The seizures of laughter came to a dead stop. Rhiann was more right than she knew. Charlie’s panties were in that long line, a thought that sent fire bolts of desire into her center instead of the indignation she should’ve felt.
Damn him. Why’d he have to be Jax’s brother? Was the universe clowning her? Who the hell else would this happen to? Crap.
“Something pretty intense went down with those two,” Rhi continued. “They were outside a long time and after they came back to the party, I heard Dad tell Bob Merrill that he thought it looked like Caleb had a mark on his jaw. Like a knock-out punch bruise. Whadayathink that was all about?”
A slow burn started inside. What did she think? Dammit, Charlie silently brooded. She’d be the last to know anything at all. Maybe Claudia Gianelli would have an answer.
Rhiann, who never met a good conversation she couldn’t command, was still talking. “Brynn hardly flinched later when the drunk wrestling started. And how ‘bout our parents playing Marry, Fuck, Kill? It’s weird seeing them so loose and hilarious with the Merrills, huh?”
Social convention required her to respond, say something. And if she didn’t, Rhi’s concern-radar would ping and Charlie didn’t want that. Ty, er uh … Caleb played off meeting her again like they were strangers. So be it. The fucker.
“I think the alcohol helped. Maybe that’s why Brynn seemed so together. She was the only sober grown-up in the room.”
“What the hell,” Rhi groaned, “with that holiday ale? That stuff brewed by Santa’s evil minions or what?”
She chuckled. “That’s why it’s called Mad Elf.”
“There certainly was something terribly, terribly déclassé about a beer burp contest, though. Nana would not be happy.”
“Who are you kidding?” she asked with feigned disbelief. “Did you see how many Bloody Marys she knocked back at lunch? I swear the woman has an iron stomach. Two wimpy mimosas and I was ready for a nap while she jumped up and marched out of the restaurant like vodka and tomato juice were her best friends.”
“Might explain why the old bird was staring holes through you, sweetie. Something you wanna tell me?”
Charlie rolled her shoulder and fixed Rhi with a dry look. “It’s nothing. She’s up my ass about finishing my degree in Philly. The art! The art! You know her.”
“Seriously? Well, shit Charlie. I didn’t see that one coming. Brynn and I thought you’d hole up in Happy Valley for awhile. Can’t you finish those last few credits at Penn?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. And she meant it too. It wasn’t the credits or the degree causing a problem. She could wrap that shit up from anywhere. Everyone but her had expectations of what she’d do next.
Nana was trying to lure her to Philly. Mom and Dad wanted her to go home for a bit, and Brynn. Dammit if Brynn hadn’t pulled her aside and flat out asked if she’d stay at Wilde House and help with the renovation and the bakery while she and Jax went to North Carolina for their honeymoon. No way did she anticipate the offer, and realistically? No way could she refuse.
“Big sis asked me to hang out here until they get back. And it’s not like I can say no. But after that? I have no idea.”
Hmph, Rhi grunted. “You could come to New York, ya’ know. Lots of art there too.”
“Sheesh,” she laughed. “Make it more complicated why don’t you?”
A sound from outside caught their attention and they both scrambled to their knees and leaned on the windowsill to have a look.
“They’re back.”
Charlie watched without comment as Brynn slid from the driver’s side of Mom’s big SUV. Being the ever-dutiful older daughter—and let’s face it, she was pregnant so what choice did she have—Bynnie was the designated driver. She’d taken the Merrill’s and their parents to the B&B they were using. Everyone except Charlie, who was nicely buzzed but far from inebriated, had been way too over the limit to drive.
She was surprised though that Jax hadn’t driven with Brynn. He was so adorably overprotective she had a hard time imagining why he’d stayed back. And then she remembered. Ty. He’d stayed behind to hang with his brother. She’d overheard the two discussing where Caleb would bunk for the night. The guest room was currently a staging area for the work being done in the nursery. So that left the den and a massive wood frame futon.
Even the briefest of thoughts about Ty and sleeping arrangements sent her off-kilter. He was close-by. Maybe naked. Yeah, naked would be good. All that hard muscled flesh. Those thighs and the way his lower abs carved into that V she liked so much.
And then she remembered. That V she liked so much? Ya’ mean the one he wouldn’t let Charlie lick? All of a sudden she was jacked up and ready to rumble.
That son-of-a-bitch. He played her innocence like the harp in a heavenly choir while all that time getting his dick sucked by the Queen of the Unholies. Just the idea of that Cloud-ee-ah bitch putting her disgusting mouth on Ty’s …
Charlie’s brain lit on fire. A red haze descended, starting at her head and drifting slowly through every tissue and each nerve ending in her body. He’d treated her like a baby—that’s the only explanation why he’d withhold something like that when she’d made it abundantly clear what she wanted.
A baby. Uh huh. What a dick. Well, she’d show him. After all, she was all about teaching lessons. It’s what she did. And teaching him a lesson he’d never forget seemed like the ultimate fuck you. In her half-crazed and convoluted way of thinking, he owed her. He knew that she knew he was manipulating her career and her life, and yet she allowed it anyway. Payback time.
Rhiann yawned and crawled back under the down spread she tucked around her body like a sleeping bag. Punching her pillow, she plopped down and wiggled. “I’m going to be asleep in ten seconds. Love ya’ sweetie. See you in the morning.”
She quietly answered with a “Mwah, night sis.”
Sitting with her knees drawn up, Charlie leaned against the windowsill and pulled the warmth of a thick blanket around her. She watched the moonlight play on the glistening snow— leaving a moving impression where it was peeking between the tall trees. It was magical here. So much of their family history was represented in Wilde House and the buildings making up Brynn’s successful bakery and tearoom. What an odd place for her life and Ty’s life to intersect.
As Charlie sat there with her head resting on the wall, her mind wandered and she sighed heavily. Entertaining thoughts of some sort of payback was smoke and mirrors and she knew it.
Discovering he wasn’t the honorable guy she imagined didn’t automatically come with a disconnect switch. When she’d marched up those steps and found Ty with his pants literally around his ankles, she’d been fantasizing about exactly what she caught that evil bitch doing.
Was her naïveté showing that she expected the crushing wake-up call to lessen her desire for the man? ‘Cause it hadn’t. The instant zing and endless tingles that made her thighs squeeze were right this second wreaking havoc to break loose inside.
She still wanted Ty. But it was Caleb Merrill sleeping in the nude in her sister’s den.
I should do to him what he did to me. Would serve him right. Now there was a lesson she could get behind. Teach Ty or Cal or Caleb or whoever the hell he was how it feels to be played. To be used like an object—sex equipment. Use, reuse, discard.
The lights in the master bedroom went out and the second floor of Wilde House went dark. If she knew anything with a degree of certainty, it was that Brynn and her butt-whacking alpha had a deeply loving physical relationship. They’re probably so wrapped up in each other right now that she could sneak into the house undetected. She had a key. It was hanging downstairs by the door.
Her gaze swung from the master suite to the opposite side of the house. Downstairs, corner room. The den. A soft glow shone around the edges of the window. The curtains were drawn. Charlie wondered what Ty was doing in the dimly lit room—all by himself.
Her attention move
d to Rhiann, sleeping soundly just two feet away. A plan threaded together. Before she thought it through, Charlie quietly shimmied away from the bed and crawled until standing was possible.
Did common sense try to alter her course once she decided what to do? Absolutely not. She equated this absence of debate to the unspoken fact that sometimes a girl just has to do what a girl has to do.
Sneaking from the loft, she tiptoed quietly down the stairs, stopped off in the bathroom, took care of what business she could, looked in the mirror and pinched her cheeks for added color. Satisfied that she wasn’t drunk—not that it would have deterred her in the least—she moved silently to the door, grabbed her sweatshirt off the coat tree and slid the key off its hook
Quietly as possible, she slipped from the garage and shut the door with barely a snick of sound. Clutching the house key in her closed fist, she pulled the Bazongas sweatshirt over her head and shivered from the brisk night chill. She was barely dressed, wearing a pair of pajama pants thin enough to let the cold air nip her skin and a tank top that did little to keep her warm.
Having slid on a pair of Ugg slippers she found next to the door, Charlie made her way along the moonlit path to the side door of Wilde House and easily let herself in with the convenient key. Silently dropping it on a parson’s table holding a humongous vase of roses, she made a straight line to the den.
She was going to teach Mr. Sexy Pants a lesson he’d never be able to ignore.
Tossing aside the book he couldn’t focus on enough to read, Cal groaned into the silence. Fuck. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gotten his beer-drunk on. In a lot of ways, that shit was deadlier than a couple shots of Grey Goose.
Once Jax got through threatening his balls and every black-market desirable vital organ in Cal’s body, they’d gone back inside and partied like it was 1999. Between Jax, his father and Professor Wilde pressing one drink after another into his hand—they were all admittedly shit faced and keeping pace with each other—he’d simply surrendered and gone with it.
Made it easier to block out the malevolent scowl ‘tessa sent his way every time he looked at her.
‘‘tessa.
Charlize.
Charlie.
Who was this girl and why was she turning him inside out? And so easily. The more she ignored him, the more he hated himself. Was his own damn fault, too, and he knew it. Acting all Danny Zucco-like wasn’t cool and pretending they’d never met before was the dumbest thing ever, and that was saying a lot.
He fell back onto the mattress and flung his arm over his eyes. What the hell was he going to do? This whole thing was so fucked. He had to peel her off from her sisters and family somehow so they could talk. That much he knew, was critical. He had to explain. Had to make her see what Claudia had been up to.
His free hand reached for his cock. And not because he’d nothing better to do than jerk off in his sister-in-law’s den. It’s just that the ache was getting ridiculous. He was like a walking talking TV commercial only without the little blue pill. If you have an erection lasting more than four hours … Ugh. What a joke. Kneading the anguish from his swollen flesh, Cal heaved a frustrated sigh. It wasn’t just ‘tessa’s luscious body that he missed. Seeing her laughing with everyone was a bitter pill to swallow. He wanted her to look at him like that—with joy in her eyes. Not anger. And hurt. He missed her.
Emotionless, sex with nameless women he barely remembered. Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt and the commemorative mug. Cal understood how dissatisfaction with the trajectory of his life caused so much of the inner turmoil plaguing him the last year. Until he caught a sexy girl standing on a chair in his pantry and his whole existence changed. His outlook. His satisfaction. All of it was wrapped up in her.
The air in the room was stifling. He was radiating desperation laced with frustration so he wasn’t all that surprised. Letting go of the relentless hard-on, he dropped his hand on the blanket and concentrated on his breathing. Maybe if he could just go to sleep. Keeping his eyes covered he inhaled deeply, held it a second then let the air and what tension he had control over leave his body.
Several quiet minutes passed. His chest rose and fell. The muscles in his abdomen loosened. Though his thoughts remained centered on his ‘tessa, he allowed himself to relax. Go with the flow. Be present in the moment and hope sleep claimed him.
Inhaling deeply, his chest rose and right at the moment when his lungs reached capacity, he tasted something in the air. Something that made his tongue tingle and mouth fill with saliva.
‘‘tessa.
He didn’t need to uncover his eyes to know she was in the room with him. He could sense her. ‘tessa’s unique scent and tang did a double wallop on his senses. Cal was shaken when he filled with uncertainty. Feeling like a coward, he didn’t move and kept his eyes covered. Why was she here? What should he do?
Having no idea what to expect, he was startled when she kicked him. One of his legs had kicked free of the blanket and slid off the futon leaving his foot on the floor. Kicking wasn’t a good sign but he couldn’t just lie there and pretend.
His arm slowly lowered. She was standing over him like some pissed-off avenging angel. An avenging angel with swaying tits covered by that damn Bazongas sweatshirt she wore earlier. For someone who didn’t like having her chest ogled, the blatant in-your-face message gave him pause. She was taunting him, he was certain of it.
“Stand up,” she gritted through a mouth held in a tense line. “And be quiet.”
He wasn’t sure what to do. She had that submit or be damned tone he liked so much. Only thing was, yielding in this moment gave her all the power, and he wasn’t so sure that was a good idea—especially since he hadn’t explained yet.
She didn’t give him time to weigh his options. “Either stand up or I walk out of here, and you can go fuck yourself.”
Cal threw back the blanket and jack-knifed off the futon mattress. The second he was upright in front of her, he said a prayer of thanks that he’d left his briefs on. Wagging a pulsating erection in her face wouldn’t have done anything to help this situation.
She gave him a thorough once over, then whipped the provocative sweatshirt over her head and dropped it at her feet. In a rough, coarse-sounding voice she demanded, “No hands. And you don’t say a word. Understand?”
Understanding and agreeing were two different things, but he nodded. She rewarded the obedience with a wanton stroking of his cock through the black briefs doing oh so very little to disguise his condition. Locked. Loaded. Ready to fuck shit up and shoot the bulls-eye. Her bulls-eye. The one a little to the right when he ground his dick and rubbed the spot that made her purr and tighten.
Itching to grab hold and touch her, Cal kept his hands in fists at his side. He thought she’d tease him, maybe make him beg, until she swiftly dropped to her knees in front of him and yanked his briefs down at the same time.
Oh shit. He should’ve seen this coming but was too late to stop her. She had her hands curled around his solid girth before Cal had time to take a breath. He’d spent so much time and energy trying to dial back his unbridled desire to feel her lips on his shaft, that once she had him in the palm of her hands, he melted down so fast, he was a goner from that second on.
THANK GOD FOR TUMBLR PORN, she thought when zeroing in on Ty’s manhood like a military laser. All those sexy sucking snippets she watched helped get her past some initial nervousness.
She was exploring him when he growled and she saw his fists tighten. A flood of desire soaked her pajama bottoms. Oh well. Tough shit because right this second, she wasn’t thinking about getting off. She was planning Ty’s oral takedown.
Holding his firm flesh in her hands, she was surprised by the softness of his skin. The dueling opposites fascinated her. Velvety soft skin. Rock hard cock. The intriguing spheres beneath felt heavy as she squeezed and manipulated his balls with one hand and stroked his imposing length in the other.
Oh. My. How did s
omething so … grandé … fit? Now what? Simply put, it was a question of logistics. Taking him in her mouth was going to be more challenging than she thought.
The disquieting worry vanished as she worked his swollen staff. The sound of heavy breathing filled the air. He had a magnificent cock—not that she’d seen many up close and personal. She was an artist at heart, a visual person. Seeing her thumb massage the underside and how the rest of her fingers looked curled around his hardness gave her a sweet thrill. Almost immediately, he shuddered and though he didn’t move his hands, his legs wobbled.
Slowly caressing him in a sensuous up and down motion, she tested his response. Noted when he groaned or hissed. Felt the slight pulsing of his shaft when she teased the fat ridge where the thickly veined flesh smoothed into the head of his cock. She used both hands in a double grip to stroke him. He threw back his head and grunted. Charlie liked the sounds he made. Hearing his labored breathing was almost her undoing.
When she was pretty sure he couldn’t take much more, she let go of his flesh and sat back on her feet. Gazing up at him, she nearly sniggered at the flush on his face. Here she was in a decidedly submissive posture—on her knees, dick standing straight out just inches from her mouth while she looked up—but the truth of the matter was, she had all the power. It was entirely up to her whether his lust was satisfied or left to burnout on its own.
Time for him to understand exactly what was happening.
“I’m going to use my mouth on you now and you’re not to withhold anything. If you try, same as before, I leave.”
He looked shell shocked. And deeply aroused. She went in for the kill.
“I want your cock in my mouth when you come.”
He shook his head. Yeah, she thought. Good luck with that, pal. He could shake out all the denial he wanted, but his dick told a different story.
Wilde Magic (Wilde Women Book 3) Page 26