“I can get it framed,” LJ volunteered.
“I’d appreciate that,” Mr. D said. “I don’t want anything to harm it.”
“Now,” Charlie said, “what have you been up to since I last saw you?”
“Same old, same old.” He waved a hand. “Finally got that wisteria on the trellis to bloom. Remember it?”
She smiled. “We pruned and sprayed and fed it, but it refused to bloom.”
“I got many years’ enjoyment from it before I had to sell the place and move here.” He glanced at LJ. “Those last years were thanks to you and Emily.”
He went on to talk about his house and garden, then his friends and activities at Glen Woods. LJ, who’d been nursing his drink, had just poured him a second grappa when a knock sounded on the open door and a female head appeared. “Hey, Mr. D, I hear you’re receiving visitors—Oh!”
She stepped into the room, a pretty but tired-looking brunette in jeans and a puffy white winter jacket, holding a red poinsettia. “You’re Charlie Coltrane, aren’t you?”
Charlie recognized her from context alone. “Emily?” The cute adolescent had turned into an attractive young woman.
Emily grinned. “Wow, it’s so good to see you again. LJ said you were back, but I never thought—” She laughed. “Exam brain.”
Then her eyes widened and she looked almost panicked. “Oh, damn, I should have realized you might be here, too.”
8
Charlie stared at LJ’s sister. What was she talking about?
“I’m afraid—” Emily glanced over her shoulder, out the open door, and muttered, “Shit.”
A moment later, an attractively dressed couple in their mid-fifties stepped into the room. Their tan would have told Charlie who they were, even if LJ hadn’t echoed “Shit” under his breath.
She said a silent one herself, and straightened her shoulders.
His mother, who also carried a poinsettia, gave a social smile. “Mr. DiGiannantonio. When Emily said she wanted to visit you, we decided to come along to see my cousin, and pop in to wish you Merry Christmas.” Her gaze flicked from Mr. D to Charlie.
Her husband was out-and-out staring at Charlie with a puzzled expression.
“How nice of you, Mr. and Mrs. Jacoby,” Mr. D said. “Have you met my young friend, Charlie Coltrane?”
“No, we haven’t,” LJ’s dad said shortly, and his mom chimed in with, “But we’ve heard all about Charlotte.”
“Charlie,” she corrected grimly.
The woman gazed down her nose. “I’m surprised you came back. I didn’t think Whistler was your kind of place.” Her inflection said Whistler was a decent place, and Charlie was anything but.
“Mom,” LJ started, tone sharp, but Charlie cut him off. She’d always fought her own battles.
Rising to her feet, she said, “Believe me, it’s not. Aside from a good friend or two”—she gave a solemn nod in Mr. D’s direction—“it has nothing to offer.”
She turned her back on LJ’s parents and gathered up her drawings, glad they couldn’t see the tremble in her fingers. To the elderly man, she said, “It’s been lovely talking to you.”
Expression grim, he said, “Thanks for coming, Charlie, and for the painting.”
“My pleasure.” She bent to kiss his cheek, then rose and stalked toward the door, nodding at Emily and ignoring the parents.
She almost ran to the elevator, heart racing so fast she could hardly breathe. She stepped inside, and the door began to close.
“Wait!” LJ jammed a shoulder into the closing gap and, laden with their winter coats, burst inside.
Swallowing against the lump of pain in her throat, she said sarcastically, “So much for that invitation to Christmas dinner.”
His expression was stricken. “Screw them.”
She wished she’d let him speak when he’d started to say something to his mom. Had he been going to defend her? Maybe even…claim her as his friend? He’d had a few seconds alone with them after she left, enough to gather up their coats. “What did you say to them?” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep a tiny quaver from her voice.
“Nothing. They’re jerks.” He tried to take her arm.
She pulled away, stiffening her spine. She’d been right. Even though they’d become friends as well as sex partners, it was purely temporary. She wrapped her arms around herself, one hand resting over her guardian dragon.
The elevator door opened and she hurried toward the front door, LJ striding beside her. He thrust her coat into her hands and she pulled it on as they went out into the cold.
In the truck, he turned on the engine to get the heater going. “I apologize for them.”
She shook her head, staring out the window. “You’re not responsible for them.” Only for himself.
“No, but…It’s not just about you. They’re old-fashioned. People who are different are bad.”
She glanced his way. Though his parents’ bigotry was horrible, she felt a little better knowing it wasn’t just her they hated.
“Emily and I learned it was easier not to argue, and just go our own way.” He sighed. “But if we’d challenged them, they might have realized how judgmental they are.”
Gee, you think? But she knew it wasn’t easy. “It’s hard to take on your parents.”
He grimaced. “Yeah.” A long pause, then he said, “Emily’s dating a First Nations guy. She hasn’t told them.”
She shook her head. “Anything wrong with this guy except for being Indian?” Wryly, she added, “Like, has he graffitied the police station?”
“Not so’s I’ve heard.”
What would his sister do if the relationship got serious? At least LJ wouldn’t have to worry about that, because theirs never would. Keeping her voice even, she said, “What happened tonight…it’s only what I expected.” From his parents, yes. And, really, what else would she have liked LJ to do? Fight with his parents over a temporary fling?
After a few moments of silence, he said tentatively, “Mr. D was sure glad to see you.”
“Me, too.” A smile hovered, remembering. “I’m going to do the rose and heart drawing. You’ll take it to him?”
“You could take it yourself.”
“I don’t think so.” Lovely as it had been to visit with her old friend, she felt battered and depressed.
LJ sighed. Then he touched her leg. “Charlie, will you come to my place?”
“I’m not really in the mood for sex.”
“No sex then. We don’t even have to talk.”
He chose to take her silence for consent, and drove toward his place. Neither of them said a thing until they were inside, taking their coats off. Feeling chilled from the inside, not at all sure she wanted to be there, or how to behave, she hugged her arms around herself again.
“Want to relax in the hot tub?” he asked.
Hot tubs were a Whistler thing, and they’d yet to try his out. She imagined fresh, crisp air on her face and pulsing jets of hot water massaging muscles that ached from hours of painting. “Sure.”
He led her into the kitchen. “How about making hot chocolate while I crank up the heat in the tub and get towels?”
A comfort drink. When she nodded, he took a tin of fancy Dutch hot chocolate mix and a bag of marshmallows from the cupboard, then left her alone in the kitchen.
She went to get milk from the fridge, and a ticket clipped to the door caught her attention.
A few minutes later, he returned. She looked up from stirring cocoa powder into steaming milk. “You’re going to a sci-fi con?”
A guilty expression crossed his face. “Yeah. Pretty lame?”
It was, but sort of cute, too. He might be a science genius but he had a geeky hobby. “You’re still the nerd at heart, aren’t you?”
His throat muscles worked as he swallowed hard. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
A grin twitched her mouth. “D’you wear a costume?”
“God, no.” He took a breath, then went
on like he was making a confession. “But I enjoy the conversations, and talking to authors and screenwriters. I’ve watched pretty much every TV show and movie that’s come out. The world-building, the extrapolation from existing science, the insights about today’s society, they all fascinate me.”
She popped marshmallows onto the top of the chocolate. “I’ve done lots of sci-fi tats. And, by the way, you haven’t lived until you’ve gone to a tattoo convention. Some sci-fi folks come too, and show off their ink.”
Feeling more relaxed, like they were getting back to where they’d been before his parents showed up, she said, “Is the hot tub ready?”
“I’ll whip off the cover.” He peeled off his clothes and wrapped a towel around his hips.
“Mmm, nice uncovering,” she teased. “Don’t freeze off any important bits.” She handed him the two hot mugs.
After he’d gone out, she stripped off her own clothing, wrapped herself in a towel, and pulled her hair up on top of her head, securing it with a clip.
She glanced out the window. LJ had removed the cover and was sitting in the tub, facing the door. The tub was set onto the patio off the kitchen, sheltered from neighbors’ view, and open to the sky. A couple of patio lamps provided gentle light, and wisps of steam floated from the surface of the water.
Out she went, shivering, and dropped her towel beside his, in a small roofed space with benches and hooks. LJ let out a low whistle.
“Brrr, this is torture.” She darted into the tub and submerged herself up to her shoulders. Heat slowly seeped into her as she settled against the rim of the tub across from him. “And this is bliss.”
Jets propelled streams of hot water against back muscles that weren’t used to such strenuous labor. The night was crystal clear, the sky black and full of stars. LJ’s gaze gave her all the male appreciation a woman could want. He stretched a strongly muscled arm out of the water to take a mug of hot chocolate from beside the tub and handed it to her.
No woman could ask for a better sex partner. She’d focus on that, and try to forget the nastiness with his parents.
She sipped the creamy, rich chocolate, then deliberately ran her tongue around her lips.
Bliss and torture. Charlie had just used those words, and they described exactly how he felt being with her.
After tonight, he could hardly blame her for not wanting to stay in Whistler. And hell, if he really cared for her, he should be willing to move to Toronto. He suppressed a groan. He’d lived in Vancouver when he went to university, and cities gave him a headache.
And so did relationship shit. It was new to him, the intensity of feeling. The confusion and uncertainty.
In some ways, she made him feel great—like, when she could relate to the geeky part of him that loved sci-fi cons. Yet, when she insisted their relationship was just sex, she reawakened his old insecurity.
Maybe he shouldn’t take it personally. There was so much going on with Charlie: her bad feelings about Whistler, her life and plans in Toronto, and, he figured, a fear of getting hurt. Everyone she’d been close to had rejected her except her friends Ginger and Jake, and she’d been devastated when they died.
That tattoo on the back of her neck wasn’t just a memorial to them, he was sure. It was a celebration of true love, of two lives intertwined. It told him she craved that for herself. How could he get her to open her heart and see he might be the man to give it to her?
Then again, he didn’t deserve her. He was still a coward. The boy who didn’t stand up to his parents.
The sole of her foot brushed his calf, drawing him away from his thoughts. “What’s wrong, LJ? You don’t like my hot chocolate?”
He reached for his mug and tasted. “It’s great. Thanks.”
He noticed she was stretching and rolling her head, like she was working out kinks.
“Sore neck?”
“Sore neck, shoulders, back. I spend every minute either painting walls, ripping up carpet, or drawing.”
“Come here, I’ll rub your shoulders.” Though he couldn’t heal her emotional hurts, he could ease her physical pain. And tell her, through his hands, how much he cared.
She shifted to sit between his legs, her back to him. Gently he began to work the tight muscles of her neck and shoulders.
She groaned. “Nice.”
And so was her slender neck, accented by a few tendrils of damp hair and her tattoo. So were her slim shoulders, the delicate line of her spine. He knew she had backbone to spare, but she let herself droop as his fingers alternately caressed and probed.
There was an intimacy to that as much as in lovemaking. It aroused him, a heat that filled him from the inside in a slow, nonurgent way.
He had no idea how long it was until she sighed, “Enough. If I get any more relaxed, I’ll drown.”
He chuckled and tugged her back against him so she sprawled against his body as if he were an easy chair. Except, no chair came equipped with a rigid column of flesh. She wriggled her butt against his erection. “Someone’s not so relaxed.”
“Touching you turns me on. But we don’t have to do anything about it.” She was tired, stressed, and he was content to hold her.
She wriggled again. “What if I want to do something about it?”
“I wouldn’t object.”
“Do you have a condom?”
“Yeah.” Of course he’d brought one out.
“I want to lie back and watch the stars, feel the cold air on my face and the hot water surrounding the rest of my body, and feel you moving inside me.”
He sheathed himself, then stroked between her legs. Gently he separated her folds, then he eased his cock inside her. She gripped him like a hot, wet, silky glove. Her head fell back beside his and she tipped her face up to the sky. Soft hair brushed his cheek, and her exotic scent overrode the odor of chlorine.
Pumping his hips gently, he set up a slow rhythm and she let out a satisfied, “Mmm.” Her hands rested on his thighs and his cupped her breasts, caressing her soft flesh, her hard nipples. So many sensations, hot and wet and slow, seductive and slippery, it was like making love in a dream.
He tilted his own head back against the rim of the tub, so he, too, could gaze up at the stars as steam rose around them.
“Beautiful night.” Her voice drifted lazily, like another wisp of steam.
“Beautiful woman.” He thrust into her again, harder, making the water surge and ensuring she felt him inside her core. “You’re special, Charlie. You fascinated me when I was a boy, and you fascinate me now.”
“You fascinate me, too, Tool-belt Guy.” Her internal muscles gripped him, then released, and need quickened in his body.
Yet, hearing the word “fascinate” on her lips, he realized it was the wrong one. It wasn’t intimate. It didn’t imply true knowledge and caring, it was more like being spellbound. Bewitched and mesmerized.
He felt more for her than that, didn’t he? But how could he analyze when stars gleamed softly above him, his nostrils were filled with her scent, and soft breasts filled his hands? When she was gripping his thighs hard enough to leave bruises and squeezing his cock as he slid back and forth inside her? When her hips were twisting restlessly, and she was giving little whimpers that told him she was close to orgasm?
His cock throbbed with need, and pressure built at the base of his spine. He slid his hand down her sleek belly, through wet curls, to find her clit, as swollen and sensitive as his own sex. Taking it between thumb and forefinger, he caressed and squeezed gently.
She pulsed around him, then her breath caught and her body clutched. A moment later, she cried out, spasming in release. He plunged hard, letting out a groan of pleasure as he pumped his climax deep inside her.
Water surged, and their orgasms spun out in slow motion under the starry sky, seeming to go on and on until finally the tremors slowed and stopped.
They lay together, joined, muscles relaxing, catching their breath. His arms circled her snugly under the soft full
ness of her breasts. Hers rested atop, hugging him to her.
He squeezed gently. “Stay the night.”
She tensed, then shifted off him.
The interlude of bliss was over. Sighing, he dealt with the condom as she went to sit across from him in the tub.
Her expression was defensive. “It’s not a good idea. I should go now.”
And maybe he needed time on his own. To figure out what he really felt for Charlie and whether he could ever be a strong enough man to deserve her.
“Okay.” He shoved himself out of the tub, barely noticing the freezing air. “Let’s get dressed, and I’ll drive you.”
LJ’s parents and Emily were at the breakfast table when he strode through the house to the kitchen the next morning.
“Lester,” his mom said, “I hope you’ve come to apologize.”
“No.” He squared his shoulders. “What you said to Charlie last night was unacceptable.”
Three faces gaped up at him, his parents’ shocked and his sister’s lighting with the beginning of a smile.
He addressed his parents. “She’s a good person. She always has been.”
“The girl was trouble,” Dad said.
“She had shitty parents. People judged her by them. No one tried to help her, not even her aunt. Yeah, she acted out, but she was a kid. A kid with too much pride to try to fit in and beg for acceptance. No one saw Charlie for who she really was. Only Mr. DiGiannantonio.”
“A foolish old man,” Mom said.
“A wonderful old man whose family neglected him. Charlie helped him. She cared about him when no one else did. You’re so damned judgmental.”
“Lester!”
“She saved Romeo’s life, Mom,” Emily put in, softly but firmly. “I’m with LJ.” She rose abruptly. “You’re wrong to judge people the way you do.” She swallowed and glanced at LJ, then burst out with, “I’m dating a man from the Songhees First Nation. An Indian.”
“Emily!” Both parents stared at her in utter shock.
“He’s nice, he’s smart,” she said more calmly, “and maybe it’ll get serious.” She walked out of the room.
The Naughty List Page 26
