CHAPTER 23

 

One Year Ago—The Scream

 

Charis: Hey, are you doing primal scream tonight?

Asher: I don't scream.

Charis: Why? Undergraduates are always stressed out. Aren't you stressed out?

Asher: Not really. Even if I was, breaking my vocal cords won't help.

Charis: What do you do when you have three finals in one day and a paper due and you're all discombobulated?

Asher: Did you really use that word? Discombobulated? I thought it was just invented for use in standardized tests.

Charis: Ash…

Asher: Academic pressure doesn't bother me. I test well, Sloane.

Charis: Okay, then say a shipment of defective trackers was overlooked and customers were threatening to pull their orders. Would that stress you out enough to scream?

Asher: We'd solve the problem eventually. And if I lose everything, I'll just make it again on something else. I've got a few things in the works.

Charis: I don't know how you have such a relaxed attitude. I for one am gonna scream.

Asher: What's the occasion?

Charis: I don't know. Sometimes things just build up in me and screaming is the only way. I can use a pillow but when the whole campus does it, that's even better.

Asher: I'll come with you.

Charis: Why?

Asher: To cheer you on. Watch you dominate. Nobody's gonna outscream my girl.

Charis: I've never had scream support before.

Asher: I'll always support your screams, Sloane.

 

Asher

 

CHARIS SCRAMBLED OFF THE chair. ""I knew I shouldn't have said anything. Listen, don't treat me like a lameass or I'll have to hurl. Forget what I said about teasing, just do what comes naturally, make a joke or something, will you?"

"A joke?" I said incredulously. I had come to my feet, too. Something told me I needed to stay close or she'd run.

"Whatever. Anything except feeling sorry for me." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, you were in high school and that's not right. I even had a boyfriend. Nothing needed to be said because nothing was gonna happen. So stop it with the stupid pity."

Pity?

Try anger.

When I was a teenager, for fuck's sake?

"Fuck."

The intensity of my desire to smash my fist into something shocked me. Mel's instincts had been right, righter than she knew.

"I am not," I said hotly, "pitying you. I'm pissed. At you. Why the hell didn't you say something to me?"

Char looked stunned. She even looked over her shoulder, as if I might be talking to somebody else. "Uh, I couldn't. How could I? You were a boy. Stop being mad at me. It wasn't a possibility and it was wrong."

"It was never wrong."

"So you say."

"I do say."

"Huh."

"I'm also pissed at myself. I thought I knew exactly how idiotic I'd been. Now it seems I wasn't even close."

"It wasn't that major," she said, jutting out her chin. "You were good-looking, Asher, you always looked and acted older than your years, and even at sixteen you were, well…but it was just lust. People deal with unrequited lust all the time."

I nodded, rubbing my neck, but I wasn't convinced. I remembered how hot I'd been for Char. Nothing in her manner said this was a casual attraction.

All this time, she'd been attracted.

All this time, she'd kept it from me.

Utterly.

I'd had no clue.

No, I'd had negative clue. My cluefulness was a negative number.

Shit. Did I even know my best friend?

Not that I hadn't been guilty of some deception, myself. But that was self-deception. I hadn't tried to keep anything from her.

I needed to think about this.

Could be she was right about lusting for a teenager. As a sixteen-year-old virgin, I was not considered jailbait in our state. But I would have been too young to handle the matter maturely. And she had been taken.

Not that I'd have let all that stop me from trying. But I'd almost certainly have crashed into a wall, either before I fucked her or afterward.

But at nineteen? By then I'd had plenty of girls and I'd gained some maturity. I already had the Big Four, right? (To refresh your memory: common and street sense, brain and people smarts.)

She was single. I could have handled it, handled her. We could have grown together. We could have…

Except you never know.

"I get it, sort of. But why did you keep it a secret?" I demanded. "Did you think I'd be an asshole about it? I mean, thanks for the trust."

She blinked at me. "Because I was mad at myself. Ashamed, I guess. Oh, and because of Aura."

Oh.

Right.

The woman I'd set my sights on when Charis was out of reach.

Shit. How could I have forgotten that part of the equation?

Had my relationship with Aura bugged Charis?

Jealous…she said she'd been jealous.

Oh, shit, for years?

She was right, that wasn't hot, that was cringeworthy.

How many times had I kissed, caressed, hugged my girlfriend around Char?

Easy: from day one. From the very beginning. Probably each and every time the two women were in the same room.

Mel's words haunted me. Whenever you and Aura go at it, Charis always looks away.

I officially wanted to shoot myself.

And strangle Charis.

"You should have said up yours and left me to rot. Why the fuck didn't you? Why did you keep me around as a friend?"

"Because you were worth it," she said steadily. "When I ran into you on campus, every time I saw you, you were great—funny and honest and a really sweet person underneath all your ego talk. Not to mention part of my favorite family." She crossed her arms and stared down at the floor. "I have a lot of friends, I guess, but they're not like you. You understood me like nobody else. Your friendship was too important to me. It was worth it. Everything was worth it. If you'd married Aura, you'd never have known, we'd have grown old that way, and it would still have been worth it. You're special, Asher. There's nobody else like you."

Holy fuck.

She meant it.

Her words blew me away.

I stared at her. Now I didn't feel like a creep or an idiot. I felt like the luckiest man alive.

Charis had stuck with me because I was important to her.

It was the best gift anybody had ever given me in my life.

So maybe I wasn't that mad at her.

"I wish you'd shown some sign before she came into the picture." I made her face me. "I wanted you so bad."

She blinked. "Well, our age difference aside, I really didn't know that, did I? I thought I was like your sisters. That's how you treated me."

"I was following your lead, big sister," I said sternly.

"Whatever."

"You had plenty of chances to say something." I reminded her. "There was one night I'll always remember…"

She nodded. "Noises Off."

"So you remember that. Remember the box bag scene?"

She nodded. "We were both rolling on the floor laughing so hard."

"And I ended up on top of you. I was so fucking close to kissing you, girl."

"No, really?" She seemed stunned by that concept. "I thought it was just me. My wild imagination. I remember thinking I had to get you off me or I'd do something stupid. There might have been some word vomit," she mumbled.

"There was that. You started yammering about my sisters. And my mother. My mother, Char. Something about wondering if they synced their menstrual cycles." I saw Charis cringe. "Yeah, you managed to put a lid on things fairly well with that one."

"I just…I was trying to remind myself why the thoughts I was thinking were wrong. I didn't have even the slightest idea you might have wanted anything to happen. I thought you'd be grossed out by the idea."

"Reggie must not have taught you very much about men. Remember your grandmother's funeral?" When she looked puzzled, I jabbed her shoulder. "When I held you close, there you were, crying, and there I was with my dick hurting, it was so hard. I nearly did something about it, too, funeral or not."

Charis took a deep, shuddering breath. "Well, it was a bad idea. I don't regret anything."

Maybe she was right. But there were still things I regretted. I regretted how much time I'd been with Aura. Not all of our time together. But some.

At least with Aura, I'd learned how to stay faithful to a woman. How to get to Stage Three and control my cock. I'd learned what I wanted in a woman beyond the physical. What I wanted in a relationship.

What I needed.

Now I knew Charis had it.

She wasn't the person I knew.

She was more than that.

I could deal. I'd adjust.

She was worth it.

Slowly I said, "I regret wasted time. Stupid mistakes. Blindness."

"No harm done." She gave an unconvincing snort.

What were her words? I've fantasized about tearing her eyes out.

"Yeah," I said, gathering her in my arms. "You're just like Ellen Ripley in her Power Loader. Badass and tough as nails."

"Speaking of Sigourney Weaver, you know what we should do?" Charis said brightly. "Watch Ghostbusters and then Galaxy Quest and then Aliens all in a row. Never give up, never surrender!" She punched the air.

She was trying to make light of it all. Charis acted immune to hurt, but it was a guise. She wore her toughness like a shell. Underneath that shell she was all curled in and vulnerable.

Getting her to admit it wouldn't be easy, like it would be for me. I took risks every day, in my work, in my investments, in my social life. I was used to taking punches and rolling with them. But somebody like Charis couldn't afford to show her weaknesses.

"Well," I drawled, "I don't mind telling you I wish we'd been more than friends all this time. You know me, Sloane. The one thing I hate more than anything is wasting time. I'm going to fuck you now, because I'm not wasting any more time not fucking you."

Charis swallowed. "It's still hard for me to believe you want me like that. Wait," as my face darkened, "No, listen. I believe it on one level. It's just that I'm like the Chippendale Mupp, the message hasn't traveled to my brain."

"I'll help you with that." I hefted her up and slung her over my shoulder.

"Asher!"

"I'm gonna take you so hard you'll black out, Sloane. When my cock is stretching you out, you won't have any doubts about how much I want you."

"You can't be serious, Asher, you—ah!"

That was in response to my affectionate smack on her ass. I marched upstairs with her draped over me. "I am very serious. I'm a horny guy and I take the needs of my cock very seriously. It's been telling me for quite a while that it needs entry into your pussy. We've reached countdown. So fire those engines, sweetness. "

She made strangled sounds. I caressed her ass, my mind running a glorious picture frame. She lay on my huge, springy bed, and I was front and center driving into her. Standard missionary fare, dominating and sweaty and animal. It made me dizzy to think about.

"This is…different," she huffed.

Halfway up, I let her slide down my body and gave her bottom a pinch. "So now I've noticed this sweet little ass you have here, I've decided that one day soon I'm getting a personal show of your dance moves. You are officially allowed to wave your ass in my face doing your zumba thing any time."

That sent her into hysterics. Somewhere in there I could detect the same wildness I was feeling. We were both overstimulated and overexcited. My urgency was probably firing hers as we raced up the stairs.

Until we rounded the landing and she held back.

"Wait, I'm not sure—"

"No point." I tugged her with me backwards. "Come on, Sloane. This is it. We do not pass go, we go directly to bed and then you're not leaving my arms for at least six hours."

"Just maybe we should go back downstairs. Asher, take it easy, hold on, just wait a second!"

Wait? For what? Her lips were red and full; her nipples were pushing her shirt. I could smell her arousal. She was in heat and I was in rut, past ready to seal our union.

I stalked her, hopping to the side when she skipped away. When the wall brought her up short, I moved in and pinned her with my body.

That's when she gave me her Big Sister look.

I returned with my widest grin. "Unless you literally tell me no here, Sloane, I'm going to keep on going caveman on you."

"Well, what if I don't like it?"

I was being very patient, I thought. "Then you tell me no."

"What if I don't want to tell you no?"

"Then you like it."

"Aha! That's circulus in probando. Circular reasoning, dude!"

This as I was yanking her polo and bra out of the way—the latter a tiny scrap of nothing I decided to use for my own ends. I shoved up her shirt, using the elastic of the bra to trap it and leave it bunched up under her arms.

"I have some bad news for you, Sloane. Your bra's no match for your nipples." I swiped my fingers over those beautiful tips.

She gasped.

"If you want, we'll do it here," I went on, kissing down to her breast. "You wanna, sweetness? I'll fuck you right against the wall if that pleases you."

She made a gasping sound.

"Of course I'd rather have you in a bed, but…"

"I just—Asher, I just don't want—I mean I know you've changed the sheets, but—"

"But what?"

"Oh, hell. I don't want to be thinking of Aura the whole time!"