Southern Charmer

by Jessica Peterson

  “Like that, baby?” I murmur.

  She licks her lips.

  “Come here,” she says, crooking her finger as she gets on her knees.

  I stand at the edge of the bed, and then she’s curling her hand around mine on my dick, her thumb playing with the head as I lean down for a kiss.

  Guiding her in another stroke, I pant against her mouth. I’m not gonna last long at this rate. But before we have sex again, I need to make sure she’s really okay.

  With my other hand, I reach between her legs. Gently—very, very gently—I part her lips and slip my fingertip inside her folds.

  She’s soaking wet and hot.

  “Yankee girl,” I sputter.

  “I meant it when I said you turned me on, Eli.”

  I meet her eyes. Study them as my fingertip moves over her clit. Her eyes go hazy. My cock surges.

  But when I move to her entrance, barely touching her, those blue eyes light up with pain.

  Immediately I pull back.

  “You’re still hurt,” I say.

  “No!” she says, grabbing my hand. “No, it’s fine, Eli, I promise. I really want to do this. I want you.”

  I search her eyes. “How about we try something different? Give you a little more time to heal before we—you know,” I say, gently pressing the head of my cock to her pubic bone.

  I grin when I see the heat return to her gaze.

  “Something different,” she says, eyes flicking to my cock. “I’m down for that.”

  And then, before I know what she’s doing, she literally does go down.

  She’s on her hands and knees now, crouching in front of me on the mattress while I stand. Leaning all her weight onto her left hand, she reaches for me with her right. I see stars when she uses that hand to guide my cock to her mouth.

  She takes me in, inch by inch, working her tongue over my head with slow, sensual strokes. Need rips through me. I bury my fingers in her hair. It’s still warm from the sun.

  Olivia looks up at me. Eyes wide. My dick in her mouth. Dark hair all over the place.

  “Sweet girl,” I whisper, rolling my hips the tiniest bit.

  Closing her eyes, she takes me deeper.

  And then she sucks.

  She sucks and she strokes and she drives me so fucking crazy I feel my orgasm coming, not twenty seconds into this thing.

  I’m in her throat now, her soft palate pressing against my head. She moans, the vibrations sending shockwaves through my cock.

  She’s good at this.

  I gotta return the favor somehow.

  Her legs are spreading wider now, opening her ass cheeks. I run a hand down the pretty slope of her back. Slowly, I curl my first two fingers between her cheeks, sliding them into her wetness from behind.

  Olivia moans again, canting her hips to give me a better angle.

  I go right for her clit, moving through her swollen, slippery folds with care. She starts bobbing her head when I circle my fingers where she wants me. She’s winding up tight, just like me.

  She’s giving in. Being vulnerable.

  Sucking me off with all that pent-up ardor I saw in her writing.

  It does me in.

  “Baby, I’m close,” I say through gritted teeth. I move my hand from her hair to her chin, tilting her up so that she looks at me. “Lemme come in your mouth.”

  I let her know with my eyes that it’s a question. She’s the one calling the shots here. Always will be.

  Some Neanderthal part of me just wants to mark her. Make her all mine. I hate the idea that she’s got this shithead ex back in New York. She said she’s not going back to him. But I’m still going to do everything I can to make sure she stays. I want to cross every line. Do all the wrong things the right way.

  I just want to make her mine.

  The blue in her eyes blazes.

  In reply, she takes me even deeper, her tongue swirling soft and hot around me.

  I roll my hips. Roll again, jerking a little this time. I feel my orgasm closing in on me.

  My body stiffens, and I come. Hard. My eyes screw shut, and behind them neon fireworks explode as sensation slams through me. I feel pulses of my cum sliding down her throat.

  “Olivia,” I sputter.

  She milks me with her tongue, then swallows. My knees nearly give out.

  Now who’s the wobbly one?

  My fingers are still between her legs. As my orgasm fades, I carefully stoke hers to life. I glide my fingertips over her clit, again and again. She moves against me, guiding me to touch her just where she needs it.

  I reach down to tweak her nipples with my free hand one at a time. They’re puffy and so perfectly soft in my fingers I groan.

  My dick is still in her mouth when she comes. I want to bury my fingers inside her so I can feel her spasms. But I know she’s still hurt, so I settle for her moans and the way she goes boneless as the shockwaves subside.

  I tilt my hips, pulling out of her with care. She falls heavily onto her back, fisting the sheets. She’s breathing hard.

  I climb onto the mattress beside her.

  “C’mere, baby,” I say, looping an arm around her middle and curling her into my body. Big spoon and little spoon. A breeze moves through the open windows, and I pull the covers over us.

  My pulse is racing. So is hers.

  I kiss her throat. She turns her head and lets me kiss her mouth. I can taste myself on her lips.

  “I like you this way,” I say, kissing her slowly. “Wrung out. My taste on your mouth.”

  She whimpers into my kiss.

  “What?” I say.

  “You,” she says.

  I pull back to meet her eyes. “What about me?”

  “You overwhelm me, Eli,” she replies, gaze searching mine. “I just feel…God, I feel everything when I’m with you like this.”

  My heart swells.

  “I hope that means you’ll stay a while,” I say.

  I press a kiss to her temple.

  We fall asleep like that. Tangled up in each other. Warm and cozy and content.

  I want to make this week last forever.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Olivia

  The days pass too quickly at the cabin. And the nights—those are never long enough.

  By the end of the week, I’m exhausted. Neither of us has slept for more than a few consecutive hours at a time. Eli and I are too hungry for each other to sleep through the night.

  He’ll wake me at dawn, a wicked smile on his lips as he settles his head between my legs. I’ll wake him in the dead of night, soaking wet and needy, and he’ll wordlessly tear open a foil packet and roll his big body on top of me, making love to me slowly. Sleepily. His mouth on my mouth, my breasts, my neck.

  He always cleans me up afterward, checking to make sure there’s no blood. Satisfied, he’ll pull me against him, his heart beating thickly into the center of my back as I drift off.

  I wonder if I’ll ever be able to fall asleep again without being surrounded by that soothing, confident sound.

  Without being surrounded by him.

  I’m not sure if it’s the beautiful scenery, the good food, the incredible sex, or some combination of all three, but my muse absolutely sings out here. I spend the bulk of my day either in bed with Eli or in a chair beside the fireplace on the deck, churning out chapter after chapter. Eli edits as I write. He’s falling in love with my characters.

  And I am falling in love with him.

  There is zero point in denying it. In playing the tough guy. I am so soft and so vulnerable being who I am with him. There’s something incredibly romantic about opening myself up like this.

  I think a lot about Eli’s advice to keep things simple. Maybe this is part of that—simply letting my feelings be what they are.

  Simply accepting them. Accepting myself.

  Being free of all that self-imposed torture makes me feel like I can fly. I’m high on life. Eli is, too, for the most part. Every so
often I’ll catch him frowning when he checks his phone. And he’ll get this troubled, faraway look in his eyes sometimes. Like he’s somewhere else completely.

  “Are you all right?” I ask one night during dinner. We’re eating outside beside the fire, like we always do. We were having the best little chat about Gunnar’s use of a French letter, the nineteenth century’s version of a condom made out of sheep intestine, when Eli started zoning out again.

  Eli blinks, shaking the frown from his face. “I’m sorry. You’re wearin’ me out, Olivia. I been walkin’ around like a zombie all week.”

  “What were you thinking about?” I ask. “The Jam?”

  His eyes flicker. Harden. Almost like a gate coming down. I can’t tell what he’s feeling.

  “A little bit, yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair.

  I reach across the table for his hand. “I’m sorry. The whole thing sucks. I’ve wanted to ask you about it. But I know it’s a sensitive topic, so I’ve kinda been waiting on you to bring it up. I’m always here if you want to talk.”

  “I know. And I appreciate that, baby, I really do.” He turns his hand over to grasp mine. “There’s really not that much to say, honestly. We’ll close for good on Tuesday. Naomi is takin’ care of the bulk of what needs to be done.” He shrugs, giving my hand a squeeze before standing. “But I don’t want to think about that shit. It’s depressing. I want you. You make me happy.”

  I look at him, the fire reflecting in his dark pupils. “I want you, too. Of course I want you. But if you’re not feeling okay, I’d like you to tell me about it.”

  “The only thing that makes me feel better right now is being with you.” His eyes are pleading. “So let me be with you. The way I want.”

  A voice in the back of my head nags me to push him on this. I’m delighted that I make him feel better. But I’m not doing that by addressing his problem. By talking him through it.

  I’m doing it by fucking his brains out.

  Something about that feels…weird, I guess. Am I some kind of sexual Band-aid?

  But the feeling passes when he smiles at me and takes my plate and kisses me, hard. The kind of intentional, soul-searing kiss I’ve come to expect from him.

  A man does not kiss a Band-aid like this.

  So I make a mental note to ask Eli about The Jam later on. In the meantime, I am going to make him feel better.

  Much, much better.

  As we pack up that Sunday, I steal one of Eli’s shirts, sneaking it into my bag. He doesn’t seem to wear shirts all that often anyway. And I want to keep a little piece of him with me. Want to wear his shirt to bed so I can smell him when we’re not together.

  We drive home at sunset. My mind wanders as we make our way through the low country, the trees lit up in fiery shades of orange and yellow and brown. The fear of missing out has kept me on a straight and narrow path. Fear that I’ll miss having it all.

  I never wondered what I was missing out on by being on that path.

  This.

  I missed this. Eli’s big hand on my thigh. Feeling deliciously tender and achy in every corner of my body. Crisp autumn air blowing through the windows, sending my hair flying every which way. Good, hard writing behind me. Good, hard writing ahead. No Sunday scaries here. I’m excited about tomorrow.

  This is what I’ve been missing out on all this time.

  It hurts to think about giving it up.

  I look at Eli. Clean and confident and calm. Handsome as hell. The ache inside my chest and between my legs intensifies.

  The cool air feels so good on my skin. It’s overwhelming.

  It’s exactly what I didn’t know I wanted until now.

  It’s dark by the time Eli pulls into his narrow driveway.

  “Stay,” he says, shoving the gearshift into park.

  For a second, I think he’s asking me to stay stay. The leave-New-York-and-stay-in-Charleston-forever kind of stay.

  The answer comes to me with gut-quick certainty.

  Yes.

  My hand shakes as I reach for the door handle. The rumble of the truck’s engine suddenly seems enormous, throbbing in time to my heartbeat.

  Did I really just make my decision?

  Am I really going to leave everything behind and start over?

  For weeks now, that seemed impossible.

  Now it seems inevitable.

  I just don’t know what I’m going to do about my job. I can’t write full time. At least not until I have a better idea of how I can make real money doing it.

  Christine having her baby also means I have no one to take over my classes in New York for the rest of the semester. There’s a good chance that will fall to me. Which means I’m going to have to go back to Ithaca, at least until the end of December.

  But I have contacts in Charleston now. I’m growing a small but mighty network. I’ll start tapping into that. See if I can’t figure something out. Piece together the beginnings of a new life.

  Whatever the case, I think I might be ready to take the leap. The big one.

  Eli’s forehead scrunches when he takes in what I can only guess is the shell-shocked expression I must be wearing.

  “It’s cool if you don’t want to,” he says quickly, resting his wrist on the top of the steering wheel. “But I thought you and I could get up early tomorrow. Maybe grab some coffee and take a yoga class. I’m gonna need to sweat it out before I go into work and deal with the shitstorm that’s waitin’ for me.”

  I blink.

  Right. He was talking about staying the night. At his place.

  I manage a smile. “I’d love that.”

  Billy’s tail thumps happily against the back of my seat.

  We hit up Peter’s yoga class first thing the next morning.

  “Something to think about as you practice,” Peter says as he makes his way to the front of the room. “Yoga is a union, or a bringing together, of all your various selves or beings. Your mental being. Your physical being. Your spiritual being. When we practice yoga, we practice bringing all these parts of ourselves into harmony. We strip back our layers to get to our most essential self. There’s a Sanskrit phrase for this—sat nam. It means ‘truest self.’ Let’s make that our mantra today. Say those words to yourself as you breathe. Far too often, the world encourages us to move away from our true selves. Yoga asks us to go toward that self. So try that on today and see how it feels.” A pause. “Let’s begin in child’s pose.”

  I feel the heat of Eli’s gaze on me. This is exactly the stuff we’ve been talking about over the past couple weeks.

  Without looking at him, I settle into child’s pose. I feel tired and full. Not at all in the mood to do this right now. To dwell on the very real possibility that I’ll be taking the biggest leap of my life soon with no guarantees. No real safety net.

  All in the name of seeking out this true self.

  At first, I fucking hate sat nam. In my head it sounds like Satan. Which, considering how my shoulders and hamstrings burn during the opening sequence of sun salutations, seems appropriate.

  But as I move, encouraged by Eli’s graceful, steady movements beside me, my mind begins to clear. The burn begins to fade. I just keep going, silently chanting with my breath.

  Half lift. True. Bow. Self.

  My sweat patters softly on my mat as I sit into chair pose.

  The more I chant, the more I think. I had no idea who my true self was before I came to Charleston. I was aware of the concept. But I didn’t think it was important.

  Having a big fancy job? Being a good girlfriend? Keeping up with the Joneses? That shit was important. But finding out what I loved? Spending time doing it?

  Nah. There weren’t enough hours in the day to do that.

  Standing here, twisted into eagle pose, breathing and silently chanting and peeling back my layers, I can’t help thinking that the way I’ve ordered my priorities has been incredibly stupid.

  What’s the point of all this if not to enjoy it? To
do good, meaningful work and laugh with those who know and love the real you?

  And I know, with this gut-deep, jarring sense of certainty, that I can’t enjoy life the way I deserve to if I don’t fess up to who I am and what I want.

  By the time we get to the torturous let’s-do-200-bicycle-crunches portion of class, I can’t tell if it’s sweat that falls on my mat, or tears.

  Which of course makes me think of Cate. All the tears she sheds as Gunnar pushes her up against her assumptions about herself and her life again and again and again.

  Eli is doing the same to me.

  Being in Charleston is doing the same to me.

  I was afraid before. But now I’m grateful.

  Eli is quiet on the quick ride home. A muscle in his jaw twitches as he guides the truck into his driveway.

  I can tell he’s anxious. He told me he has to let most of The Jam’s staff go today.

  Even though I’m soaked and smelly, I get out of the car and pull him into a hug.

  “I’ll be around all day,” I murmur into his shoulder. “If you need me, just call, okay? You’re going to get through this. You’re still Elijah Jackson, and your biscuits can still make me come.”

  He scoffs, holding me a little tighter. “They’re that good?”

  “They’re that good.” I give him a kiss on the cheek. “Hang in there. Your wounds are fresh right now. Today might be tough, but it will get easier from here. You just need some time.”

  “I just need you,” he replies, pressing a hot, lingering kiss onto my neck before pulling back to look at me. “I should be done by midnight. I want you to be in my bed when I get home.”

  I cock a teasing brow. “So bossy. What if I want you to be in my bed?”

  “Just leave a key under the mat,” he says, grinning. “On second thought, don’t do that, because someone else might find it and beat me to you. My bed. Midnight. Bonus points if you have a chapter for me to read. Can you make it happen?”

  No please. No uncertainty.

  No shame.

  God, I love it.