More Than One Night

by Sarah Mayberry

  She slipped a hand between their bodies to grip him through his jeans. She stroked her hand up and down the hardened length of him. He pressed forward, his hands tightening on her breasts. After a torturous minute, she released him and stuck her thumbs into the waistband of her pants, pushing them down. He forced himself to take a step away and felt himself get even harder as she removed her panties, bending to offer him a perfect view of her ass.

  She glanced over her shoulder, her ponytail swishing against her pale skin, her eyes alight with heated desire. She stepped forward and crawled onto the bed, offering him an even better view. He realized he was standing like a dodo, his pants half undone. He dragged his zipper down, shoving off his jeans and boxers. Seconds later he followed Charlie onto the bed, stalking her across the mattress. She rolled onto her back and welcomed him as he covered her body with his.

  “I need you inside me,” she said against his mouth as he kissed her.

  She hooked a leg around his hips and urged him closer. He found her entrance, and she arched her hips at the same time that he thrust inside her. He closed his eyes as he slid home—the rightness of it, her heat, her scent, the feel of her skin against his. He’d needed this, craved this for so long, and he hadn’t realized, hadn’t understood.

  “Charlie,” he whispered against her skin as he started to move. “You drive me crazy.”

  She dug her hands into his backside, urging him to go harder, faster. She met him thrust for thrust, her need feeding his, until finally she cried out, her body shuddering around his, her face distorting with pleasure-pain. She pushed him over the top into his own climax and for precious seconds he forgot everything except the rush of sensation bombarding his body and mind.

  Only afterward did he notice they were both panting raggedly, their bodies slick with sweat, and—more important—that he hadn’t used a condom. Then he remembered the baby—crazy, but she’d slipped his mind in his mad rush to be a part of Charlie again—and he let his head drop to Charlie’s shoulder.

  After a minute or two she stirred beneath him. He rolled to one side.

  “Did I squash you? Sorry.” He brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead, admiring the purity of her skin, the fullness of her mouth.

  She looked at him and he could see the doubts beginning to crowd behind her eyes again.

  “You need to stop thinking for a moment,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” He curled his body against hers, one arm wrapped across her waist, one leg thrown over hers, his face pressed into her neck. “Just breathe. And think about how good this feels. How right.”

  Despite his words, he felt the tension returning to her body, degree by degree.

  “It’s going to be okay, Charlie.” He pressed a kiss to her neck.

  “I need to know what happens next.”

  “We date,” he said simply. “We see what happens. The way normal couples do.”

  “But what if it doesn’t work out?”

  “What if it does?” Because he was holding her, he felt the ripple of tension that washed through her at his words. He drew back a little so he could look into her eyes.

  “This is real, Charlie,” he said. “Let’s trust it. Have some faith in it.”

  She swallowed. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “We’ll do it together.”

  He swept a hand down her body, resting his palm against her sternum before sliding it to the small, soft swell that was their baby. In the heat of the moment he’d forgotten about The Bean—it had been all about Charlie, only Charlie—but now he mapped the gentle slope, brushing his palm over her warm skin. He’d wanted to touch her this way ever since the scan. Wanted to feel for himself what was happening inside her.

  “I like you with a little belly.”

  “It won’t be little for long.”

  “No. I guess it won’t. I suppose we’ll need to get inventive then.”

  Color flooded her cheeks. Her gaze dropped to where he was already growing hard again, her eyelashes momentarily concealing her eyes from him. When she met his gaze once more, he could see the hunger there—and the doubt and the hope.

  He would do his damnedest to live up to that hope. He figured they had as much of a chance as anyone. He wanted Charlie—had never stopped wanting her—and he admired her and enjoyed her and liked her. He had a reasonable suspicion that the feeling was mutual. It felt like a hell of a lot in their favor.

  “There’s something that’s been bugging me for months now,” he said, dropping a kiss onto her full bottom lip.

  “What?”

  He sucked her lip into his mouth, abrading it gently with his tongue.

  “Last time, we were so mad for it, we rushed everything. We did everything at breakneck speed.”

  “Did we?”

  He smiled as he felt the subtle arch of Charlie’s body as she shifted. His gaze fell to her breasts.

  “You know we did. Like we did just now.” He moved so he could kiss her breasts, sucking one nipple into his mouth and tonguing it until she squirmed. His hand remained on the swell of her belly, fingers spread. Grounding her and himself.

  “I want to take it slow, Charlie. I want to lick and suck and touch you till you beg for it. I want to make you come so hard you forget everything except the two of us and what’s good between us.”

  She inhaled sharply as he switched his attention to her other breast.

  “I think you already did that.” Her voice was thready, breathy.

  “No. Not yet.”

  He tongued her nipple again, taking it in his mouth before biting ever so gently. Another surge of her hips, another gasping breath. He slid his hand from her belly into the silky hair between her legs. Her thighs fell open eagerly and he delved into slick, wet heat. He made an approving sound, tracing her lightly, deftly, paying attention when she stopped breathing and when her hips jerked involuntarily.

  After a few minutes he lifted his head and looked into her face. She was flushed, her eyes half closed. Her hair had come loose from the ponytail, the strands a tousled nimbus around her head. She looked like a beautiful, aroused angel.

  Holding her eye, he moved down the bed, his hand gliding from her belly to her hips. Finally he settled between her thighs, lifting one of her legs so it draped decadently over his shoulder.

  Her hands were already fisted in the quilt, her eyes hot on his. Then he lowered his head and started to make good on his promise to drive her wild.

  CHARLIE COULDN’T THINK. Rhys was between her legs, his mouth on her, his tongue doing things that made her want to shriek with need. She tensed, clutching at the quilt, trying to quiet the tide building inside her.

  It was all too much. The shock of seeing him with another woman. The despair of finally acknowledging how deeply her own feelings ran. Then Rhys almost knocking down her door to get to her, to tell her that she was the one he wanted. That he’d wanted her ever since that night.

  She gasped then bit her lip to stop herself from being any more vocal as Rhys slid a finger inside her. He continued to lap at her, his tongue rough and smooth at the same time, so hot and crazy making. Tension built inside her, coiling tighter and tighter. He changed the tempo, becoming more urgent as he sensed her growing need.

  He slid a second finger inside her and his name hissed from her lips, escaping her tight control. Then she was lost, her body arching off the bed, one hand gripping Rhys’s shoulder, anchoring her. She forgot to breathe for long, long seconds, lost in the darkness behind her own eyelids, her world reduced to nothing but pleasure. Then her climax was over and he shifted, coming over her, sliding inside her still-throbbing body, and before she knew it, she was coming yet again, panting and calling out his name.

  Aft
erward, he withdrew and made her roll to the side so he could pull the quilt from beneath them. Its warm weight settled over them and Rhys wrapped his body around hers and kissed her shoulder.

  “Rest. You’re going to need it,” he murmured against her skin.

  She smiled, so drugged by sex and satisfaction that she couldn’t keep a grip on all the reasons why this was never going to work. Warm and sated, wrapped in Rhys’s arms, she drifted into sleep.

  She woke in darkness, Rhys’s body warming her side. He’d shifted in his sleep, withdrawing his arm but remaining on her side of the bed. She lay blinking in the dark, suddenly horribly aware of how much she’d risked by sleeping with him, by letting this happen. By letting down her guard.

  Everything, really.

  It had been bad before when she had loved him with no hope of ever having him, but now…

  He’d offered her the dream—her fantasy—on a silver platter. The two of them together. A couple. Raising their child together. A family.

  The fairy tale, essentially. The one she’d told Gina she didn’t believe in. The one she’d craved in her secret heart for more weeks than she cared to count.

  Cold anxiety washed through her, constricting her belly, her chest, her throat. She swallowed, hugging her arms tight to her breasts, willing the feeling to go away. It didn’t, and after a few minutes she slipped from the bed and made her way into the living room. A blanket was folded over the edge of the couch and she wrapped it around herself and huddled in the corner of the sofa, knees pulled tightly to her chest.

  She stared into the shadows, trying to calm her panicky thoughts and gain some perspective.

  Rhys had made love to her with a single-minded intensity. He’d said all the right things—told her she was beautiful, that she drove him crazy, that he’d been thinking about her for weeks. He’d said that they were real, that he trusted them, that he wanted to see where this took them.

  If she’d scripted it herself she couldn’t have done better. Yet here she was, shivering with an overdose of flight-or-fight anxiety.

  Resting her forehead against her knees, she acknowledged at last that there was nothing Rhys could say to her that would make her fear go away. There was nothing anyone could say or do because it was her fear, as old as she was, born the moment her mother died and she was left with a father who had never truly been a father.

  Talking to Gina earlier in the week, Charlie had started to see how profoundly that relationship had shaped her life and who she was. Her reserve and caution had been hard-earned thanks to necessity, and as she’d grown toward adulthood she’d held on to the incidents and memories that reinforced her view of the world and let go of the good things, the memories and moments that spoke of connection and love and her worthiness as a human being.

  It was so much easier to believe the bad stuff when you’d been taught that believing the good stuff only set you up for failure and rejection. It was so much easier to believe the worst, full stop. She didn’t know why that was, she only knew it was true.

  She wanted to hang on to the good things that had happened today. She wanted to remember the sweaty, sexy things Rhys had whispered against her skin while he was inside her. She wanted to hang on to the way he’d gripped her so tightly, as though she was as essential to his happiness as he was to hers. She wanted to preserve the safe, surrounded feeling she’d experienced when he’d pulled her body against his and soothed her to sleep.

  She wanted to believe. She wanted to grab the fairy tale by the throat and hang on for grim life. She wanted to be brave enough to reach for happiness.

  “Hey. What are you doing out here?”

  She lifted her head as Rhys padded barefoot and naked into the room. His body was a masterpiece of muscle and sinew, a study in light and shade as he approached.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “You should have woken me. Come back to bed.”

  He didn’t wait for her answer, simply caught her arm and urged her to her feet. He wrapped himself and the blanket around her from behind and made her smile as they tried and failed to match their steps for the short walk to the bedroom. The bed was still warm and he encouraged her to lay her head on his chest while he caressed her shoulders.

  “If you want to ask me anything, or if there’s something you want to say, I’m up for it,” he said after a while.

  She knew what he was really asking—why she’d been out on the couch, brooding in the dark.

  “It’s been a while since I shared a bed with someone, that’s all,” she lied. She kissed his chest, loving him for asking, for wanting to know, even though she couldn’t tell him.

  Not yet, anyway. Maybe one day, when her belief in all this was a little more solid.

  There was a long silence.

  “I’ve been a planner all my life, even when I was a kid.” His voice was low and deep. “I had a plan to get Boyd Taylor to swap his salami-and-cheese sandwich for my peanut butter one. A plan to wrest the bottom bunk from Tim. A plan to buy a car, to kiss Sophie Goodwood, to start my own business.” He paused to catch one of her hands, threading his fingers through hers. “But I never planned for you, Charlotte Long. I had this vague idea that I’d meet someone sometime, that all the usual stuff would happen, but I didn’t have a clue.”

  He almost sounded as though he was talking to himself, thinking out loud, but his words warmed her soul. When she looked at him, she saw confidence and good looks and charisma. She saw a man who attracted her in every possible way. It was good to know she’d rocked his world as much as he’d rocked hers. She needed to believe that.

  He continued to talk, telling her about one of his childhood schemes. Slowly she let herself be eased toward sleep, his voice rumbling through her body.

  A thought pierced her before sleep took her completely—this was the happiest she could ever remember being.

  Another thought came hard on its heels.

  Don’t screw it up. Whatever you do, don’t screw it up.

  She tensed, but Rhys’s hand swept in a comforting arc across her back and after a few tense seconds she relaxed again and finally fell asleep.

  RHYS WOKE with the warmth of sunshine across his face and Charlie’s head on his chest. One of her hands was curled loosely over his heart and he could feel the warm weight of her breasts pressing against his side.

  He blinked a few times, memories from last night flashing across his mind’s eye. Charlie arching beneath him. Charlie calling his name. Charlie huddled on the couch in the small hours.

  It had killed him to find her like that, hiding like a little kid. It had killed him even more when she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him what had driven her out of bed.

  She was so self-contained. Even when they made love there was a part of her that was always on guard. It was only toward the end, when she started to lose it, that she let herself go completely. It drove him a little crazy every time he watched her pack away her feelings so neatly and comprehensively. And every time she assured him she was fine when he knew she wasn’t. Partly because he wanted to know—really know—all of her, and partly because he knew she did it to protect herself, which meant she didn’t trust him.

  Lying in the sunshine in Charlie’s bed, he thought about what he knew of her, what she’d told him and what he’d observed.

  He knew she’d grown up without a mother. He knew her father had been distant and disinterested—to the point that he’d left notifying his only child he was dying till the last minute. It was impossible for Rhys to imagine a childhood without brothers and sisters and two parents who were warm and interested and engaged. But he tried because he wanted to understand Charlie.

  He thought about all the times when his parents or siblings had been there for him and tried to imagine what it would have been like to navigate th
ose moments alone. He thought about the Christmases and birthdays, the family holidays, the shared memories, the in-jokes, the love.

  Charlie had had none of that. She’d been so starved of affection that she’d joined the army in an attempt to win her father’s approval. Rhys had a vision of her enduring the hell of recruit training, gritting her teeth and telling herself that it would be worth it, that she had to make it through so as not to disappoint her father. Then, after a while, understanding there was nothing she could do to bridge the gap between them.

  What had she called it that night when he’d asked about her father? Unfinished business. A relationship that had never given her what she wanted. What she needed.

  Was it any wonder that Charlie was slow to trust, slow to reveal herself? Was it any wonder that she always held something in reserve? She’d had no experience of trust, and Rhys suspected she hadn’t had nearly enough love in her life.

  His arms tightened around her and she stirred against him. He fought the need to pull her closer again, to kiss her and come inside her and show her that she was valued and beautiful and loved.

  Because he’d loved her for a while now. He hadn’t admitted it to himself until he’d seen the hurt in her eyes yesterday afternoon and known that he was responsible and understood that she was the last person he ever wanted to hurt or harm.

  He’d fallen for her in slow degrees, seduced by her quiet humor and quick tongue and intelligence and sexy, slender body. She had more integrity in her little finger than most people had in their whole body. And she had courage and determination by the bucketful.

  He wanted to be a part of her life. He wanted to earn her trust. He wanted to make her happy.

  Resolve hardened inside him. He’d told Charlie that he hadn’t planned for her advent in his life. It was true, but he would plan for her now. He would do his damnedest to get her to drop her guard. He would chip away at her reserve until she let him in.

  He would love her until she let herself love him back. If it was his life’s work, he would do it.