Page 43

FRANCESCA

No one has ever done anything like this for me before.

I’ve never wanted them to. My whole life I’ve been the one to solve my own problems and, to be honest, everyone else’s. It’s what I’m good at.

I should maybe be feeling a little annoyed. Maybe more than a little. Especially after that speech I gave him about us being together and making big life choices together, but I don’t have it in me to be anything other than relived and grateful and, yeah, maybe a little bit turned on by it.

There’s something extremely hot about a man who sees a problem and fixes it, without any waffling or handholding or without expecting to be crowned master of the universe for it.

In fact, Charlie seems to realize that, generally, doing stuff like this all the time would be a bad idea.

That’s even hotter: a guy who knows exactly when it’s time to get things done.

This is definitely one of those times.

I’ve been silent for too long.

He’s rubbing at the back of his head and rocking on his heels and with his bottom lip caught between his teeth, he looks genuinely nervous. It’s kind of extra hot, honestly.

Finally, I manage to come up with something to say.

“We don’t have to decide right now, but I need you to know that this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

His shoulders sag with absolute sheer relief.

“Really?”

I push up to my tiptoes and brush a kiss against his cheek. “Really,” I whisper, barely getting the word out before he turns his head and catches my mouth with his.

“You’re completely insane, you know that, right?” I say, when I pull away gasping for air.

“Yeah, I know,” he admits, and then I grab his hand and lead him toward the front steps and through the front door.

It’s awkward, trying to run up the stairs to the second floor holding his hand and, halfway up, he gives up, braces himself against the wall and swings me up into his arms. I let out a little shriek at the sudden weightlessness and the momentary spark of fear that we’re about to go tumbling back down the steps, but then he shifts my weight against his chest and we’re moving again, up to my door, where he reluctantly lets me down so I can unlock it.

“It would have been cooler to carry you in,” he mutters from behind me, his arms twining around me as I try to maintain enough focus to actually get the key into the lock.

It’s hard with his mouth pressing hot, wet kisses down the line of my neck while his fingers untuck my blouse from the waist of my skirt, darting beneath it and rising to cup my breasts, gently weighing them in his hands.

With a shuddering breath, I manage to slide the key into the stupid lock, twist it and the doorknob in one motion and then stumble into my apartment with him at my back.

The door slams shut behind us and I drop my bag and my keys to the floor as he spins us around and pins me against it, his mouth immediately finding mine while his hands grip my thighs and lift me, my legs tightening around his waist as one shoe falls off and the other dangles on my toes until I kick it away.

He slides my skirt up over my thighs, but the bottom isn’t wide enough to push up over my hips and he growls at the delay.

Using his body to brace me against the hard surface and while his mouth sucks gently at my neck, his fingers find the zipper to my skirt before he deftly slides it down and sets me on my feet to allow it to fall the rest of the way.

“Fuck,” he bites out, tossing the skirt away while I slide out of the suit jacket and then go to work on the buttons at the front of my shirt.

Why the hell did I pick a blouse with so many buttons this morning?

After I undo the first few, he grows impatient and lifts it over my head, sending it to join my skirt.

“Bed?” I suggest, but he shakes his head.

“No way,” he mutters, and drops to his knees.

My panties go the way of my other clothes and then he’s running a hand along the back of my thigh and then along the inside of my knee, and I let out a light giggle.

Charlie lifts my leg over his shoulder and repeats the action, drawing more laughter, clearly intrigued at finding a ticklish place, but not wanting to be diverted from his goal just now.

“It’s my only spot,” I insist, and he snorts his disbelief, but allows it, pressing a kiss there.

“Hold on,” he instructs, and I do, a hand in his hair, the other at his shoulder as his mouth trails a hot path up the inside of one thigh and then, skipping where I want him the most, licks a slow stripe up my lower abdomen to my belly button.

“Don’t tease,” I ask, just this side of begging.

And then he doesn’t. His mouth and his hands are everywhere, fingers filling me – though not nearly enough now that I know what it’s like to have him inside of me – his mouth at my clit, my thighs closing around his ears, just the way he likes it.

My fingers twist in his hair at the incredible sensations firing through my body so fast it feels like being a teenager again, when every touch is new and heightened and so intense you think you might explode into little bits of nothing before it’s all over.

My heel finds the space between his shoulder blades as he works me through the arching release of my body, holding him there until they finally begin to subside.

And when my brain starts working again after luxuriating in pure sensation, I manage to say, “If that baseball thing didn’t work out, you could have done this professionally.”

He tilts his head in adorable confusion. “That’s a compliment, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I answer, still not entirely sure that, if he lets me go, my legs will be able to hold me up.

“Good,” he says, wiping at his face with his thumb before sucking the mess he made away.

“I don’t think I can stand,” I admit, when he starts to shift back.

“I’m not sure I can either,” he says, sitting back on his haunches as my leg slips off his shoulder to the floor.

“We’re a complete mess.”

“We are.”

“Okay, let me just,” I test the strength of my legs and they seem okay, if a little more unsteady than normal.

I brace myself on his shoulders and he lets out a hiss.

The wood floor must be doing a number on his knee.

I manage standing on my own and then lean back a bit against the wall, offering him my hand to help him up.

He manages it without falling over, but he’s clearly in pain.

“You need surgery.”

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“We’ll go to the doctor after Thanksgiving. Get it scheduled.”

“Yeah,” he says, without protest, which must mean he’s in way more pain than I assumed.

“Good.” I reach up to brush the hair out of his face and my smug smile fades at the heat still in his eyes.

“Please tell me my fucking knee didn’t ruin the mood,”

“It didn’t.”

“Thank God, because I’m still as hard as a rock and I fucking need to be inside of you.”

“Come on,” I say, taking his hand and leading him just a few more steps into my bedroom. I give him a gentle shove down to sit at the edge of the bed and then stand in front of him as I undo my bra while he looks up at me from beneath his lashes. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

His mouth lifts at the corner into a mischievous smile. “Is that why you had my poster on your wall?”

I give him that one. “That’s exactly why.

” Lifting his t-shirt up over his head, I send it to the corner of my bedroom while he presses kisses into my stomach and the underside of my breasts and then it’s my turn to fall to my knees, undoing the fly of his jeans and taking them and his boxer briefs off in one long motion after he kicks off his shoes and socks.

He clearly doesn’t want to test his knee, so after I retrieve a condom that I’m pretty sure hasn’t expired from my nightstand drawer and slide it onto him while he watches slack jawed, I simply climb into his lap and allow him to press up into me, my body more than ready for him, but still reveling in the sweet stretch of having him inside of me.

“So good,” he grits out when my ass hits his thighs and his palms span across me, guiding my body into a grinding rhythm, and it doesn’t take long until my eyes fall shut and my mouth falls open while every twist of his hips creates the perfect friction against my clit and he presses up inside me, hitting just the right spot.

“Yes, right there,” I manage, between the gasps emanating from the back of my throat, getting close again so quickly after his complete undoing of me against the door.

Then, his hips start to thrust up off the bed and I hold on for dear life as he finds the strength to push up off the mattress and deposit me back on it, leaving me on my hands and knees, ass in the air and when I look back over my shoulder at him he lets out a noise from deep inside that makes my entire body clench in anticipation.

“Your knee,” I protest, but weakly.

“Fuck my knee,” he dismisses, and then he’s filling me from behind, while he presses down at the center of my back, the other around to find my clit again and as he pounds into me, hard and fast, a punishing rhythm, and that’s when white hot energy crackles through every part of me, exploding behind my eyes and at my core, my hips mindlessly thrusting back into his while I collapse down into the mattress, only for him to flow, his thrusts suddenly uneven and short until he gives over to it entirely and we land together, a sticky, gasping heap of exhausted pleasure.

When I finally come back to myself, I’m still catching my breath with the soft cotton of my sheets sticking to my sweat slicked skin.

I don’t remember rolling to my back, but I must have, and Charlie’s arm is thrown carelessly over my waist, his face half buried in the pillow and half into my shoulder.

I glide my fingertips up and down the sinew of his forearm as our breathing syncs and then slows, both of us drifting into a doze.

But then my phone vibrates from my bag, across the room, where, somewhere in our mad dash to my bed, I dropped it on the floor.