Charlie’s thumb brushed across her knuckle in wordless sympathy that she hadn’t known she needed. This was why she didn’t do things—emotions were a waste of time, especially over stuff she couldn’t change. She didn’t like feeling so wrung out and raw. And she really didn’t like how eagerly her insides latched on to Charlie’s touch, as if he could make it all better simply by being near.
The waiter appeared and finally got some menu items to put down on his pad, then vanished again.
How she’d eat around the turmoil going on her stomach, she had no idea. How the hell had her vacation fling turned into a “thing” in the space of a few minutes? And why was she still standing in line for it?
Charlie lifted her hand to his lips, brushing a light kiss across her fingertips. “Poetic. I like the metaphor of you being Isaac’s pod. You have an affinity with dolphins. It was amazing to watch.”
The light pressure of his mouth on sensitive fingertips was about to melt her into a big puddle. That was why she was still here—Charlie had her hooked, breathless for the next time he touched her. “Yeah, I’ve always had that. Since the first time I got into the water with a dolphin.”
She liked the cohesion and camaraderie of a pod. The group hung out, helped each other find food, chattered, and raised their young together like a true village. Only she’d provided all of that for Isaac because neither of them had anyone else. Their father had left when the triplets were nine months old, and Mom had largely checked out over the strain of three babies, an absent spouse and what would eventually be diagnosed as postpartum depression.
“I can tell it’s a calling. Much like my work is mine.” The unspoken plea bled through her. Understand me. Believe that I’m telling you as much as I can. “I want you to know that about me. Before we get intimate.”
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” She laughed in hopes of dispelling the heaviness that laced his words. “We’ve touched each other and—”
“That wasn’t intimacy.” His gaze burned through her as his breath teased her fingertips, which he was in apparently no hurry to set free. “That was a release. Tonight, we’re going to have dinner, and then I’m going to take you upstairs and I’m going to taste you.”
He didn’t move any closer, but his presence shrank the atmosphere, drawing it in on them, enclosing them both in a pressure cooker of awareness that enflamed her from the inside out. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
Charlie didn’t suffer from the same affliction.
“When your flavor is on my tongue and you’re thrashing underneath it as I pleasure you, eyes wide open, watching me eat you. That will be intimate.”
Her core liquefied as she imagined his face between her thighs, exactly as he meant her to. She shouldn’t want what he was promising her as much as she did. It sounded dangerous, the opposite of a vacation fling. As if it would have meaning and implications. But it was too late to pretend none of that was going to happen.
“I’m… not so sure dinner is in the cards then,” she murmured.
“No?” He cocked his head, contemplating her, and she was pretty sure he could sense how aroused she was. “Maybe later. I hear this place has great room service.”
She scooted out of the booth in a flash as Charlie grabbed the bottle of wine, corking it and tucking it under his arm. Hopefully he didn’t plan to make her take the stairs. The quiver in her legs didn’t bode well for an eighteen-story climb.
As if he’d read her mind, he guided her to the elevator, one arm around her waist, and there was no question that the day together with no condoms added to the quiver. Expectation shimmered between them as the elevator dinged. The ride to eighteen took an eternity, and she half thought he might start her off right with a scorching kiss on the way up. But he didn’t.
She was so ready to get his skin on hers she could taste it.
Charlie swiped his card key and pushed open the door to his room. The view dazzled, opening up across an entire wall of glass, with two strategically placed couches that faced the water. The sun had set, but the last few dying embers turned the water a deep blue, stretching away from the shore as far as the eye could see.
“The moon will be out in a little while,” Charlie said as he came up behind her. “It throws a silvery line across the water. It’s beautiful.”
She could feel his heat through her dress. “I want your hands on me.”
The urgency in her voice came across far needier than she’d intended, but he took it in stride, settling his palms at her waist and drawing her backward into his body. Snugging her into the contours she’d first learned in the water. That was enough to catch the attention of her blood, which woke up instantly, rushing through her veins.