“Fuck, cher.” I was closer than I wanted to be to losing control. “Tap my leg the second you want me to stop.”
She scraped her teeth over my length in a way that made it crystal-clear, despite my hands on her head, who was really in charge. It wasn’t me. With both hands tangled in her hair, I held her in place as I rocked forward, careful to give her what she wanted without hurting her. I made it a handful of strokes before I felt my balls start to draw up in anticipation. I wasn’t ready to come. Not yet and when I did, I wanted it to be face-to-face, buried balls-deep and bare in her pussy.
“Come up here, Charlotte.” Tugging gently, I urged her to her feet. I used my thumb to swipe at a smear of lipstick, before pulling her into my arms and kissing the rest of it away. “Clothes off now.” I slid a little extra command into my voice. She wouldn’t listen to a thing she didn’t want to, but it felt like, for one night at least, Charlotte wanted to be told what to do.
I toed off my shoes and made quick work of the rest of my clothes as she hurried tocomply. And then we were naked, with nothing between us. Nothing to stop me from loving her the way I wanted to. The way we both needed.
I pressed a quick kiss to her lips before gathering her into my arms and carrying her the few steps to the bed. I tumbled her onto the duvet, following her with my body and kissing her until her giggles turned into something breathier. Charlotte laughing was one of the best things ever, second only to Charlotte coming. I intended to have both.
I kissed my way up her body, pausing to nibble at the juncture of her thigh and pinning her hips with my hands when she squirmed under me. I ran my nose over her damp curls, breathing in the heady scent of her arousal. It was her turn to grip the back of my head, tugging at my hair. I licked my way up her sex, nibbling and teasing her clit until she ground against my mouth, demanding my attention exactly where she wanted it. I flicked my tongue back and forth over the tight bundle of nerves until her breath hitched and her grip on my hair tightened to the delicious point of pain.
“Close, Ford. I’m close. Fuck me. Now.”
Palming her ass with my hands, I knelt between her legs. I shifted my hips until the head of my cock slid through her slick folds to her opening. Keeping my gaze fixed on hers, I pressed inside her. Charlotte’s bare, wet heat wrapped around me was almost more than I could take. Almost. It was the way she looked at me that tipped the scale—trust, wonder, desire, and something that looked a lot like love.
This moment with this woman was everything. Everything I wanted and hadn’t known I needed. I was inside her and still couldn’t get close enough.
Covering her with my body, I cradled her against my chest as we moved together. Joined together. Wedded.
I felt when the orgasm took her, felt the flutters of her sex pulsing around me. It was all it took for me to follow her, filling her, emptying myself inside her.
––––––––
I DON’T KNOW how Ford knew what I needed, just that somehow he did. I’d wanted him to be demanding and a little rough, and he’d given me exactly what I needed. And then he’d taken it and turned it into something joyful, making me laugh before slaying me with a kind of tenderness I still didn’t know how to process. What I did know was that I couldn’t stand it if we ended up hating each other. I didn’t ever want to see him look at me with the kind of derision I saw in my clients’ eyes.
There was only one way I knew to avoid it—two actually, but it was too late for the one where I didn’t get emotionally involved. I had to leave before we broke each other.
He’d tried to talk to me after we made love. He said there was something he wanted to tell me, so I kissed him until there was no room for talking. Loving him was one thing. Hearing him say it was more than I could handle. I didn’t trust myself to be able to turn away from that.
Hell, I couldn’t do it while he was awake. I waited until he dozed off after the second time before I dressed quietly, shoving my emotions deeper with each piece of clothing I put on. I glanced at the man sleeping in the bed one last time before walking out the door, unsure if I was saving us both from heartbreak or making the biggest mistake of my life.
I’D WOKEN UP ALONE IN a hotel room. I had the momentary confusion of waking up in a strange place, followed almost immediately by reaching for the empty spot in the bed next to me. When I realized Charlotte snuck out in the middle of the night, I got to experience the heady roller coaster ride that was alternating disappointment, heartache, and anger.
I was currently in the anger phase. I didn’t like the way it felt, but after a day and a half of the other bullshit, I hated it a whole lot less than the broken-hearted bits. Or the ones where I was reminded of how colossally wrong I’d gotten things. Foolish me had fallen asleep holding the woman I loved—yeah, I said it—believing she was at least interested in trying to work out some kind of relationship. Instead, she’d bolted like a big chicken.
The problem was I didn’t think Charlotte was afraid of anything. At least not without good reason. She was one of the most determined people I knew. I couldn’t imagine her acting on anything less than a well-reasoned opinion, which meant she’d probably thought long and hard before deciding taking a chance on us wasn’t worth it.
The heartache came surging back, and I did my best to tamp the fucker down. I didn’t have a chance to tell her about my career, so I couldn’t blame her leaving on some long-held preconceived notion she had about gender inequality in relationships. Not that she was wrong, but I’d hoped for a chance to prove to her—prove to both of us—that it could be different. Instead, she’d decided taking a chance on us, even without the added complication of my job, wasn’t worth it. And she’d done it in the dark of night, without somuch as acknowledging I was half of the equation. It was a coward’s move.
I shoved open the door to the gym, grateful to have a new direction for my inconvenient emotions. I’d channel that shit into power cleans. It might not get me anywhere close to Zen, but at least it would feel productive. And it would keep my trainer from blowing up my texts with demands for more sessions. Every time my phone chirped with a text alert, I popped up like Pavlov’s dogs hoping it was Charlotte, none of which helped with the desperate, needy feelings I was working hard to avoid.
My phone rang and I had that heart in the throat feeling, which made no sense. She hadn’t answered any of my texts. I had absolutely no reason to think she’d call, which didn’t stop my mood from taking a nosedive when I saw Erik’s name on the screen.
“What?”
“What crawled up your ass and died?” Erik sounded like he didn’t care either way.
It was exactly the kind of disinterest I needed to get over myself. Feeling lousy about what might have been was one thing. Spreading that shit around to the rest of the world was something else entirely.
“Sorry. What’s up? Something happen with the lease option?” I could throw myself into work. That would be more productive and a hell of a lot less painful than giving my sadistic trainer free rein.
“No. Everything’s still on schedule. I was calling to see if you’d worked things out with Charlotte or if you still wanted my help.”
“I don’t remember asking for your help.” At least not in so many words.
“Fuck off. Do you want me to hook you up or not?”
I was supposed to say yes. I wanted to say yes. But there was a part of me that wondered what would be different. If she’d turned away from the possibility of us before, why would ambushing her with a blind date and my career make her change her mind? I knew the answer without asking the question. It wouldn’t. If anything, it was more likely to blow up in my face than end up with Charlotte in my arms.
