Page 73 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“They’re looking at getting married next summer, but you know Kit…she isn’t going to let my mom plan some monstrous wedding like I had. Odds are she’ll just get pissed off and elope.”
“Yeah,” he says. And that’s the last word spoken for a solid five minutes while we finish our meals.
Which is awkward. It’s so fucking awkward.
Clearly, whatever was going through his head this morning has worked its way right back out. Which makes sense because obviously this, with us, is a terrible idea. It can’t last—I’m not the future he wants, and he’s not the future I want—and…he’s going to be family for the rest of my life.
If something happened between us, we’d exchange a guilty glance any time someone made a joke about sex during the weekly family dinner. And when my eventual husband says, “Are you sure you’ve never been with Charlie?” the way my former husband didall the time, I’ll either lie poorly or admit this monstrous truth. Eventually, it’ll be so obvious that everyone knows, even my mother, at which point she’ll break poor Roger’s heart and wind up with another guy who holds her face to the floor to make her lick up spilled food.
I rise, nearly knocking my chair over in my haste. “Are you done?”
When he nods, I stack his plate on mine, and walk back into the kitchen, strung tight with both want and mortification. I turn on the water and rinse the plates. God, what a fucked-up mess this has become, and I should probably?—
Charlie enters the kitchen and sets the wineglasses on the counter beside me.
And then…he’s behind me, with his hands on my hips.
My breath stops entirely. His head burrows into the crook of my shoulder. His lips press to the skin right at the corner of my jaw, then lower, at that pulse point in my neck. I stiffen but don’t stop him.
His cock presses to the back of my dress, as his hands slide upward to my breasts. His thumbs strum my nipples hard, as if I’m an instrument he’s very proficient at. Air bursts from my throat in a single, shallow exhale. He grinds against my ass, and I have to grip the back of the sink to keep myself upright.
I need more. I widen my stance—I have never been this desperate for friction, for the hard press of someone pushing inside me.
“Say it,” he demands. “Say you want it.”
I swallow. I’d really rather not. I’d really rather just have it happen without ever taking responsibility for my part, but that’s exactly why he’s not letting it unfold that way.
“I want it,” I whisper.
He grunts. The sound is involuntary, as if I’ve knocked the air out of him. His hand slides beneath the hem of my sundress and his thumb brushes over my clit, outside my panties.
Harvey’s touch was hard and mechanical, as if he was pressing the doorbell of a home where a bitter ex-girlfriend resided. This…is different. This is Charlie, with his tight inhale and exhale, circling his thumb, releasing these small, sharp breaths, as if it’s my hand onhimwhen I’m not even touching him.
I was frozen with Harvey, but right now, I’m beyond pliant. I’m melted butter, too soft to be shaped into anything at all.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?” he asks against my ear.
I can’t form a word in response. I simply shake my headyes, thenno.
“Always,” he says. “From the day we met, I’ve wanted to watch you come on my hand. I could jerk off to the memory of this and nothing else for the rest of my fucking life.”
My breath is frozen somewhere in the middle of my throat. I still half-expect him to give me that smug smile of his and laugh as he walks away, for him to make this joke on me. And yet thosechoppy breaths of his and the bulge pressing against me as he leans closer say that if the joke is on anyone, it’s on us both.
Goose bumps prickle the back of my arm. My nipples tighten beneath the sheer cotton of my dress. “Look at you, not enjoying it,” he says. “Look at the way you absolutely don’t want me pulling those tight little nipples between my teeth.”
“Fuck off,” I reply.
His circling thumb pulls away. I whimper and he laughs.
“Go ahead and say it again,” he says, dragging my earlobe between his teeth. “Tell me you don’t enjoy sex.”
“I…please.”
“Please, what, lovely girl? Please stop? Please make you come?”
“Yes.”
His index finger resumes the path his thumb traced a moment ago. Lighter now. As if he actually wants to prolong this. Or maybe he’s just giving me time to realize I’m full of shit.
