I played cold around Charlie.
It was the only way I knew how to guard what was left of my heart. I'd always worn that fucker like a peeling patch on my sleeve, had always been more in touch with my feelings than any other man I'd ever known or called a friend. I wished, in a way, that I had the gene that made me shut down and close off.
But I didn't.
I could fake it around her, could pretend like I didn't die a little every time I saw her, every time she looked at me and asked me to be her friend, but it was all a lie.
The truth was that she went home to Cameron every night, and that would never change.
I needed to get out of the house.
Snuffing the end of my cigarette in the ashtray on the box by my feet, I finally stood sometime around eight o'clock. I sucked down the rest of my beer, and though I probably shouldn't have even considered driving, I swiped my keys off the kitchen counter, anyway. I didn't know where to go to get my mind off her, off him, but I knew I had to get out of the place that I'd last touched her in.
My eyes caught on the fort still set up in my living room as I shrugged on my coat. I'd fixed the edges of it torn down in her haste to leave that night, and when I really wanted to torture myself, I'd lay in there with a beer and look up at the same sloping sheets we'd watched together.
I'd close my eyes and remember the feel of her under my hands, the softness of her lips against mine, the sweetness of her voice as she whispered my name.
Fucking masochist. That's what I was.
I ran a hand over my face, shaking off the memory as I opened my front door. But as soon as I did, I was face to face with the ghost that had haunted me for weeks.
///
And for the first full minute, I thought she wasn't real.
It had to be the beer. It had to be my imagination playing tricks on me, casting Charlie in a soft glow there on my front porch. She was wrapped in a light pink pea coat and a white scarf, her hair in a messy bun, her eyes wide like she was just as shocked as I was that she was on my porch.
I pushed through the screen door still between us, my fingers numb on the cold metal, and when we were standing toe to toe, when the steam from her breath touched my neck - that's when I knew she was real.
She stood there with her eyes on mine, gaze as steady and sure as a river, though she looked like she might float away in the current of it. In those eyes, I saw the girl who used to read late at night in my kitchen, the girl who used to cry when fictional characters broke each others' hearts. I saw the woman she'd become in my absence, the woman who wore her scars like a dainty necklace beneath her blouse, the woman who cared for every child as if they were her own.
On that porch, in that moment, I saw all of her.
Every aching piece.
I took one, small step toward her, opening my mouth to ask her why she was there, but Charlie flew into my arms in the next second.
And then, she kissed me, and every other thought was carried away on the next breeze.
Charlie wrapped her arms around my neck, hands tugging at my hair as I backed us into my house and blindly shut the doors behind us. My hands were back on her in an instant, pulling her into me, a sweet euphoria bleeding from her lips into mine with every kiss.
It wasn't like the night we shared before. There was no hesitation, no trembling, no second guessing - no, there was only her, and me, and what we had always been destined to be.
Charlie started to cry, shaking her head as she kissed me harder, as if she needed to bruise my lips in order to truly taste them. I framed her cheeks in my hands, wiping the tears away just as quickly as they fell, returning the pressure of her kisses with all the fervor she gave me.
"I drove around for hours," she croaked out, breaking our kiss long enough to get the words out before her lips were on mine again. "I tried not to come. I tried to stay away. But you're right, I do love you. I love you, Reese." She choked on a sob, squeezing her eyes shut as she fisted her hands in my coat. "I always have."
My fingers were already unfastening her coat and sliding it off her shoulders as I kissed down her neck. I let her coat fall in a puddle on the floor, tugging the hair tie from her soft curls next, and then I ran my hands through the silky strands and pulled her mouth to mine.
"I would have waited forever," I said on a breath. "But my God, I'm so glad you came tonight."
Something between a laugh and a cry bubbled out of her as I took her in my arms, lifting her completely. She wrapped her legs around my waist and fused her lips with mine. Her hands shifting grip from my shoulders, to my hair, to my arms, and back again. It was as if she'd been dying from pain for years, and I was her morphine.
She needed me like she needed air in her lungs, like she needed books in her hands, like she needed to feel whole again.
I was her escape.
And I'd gladly take her anywhere.
I slammed her back against the wall harder than I meant to, but she didn't seem to mind. Charlie sucked my bottom lip between her teeth and let it go with a pop, kissing me again in the instant that lip was free from her grasp. Something about that kiss, about that bite, about her hands in my hair set me on fire - and not one that started with a spark or a flash or a slow, flickering flame. No, every ounce of control I'd ever possessed when it came to Charlie went up in a loud and blazing inferno in an instant, leaving us searching for oxygen in its wake only to find it in each other.
Pinning her hips against the wall with my own, I shrugged my jacket off, tossing it to the side as Charlie ripped at my sweater next. She tugged at the back collar, pulling it over my head, and I crossed my arms to catch the bottom of it and strip the rest away. Once my head was free again, she crushed her mouth on mine, and I palmed her breasts, hard and needy.
She cried out, letting her head drop to the wall behind her, and I took advantage of the new access to her neck. She wore the same mustard yellow blouse she'd worn at school all day, and my deft fingers fumbled with the petite buttons. I'd only made it to the bottom of her bra when Charlie slid her hands between the two sections of fabric and ripped.
Buttons scattered on my hardwood floor, and I let out a hungry growl, sucking the exposed swell of her breast. She raked her nails down my bare back, awakening a beast I'd tamed for far too long, one I wasn't sure I could restrain for much longer.
///
Once I'd made quick work of her bra, I dropped her feet to the ground long enough for us to both strip out of our shoes and pants. I beat her to it, which granted me the remarkable view of watching her hook her thumbs into the sides of her nude, lace panties before she slid them slowly down over her thighs, her knees, letting them fall from her calves to the floor.
Charlie Reid was completely naked, standing less than three inches away from me.
And no, I didn't give a fuck that I'd used the wrong last name.
Her breath caught when she glanced down at my shaft, hard as marble and angling toward her with a desire that had existed before either of us even dared to admit it. She hopped into my arms again, and this time when she wrapped her legs around my backside, I slid against the wetness of her core, and we both moaned in unison.
"Oh God, I need you. Now, Reese," she cried, digging her heels into my backside.
My crown slipped between her lips only to dive out again, and I gripped her ass hard in my hands, biting the tendon of her shoulder with a satisfying gasp leaving her dainty mouth. I couldn't think of anything else as I reached between us, positioning myself at her entrance, and in one smooth, hard thrust, I was inside her.
We both saw stars.
Not the soft, sweet, majestic kind that sparkle in the distance on a dark night. No, we saw the black holes - we became them - two blazing suns burning up in each other's atmosphere. That feeling, that moment when I was finally inside her after years of both of us wanting it, there was nothing comparable to that pleasure - to that pure, unabashed bliss.
That wedding ring on her finger didn't mean a goddamn thing.
She was mine.
I pumped my hips once, filling her to the brim as my fingers sank into the soft skin of her hips. I swore she tore through the flesh of my back with her nails when I pumped again, but she only cried more, and I was all to eager to deliver.
"Fuck," I groaned into her ear, sucking the lobe between my teeth as I flexed again. It was all too much - the feel of her, the years of waiting, the forbidden warnings hanging around us like electric wires cut loose from our storm. They sparked and buzzed just inches from our skin, ready to sting if only we gave them the chance, but we carefully maneuvered them like we were in a perfectly orchestrated dance.