by Anne Calhoun
“I take it this is a precisely calibrated morning routine?” he asked, amused.
“It is. Run, shower, slam down a protein bar on the way to school.” She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. In the filmy light her spine was a series of delicate knobs bracketed by the ridges of muscles he associated with SEALs and bodybuilders.
He steeled himself for a brush-off, figuring she wouldn’t want to run together early in the morning when someone might see them. Instead, she scrubbed at her scalp with her fingertips, loosening her hair even more, then looked over her shoulder at him. “I can make an exception,” she said, softly, as close to hesitant as he’d ever seen her.
He reached out and set two fingers at the tops of her shoulder blades, then trailed them down the valley on either side of her spine to the twin divots at the base. “You sure?”
“Yes,” she said.
He reached around her waist and hauled her back into bed, wasting no time getting her under him. School started at 8:05 come hell or high water, and she couldn’t be late. He splayed his hand on the side of her face and kissed her sleep-swollen mouth, nudging her lips open with his, touching his tongue tentatively to hers, waiting for her response to morning breath before he went any further.
Her response was to open her mouth and lick into his, all teeth and tongue and demand. His cock, half-erect, hardened in two beats of his heart, and he rubbed against the taut curve of her hip as he dragged his hand down her face to her throat. She moaned, a sound he felt under his palm as he heard it, and wrapped one arm around his waist and the other around his shoulder, shifting and squirming to position him.
“Shh,” he whispered against her mouth, then kissed his way along her jaw to her ear as he skimmed the backs of his fingers down her sternum, taking the sheet with him as he went. He left it at the tops of her thighs, then reversed direction and cupped her sex. The soft folds parted easily for his fingers, and he dipped into the slick heat. She gasped and trembled and arched, all at once. In response his hips jerked in a quick, opportunistic thrust, smearing precome on her skin.
Once he started he couldn’t stop, rubbing off against her hip as he circled her clit with his fingertip and trapped her choked-off gasps with his mouth. After a long minute, she stopped clutching at the small of his back and shoved at his arm. “No, no. Not like this,” she said. “Inside me.”
Her pupils were blown and her hair, which had dried while she slept, was a wild, tousled wreck around her face. The sheer reality of it all, her body warm and limber under his, the crease in her cheek from a wrinkle in the pillow, the utter wreck of her hair, so different from a primped, styled encounter at a bar, made his heart tighten in his chest. He wiped his fingers on the sheet and patted around on the floor for the box of condoms, and had to shift half his body off the bed to find it. The awkwardness got a little less troubling when she squeezed his ass, then worked her hand between them to give his cock the same treatment.
“Fuck, fuck, stop,” he said when she ran her loosely circling hand up and down his shaft. He heaved himself back upright and knelt between her legs, all butterfingers with the condom package. So much for field stripping a weapon blindfolded or assembling a bomb in the pitch-black of a cave in the Afghani hills. Broad damn daylight and he dropped the condom on her thigh.
She smiled up at him, warm and vibrant and everything he wanted in his bed, in his life, for the rest of eternity. Her foot skimmed up his leg to rest at the crease of his hip, waiting until he sheathed himself, then sliding around to dig a heel into the base of his spine and pull him down, into her waiting arms.
He braced his weight on his knees and one elbow beside her head, then used his hand to align his cock with her entrance and push inside. She winced as he did, and he stopped, just the tip wrapped in slick, hot pressure. “Okay?” he gritted out.
“Yes … just … tender from last night,” she breathed, her eyes closed. She inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth; tension visibly ebbing from her muscles. The pressure around his cock eased a fraction.
Taking care not to push any deeper, he leaned down and rested his lips over hers while at the same time applying the slightest pressure to her clit, swollen and slick at the top of her folds. She tensed, stopped breathing. He stopped, too, his cock barely parting her folds, his fingertips applying the faintest of pressures. She was so wet, but her juices wouldn’t soothe the overstimulated nerves.
At least three other options flashed through his mind, none of them the slightest bit painful. “We should stop,” he said, getting a firmer grip on his control. He wanted to do this again as many times as he could, wanted to claim her and tie her to him, but never hurt her.
“Why?” she said, distantly, eyes closed, fingers tensing and releasing around his biceps.
“Charlie,” he started, when her eyes opened.
“It hurts so good,” she murmured, the words nothing more than a puff of air. “Jamie. It hurts so good.”
Understanding shot down his spine like a bolt of lightning. She was drifting on that rush of endorphins that accompanied a hard workout, pushing your body to its limits. His cock flexed inside her, and she gasped again, but this time she kept her eyes open and let him see the tide of desire rise in her eyes, let him see the pulse of blood, faint but visible in her cheeks and throat.
She liked it. Wanted it. Knew how to get lost in it, and trusted him to go with it.
“Pull me in,” he whispered against her ear, holding his hips above hers, rock steady now. “When you’re ready, pull me in.”
He’d thought the hottest thing he’d ever felt was Charlie’s mouth on his cock in her shower, and that was true enough less than twelve hours ago. But in the shimmering, stretched span of time when her fingers tightened then stopped, easing his cock into her sheath in what felt like increments of a millimeter or less, he revised his opinion. She looked into his eyes as she took what she could handle, trusting him to hold himself back for her, letting him see how each bit of progress affected her. For his part, the heat and pressure engulfed him in torturous inches, tightening his balls, lighting up nerves from the tip of his cock to the base of his spine.
He lifted his fingertip from her clit. She caught his wrist and brought his hand to her mouth and licked her juices from the skin there, gaze locked with his all the while.
“You’re killing me,” he said, fighting to keep his hips still. “Killing me.”
She hummed as she let go of his wrist. “I don’t want that,” she said.
He wound his fingers into her hair, a possessive caveman move that had always felt artificial until now, when it took root in the most primitive part of his brain. Mine. Mine. “Can I move?”
“Go for it,” she said, eyes closing, half-drifting again, lost in sensation.
He wanted her back with him, so he carefully withdrew and slid back inside, slow enough to make him grit his teeth. Fuck, fuck, the impulse to pin her and pound her seethed under his skin. Charlie could take it. She was athletic, physical, spoiling for a fight, giving as good as she got. But she was tender, sore, slick and hot, trembling and pulling him into her with that long, strong leg. It was all Charlie, all contradictions. She’d ruined him for other women when she was seventeen, and this wasn’t making it any easier.
She arched and cried out when he did it again, not so slow, not so carefully, but he was learning her noises. The line between pleasure and pain was a fine one, razor sharp, as familiar to them both as breathing. She’d tell him to stop if she wanted him to stop, so he did it again, fighting for control the whole time.
“What does it feel like?” he asked—maybe not his smartest move, but he needed something to distract him. Forcing himself to translate sounds into words and words into coherent thoughts might work.
“Stretched,” she said. “Sensitive. Different from last night. Like you rasped all my nerves with steel wool and now you’re stroking them through honey. Sweet and tingling and hot and so good. Jamie. So go
od.”
Oh, fuck. “Can you come like this?” he asked roughly. Last night he’d made sure of her pleasure. “Charlie.”
Her eyes opened.
“Can you come like this?”
“I think so,” she said, both hands at the small of his back now, the sting of her nails anchoring him against the tide of sensation swirling around him. “I want to.”
Then she’d have it. He closed his eyes to shut off the visual stimuli of her face, growing pinker as sweat bloomed on her temples, only to discover his heightened awareness of her gasps and caught breaths, each one like a honey-tipped dart to his balls. Fuck it. He’d immerse in it, in the slowly building rhythm, in the sex flush building on her throat, on the way her nipples brushed his chest with each thrust as he counted backward from one hundred in Pashto. She tightened around him, heels digging into his ass, abdomen taut and trembling, her noises forced through her tight throat as she immersed in the pain and the pleasure, savoring both.
Then, victory, sweet, sweet victory as a dark flush swept up her chest, her throat, into her cheeks. She tightened around him, sharp cries piercing the air. He kept the same steady pace, his orgasm seething in the tip of his cock, until she subsided. Three thrusts and he lunged deep, each pulse of release like a shock, tightening his muscles as he emptied himself inside her.
When he regained control of his muscles he looked at the clock. “Six fifty-nine,” he said. “You shower. I’ll make breakfast.”
“Okay,” she answered fuzzily.
He pulled out and kept going, backing off the bed, away from her flushed, wrecked body, fetching up hard against her dresser. Halfway out of bed herself, she giggled when he swore, then stumbled when her knees buckled. “Like to see you walk a straight line, Stannard.”
“Ha ha,” she said, reaching for the dresser. They both made it into the bathroom without bumping into the walls. Jamie dealt with the condom and washed up quickly while Charlie started the shower. He treated himself to one more last lingering look at her body, all long lean lines and toned muscles, then got dressed in the clothes conveniently still on the bathroom floor.
In the kitchen he found eggs, bread, and a container of sliced fruit—pineapple, grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew melon—and whipped up an easy breakfast, pouring the eggs into the pan when he heard the hair dryer. By the time the toast popped up, Charlie emerged from the bedroom dressed in a simple pantsuit, her hair mostly dry. She wore makeup, a bit of blush, rosy lipstick, and a hint of eye shadow.
“What?” she asked, pulling her hair back and snapping the elastic from her wrist to the thick ponytail.
“I’ve never seen you in makeup before,” he said, buttering the toast.
She shot him a narrow-eyed look that didn’t hold as much heat as it could have. “You left massive stubble burn on my chin. I needed to do something to make it look natural.”
“Yeah, not really sorry about that,” he said as he slid eggs onto their plates.
Jamie elbowed aside a stack of junk mail and set both plates on the breakfast bar separating her kitchen from the living/dining room.
“Thanks,” she said, pleased by the simple meal.
“How many men do you think wake up in my bed?” she asked after he’d take a hearty gulp of orange juice.
He choked, but managed to swallow rather than spit all over her eggs. “What?”
“The first thing you said to me this morning was your name. Like I wouldn’t know who I’d gone to bed with the night before.”
“It wasn’t that,” he said, eyes watering, silently cursing himself. He’d give up a limb to take back those words and substitute something romantic, like I’ve loved you since I was seventeen.
“What was it, then?”
“You looked far away. That’s what I’d want to know,” he said, because he’d been projecting his own emotions onto her face. “First, who’s with me and can I trust them? Second, where am I?”
“Oh,” she said. “Does that happen often?”
“When you’re sixteen days into a mission and running on about eight hours of sleep total, yeah, it happens.”
“Who you’re with matters more than where you are?”
“When I’m with the right people, where I am doesn’t matter. We’ve got whatever’s coming.”
“When the alarm went off, I was dreaming,” she said, using her fork to push scrambled eggs onto a triangle of toast.
“About what?”
“What we did after I woke up, pretty much,” she said.
Heat stained her cheeks, deepening the color there. In the back of his mind he noted the difference between her face flushed from a game and her face flushed after really incredible sex. She was retreating, mentally shifting gears to focus on students and classes. He was the one on leave, not her. A frown crossed her face.
“What’s that look for?”
“I need to buy a dress,” she said, disgruntled.
He laughed. “Sounds like fun.”
“You like shopping?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
“No, but I’d like watching you try on dresses,” he answered.
“Pervert. I don’t think they let men in the dressing rooms.”
“Even better. I’ll sit outside by the mirror and watch you model them.”
“It’s not going to be sexy lingerie fun,” she pointed out, amused. “It’s a work event for me. I’ll get something practical I can wear again on recruiting trips. What are you going to wear?”
“Dress whites.”
“Your uniform?”
“I’m an active duty member of the United States Navy,” he said. “I don’t have to wear dress whites, but to be totally honest, I don’t own a suit.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” she said. “The kids definitely responded to the uniform yesterday.”
“Who’s the kid you were sitting with?”
“Grace was the short one. Olivia, tall, no coordination at all.”
“That’s a crying shame,” he said, smiling. “No.… Bryce,” he said, snapping his fingers.
“Grace’s boyfriend. Trying to decide if he’s going to make something of himself or not.”
“He’s got the gleam in his eyes. Said he was going to talk to the recruiter today.”
“Good for him.”
“You want to keep him away from Grace?”
“I’ve got nothing against Bryce, personally,” she said carefully, all teacher as she gathered their plates and silverware. “He could pay more attention to his homework, lose some of the attitude. Grace is my concern. She’s smart, works hard, not much of a chance in the WNBA, but basketball will get her a degree, and a shot at a life better than her mom’s. That’s harder to do if she’s got a baby.” She rinsed one plate, set it in the sink, and reached for the other. “Want me to drop you somewhere?”
“Nah,” he said, lacing up his shoes. “I’ll walk back to the park and take the stairs up the Hill.”
Silence greeted this remark. He looked up at her. “Charlie. I’m an adult. You’re an adult. There is no walk of shame in this.”
He’d never seen fear on Charlie’s face before. Check that. He’d seen it all the time, but her also saw her fighting the fear, hurling herself against the barrier until it fell over. “I signed a contract,” she said. “One that includes a moral turpitude clause.”
“You’re not allowed to have a relationship?”
“I’m supposed to be discreet. Set a good example for students and players.”
“In what way is this a bad example?” he asked, suddenly pissed. “We’re adults. We had protected, safe, consensual sex. Pretending adults don’t have sex outside of marriage is so far outside most East Side kids’ experience you might as well tell them fairy tales.”
“I want this. I really, really want this. I don’t want to screw it up.”
“This isn’t screwing it up. This is—” he stopped abruptly, because he didn’t know what “this” was. He knew what he wanted “this” to b
e, but he’d never asked her.
He hadn’t planned out this conversation, and the way she was glaring at him right now, all but challenging him, she’d just as likely tell him it was over as jump into his arms with joy. And what was he offering her anyway? The chance at a long-distance relationship, which he already knew she thought was doomed to fail? He’d never expected her to be as committed as she was to Lancaster.
A tactical mistake on his part.
“You are the only one,” she said, quiet, confessing. Before he got out of the car. “Just you. Since I moved back,” she added, lifting her chin, proud and honest.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I just … wanted … I wanted to reassure you. You have to know I don’t think you’re—”
“Like my mom? I know you don’t,” she said. “I overreacted. Not your fault. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t kiss her good-bye, not after that conversation. Instead, he patted her muscled thigh, and got out of her car, thinking of Ian’s question earlier in the week. Jamie knew Charlie wasn’t like her mother. But did Charlie?
He waited, the door open, her engine running, one eye on the clock. It felt fragile, what was happening between them. So many ways it could go wrong, and he hadn’t factored in the good old-fashioned open-mouth-insert-foot method of fucking things up. Torn, he hesitated, then went with his gut.
“When are you going shopping?”
“After school. The garden party is tomorrow. The banquet is Saturday night. I’ve left this until the last possible minute. Time to pay the piper.”
“Pick me up? We can get dinner afterward,” he said lightly.
“You’re serious.”
“As a bomb,” he said. As a fool in love, he thought.
“Fine. It’s your evening,” she said. “Now get out of my car. You’re making me late.”
He laughed, and shut the door. By the time she was out of the parking lot, he was a third of the way up the stairs leading to the Hill.
