“Long story,” she replied laughing. “But seriously, you should consider taking some classes, Chuck.”
“I’ve never been real good at school… I might get bad grades and flunk out from lack of motivation. Are you going to keep me motivated?” he asked with a wicked grin.
“You know I read somewhere that guys think about sex every seven seconds. I hadn’t thought that could possibly be true until just now, Chuck,” Ashley laughed from the backseat.
She and Chuck joined in laughing and he said “Actually, I would say it’s more of a constant thought and other things only filter in as a distraction.”
They pulled up to his apartment and he let them in taking the drinks and putting them in the refrigerator. She followed him into the kitchen and was surprised at how clean everything was… she was under the assumption artistic people were disorganized and scatter brained.
Obviously that was not true at all… at least in Chuck’s case. She could hear her friends out in the other room laughing and catching up.
“Your friends seem cool… even Josh,” he said as he pulled some mugs down out of a cabinet.
She could see the questions in his eyes and leaning against a counter she said, “We were engaged once.”
“Yea, Ashley told me. You two get everything all squared away?” he asked, pulling out a few beers and pouring them into the glasses.
“I was so angry with him at first… between the accident and the breakup I felt like my perfectly ordered life was spiraling out of control. You told me once that when my life got all messed up I took it as permission to wallow in my own misery. You were right… I never really loved him like that and I wasn’t really living… just constantly striving for perfection. Looking back I always knew he didn’t love me either… we were convenient… fit an image of what I thought the perfect life was,” she said.
“No one is perfect, Meredith,” he said looking at her.
“Don’t I know that now,” she replied. “Thanks for not being perfect, Chuck. If you were perfect, I’d probably still be trying to keep up… achieve perfection myself rather than just living my life the way I want... flaws and all.”
Grinning at her he said, “I have flaws… I try to fix them but I could really use your help. Did you bring that riding crop you mentioned earlier?”
She giggled and said, “You can’t be serious for a second can you?”
“I’m seriously in love with you…” he said, gathering most of the mugs in his hands and walking past her out into the living room.
She stood there for several minutes with her mouth hanging open. He’d just said he loved her! Her heart was soaring and she could hardly catch her breath.
Her biggest fear was that not only did he not feel as strongly about her as she did for him but that he would grow bored and move on. His admission made it seem unlikely that what they had together would be short lived.
“Be right back,” she heard him say and then he was back staring at her as if praying for a good reaction to his words.
She launched herself at him wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his head down so she could kiss his beautiful mouth.
It must have been the reaction he was looking for because in the next moment he lifted her up onto the counter and was kissing her with such passion she felt tears burning her eyes. He loved her! This was love… this man and her.
Pulling back from her he said, “I do love you, Meredith. I’m as imperfect as they come but I hope you can learn to love me too… flaws and all.”
“I’ve been in love with you for a while now, Charlie,” she grinned at him. “In spite of your flaws”
He kissed her again a little softer and then touched her mouth with his fingers as though testing the texture. “No more looking through the glass,” he whispered against her mouth.
His gentle touch and whispered words brought up images of him drawing and touching her as she looked into his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that, Edith, unless you want to give your friends a show they’ll never forget,” he warned with a grin.
Giggling, she hugged him to her as he helped her back down off the counter. He picked up the last two mugs of beer and followed her into the living room. His living room was not that big and consisted of a couch and a chair.
The girls sat side by side on the couch with Lance taking the last available seat next to them. Josh sat on the floor leaning back against it next to Lance. Sitting in the chair, Chuck pulled her down with him.
“It is so good to see you up and mobile again,” Josh said with a smile. “You get around pretty good… going to take up dancing again?”
“Actually I’ve already been doing a little dancing with some other friends of mine,” she said. “More like instructing really.”
Chuck looked at her in surprise and she laughed. “That was the thank you from Tommy… I’ve been working with Dana… showing her some moves…”
“Ha! We knew something was going on but couldn’t figure it out. It’s all making sense now, Lilly’s trips up town twice a week and Dana being conveniently unavailable at the same time,” he laughed.
“They made me promise not to say anything to you for fear Tommy or Bobby would find out,” she laughed.
“She was quite the dancer in college,” Ashley said, pointing at Meredith.
The conversation turned back to their college days and what each person had been doing since graduation. She told them about working toward finishing her degree and working part time at the shop.
They questioned Chuck about what he did and what it was like to work at the shop. They talked about their jobs, dating and parties they had been to.
The conversation never lagged and time just passed all too quickly. She enjoyed sharing Chuck with them. Though their paths couldn’t have been more different, Chuck seemed to fit right in.
After a few hours had passed Josh stood up and said, “We should get going… it’s getting pretty late. We can drop you ladies at the hotel if you’d like. It’s on our way. Will you be ok to drive home alone, Meredith?”
“I’ll be fine, you guys go on,” she replied.
They exchanged hugs and promises to get together soon and then the group was out into the night leaving her and Chuck alone. After closing and locking the door he turned toward her. Grabbing her hair in his hand, he pulled her forehead to his.
“Call Carla and tell her you won’t be home tonight,” he said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“Ok…” she replied.
He released her and she pulled her cell phone from her bag and dialed her house. Chuck began to pick up the snacks, empty mugs and bottles from the living room as she spoke quietly to her mother. After Chuck disappeared into the kitchen, she hung up from her mother and made her way back the hallway, looking in doorways as she went.
She paused at the open door to Chuck’s bedroom. It wasn’t quite what she expected. One half of the room was obviously devoted to his art. A stack of painted canvases sat right inside the doorway and the image on the top was of her, her mother and grandmother sitting in a garden while having tea and talking.
She moved inside the room and gently lifted the canvas up attempting to only touch the sides. Incredible.
Another painting lay beneath the one she held. The image featured Chuck and her brothers. They were playing football and her father, dressed in a referee uniform, stood off to the side smiling. Her father looked like an angelic being somehow.
Very gently, she leaned the canvas she held up against the wall and carefully picked up the one depicting her father only to discover yet another painting beneath that one.
She began to cautiously go through the paintings that were stacked there. There was one of her parents walking arm in arm, one of each of the boys sleeping, one of her and the boys playing a board game.
Each picture was exquisite and unique but the final one made her let out a shocked moan. Leaning the canvas she held in her hand softly aga
inst the others, she picked up the last one and choked back a sob.
It depicted the scene of an accident with her in the front passenger’s seat unconscious. The driver’s door was open and emergency personnel had covered a body on the ground with a sheet. Her father appeared like an angel from heaven reaching down and holding the car in his hand.
Her father’s expression was one of love and peace, not of blame, worry or disappointment and she felt a tear drift down her cheek. The image was nothing like the reality of that night but the symbolic message took her breath away. It felt as though Chuck had captured a realistic idea of what her father might have been thinking and feeling that night.
She heard him before she saw him but couldn’t seem to look away from the image on the canvas. Soon enough she felt him behind her, sliding his arm around her waist and holding her against him.
“I wish I could have met him. The rest of your family… even Nathan is so… great… I think I would have liked him too,” he said quietly.
“Oh, Chuck, these are so beautiful…” she said as she leaned forward to set the painting down with the others.
“They’re yours and Carla’s if you want them. Except for the one of me and the boys playing ball. That’s for Matt,” he said.
Tearing her eyes away from the paintings, she glanced up at him and then looked over at the table lined with several jars of paint, paintbrushes, and towels.
The table sat on top of a large linen drop cloth. A chair with dried paint all over it sat near the table facing two separate easels. One of the easels was empty but the other one contained an almost finished painting.
Moving out of his arms, she walked across the room and stood in front of the easel with the painting on it. More than words ever could, this painting explained Chuck to her. One side of the canvas displayed her staring out a window that cut through the middle of the canvas.
The other side of the canvas showed him standing outside looking in the window at her, his fingers pressed against the glass as though trying to touch her face.
She was looking in a different direction than where he stood as though searching fearfully for him, while he stared right at her with longing in his eyes.
Over her shoulder she could see a fuzzy image of her mother and the boys sitting around a table talking and laughing. Above where he stood at the window, a menacing symbol that matched the one on the back of his neck loomed over his head.
The symbol had rays of red light filtering from it down to the tattoo on his neck as though it were sucking the blood… or his life… from him. Keeping him on the outside… separated by glass… so close but yet so far away. The contrast between the left side and the right side of the canvas said it all.
“You’re not meant for me.”
She’d never really understood what he meant by that until now.
Chapter Sixteen
“Never in my whole life has someone loved me… flaws and all. You… your family should hate me for bringing the violence and shit that is my life into your home. How can you just let me back in… no questions asked? I mean, you and your mom watched two men die right inside your front door yesterday! They were there because of me… yet your mom gets all weepy saying shit like, ‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ when she should be hoping to never see me again. I’m from the streets… death is part of that but not for you… or your family… not in your world,” he said.
She turned to face him and her heart ached for the little boy he had been with no roots, no family and no real childhood. Somehow he’d overcome the obstacles of his life and become a sweet, fun and loving man who would do anything for someone he cared about… even die.
His selflessness was given the whole time while expecting that the recipient would turn from him when it was over and done. Yet he still did it.
“You did not lead them there or invite them into our home. They came as part of the choices that they made that day and it led to their deaths. You did however bring life back into our home after my father’s death,” she said as she walked back to where he stood. “And for me you brought a love I didn’t even know I needed.”
“I have nothing to offer you, Meredith. I love my job and I’m finally starting to make a little money at it but nothing like you’re used to. This apartment is all I can afford and I’m barely keeping my head above water. Actually I’m only treading water to stay here. I cuss like a trucker, I say things I shouldn’t at the wrong time and in the wrong place and I’m rarely serious because it hurts too bad…” he said. “Someday you will want more than I can offer and then what?”
“Did you ever think that someday you might want more than your life has offered you so far? I think you already do because you’ve been working toward something different for a while now. Here recently you have had a little taste of it,” she started.
“The business at the shop has more than doubled, you have a decent apartment in a decent neighborhood, and your friends are settling down and making lives for themselves. You are just afraid, with good reason, that the other shoe will drop and you’ll be right back there just trying to survive,” she said, cupping his face between her hands. “While I won’t say that living that way could never happen again, I will say that it won’t ever define you and will never keep you there for long.”
“I love you… I love that you are like my biggest fan… leader of ‘Team Chuck.’ I love that you are smart enough to point out the things I miss… and I have always been a stickler for details. I love that you’re more embarrassed of your fake foot than your boyfriend who has a gang brand on his neck and looks like he just robbed a bank. I love your smile, your laugh, your smell... the way you taste,” he finished and then kissed her.
She kissed him back with passion and conviction and when he finally broke off the kiss she said, “Then trust me, Chuck… trust that I’ll be there for you when you need me… just like you were there for me when I needed someone so badly.”
“I was dying a little more inside every day and thinking heavily of ending it all when you came into my life. You helped me pick myself up and get my life moving again. Let me do the same for you,” she finished.
“How do I do that… trust someone I mean?” he whispered against her mouth
“Don’t shut me out… share your heart and mind with me… not just your body,” she said as his kisses intensified.
“I will try but that’s newer to me than the idea that your body still makes me crazy a whole month later. I will try, I promise, but I’ll mess up sometimes… I know I will even if I don’t mean too,” he said between open mouthed kisses.
“That’s… good… enough… Chuck… that’s all I need,” she replied between his kisses.
He paused and looked at her and the look in his eyes changed to one of wild abandonment, unrestrained hunger and emotion. Then he was kissing her wildly, lifting her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and carrying her to his bed. This was what it meant to be claimed.
His hands and hungry mouth were everywhere at once. His fingers peeled her clothing off along with her prosthetic all the while rubbing his face against her exposed skin… marking her as his own. She was his and somehow it felt like when he rubbed his face on her, he was also accepting that fact.
Finally he stopped long enough to shed his own clothes and pull a condom out of his wallet. After putting on the condom he was back, nipping, sucking, licking and touching every bit of skin he got close to.
Her kneecaps, the inside of her thighs, her hipbones, and her waist… every place he touched was on fire and she could stand it no longer.
She ran her hands through his hair and pulled it hard enough to bring his mouth up to hers where she took over. Pushing his shoulders until he rolled onto his back, she managed to straddle him and guided him to her entrance.
He grabbed her hips and brought her down on him and then reached up and grabbed her neck pulling her down for a heated kiss. Exquisite was what he was.
This was suppo
sed to be her chance to show her love for him… make love to him. Instead his hungry kisses demanded control and he was soon grabbing her hips again, forcing her to meet a rhythm he set. The wild fire shining in his eyes brought her to the edge quickly.
“Jesus, you’re hot when you come,” he whispered, rolling her over onto her back where he drove into her harder, pulling her legs tighter around his waist and changing the angle. “One more time for me baby… one more time,” he ground out.
Suddenly he quit moving, pulled away from her, and got off the bed to stand on the floor. Grabbing her legs he yanked her to the edge of his bed. Reaching down he teased her with the just the tip of him until she was whimpering and clenching the sheets and then again he joined his body to hers.
Clutching both of her legs he slammed into her harder until hot flames seemed to ignite where their bodies merged and spiraled out to her breasts and wicked heat scorched down her thighs.
He pumped into her one final time then released her legs and leaned down to capture her mouth with his saying, “I love you… I love you… mmm… Meredith.”
They lay there sweaty and satisfied until he finally tried to move from her. She clung to him with her arms and legs refusing to let him go.
“I have got to be crushing you,” he chuckled, kissing her temple.
“I don’t care,” she said, biting his shoulder gently.
“New York is actually sounding better and better,” he laughed. “Make you a deal… let me up and I’ll bring you a drink of milk… and a cookie.”
Sighing heavily, she finally released him and then pushed herself up and under the covers on his bed. She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew it was morning and he was again rubbing his face against her shoulder blades and down her back.
“If you wake up I’ll love on you before we have to leave,” he offered.
Sometime later he helped her get a shower and they were out the door. After locking his apartment he turned to her, “I promised Bobby I’d get the base coat on this job I’m working on done. Then I need to get the camper stocked and packed up for New York. We are leaving on Thursday morning so I have to go… I’m sorry.”
Wild Ride Page 16
