Yes, I love how his eyelids kind of slide down a few degrees, so he’s giving me a snake’s gaze, one that slips over my body in a prelude to his touch. I love how his mouth goes tight. How his fingers travel, how he takes mouthfuls of me.
And this. Yes, I’d forgotten how much I love this.
“Charlie?”
“Shut up.”
How he is silent. How he pulls me to him and works his way from my wrist to my shoulders. Charlie is gentle. Most of the time. But he knows how to fix me in place. He’s clever, too—sees immediately how he could take an ugly yellow garter and twist it around my wrists, how it would hold my arms behind my back firmly, but stretch enough not to dig in too much.
“What if Susie …”
He ignores me. I think this might be what I love most about us. He knows me so well, he can tell when to listen and when to just keep on going. Like now, as he strips me methodically, slowly, almost brusquely. He pushes the cardigan off my shoulders and lets it bunch at my tied wrists. Reaches for the buttons at my throat and lets the backs of his hands scuff over my breasts.
I’m biting my lip again, trying not to moan. For some reason, it seems important to match Charlie’s wordless intensity. As though the only way I can apologize is with my silence, as though any more words would be too many.
He peels my shirt aside, bares my breasts and belly. He’s holding my shirttails in his fists and he tugs me from side to side a little as he leans in to kiss me, letting me know how he can move me, how he can turn me.
And then we’re kissing and it’s too late for explanations. I forget why I left the church, I forget where I am and what my name is. All I can think of is the heat of Charlie’s mouth, the scrape of his stubble and the hard pressure of his body against mine. The way he is kissing me recklessly, like a dare.
When he pulls away I’m breathing hard, as if we’ve been running.
“So I’m not enough for you,” he says, and his lip curls a little. His hand drops to my breast and tweaks hard. I open my mouth but no sound comes out.
“You want more.” His other hand, my other breast. I’m almost doubling over, and my nipples are burning beautifully as he pulls and pinches. When he lets go, I almost fall forward. In the sun-filled kitchen I’m gasping for breath—half-naked, disheveled and as ridiculous as the yellow garter.
Charlie knows how to tease, and today I’m wondering if he’s playing out some kind of revenge. If he’s going to teach me a lesson—how it feels to be left hanging.
“Please,” I say, even though I think I shouldn’t.
“You know what, Seb?”
He’s leaning back and looking at me thoughtfully, as if I were a painting he’s deciding whether or not he likes.
“I can understand you being chicken. I can even live with the thought of you fucking other people.” His eyes flash. I look at him and the blush storms through my cheeks. He nods. “Yes, I am aware that you like sex, Seb.”
He leans in close and whispers in my ear. “Dirty girl, aren’t you? You think I didn’t know that? You think I can’t tell how hungry you are every time you walk down the street, shaking that tight little ass of yours? You think I don’t notice how you stick your tits out when you’re talking to a nice-looking guy? How you give all my friends the once-over, like you’re just considering the possibility?”
I flinch. I really didn’t think he’d noticed.
Charlie pulls back and sighs. He reaches, almost idly, to my trousers and flicks at the buttons. As if he doesn’t care if they come loose or not. When he slides his hand into the front of my panties, he touches the tip of his tongue to his lip as if he’s doing something tricky.
“What breaks my heart, Seb, is that you think I’m so stupid.”
“I don’t!” If I weren’t tied up, I’d reach out for him. He curls his fingers inside my panties, cups my pussy in his hand and gives a little squeeze. It’s like he’s in control of my heartbeat now, as though each stinging pinch of my clit sends the blood running through my veins.
“You think I don’t know you.”
“That’s not true,” I say, although my voice is strained and cracking. “It’s not?”
I look up at him through the strands of hair that have fallen over my face. He meets my gaze, hard and direct.
“Seb, I know you. I know how you’re torn.”
While he talks, he keeps working at me, his fingers stroking my most intimate places, proving the truth of what he says.
“You think that getting married is a death sentence. That we’d be stuck fast together and we’d never be able to leave.”
I bite my lip. I can’t really deny this, not without lying. He strums at me, turning the dial up toward orgasm. He can make me come with a flick of his wrist. I rock on his hand, lean on his arm so that he’s virtually propping me up. I think of his cock, how long it is and how full it makes me.
“Charlie,” I say, losing the thread of our conversation. I know I have to concentrate, have to hold back. But when he tweaks at my aching nipple, I nearly give in.
“Nothing is forever,” he says, his voice so soft it breaks my heart. He tugs on my nipples, left and right, dosing me with little shocks of pain.
“You like this.” It’s not a question, but I respond anyway.
“Yes. God, yes.”
“And if you didn’t want it? If you stopped liking it?”
I won’t ever, I say in my mind. Please don’t stop. He’s alternating pinches of my clit and my nipples now, digging his fingers into me, burying them inside me.
“Seb. Answer me.”
I shake my head.
I whisper our pact, our long-ago agreement. What we discussed back when we were laying down the ground rules. When we were still falling in love.
“I say the word. And it’s over.”
“Yes. You say the word. It’s that simple.”
He holds on tight to my clit, rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb until it burns. “Or,” he says, “of course, I can also say the word.” His voice is low and creaky. Suddenly, I’m terrified.
I want to kiss him. I want to stop him from saying anything more. I moan and reach out for him, want his body slammed against mine, want him to rub against me, crush me, bore into me. Prove that he’s here, with me and not lost.
“Charlie,” I say, and there’s panic sliding in my voice. “Please.”
He cradles my head in the crook of his shoulder while he reaches to undo his jeans. At the same time he loosens the garter and throws it on the ground. Hands free, I grab for him.
