“Your raisins are burning.”
She leaned over and switched his hob off. He grabbed her hand and held it. Laura looked up into his eyes and felt the room begin to fade. She held her breath.
“When you love someone you don’t sleep around on them, and you definitely don’t allow someone you love to do that to you.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he held her tightly. “And you never, ever get your kids involved in that sort of sick set up. Don’t confuse their games with passion and love. They’ve got it all wrong. When you want someone you don’t go off with someone else.”
He was so close she could see his heart beat out a rhythm in the base of his throat. For a split second she entertained the thought of kissing him there. She pulled away instead, forcing an easy smile.
“Aye, aye captain,” she said with a salute.
He waited a beat as he studied her, his shoulders relaxed, he was going to let her lighten the moment.
“It’s lieutenant to you,” he told her as he stirred his raisins.
Laura let out a quiet sigh.
“Well la-di-da, Lieutenant Lewis.”
She gave him a little curtsy. Charlie winked at her.
“Don’t you forget it.”
Laura brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek, which felt as though it was on fire. Charlie watched her from behind eyelashes most girls would kill for. He reached for a cloth and stepped towards her.
“What is it?” she said, her voice hoarse.
“Apple on your cheek.”
He sounded equally strained as he reached up with his cloth to wipe her face. Half way he stopped. He put the cloth on the counter and wiped away the apple with his thumb. Slowly he licked it off his thumb.
“Yum,” he said.
And just like the women in some of the sillier romantic stories she read, Laura went weak at the knees.
Charlie stepped closer, making her back into the counter. She could feel the edge of it nip her lower back.
“If we weren’t here,” he said softly, “I would eat you all up, Laura Prentice.”
“What makes you think I would let you?”
He cocked an eyebrow before leaning in to nip a tiny kiss below her earlobe. The world went out of focus as her breath hitched in her throat.
“I think that answers the question,” he whispered, his breath on her ear made her shiver. “I think we need to finish what we started that night in the tent. What do you think?”
Laura struggled to find her voice. When she did it was embarrassingly breathless.
“But you call me the Iron Maiden when you think I can’t hear.”
His smile was slow as his eyes darkened.
“Yeah, it’s a mystery to me too.”
He brushed his fingers across her bottom lip, making her breath catch, before leaning into her.
“I’m taking a leaf out of your book. I’m laying my cards on the table. I want you.”
“Oh,” was all Laura could manage to say.
He kissed her neck again before whispering in her ear.
“I want you Laura.”
He slid his fingers into her hair at the base of her skull and gently pulled her towards him. His kiss was slow and easy. It reminded her of the way she ate a cheesecake. Every mouthful a wonder.
“Hey,” a loud German voice called out. “This is a kitchen. Take it to the bedroom you two.”
Charlie scowled at the man while Laura flushed like a teenager caught necking. The Japanese girls giggled. The woman running the class beamed at them and waved her wooden spoon in their direction.
“Apple tart is known to be the cake of love,” she told them proudly.
Laura made some non-committal noise while she busied herself with her ingredients. Charlie gave her a smile that signalled he wasn’t through with her. She swallowed hard. She felt like she was in the eye of the storm, first phase over, but the rest of it still to come. As his broad shoulders hunched over the counter she bit her bottom lip to stifle a groan. There was no use pretending otherwise. She wanted him too. Badly. When it came to Charlie Lewis, her body had a will of its own. It always had.
She wasn’t sure if he brought out the worst in her, or made her a more interesting person. It didn’t really matter. She felt like she was stuck on a roller coaster, she couldn’t get off. She looked at Charlie, as scary as it was, she may as well enjoy the ride. They worked in silence, preparing their tarts for the oven, sharing secret smiles and touches like lovers. Anticipating later when they would be alone. It was exquisite torture. As they waited for the oven, sipping thick Dutch coffee, Laura couldn’t stand the silence any more.
The sexual tension had her wired ready to snap. She grasped around for something to say. Anything to say.
“So,” she said at last, “did you meet William or Harry when you were at Sandhurst?”
Charlie rolled his eyes.
“Women always want to hear about those two.”
“Well,” she prodded, nudging his big feet off the stool they were resting on.
“Fine.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “I did hear a funny story about them from a guy who trained with Harry.”
Laura loved the way his eyes sparkled with mischief as he spoke.
“Do tell, I promise you’ll still get first billing in my story, but the public do love to hear about Harry. Especially now William is taken.”
“I bet they do, but I’d forgotten about the story, so I better wait to share my info until you’ve written yours. Wouldn’t want the Palace on my tail.”
“Tease,” she said.
“I can be.” His eyes darkened.
Laura flushed and turned away from him. She wasn’t sure what had shifted or why he was coming on to her. She couldn’t think straight from the electricity that crackled between them. From the slow lazy smile he gave her, he knew exactly what he was doing. She was out of her depth.
Charlie couldn’t keep his hands off Laura. They were wedged side by side in a booth in the bar, but it still felt too far away. He’d tried for days to keep away from her, to put what had happened in the tent out of his mind. But he couldn’t. Not thinking about it made it worse. The only way he was going to get her out of his system was to finish what they started. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Do you want your sandwich?’
Laura smiled before pushing the plate towards him. She hadn’t had much of an appetite anyway. He’d been watching her push the food around for almost an hour.
“Thanks.”
As he reached for the food, he pressed closer into her. Her eyes widened. Her cheeks flushed. He felt her hand on his thigh and his pulse quickened. She made tiny circular motions with her thumb and it drove him wild.
“Another drink?” he said.
“Diet Coke,” she told him.
Her hand slid to his inner thigh. He briefly wondered if it would be crass to move it to where he really wanted her to touch. Yeah. Probably best to wait. Bummer.
He pushed the plate away, relaxed back into the booth and put an arm around her. She didn’t resist when he pulled her tight against him. That was better.
“You’re driving me crazy,” he told her.
She smiled like she knew it.
“Why don’t we get out of here?”
She motioned towards the window.
“It isn’t dark yet.”
That one sentence took his breath away. He’d been watching too. All his plans for the tent needed darkness. Still, he wasn’t sure if they were on the same page.
“We could go to a motel,” he said quietly.
Laura looked up at him. A small smile curled her lips.
“I’m kind of attached to the tent.”
It didn’t answer his question. The band started to play. He ran his fingers up and down Laura’s arm making her shiver. A woman came to the table selling tickets for an outdoor gig later in the week. He bought two just to make her go away. Laura moved her hand to his stomach. His muscles tens
ed. He leaned towards her ear. He had to know.
“Are we on the same page?” he said.
He felt her grin. She moved so that she could talk in his ear instead of shouting over the music.
“Well, I was planning to have sex in the tent. What were you planning?”
His mouth went dry. Before he could say anything else she spoke again.
“What do you say Charlie? Do you want to sleep with me?”
Blood rushed from his head to the more important parts of his body. He wanted to shout: ‘yes, one hundred percent, yes’. Instead he wove his fingers into her long hair and angled her head so that he could see her face. Slowly, deliberately, he kissed her lips. She melted against him. He could feel her heart beat pounding right through his chest. It took all his self-control to end the kiss. He moved to her ear.
“You know, sweet cakes, just once, I would like to be the one who says those words.”
That made her smile.
He pulled her tight against him while they listened to the music. Laura’s hand drifted under his shirt to caress his chest and he kept a close eye on the sky outside the window. Crazy woman. He had absolutely no idea what to make of her, but at least, for this night anyway, he knew what to do with her. That made him grin. He kissed her hair.
Laura was in a daze. Her brain had left her body and it was all Charlie’s fault. All she could think about was getting her hands on him. They made it back to the campsite in pitch blackness. All around them were the sounds of night, low mumbled conversation, and soft laughter. Charlie held her hand tightly as though he expected her to bolt. She wasn’t going to. She didn’t want to. Not tonight.
Charlie crawled into her new, and larger, tent. He reached for her to come in after him. Laura did as she was told.
“Okay,” Laura said. “We’re doing this huh?”
Charlie didn’t say anything. Instead he reached for the bottom of her t-shirt and pulled it over her head.
“I guess that’s a yes.”
He shook his head slightly, before bending over and taking her nipple in his mouth. He sucked her through the lace of her bra as his hands held her waist tightly. Laura swayed as her breath quickened. At last he stopped and sat up to look at her. It took effort to open her eyes, her eyelids were so heavy.
“That’s a yes,” he said.
And then his mouth was on hers. Laura grabbed at his t-shirt, making him stop kissing her to take it off. She didn’t know what to touch first, all of that muscle. She ran her hands wherever she could reach as his tongue stroked her lips.
“Let’s get these off,” he growled as he tugged at her jeans.
She wriggled to get them off, but there wasn’t enough space, they fell over onto one another with Laura’s jeans trapped around her knees.
“Wait a minute,” Charlie said. “I can get them.”
He knelt beside her, grabbed the top of her jeans and pulled. They came off too fast. He lost his balance on the edge of her replacement air bed and fell into the side of the tent. It knocked her bike over and it crashed to the ground. They stilled. Fortunately, no one rushed to see what the racket was.
“Okay,” Charlie said at last. “Where were we?”
He lay beside her on the mattress. They wriggled to get into position. It wasn’t built for two and as Charlie leaned in to kiss her there was a pop and a hiss. The mattress deflated beneath them. They lay still until they hit the ground.
“We can still do this,” he said determinedly.
“Yes. We can,” Laura said, although she was beginning to have her doubts.
Charlie ran his hand down the length of her body, leaving a trail of tingling flesh in its wake. That was more like it. Gently he kissed from her shoulder up to her neck. Laura bit her lip as she reached for him.
“Wait,” she said. “Do you have condoms handy?”
He stopped dead.
“I meant to buy some,” he said dejectedly.
Laura pushed him away from her.
“I don’t have any either.”
Charlie plopped on the ground beside her. They both stared at the roof of the tent.
“Well this is a disaster,” Charlie said at last.
Laura started to giggle. It bubbled out of her until she was clutching her sides from laughing so hard; through it all she could hear Charlie laughing along with her.
When they calmed down he pulled her towards him, wrapped his arm around her and held her tight against his chest.
“Next time better,” he said. “Promise.”
“Well, it couldn’t be worse, moron.”
He kissed the top of her head before pulling the sleeping bag over them. Laura smiled contentedly and fell asleep listening to the steady rhythm of his strong heart.
“So, you’re never getting married?”
Laura had discovered, much to her disgust, that Dutch people mainly ate sandwiches for breakfast. Fortunately most cafes offered pastries as an alternative. She tucked into a large croissant and waited for the answer.
“I won’t say never, but it’s not on my list, no.”
As usual Charlie was eating enough food for a small army. Plus, he’d made the waitress leave the full coffee pot on the table beside him.
“That’s way too much caffeine,” Laura told him.
“I need it.” He gave her a pointed look. “Someone kept waking me up last night with her wandering hands.”
Laura flushed and reminded herself again that the first thing she needed to do was buy condoms. It had been a very long and very frustrating night.
“So,” she brought the conversation back to marriage, “why not? Too many women, not enough time?”
She prodded him with her toe under the table. Every movement seemed to take the most amount of effort. She felt like her bones had been removed and replaced with jelly. She needed sleep or sex, probably both, and she needed them fast.
“Marriage just isn’t for me.”
She scowled at him which made him grin.
“Enough with the interrogation already. I just don’t see myself in the suburbs raising kids and worrying about dental bills and football games. It sounds so…”
“…boring?”
“Exactly.”
He handed her the Danish pastry on the edge of his plate without her having to ask.
“And?” she prompted.
She might not be the investigative journalist she’d always dreamed of becoming, but she could tell when Charlie was holding back. He got the same constipated look that his sister did.
“Fine.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, which meant it was. “When I was in the army I saw the toll it took on the married guys. They were out there every day risking their lives, living half a world away from their families. They missed a lot. They heard about baby steps and first teeth via Skype. And they worried what life would be like for their families if they didn’t make it back. I kept thinking about the strain on everyone. I don’t know how they did it. I couldn’t do it.”
She pointed her coffee spoon at him.
“But you don’t have to do it. You left the army, remember? So you don’t have to leave a wife and kids to go off to war.”
“Yeah, but I can’t stay at home with them either. I’d drive us all nuts.”
“That’s true,” she conceded. “So why did you leave? You’re the poster boy for bravery right now, not to mention easy on the eye. The army must want you back in the worst way.”
His face closed off a little.
“It was the right time.”
“I don’t get it.”
She thought he wouldn’t answer her, that he would back off completely, instead he gave her a sad lopsided smile.
“I’m a coward, short stuff, I can’t hack it.”
Laura stilled with the pastry halfway to her mouth. She didn’t know what to say. He held her gaze.
“Those kids, remember?”
She nodded; suddenly she didn’t have any appetite.
“We put
them in danger. We killed them. In that uniform we paint a target on ourselves and the people around us. Those guys,” he rubbed a hand over his face, “they know that, but they know how essential it is for them to be there. The good outweighs the bad. They’re not just fighting for the rest of us, but because it’s right. That’s where I fell down. The fact I made everyone into a target outweighed everything else.” He paused. “Ergo, no army for me.”
“You’re not a coward.” Laura said, mainly because she didn’t know what else to say.
“I joined for the excitement, then it bit me in the backside. Those people actually needed me.”
She looked around for the right thing to say. She couldn’t see it in the busy square or the town hall that was built in the Middle Ages.
“It’s not a bad thing to realise,” she said at last.
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s kind of counter to my life motto.”
“Party hard?”
He laughed and she felt relieved.
“Yeah, but I might go back, just not with the army. I got to know a guy who runs Medicine International; they’re like Doctors without Borders. They set up clinics all over the place and they always need people. I might do something with them.”
He shrugged like it was nothing. Laura’s mouth went dry. He was planning to go back to Afghanistan without the backing of the army? Without guns? And he thought he wasn’t brave?
“Don’t look at me like that; I’m in it for the rush remember? Boredom equals death. This is not a bid for sainthood.”
Laura grinned wryly. He actually looked like he believed himself. And maybe he did mean it. Maybe it was all about the excitement. He was a lot like her best friend in that way. Maddie was all about her latest idea, her next exciting thing and Charlie was born with itchy feet. Something clicked in her head.
“That’s why you became a doctor. A profession that would take you anywhere.”
She smiled triumphantly.
“Good try, Sherlock, but no that’s not why I became a doctor.” He bit off half of a giant cheese sandwich while he studied her. She vaguely wondered if she had food in her hair. “Actually, you were the reason I became a doctor.”
Wow, she really didn’t see that one coming.
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