by Maggie Cole
Xander kisses the top of my head. “Were you scared?”
“Yeah,” I quietly admit.
He kisses me on the cheek. “Where did you go?”
“Vivian and I had plans to live together, but we couldn’t afford to rent a place, so her parents let me stay with them until we could. The deal was that as long as we were both in school, we could stay.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“I had a full ride to the University of Chicago.”
“Of course you did, smart girl.” Xander beams at me.
“So, when I got my folder, it had relatives listed.”
Xander sits up more. “They were still alive?”
I nod.
“But they never adopted you?”
“No.”
Wrapping his legs around mine, he pretzels me into his body. “Have you ever talked to them?”
“It was my mother’s side of the family. My grandmother, uncle, and aunt are all alive.”
Xander tilts his head to the side and squints at me in confusion.
“My grandmother and aunt live together. My uncle lives next door with his family. They didn’t know I was coming. I just got in my car and drove there one day.”
Xander strokes my hair but says nothing. He puts his lips to my head and kisses my temple.
It’s hard to get enough air to continue, but somehow I do. “When I found out, I assumed they must not have known about me because they wouldn’t have let me live in an orphanage all these years. I hoped they would want to get to know me...” Uncomfortable emotions creep up, and I focus on the lights outside the window, an airplane passing in the distance.
Xander kisses my cheek.
I turn back to him. “They knew about me the entire time and said my mother always thought she was better than them and ran off with my dad. They wanted nothing to do with me. They said”—I gulp a breath—“I should have died with my parents.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I’m sorry, babe. You deserved better than what you were dished out.”
“I know, but I’m glad I didn’t live with them. I guess I got lucky in that matter.”
He pushes my hair behind my ear. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“How do you see so much good in so many messed-up things?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s better than seeing the bad all the time.”
Xander pulls my mouth into his, slipping his tongue against mine, rotating me completely on top of him, and rewrapping his limbs around mine.
“I feel kind of bad,” he murmurs between kisses.
“Why?” I lock my hands around his head and get lost in all that is Xander.
“I was just going to tell you how I mutilated all my cousin’s dolls.”
I jerk back. “You did what?”
Xander shrugs. “I liked to pretend they were hurt, and I had to perform surgery. So I took scissors, popsicle sticks, and string to operate. My aunt wasn’t too happy, but my cousin Susie thought it was cool. Well, until she realized her dolls were permanently mangled.”
I laugh so hard tears pour down my cheeks. Xander laughs, too. When we finally sober, I say, “I’m glad your skills have improved.”
“Amen to that.”
“So, you always wanted to be a surgeon?”
Xander’s eyes brighten. “As long as I can remember.”
“I considered becoming a doctor.”
“Why didn’t you? You could be. You’d run circles around most surgeons I know.”
“I interviewed with my company after graduation. I thought I would try this out, and if I didn’t like it, maybe go back. But I love what I do.”
Xander smiles. “You’re good at it, too.”
“Thanks.” I stroke his head and trace the scar from his surgery. “Does that hurt when I touch it?”
“No.”
I don’t know why I say it, I’ve never told anyone before, but suddenly, it’s in my mind. “I only remember pieces of the accident.”
Xander sits up more. “Really?”
“Mm-hmm.”
He peers at me. “What was that day like?”
“We were happy.” So happy.
“What did we talk about in the car?”
I shrug. “We were making plans for when you moved.”
Xander strokes my back. “What kind of plans.”
I blink several times and quietly say, “You were going to stay with me.”
He scans my eyes. “To visit?”
I shake my head.
“Until I found a place?”
“No.”
“I was going to move in?”
“Yes.”
He smiles. “When did we decide that?”
“When I was in New York. After you took me out to dinner.”
“Where did I take you?”
“I don’t remember the name, but it was a beautiful place. We didn’t eat much though.”
Xander lifts one eyebrow. “Why?”
I flutter my lashes. “You couldn’t keep your lips off me.”
He nods wisely. “I happen to be partial to your lips.” He pulls me in and kisses me, positioning me, so my sex is right next to his hard-on, but he stops. “What don’t you remember?”
“I remember everything until the crash. Then it’s blurry. There was tons of blood and broken glass. Before all the red lights, I kept hearing you moan in pain, but I couldn’t turn to see you. Piper and Noah said I called them before I went into surgery, but I don’t remember it. I don’t remember being freed from the car. I guess I was in shock.” I blink back tears then blurt out, “I had nightmares for months after listening to you moan.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you went through all that alone.”
Tears well up, and I wish I would stop crying all the time with Xander, but the pain is still so raw. And everything I’ve been holding back comes out. “I hoped you would recognize me when you saw me, but you looked right through me. You didn’t even take a minute to try and remember me.”
He cups my face. His eyes are full of pain, just like mine feel. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry. I don’t even remember you coming to see me. I was on so many meds, it’s just foggy. But that doesn’t excuse it. I’m sorry. I wish I could hit redo. I would give anything for a redo.”
“I needed you,” I whisper. “I needed you so badly.”
“I know. I’m so sorry. I’m here and not going away from you ever again. I promise.”
I want to believe him. To know for once in my life, I can have someone to love me...someone who I love so much it hurts in so many different ways but is worth all the pain. So when he kisses me and pulls me into him, I allow myself to trust in him and his promise.
“I love you. I’m here for you forever,” he whispers against my lips then starts a slow burn within me so hot I don’t think and just feel.
My throbbing sex rocks slowly onto him, allowing him to fill me up inch by inch, as I slide against him.
“Hold me tighter,” I whisper to him, needing him.
Wanting me.
Protecting me.
Claiming me.
I need it all the way only Xander can give it to me.
He wraps his arms tight around me. Stroking my curves, cupping my ass, moaning, he sends a riptide of flutters coursing through me.
“Always be mine,” he murmurs to me, as he lightly sucks on my neck.
“I’m yours.” I give myself over, hoping he never wants to give me back.
Pulsing, I push him deeper in me, needing to feel whole. I’ve only ever experienced wholeness with Xander.
His fingers move between our bodies, and his thumb rubs my clit.
“Xander,” I cry out.
“That’s it, gorgeous, cum for me.” He circles quicker, and I tremble, flying over the edge.
“Oh God!”
“Good girl,” he mumbles then moves both hands to my hips
and rolls my hips harder and quicker on him.
“Oh jeez,” I breath out as he brings me to a new peak and the walls of my pussy spasm.
His lips claim mine as their own, and he pushes his forehead to mine when I can no longer kiss him back.
I gasp for air and stare into his eyes.
“Fuuuuuck,” he groans, pumping his seed hard into me, spiking my adrenaline into a sea of pleasure as I climax again, calling out his name.
I collapse, breathing hard, as he grips me to his chest, stroking my back.
We lie in the bath, our limbs entwined. He kisses my head.
He’s still in me, and I realize what we just did. I slowly look up at him.
“Don’t freak,” he says.
“I have an IUD.”
He exhales. “Okay. I’m clean.”
“Me, too.”
He smiles at me and kisses me on the forehead. “I think we just handled that pretty well.”
19
Xander
Any assumptions I had about Charlotte are both confirmed and wrong at the same time.
She is even more incredible than I gave her credit for, and I didn’t think that was possible.
She should be broken. Between her childhood, living relatives, and what I’ve put her through, she should be in victim mode.
But she’s not.
Charlotte sees life through a glass half full instead of empty. She needed me, and I wasn’t there for her, but she still is willing to love me, believe in me, and allow me to show her I love her.
Charlotte has had no one besides her four friends love her. She could choose any guy she wants, but she’s chosen me. And after everything I put her through, she still loves me.
We are naked, lying on our sides facing each other in bed, wrapped up in each other. Her head is resting on my arm, and I am stroking the soft skin of her back.
“When’s your birthday?” I ask her.
Sadness passes in her eyes. She quietly says, “February eighth.”
I stroke the side of her head. “Why do you seem sad?”
She looks away from my eyes and shrugs. “I don’t like my birthday.”
“Why?”
“Because it always reminded me that another year went by and chances were going down for a family to adopt me.”
My heart bleeds at this moment, thinking of Charlotte as a little girl, waiting for a family who never came to adopt her. I don’t know what to say, so I pull her tighter to me and kiss her.
Biting on her lip, she blinks. “I had to hold myself back from texting or calling you on your birthday.”
“Good thing you didn’t call me because I had a huge pity party that day,” I admit.
“What happened?”
I inhale deeply, and my pulse goes up. “Nothing good.”
She stares at me, waiting for me to tell her.
“I was really frustrated because I still couldn’t remember anything and thought I was twenty-two turning twenty-three. Noah, Chase, and Jamison took me out for dinner and some drinks. The cake came and had thirty-five on it, and it hit me. They’d told me for a month I was not twenty-two, but at that moment, everything hit me. I remembered nothing about the last twelve years, so...” I turn away from Charlotte, not wanting to tell her the rest because of my shame and embarrassment.
Quietly, she says, “It’s okay. I won’t judge you. What happened?”
“I got drunk and into a fistfight with Chase. Noah and Jamison had to pull us apart. The cops were called because it was in the restaurant, but we all knew the cops from being paramedics. Noah wrote the restaurant owner a big check and convinced him not to press charges. I apparently knew the policemen who were there, but I didn’t remember them that night because my memory hadn’t come back yet.” I wait for her to judge me and rightly so.
But she doesn’t. She pulls me closer and strokes my cheek. “It’s good you were with friends. That explains a lot now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was still at Noah and Piper’s in New York recovering. I assumed something happened, but I didn’t know what. Noah acted strange when he came home, but I felt something was wrong. I asked Piper what happened, and she said there was an argument, but everything was fine.”
“Things got ugly for a bit after that.”
Charlotte stares at me. “With Chase?”
I shake my head. “No, he forgave me before we left the restaurant. It got...it got dark for me.”
She scoots closer to me, and our faces are inches apart.
“I...I was frustrated because I couldn’t remember. And...” I stop myself from finishing because I don’t want to hurt Charlotte.
“And what?” she urges.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“It’s okay. Tell me, Xander.”
I lick my lips, and I nervously glance at her. She’s waiting for me to tell her. “I kept dreaming of you, and I knew you weren’t Billie. So I felt guilty. And I couldn’t see your face, so I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t tell anyone because I thought maybe you weren’t real, and I was going crazy.” I omit to tell her I considered killing myself a few times before my memory started to come back.
Charlotte says nothing at first. She strokes my cheek. I can see her thinking, and she finally asks, “Do you still feel guilty?”
“No,” I say without any hesitation.
“Not even a little?”
I cup her face in my hands. “No.”
She lets out a breath.
I lean into her and kiss her, trying to show her she is the only woman I desire and love.
If I could press pause on life and bottle up how Charlotte makes me feel, I would be in a state of eternal bliss. When she kisses me, she consumes me, breathing life into me where I thought I was dead.
When you’ve gone through the darkness, and you’re faced with so much light, it’s blinding. People think blindness is always bad, but when you’re blinded by light after being in the dark for so long, you realize the things you put stock in, that you assumed you needed to have a future, have been a figment of your imagination.
Charlotte is the light. The blinding light healing me from my fears and all the worries I may never have a clear picture of my past. Whatever happened then can stay there. The only thing that matters is the future.
She laces her hands behind my head, once again giving me a notion of something in the past, some memory that wants to come out, but I don’t try to comprehend it. I pull her closer and detach from anything that isn’t right now.
My lips move across her jaw, down her neck, and to her chest that is already rising and falling. I lick her areolas, one at a time, teasing her puckered hardness, listening to her quiet whimpers.
Her legs part, widening, so I’m centered on her. My lips give homage to the smoothness of her stomach and the curves of her waist before I feast on her mound.
She moans, and I harden further. Desperation to taste her, as her scent flares in my nostrils, overpowers me, and as I massage her thighs, I take my first nibble.
A perfect concoction of flavors, both salty and sweet, hits my tongue, and I remind myself to take my time and savor her.
“Oh...oh...” she moans, pressing into me.
Gliding my finger in and out of her, I add another, as she grinds harder.
I kiss her inner thighs and around her sex then go back to dining on her, licking her clit, sucking her soft and then harder, flicking my tongue against her delicious, pink pussy.
“Xander,” she cries out, bucking harder into my face as I finger fuck her faster.
The heat of her body penetrates my cells, tempting and torturing me, as pre-cum drips down my dick.
“Please...please don’t stop,” she begs, digging her fingers into my skull and squeezing her thighs around my neck.
I sink my fingers into her hips and pull her into me as close as possible and suck her into her high.
“Xander! Oh...oh!” She flies into a state of glorio
us ecstasy, vibrating into my mouth and on my fingers.
She’s quivering, and when she slows down, I kiss her thighs, letting her breathe, then latch back onto her.
The second time, I ferociously eat her out, and she screams my name, trembling almost immediately into my mouth.
Her flushed skin is warm and smooth, as I make my way up her body. My cock is hard and throbbing, and when my mouth meets hers, she opens her legs and wraps them around me.
I glide into her and groan.
“Oh,” she moans, already pulsing around me, bringing my every cell to life.
I stroke her hair. “Keep doing that,” I breathe. “You’re amazing.”
She grasps my shoulders, and her fingers sink into my back. The warmth of her skin melts into mine, and she buries her face in my neck.
Kissing me. Licking me. Sucking me.
Adrenaline is like a spider, weaving its web throughout my body, bouncing from one place to the next, connecting all my cells.
“Harder,” she murmurs.
I thrust harder into her as my balls tighten, and I go as deep as I can.
“Oh...Xander,” she cries out, and it’s the sweetest sound I have ever heard.
“Let go, baby,” I tell her. I need her to cum, and I need her to cum now. So I slam into her harder. She spasms violently, shattering in my arms as I release my own hurricane within her.
In our aftermath, I kiss her, keeping my body pressed to hers and not wanting to be anywhere else.
Heaven exists with Charlotte, and I’m a man on a mission to never again forget it.
20
Charlotte
The snow is still coming down, and all you can see through the window is whiteness. Xander and I are curled together, warm under the blankets and from each other’s skin.
“The guys are coming to town this weekend,” Xander tells me.
“That will be nice for you to see them.”
“We’re supposed to go to Club D. Will you be my date?”
I laugh. “Sure. Am I to assume my friends will be there?”
“Definitely Piper, but I have a suspicion Quinn and Vivian will be there, too.”
I nod. “Probably.”
“What’s going on with those two and Chase and Jamison?”
I roll my eyes. “They claim nothing, but I don’t buy it.”
