by Vi Keeland
I closed the remaining distance between us so that our skin touched and looked up at him defiantly. “Think of what we could have for those nine years.”
He bowed his head. “I can’t hurt you, Charlotte. I just can’t.”
I felt him slipping away again. The window began to close at the mention of anything long-term. Reed wouldn’t promise me anything that involved commitment because he didn’t think he could fulfill it the way I needed him to. But tonight I needed him, no matter what. In any way, shape, or form. I’d take whatever part of him he was able to give, even if it wasn’t his heart. “Then just give me tonight. I need you, Reed. Help me forget.” I wasn’t above begging. “Just one night.”
He stared at me. I could see the internal debate being waged within him. Deciding more than words might be necessary to tilt the scale in my favor, I reached down between us and slowly ran the pad of my thumb gently over the crown of his glistening, swollen cock. Then I brought my thumb to my lips and sucked the pre-cum off. Reed’s eyes blazed. His head dropped back and he roared, “Fuuucck.”
Suddenly my back hit the wall of the shower. Reed pressed his hands into the tile on either side of me, and I couldn’t seem to control my breathing. “Is this what you want?” His head dipped and he sucked in a nipple.
Hard.
My lips parted and a whimper answered his question.
He bit down and tugged my aching nipple between his teeth. “Is this what you want? Answer me.”
“I . . . I want to feel you.”
A wicked grin spread across his face as his head rose to meet mine. We were nose to nose. “You want to feel me for one night? I’ll make you feel me for days.”
Reed crushed his mouth to mine, swallowing a gasp of shock. He wound my hair around his fists and used it to tilt my head and deepen the kiss. Skin against skin, caged against the wall, my hair in his tight hold—it still wasn’t enough. I needed to be one with this man more than anything in the world. It felt like the only thing that was right.
Hooking both arms around his neck, I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist. He ground his cock hard against me, the friction against my clit making me almost lose my mind. My eyes rolled into the back of my head as he sucked on my tongue in tandem with rubbing his shaft up and down. I’d never been so turned on in all my life, never needed anyone so badly. I was drenched between my legs, and it had nothing to do with the shower.
Reed muttered against my mouth, “No condom. I want you bare.”
“God, yes.”
He detached his lips from mine and pulled back enough so that he could look into my eyes. Panting, his face was hazy with lust as he reined himself in and studied me. He seemed to be making sure that I was really okay with what he’d said.
I offered reassurance. “I’m on the pill.”
For a few painful seconds, he closed his eyes, and I thought that he might be reconsidering. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. He shook his head.
“I’ve fantasized about being inside of you since the first time we met. You were in that little black dress, walking around the penthouse I was showing, acting all innocent. I wanted to bend you over and spank your ass for wasting my time.” It was impossible to contain my smirk. That was exactly what it had felt like he wanted to do to me that day. I remembered vividly the feeling that he’d had a dangerous energy about him that conflicted with his custom suit and proper bow tie. I’d thought I was imagining it at the time.
“You should’ve. I didn’t realize that was an option with all the luxurious amenities that place had offered.”
“That day you had those flowers delivered from Blake.” He spat the name like a curse. “I went home and jerked off to the thought of fucking you from behind while that asshole watched from a window. You were bent over and facing the glass so he could see you, but I covered your face with both of my hands so he couldn’t even watch you come with my dick inside of you. That’s how much I fucking hate the thought of you with another man.”
His confession made my mouth hang open. I’d known he was attracted to me, had feelings for me even, but I never thought I’d hear him admit that he was as obsessed with me as I was with him. It fueled my boldness.
I moved my hands from his shoulders to his hair, tangling my fingers into the wet strands. “We could do that if you want. I could call him and . . .”
Reed cut me off. “Don’t. Don’t talk about calling another man. Not tonight.”
He reached down and fisted his cock, leading it to my opening. Catching my gaze again, he spoke with our lips touching. “Tonight . . . tonight you’re fucking mine.”
He drove his hips forward and gently but firmly pushed inside. Unconsciously, my eyes fluttered closed.
“Open, Charlotte.” His voice was gruff.
I opened and our eyes locked.
“Keep them open. Let me see you. I want to watch your beautiful face as you take my cock. The only thing better than dreaming about it is seeing it in real life.” He slid in and out a few times. “Fuck. You feel so good.”
It had been forever since I’d had sex, and Reed was thick and long. My body squeezed him like a glove. I smiled. “You feel . . . big.”
Reed smiled back. The sight was breathtaking. Him inside of me, and for one moment in time, he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.
His hands slid down to cup my ass and he lifted to adjust us. The small tilt of my hips allowed him to sink in even deeper. His smile faded into deep concentration. “Fuck.”
I whimpered when he reached down and began to rub my clit with two fingers. Neither of us was going to last long. My body tingled, and my legs began to shake. Reed began to thrust harder and harder. “I want to fill you. Pump my cum so deep that you’ll always have a piece of me inside you.”
God. So dirty, yet at the same time, so beautiful.
I moaned his name as my orgasm took hold. My nails dug into his back, my body began to shudder and jerk, and I lost any awareness of the world around me. We were in a tunnel, just the two of us, secluded from the rest of the world. Reed looked into my eyes and allowed himself to give so much more than his body. We were connected on a level that I’d never experienced before; our minds, bodies, and spirits were in perfect harmony.
When my body began to go slack, Reed stopped holding back. He pumped into me harder and harder until his body went rigid as his hot climax filled me.
Simply spectacular. Better than fireworks on the Fourth of July.
He kept moving in and out for a long time afterward, kissing me and telling me over and over how beautiful I was. Feeling spineless, I held on for dear life as I caught my breath. Reed kissed my neck, my collarbone, my cheeks—even my eyelids. The moment felt so intimate, as if we lived in a little bubble protected from the outside world.
Eventually, though, he pulled out and set me down on my feet. He brushed his lips to mine. “Thank you for tonight, Charlotte.”
It was a seemingly innocuous thing to say—sweet, even. Yet it burst that little bubble wide-open. Reed was thanking me for tonight, because things wouldn’t be the same tomorrow.
CHAPTER 33
REED
What the fuck did I do?
I didn’t want to regret what had just happened. Regretting it would mean it was a mistake, that we’d done something wrong. And what happened between Charlotte and me . . . felt the opposite of wrong. Nothing had felt that right in longer than I could remember. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t stupid.
One night.
Charlotte was not a one-night type of woman, and even though that’s what we’d said, I’d only be hurting her more in the end. Now that the blood had left my engorged cock and returned to my brain, I was painfully aware of that.
For the last nine nights, since the first night I’d held her until she’d fallen asleep, I’d made a point of going to bed after Charlotte. No matter how exhausted I’d been, I’d waited until she was out cold and then pretended to fall asleep on the
couch. It was the least I could do to keep the small distance between us. But picking up my laptop and pretending to work after what we’d just done felt like a shitty thing to do. Awkwardness hit after we both finished changing for bed.
Stalling, I took a towel to my wet head as Charlotte climbed into one of the two queens in the bedroom. When I started rummaging through my suitcase to buy more time, she sighed loudly.
“Are you going to take all your clothes out and refold them in order to avoid coming to bed with me?”
Of course, she knew.
I chuckled and grabbed a T-shirt before going to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know where I should sleep.”
She grinned. “You don’t say . . .”
“Wiseass.”
“Get into bed, Reed.” She pulled back the covers. “And in case there’s any doubt . . . I mean this one.”
There was actually no place else that I would rather have been in the world. And screw it—one night was more than an hour in the bathroom. She didn’t have to ask a second time. I walked over to the light switch and flicked it off before joining her in bed. Positioning ourselves felt as natural as touching her always did. I lay on my back, and Charlotte snuggled into the crook of my shoulder. My arm wrapped around her, and my hand stroked the top of her hair.
After a few minutes she said, “Do you believe in God, Reed?”
For months after my diagnosis, I’d contemplated that exact question. I wasn’t sure I did. But then I’d realized I was afraid to not believe, which meant that I actually did believe there was something to be afraid of.
“I do.”
“Do you believe in heaven?”
“I think so.”
“Do you think dogs are there?”
I smiled in the dark. Typical Charlotte. I’d figured we were entering into a philosophical discussion about the existence of heaven and hell, and she was worried about where dogs go. “I do. Is there a particular one that you’re worried about?”
“Richard Stamps.”
“Who?”
“My old dog. He died when I was seventeen. His name was Richard Stamps.”
“Was he named after someone?”
“Sort of . . .”
From her reluctance, I knew there was a story there. One that would be uniquely Charlotte. “Spit it out, Darling. Where did he get his name?”
“Would that be a capital D or a small d?”
“After the bathroom, we’re not going to mention anything involving small d.”
She giggled. God, I love that sound.
“Promise you won’t laugh?” she said.
“Absolutely not.”
She swatted at my chest. “When I was in kindergarten, we learned the Pledge of Allegiance. Since we were just starting to read and a lot of the words were big, the teacher taught it to us one line at a time. I was really proud that I’d memorized it. So one night, I unscrewed the flag my parents had in a flagpole on the porch and stood after dinner to show off how smart I was.”
“Go on . . .”
She sat up in bed. It was dark, but I could see her hand go to her chest. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for Richard Stamps, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
I cracked up. “You thought for which it stands was Richard Stamps?”
“My parents thought it was amusing, too. It sort of became our little inside joke. Whenever my dad would say to my mom, ‘What was that guy’s name we met at the party the other night?’ my mother would say, ‘Richard Stamps.’ So when my parents surprised me for my seventh birthday with a puppy, his name was obviously meant to be Richard Stamps.”
“Obviously.”
“Are you mocking me?”
I laughed. “Richard Stamps is in heaven, Charlotte. I’m pretty sure all the other dogs with names like Spot and Lady are jealous of his cool name, too.”
Charlotte lay back down. This time she rested her head over my heart. “I hope he’s with Mom.”
“He is, beautiful. He is.”
She was quiet for a long time after that. I’d started to think she’d fallen asleep. But she’d apparently been thinking about more than Richard Stamps. “Why would God let someone so young die?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that very question. And the answer is, I have no idea. I’m not sure anyone really has that answer. But I like to think that maybe heaven is a better place than here and death isn’t always a punishment, but sometimes it’s a reward to put people out of their pain.”
Charlotte tilted her head up to look at me. “Wow. That’s a beautiful way to think about it.”
I cupped her cheek with my hand. “Lydia is in a good place. It’s harder for the people who are left behind.”
“I can’t even imagine what my brothers are going through. I feel like there’s a hole in my heart, and I didn’t even get to make memories with her.”
Her sentiment lingered in the air.
I kissed the top of her head and squeezed her. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll make arrangements, and it’ll be a long day.”
She yawned. “Okay.”
Right as I started to doze, she whispered, “Reed? Are you asleep?”
“I was . . .”
“I just want to say one more thing.” She paused. “I think it’s better to spend years treasuring a memory that might hurt sometimes than to never make one at all.”
People loved her. Men, women, young, old, it didn’t matter.
I watched from the back of the reception room as Charlotte spoke to an older couple. The only people she’d met before the wake began had been her two brothers. Yet today, as people came to offer their respects at the funeral parlor, everyone knew her and walked away with a smile after a couple of minutes of small talk.
I’d started the day standing by her side, wanting to be near her if she needed my support. But after a while, I wandered off to give her privacy with her newfound family. Charlotte’s adoptive mother had flown in last night to support her daughter. We’d had a late dinner and then dessert at a different restaurant that her mother had read about in a magazine on her flight, which was enough time to realize that Charlotte’s quirkiness came from nurture in the nature versus nurture battle.
Nancy Darling walked over to the row that I sat in. She slipped an untied silky scarf from around her neck and used it to wipe off the clean, empty seat next to me before sitting—something I’d noticed she’d done before she took any seat.
I pointed my chin at Charlotte. “She seems to be doing well. How are you holding up?”
“It’s odd to be here, but I’m fine. I’m glad that I got a moment alone with Lydia before it got too busy. I had a lot to thank her for.”
I nodded. “I wasn’t sure how Charlotte was going to handle today. She had a tough week. But she seems good, too.”
“Ah. Rookie mistake. You’ll learn,” Nancy teased, only she wasn’t really kidding. “Don’t let the smile on my daughter’s face fool you. It’s not the emotion she shows during a trying time that makes me worry about her.”
I squinted at Charlotte, watching her smile yet again. It looked like she was okay. “What do you mean?”
Nancy hesitated. “You two seem close, and since you work together, you’ll be around her a lot more than I will. So perhaps you can keep an eye on her for me.”
“Okay . . .”
“I’m not sure you’re aware, but Charlotte has some latent abandonment issues. It’s not uncommon in adopted children. But how each person’s anxieties manifest can be very different. Abandonment is a trauma and causes post-traumatic stress disorder—most people don’t realize that.”
“I didn’t realize she suffered from any long-term issues,” I said.
“Everyone has issues. Charlotte just has a tendency to bury hers and then act impulsively to avoid feeling what she’s really feeling.”
Fuck. Impulsively. Like g
oing from crying to wanting to have sex in the shower.
“The hardest time for people who suffer a loss is usually after everything is over,” Nancy said. “No more hospital vigils or family bonding together. Everything gets buried—literally and figuratively. Then everyone around you goes back to normal, and you’re not ready yet. That’s when I’ll worry most about Charlotte.”
“What can I do to help?”
Nancy patted my leg. “Just be there for her. When the person who is supposed to be there most for you in life leaves you behind, you tend to be a little skittish. Her relationship with that jackass, Todd, didn’t help reassure her that people stick around, either. The best thing we can offer Charlotte is continuity—be reliable when she needs us most, in whatever form that may be.”
CHAPTER 34
REED
We were back in New York, but nothing resembled the way things were before we’d gone to Texas. It felt like everything had changed.
Charlotte was taking a much-needed break from work, some time to clear her head after everything she’d endured in Houston. The office was completely lackluster without her around. She’d decided to stay with her parents up in Poughkeepsie for a while, and I fully supported that idea. It was a reluctant but much-needed break, one I intended to use to figure out what I was going to do when it came to her.
It pleased me that she was choosing to lean on her parents and not me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there for her. I ached to be able to comfort her. But being physically around her after what we’d done in that hotel room in Texas would have been too much. My rational brain was useless whenever she was around. And I had big decisions to make that I needed my brain for.
Alone in my office, I kept hearing Charlotte’s mother’s words repeating in my head.
“The best thing we can offer Charlotte is continuity—be reliable when she needs us most.”
Nancy Darling likely had no clue that while I could offer her daughter short-term continuity and reliability, my being there for her now would be to Charlotte’s detriment later in life. Charlotte thought she knew what was best for herself. She was young, bright-eyed, and naive. The situation with me wasn’t as simple as she was making it out to be. She’d said she’d rather have a limited amount of time with someone than none at all. She couldn’t possibly make that decision for herself now. It’s easy to say something like that when everyone is in good health. Would she feel the same if I weren’t healthy and if my slow deterioration went on for years of her life?