Chapter 9
“Honey.” Laura approached Charlie and grabbed onto his arm, partially to keep him from grabbing the arts reporter from Ocean Drive by the throat and shaking him, and partially because she needed to as part of her new publicity plan with respect to her husband. Granted, it was a hastily assembled plan that she’d thought up while standing at the door to the theater just now, but it had to work. “There’s no need to talk to Phil that way.”
The flex and pull in Charlie’s biceps muscles told her that he very much felt the need to come through on the threats he’d just lobbed. “There isn’t?” She swore that the sound of Charlie’s back teeth grinding filled the space. And damn her, it was so hot to hear him talk that way.
“No, because we’re going to cooperate in the story.” Her husband’s body tensed up, and doubt crept in about whether or not she’d done the right thing. After all, she didn’t know him that well. She knew the parts that lingered online from a decade ago, but he’d stayed mostly out of the public eye since then.
She was getting to know the man he was now, and he was much more private than he had been in his twenties. Seeing him with baby Layla, having a relaxed dinner with friends, going home with him afterwards—all of that was giving her a very different picture of Charlie Laughlin.
Letting him beat the crap out of an annoying and slimy reporter wasn’t what he wanted. She didn’t think. The way he’d defended her had given her a thrill that she didn’t want to examine too closely. Seeing him here, knowing that he’d been watching her made her feel things that she didn’t know how to place.
Charlie’s presence was confusing, but it felt right in this elemental way. It made her want to protect him the only way she knew how.
Maybe people knowing about them wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She wasn’t ready to share all the gory, drunken details about how they’d gotten together, but a whirlwind romance might not completely tank her career. It might even get asses in seats to the opening show of the season, which was only a few weeks away.
“Yes.” She clasped Charlie’s hand, and he looked down at her with surprise marking his features. She smiled up at him, as adoringly as she could muster. The sex must have addled her brain or something because it was easy to look up at him as though she was in love with him. Lust was a powerful drug.
“My cousin, Carla Hernandez, introduced us. We were both part of the wedding party, and spent a lot of time together for that. Love was just in the air, so we decided to take the plunge.”
Phil finally found the balls to open his mouth, probably easier since Charlie’s posture had eased slightly and Laura managed to pull him back and occupy one of his hands. “So, it’s true? You actually got married?”
“Yes. We’re married.” Charlie’s smile bit through the rest of her fear and resistance. The satisfaction of making him happy frightened her.
“In Bali.”
“At your cousin’s wedding? Didn’t that steal focus from the bride?”
Laura looked up at Charlie. He winked at her, and heat spilled through her system. The silent communication between them was new to her. She had glimpses of it with some of her frequent dance partners, but it was novel with a romantic partner. And Charlie was now more than her fake husband. He was her real husband, and her real lover.
“We did it privately, and we hadn’t wanted to tell anyone else for a while.” He squeezed her hand, and she had to look down at the floor to keep herself from beaming at him. All this warmth and affection she was getting from him felt embarrassing. She usually ran away from men who treated her like they really wanted her because they always wanted too much.
And Charlie’s intensity last night made her feel something similar, but different. It was new and exciting because she wanted him back and felt like she had something to offer him in return for the attention. He didn’t feel like an inconvenience.
“And we’d like to keep most of it private.” His words surprised her. Here she was opening herself to criticism and speculation, and he didn’t want to subject her to that.
“But, freedom of the press—”
“You really think that two people who are sort of in the public eye is on par with political scandal or intrigue?” Charlie’s smooth, charming veneer was back.
“I think it’s what I’m going to report on.” The reporter shrugged. “Whether you cooperate or not.”
Laura did not want this story reported on in a way that was scandalous. Undoubtedly, it would be worse for everyone involved. If they cooperated, she could buy time to warm up her parents to the idea that they were married. Charlie could tell his parents—if he wanted, which wasn’t likely, but maybe. Either that, or hos mother would burn St. Patrick’s down with candles.
If they really went public, and didn’t treat this like it was an inconvenient rumor, they would have to stay married for a while. They could go live separately, but show up at events once in a while. And, in a year or two, they could get a quiet divorce.
“When do you want to set up a photo shoot?”
* * * *
Charlie was stunned at Laura’s reaction to the reporter. He’d been sure she was going to fly off the handle and deny everything. He didn’t have words for how amazing it felt to have her at his back.
And he barely waited until they got back in her dressing room after Oliveras-the-scumbag left before pressing her against the wall and covering her mouth with his. He didn’t care that she was sweaty or that he wasn’t supposed to be there. He just wanted her. Now.
The kiss was slow and grinding, laced with unmistakable intent. It was a promise of all the things he planning on doing to her now that they were publically married. He was going to get to touch her in public now. He wouldn’t have to feel like a creepy stalker if he showed up to see his wife. His wife.
“You didn’t have to do that.” When he came up for air, he wanted to be sure that she was really okay with going public. That she didn’t feel like she’d been pushed into a corner. He needed to know that she wasn’t going to be tortured by shame by being associated with him forever. That she would be in his Wikipedia entry.
“Yes, I did.” She licked her full, bottom lip. It was still swollen from his kiss. He wanted to catch it between his teeth, but not as much as he wanted to move his lips lower and suck on her clit until she screamed. “It’s better this way. For me.”
“Really?” The pang of disappointment he felt that she hadn’t hauled off and decided that she wanted to be married to him hurt a little bit more than he could process right then. She wound her hand behind his neck, catching the hair at the back of his head through her fingers.
“I hope it’s better for both of us.”
“We won’t be able to get the annulment now.” He rested his head against the door, and her lips pressed against the center of his chest. “Are you really okay with that?”
“Now that we’re on board with the story, we have more control.” The idea that they were a team in this loosened the band that had formed around his chest. They were going to figure this out. Together.
“I’ll think of a way to spin this so that it doesn’t hurt your career. I promise.” He only hoped he could keep that promise. But not hurting her might as well have been part of his wedding vows. Vows he didn’t remember.
“Once the reporter found out, that cat was out of the bag.” Her voice shook, so he pulled back and looked down at her. Her eyes were glistening with tears. He couldn’t have that, not at all. “Who do you think told him?”
“Maybe the waiter? We weren’t exactly discreet at the restaurant.”
She nodded and looked down and he grasped her chin in his palm.
“What can I do?” He held her face between his two hands, not wanting her to hide from him. She didn’t show emotions to very many people, and up until now, he’d only caught glimpses of vulnerability from her. That she was showing him this must have meant the she was finally opening up to him. Or that her feelings were so big that they were bound to spill out anyway.
“I’ve been thinking that I don’t want—”
Please stay. That selfish wish he kept inside. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. “What don’t you want, gorgeous?”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Be married to me out in the open?”
“No.” She tried to pull her face from his hands, but he didn’t let her. They stared at each other for a long beat. And she didn’t have to say what she was thinking. He knew from watching her that morning, the way she’d moved from his bed stiffly. The look on her face when she’d rehearsed.
Ballet was done with her, and she didn’t know how to say the words yet.
“It’s okay.” He kissed her forehead. “It will be okay.”
She subverted his expectations yet again when she pulled him down to her mouth.
This time, she was claiming him. He stayed still, let her explore his mouth, bite his lips. Sweep her tongue in search of his. She whimpered and wrapped her legs around his waist. He palmed her ass over the leggings and leotard she wore. He wanted to be pressing his fingers into that firm skin, and must have made a frustrated noise.
His cock was so full from being this close to her. Her eyes, her smell, the ways she rocked her center against his cock in perfect rhythm, fucking him through his clothes.
When she ran her greedy lips across his cheek, making his beard hairs stand up straight, he opened his mouth, somehow knowing she needed him to talk. To say things so filthy that she could completely leave her body. “Is this what you need baby? You need to ride my cock?”
She bit his ear in response.
“You’re wild today, aren’t you?” He pulled her thigh off his waist, needing her clothes the fuck off. “I’ll never forget the feel of you sliding up and down my cock so hard your ass bounced.”
He pulled off her leggings, ending up in a kneeling position in front of her. He couldn’t help but take the fabric covering her pussy in between his teeth. Fuck. She smelled so ready for him. He didn’t bother to take the leggings completely off. She wasn’t going to have to move, and by the time he was done eating her, she’d barely be able to walk.
He picked her up. “You could wait until I took my shoes off.” Her breathy voice made his cock chafe against his boxers and jeans. She needed this as much as he did. It was all too much for her—thinking about the thing her life was about disappearing. Falling without a safety net, just waiting to hit the ground.
But she didn’t realize that he was on the ground, that he’d hit rock bottom long ago, and that he was right there to catch her.
“I don’t need to wait until your damned shoes are off.” He was grateful that she had a private dressing room and a couch. He needed to lay her out and to give her the kind of licking she needed. He dropped her on the couch and ran his fingers over her seam. Her leotard was all wet, and he could almost taste her on his mouth. “And you don’t need to dance. Or to move right now.”
“I don’t?” He kissed her half-smiling mouth, and rubbed his index finger against where her nipples stood out against fabric. That must have felt good, because she arched her back and thrusted her hips at him. “Did you lock the door?”
“You shouldn’t be thinking about who might walk in on us, gorgeous.” He got up and flipped the latch, even though he said, “It doesn’t matter that they can’t get in. They’re about to hear you screaming.”
He made it back to her in two steps and dropped to his knees. Her leggings kept her from getting her legs too far apart, but he ran his hands up her thighs, worshiping the soft skin and the supple muscles there.
When he looked up at her, her gaze was glazed over and her chest moved up and down so fast she might have been performing. No, when she was performing, she made everything look effortless. It was only after that she showed the strain. What she was feeling right now wasn’t strain. It was lust, for him.
They might be stuck in this marriage a little longer than she’d wanted to be, but he would never get enough of her. And he would make sure that it was worth her while.
He pulled the thin straps of her leotard over her shoulders. When her breasts popped out from the built-in bra, he paused and kneaded them until she gasped. “Hurry up.”
“Do you have to get back to rehearsing?” He stilled his hands.
She blinked as though she’d forgotten where she was for a moment. “N—no. We’re done for the day.”
“Then, I’m going to take my fucking time.” He bent and pulled one nipple into his mouth. Her eyes closed, and she moaned. Her entire body got involved when he gave her pleasure, and he fucking loved that. She was so fucking pretty straining up towards him. He must have done something good in the life before this one. His misspent youth was clearly not what had earned him this woman.
When the sounds she made got anxious and needy, he finished pulling down her leotard. She lifted her hips eagerly, so he could get it over her ass and all the way down. Somehow, he got it off one leg and tangled with her leggings.
He was only kind of kinky, but there was something deeply satisfying about having her all spread out in front of him, almost naked, but bound. She looked at him with a hungry gaze, and he felt like he was going to come in his jeans. He didn’t even care. He just wanted to make her happy. Just wanted to make her body sing. Wanted to make her forget all her troubles and drown in the lustful dance they were in together.
“Touch your nipples.” When she hesitated, he said, “I know that gets you hot enough to come all on its own, and I want to see it.”
“You’re not going to—” She snaked her hand down her belly, and he caught it with his.
“I’m going to when I’m good and ready, and when you’re good and ready.” He moved her hand to her breast, and she put the other one where he wanted it. “That’s a good girl.”
“You’re a fucking tease.”
“You want to talk about a tease?” She nodded. “Close your eyes. That first night we went out to dinner, you knew I was into you, yet you treated me like I was an inconvenience.” He ran one finger against the seam where her thigh met her pussy. She shivered and grasped her nipples. “Good girl. I’d never felt like that, like I had a hill to climb when it came to a woman. Treating me like that after you came on to me was more than I could stand.”
He let himself lower his head to where he wanted to be—always—for one taste before he continued. “Then, you flirted with that fucking waiter.”
“I can talk to who I want. Just. Friendly.”
Her head was thrown back then, and she was close. Simply from the sound of his voice and her touching her nipples. She jumped when he licked between her thumb and forefinger. “Of course you can, but you didn’t even want to look at me.”
She looked at him then with such lust. “Please.”
He rubbed her opening with his thumb, brought that thumb up to her clit and rubbed. The fact that he’d gotten her that close with just talking, bare ghosts of touches had him almost as close to coming as she was. “Shhh. Good girl.” She narrowed her gaze when he said that, and he knew she’d take her revenge.
He smiled at her, wanting to commit the giddy, desirous, vengeful look on her face like a treasured photograph. Then he dipped his head into her lap to take his fill.
* * * *
Charlie was determined to give her as many reasons to hate him as he could. Ordering her around instead of fucking her. Making her beg for his mouth.
God, God, God. His mouth.
She broke almost immediately when he touched his tongue to her clit. It was painful and pleasurable, and all too much. Shaking and arching from the sparks of everything he made with his lips and tongue. She moved her hands from her tortured nipples, and grabbed at his hair.
“Stop. Don’t stop.” She pulled and he finally looked up at her.
“Enough?”
She didn’t know what to say to that. Now that he wasn’t attempting to lobotomize her with an orgasm, she wanted him inside her, over her. And this time, she wanted him face-to-face.
But even more than that, she wanted him in her mouth. She hadn’t gotten that last night. “Stand up.”
He got up, and she scooted to the edge of the couch, where she was eye level with his cock. She was tempted to tease him in the same way that he’d teased her. And now that they had time together, she was going to make him jack off in front of her some time.
She undid his belt, and pushed his jeans and boxers down his thighs. Instead of making him wait, she took him in her mouth, as deep as she could, wrenching sounds from him that resonated inside her to her bones. Her hair was all up in a bun, so he couldn’t wrap it around his fist the way he had the night before when he’d been riding her from behind.
“You don’t have to do this.”
She wanted to do this. Needed to make him as crazy and helpless as he’d made her. Tasting him, feeling this close to him kept her body ready for him, but she didn’t store condoms in her dressing room and didn’t know if he carried them around.
Fuckboy Charlie would have had condoms. Her husband, Charlie, on the other hand might not.
He cupped the side of her head as she sucked him in and jacked him off. When he’d been on his knees for her, she’d forgotten all the confusing feelings she was having about her future. The only thing that remained were her confusing feelings about him.
Sucking him off made even those feelings go away. Her only objective was to make him feel good, to wring helpless declarations, curses from his filthy mouth.
“Fuck, so good, gorgeous.” She didn’t look up at him, but felt his gaze on her face all the same. Every time she pulled off of him, she sucked in her cheeks. “Suck it like a good girl.”
A prickle of anger hit her when he called her a good girl. She wasn’t that, and she let him know it when she loosened her lips and ran her teeth across his cock.
“Fuuuuck.” He gripped her jaw then, and she looked up at his face, expecting to see him pissed off. Instead, he was smiling. “You don’t like it when I call you a good girl?”
She pulled back, and shook her head.
“What do you want me to call you then when you make pretty noises that almost make me come in my pants?”
She didn’t answer, just licked the darkened head of his cock.
“You want to suck it and then not have me tell you how good you are?”
Using her hands, she took him deeper. She didn’t know what to say to him. Although she wanted him to keep talking, dirty talk was not her strong suit.
He pulled his cock out of her mouth. “No more until you tell me what you want.”
“You don’t want a blow job? Fine.” She would have gotten up, but his hands on her shoulders held her down.
“I want a blow job, but I want you to talk to me even more.”
She swallowed, her throat suddenly hoarse. “I want to suck your cock.”
“But you don’t want me to call you a good girl?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She wasn’t going to tell him that being a good girl never got her anywhere. She’d become a principal dancer because she was a hard-ass bitch, impervious to pain. And having Charlie see any of her softness, any of her dark insides was way too much. She didn’t want him to call her a “good girl” because it felt so good when he did it.
“Call me whatever you want.”
He tapped his cock against her lips and she opened her mouth. “You’re going to tell me why eventually.” She took him in, and snaked one hand between his thighs to touch his balls. She was probably imagining the emotion in his voice when he said, “Suck it, wife.”