Chapter 17
SAM
The entire drive back, Sam didn’t want to think about the phone call.
She cursed herself for even accepting it in the first place. It wasn’t a number she recognized, but she thought it might’ve been that cop calling to give her an update. They were on the lookout for him, as he would definitely be going to jail for what he had done, but he’d essentially disappeared.
She should’ve known it would be Paul.
And he wasn’t just pissed off about how the whole situation at the cafe went down.
He was livid. So angry, in fact, that she had hardly been able to barely make out half of what he said.
Ranting and raving about how she was ruining everything, about how she was his, about how he needed to show her that she was his.
That last part frightened her.
She didn’t want to find out what he meant by that.
She watched the passing scenery out the window as she held onto Charlie’s hand, their fingers laced together. The feeling was more comforting than arousing, as it had been earlier.
There was no avoiding it now—she’d have to tell Charlie. Not that she wasn’t going to before, but now she couldn’t dilly-dally about it.
Tomorrow. She would tell him for sure tomorrow. She’d invite him over to her place to talk and hang out, and she’d explain the whole situation. Start to finish. No details spared. He deserved that much, at least.
Just… not now. Not today.
The day had been such a wonderful escape. It was exactly what she’d needed without even knowing it. She wasn’t ready to face reality just yet.
One more day before things tumbled back down.
Charlie’s thumb rubbed across her hand soothingly, his eyes on the road but a smile crinkling his dimples the way she loved. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, not wanting to let on that she was essentially staring at him in hopes of distracting herself from her thoughts.
He really was an incredibly handsome man, frustratingly so in her opinion.
His seatbelt stretched across the muscles of his chest, more well defined now from his time at the gym. Charlie had always been a bit self conscious about how tall and lanky he had been when they were growing up, but he had absolutely put the work in to grow out of that.
It would almost be an insult not to admire his hard work really.
And admire she did. She couldn’t help it.
Looking at him for a beat too long, however, began to stir something in her.
The way the sunlight poured onto him through the sunroof, giving his light-brown hair an almost golden glow.
The sharp cut of his jawline at this angle.
The toned complexion of his arms flexing as he turned the wheel onto another street.
Heat pulsed down her body and buried itself between her legs, creating a heartbeat of its own.
Charlie gave her hand a squeeze before he released it, instead going to rest his hand on her thigh as he’d done on their drive over earlier that morning. She was surprised that she hadn’t already burnt his hand with the heat prickling up from within her.
Why on earth was simply looking at this man turning her on this much?
She ran her tongue over her suddenly parched lips.
His thumb repeated the motion from when he’d held her hand moments before, rubbing a gentle line across her thigh soothingly. Both a comfort and torture all at the same time. She wondered what it would feel like if his hand went further up, dipping below the edge of her shorts toward her…
“You okay?” Charlie asked, an amused chuckle in his voice, as if he could read her thoughts. An instant wave of embarrassment washed over, afraid that he somehow had read her mind.
When had they parked?
Sam blinked a few times to bring herself back from whatever dream-like state she’d lulled herself into.
“Yeah,” she dismissed as she fiddled with her seatbelt. “Sorry. I was just thinking about some notes I need to add in.”
He flashed her a smile. “Have fun today?”
She couldn’t look him straight in the eye, not after her train of thought seconds prior, but she laughed. “How could I not? This was literally tailor-made just for me. Of course I had a blast. This was a great idea, Charlie.”
He chuckled. “What can I say, babe? I know you well.”
“That you do.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said after they both hopped out of the car and began walking into the apartment building. “You don’t know what I have in store next. I could be lulling you into a false sense of security.”
“Ah, yes, the calm before the storm. I’ll be sure to keep my eyes peeled,” she teased, walking quickly to beat him to the staircase. The last thing she needed right now was to walk behind this man where she could easily ogle his ass after her previous thoughts.
“You should. I’m very mysterious, you know.”
She paused to laugh. “Right, you, Mr. Mysterious.”
“Don’t joke. I could be, you know,” Charlie tutted behind her.
“You’re too nice. I think you’d have cracked under the pressure if you hadn’t shown up at my apartment so early in the morning and had I been more persistent with my line of questioning. I was an easy target.”
Charlie made a dramatic stabbing motion into his chest. “You wound me. I totally pulled it off. And besides, at the end of the day, you had fun. That’s all I really cared about.”
Sam fought the tightening in her chest as they continued up the stairs, feeling a bit relieved when they finally reached her floor. Yet, at the same time, she didn’t want this to end. She wanted more time with him, needed more time.
They moved away from the landing, her apartment just around the corner and down the hall, when she met his gaze. All that softness, all the gentleness, greeted her once again. It wasn’t unfamiliar, but it felt far more intimate than it had before.
“Well, either way, thank you for today, Charlie. I had a really good time,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he answered, taking a small step toward her.
Her breath hitched as he stood there, as if to gauge her reaction, but didn’t move an inch further. Watching her until she licked her lips nervously. “Are you going to kiss me now?”
Why on earth was she asking him that?
It wasn’t as if it were the first time he’d kissed her, but thinking he was about to do it again had caused her brain to short-circuit. She wanted to apologize but instead heard him chuckle instead, a heated intensity there.
“You know, next time, you’re going to have to not narrate that, right?” he teased, but his voice sounded thicker, a bit husky.
The hint of humor laced in his statement did help to calm the nerves firing rapidly in her veins, so she forced a shy smile onto her face. “I know, sorry.”
He took another small step toward her, instinctively causing her to take a step back, watching his eyes as she followed his lead until she felt the wall against her back.
He lowered his forehead to hers, able to more closely see the faint touch of pink starting to color his cheeks.
“Tell me what you want, Sam. Don’t tell me what you think I’m gonna do. Tell me what you want me to do.”
His voice was barely above a whisper, the tickle of his breath against her cheeks.
Everything in her screamed for him, for his hands on her body, for his lips on hers.
Anything to relieve this inferno ignited between them in that moment, shooing that shyness away and replacing it with something else entirely.
Her eyes never left his. “I want you to kiss me.”
The corners of his mouth tugged up into an entirely too smug grin for her liking. “How do you want me to kiss you?”
“There are options?” she asked, the last word squeaking out when Charlie moved to press a kiss against her neck. It was gentle, his lips hardly touching her, but it already had her toes curling.
“Of course there are,” he murmured quietly. “There are always options.”
This was definitely a side to Charlie she’d never seen before, but damned if she didn’t love every second of it. Racking her brain to desperately find the words she wanted to say.
“Are-are you flirting with me right now?” she sputtered out, feeling a bit stupid for saying something that felt fairly obvious now.
He hummed low in his throat. “Maybe. Remember, don’t narrate.”
She nodded slowly, capturing her lower lip between her teeth when his lips went from her neck to her ear. His teeth nibbled the lobe before he placed another quick kiss just below it.
“Now, answer the question,” Charlie ordered, placing a quick kiss to the tip of her nose when he pulled back, a smoldering look in his eyes that threatened to burn her alive if she wanted.
And boy, did she.
If he wanted flirty, she could give him flirty. “Kiss me like you mean it, then. Don’t be such a fucking gentleman about it.”
Her words surprised even her, but she didn’t take them back. She meant every word. She didn’t want to be the only one wild with desire. Even if it wasn’t real, she needed Charlie’s hands all over her. Anything to fan the flame burning in her.
And with the borderline feral gleam in his eyes piercing her to the wall, she’d say that was exactly what she was about to get.
Charlie suddenly grabbed both of her arms, yanking her toward him and placing them on his shoulders. A silent command as she obeyed and wrapped them around his neck.
His nostrils flared at her. “Don’t be a gentleman, huh?”
His fingers slowly traced their way down the column of her spine, leaving a wake of goosebumps in their path. She was near breathless when he finally rested his hands on her hips, squeezing her gently before bringing her lips to his.
If the first kiss between them had been a tender and gentle exploration, delicately testing all the subtle ways that their lips could meet, this was light years beyond that.
It may have started out with a couple of soft pecks, testing the waters between them, but it quickly escalated the moment Charlie angled her mouth against his to make the kiss deeper, harder.
Then all bets were off.
It became a flurry of hot, open-mouthed kisses that felt sloppy and dirty all at the same time.
The slide of lips tangling against one another in a frenzy all its own.
Nothing had ever felt this incredible, and Sam was completely at Charlie’s mercy—exactly where she wanted to be, feeling the hard contrast of his body as it pinned hers against the wall.
He nipped at her lower lip as they changed the angle of their lips once more, their breathing becoming labored, almost tortured, as if every moment their lips parted were the worst moment of their lives.
All she wanted was to keep kissing Charlie like this until the world collapsed around them.
Had Charlie always been this good at kissing? Because, if so, every woman that ever entered his life was in immediate danger of eagerly spreading their legs for him—including her.
Her body arched into him, craving to fill every inch of space between them until nothing remained. A groan reverberated from him, an almost guttural sound that both surprised and delighted her. Oh yeah, she really liked that.
She wanted to hear him make it again.
But their moment came crashing down by the sound of laughter entering their periphery, a group ascending the stairs below them.
Though it appeared that they stopped at the floor just below them, the jarring shift back to reality caused the two to part, albeit reluctantly.
They were both panting, fighting to catch their breath.
“Are you alright?” Charlie asked, his lips a tantalizing shade of well-kissed that made Sam want to lean back in for more.
“Y-Yes. I’m good,” she replied, a little more breathlessly than she meant to.
Good was the understatement of the century. Sam was on cloud nine.
“I guess I’ll see you later, then?” Charlie said, as if he weren’t sure what else to say, and she honestly didn’t mind at the moment. She wouldn’t have known what to say to him either after that, at least not until after she calmed her still-fluttering heartbeat.
“Yeah, see you tomorrow, babe,” she added, the kiss leaving her unexpectedly weak and dazed.
He smiled in return, leaning forward to press a kiss against her forehead before turning and walking away.
She let him go, unable to stop him even if she wanted to. Her body still remained glued firmly against the hallway wall, pinned there by the invisible echo of his body. She watched him just long enough to see his footsteps fading into the distance, up the next flight of steps.
Now alone, she hovered there, taking a moment to collect herself. The lingering traces of their kiss tingled her lips.
Absently, she raised a hand to touch her mouth, finding that they, too, were as swollen as Charlie’s had been.
That was… Well, that was by far the best kiss she’d ever had. Hands down.
Adjusting her tank top, she picked her bag up off the floor, which had fallen from her shoulder without her even noticing. She ran her hand across it, dusting off a bit of lint, before she picked up her two baskets of strawberries and turned to make her way to her apartment.
Though the day hadn’t been nearly as warm as they had expected it to be, Sam’s heated skin cried out for a cold, cold shower. A call she was more than eager to answer.
But as she rounded the corner, she suddenly realized that something was wrong.
She was sure… no, positive that she had locked her door before they’d left that morning.
She’d checked it several times because she’d worried her brain fog would make her forget. Had she forgotten? No, that wasn’t right. Charlie would have told her if she’d left her door open like this.
Standing before her apartment door, wide open and practically hanging off its hinges, Sam froze in place. Splinters of wood caked the floor in front of her, remnants of what had once been a door trailing further inside.
Her bag slid off her shoulder once more and clattered to the floor.
“C-Charlie!” she screamed.