Once a Charmer

by Sharla Lovelace

  “I can’t just mess around with you, Bash,” I said, more tears filling my eyes. “You’re—you’re—” I pointed to the picture. “You’re Uncle Bash. If it goes bad, I—” I shook my head, realizing for the first time that his eyes were shiny, too. “I can’t afford to lose you.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?” he asked, his voice rough. He swiped two fingers over his eyes. “Is this just messing around?” He snorted. “Because I gotta be honest with you, Al. I’m out of my element, here. I’ve never—” He stopped and walked away a step and then turned back. “I want you so badly I can barely think sometimes, but it’s not about that. I know sex. I can deal with sex. This is—I can’t breathe when you’re close to me. The second I leave you I’m thinking about when I can see you next, because nothing feels as good as this.” He pointed at the ground between us. “This. This crap right here where we might be saying to hell with it all, and it might be about to come crashing down and kill me, but right now you’re standing two feet away in my jacket and I am possibly the happiest man ever.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was impossible, the words he was saying.

  I was shaking. Either from emotion or from cold, I didn’t know which. No one had ever talked to me that way before. It was like watching a movie where it was happening to someone else and hollering at the character to do something. Say something!

  Thunder crashed, rattling the building as if to highlight that.

  “Please say something,” he said, closing his eyes like he just gave himself a migraine.

  I licked my lips as everything other than my eyes had gone as dry as sand.

  “I’m not just messing around,” I said, my words hushed as if maybe saying them louder would make it scarier. Even so, they felt like they were yelled through a megaphone.

  He breathed out a sigh that almost sounded like a chuckle, and looked at the floor.

  “Five words?” he said. “I just dumped my soul out on the floor and you give me five words?”

  I was laughing through my tears before he finished.

  “I’m profound like that,” I said behind my hands.

  My feet moved on their own, closing the space between us until one of his hands laced fingers with mine and the other wiped the stray tears from my face. His words were bouncing around my head in a haze of happy-scary, and it was terrifying and liberating and I felt like I’d just that very second graduated to adulthood.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

  “I want to hear your breath catch when I get close,” I said, hearing the shake in my voice but it all going away when I felt his warmth. “I want to see your eyes go all dark and sexy when you touch me.” His free hand moved along my jawline, almost taking my next words away. “I want to feel that growly sigh you make in your chest when we kiss.”

  I looked up into his face, into his eyes, and saw more there than I knew I’d ever see in ten lifetimes. It felt like my heart was squeezing.

  “Anything else?” he said, his breath warm as he hovered over my lips.

  “Just that if you don’t kiss me soon, I’m gonna lose my sh—”

  I thought he’d land with a hunger, but it was soft. A tease. He kissed my top lip, then my bottom one, pulling that one softly into his mouth and then drawing his tongue across it.

  An audible sigh escaped my throat on that one, and I felt him grin against my mouth.

  “Now who’s making the little noises?”

  “I liked that move,” I said, running my hands up his chest. My brain was already humming for more, as if it instinctively knew the doors were open. It was all I could do to stay at the slower pace he was setting. “Nice way to shut me up. Do you have more?”

  He chuckled and backed up to his desk, perching on the edge of it as he pulled me tightly against him. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The kiss was more intense that time, his hands going into my wet hair and tilting my head the way he needed it. He dove deeper, curling my toes with the thorough exploration of my mouth, the tease of his tongue along mine that accompanied the gentle push of his jacket from my body.

  Bash’s mouth was hot and wet as he moved down the side of my face, down below my ear, moving down my neck. My trembling fingers worked on his buttons. I needed skin if he was going south.

  “Mmm, Bash,” I mumbled as he tasted his way down and I arched myself against him.

  “You like that,” he whispered.

  “God, yes.”

  I leaned my head all the way back to give him access to my throat and—oh fuck, there it was. That deep growl resonating through his body as his kisses turned hungry. He moved lower, lower still, sending shooting bursts of desire to all places south as he tasted me, palming my breasts to lift them to his mouth, kissing the inside of each one before running his thumbs over my hard nipples.

  My whole body moved against him in response as I moaned.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, his eyes taking on a dark edge as he lifted me up to straddle him.

  “Mmm,” I moaned again as he put all the right parts pressing together. I unzipped his pants. “Oh, God, you feel—”

  He held my hips. “Jesus, Allie, you’re killing me. You’re gonna have me done in thirty seconds again,” he said, reaching behind my neck and unfastening me in one click, peeling the wet fabric down.

  Oh, there was no being fucking still when his hot wet mouth closed on my nipple, his hands caressing. Making love to my breasts with his mouth.

  “You—oh God, oh God, yes—fuck.”

  “Shit,” Bash said, his voice strained, his breath hot on my skin as I ground against him. “Allie—”

  Fingers moved my thong aside, and dove inside me, making me moan as he curled his fingers against that very sensitive space and worked my clit with his thumb.

  “I can’t stop,” I gasped. I moved on his hand, against his mouth, and I was nearly done for. “Bash—please—”

  In seconds, he was inside me, growling in exquisite agony as he filled me up, stretching me.

  “God, baby,” he groaned, shoving the words out as if they hurt. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

  I was on the brink of convulsing around him, but I had to hold back. Had to watch this. Had to watch his beautiful face. The muscles in his neck tensed as he dug his fingers into the soft flesh of my ass, helping me move on him. The storm outside was like background music with a light show, every clap of thunder rumbling around us. He was gorgeous to behold as we moved with each other, but it was his eyes that captivated me. He could have watched us fuck, he could have focused on my boobs in his face, but his eyes were on mine, linking us together as we climbed.

  It was the hottest, most erotic experience I’d ever had.

  He shifted his hips then, his whole upper body straining with exertion as he moved me like he needed, and I gripped his head as he hit different places and the freight train came rushing in. He was bottoming out inside me, moving me up and down like I weighed nothing as we slammed into each other.

  My body arched. Everything tensed as breathing ceased to be important. All that mattered was the glorious wave that was about to crash. My toes curled and my head fell back as I shook uncontrollably.

  “Look—at me,” he forced out.

  I looked down just as it hit, primal sounds coming from me I didn’t recognize. I had no control, all I could do was cry out his name and ride it out as the body-wracking orgasm slammed through me.

  His roar joined my cries as he let go, his climax crashing out of him with a ferocity I’d never seen before. Hearing him growl my name as he lost all control—it was mind-blowing. Earth-shattering. And as we came back down to the planet together, wrapped up in each other and fighting for air in our lungs, I prayed it wouldn’t be heartbreaking.

  Several moments went by before I dared to look at him again.
Burying my face in his hair as he buried his in my chest seemed much safer. It was one thing to look in his eyes while I came. Facing each other now, after that, and after everything that was said—that was something else entirely.

  Bash was the one to take the leap, in a way that only Sebastian Anderson could get away with. Looking up at me all adorable with his face lying on my boob. I yanked his head back down and smirked.

  “You’re impossible.”

  And brilliant. He managed to make this normal.

  He looked back up at me, and I was hit in the gut with déjà vu. Not the good kind. We’d been here before.

  “So, I finally get to do that again after—how many years?” Bash said. “And I still don’t make it longer than thirty seconds. But I blame you.”

  “Me?” I said, trying to go along with his banter.

  “I might have been thinking about you in that dress since I saw you in it before,” he said. “The live version just put me over the—”

  “Well, cool,” I said, dismounting him and reattaching/adjusting clothing. “Always good to be a fantasy.”

  Bash fixed himself, looking at me oddly. “You okay?”

  “Great,” I said, looking around for the clothes I’d left behind earlier. “I’ll just grab these and g—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bash said, on his feet and holding a hand in front of my stomach. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I said, avoiding his eyes. “Just getting my stuff, and—oops, my crown,” I said, holding it up.

  “Allie,” he said, physically stepping in front of me. “What just happened?”

  I raised my eyebrows sarcastically. “Seriously? An orgasm like that, and you’ve already forgotten?”

  “Stop.” The seriousness in his voice sent my gaze up to meet his, and my stomach felt like it came with it. “What are you doing?”

  “The same thing you’re doing,” I said. “Making small talk to kill the awkwardness like you do with the messing around people. It’s how it was fifteen years ago, and—just how it is, I guess.”

  His eyes closed. “Shit.”

  “It’s okay, Bash,” I said. “I get it.”

  I walked out of his office, needing desperately to get the hell out of there so I could come apart in the rain and no one would know the difference. I looked out the window, praying it would lighten up just a tad.

  “You clearly don’t,” he said. “Did the sex knock your short-term memory loose? Because I could swear we said—things.”

  I laughed, turning around. Good God, he still stood there all warm and delicious with his shirt open, looking this time like he really had fucked someone on a table. Me. “Things. Yeah, see how grown up we are? We can’t even say what those things are. And after we get the hot-and-bothered stuff over with, we go right back to what’s easy.”

  “Excuse me?” he said. “I may not be great at pillow talk, but I’m not the one bolting out the door right now.”

  The words hit home. Enough to make my next comeback hold back a second.

  Then my phone rang with Angel’s ringtone.

  Bash turned around, shaking his head as he buttoned his shirt back.

  “Are you home?” I answered, feeling every last nerve ending on perma-fray.

  The first thing I heard was the thing no parent ever wants to hear from their child on a phone call, when you can’t get to them.

  “M—m—mom?”

  Hysterical sobbing filled my ears first. Rain and wind, next.

  Fear, like no height had ever teased me, clenched down on my chest like a vise.

  “Angel—what’s wrong?” I said, my voice cracking. Bash spun around and I hit the speaker button with suddenly trembling fingers. “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know,” she sobbed, her voice almost drowned out by the wind. “Aaron—”

  There was more crying, and my brain went on overdrive.

  “Where’s Aaron?” I asked.

  My first thought was a car wreck. My God, they were in a ditch somewhere, bleeding. She was hurt. Aaron was dead or dying. When I looked at Bash, all those same thoughts came flying out of his eyes. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt.

  “I think we passed—the—the—sign for Denning,” she sobbed, sounding far away like she’d dropped the phone to look around. “Maybe Forrester?”

  “You’re in Forrester?” I yelled. A wooded area about thirty minutes away with lots of twisty dark roads. Lots of prime make-out opportunities for horny teenagers. Bash’s hand came up on the back of my neck. “Where’s Aaron, Angel? Are the two of you okay?”

  “He left.”

  I blinked and stared at the phone, at Bash, back at the phone. “What?”

  “What do you mean, he left?” Bash said.

  “Uncle Bash!” she said, the sobs starting up fresh. “I’m so—so—sorry!”

  “Angel,” Bash said, closing his eyes. “What’s going on? Are you hurt? Did you—”

  “We had—a fight,” she cried. “He left me h—h—here. And I’m so cold!”

  Rage and shock filled my soul.

  “Aaron left you in the woods, in the dark—in a storm—and drove away?” I asked, hardly able to form the words.

  “Do you have enough battery to leave your phone on?” Bash said, suddenly moving.

  “Um, it’s—only at ten percent.”

  “Don’t turn it off,” he barked. “Leave it on till it goes out.”

  He opened the door and yanked me through it, barely stopping to even close it behind him. “Hold that phone and plug it in when we get in my truck.”

  I didn’t argue. I ran. Rain whipped into my face, but I didn’t feel it. I’d forgotten my shoes, but I ran barefoot after him, not even breathing until we got in his truck.

  “We’re in the truck, Angel, are you still there?” I asked, staring at the snarky smiling girl in the picture on my screen.

  “I’m here,” she cried. She sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “We’ll deal with that later, boo,” I said. “Just look around you. Are there any signs, any—”

  “It’s just dark,” she said, her whispered sob shaking. “It’s just me and the dark.”

  I held the phone to my chest as everything inside me broke. She sounded six instead of almost sixteen. Terrified.

  “Are you off the road?” Bash asked, kicking the truck into gear.

  “Yeah,” she squeaked. “I walked for a little bit, but I couldn’t see anymore, so I got behind a bush to block the wind.”

  “Good.” He hit a button on his phone and put it to his ear. Barely three seconds passed before he spoke again. “Hey,” he said in a low voice. “I know. I’m sending you a cell number. I need the coordinates immediately. It’s a child in trouble and her phone’s almost dead.”

  Her phone’s almost dead. It was almost a whiteout. All the headlights illuminated was a wall of churning water. I didn’t know how Bash could even tell where the road was.

  “We’ll never find her in this,” I breathed, my stomach clenching.

  He hung up, hit a button, and handed me his phone, taking mine from me. I felt like a useless shelf holding items while he went from one task to the other.

  “Type in her number and hit send while I cover some ground,” he said quietly. “Allie?”

  I looked at his profile, stern and hard in concentration.

  “Trust me,” he whispered.

  I looked at him with all the courage I could dig up. “Always.”

  “Hey, baby girl, we’re coming for you,” he said into my phone.

  “Okay,” she hiccupped.

  “Just stay as low and as dry as you can.”

  “I think dry is over with,” she said.

  “Remember what I’ve told you,” he said. “Curl yourself up
, so less of your body is exposed. Protect the core. Make yourself into a ball.”

  There were noises of shuffling. “Okay. My phone’s at three percent y’all.”

  Damn it, it was dying fast.

  “Okay,” Bash said. “Just stay like that. We’re coming.” His phone dinged in my hand and he glanced over. “Copy and paste that into the GPS.”

  I was already on it. I hit the go button and watched it think. God, please find it. Please—

  “Got it,” I said, telling it to route us and holding the phone up to Bash. “It is Forrester Hills. That son of a bitch,” I added under my breath. I could see Bash’s jaw muscles working overtime. I didn’t want to ask the question, but I knew I had to. I closed my eyes and gripped the phone tighter. “Angel, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  “Just my pride, Mom,” she said. Her voice was a little stronger now that she had a lifeline and knew we were on our way. “Aaron might have a black eye, though.”

  Bash looked like he might rip the wheel right out of the dash.

  “That’s my girl,” he said.

  The phone beeped and hung up.

  It was dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Fuck,” I cried, feeling the burn hit me hard now that Angel wasn’t on the line. “Fuck!”

  “We got it, Al,” Bash said, grabbing my arm. “I will find her. I swear it to you.”

  Fire burned hot in my gut.

  “That entitled little prick,” I spat. “He—I know they bought condoms together, she wasn’t clueless in this, but—he brought her out in the woods and then—” I couldn’t see straight, and it had nothing to do with the rain. “He left her there when she changed her mind?”

  “That’s what I’m getting out of it,” Bash said, his tone dark.

  “Who does that?” I said, covering my face with my hands.

  “Someone about to die,” he said.

  “You can’t kill him,” I said, dropping my hands. “I can kill him, but you can’t. You have training.”

  “That bitch,” he said, shaking his head. “So smug, telling us she doesn’t put restrictions on him.”