Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Bess

M y hands froze on the zipper of his jeans. I could feel him fighting hard to slow us down, despite what his body wanted. What mine wanted. Why was this so important to him?

“It’s not casual,” I finally said, my throat sticky. It was the truth. “I like you too much, Charlie. So much that I know I’ll get hurt.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered back. “Never ever.”

“I know.”

His fingers weaved into my hair. “You’re with me, Bess. We’re together.”

His words did something to me, digging under the layers of desire and terror, right into that soft center I’d tried to hide.

“I’m with you, Charlie.” In that moment, nothing else could have been true.

Being pressed against his body in a warm, confined space, I felt protected. Shielded from the shitstorms of life. There was nothing casual about that feeling. It was pure and heightened, almost paralyzing.

I tugged down his underwear and wrapped my fingers around that boner, gasping at the girth. I could feel his pulse. I could have kept stroking, to return the favor. But I needed more. I wiggled my leggings all the way down to my ankles and nuzzled that huge erection between my legs. I couldn’t resist rolling my hips, riding it a little. Then a little more.

I lowered my lips to his and Charlie kissed me, sinking his tongue into my mouth, one hand roaming under my shirt. He traced my breast and gently pinched the nipple, thrusting his hips forward. The movement made my soaked underwear stretch against my crotch and I gasped at the sensation. I moved with him, momentarily forgetting our confined space and everything else. I was setting the pace, yet he followed my lead, so perfectly in sync with my every little movement that I never doubted his excitement.

“Tell me what you want,” he panted, speaking so close to my mouth I felt his hot breath on every word.

“I want you inside me. But I’m stuck.”

He grabbed my hips and lifted me a couple of inches. “Bring up your knees.”

I fought out of the leggings still hanging off my ankles and shuffled up, wedging my knees on either side of his hips, creating a bit of space between us. The relief! I could move, even if my knees were squished between the taut fabric and Charlie’s hips.

“Much better.” I reached between us and gave him another stroke, enjoying the way he grunted, his hands tightening around the back of my thighs.

“Stop! Unless you want me to come all over your hands.”

“Did you say you had a condom?”

“Jeans back pocket.”

I snuck my hand underneath him, locating the jeans crumpled under his thighs, this time successfully fishing the condom out of his back pocket. How did condoms even work? I hadn’t done this in ages.

Before I could further embarrass myself, Charlie took it off me. I couldn’t see anything but heard the wrapper ripping and I helped him roll it down his length.

I lifted my hips and lowered myself onto him. I had to advance slowly, inch by inch, until my lower belly connected with his. We held for a moment, waiting for the hammock to stop rocking. I felt as stretched and tight as the fabric holding us, every breath releasing a flurry of tingles. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be full. Perfectly invaded.

The hammock’s bounce turned into a gentle sway, and I rocked against him, enjoying the waves of sensation. “Is this okay for you?” I asked.

He must have been uncomfortable, trapped under my weight, unable to move.

“I’m trying to… last,” he bit out between short gasps, his hands heavy on my hips, steadying me. “I want this to be good for you. Not just good, but?—”

“Shush.” I traced my finger across his face in the dark and found his lips. “We’re stuffed inside a hammock, Charlie. It’s a miracle to even get off.”

“Not for me. Not with you.”

“Do you really think I’m sexy?” I couldn’t stop the question from slipping out.

“Is that your one honest question?”

“Fine. But you must be brutally honest.”

He sunk his fingers into my hair and pulled my face to his, hungrily kissing my mouth, then my neck, my ear, the tip of my nose. Mouth again. His voice was low and breathless. “Bess. I’m constantly turned on around you. It’s embarrassing. I fantasize about you. I imagine you naked. Sometimes, I don’t hear a word you say, I just stare at your mouth.”

“At work?” I forced myself to stop moving. My entire body pulsed from desperate anticipation, waiting to unravel. But I needed to hear this.

“At work,” he rasped. “I think about kissing you, bending you over my desk, seeing that perfect ass…” He pulled me closer to whisper into my ear. “Am I embarrassing you?” I heard the smile in his gravelly voice.

“I just never thought.”

“I try to be professional. You don’t dip your pen in the company ink.”

I rocked against him, sparkles erupting behind my eyelids. “The ink will never come off your pen now.” I’d have laughed if I hadn’t been so ridiculously aroused. We held still for a moment. I felt him pulse inside me. He was close, but so was I.

His voice brimmed with emotion. “I’d rather have you. The company can go fuck itself.”

Something wobbly moved about my chest, but I could barely process his words anymore. I needed to move. My breath hitched at the intense pleasure radiating through my core. So hot. So perfect.

The pressure built up, taking me higher and higher. A moan erupted from my mouth, louder than I’d ever been in any bedroom. I didn’t care who heard us. I wanted to match the sounds of the bugling elk.

I had no routine, but my body took over, remembering everything I’d forced myself to forget.

The hammock swayed. I felt the increasing tightness in my core with no room for anything else. Anyone else. I didn’t even have to move. The pressure alone took me over the edge. I shook uncontrollably against him, coming apart, coming down so slowly I felt like I was skydiving, never to reach the ground. I felt the pulse of his release inside me, his fingers digging into my buttocks, claiming me again and again.

It shouldn’t have been that good. Not in those circumstances. It was a miracle.

After a moment of catching my breath, I found my voice, deep and a little broken. “Charlie, that was the best I’ve ever had. Ever.”

His reply floated back to me across the enclosed, dark space, whisper soft. “Me, too. But I also can’t remember ever having sex before. Sudden memory loss. Come here.” He pulled me against his chest, still inside me.

I’d done it. There was no going back. I’d officially had sex with Charlie Wilde and might possibly live to tell the tale.

“I wish I could see you. I need to see you.” He shifted underneath me and found his phone from somewhere. Its light hit my eyes like a camera flash and I blinked, blinded, until he turned it to the side.

There he was. Charlie. A goofy smile on his face, eyes soft and gentle as his gaze found me and stayed. “You look happy,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you were happy.”

“I’m happy,” I said to my own surprise.

“You don’t regret this.” It sounded a little like a question, but only a little.

“No.” I smiled. “Not yet.”

There are moments in life you want to pause at. Not when you’re there, but later, when you find out what comes next. Later, I discovered that was the moment I wanted to pause. My heart full, my body still tender and brain beautifully offline as I stared into his eyes. I would have stayed there forever.

But life’s not that kind. Eventually, I lifted myself enough for him to pull out. It felt slippery between my legs. Too slippery. My heart jumped to my throat as I ran my hand across the condom. “It’s broken, Charlie. The condom’s broken.”

He tensed underneath me, pushing up to lean on his elbows and point the flashlight down his body. The condom had torn in half, spilling its contents across his thighs. He removed what was left of it and unzipped the hammock to toss it outside.

“Shit,” I muttered. “I didn’t notice. I’m sorry.”

“How could you have noticed? If anything, it’s my fault.”

“Why?”

“My condom.”

I sighed. “Okay, it’s no one’s fault. But what do we do?”

This was why I didn’t date or take risks. There were always consequences.

“It’s so unfair!” I crawled away from him, curling up between his stretched-out legs, putting the hammock out of balance. We bobbed up and down. The lines creaked, tightening on the trees.

“Bess, please come back here. We can’t afford to rip the hammock in half.”

“We can’t afford to rip a condom in half!” I sobbed. “I can’t afford another kid.”

There was another creak, and the hammock nudged down an inch.

“Please, Bess. Come here. Now!”

My survival instinct won, and I slid back on top of him. He’d tucked his waning erection back into his underwear, but it still nuzzled between my legs, perking up as soon as we made contact. I tried to shuffle to his side, but he locked his arms around me, holding me tight against his chest, like we’d been before. “It’ll be fine.”

He sounded too calm. Soothing. Either he didn’t understand the risk, or he was willing to say anything to stop me from breaking the hammock and putting us both in danger. That made sense.

“I’ll get the pill. What is it? The one you can take after, to make sure I don’t get pregnant.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Of course I do. I can’t risk… I can’t afford…”

“I can.”

I tried to shake my head, but ended up rubbing my cheek against his thermal shirt. “Oh, Charlie.” It came out like a deep sigh. A prayer. Nothing was left of my earlier contempt. Only wonder. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, but I appreciate it.”

His arms tightened around me. “I can afford to buy all kinds of shit I don’t need. I can also afford things we do need.”

We. My brain fixated on that pronoun, turning it around like a foreign object, examining its shiny edges. Could I really be part of a whole with Charlie? I knew he was generous. Was this him showing off?

“You’d seriously take the risk?”

“It’s up to you. I know I want to be with you and I want a family, so I have no reason to make you take some pill.”

“You want to buy weird baby stuff from Kickstarter, don’t you?”

“Yeah, kind of.” His chest bounced under my cheek as he chuckled.

The sound relaxed me. It warmed my heart that he could imagine himself with a baby, even if he had no idea what he was talking about.

“I hope we find our way back tomorrow so I can get to the pharmacy. If I take it within twenty-four hours, it should be fine. But if I’m ovulating right now, it’s already too late. I can’t remember…”

I tried to do period math, but dates and weeks mixed up in my head, disappearing into a fog of tiredness. Judging by the way I’d climbed him, consumed by lust, the chances were high I was ovulating. Shit.

“It’s fine, Bess. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

That warm, soothing voice was getting under my skin. “You can’t really be that relaxed about it.” I sniffed. “A baby is a huge responsibility. It changes everything.”

“You don’t think I’m responsible?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I groaned.

“That’s reassuring.”

“I’m in the process of changing my mind about you. It’s a messy process.”

He weaved his fingers into my hair, stroking down. “Fair enough. I’ll wait.”

Another thought hit me. “I’ll need to get checked up, right?”

“I got tested a few months ago. All clear.”

“A lot can happen in a few months.”

“Nothing happened in a few months, Bess. Other than me getting a hand job from someone and lusting after you at work, wondering what you were really like.”

“Why? I’m not that much of a mystery. I’m the Buzzkill.”

“And I’m Broken Arrow.”

My gut twisted. “You heard that?”

“Teresa is pretty loud.”

“She doesn’t know how much you work. I need to tell her.”

“You don’t have to defend me. I can take it.”

“But she’s wrong. They’re all wrong. You’re far more talented than I am, and you work hard. And you’re so much more responsible than I ever thought.”

“And you’re way more fun than any of them know. You’re wild.”

“I’m not,” I protested. “I’m full of adrenaline or something. I don’t do reckless stuff like this. I don’t take risks. Not since…”

“Since the death of your husband?”

I sighed, grateful for the relative darkness. “Since my life crashed and burned.” I’d sworn I’d never tell him the whole story. That I’d never burden him with it. But as he waited in silence, stroking my hair, the words tumbled out on their own.

“It wasn’t the death. Or, it was, in a way. But that was just the grand finale. First, we had this business. We poured everything into it. Jack had invented this new packaging material that was lighter and stronger, derived from corn and cheap to make. It was supposed to be the perfect idea. The perfect product. He never even launched the Kickstarter. There was an investor who wanted in… it all seemed too good to be true. And then he took it and sold it to a huge manufacturer and cut us out. The patent was still pending, and even with all the patents, we couldn’t fight back. We didn’t have the money for lawyers. We’d burned through our savings getting the prototypes produced, testing and building the brand. I did the design, of course, but there were a lot of costs and we had to live on something.” I took a breath, expecting him to say something. Curse. Point out where we’d gone wrong. But he stayed silent, that hand still stroking my hair.

“Jack took it so hard,” I continued. “He closed off, wouldn’t talk to me. I found out he’d put the last of our money in crypto and had lost most of it. He was desperate to make it all back, but he didn’t know how to play that game. He was an innovator, not an investor. When I found out, I lost it and we had a big fight. He moved in with his brother. That’s the last time I saw him. He messaged us a few times, apologized. I knew he felt bad. I thought we’d work it out, eventually. I knew he was having trouble sleeping. Anxiety. Depression. But I was too focused on finding freelance work to make rent. I figured if I could get us back on track, with no gambling or risk-taking, only hard work… then he could rest and get better. But…” I swallowed, looking for the right words. “I should have been there. He’d been to three different doctors and had all these pills. I don’t think he knew he wasn’t meant to mix them. That would have been something I always checked.” My throat felt so tight I could barely breathe. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t check.”

After a brief silence, I heard his voice. “It’s not your fault. You were busy surviving, looking after your daughter. You were doing the right thing, Bess. You were doing your best.”

I’d so badly needed to hear those words that they completely undid me. Powerful sobs shook my body as I soaked Charlie’s shirt with my tears and snot. “I’m sorry,” I gasped, trying to wipe it with my sleeve. “I’m sorry.”

His fingers scooped damp hair from my neck. “I’m honored you told me.”

“I swore I’d never dump this on you. I don’t want pity.”

“I don’t pity you. I admire you.”

“I’m covering your shirt with snot.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He wiped my cheek with his thumb.

I sighed, letting the last trickle of tears out. It wasn’t like I could hold anything in. Not today. “You’re too good to me.”