The Best Next Thing

by Natasha Anders

  He was silent for a long, long moment after her outburst, but when he eventually spoke, the words emerged slowly. As if he were weighing every syllable for fear saying the wrong thing. “I think…and I’m not an expert. And I know it’s none of my business. But I think that perhaps if you did speak of him, to someone—anyone—it would help you find some clarity and possibly some closure. Or at the very least it’ll start the healing process on the still festering wound that was your marriage.”

  “Speak to you, you mean?”

  “No, sweetheart.” His voice was so painfully gentle it just about broke her heart. “You don’t have to tell me anything. But you do have to tell someone. If not your parents or your sister, then a therapist.”

  “I think for me, the worst of it all, was that he stripped me of my self-worth, my self-confidence, my dignity…and I allowed it.”

  “Charity you’ve clearly lived through, and survived, hell. I can tell you that I think you’re an amazing woman. The strongest, most capable, and interesting woman I’ve ever met. But until you look in a mirror and believe those things about yourself, my words are meaningless. And because that fucking bastard has controlled your life for so long, I know how hard it must be for you to do so. You’re the only one now who can take that power away from him.”

  Tears had been silently streaming from her eyes throughout his little speech. Logically and emotionally, she knew that his words were true. But Blaine had kept her imprisoned in a cage of fear and intimidation for so long, that even now, years after the door had been left open and unlocked, she was too terrified to step foot outside of those familiar confines.

  She had fled, sure, but she had taken her cozy cage with her. She had painted it, decorated it, and deceived herself into believing that the bars weren’t there. Fooled herself into thinking that she was free. But she wasn’t. She was still in the cage Blaine had put her in.

  And she was only now beginning to recognize that fact.

  She had allowed her parents, her sister, the people who loved her, to mourn her abuser. As if he warranted that consideration. As if he was worth a single one of their tears. She had permitted his parents to silence her with their stoic disappointment in her. The oh-so-subtle jabs that perhaps he wouldn’t have killed himself if she had only been a better, more loving wife, had been a different kind of abuse.

  He did not deserve to live on fondly in people’s memories.

  He deserved to be known as the hideous, repulsive monster who had raped her and beaten her almost daily.

  She was shaking. Violently. She became aware of it when she heard her teeth chattering.

  “W-why are you so invested in this?” she asked him, her voice unsteady. “This isn’t fun, or flirty or anything close to a holiday romance. You should be running in the opposite direction and avoiding me like the plague after what you’ve learned about my marriage.”

  “Give it time.” The words were placid, his smile soothing. “There’s always tomorrow.”

  “Always tomorrow for what?” she asked blankly.

  He responded, still in a ridiculously serene voice. “Running scared and avoiding you like the plague.”

  His words coaxed a reluctant laugh from her and he reached for a napkin and gently dabbed the moisture from her face.

  She took the napkin from him and gave her nose a good blow before speaking again. “I’m serious, Miles. I’m clearly a mess. This thing between us isn’t developed or strong enough for you to stick around for this crap.”

  “Charity, I didn’t come here looking for a holiday romance. I’m here to hide from the world while I recover from a debilitating illness. I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”

  “Of course, you were.”

  “Don’t be pedantic, Charity,” he chastised without heat. “You know what I mean. I admit that at first, I did consider you an intriguing mystery that had to be solved. It was that fucking power outage. I was bored out of my mind. You and Stormy were the only diversions around. And she sleeps eighteen hours a day. But after that night at the pool…things changed. I was still interested but on a more, shall we say, personal level.”

  “You wanted to shag me you mean?”

  “So bloody desperately. I mean, there was sexual interest before that. But mere twinges compared to how much I wanted you after that night.”

  “This is a lot of baggage to tolerate for a little nookie,” she pointed out acerbically, and he gave her a lazy smile.

  “While I may feel like a perpetually horny teenage boy around you, Charity, I am not an adolescent. And I do have a modicum of hard-earned control over my hormones and base desires. Look, what I’m trying to say is that there’s no one else here for us right now. So why don’t we each be what the other needs us to be.”

  “And what do you need me to be?” she asked in frustrated confusion. “A sexual partner?”

  “No. Not because I don’t want it but because it’s probably not what you need right now. And that means it’s off the table.”

  “So, what do you think I need right now?”

  “The same thing I need…A friend.”

  A friend? How…novel. And yet the notion of having someone in her corner, someone to confide in, spend time and laugh with, after so many years alone was incredibly appealing.

  “And you can switch off the sexual thing? Just like that? Why would you even want to? What if I don’t want you to?”

  “I can’t switch it off. I’m not. It’s on the back burner for now. It’ll happen or not. Either way, I’d like for us to be friends. In fact, I do believe we’re well on our way to establishing a friendship already.”

  “I really liked what we did earlier though. In your room.”

  He groaned before slanting her a heated look. “I did too.”

  “I like the idea of having a friend, Miles. But I like the idea of having a lover just as much.”

  She watched his throat move as he swallowed.

  “I do too.”

  “Blaine took so many decisions from me. How I should dress, who I should speak with, where I could go…when, where, how we had sex. It’s been so long since I had a choice. And right now, I need a friend…but I would also like a lover.”

  “You can have both, Charity. I just don’t think we have to rush into anything.”

  “What about friends with PG-13 benefits?”

  He placed his hand, palm up, on the coffee table between them. She smiled, and without hesitation, put her hand in his. His fingers curled around hers.

  “You mean some handholding, closed mouth kisses, and hot fumbling through our clothes? Count me in. I’m awkward as hell anyway. This would be right in my wheelhouse.”

  She laughed at his words and squeezed his hand, before impulsively telling him, “I really, really like you Mr. Hollingsworth.”

  “Well, hell, Mrs. Cole…the feeling is entirely mutual. Now come over here and give me a friendly cuddle.” He tugged her to his side of the table, and she happily burrowed under his arm and snuggled against his side.

  “Tell me what happened when Willow Cedarian took Delonix to the Fire Maester for his Draegus Fleshing Day,” she invited, and his chest rumbled when he chuckled.

  “Don’t get me started,” he warned. “You know what happened the last time I talked about this stuff.”

  “I like listening.”

  “You can borrow my audiobooks,” he offered magnanimously, and she smiled before lifting her head to look at him.

  “I like listening to you, Miles.”

  He flushed and cleared his throat before nodding. He leaned back against the sofa and started to talk.

  Charity nestled closer, loving the hardness of his body against hers and how the wonderful scent of his cologne blended with his natural musk. She soon lost herself in the gentle cadence of his gruff voice, unable to remember the last time she had felt safer or more content.

  His voice had gone hoarse by the time he realized that she had fallen asleep. Miles would have been
offended, if not for the fact that he had been speaking for nearly half an hour before she had gone quiet. She had kept him talking with interested questions, clearly paying attention to the story. Her undivided attention had been gratifying. Aside from business, where people had to hang onto his every word, he couldn’t remember anyone being so genuinely interested in anything he had to say before. Because of his wealth and influence, the more sycophantic people who tried to befriend him, or curry favor with him, merely pretended interest in his conversation and opinions. But Miles always knew when someone was stringing him along for a potential payday. And since that was just about everybody he met, it made it easy for him to keep everyone, other than his family and a few close friends, at a distance.

  Charity was different. She was so damned genuine in everything she said and felt. But so hideously damaged by the one person she should have been able to trust above all others, that Miles knew he had to put her wants and needs above anything he was feeling.

  He wanted her, with more urgency and desperation than he could ever recall wanting a woman before. Usually, when he found himself physically attracted to someone, it was nothing more than an itch that required scratching. And sometimes, if he ignored it long enough, the itch would simply go away.

  But this desire he had for Charity was so much more complex than anything he had experienced before. It wasn’t just physical. He liked her. He liked being around her and talking with her, and he was interested in what she was thinking and feeling. She made him laugh, often without intending to. And today, after he had learned of what she had endured at the hands of her husband, she had damned near made him cry.

  He wanted her, desperately, fucking passionately but until she was ready he, Miles Henry Hollingsworth—a man accustomed to taking whatever he damned well pleased whenever he damned well wanted—would wait.

  “Charity,” he whispered, dropping a kiss on top of her drooping head. “Hey, come on, sweetheart. It’s bedtime.”

  She groaned in protest and nuzzled closer and then, as consciousness gradually returned, she became more and more tense. She slowly, inch by painstaking inch, moved away from him. As if she were afraid of making any sudden movements.

  He remained relaxed, not wanting to spook her. Giving her the time to decide how she wanted to react to the situation.

  She pushed a loose strand of hair from her face and offered him a tentative smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to doze off. I must have been more tired than I realized. And you have a very soothing voice.”

  He chuckled. “That’s the first time anyone has ever said that to me. Not sure how I feel about that. I like having my minions cower in terror at the mere sound of my voice.”

  “I doubt that happens very often.”

  “Why don’t you head to bed? I have to let Stormy out. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  He pushed to his feet and offered a hand to help her up. She took it without hesitation, and when she was standing upright, she leaned in and lifted her face to his.

  His breath caught in his chest and remained there when she went onto her toes and gifted him with a sweet, lingering kiss.

  “Thank you for today, Miles. It meant so much.”

  He palmed the side of her face and, for the first time, initiated a kiss. The embrace was tentative at first, as he tested her receptiveness, but when she opened her mouth to his tongue, he grew bolder and asked her for more than she had previously given him. More heat, more passion, and so much more hunger.

  She groaned and encircled her arms around his neck. She undulated against him, a slow roll of her body against his, the sensuous movement seemed unintentional, but it set his every nerve ending alight and had a very predictable effect on his half-mast cock. He went hard as an iron spike, and the way she was grinding herself against him, he knew she had to feel it.

  His captured her still slowly rolling hips in his palms and stopped the movement, but she made a sound of protest.

  He lifted his mouth from hers, and she cried out in frustration.

  “PG-13 remember?” he reminded. Speaking between harsh, gasping breaths was difficult, but he managed to get the words out coherently enough.

  Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a mess and her lips swollen. She looked fucking irresistible and it took more willpower than he knew he possessed to step away from her.

  She looked so bereft by the movement that for a second, he considered throwing caution to the wind and taking her back in his arms. But before he could act on that impulse, the glaze in her eyes faded and she nodded shakily.

  He knew he had made the right call when she folded her arms defensively across her chest. Her walls firmly back in place.

  “I should tidy up,” she said, her voice throaty and sexy.

  “No, that’s fine. I’ll do it.”

  “It’s my job,” she reminded him frostily, and he winced. Right…those walls were being heavily fortified if Mrs. Cole felt the need to assert herself in this moment.

  “Nah, that’s Mrs. Cole’s job, and she’s not here tonight, remember?”

  “God, you make me sound like I have multiple personality disorder,” she said with an impatient huff. “Rest assured, Mrs. Cole and I are the same person.”

  “I know…but I also know you wear the persona like an armor. You don’t have to with me.”

  “It’s a professional identity. Not a persona.”

  Miles disagreed with that. Mrs. Cole was a disguise plain and simple. But he didn’t argue. Choosing instead to say, “But you were here in your personal capacity tonight, Charity. As my friend. Not my employee.”

  “It’s just a few plates, Miles,” she said, her voice softening.

  “I know, which is why I’m perfectly capable of cleaning them up myself.”

  She sighed, and the starch went out of her shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, you’re right. I…goodnight, Miles.”

  She left before he had a chance to return the greeting. Miles heaved a deep sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face.

  He was still hard and wanting and dreaded the prospect of yet another cold shower before bed tonight. It had been a kiss. A tame kiss with a little grinding thrown into the mix. He had done more risqué things when he had been a fumbling adolescent with his first girlfriend. His over-the-top reaction to a bit of light petting was rather embarrassing.

  He shook his head and moved to open Stormy’s crate. This was going to be a lot more difficult than he had first imagined.

  “You’re up early,” Charity observed when Miles and Stormy joined her in the kitchen the following morning.

  “I was hoping to get to the kitchen before you and start breakfast.” He was a little peeved that she had beaten him to it. He had waited for her to go jogging as usual, figuring he could get breakfast started while she was out. But of course, today of all days, she broke routine and didn’t go running.

  “You’d have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat me to the kitchen, sir,” she said archly, and he glared at her.

  “I did. And yet here you are.”

  She smiled. A wicked grin that set off a naughty twinkle in her eyes. “Then it clearly wasn’t early enough.”

  He gave her an aggrieved look, not because he felt aggrieved, but because she seemed to be enjoying his feigned disgruntlement so much.

  “Well, can I make myself useful in any way?”

  “Feed Stormy,” she instructed him, looking at the dog who was dancing around their feet.

  He immediately moved to obey, grabbing the Stormy’s bowl and measuring out a portion of kibble for her. Task done, he was back at the island in under two minutes to watch her whisk eggs.

  “What else can I do? Should I get the coffee on?”

  “Done. In fact, why don’t you grab a cup and have a seat? Breakfast will be served in a few minutes.”

  “I could put some bread in the toaster.”

  “Toasting as we speak.”

  “Should I fry up some bacon?�
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  “Use your nose,” she said, with a soft laugh, and he inhaled deeply, absently noting that there was barely a twinge in his chest anymore. The smell of bacon permeated the air, making his mouth water and his stomach growl. A quick glance confirmed that it was grilling in the eye level oven.

  “Well, what can I do?” he asked, now feeling genuinely aggrieved. And more than a little useless.

  She stopped whisking and scrunched her nose, before leaning toward him across the island.

  “You can…” she began, and he edged closer, keen to hear how he could help. “Kiss me good morning?”

  His breath caught, and his eyes dropped to her lush lips. His throat went dry, and he swallowed in an attempt to moisten it.

  “Mrs. Cole,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with unabashed lust. “You do shock me.”

  “Good. As long as I don’t bore you.”

  “Never that,” he denied. They were so close his nose nuzzled against hers. He canted his head to the side, never taking his eyes from hers, and captured her lips with his.

  Another soft kiss, but he put all the yearning and desire he felt for her in the tender caress. When he released her mouth after one last, decadent nip of her lower lip, and lifted his head, her eyes were screwed shut, and her mouth still pursed as if she were waiting for more.

  “Good morning.” His voice was filled with gravel, and he cleared his throat self-consciously. Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled at him. A sweet smile. One that lacked any artifice or reservation whatsoever.

  “Morning.”

  She was wearing her Mrs. Cole disguise, but her hair was different. Still up in a bun, it looked softer, less severe than usual. With wispy tendrils framing her face. And if he wasn’t mistaken, she had on some eyeliner and lip gloss as well.

  He sat on one of the high bar stools at the island, rested his elbows on the marble surface and his chin in his palms. Settling in to watch her work.

  “Tell me,” he invited, while she poured the whisked eggs into a skillet. “Is there some kind of uniform clause in your contract that I’m unaware of?”