Turn It Up

by Inez Kelley

  “Charlie.”

  She surged up and took his mouth again. Torture would have been easier than halting her kiss but nowhere near as painful. She was going through the motions with absolute detached expertise. This was not what he wanted.

  “Charlie, no.”

  He vaulted from her, his lungs burning with great gulps of oxygen. He couldn’t look at her, naked from the waist up, her taste still in his mouth. He turned away. How had the night gone so wrong?

  He jumped when her hands smoothed around his waist. Hard nipples, still damp from his tongue, skimmed his back and he stepped away from her. “Don’t touch me a minute. Stay there, please.”

  The rampant longing in his voice shocked him. Lust-crazed was a sensation he associated with adolescents, not himself. He’d needed before, hungered, thought he’d explode, but never had he experienced this complete red haze of physical want. He ached for her. Good God, he ached. The dull pain would not dissipate. Crossing to the cooler, he fished out a frosty bottle.

  Droplets splashed his stomach. The water seared his heated skin. In a frenzied flash, he held the icy glass to his gaping fly. Pain lurched through his groin and he gasped. It helped. Some.

  “You’re going to get frostbite and I have plans for that body part.”

  The chill in her tone rivaled the beer. Charlie made no move to cover herself, allowing the dying firelight to dance over her breasts. Swollen from his kisses, her lips were lush and full but held in a firm line. Bastian recognized the tilt to her head, the slant of her brow, the thrust of her jaw. She was primed for a marathon bitch session and he was about to be her bitch.

  “Put your shirt on. Give me a minute. We need to talk and not with you half-naked.”

  “You like me half-naked, I can see that. God knows I felt it.”

  “Put a shirt on, damn it!”

  “I’m wearing as much as you are,” she challenged.

  The bottle had given as much aid as it was going to and he dragged his zipper up with no small amount of effort. Stalling for time, he popped the cap from the bottle and swallowed a long drink before facing her. Did she know how beautiful she was when angry?

  If you want to look, then look your fill.

  Nudity had never bothered Charlie, but they’d always maintained a respectful distance when dressing. Now she flaunted what he’d tasted and still craved. He circled the fire, set the bottle on the log and grabbed his shirt. Her bra lay beneath it but he ignored it. She glared at him, thumbs hooked in the front pockets of her shorts, as he pulled the cotton tee over his head. He retrieved his sweatshirt, her top still inside, and handed it to her. The force she used jerking the clothes from his fingers stunned him, but she made no move to cover herself.

  Pain sliced through her gaze and his heart stuttered. His greatest fear was coming true. He was losing her. “Talk to me.”

  “I don’t want to talk. I want to fuck.”

  “Too bad. No fuck is worth losing you. Tell me what did I wrong. Was it saying I love you? Or was it that I want more than your friendship?”

  “You can have anything you want. But the friendship’s gone.”

  “Why? I’m still the same man I was an hour ago. What I’m feeling is the same, you just know about it now.”

  “And it changes everything!” she screamed at him, tears slipping over her cheeks. Those crystal drops stabbed him. Charlie was hurt enough to cry and mad enough to let him see it.

  “Why? I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. If anything, it should make us stronger together. Friendship doesn’t die because we move forward. It should just get better, deeper.”

  A light crackled in her eyes, the fiery flash of Bitch. He hadn’t seen it often directed at him but he recognized it. A man rarely forgot that scathing burn. But with Charlie, Bitch was often tinged with Whore, and she reached for the sexual bravado of her Honeypot persona.

  “I’d like to get you deeper. But you have to drop your pants for that.”

  “I won’t say I’m sorry. But what just happened was wrong. It shouldn’t have happened like that. It was too fast, too soon.”

  “Did you hear me complaining? I started it, remember? I wanted it. I still do.”

  Treacherous thoughts sprang to his mind. He wanted her so much. She’d yet to cover her breasts, and his hands longed to cup them again. “I told you I didn’t want a one-night stand. Jumping from friend to lover in ten minutes muddles things.”

  “I have no problem with it.”

  Her denial was so blatant, so forced, it pissed him off. “Bullshit. You can’t tell me you can go from being my best friend to screwing me in minutes and it not matter.”

  “It’s not so hard.” Hard as gemstones, her vivid eyes fired wrath toward him. “All I have to do is close my eyes and spread my legs.”

  “Stop it. Remember who you’re talking to. I know you. When you get crude, it’s because you’re hurting and lashing out.”

  “And I know you.” Spat through quivering lips, her words dug at his heart. “You don’t say what you don’t mean. You want me in your bed like every other man I’ve ever known. You’re like all the rest. So let’s do it and move on.”

  Clarity shocked his system. Charlie thought he only wanted her body. The insult stung. Did she really think he was that cold? Didn’t she know him better than that?

  “Is that all you heard, that I want you in my bed? I love you, damn it. I am in love with you. I want you in my life forever. I want to marry you!”

  Her face paled and her eyes rounded. The anger fizzled away, perplexity dazing her expression. He hadn’t meant to announce it like that but he meant it. There was no other woman for him. In forcing his secret into the open, Charlie had brought everything into focus.

  Face slack with shock, her kissed-red lips and huge blue eyes strengthened her resemblance to Betty Boop. Bastian smiled. The cartoon It-Girl of long ago couldn’t hold a candle to his Charlie. A chilled breath of wind lifted the dark strands of her short hair, and she shivered. Her questioning eyes never left his.

  Finally, she clutched the sweatshirt over her breasts with shaky hands. “Did you just propose?”

  His chest heaved as his heart thundered. “No. But I am now. I love you, Charlie. Marry me?”

  “No. Of course not.” She dropped the clothing. She bent and fumbled, jerking her head through his sweatshirt with a stunning speed. Her pink top still heaped at her feet went unnoticed as she rose and gaped at him. “Why would you ask me that? I told you I wasn’t the long-term type. You can’t want two divorces under your belt. Find some flighty little nurse to settle down with if you’re so gung-ho to get remarried.”

  “I want to marry you. You’re the woman I love.”

  “No, I’m not. I mean, yeah, maybe you love me as a friend but not like that. You can’t.” She stalked back to the fire’s glow. Perched on the edge of the log, she shoved her bra in the front pocket of the sweatshirt. She buried her hands under her thighs, rocking back and forth. Her knees met and her ankles turned out.

  His chest clogged at the forlorn image. Years of unlayering her one piece at a time had given him insights even she didn’t know about. She was in emotional overload and shutting down. He knew only one way to reach her when she got like this. All he wanted to do at this minute was hold her, tell her everything would be okay. Charlie would deck him if he tried.

  He knelt before her and eased her hand from under her leg. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. Easy, go easy. “What flavor would I be right now?”

  Her eyes shot to his before turning away. Her slender throat rippled as she swallowed. The slight wind grabbed at her words but he heard them.

  “Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch with whipped cream, chocolate chips and fudge sauce…a whole pint.”

  Bastian closed his eyes. No man had ever rated higher than Oreo Cookies and Cream. He turned her chin back to him. The kiss he gave her was light, sweet and filled with reassurance.

  “Go out with me.
”

  A soft snort burst from her. “What? Like on a date? Like nervous teenagers stammering on the phone and passing notes in study hall? Like holding hands and wondering if you’ll get a good-night kiss?”

  God, every word she said sounds perfect. That’s exactly what I want. I want to give her innocence and tenderness.

  “Yeah. Date me. For lack of a proper adult term, be my girlfriend until you’re comfortable with the idea of being my wife.”

  Confusion dimmed as her smile lifted her lips. “You date someone to get to know them. We know each other…pretty intimately now. What would dating accomplish?”

  “It would give you time to get used to the idea of that type of permanence with me. Allow you to see me not as your best friend but as a man. It would give us the right to do this.” His lips caressed hers. “And this.” He kissed her cheek. “And this.” He kissed her temple.

  “I’ll sleep with you, but I’m not going to fall in love with you because we go to a few movies and share popcorn.”

  Unable to hide it, he let his grin erupt and squeezed her hand. “We already share popcorn. And you’re already in love with me, you just can’t deal with it right now. I didn’t ask you to sleep with me. In fact, there isn’t going to be any sex until you can accept my proposal.”

  “What?” Astonishment blanked her face.

  “I will not have sex with you. Not until you can make love with me.”

  “That’s just semantics.”

  “No. For me, it’s a necessity. You know I want you. But let me show you I love you…outside the bedroom.”

  Openmouthed, she stared at him for a long minute. He used his thumb to snap her jaw shut. She never blinked. He smoothed his palm along her cheek. Her skin was cool silk against his hand.

  “Why?”

  “Because, Charlie, you’re worth it.”

  Chapter Three

  “Boo!”

  Charlie ran up the walkway of his house yelling his brother’s nickname and jumped into his arms. Caz caught her and swung her around while laughing. “Hey, Littlebit, d’you miss me?”

  “Desperately.”

  Bastian marveled again that his parents could have produced two such totally different offspring from the same DNA pool. Other than hair and eye color, he and Caz were nothing alike. “How long are you home for?”

  His brother ruffled Charlie’s hair then grunted when Bastian tossed him two sleeping bags. Tension tightened his mouth. “Don’t know, couple months maybe. That all right?”

  “Sure.” Bastian nodded, averting his face, digging the cooler out of the back hatch.

  Caz looped his fingers through both sleeping-bag straps and did his own version of look-away. His long wavy hair bound back in a ponytail caught the afternoon sun. He wrapped one heavily tattooed arm around Charlie’s neck and drew her toward the house. They spoke in low tones up the driveway to the old blue Victorian.

  Bastian briefly wondered if he should be jealous but couldn’t muster the emotion. Charlie treated Caz like a long-lost puppy. Plus, his brother had hit on her once long ago. Charlie had shot him down hard enough to leave scars. Now it was a running joke between them.

  The zesty scent of Mexican spices reached his nose halfway up the walk. Music and laughter flowed a second later. Fighting a groan, all thoughts of a quiet afternoon disappeared. Boo and crew were in residence.

  The scene in his kitchen was pandemonium with salsa music. He immediately gave up trying to identify who was who, concentrating on a select few. Lucinda stirred some heavenly smelling sauce as her dark-skinned husband strummed a guitar across the room. Everyone else was backdrop.

  “Luci, if those are enchiladas, I just might have to kiss your feet,” Bastian teased, stowing the empty cooler on the mudroom shelf.

  “Drop and worship.” Spanish eyes sparkled at him. He liked Luci. She kept Caz in line on the road, acting as surrogate mother for the entire musical brood her husband played for. He just wished she were around more often to keep Caz clean and sober.

  Charlie was pumping Caz for information, her bright eyes lively and animated as she rattled off contacts in the radio industry. Caz had a few insights but warned her he was more backstage now than in-station fodder.

  “Boo, please.” An impish lift to her brows mocked him. “Stop downplaying it. You fart and musicians take note.”

  “Only because I do it in key,” Caz scoffed and the kitchen erupted in laughter.

  “What’s with the Boo thing?” asked a dark-haired man sidling up to Charlie.

  Caz sighed. “It’s just a family nickname, Tony. Casper, the ghost, Boo, get it?” Caz’s eyes were hard when he looked at Bastian. “A nickname I outgrew years ago but Sebastian can’t let go.”

  “Yeah, face it, Mom sucked at naming us. I got Dad’s name and, sorry, but you got Granddad’s. You’ve been Boo to me since I was three and Mom brought you home from the hospital on Halloween. Deal with it…Boo.” Bastian laughed.

  “Ah, I’m sorry.” Charlie wrapped her arm around his brother’s waist and squeezed. “I’ll try to start calling you Caz, okay?”

  Caz pulled her toward the back veranda, most of the crowd following in his wake. Even though he spoke low, Bastian heard his words. “Nah, you I don’t mind, Littlebit. It’s just Saint Sebastian who bugs me. When’s he going to stop treating me like a teenager?”

  When you start acting like a man. Irritation swept through Bastian with a tired burn. Sometimes being the oldest sucked. So did watching a musical genius piss away a career.

  All Caz had to do was hear a score and he memorized it, touch an instrument and he played it, think music and he wrote it. Their piano-teacher mother had been thrilled. From techno and hip-hop to southern bluegrass, music flowed like blood in Caz’s veins. At age seven, he’d announced he was going to be a musician and he’d never strayed from the path…until drugs derailed him.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught Luci’s knowing look. “He’s fine, Bastian. Let him be. It takes guts to face every day wanting a crutch and not reaching for it, especially when it’s always around.”

  “I know,” he murmured, watching from the window.

  The salsa music had changed to some smooth sultry rhythm he couldn’t place, and a few people danced in the yard. Charlie and Caz sat at a small table, laughing with two other women. His brother’s hair was the longest of the four, he realized. With body piercings, he probably ran neck and neck in the jewelry department too.

  Early-afternoon sun sparkled, bouncing off Charlie’s face like a spotlight. She never failed to soothe his moods just by being around. As if she felt his gaze, her face lifted toward the house and she smiled.

  Charlie could nearly see calm seep into Caz’s tense muscles as he soaked in the restfulness of his boyhood home. He looked tired, as he always did when he came off the road, but those lines around his mouth eased the longer he was home.

  She stretched out her fingers to glide along the double glass door. The wood was freshly painted a shiny white, but those same doors had stood for nearly a century. The wraparound veranda had featured in dozens of childhood pictures she’d been shown, hosting birthday parties, holding impromptu cookouts and, like now, music sessions with Caz’s friends. The wrought-iron railing had been replaced but the style harkened back to when the house had been built.

  “I love this house. It’s so beautiful. You can almost feel the history here.”

  He nodded with his eyes closed. “It was a nice place to grow up. I used to love sliding down the banister until I hit puberty. Newel posts and nuts do not mix.”

  The two women who hung on Caz’s every word giggled. Charlie smacked him on the shoulder. “I’m talking about things like the molding in the dining room, the one that has all those notches in it where your parents kept track of your height. That is like picture-book sweet.”

  “Mom didn’t think replacing the old-fashioned window glass was sweet when Bastian knocked a baseball through it three times in one summer.�
�� Caz smiled. “This place took a beating at times. When I was about six, I went through this fireman phase and decided I needed a pole in my bedroom. Dad nearly shit a brick when he saw the hole I put in the ceiling.”

  “You didn’t!” Girl Groupie Number One gasped.

  Charlie laughed. “What about Bastian? I see him as this geeky bookworm growing up.”

  A loud masculine snort burst out. “No way. Check out the foyer steps, under the carpet runner. Bastian used to ride his skateboard down them. I think there’s still an imprint of his head on the baseboard, too.”

  Charlie propped her chin on her hand and stared out at the yard. It teemed with dancers swaying to the music. This place needed people, welcomed them, made everyone feel at home. She was so glad Bastian and Caz hadn’t sold it after their mother died. Her gaze landed on a splash of pale pink, and a bittersweet sigh bled out. Bastian wasn’t a gardener but his mother’s rosebushes still bloomed along the fence line, and a grapevine archway stood proudly in the center of the hedges, guarding any who entered.

  “Bastian told me he got his first kiss under that archway.”

  “Tammy Kincaid.” Caz grinned in memory, a devilish gleam in his eye. “I could see into her bedroom from the east hallway window. Bastian might have kissed her but I saw her naked.”

  Charlie rolled her eyes. She could just see a younger Caz scoping the neighborhood beaver shot and Bastian learning about love under the archway. This old Victorian held memories like a blanket, a warm cover to keep out the cold unknown. Although both Talbot men had moved out, this place remained, waiting for their return.

  And returned they had, to her welcoming inherited arms. After their divorce, Lisa had kept the house she and Bastian had lived in, while he moved back to his childhood home to take care of his ailing mother. Caz had an apartment somewhere in California. But this was their forever place. She doubted Bastian could even see it. To him, this was simply home. To Charlie, it was something she’d never had.

  Through the window, she caught Bastian’s stare. Her best friend wanted more, wanted to marry her. She didn’t know about the marriage bit but she could definitely handle more of the “more.” Her hips rolled in time to the music as she walked back into the kitchen and his gaze shifted down her body.