Chapter Seven
Carly counted. They'd been dancing for four songs.
She glanced over at the table. Michelle and Samantha were watching them with a particular gleam in their eyes that made her nervous. "Chuck, we should probably get back to my friends."
"You're right. But afterward, when I take you home . . . " He didn't finish the sentence.
Carly didn't need him to.
For the first time in years, she knew what she wanted.
Not what she should want.
Not what someone else wanted her to want.
Simply what she wanted.
And what she wanted was Chuck. "Yes, afterward."
The rest of the evening was a blur. She knew she conversed with Samantha and Michelle, but, if asked, she wouldn't have been able to pinpoint one single topic of that discussion. All she could think about was Chuck, about what she'd practically promised was going to happen when they went home.
And she did want him, but—
It was that darned but that was getting in the way. She wanted to be carefree and go-with-the-flow. She wanted to be the kind of woman who could enter into a casual relationship with a man. That's what she wanted.
But.
But, in actuality, she'd never been in a casual relationship. Before Dean, she'd had boyfriends, but she'd been so young, she'd fallen head over heels for each, thinking the high-school love would last forever. Dean was her first serious college boyfriend and that had lasted right up to the moment she'd signed the divorce papers.
With Chuck there was no talk of ever-afters. No telling herself that she'd be intimate with him because she loved him. And to be honest, she wasn't sure how to do that—how to have a physical relationship that involved a whole lot of like, but no talk of love.
When the band finished their set, she went to talk to them, telling them they had the dance if they wanted it.
Then she went back to the table, and they said good-night to Samantha and Michelle. "Congrats again," she told Samantha as she hugged her friend.
"Have fun tonight," Samantha whispered. "You two were practically burning up that dance floor."
That comment made her nervous as well.
"You're quiet," Chuck said as they drove to her house.
"Sorry. Just thinking."
"I could play dumb and ask about what, but I won't. We don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
Chuck was sweet. He probably would hate to hear that description as much as she suspected he'd hate to hear about his cuteness, but there it was. Lieutenant Chuck Jefferson was sweet and cute.
And that innate sweetness was why she knew he meant what he said. And it was the reason she wanted to do what was making her nervous. "Oh, I do want to. I just don't know how to."
"You have two kids," he pointed out, "so I assume you know how to."
Carly was glad it was late. It was somehow easier having this conversation while he was driving in the dark and couldn't see her. "But I was with someone I thought I loved, someone I thought loved me. With you, there's only physical need. And I don't want to minimize that need, because it's big and getting bigger by the minute. It's that I don't know how to do that."
"I can show you . . . if you want. But only if you want. I'm not into meaningless sex. I don't want to make it sound that way. There has to be a connection between us, or it doesn't work. I just don't try to pretty it up and call it love. I think we have that connection, Carly. And you have to feel it, too."
Carly knew offering her an out wasn't simply a way for him to call it off. She might have been removed from the dating game for a while, but she could tell he genuinely wanted her. No, this was Chuck being a nice guy and giving her an opportunity to change her mind. He didn't love her, but he cared enough not to force her into something she might regret. He was right, there was a connection here.
That thought warmed her and helped solidify in her mind what she wanted. "Chuck, I may not know how to have a relationship with a man who has no emotional ties with me, but I'd very much like to . . . with you."
"Phew. Being a nice guy was killing me."
"We wouldn't want that." She put her hand on his thigh. Nothing more. She didn't move it to any more risqué locations. His thigh was enough to make her feel brazen. She noticed he sped up a bit; moments later they pulled up in her drive and hurried into the house, laughing like two kids.
Purposefully, she locked the door and was slipping the chain in place as Chuck came up behind her and nuzzled on her neck. "You're sure the kids aren't coming home?"
The door locked, she turned around into Chuck's embrace. "As sure as I can be."
"Well then—" He pulled her close and kissed her.
Carly could feel his very real desire. She'd heard the word hungry used, and it fit here. He was hungry for her, which was good since she felt the same. It was almost a pressure, building, pulling her closer. She knew if they could just get close enough, that pressure would ease.
She pulled off her coat, hat and scarf, again without breaking off their kiss and dropped them to the floor. Chuck followed suit.
Reminiscent of their last aborted attempt.
"I think, last time, we made it as far as my room. Maybe this time we could make it to the bed?"
He released her, took her hand and immediately started up the stairs. "You don't have to ask me twice."
She laughed as she ran behind him.
"Right one?" he asked, opening the door and pulling her inside.
Carly ran for the bed, jumped in the center and toed off her boots. "Hurry, on the bed. We'll officially have gone farther than last time."
Chuck jumped next to her, they bounced and both laughed.
Fun.
Being with Chuck was fun. Easy. Maybe that's what coming into something casual meant . . . it could just be fun and easy.
As they stopped playing and started kissing again, an overwhelming feeling of rightness came over Carly.
"Carly, I—" His cell phone rang, interrupting whatever he was going to say. "Sorry, let me check."
He fished the phone out of his pocket. "I have to take this."
He stepped out into the hall. She could hear his murmured responses to whoever had called.
She felt awkward. At least when her kids had interrupted she'd had something to do. Now she had to sit in the middle of her bed with her clothing askew, trying not to listen to Chuck's conversation.
She raised her hand and ran a finger lightly over her lips. She felt aware of them. It's not that she didn't always know she had lips—she did. But she didn't often give them much thought. They were just there. She used them when she ate and when she talked, but really, even then she didn't pay much attention to them.
Now, they tingled a bit, leaving her very much aware that they were there and that recently they'd been thoroughly kissed.
When Chuck re-entered the room and turned his attention to other parts of her body, would they come as alive for her?
She found she was anxious to find out.
Chuck walked into the room, but this time there was no laughter as he jumped on her bed. There wasn't even a trace of a smile. "Carly, I so hate to do this to you—hell, to me, too. But I've got to go."
"Pardon?" Her fingers dropped from her lips and she was back to sitting awkward on her bed, clothing askew.
"That was the station. There's been a major drug bust. I've got to go. The Chief wants me there to deal with the press, and there's going to be press. It's my job."
"Oh." An excuse. Dean had millions of those. Carly, I have to work late. This is a big case. Carly, I'm going to dinner with the partners and some other people from the office. I'll be home soon.
She'd never thought anything of them until she'd caught him with his secretary, and then she questioned every late night, every weekend away, everything.
And as Chuck straightened his clothing, she questioned his excuse. Not that she thought he had another woman on the side, but maybe he'd finally discovered whatever it was about her that had driven Dean away. He was kissing her, and then was saved by the bell . . . well, phone.
"Carly, look I'm sorry. Looks like the universe is against us. Your kids, my job. I promise we'll figure it out. Maybe I could come back afterward and—"
"Hey, don't worry about it. No strings, remember? I have kids, you have the department. Neither of us wants anything but short-term and casual, so there are no recriminations. Go do what you need to. I'll probably be asleep before you're done."
"Can I call you tomorrow?"
"Sure. I have errands and will be in and out all day, but yes, call."
He leaned down and kissed her again. Not a tingle-producing kiss, but rather a very perfunctory peck on the lips. "Tomorrow. I'll call."
"Great."
She escorted him to the front door and willed herself not to peek out the window and watch him pull out of the drive.
Casual. Short-term. That's all this was. He had to work. There was nothing sinister in that.
However, a small voice whispered in her ear, wondering if that was the last she'd see of Chuck Jefferson. And as she realized what she'd just thought, she got mad.
Not at Chuck for leaving.
Not at the police station or her kids for interrupting them.
At herself for being so willing to accept that there was something wrong with her.
There was nothing wrong with her.
Dean was a skunk.
Her kids needed her.
Chuck had a job. Chuck wanted her, but he had something unavoidable to do.
She could sit in her bedroom feeling sorry for herself. Or she could be proactive. She could acknowledge that she and Chuck both had priorities, and try to figure out some way around them.
CHUCK SPENT MOST OF the night kicking himself and wondering why he had ever thought becoming the voice of the police department was a good idea.
He'd wanted to head back to Carly's after he finished up at the station, but she'd sort of made it clear that she intended to be sleeping.
"Last night was only another indication of why cops shouldn't get involved with women. When work calls, even if it is a Friday night and you have plans, you have to go. And the woman in question gets pissed," he said to Anderson the next morning as they sat at George's sipping coffee and waiting for their breakfasts.
"What did you do?"
"Carly and I were—" he was gentleman enough not to say exactly what they were doing "—out last night when I got called into work. I think Carly's mad. I don't blame her. I left her rather high and dry."
"Flowers. Send flowers. Women love that kind of thing."
"It's a bit of a cliché, don't you think?" He tried to picture himself handing Carly a bouquet and couldn't quite manage it. She'd probably fling the flowers right back at him. "I know she's rather biased against anything that's a cliché."
"Sleeping alone in your bed is cliché, too. Guess which cliché I'd pick?"
"You have a point. I could order some—" Chuck's phone rang. He fished in his pocket for it and muttered, "Seriously, tell me why I took this job again?"
But when he pulled it out and checked the caller ID, it wasn't a work number, it was Carly.
"Carly," he said by way of greeting.
Anderson raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to one side.
"Hey. Do you have a minute?" he heard her say. "I mean, if you're busy, you can call me back."
"Sure, I've got a minute." He held up a finger to Anderson, indicating he'd return in a momentarily, and walked toward the door, phone in hand. "About last night," he started.
"I'm not calling about last night. I'm calling about tonight. Can you get away?"
He stepped out into a bitter January wind blowing straight up State Street.
"I've got another Neighborhood Watch meeting I have to attend, but I should be out of there by sevenish at the latest."
"And after?" she pressed.
"I'm thoroughly at your disposal. What do you have in mind?" He felt warm, despite the cold, thinking about all the options he wouldn't mind her naming.
No, not warm. Almost hot.
"A surprise." Her laughter heated him up even more.
"I'll pick you up around seven," she continued.
"And is this a put-on-a-suit surprise, or a come-in-jeans surprise?" Not that he cared. He just wanted to spend time with Carly, didn't matter the circumstances.
"It's a pack-an-overnight-bag surprise."
He gave her his address, then the significance of her words sank in. "Oh. . . Oh, how did you manage—"
"No questions now, or you'll ruin the surprise. Pack an overnight bag, and maybe tell everyone at work you might be out of touch for a while tonight."
"How long is a while?"
"I suppose that's going to depend on . . . " She hesitated. He could almost hear her smile over the phone. "On your stamina."
"I'll be sure to let everyone know not to call unless it's an absolute emergency, if that's the case, because my stamina is legendary."
"Hey, that's big talk, buddy. I'm hoping you can back it up."
"Don't you mean keep it up?"
"Okay, okay, this conversation is getting a bit risqué. Tell me you're alone at home?"
"Actually, I'm at George's having breakfast with Anderson."
"Ack. Hang up then and find a good excuse for this conversation. One that doesn't involve me. Oh, can you imagine how he'd torture me? Tell him you were talking to a perp, a reporter . . . I don't care who you tell him it is, just don't tell him it's me."
Chuck didn't mention he was standing outside freezing because he'd wanted to steal some time alone with her . . . even if it meant standing in a foot of snow. "I'll think of something."
"I'll be at your house about seven-thirty." She hung up.
He hurried inside and found Anderson already chowing down on his eggs. Chuck gratefully picked up his coffee cup, willing his hands to regain some feeling.
"So, are you going to tell me? Do you need those flowers?" Anderson asked.
Chuck shook his head. "No, I don't think I do."
"Seriously? She forgave you that easily? I remember most of your exes did nothing but complain about your weird hours."
"She didn't even mention last night. She wanted to make some plans for tonight."
The waitress stopped at the table with a coffeepot in her hand. "Fill 'er up?"
Chuck set the coffee cup down. "Please."
Feeling a little warmer, he started his breakfast. Anderson didn't ask any other questions. Didn't press. That was one of the nice things about his brother-in-law. But Chuck wasn't really thinking about Anderson's consideration. His mind was on Carly and her surprise . . . her surprise that involved an overnight bag.
CARLY WAS A MASS of nerves by the time she pulled up in front of Chuck's that night. Not a bad, maybe-she-shouldn't-be-doing-this, self-doubt case of nerves. Rather a sort of fluttery nervous excitement.
She wanted Chuck.
After her initial disappointment, she'd understood that he'd had to leave last night, because it was the nature of his job. If she stayed at the hospital after she passed her boards, her hours would be just as crazy.
She wished she'd told him to come back over when he was done . . . whenever he was done.
She hadn't though, which was why she'd spent her night tossing and turning. When she finally did manage to doze off, her dreams had been full of Chuck, and what they might have done.
What they would do tonight, if she had her way.
She was relieved to see his car in the drive. She didn't have time even to get out of the car before his front door opened and he rushed toward her, overnight bag in hand.
"So?" he said as he climbed into the passenger seat. "What are we doing that involves an overnight bag? And don't try to hold me off with your ambiguous it's-a-surprise comments. I'm a cop. I know interrogation techniques and I'm not afraid to use them."
His teasing helped calm her nerves. She put the car in reverse, and pulled out onto the street. "Well, I was doing some thinking—"
"It's always dangerous to hear you've been thinking, Carly Lewis. But I'm a cop and I live for danger, so go on."
Carly turned off 38th Street and headed north on State. Normally, she'd have noticed that today's wet snow had left all the trees coated. It looked beautiful in the moonlight. But tonight it was only a passing thought. All she could concentrate on was the fact that Chuck was sitting next to her, that she wanted him and that she wasn't waiting for fate. She was making it happen.
"I was thinking," she repeated. "If we wait for my kids and your work to give us a break, we'll never have sex. We'll reach the end of our fling without ever having flung. And that is a sad state of affairs . . . pardon my pun."
He chuckled. "And rhyme. Both were equally bad. I admit you've got a point and we wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want that."
"Well, once, I might have thrown up my hands and said that there was nothing I could do about a flingless fling. But after my divorce . . . " Oh, bad form to mention a divorce—which brought the existence of an ex into the conversation—when you were about to proposition a man. Carly wasn't sure she was ever going to get the hang of dating. "Sorry."
"About what? You were talking about flinging, and there's nothing to be sorry about there."
Thank goodness the light was green. She didn't want to waste any of their time together idling at red lights. She needed to be in Chuck's arms now.
"Carly?" he prompted. "You were talking about flinging?"
"Sorry. Thinking about flinging makes my mind wander. As I was saying, I decided I was done being anyone's doormat. I'm done waiting for life to offer me what I want. No one, not even fate, is going to tell me what to do. I realized it's up to me to reach out and take what I want."
"You can reach out and take me whenever you want."
"That's the plan. Tonight. Dean has the kids. So, it's just us."
"We're not heading to your house, though."
She continued to hit green lights as they traveled down State Street. "Oh, no, that was part of the planning. People know where I live, and we've already proven that's not good. I thought about suggesting we fling at your house, but people know where you live as well. They know your car, too, which is a bad thing since your cop buddies are everywhere in the city. That's why we're in my car and we're heading someplace they'll never find us."
"Where?"
"That's the surprise."
She turned and headed west on the Bayfront Highway, and in short order, turned onto the road that led to the new Convention Center. Carly pulled onto the parking ramp next to the hotel. "This is a perfect plan. I booked us at the hotel. Beautiful views, great ambiance. And as an added security measure, my car will be hidden in the ramp. We should be hard to track down."
"I like how you think." They got out of the car, and both grabbed their overnight bags from the backseat.
He reached out to take hers. Carly tugged it away from him. "I've got it."
And because that sounded a bit sharp, she added, "I want you to save your strength for tonight."
Chuck didn't argue, but he did slip his arm over her shoulders and brought her close.
Carly relished his touch. It had been so long since she'd felt like this. She leaned into him. He felt solid. A guy she could trust.
The walked briskly into the hotel and through the lobby without even stopping to notice the beautiful ambiance.
"Do we need to check in?" he asked as she bypassed the reservation desk.
Carly pulled their keycard out of her pocket. "Got it covered."
"You really did work at this."
The appreciation in his voice warmed her. "When I do something, I don't like to do it halfway. I came down early, checked in and scoped out the room. You're going to love it."
He jabbed the button for the elevator. "I've never been in here. The hotel's gorgeous. And you know that I'm only commenting on the decor because I'm trying to concentrate on behaving like a civilized man until we're someplace private."
The elevator doors slid open.
"Just how uncivilized are you planning to be, then?"
They entered the elevator and Carly pushed a button.
"As uncivilized as you'll let me," he assured her as the doors slid shut.
Carly turned to him and kissed him. It wasn't as long or as deep as she'd have liked to make it, but she wanted to make her intentions very, very clear. And she settled for a brief reminder.
It must have been enough because Chuck whispered, "Wow," as the doors slid open.
She led him down the hallway. "You let work know you might not be answering your cell phone for a while?" she checked.
"I let them know. I told them I was going to be out of touch for the night. If they called, they could leave a message."
The fact that he'd do that, that he'd put his work aside for her, only added to the need Carly felt. She stopped in front of the farthest room. "Here we go."
She opened it, closed the door behind them and bolted it shut. "Come look at this." She led him across the room to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the bay. The moon was full and bright, illuminating the entire frozen surface in a bluish light. "I could stay here all night looking out this window."
He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "It is beautiful, but I'm hoping I can convince you to pull yourself away for a while. Because there's another scenic location I'd like to explore."
Without breaking his embrace, she turned so that she was facing him. "Scenic?"
"Very scenic." He nuzzled her neck.
"Before we both start sightseeing, I need to tell you that I'm not nervous about this." As she said the words she thought they sounded stupid, but she needed to say them.
"I'm glad." He continued kissing her neck, moving lower to her collarbone.
She couldn't remember ever having had her collarbone kissed before. And if she'd thought about it, she wouldn't have imagined it would be sexy, but it was . . . incredibly sexy.
Carly forced herself to concentrate, to get out the words she needed to say before they went any farther. "Samantha was nervous. She hadn't made love to anyone other than her ex, and she was nervous about what Harry would think of her post-pregnancy body. I won't let that bother me."
"You don't need to let it bother you," he assured her, and gently unbuttoned just one small button on her blouse, his lips moving to below her collarbone, toward the little bit of cleavage she had.
"You're right, I don't. So, I have a few stretch marks? I won't let myself worry that you'll find them offensive."
Carly had to admit, Chuck didn't seem to be offended by anything. He gently undid one more button and caressed her with his lips.
He didn't offer any more reassurances, but simply pulled her toward the bed.
"Sorry, buddy. Turn about's fair play." Carly needed to take control. Needed to set the pace.
She gave him a little shove back onto the bed. "Just stay still and let me have my way with you."
"Carly, you can have me whatever way you want."
Loving the feeling of freedom, Carly began her own exploration.
And what she found was worth the wait.