Chapter Three
The shrill ring of an old-fashioned phone ripped Charlotte out of a very intense dream she’d been having about Trey. She’d been stuck in a fire in her apartment, and he came bursting through her door, shirtless of course, because firefighters often came running into fires half naked. The strong man had scooped her up in his arms, but instead of flying out of the burning building, he’d placed her right in the middle of the unscorched bed.
The flames licked at her clothes, turning them to ash but leaving her skin unharmed. Trey pushed his fire gear to the floor and stood in his naked glory, the bright orange and red tongues of fire billowing around him as he tugged on his enormous cock. Without saying a word, he climbed on top of her and thrust home.
As his hips thrust wildly, smacking into the apex of her thighs, the fire continued to wage around them, dancing on the edges of the bed like an inhuman audience. Heat radiated from the flames and Trey’s skin, overwhelming her until she screamed from the pleasure he forced upon her, and the pain from her overheating skin. Mid-thrust, Trey removed himself from her throbbing pussy and slid to the foot of his bed, so his face rested between her legs. He then proceeded to kiss, lick, and bite every inch of her untouched sex.
Oral sex fascinated Charlotte. Intercourse seemed like it could be fairly clinical and impersonal, depending on the parties involved. But oral sex existed on another level of intimacy. Your partner’s face was literally planted in your most private of places. There would be no hiding while being eaten out. Her fantasies often revolved around both giving and receiving oral. Just one more of the many things she would most likely never experience in real life thanks to her debilitating shyness.
Just as her cored spiraled tighter, preparing for her impending release, the stupid phone had interrupted. How could a dream at once be so erotic and yet disturbing? The flames had threatened to eat her alive, but she never fought them, instead she laid there and let the fire and Trey do as they wished.
Charlotte groaned and rolled over, groping the bedside table for her cell. Just as her fingers clutched the damn thing, it shut off, the call dumping into voicemail finally. No doubt it would start ringing again any second. There were only two people who could be calling, the first being someone from work with breaking news which required reinforcements being called. The second, and more likely, was her mother.
Sure enough, Charlotte hadn’t even been able to find her glasses to check the missed calls before the phone started ringing once more. At the moment, running on only a few hours of sleep, she seriously started to question why she had picked the damn antique phone ringtone. Oh, right, it was the only one guaranteed to wake her from a deep sleep. Well, it had done its job very nicely then.
Bringing the phone close to her face so she could make out the name without the aide of her high strength prescription glasses, the fuzzy letters took shape into her mother’s name. The inevitable dread spread through Charlotte’s chest, and a low throb crept up the base of her skull. She loved her mother, she really did, the unpredictability of their conversations never failed to put Charlotte on edge.
Steeling herself for what might be on the other end of the line, Charlotte sighed, slumped back onto her pillows and accepted the call. “Hello, Mama.”
“Hello, Charlotte.” Her mother’s thick Russian accent hadn’t softened over the years, despite immigrating to the country in her late teens. “You sound tired. Are you sleeping?”
So, it would be one of these conversations. Each call focused on one of two things, Charlotte’s failures in her mother’s eyes, or the new and exciting things happening in her mother’s life. Today would be a pick on Charlotte day, which for some reason comforted her more than her mother’s manic happiness.
“Not much today, Mama. A co-worker called in sick, and I had to stay a few extra hours.” Charlotte blushed as she thought of the other reason she had gone to bed so late.
“You should get a job that does not require you to live like a vampire. Awake all night and sleep during the day.” She sighed in exasperation, a sound Charlotte had become well acquainted with over the years. “And for what? To be a glorified secretary.”
The often-repeated slam on her job never stopped rankling her, no matter how many times her mother had shown disdain for her chosen profession. Her rarely tapped anger began to rise hot in her chest. She doused it before it could take hold. “Mama, you know I’m not a secretary.” Charlotte adopted her most even tone of voice, striving to feel that same level of calm spread in her belly. “I’m a journalist. Just because you don’t see me on camera doesn’t mean I’m any less important to the news than anyone else involved in the shows.”
“You answer phones and make calls. Glorified secretary. You could be on camera. You are much prettier than that plump girl I see so much of at night.” Again, that well-rehearsed sigh buzzed through the phone line, making Charlotte’s neck stiffen with irritation.
“Mom, Bekah is not plump. She is curvy and gorgeous. And she is an amazing reporter, regardless of her looks.”
Her mother barreled on as if Charlotte had never said a word. “Such a shame. You could have been a wonderful ballerina had you stuck with it. Gave up such a promising career, and for what? I weep when I think about the wasted potential.” Right on cue, her mother sniffled, as if her throat went thick with the downswing of her emotions. “And would it be so bad if you would give me some grandbabies? But you’ll never find a husband working those hours.”
They were hitting all the old favorites tonight. Usually, her mom only harped on one flaw per phone call, but she pulled out all the stops this time. Along with the tears that grated on Charlotte’s nerves, making her feel like the worst daughter on the planet. “Mama, I stopped taking ballet lessons when I was six and threw up on stage at my first recital. There was no promising career. I was never going to be like you.”
Her mother had been one of the world’s most beloved ballerinas in the eighties and early nineties. She came to America at the height of her fame to dance with the New York Ballet Company. But one wrong move by her partner in practice at twenty-four meant a career ending knee injury. One year later, she met Charlotte’s father, a well-respected engineer from Hong Kong, at an English as second language class. And the rest was history.
They married six months later, and ten months later, Charlotte was born. All of mother’s dreams of ballet greatness transferred to her daughter. Unfortunately for her, Charlotte turned out to have a terrible case of stage fright and hated people looking at her. The nonstop interest and obsession with her daughter had been quickly extinguished after the stage vomit incident. Her daughter had largely gone ignored for the next fifteen years until Charlotte turned twenty-one, and then the once famous Adrina Orlove started insisting on grandbabies. Another thing made impossible by Charlotte’s issues.
But little would be accomplished by arguing with her mother further. In her mother’s eyes, Charlotte would never be enough. A fact that would depress Charlotte if she ever entertained such extreme emotions.
Fed up with the course of their conversation, she turned their talk to her father and his upcoming retirement from the energy think tank that had brought him over from China. Another ten minutes of talking, and Charlotte finally succeeded in getting off the phone. She glanced at the clock to see her alarm would be going off in a half hour. No point in trying to get more sleep.
She reached to her bedside table and scooped up the e-reader that sat there. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well squeeze some reading in before work. There was nothing she loved more than escaping into her fantasy worlds full of imaginary creatures and battles. Usually. But they weren’t doing their job distracting her at that moment.
No matter how hard she tried to focus on the words, her concentration kept drifting to a certain muscled firefighter. Without even trying, she felt needy and wet between her legs. An ache began to form so deep inside her, she wasn’t sure her fingers would be able to do the job. There had been several times over the past few years that she’d thought about buying some sort of toy. But every time she had been ready to click check out, she began thinking about the mailman delivering the package to her door.
The same man who delivered her bills and postcards would also be handling her vibrator. Sure, the websites always say that they ship the toys in discreet packaging under a different business name, but surely the mailman would know. They deliver so many packages, they must have figured out which ones came from the dirty toy companies, and which don’t.
Charlotte would never be able to look in the guy’s eyes ever again. Not that she did now, but still. Not to mention if her mother ever found the toys during one of her random drop-bys. Just the thought made her queasy.
But at that moment, lying in bed thinking of Trey, Charlotte desperately wished she had gathered the courage to buy a battery-operated helper to ease her growing hunger.
***
The newsroom buzzed with the energy of a crew rushing to get the show together while time wound down faster and faster. Since Charlotte had arrived at work, everything that could go wrong had.
