Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Charlie

I made it out of her reach, just in time. My self-restraint had never been tested like this. Seeing Bess lose control was hands down the hottest thing I’d ever witnessed.

Forbidden things were always the hottest, weren’t they? But there was also something about her… something so tightly-wound that I desperately wanted to see it unravel. Or even feel it, in the darkness. Being able to witness her pleasure, even take a small part in it, felt like a miracle.

“Come on, Charlie. Let me…” Her finger grazed my thigh, voice still throaty and breathless, and it nearly dragged me down.

But I couldn’t take what she was offering. Not like this. Not when I hadn’t been honest. Definitely not before I had some good news to balance out the bad. I’d turn things around, undo the mess, and she’d never need to know. Or I’d find her a better job.

I pushed her hand away. “I already took care of myself in the shower.”

It was true, but obviously bullshit, since I was so hard I’d probably come again in two minutes.

She launched at me, unexpectedly, her fingers closing around my rock-hard cock. “I don’t think you did a very good job.”

I wanted to pin her against the stupid sofa bed and drive into her until I forgot my own name. I held my breath, riding the wave of overwhelming desire. For a moment I could think of nothing else. But underneath it, a small, insistent voice I seemed to have developed, one that piped up at the most inconvenient times, said something about how I always took what I wanted. How I immediately ordered every single thing I fancied, with expedited delivery. I was a slave to my impulses, already eating the lowest hanging fruit when others fetched a ladder to reach a little higher.

This is why you don’t have the great thing. You take every good thing at every opportunity. Great things take patience. Build-up.

I wanted more than the good and the okay. If I wanted it with Bess, I had to be patient. I’d thought our working relationship as a good one, but I was confusing good with convenient. Our relationship had always been one-sided: I told her what I wanted and she delivered. I had to change the dynamic.

Gathering all of my willpower and some I didn’t have, I rolled away from her and off the bed. “Don’t worry about me. Tonight is about you, Bess. I don’t want you to take care of anyone else, okay?”

“Wha… why?” Her voice sounded wobbly like she was close to tears. “Do you not want me?”

I sat back down on the bed, flicking on her night light. Its blue glass shade cast a giant blue ring on the sloping ceiling. Even in the blue light, she looked flushed. Her gaze was unfocused, hair mussed. She’d never been more beautiful.

“I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you right now. But I think tonight should be about you.”

“I don’t understand.” Her lower lip trembled, adorably hurt and sexy. The blue light painted the edge of her face, illuminating her cheekbones.

“I don’t want you to do anything with me because you feel like you should. Because you feel… responsible.”

She made a small noise of disagreement. “But what if I want to?”

“If you come to me and you want to sleep with me because you want to be with me, I’m in. But only if you want more than sex.”

I didn’t even realize how true those words were before they raced out of my mouth. This is what I needed—Bess with me. I’d be allowed to take care of her. To get involved.

“What?” Her green eyes flashed like jewels catching the light, offset by the flaming red of her hair. Like a fucking goddess.

My stomach somersaulted. Was I ready for this? Someone with this much substance? A real relationship?

“You heard me,” I said, my voice sticking to my throat.

Her eyebrows gathered in a slight frown. “But… you sleep around all the time! It doesn’t mean anything.”

“How do you know who I sleep with?”

She met my gaze without flinching. “Teresa said you leave every party with a different woman.”

“I have friends. I entertain people. I date. But I don’t sleep with every woman. I haven’t slept with anyone in… I don’t know. A couple of months? And even that was a one-off after a dry spell. I don’t want meaningless sex. I’m thirty-five. I want something real.”

“Really?” She sounded like she didn’t believe me.

I couldn’t blame her. I could imagine what my life must have looked like from the outside. But a lot of it was for show. I entertained the daughters of my father’s business partners. I wined and dined clients. Some of them were female and attractive. Some came onto me. But I found myself restless and ended the evening quickly if there wasn’t much chemistry. I was searching for something, but always left wanting.

“Is it really that unbelievable that I’d want something meaningful that’s also incredibly hot?”

“Have you tried ordering it from Kickstarter? I heard it’s where you can find these unbelievable things?—”

“Ha ha. What’s wrong with having high expectations? People who don’t aim higher end up settling for mediocre crap.”

“People like me?”

Ouch.

“No. Why would you think that?”

She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. Everything in the room felt blue. “I don’t have high expectations. Sometimes it’s easier to have no expectations.”

I stretched out next to her, trying to switch my brain onto a different gear. Because I needed to hear this. I needed to find out more about her, right now when her mind was wandering, eyes soft and lips ready to spill. But I didn’t want to corner her. I wanted to give her space. In a way, it was easier to talk lying side by side, not seeing each other’s eyes.

I waited, breathing as silently as I could, until she spoke again. “I don’t mean I’d take just anyone. I’d much rather have nothing. No one. I know lightning doesn’t strike twice and I’ve already had a love story. I don’t expect another one.”

“What if you’re the tallest tree, up on a hill?”

“Huh?”

“Then you’re basically a lightning rod.”

She laughed softly. “Well, then my tired metaphor falls apart, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t mean I’m going to find love again.”

“Not with that attitude.”

“Are you saying my defeatist whining isn’t sexy?” She buried her face in her hand, shaking from laughter.

“I’m saying, you don’t date, so how would you ever meet anyone? How would you even give anyone a chance?”

She turned her head and cracked her fingers to peek at me. “Dating means eating in restaurants.”

“I’d never make my date pay.”

“But I would have to insist that we split the bill. You know how it is… and then there’s a good chance the guy won’t fight me on it. Not in this economy.”

“Then date me,” I blurted. “If nothing else, you’ll get a free meal and remember what it’s like to go out.”

“You mean, for practice?”

“Uh huh,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. Because I didn’t want her to practice. Not for anyone else.

Her eyes turned serious again. “You know this… Whatever this is…” her finger wiggled between us. “It can’t go on after this week. Not at the office.”

“Why not?”

Her eyes widened in horror. “I… couldn’t risk it.”

“You think you’ll get fired if you date the boss’s son?”

If only she knew.

Her mouth twisted in hesitation. I had a strange feeling. An inkling. This wasn’t just about her fear of losing her job. “You’re worried about what your team would think, right? Because we’re not the same…”

I’d picked up on the hints, but always brushed it aside. We were all in the same boat, working for the same company. But we weren’t the same. Bess’s reaction painted a picture I barely wanted to acknowledge, but part of me yearned for the truth. “Come on, Bess. You don’t have to coddle me. You guys talk about me behind my back, right?”

She gave a teeny, tiny nod, looking away. “It’s not that bad. Everybody likes you. But you’re in a different league. Like a celebrity.”

“Celebrity?”

“Yeah. So people are a little awestruck and more than a little jealous.”

I cringed at the needy jolt in my chest that made me lean closer, looking for eye contact. “What do they say? Give me the dirt.”

She buried her face in the pillow. “No.”

“Come on! You’re my only ally. No names, just tell me what they say.”

I had a reason, I insisted to myself. I needed to bridge the gap between my world and hers.

“What about Trevor and Lee? Don’t they keep you updated?”

“They don’t get the dirt, either. Do they?” I argued, suddenly sickened by the idea that my closest friends would keep things from me.

“No, I don’t think so. They’re like your henchmen.”

“But you… you’re on the production floor. You hear everything.”

The realization hit me. My dad was an awful boss. Everyone hated him. Was I awful by association? Did everyone else regard us as one and the same? If Bess heard people talk shit about me every day, no wonder she didn’t want to date me. “Please tell me! Tell me what they say or I’ll?—”

“Charlie’s Angels.” She held up her hand, alarmed. “That’s what they call Trevor and Lee.”

“Charlie’s Angels.” I chuckled. “That’s pretty good. But that’s not all, is it?”

“No,” she said in a small voice, but I saw the corner of her mouth lift.

“If you tell me… you can ask me anything. Anything at all, and I’ll give you an honest answer.” I could only hope that she didn’t ask about her job.

She turned her head a couple of degrees, eyes flashing with interest. So, there was something she wanted to know.

“They call your office Toys’R’Us. And you… I’ve heard Willy Wonka and… His Highness. Charlie and the Gadget Factory.” She winced. “I don’t say that, though.”

“What do you say?”

I rolled onto my side and after a moment, she did the same, propping her elbow against the bed. Face to face. I felt her warm breath mixing with mine. Her cheeks turned the cutest shade of pink. “Oh, Charlie.”

“Come on. Tell me.”

“No. That’s what I say to myself at work, ‘Oh, Charlie’.”

“Oh, Charlie,” I repeated like a moron. “What does that mean?”

“It’s my way of making sense of you. Your toys. Your life. It’s so foreign, and I don’t want to feel the jealousy or resentment. So, I say to myself, ‘Oh, Charlie!’”

The way she breathed out the words sounded almost like a term of endearment. “You say it like I’m a child.”

She frowned. “I don’t think of you as a child. More like a phenomenon. Something wondrous I can’t begin to understand.”

“Like… ghosts and goblins? Or astrophysics?”

“Yeah. Like a faraway galaxy.” She smiled.

“You’re shitting me, right? No way you think of me like that.”

Her breath came out in short gasps. “Oh, Charlie. I think of you way too much.”

I brushed my thumb down her warm cheek, enjoying the fragile feeling blooming somewhere in my chest, overshadowing my earlier arousal. She was here, opening up to me. Allowing me to see her. “Bess. I don’t deserve you. You know how much I appreciate you, right? You know how amazing I think you are.”

Her mouth twitched. “I always thought you were exaggerating when you praised my work. You’re the real star. You’re the creative.”

I frowned. Exaggerating? If anything, I’d been trying to keep my silly work crush under wraps. Stay professional. “Bess, I couldn’t do what I do without you.”

“I thought you were just saying it. You know, like celebrities tell their fans ‘you’re the real stars!’”

“You think I’m that shallow?” I swallowed my hurt.

Her eyes softened. “It’s not that you’ve ever been shallow, but I’ve been cynical. Some things you say are so over-the-top I didn’t think you could possibly mean them.”

There was so much more I wanted to say that my gut churned. Maybe I was over-the-top, but I wasn’t fake.

“I’m an idiot, but I mean what I say. I don’t talk about people behind their back, either. It’s not right.”

She sighed. “Then you’re a better person than any of us.”

“I’m really not,” I answered quickly. But her words kept bugging me, and I finally had to ask. “What else do they say about me?”