Chapter Six
No … Charlie hunched down, her body curled around the bundle in her arms.
“Dammit, Charlie! Don’t you dare leave! Don’t you dare think you can walk out this door, upstaging me, humiliating me, using me…”
A sob tore from her throat, the warm tang of blood dripping down her chin and coating her tongue.
“Flower girl,” a soft baritone whispered, warm and gentle like the breeze licking across Charlie’s wounded skin…
She jolted awake.
Heart raced. Lungs pumping.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” More baritone words, roughened from sleep, reverberated through her, but they weren’t Jason’s. They were … McClintock’s? He was still here? He still hadn’t left?
Teak, mint, and salty, warm skin filled her senses.
“Is it morning?”
“Ain’t morning yet, baby,” he murmured, while those calluses snagging her skin brushed her clammy hair off her brow. “You were having a bad dream. Shakin’ and all.”
Lips pressed to her temple. God, she’d just done that in front of him? She covered her eyes.
His work-roughened fingers traced her stomach, her breasts, her jaw. “Why?”
Sleep hazed, her pulse picked up, but she shook her head.
His tracing stopped. “Want me to leave?”
“Not yet, Trouble,” she hastened.
He relaxed an inch. “What do you say I get you into more trouble? Make you forget.”
Nothing could make her forget. And yet, this time, his words were more tender, more uncertain.
That’s all I am is trouble … last night rushed back.
He’d told her who he was last night, and more trouble was not what she needed. His excuse, having a proposition, had clearly been to get between her legs, otherwise he would have proposed it by now. Yet why hadn’t he left yet?
His chest rose and fell in the darkness as breeze whispered over their sated skin. Did she dare think this might be the … start of something? Did she dare do that again when she’d sworn never to?
She traced his unfinished tattoos, this man who hadn’t made her feel foolish, who every time she thought he might leave, had stayed a little longer instead. His hands slipped up her arms as he rolled atop her again, mounting between her languid thighs.
She exhaled, eyes still closed as the wind picked up outside and turned her face as he dusted her jaw and cheeks with soft kisses.
“My breath must be awful,” she whispered on a laugh.
“Smells like roses and rainbows, Flower Girl,” he teased, purposefully nuzzling his face against her lips.
She laughed and wriggled against him, threaded her fingers into his sandy hair. Reality would crash down this evening at six o’clock. She still had until then to pretend.
He captured her wrists, pinning them to the pillows overhead, opening her body to him like a feast he wasn’t done eating. She’d never been so savored.
He cradled her cheek and kissed a roadmap along her nose, her forehead, her chin, the pulse in her neck that was beginning to flutter erratically again, caressed down her body, over her breast, swirling around her nipple, continuing down the ridges of her ribs, dipping over her hips, her waist…
“All these curves like back roads I wanna stay lost on,” he murmured as he stoked that lust within her, and she squirmed against his thickening shaft pressed between her thighs.
He was a wordsmith, and she almost believed his sweet nothings and obvious pickup lines to be genuine, like she mattered to someone—
Fingertips rough with calluses, that had wrung the most wondrous sensations from her body, caressed her shoulder now, down her arm, up her navel, as he began to undulate his hips again.
“Damn girl, are you a recording studio?”
Oh gawd, she mouthed and bit her lip on a grin, waiting for the punchline.
“Because I wanna spend the day in you.”
Now it was spend the day. Last night it had been spend the night. Was he fishing?
“Hmm.” She laughed, as he nuzzled her neck. “Are you a sad country song?”
He lifted his head on an anticipatory grin, his body coming down to rest atop her and blanket her with his warmth and weight as he rested his forearms aside her head and curved his palms around her crown.
Amused, he smoldered in the moonlight as he rolled his tongue over his lower lip in anticipation and notched up his chin.
“Why?”
“Because you’re pathetic,” she whispered.
He chuckled that languid sound, like the slide of a steel guitar, without even speaking. “Damn straight, baby.” But the chuckling died on a contemplative look. “I just, uh, ain’t ready for that last goodbye yet.”
So sore, she still hooked her legs around his waist for more, to welcome him in one last time as he rolled his hips against her crux. Amazingly, he still had energy enough to rally for one last rut, when he whispered more quietly, his lips nuzzling her earlobe.
“What did a screwup like me do to get so damn lucky?” He dusted a kiss there. “I think … I gotta see you again. One night ain’t enough.”
She froze as a knuckle smoothed down her cheek. He had been fishing.
So reverent. She dare not break the spell with her fears and insecurities. Right now, this man was still perfect. It felt good to just … exhale. To just … feel wanted. To feel like the most important object in a man’s eye, instead of disdained.
How could a womanizing one-night fling feel so genuine?
They’re always perfect in the beginning. But the shine wears off and guys turn into monsters. Don’t forget it.
The caress continued. Roughened knuckles smoothing.
Her skin pebbled. She wrapped her arms around his torso, his scent so sharp and masculine.
Nestled her face against that chest covered in a tattoo that spanned his left pectoral and down his arm, tapering off unfinished.
Inspected the nuances of the stylized guitar inked into his flesh amid horses and mechanics tools and the words Charity, Temperance, Patience, Faith, in script in the shape of a heart upon his heart.
Some mantra he lived by? Morals he tried to espouse?
She could feel his breath on her forehead, lips grazing her skin, his palms now cupping her cheek, down her shoulders and breasts as his undulating increased, zinging electricity through her blood with renewing vigor as if he could feel her desire growing for …
round five? Six? What number would this be?
She’d lost count and instead pressed her forehead into his chest.
He fumbled blindly on her nightstand for his wallet, knocking into her lamp.
They laughed as he rolled his lust-thickened shaft between her folds, frowning when he realized his whole strip of condoms were spent.
“You got more?” He fumbled open her drawer, paused, then pulled out a wadded, pastel … sash?
No! She snatched it from his fingertip as her phone began to buzz with an incoming call. This early? Oh God, the call she’d feared all night like an anvil ready to drop! What was wrong? Daisy?
She patted for her phone as the wind outside whipped louder.
Knocked it off the bedside as McClintock lifted off her, and retrieved it, noticing a text notice from Heart saying she was, already off to get coffee before my survey job and holy cow you and that singer blew the roof off this house. I could hardly sleep downstairs…
5:02 a.m.
Incoming call from Jason Thompson.
She wriggled out from beneath him, hurrying to swipe the call and answer.
“Hello?”
“What’s this shit on social media, Charlie?” Jason growled without preamble.