenged and demanded and took. This Reece bent her over a sink in the bathroom at some party and fucked her, one hand over her mouth to catch her groans. He gave as good as he got, generous and merciless.
Reece bit her lower lip and she whined. She wanted this desperately, to be taken, to be taken by him. She wanted him to fuck her, wanted him to fuck her and kiss her and hold her and then smile at her with his ridiculous, expressive face.
His hand moved from her hip to the waistband of her underwear, teasing the hem. She squirmed against him, forward and down, and he grunted at the friction. “Touch me,” she begged against his lips. “Oh god, please.” She wanted his hands on her, wanted his hands against her where she was slick and hot and needy.
Reece traced her slit through the soaked cotton, his thumb finding her clit. Too much and not enough, the pressure dulled by the fabric. “More. Please, Reece.”
His eyes found hers and the look he gave her—damn was it intense. She tried not to look away from his face as he pushed aside her underwear and eased one delicious finger into her.
An anguished noise escaped his throat, a helpless little groan of disbelief. “Charlie, you are so wet.”
“I know,” she panted. Her voice failed her as he stroked inside. “Since last night.”
Reece moaned at that thought.
He added another finger to the one already moving in and out of her, stretching her carefully. Her eyes shuttered closed, the sensation beautiful torture. It felt incredible to be touched, to be teased and stroked and played with—his thumb found her clit and circled it, pressing down. But it wasn’t enough, nothing would be enough until she had him.
Charlotte leaned her forehead against Reece’s, her lips parting as she struggled to regain her voice. “Reece, I want you.”
“I want to make you feel good,” he said. His voice shook as his control began to slip. “I want to make you come first.”
Such a gentleman. She knew she would too, easily, if she let him. He would play her body until she was a sweaty, snarled mess of herself, boneless and overjoyed. But she wanted to feel him inside her. She wanted his restraint to break, and she wanted to watch his face as he let go.
Charlotte did her best to roll them over in the narrow bed, and she hissed as her bare skin met the cold concrete wall. Reece budged over so that she could lie down. Then he was above her, his hips nestled between her thighs. The full weight of him on top of her felt extraordinary, all of that contained power. She teased the sensitive skin above the swell of his ass with her fingertips. He arched his back as he thrust forward, his erection grinding against her.
Charlotte wedged her toe into the elastic of his boxers. “Get rid of these.” He sat up to pull them off. She wiggled out of her underpants and dropped them on the floor, uninterested in some drawn-out tease. They’d danced around each other long enough.
“Come here.” She stretched out her hand to him as he kneeled between her thighs. He took it and pressed a kiss to her palm, his dark eyes never leaving hers. He considered her request, studying the sheer want on her face. She was well beyond walls at this point, her defenses shattered. As he looked down at her, his breath wet and hot against her skin, she’d never felt so vulnerable in her life.
“Please.” She tilted up to kiss him.
Reece pulled back a fraction of an inch, his lips brushing hers as he spoke. “Are you sure?” he asked.
Charlotte growled. “Yes, Reece, I am sure.”
He grinned and moved to kneel above her, retrieving a condom from the bookshelf. He tore open the wrapper and rolled it down his length with deft fingers. As soon as he finished, she grabbed his neck and pulled him back against her body, adjusting her hips as he found her entrance.
And then—oh. She could feel herself stretch to take him in, her legs wrapped tight around his waist. Their bodies made so much sense.
Reece clenched his eyes shut, his mouth a grimace of bliss and desperate self-control. “Christ, you feel—” he stammered, resting his forehead against her shoulder. “You feel amazing.”
“So do you,” Charlotte gasped. She shifted her hips and they both grunted as he hit a sensitive spot inside her. “Oh god, yes.”
She needed more. She dug her heels into his back as they built a frantic rhythm. A bead of sweat dripped from his nose onto her cheek, and she loved it, she loved how he tasted when she licked his mouth.
Charlotte sucked at his shoulder and the sweat collecting on his neck. It made no sense, but she still wanted more, wanted as much of him as possible. When she bit down, he grabbed her hip and pressed her down into the mattress, driving into her hard. Her nails raked down his back as she cried out in pleasure-pain.
This was really happening. Hot and fast, sheets on loan from the RC committee, her lips chapped. Reece’s face was tight with strain as he held on. They were both so loud, she realized, groaning and begging and gasping as they fucked. An insane giggle escaped her, and he laughed before kissing her deeply.
“I can’t believe this,” she confessed when he pulled away for air.
He smiled at her. A special-edition just-for-Charlie-while-screwing-like-teenagers grin that took over his entire face. The kind of smile that ruined a girl’s life.
“Me neither,” he said.
Charlotte was close and he could feel it, her body clenching around him. She felt like she’d been aching for release all day and only needed a push. He wedged his hand between their bodies and found her clit, working at the sensitive bud of nerves with his thumb. The irregular pace of his touch as their hips rocked away and together only hastened her pleasure. She yanked at Reece’s hair, grabbing at him for dear life.
She felt his teeth at her throat as he stroked deep inside her and she broke, the orgasm tearing through her body. She groaned, static shock and tension snapping, her arms tight around Reece’s torso. The intensity sent her reeling, her heart racing madly.
Colors exploded on the inside of her eyelids, ruby red and sticky pink. The vein-blood blue of being alive.
The only thing protecting her from full emotional overload was Reece’s ragged breath at her ear, an anchor in the present.
“Please, Reece,” she coaxed, still twitching around him as aftershocks took her body. He groaned, his thrusts becoming even more erratic. Charlotte licked at the shell of his ear and nipped his lobe. “Please come for me. I want you to.”
His fingers dug into her skin. She tilted her hips up to get him closer, the angle plunging him deeper. “Char—ah yes.”
“I need you,” she said, a plea and a promise. “I need you to come for me.”
His body coiled tight and violently snapped as he came. She ached as he thrust into her once, twice, three times as he took his release. It almost hurt, her body complaining as she stretched to accommodate him. She felt the side effects of not having sex for months, the early shadow of tomorrow’s soreness. But it was worth it to have Reece collapse on top of her, his face hidden in her shoulder. They were both soaked with sweat and relief.
The whole room smelled like sex and the cocktails left abandoned on the bookshelf.
She laughed, the sharp sound breaking the silence.
“What is it?” he mumbled against her skin.
Reece unstitched himself from her limbs, rolling off to lie at her side. He looked positively destroyed, the poor dear. She smoothed down his electric mess of hair, a smile playing at her lips. What a beautiful specimen of a man, hers for the evening, for the weekend.
“What does it smell like in here?” she asked as he took off the used condom and disposed of it in an empty shopping bag hanging from the bedpost.
Reece gave her a strange look before recognition flared across his face. His eyes widened. “Oh my god,” he groaned. “College.”
Charlotte stretched her arms above her head. Her body didn’t feel like 2013. Sleepiness hit her like a brick wall. That and dehydration. A yawn snuck out of her mouth and nearly cracked her face in half.
Reece curled his fingers around her ankle. “You tired?”
She wriggled like a sleepy cat on the mattress. Charlotte liked the way his eyes tracked the curve of her breast. “Aren’t you?”
The question was the wrong one. His face went still, his smile dimming. “Yeah, I guess,” he said, and let go of her foot. “It’s been a long day.”
It startled her, how suddenly her insecurity returned. But that was her exhaustion making itself known. She shoved down her unease, refusing to read into Reece’s emotional retreat. It was who-the-hell-knows-how-late at night and she hadn’t come that hard in years.
“But a good day?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows.
Her prodding worked. Reece’s smile returned. “A great day.”
He leaned over her. One of his hands settled at her hip again, his touch scalding. She grinned as he kissed her all slow and sated. She could have kissed him like that for hours, sleep be damned, but eventually he murmured, “I guess I should go?”
Charlotte did not want Reece to go. She wanted him to stay right where he was, above her and touching her with his large, warm hands. But Reece needed to go, because that was how they operated. That was their old rule and it had worked for both of them. Charlotte fell asleep wrapped in her hard-won solitude, and in the morning Reece could nurse his hangover in peace.
It had been years since she slept beside another person. She and Jackie shared beds when they traveled together, but splitting a king-size bed at a hotel with your best friend was a far cry from spending a night tangled up with a lover in a twin-size bed. Sleeping together was an intimate act, messy and vulnerable, even more so than sex. Skin bare, breath mingling. Aside from the logistical concerns of finding your way home in the middle of the night, Charlotte couldn’t think of a reason to sleep with someone else that wasn’t just to be close to them.
Being close, voluntarily close, hadn’t been Charlotte’s style for a long time.
The boundary made sense. It had protected her ever since Ben.
She just wasn’t sure if she wanted to protect herself now.
“I should check my email,” she said, instead of stay with me.
Reece brushed an errant curl off her forehead. He placed a kiss on her nose before sitting up and reaching for his boxers, wedged between the mattress and the wall. “And I should make sure Garrett and Liam are still alive.” The bed tipped as he stood up. She turned to lie on her side and watch him dress. “Let’s hope they stayed away from the hard stuff.”
“Godspeed,” she drawled.
Reece wedged his feet back into his sneakers, not bothering to tie them. He hesitated when fully dressed, drumming his fingers on the bedpost.
Stay with me.
Charlotte chewed on her bottom lip to keep the words from escaping.
“We’re going to the pond tomorrow.” Reece’s fingers tugged on the flower lei hanging at the foot of the bed. “Want to come?”
She knew it was silly to get excited about an invitation to hang out when they’d literally just had sex, but that was the college hookup scene for you. Charlotte’s smile returned.
“I’d love to.”
TEXT MESSAGE FROM JACKIE SLAUGHTER TO CHARLOTTE THORNE, 1:51 AM:can I come back yet??