Charlie’s eyes met hers. “Will you marry me?”
Allie almost fell out of bed.
“I already told Bill we were getting married, so I’m going to look like a real fool if you say no.” He leaned forward. “Make an honest man out of me. Marry me.”
Allie stopped breathing. Marriage. That was permanent enough. And since it was Charlie asking, it was forever. She’d have to follow him all over the country, and they’d probably have all their kids in different states, and she’d never have a career again.
But she’d have good times. And laughter.
And Charlie.
She drew a deep breath. “Can we get a Winnebago?”
He blinked at her. “Well, yeah. Sure. I guess.” He frowned at her. “Why would you want a Winnebago?”
“So it’ll be like home while we’re traveling,” Allie said. “Like a house.”
Charlie’s frown deepened. “Traveling where?”
“Wherever it is that we’re going. It’s November.”
He started to laugh, and she wanted to kill him. “Forget the Winnebago. We’re not going anywhere. I told Bill I wanted a full-time job. Medical insurance. Pension plan. Paternity leave. We’re adopting Sam. I’m settling down.”
Some days, you get everything you ask for. Unbelievable. Allie sank back against the pillows. “Oh. Oh, good.” She closed her eyes in relieved wonder. “Oh, Charlie, I do love you, and I’d follow you anywhere, but I’d really rather—”
“Stay here and make me a star.” Charlie grinned at her. “I know, babe. You’ve got it.”
Allie loved him so much she thought she’d die of it. And he was still a whole bed-length away from her. She tried to glare at him. “Will you please come here and kiss me? You just proposed. You’re supposed to kiss me.”
His grin disappeared. “I’m not going to stop with a kiss. I want a lot more than that.”
Allie took a deep breath. “You’ve got it.”
His eyes met hers and he didn’t move. “This is unbelievable,” he told her. “I feel like a kid on a first date.”
“It’s not like we haven’t done this before.” Allie tried to smile at him. “It’s not like it’s our first time.”
“Yes, it is.” Charlie moved up until he was sitting on the side of the bed, his hands on each side of her, and she put her hand on his arm, grateful to finally be touching him. “It’s our first time for this,” he said, his eyes looking deep into hers. “What we had before was fun, but it wasn’t this. This is our first time.”
She couldn’t move her eyes from his. “I know.” She moved her hand to his cheek, barely touching him. “I know. I want you so much. I couldn’t bear to lose you now.”
She hadn’t meant to sound so vulnerable, but she couldn’t call back the words. He closed his eyes, and then he shook his head. “You won’t lose me. Things have changed, but they’ll be better. They’re already better. If you don’t want to move this fast, we can wait to make love. Until you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” Allie said. “I’m just…nervous.”
“I know. I am, too. But I want you so much…”
He leaned forward then and kissed her softly, lingering, and the heat from his mouth went straight into her bones and called back all the cravings she’d ignored for too long.
“Oh, come to bed,” she whispered. “I can’t wait any longer.”
He stood then and undressed, deliberately, not like the old exuberant Charlie who had stripped at the speed of light and then pulled her to him like a teenager in heat. When he slid into bed beside her, he didn’t touch her; he just supported himself on one elbow and looked down at her as if she was something irreplaceable.
“This must be what wedding nights used to be like,” he said. “Terrifying. Incredible.”
Allie put her hand on his chest to feel his warmth and felt him stiffen at her touch. She’d forgotten exactly how good he could feel under her hand, how hard his chest was, how hot his skin burned, like a brand on her palm. She let her hand trail down his chest and put her cheek against him and listened to his heart pound, and he slowly slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close as he eased himself under her, onto the pillows.
Charlie tipped her face to his, and she almost suffocated from love, just watching him look at her as if he was memorizing her. There was so much love in his face, she thought she’d drown in it, and when he finally did pull her head down to kiss her, she did drown. His mouth was gentle at first, and then more insistent, his tongue invading her, and her hands clenched his shoulders as he grew more demanding. She felt her body deepen in heat against his, her blood growing thick and hot as his mouth took her away, and she willed herself to remember that it was him with her and not to melt into senselessness. She felt him pull at her nightgown and helped him strip it off, closing her eyes as the cool air fell on her body, opening them as the heat from his hands reclaimed her. She licked at the base of his neck, and then down his chest to his nipples, feeling how hard and smooth he was under her lips, hearing his breathing break as she touched him.
Then he bent his head, and she felt the sweet chill of his mouth on her breast, and then the chill turned to heat. She raked her fingers through his hair and pulled his head against her, savoring the ache of his mouth on her. The heat and the ache and the torment were everywhere, and as he moved under her, she fell into him, becoming part of him, wanting him everywhere against her, inside her. Even simple pleasures like the brush of his cheek against her skin became charged with electricity and love.
“I love you,” she whispered to him, and he said, “I didn’t know this existed. I didn’t know until you.”
“Make love to me.” Allie tried to move against him, but he rolled her gently onto her back and began to kiss her neck. “I want you inside me,” she said, arching into him. “I’ve waited so long. Don’t make me wait longer.”
“Just a little bit,” he said against her throat. “Just a little bit.” His cheek was on her breast and then his tongue traced down the seam of her stomach, and her nerves fluttered and she forgot how to breathe.
“Soon,” he said, when his hands were on her hips, and her hips flexed on their own, tightening under his grip. “I just need to taste you. I need this first.” His fingers found her, and she moaned and stretched to ease the ache, then he licked his tongue inside her, and she jerked under the shock and grabbed the head-board above her in desperation, holding on to it as if it were sanity.
“You taste so sweet, Allie,” she heard him whisper, and she moaned at the thought while his breath tantalized her thighs. She gripped the headboard until her knuckles went white, trying to stay with him, but his whisper pounded inside her and she couldn’t breathe because the heat was everywhere. “You’re so sweet.”
And then he licked inside her again and again, and she writhed in his grasp, and he moved his mouth harder against her, holding her hips harder against him, and she couldn’t twist away, didn’t want to twist away, had to twist away as the heat screamed through her veins until she cried out, “Oh, Charlie, now,” and he whispered, “Soon,” and drove her on and on until she went over the edge, ecstatically out of control.
He moved back beside her then while she throbbed against him and the aftershocks of her climax wracked her. He whispered that she was beautiful, most beautiful when she was coming, and she breathed, “It’s not enough. I need you inside me.” And he closed his eyes and then moved over her, his lips saying her name soundlessly, his thighs moving her legs apart. She ached so for him that she moaned with it, her veins bursting under her skin. “Oh, please,” she said, clutching him to her, and he said, “Look at me,” and when she did, loving him so much she was insane with it, drowning in the heat and love she saw in his eyes, he moved into her, filling her, and they both stopped breathing for that moment, their eyes locked on each other, their bodies tensed together as the shock flooded them both.
And then they moved together, breathed together, and the heat rushe
d through them, and Allie surged and bloomed, feeling Charlie in her fingertips, in her heart, in her brain, as his warmth and light and love moved through her, and she fell into her climax, screaming with it, feeling him surge against her over and over, beyond measured rhythm, and his shuddering moans brought her back into the aching spiral again and again until she thought she’d die of ecstasy.
And when they were both quiet, both breathing again, holding each other in the early-morning sunlight, Charlie kissed her and said, “I love you, Allie. I’ll never stop loving you.”
She nodded against his cheek, weak with spent passion. “I know. This is forever.”
She felt him relax, and then moments later he was asleep in her arms, and she held him tightly until she fell asleep, too.
IT WAS AFTERNOON when she woke up, and Charlie woke, too, when she stirred. He pulled her close and she closed her eyes when he kissed her forehead. “I forgot to tell you the good news,” he whispered. “We’ve got a new show.”
Allie frowned at him, still half-asleep. “What new show?”
“Bill gave us the drive-time spot,” he murmured into her hair. “The one at 6:00 a.m. You’re back where you wanted to be.”
Allie sat up, suddenly awake and appalled. “Did you say 6:00 a.m.? In the morning a.m.? Are you nuts?”
Charlie blinked and pushed himself up beside her on one arm. “I thought that was what you wanted. Back on top.”
Allie looked exasperated. “I can be on top at night.”
He grinned at her and moved his hand to her breast and said, “Anytime,” and she grinned, too, covering his hand with hers. “You know what I mean,” she told him. “I like the ten-to-two people. They’re bizarre. Let Mark have the drive-time show. At least until Marcia takes it away from him, which should be any day now. We belong at night, Charlie.” She looked at him anxiously. “Don’t you think so?”
“Well, yes.” Charlie started to laugh and collapsed back into the bed, pulling her on top of him. “Wait’ll I tell Bill.”
Allie propped herself up on his chest, enjoying the way her breasts squashed against him. “I can’t believe you even considered the morning show.”
Charlie sighed. “I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”
“You always give me what I want. Which reminds me…” Allie moved her face to his until they were nose-to-nose, stretching and feeling the long hard length of his body against hers. He’d be hers for the rest of her life. She almost died just thinking about it. Then his hand moved lazily down her back to her rear end, and she brought her mind back to the subject at hand. “I have an idea for a new show,” Allie told him. “It’ll run forever. Audience of one. I’m thinking of calling it Charlie All Afternoon. And the playlist—”
“I do my own playlist,” Charlie told her and kissed her to start the program.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0495-3
Copyright © 2007 Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
Getting Rid of Bradley
Copyright © 1994 by Jennifer Crusie
Strange Bedpersons
Copyright © 1994 by Jennifer Crusie
What the Lady Wants
Copyright © 1995 by Jennifer Crusie
Charlie All Night
Copyright © 1996 by Jennifer Crusie
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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