Chapter 12 #2
He’s being so open, so earnest. It’s not fair of me to keep treading in the shallows. No more jokes. “What did you think when you first saw me today?”
“It felt like I was seeing a ghost. Pun absolutely intended.” His uneven smile is twinged with sadness.
“I was . . . relieved,” he drags out, like he’s trying to taste if it’s the right word.
My brow furrows. That’s not what I expected.
“It was nice having proof of life.” Lower, he adds, “It’s been over a year, Win.
I’ve been waiting. For something. For anything. ”
“I know.” I glance away, picking at my nail beds to distract myself from the sting in the tip of my nose.
“How honest do you want me to be?” Subtle harshness edges his words and I stumble with how to respond. “Because if you’re gonna do that thing where you act like nothing’s wrong here, or you’ll just avoid it because it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll leave it surface level and save my energy.”
It’s a knife twisting in my chest, wounding because each word hits true. But I promised myself I’d do better. If not for me, for my brother. I brace for every biting word coming my way. “Tell me. I can take it.”
“I was pissed.” His jaw feathers. “And I was confused. And I wanted to force you to stay, and listen to all the shit you put me through these past two years. And I saw that fucking name on your shirt, and I—”
He drags a hand over his mouth, taking a deep breath.
But the tension radiating off of him deflates as he turns and meets my eyes.
It’s not rage I see there. It’s hurt. I don’t wear it on my face—a lifetime dreaming of dancing on stage helped me build an impenetrable facade—but I break under the weight of what I did.
The place that filled with butterflies the first time I met him backstage of Colby rings back hollow. Scooped out by my own damn claws.
“Winnie,” he whispers, pivoting his body toward me.
“Fuck, Win. I missed you. I was mad at you, but I missed you. And I was happy to see you. And that made me hate myself a little. Because when I look at you, I want to see someone who ruined every good thing we had. But all I saw”—his Adam’s apple bobs and my skin shrinks tight around my bones—“all I see is a woman who meant the world to me.”
My heart beats outside my chest. If I wasn’t so practiced at keeping my shit together, I’d have tears in my eyes. They’re threatening my lash line with unbearable heat.
I open my mouth, with no idea what to say. Raw, honest vulnerability has always made me freeze up. But backing down from it is exactly what he expects from me.
A light in the corner of my eye makes me jump. The false flame of the Spirit Candle flickers, sending amber light dancing around the dimly lit room. My mouth falls open and eerie, tinny music tinkles out from the music box.
“What the—” I whisper.
The Ovilus, in its unnerving robotic voice, spits out, “KISS.” Charlie and I both let out strangled, awkward half-laughs, the interruption bursting the tension between us like a pin to a balloon. The sheer strength of the reprieve I feel in my chest is an embarrassment.
I wish I was better.
“Are these ghosts trying to set us up?” Charlie huffs. His head dips as he rubs the back of his neck. Like the weight of everything he’d been holding in left his muscles aching.
“Or they felt left out of the game.” My heart pounds a million miles a minute as sweat dews on the back of my neck.
“Horny little shits,” he mutters.
“They spent a lifetime locked up in an all-male prison. Can you blame them?”
His lips twitch. “Guess not. Dry spells are tough.”
God, we are standing far, far too close. “Sorry, Mr. Lindsay, try again. That’s not happening.” I reach for the jar of moonshine in Charlie’s far hand, letting my touch linger irresponsibly long. “Guess we both have to drink on that?”
His chuckle is a low, smooth thing tingling across my skin as he takes a pull from the jar, swallowing without a wince, then lets me take the liquor. “Never knew you to back down from, well, anything, really.”
“Me? This is for your benefit.” Quirking a brow, I tip the moonshine side to side in front of him, then toss back a harsh sip.
He scoffs an incredulous laugh as his brows pinch like he’s confused. Mirroring the looming clouds above, his eyes darken on me. “You think I’m scared to kiss you, sweetheart?”
“Shouldn’t you be?” I whisper.
“Maybe,” he concedes. But he doesn’t back away.
Of all the things he excels at, one thing Charlie’s never been very good with is banking the flames of whatever it is that’s burned between us for as long as I’ve known him.
It melts down his pupils into wide, black tar full moons.
It echoes in his body language as he shifts almost imperceptibly to face me.
It bottoms out in my stomach as his gaze falls to my mouth.
We’re both inching closer to a blurred line we really shouldn’t cross.
I let out a weak laugh and bite down on my lip.
I want to say, This is a reckless idea so badly, but I can’t find it in myself.
My logic, running on the fumes of the lust coursing through my veins, is looking for any reason to rationalize this.
To convince me it’s okay. Because, god, I want him so bad.
I’ve wanted him since the very first time he handed me a rose.
“This okay?” His voice is a low, smooth rumble as he traces the bottom curve of my mouth with his thumb. I let out a shuddering breath and nod.
Tipping my chin up with his knuckle, his lips meet mine.
Soft. Gentle. Chaste. My hand flies to his chest, eager to test if his heart’s as off the rails as mine is.
It thuds back to me affirmatively beneath his clothes.
This is the most innocent kiss we’ve ever shared—far more contained than even the first, that night Garrett sprung a surprise rager on us—and yet, it feels the most sinful.
It is a tease, a taste, not even close to being enough.
He pulls back, rests his forehead against mine, exhales like the weight of our past is forcing every oxygen molecule from his lungs.
It’s a familiar comfort, kissing him. And I knew I’d miss it when I left—it was part of why I kept so far away, so out of reach.
Because he’s intoxicating. My own personal catnip.
Part of me always knew colliding with him again would mean opening the door to asking why I even gave up on this in the first place.
I can’t even blame the moonshine; I’m drunk on him.
And he said it himself: I’ve never been one to back down.
Reaching past him, I set the open jar of moonshine on the sill of the barred window, sliding my other hand around his neck, grazing the cool metal chain he wears, toying with the curling hair at his nape. The confusion, the hesitancy, the desire, it all blurs together on his face.
It happens so fast neither of us has time to think. To second-guess.
His mouth crushes against mine in a kiss that’s more practiced than testing. Like it’s only been a few weeks since we did this last. I’m an explosion of cataclysmic size. It’s been so long since I’ve been touched, I’m starved for anything he’ll give me.
Cupping my face with one hand, his other arm laces around my waist, corseting us together as our kisses make up for so much missed time, both of us clearly too caught up to worry about how we lost it in the first place.
I wind my arms tighter around him, drawing him impossibly close, and my back hits the stone wall behind me as his leg wedges me there, tucked between my thighs.
I shamelessly run the tip of my tongue along his bottom lip, begging for more.
And he gives it to me. Angling my head exactly how he wants, his tongue slips into my mouth, my stomach drops, and I am on fire.
I whimper against him and my hands knot in his hair as his hips pin me tighter against the wall and I feel how much he needs this too.
How he strains against his pants. Blown off the rails by how familiar yet new this all is, a desperate desire aches in my core.
His lips move to my jaw, racing back toward my ear, then down the side of my neck.
With a mind of their own, my hips roll against him, searching for any kind of pressure I can take.
When they rock again, his muscular thigh presses back firmer, hitting everything just right, and pleasure tingles up my spine as I press my fist to my mouth to muffle the embarrassing sound coming from my kiss-damp mouth.
Charlie pulls my hand down, dragging it slowly across my throat, my breast. “Let me hear you. It’s just us.”
I stifle a laugh because I want to remind him it’s not just us, not to mention the camera’s still rolling, but it’s not the time or the place and I’m too desperately focused on this feeling we’re chasing to remember how to say words—his hold on my hips, his knee between my legs, his body wrapped around mine as he kisses, sucks, and bites the skin he can reach.
He finds the spot where muscle curves into my shoulder, the spot that’s always been the exact right shape for him.
Like it’d been crafted specifically for his mouth, or like he kissed me enough there I simply molded to fit him.
I moan again, louder. He responds with a low, gritty fuck, tucked against my raging pulse point.
Loosening the tucked-hem of my shirt, his fingers slip beneath the fabric, grazing the dip of skin that leads to my spine.
The pressure builds and builds between my thighs, and he hitches my leg higher around his waist as his mouth meets mine again.
A crack echoes through the building and thunder bellows overhead, so loud the earth shakes beneath our feet. The vibration extends, the wall behind me still trembling, even as the rumble fades. And it keeps—oh.
Oh god. Oh no.
That shaking is me.
The sensation overwhelms me, my legs clenching around Charlie as I tuck a series of bitten off whines between his teeth and my nails curl into his strong shoulders as the release washes over me.
Fuck. I just—
He pulls back, panting. “Did you . . . you just—”
“No,” I hiss.
“I know what you sound like.” A swallow rolls down his throat. “How your body tenses—”
“I didn’t.” Oh god. I did. I made out with him and orgasmed from .
. . what, exactly? The simple pressure of his leg?
Get a grip, Winona. Two years is a long time to go without a man’s touch, but it’s not like I haven’t been getting myself off in the meantime.
This is absurd. And mortifying on a soul-deep level.
“You did.” An arrogant little smirk unevenly pulls at his mouth. He quirks a single brow. “A bit quick on the draw there, huh?”
I tip my head back against the wall, exhaling a single laugh. “Jesus. You really think I’m that easy?”
Lust still heavy over his gaze, his brow twitches, a cheeky, silent, Well, clearly.
Dammit. I am that easy.
And I may have made the biggest mistake I could’ve possibly made.
What felt good—incredible—in the moment is taking a wrecking ball to all the careful walls I’ve constructed between me and Charlie.
My skin is cool and clammy but this time it’s nothing paranormal.
No, that’s the sweat of pure regret. I wasn’t even supposed to stay here with him. I was supposed to never see him again.
I dig deep into my psyche, searching for the right words to get me out of this mess, specifically the narrow space between Charlie’s warm body and the wall.
Languid and hungry, Charlie’s palm slips further beneath my shirt, coasts over my ribcage, and shit I’m running out of time before I lose myself to him all over again.
He’s too studied with the curves of my body, too skilled at taking the turns just right to send me reeling.
“What was that?” he murmurs against the edge of my jaw.
He doesn’t mean my orgasm from hell, fresh from the pubescent experience of fourteen-year-old boys everywhere. He means the kiss. The so-intense-it-felt-like-fucking make out session I instigated.
“A mistake,” I grit out, pushing his wrists away.
He takes his hands off me, but braces one against the wall as the rest of him stills, ices into pure, chilled stone.
His eyes level with mine as his jaw sets in place.
And in his fallen expression, I think I see the part of him that hates himself for still wanting me.
The part of him who should hate me instead. It’s not like I don’t deserve it.
“What?” he growls. “You pulled me in for more.” His palm slashes against the stone as he lowers it and steps back from me. “Jesus, Win. What kind of game are you playing with me? I can’t—I’m not sure I—fuck. Why would you do that?”
Because I’m selfish and stupid and the taste of mint on his breath from his toothpaste has always left me weak in the knees. My molars clench as I blink back the threat of tears.
Why can’t I just let him go?
Shoving my shirt back into the waist of my shorts with shaking hands, I avoid the burn of his gaze. “If you want, you can check your radar app again. Storm’s overhead.”
“We’re not done with our game.” His voice is low and so tight it sounds like it may snap.
“Yes. We are.”
“We aren’t. It’s my turn.”
“Charlie—”
“Truth or dare, Winona.”
My hands ball into fists at my side as I slump back against the brick and Charlie paces like a feral lion a few feet in front of me. There’s no escaping. I’m the prey here. “Truth.”
He exhales his breath, nice and slow. The bastard’s making me wait on pins and needles. The least he could do is make this quick and painless.
“Why have you never served me the papers, Win?” He asks this quietly, like his voice is a little broken and each word is hesitant to find its answer, all traces of his rage dissipating like fog under the heat of late morning sun.
It’s a good question, really.
Because despite the screen printed Halbach’s Hunts on the chest of my shirt, legally I’m still Mrs. Rosenhoth.