Ever

Sweet Mother Mary.

I’m not into stroking men’s egos. I am not a damsel in distress. Seriously, if Nina’s ex had walked through the door and tried to hurt my friend, I would have shanked that fool. No hesitation. I don’t need a man to fight my battles for me. But damn if my ovaries aren’t lit up like the New York skyline on New Year’s Eve. I’m not just burning up with lady fever because Charlie manhandled that jerk in the hallway and sent him running with his tail between his legs. No, it’s a combination of that, his comforting manner with Nina and the way he rushed us out of Webster Hall tonight. Whether I like it or not, Charlie was a certified knight in shining armor, and I want to . . . reward him. I want to reward him good. From here until next Tuesday.

It’s not wise. At all. I’m in love with Charlie Burns and he’s made it clear, in so many ways, that he’s not available. When we were dancing tonight, I felt him holding back. Trying to keep a separation between us. Even now, his gaze rakes over me, burning hot, but hesitant. Wary. I’m so lost here. I need him, I miss him, but I know I’ll be continually devastated every time he leaves. When I told him I wanted something real, I meant it. Something real isn’t possible with Charlie. But is something real possible with anyone else but him?

“I’m going to give you two a minute,” Nina says, backing toward her bedroom. “I’ll hear the locksmith when he knocks.”

“Yeah,” Charlie responds, his voice like gravel as he digs out the keys from his pocket. He tosses them on the counter without looking. “Those are his keys, but let’s get the cylinder changed, anyway, on the off chance he made a copy, all right?”

How dare he be this capable? I think that’s how I’m staring at him. Like I’m pissed at him for being so competent. “You okay, Nina?” I ask, sounding breathless.

“Oh, after that?” Her laugh follows her into the bedroom. “I’m walking on air.”

When the door closes behind my roommate, it’s like a powder keg goes off between Charlie and me, sparks, smoke, internal booms. We edge closer on the balls of our feet, both of us breathing like we just ran up eight flights of stairs. “Ever.” His voice is hoarse. “Stop looking at me like that.”

I just want to hear him describe anything in that tone. “Like what?”

“Don’t do this to me. It isn’t fair to either of us.” Expression agonized, he points to the kitchen counter. “I’m not leaving you like that again.”

“Then stay.” The words are out before I can put the kibosh on them. And I don’t want to take them back, because this is it. I love this man and I have to take a shot. This is the moment I’ve been given, and I can’t let it slip away without trying. “Stay one time. It probably won’t work. Or maybe it won’t be so bad.”

An eyebrow lifts. “You ever think of going into sales?”

I don’t answer. I just wait there, in that nonspace between the entry and the living room, which is fitting, since we are neither here nor there. Charlie rolls his tongue around his mouth, hands propped on his hips, like I just asked him to join me in a hot air balloon to China. He’s going to say no. There’s already a gaping wound in my stomach where his answer will settle, my intestines wrapping around it, welcoming it as a permanent part of my landscape. So I jump the gun, because I can’t stand to hear him decline. What was I thinking, anyway? Bad idea. Such a stupid idea.

I force my mouth into a smile. “God, Charlie. You look like you’re trapped in a nightmare.” My throat is raw as I slip past him and open the door. “Thanks for everything tonight—you were truly heroic. I must really need some sleep or I wouldn’t have asked you to—”

“Ever.”

“We have a job tomorrow, which means vodka was probably a bad choice.” I curve a hand around his elbow and attempt to guide him through the open door. “Good night, Charlie.”

“You just asked me to stay the night, now you’re throwing me out?” A line forms between his eyebrows, and he presses the door closed. “I just needed a minute to think.”

“About what?”

Why am I whispering? I don’t have time to consider it, because Charlie saunters into my space. Right up into my zone. Until the tips of his boots nudge my bare toes. “Making love to you. That’s what I’m thinking about.” He wraps a hand around the back of my neck and I swear, I almost faint. “Not fucking. Not this time. So when I leave in the morning, Ever, you’ll know it’s always been more with you.”

“Oh.” Still whispering. “Well . . . think away.”

His lips twitch, then the room tilts, because Charlie is carrying me toward my bedroom. My bedroom. We’re going inside for the first time. I don’t even know if it’s clean enough, but after a slight hesitation on the threshold, we walk inside and I’m relieved to see it’s decent. Still holding me against his solid chest, Charlie turns in a circle, kicking the door shut behind him. His blue eyes seem to light on everything at once, cataloguing my knick-knacks, memorizing pictures and perfume bottles and the pictures of exotic vacation ideas pinned to my wall.

His attention lands back on me, dark and hot, as he allows me to slide to the floor. My breath hitches in and out as I pad over to the iPhone dock sitting in my windowsill and turn on some music. “Roses” by The Chainsmokers is the last song I listened to and the singer’s voice drifts into the room now, dreamlike and smoky. In the window’s reflection, I watch Charlie approach me from behind, dragging the T-shirt over his head, his gaze so focused on me, I can’t imagine living in a time where he’d left. Or never been here at all.

His palms slide over my hips, thumbs digging in with delicious pressure, that mouth of his finding the Promised Land behind my ear. Making love. He said we’re going to make love. That doesn’t mean he loves me, though.

Charlie’s tongue swirls at the back of my neck and drags higher, up my nape. “What exactly does making love . . . entail?” I ask.

A puff of his breath inspires goosebumps all over my flesh. “We’re going to have to find out together, cutie.” His hands catch in the hem of my shirt, lifting it over my head, barely breaking in his relentless torture of my neck as he bares me from the waist up. “A lot of kissing, I think. Slowing down to catch our breath once in a while, instead of racing each other to the end.” I feel his lips quirk in my hair. “Gazing into one another’s eyes.”

My ribs ache from trying to subdue my laughter. “That sounds horrible.”

He palms my breasts, squeezing them lightly, then harder. “We’ll figure out our own way.” Finally, his lap pushes against my backside and we both moan, grinding our lower bodies together, slow, but firm. “Your little ‘Jenny from the Block’ dance made me stiff as a board tonight. Safe to say you redeemed yourself for that talent show.”

I half laugh, half gasp, the muscles between my legs contracting, wetness dampening my thong. “Just because we’re making love . . . does that mean I can’t put you in my mouth?” I slide a hand back between our bodies, rubbing his erection through the rough denim. “Seems only fair, since it’s my fault.”

“Like I said,” Charlie groans into my ear. “We’ll figure out our own way.”

The way we move, it’s fluid and frantic, all at once. Charlie spins me around and I drop to my knees, both of us working on his zipper. I haven’t given him head in weeks, but he’s not the only one who has suffered the loss. Oh no. Charlie doesn’t kick back and enjoy the show. He flat out loses his mind when I go down on him, like he’s a virgin freshman getting sucked off by a high school senior. It’s why I love doing it. Love licking his plump, smooth head and watching his thighs start to tremble, the way they’re doing now. The veins on his lower abdomen grow prominent, his stomach heaving, choked noises falling out of his mouth. It’s heaven.

“Put your hands on my head, Charlie,” I murmur. “Hold tight.”

He releases a string of gibberish, but does what I ask and holds his breath.

I rake my teeth up the inside of his strong, hair-dusted thigh. “You have five minutes to do whatever you want with my mouth. Don’t hold back.”

A strangled laugh from above. “You think I can last five minutes in your mouth? That’s pretty cute.” Our eyes meet as I circle his tip with my tongue. “You’ve been watching too much porn, Ever?”

I know what he’s thinking about, just from the way he tilts his head. As if he’s issuing a reprimand. And oh boy, from down on my knees, it’s really working for me.

“Yeah, I know what you watch when I’m not around.” His right hand leaves my head, sliding around the base of his erection. Gripping. And everything south of my belly button clenches when he strokes, strokes, strokes. A feast right in front of my eyes. “Love that, don’t you?” He grunts. “You said anything I want? Good. Wrap your little mouth around it and taste me jerking off.”

As if I’m not diving forward to follow his instructions—which coincide perfectly with my fantasies—Charlie uses his hold on my hair to guide me, to hold me in place while he chokes his flesh, squeezing the root and dragging his grip toward my mouth. Faster, faster. Because this is Charlie, though, and Charlie can’t maintain his composure while I’m pleasuring him from my knees, he lets go after a dozen strokes, in favor of thrusting into my mouth. He knows he can. Knows I love it.

His fingers tangle in my hair, a sheen of sweat beginning to form on his chest and abs, his flesh elongating and pulsing on my tongue. God, he’s hotter than sin. I can’t handle it. The seam of my shorts is drenched and I want them off, I want him inside me so bad, I’m moaning as he pushes deep into my throat, growling my name from above.

“Ever. Ever. Baby. Cutie. Stopstopstopstopstop.” He draws my mouth away, which makes a popping sound—another weakness of his—and he’s helpless against sinking past my lips with a roll of his hips. His head falls back, chin dropping, thighs trembling, sweat rolling down his chest. “Little more, little more. Fuuuuuuck. Please don’t let me come. It hurts. Lick my cock and taste how bad. Get a good taste of how you make it hurt. Need to fuck. Need to come.”

Those words signal his breaking point. We trust one another not to push past that invisible marker, so I sit back, watching his wet inches strain against his thigh. Charlie scoops me up from beneath my arms, takes a few steps and throws me on the bed, which normally would have made me die laughing, but there’s nothing funny about the way he stalks me. It’s not just lust bathing his expression, either, it’s something heavier, but elusive.

He kneels between my legs, and I only have a split second to appreciate his dewy muscles, the boy-next-door-who-got-in-a-fist-fight beauty, before the shorts are ripped down past my ankles. They remain hooked on one of Charlie’s fingers as he holds them up, his expression the epitome of disapproval. “These are not an appropriate choice when a locksmith is coming over.” He tosses them over his shoulder. “Save the sanity of the male population and start shopping in the big girl section, huh, cutie?”