Chapter 17
When the pictures are finished, and Rob and I have had photos with each of our parents alone, and then together, when we’ve awkwardly stood and pretended like we’re all a big happy family, Rob and I return to the reception. A few minutes later Michael and Mom are announced as Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen, and the ballroom erupts in applause and wolf whistles.
We sit through dinner, and I’m served another steak, and Charlie and I laugh when we swap our food around. Gabby rubs Rob’s back in what I now recognize as a consoling motion. It’s the six of us again—Rob and Gabby, Astrid and Tyler, Charlie and me. Our conversation is fairly easy, even though Rob clearly doesn’t feel much like talking. It’s an elegant affair. The flowers are costly and beautiful, the food is excellent—at least, the non-meat portion of it is—and each guest is gifted with a little authentic Tiffany ornament, not unlike the one my mother brought to Rob’s parents the first time they met. Walter must be over the moon about this. And then the string instruments setting the ambience for dinner wind down as a DJ comes in and the dancing begins.
Charlie sweeps me up from my chair. Naturally, he’s a great dancer. And he’s my date—my real date, not pretend. We boogie goofily to the Chicken Dance, flapping our arms and strutting about like roosters and we line-dance to the Cha-Cha Slide, both of which I am extremely surprised were not on my mother’s “do not play” list. I swell with pride to be the girl on his arm when he twirls me around and my skirt flutters dangerously around my thighs.
When the music slows, we stand almost still, and he kisses my brow and pulls me into him, his hand cradling the back of my head, just underneath the twist of my hair. I press my nose into his throat and inhale him, and kiss him there.
I’m lost. I’m getting lost in him. I’m not unaware of the fact that what’s happening between Charlie and me is at least partly responsible for my comfort tonight. When you feel like this, it’s hard to have room for any other emotions—especially anger. Charlie and my desolation have been competing for space, and Charlie is winning an easy fight.
My mother tosses the bouquet, and Gabby catches it and goes dancing over to a startled-looking Rob. But then he grins and kisses her, and as I rest my head on Charlie’s shoulder, I smile to myself. I want Rob to be happy. It took me a long time to get to this point, but I seem to have finally arrived, and it feels good.
After a while, Rob and Gabby vanish. Slowly, the guests thin out—women carrying away flower arrangements tucked in front of them, attempting to be stealthy about it like thieves in the night, but it’s hard to be stealthy with three-foot orchid branches bobbing all around you. By the time only the most dedicated dancers remain, Charlie and I are red-faced and sweaty, and my shoes were long ago discarded so I could move without pain or risking serious bodily injury.
My mom is swaying with Michael, hearts in her eyes as she looks at him. They look happy. She looks peaceful. When they cut the cake, he fed her a piece delicately, and then she smashed his slice right into his beard and everyone laughed with delight. He still has little flecks of frosting on his chin.
“Should we go?” Charlie asks softly into my ear. His eyes, and the way he’s running his fingertips down the length of my spine, tells me that, yes, it’s time to go. I nod at him and go to pick up my shoes and purse, and we leave, making our way through the heavy wooden double doors, and out into the corridor beyond.
We’re moving in slow motion, like wading through water. The sounds of the wedding reception drift away as the anticipation in my belly mounts. I can’t wait to be alone with him again. It doesn’t matter how slowly Charlie wants to take things, I’m here for it. His hand lingers at my bare back, and then slides up so that it’s around my shoulders and I’m tucked into him. He leans over and kisses my hair. I hear him inhale my smell. “Perfect smell,” he says, and I evaporate.
We’re in the elevator, and my body vibrates. I bounce a little on my toes.
“What are you all worked up about, Mini?”
“I’m really looking forward to another round with David Attenborough,” I say.
He laughs softly as he pulls me into him. “What if I suggested we give David the night off?”
My heart turns over in my chest at the meaning behind his words, and I lose the capacity for speech for a brief moment before replying, “You don’t think he’d be offended?”
“If he saw you, he would understand.”
His lips land on mine and I try to climb him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and lifting a leg all at once. He chuckles against my mouth, and then flat-out picks me up so that he’s holding me with his hands clasped on my backside and presses me against the wall, eliminating any space between us. We’ve been like this before, making out like horny teenagers, but this time it’s different. The urgency is there, but there’s no rush. We have all night with each other.
When the elevator doors open, he sets me on my feet and leads me by the hand down the corridor, towards our twin doors. What was fate thinking when it brought us together in this way? When Charlie was led into my life at the time when I needed him the most?
Charlie slides the key card and opens the door, and I don’t even bother getting mine out of my bag. He’s leading me in backwards. My eyes never leave his. There’s so much tenderness. So much care . So much. The door swings closed behind us.
I expect him to want to undress me. To unhook the straps where they meet at the back of my neck and let my dress glide down my body. But instead, he pulls me into him, and we tumble sideways onto the bed. My shoes fly from my hands. My clutch rolls across the carpet. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into him. I nuzzle him, envelop myself in his smell. Kiss his neck and savor the salty taste of his skin.
“I’m so glad I found you, Daisy,” he says into my hair as his body shivers under my mouth. “You don’t even know.”
I do know, though, because Charlie hasn’t just been my savior this weekend. He’s awakened something in me. Some newfound belief in myself, and gratitude for the things in my life that matter. That are meaningful.
“I do know, Charlie. I do, because I feel the same way you do,” I say as I kiss his throat.
The tip of one of his fingers finds my chin and tilts my head up, and my nose bumps him. His hand slides up to my jaw, and he holds the side of my head as his lips find mine. It's a tender kiss. Gentle and reassuring. I inhale deeply through my nose, and then release it as I open my mouth for him and his tongue slides against mine. My thigh glides up over his, and we lie like that, kissing, tasting each other, inhaling each other, until I feel his breaths develop into pants through his nose.
“Daisy,” he murmurs, and I think he’s about to put a stop to things, but instead his hand moves to my back, and he pulls me closer. He turns and takes me with him, rolling me so that I’m on top of him and in control. My thighs straddle him as I lean down, and he groans when I grind my hips. Heat is pooling in my core. An urgent need, unmet for days, flaring to life. This whole evening was foreplay. This whole weekend with him has been foreplay. Every time he grazed my skin, or ran a finger down the line of my back, or whispered something in my ear that made me laugh, he had me biting my lip. He grips my hips as I move against him, and our breaths are both fast and shallow. “Oh God,” I groan as I move on him, sending sparks of pleasure shooting through me.
“Take my shirt off,” he says into my mouth with short, staccato breaths. “Is it okay if I take my shirt off?”
I nod and lean back as he sits up. We’re face to face, my legs wrapped around him. I work the top buttons around his throat, while he handles the ones at his wrist, and then he peels his shirt up over his head, revealing his tanned, firm chest, dusted with coarse hair, light from a summer spent outdoors. I kiss him across his jaw, down his throat and his hands slide from my hips up my back, splaying across the span of my shoulder blades, and then down again to trace the line of my underwear through the silk of my dress, at the crease between my thigh and hip. He pulls back and looks at me seriously, both the question and answer in his eyes. Can we? I think we can. The only thoughts I have now are coming as feelings. My heart filling, my body throbbing, the need to touch him and feel him on me. In me.
I reach for the hook at the back of my neck, holding my dress in place. “Is this okay?” I ask. His eyes are dark. The rings of his irises just a sliver of green around wide pupils.
He nods. “God, yes.” He watches me intently as I reach back to unfasten them. He slides his hands up my legs, from my ankles, over my calves, tracing circles around my knees, and then his hands glide up. “I hate this dress, Daisy.”
I squirm impatiently as he runs his fingers under the strings of my underwear.
“I mean it,” he says. “I was hard all night. Even when I was talking to Walter. It was a nightmare.”
I start to laugh, and then stop as he lifts the dress over my head, so that I’m bare before him, utterly exposed. My breastbone is being battered so hard by my heart that it might break.
He tosses the slip of fabric to the side, and then he starts to laugh.
“What is it?” I ask. I run my feminine to-do list through my head at lightning quick speed. Everything shaved, polished, waxed.
“What are those?” Charlie asks, looking at my breasts, and a rush of relief and giggles pour out of me.
“I forgot.” I laugh. “I forgot I was wearing them.”
He runs a finger along the edge of a nipple cover, and goosebumps spring up all over. “Can they be removed?”
I shake my head seriously. “No, Charlie. I’m afraid they’re permanent.”
He bites my neck and digs fingers into my ribs, and I squeal with giddy delight.
“What are they?” he asks again, peppering my face with his lips.
“They’re nipple covers.”
I help him peel one off, and then the other. There’s a ring of red flesh on each of my breasts, where the glue was, but I barely have time to feel self-conscious before Charlie has his mouth over one of them and my back is arching at the sensation of his warm, wet tongue sending tingling shivers through my body. “Oh God,” I breathe into the air as my head tips back.
He kisses each of my breasts, running his tongue over the sensitized skin, and I shiver. “Perfect breasts.”
The rest is easy. He flips me back over so he can shake himself out of his shoes and pants, and I lift my hips for him so he can slide my underwear down and off. He spends time there, listing his favorite parts as I blush and giggle until his tongue touches me, and I lose the capacity for speech altogether, and all I can do is pant and moan and arch with shaking legs until I fall to pieces.
He hovers over me on his elbows, my legs spread around him, my arms sliding up his back as we kiss each other hungrily. My hands wander, exploring him. Learning his body. And then there’s a foil packet, and Charlie pressing into me as I gasp at how good it feels. How good he feels.
We move together, rising and falling like the waves of the ocean. The world has fallen away again, and all that exists is us. His eyes dark and the cords of his neck visible as he hangs on to his restraint.
“Fuck, Daisy,” he moans.
“I know,” I breathe back.
He slides his forearm under my backside and lifts me up off the bed, moving his hips into me, first at an easy rhythm, until I start begging for more—faster and harder, until neither of us can hold on a second longer and we come apart together. First me, and then him, falling, falling, down into something deep and thrilling and, for me at least, far more than an orgasm.
I lie with my head on his chest as our breaths calm.
“Perfect sex,” he says.
“Perfect sex,” I agree.