Chapter 20
Nothing
The bed bounced twice as someone flounced down on it and I winced, pushing myself up. A cup of coffee was thrust under my nose and I looked up into a pair of very guarded and very serious icy blue eyes.
“The fuck?” I asked.
“Time to get up,” Charity said.
“Charity, I meant it, I’m not –“
“Save it. The boys are outside to put your house back together.”
I glared at her but she just kept looking at me with her cool, level gaze. My eyes fixated on the small split at the corner of her mouth, and the little bruise there.
“You should see me when I’m naked,” she stated dryly, “Oh! That’s right; you already have. Now come on and get dressed. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. So take this coffee monstrosity with no sugar, drink it, get in the shower and move it.”
“I’ll ride, I’ll meet you there.” I said trying to think through the haze of my pounding head. Hangovers were a bitch.
“No dice, your bike is back at Cutters. Marlin rode it there; you were too drunk last night. Do you even remember how you got home?” she asked.
“Not really,” I grated out.
“Are you even listening to me? I said that the guys are all here. It’s your house we’re doing today. They’re outside waiting.” She set the coffee cup on the nightstand and flung a leg over my hips, straddling me. I turned my face and stared at the photos around the bedroom mirror. “You really think they’d want this for you?” she asked, voice husky with a sort of sadness that brought me back around to look at her.
“What would you know?” I demanded and she raised her eyebrows at me.
“Let’s see, I know that you’re sick and tired of hurting, for one.”
“Yeah, how do you figure that?” I challenged, and she kissed me. Fuck, I couldn’t not kiss her back and I winced knowing that after a night of hard drinking, I probably tasted like ass.
She drew back and I was throbbing where I was pressed against her heat through our clothes. She rested her forehead on mine and I closed my eyes and just basked in her soothing presence.
Someone once told me that it takes a special woman to soothe away all the rage and pain. If that was the case, Charity was definitely something special.
“Come on, they’re waiting for us,” she whispered and I nodded, our foreheads still together, that healing aura of hers working it’s magic. I let myself savor it for just a moment longer before I gently gripped her upper arms to move her back off me. She sucked in a sharp breath and I froze.
Her eyes were a little wide and I cocked my head, “What was that for?”
“Nothing,” she clearly, lied. She wore a light hoodie, long sleeves, in the muggy heat of Florida? I didn’t think so. I pushed it off her shoulders and sighed at the ring of bruises on her upper arms.
“Fuck, Charity. I told you, you need to get –“ she put her fingertips to my lips, and shook her head.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do. Remember that,” she said, steel in her voice.
“Get off me,” I said and she arched a delicate brow, we stared in a proverbial stand of until I exhaled sharply. “Get off me, please.”
She moved off my lap and I had to adjust myself. She smirked and handed me the coffee again. “Shower, and let’s get a move on. Yours isn’t the only house that needs attention.”
“Mm,” I uttered around the first slug of lukewarm coffee. A sugar free vanilla late. She’d remembered. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, pulling on the back of my head to ease the tension in my neck and between my shoulders. I was finding it difficult to concentrate and had to believe it was because I still might be drunk.
“Did I just earn points?” she asked, her voice breaking through the fog like the sun. I looked up at her, an easy smile painting her lips that I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at mine. She made it hard to wallow, made it hard to stay a miserable bastard.
“Maybe you did, but just a couple of ‘em,” I conceded.
“I’ll take what I can get,” she said, rolling her eyes, and just like that, the atmosphere eased, became something more bearable for the moment; almost friendly. She had a way about her. I wanted to pull my anger and my hurt around me like a cloak, but around Charity, it was next to impossible. She just had that way about her. It was easy to lay down the hurt, and it seemed that no matter how much I tried to drive her away, to protect her, she just came gravitating back with a stubborn set to her chin that reminded me a whole lot of her sister Hope.
I went and took a shower, when I came back to the bedroom, clothes had been laid out for me and Charity stood leaning against one wall, her shoulder pressed neatly to its painted surface, her arms cradling her breasts, one foot planted firm, the other crossed in front, toe of her Keds canvas sneaker resting on the hardwood.
She was model perfect, and my dick stirred just looking at her. I had the feeling she felt the same, given the way her eyes roamed my body, lingering where the towel was slung low on my hips.
“A little privacy?” I asked.
“You sure? Because last night we got pretty intimate,” she said with a wink.
“I know, and it was a mistake,” I said. A glint of hurt flashed in the depths of her eyes but she covered it with an easy smile.
“Well, I don’t regret a thing,” she said softly, pushing off the wall and making easy strides. I caught her sleeve between thumb and forefinger and she looked up at me.
“This is a dangerous game,” I murmured.
“Doesn’t have to be, Nothing. You’re the one making it that way, so why don’t you just stop?”
Her words hit me like a ton of bricks, I mean, I hadn’t quite thought of it that way but at the same time, “It’s not that simple, Charity.”
“Why not? The only one I see complicating things, is you.”
“Just what do you want from me, anyways?” I demanded, scowling. This was getting uncomfortable for me.
She stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment, “I want you to stop acting like a dick and start using your dick,” she said and I scoffed, incredulously. “Let me ask you something,” she said, before I could recover.
“What?”
“Does it feel good?”
“What?”
She gave me a look, like ‘don’t be stupid,’ “Do you seriously want me to get into the gory details?” she demanded.
“No, I mean yes, it feels good; it feels really good when I’m with you.” She had me off kilter and she knew it, but I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to get at through my fog of a hangover.
“Okay, then. Fuck me, use me, do whatever you want as long as you keep the orgasms coming,” she fucking winked at me while I stared at her slack jawed. “We’ll figure out the rest as we go along, because let’s face it, if it’s one thing we’ve figured out, we’re good together when we’re in the sack. It’s probably the one uncomplicated thing about us.”
I laughed incredulously, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Serious as a fucking heart attack over here,” she said. “Now get dressed,” she slapped me on the ass as she went by and I jumped, grabbing for the towel that was coming unhooked at my hip.
I thought to myself, did she just tear a page out of fucking Hope’s playbook or what?