Page 41 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

MAREN

I t’s for the best that the house is full of people and that Charlie is expected to work. Because otherwise, little would be getting accomplished.

I’m sleep-deprived, my body feels like one long bruise—and I just want more, which is not something I’d have said of anyone I was with in the past. He can’t even cross my line of vision without my brain stuttering.

It’s far less about his loveliness—though, God, there’s that as well—and more about the way he watches my face, about the things he says.

“ I’m going to fuck that swollen little mouth of yours so hard the second this house is empty,” he promised over breakfast this morning.

It’s about his jaw falling open just before he comes, as if the pleasure is so intense, he’s forgotten everything else.

Is it different because it’s Charlie or is it different because he’s the one guy I know I can’t keep? There’s no winning him over, nothing to be done but enjoy these few moments I’m being given.

And how many more of them will I even get?

He’s due in San Antonio soon. And the second he decides he’s had enough of this, that’s what he’ll use as an excuse and I won’t be able to complain. I’ve always known the day would come, right?

I’m in the hallway repairing the plaster, thinking about all of this, when he and Elijah pass me on their way outside.

His gaze catches mine and my unhappy thoughts vanish.

Instantly, I’m falling down a rabbit hole of things I want him to try, things I want him to do again, and wondering how long it will be until all these contractors are out of the house.

Charlie

If you keep looking at me like that, the crew’s going to get a show.

I have NO IDEA what you’re referring to.

Meet me in your cottage in two minutes and I’ll explain it to you.

I can’t drop my trowel fast enough. I head toward the cottage, trying to keep a normal pace just in case Charlie’s watching—I refuse to look eager. And the moment I open the door, I discover he’s already inside, already pulling me against him, his mouth on mine.

“We’re out of condoms,” I warn as he pulls my T-shirt off.

“No, we’re not,” he says, tossing a new box on the bed. “I had them delivered.”

My head jerks from the box to him. “Charlie, in a town this size? They’re all going to be talking about it.”

He pops the button of my shorts and pushes them to the floor. “From Hilton Head, for twice the cost and a fifty-buck tip. Now, Maren, do you want to keep grilling me or do you want to get on your back?”

I get on my back, obviously.

I remember reading about honeymoons when I was a teen. I pictured some sun-soaked jaunt through Italy on a Vespa, one in which I inexplicably looked like Audrey Hepburn, which could never happen. I’m six inches taller than Audrey Hepburn, for starters.

We would sit on flower-covered terraces and my husband would hold my face tenderly and smile as I talked, as if simply listening to me made him happy.

My honeymoon with Harvey was…none of those things.

It wasn’t in Italy, nor was it sun soaked, and really it was a business trip for him that he let me tag along on.

We spent three days in Munich, and then he left me in the hotel alone while he took off for Frankfort because he really needed to talk to a guy, and it would be easier if he wasn’t worrying about me.

There were no flowered terraces, and there wasn’t much fondness. He’d glance up from his phone over dinner when I asked something, with a look I’d soon grow all too familiar with: tempered irritation. I’m busy, you’re interrupting , you clearly don’t know what it’s like to hold a real job, Maren .

I wasn’t imagining it. He soon began saying it aloud.

The only time he seemed glad I was there was when we got into bed, and even that was…

bland. I’d slide between the sheets wondering if I’d made a mistake, wondering if his behavior all week was an anomaly (it wasn’t) or a harbinger of things to come (it was), and I resented him for suddenly acting as if he liked me when he wanted something.

I resented the sudden reappearance of his attention and charm, which I already knew would disappear as soon as he rolled off me, like a large, hardback book slammed shut.

The man who’d claimed to love me would disappear again until the following night, until I was beneath him—not coming—wondering why I couldn’t just be happy the way I was supposed to be.

I’m thinking about that week a lot these days.

No one would call our time at Riverbend a honeymoon. All week I’m popping tiles off the bathroom floor or plastering over damaged walls while Charlie’s rebuilding stairways and hanging new windows and doing just enough work on behalf of his firm that he can keep paying for this place.

Elijah doesn’t want to put the A/C in for the upstairs until his guys have completed the flooring and insulation in the attic, which means that the only cool air for this massive house comes from the basement, and promptly spills back out the open windows, the swinging doors.

We are sweaty and somewhat stressed. Things fall and break roughly every ten minutes.

I’ve never heard so much profanity in my life.

And yet, I’m happy. I spend the days in this euphoric, anticipatory bubble, and the second the crew leaves, Charlie is picking me up and carrying me out of the house with my legs wrapped around his waist, telling me all the things he’s wanted to say during the day but couldn’t.

Only half of them are filthy. I guess none of this would be happening if he had the normal array of Manhattan models and influencers to choose from, but I’m trying not to think about that.

And maybe there have been some things he’s trying not to think about too.

I’m nestled against his chest—Charlie, unlike Harvey, is a cuddler. When we wake, he is wrapped around me, his leg draped over my thighs. He falls asleep with my back pressed to his stomach, arms holding me tight the way they are now.

“How did you leave things with Andrew?” he asks out of nowhere.

My brow furrows. Is he asking me about Andrew because he wants reassurance, or is he asking because he’s hoping I have someone to lean on when this thing ends?

I roll toward him. “I told him I couldn’t make it because I was in a hurry to get back here, and he kind of laughed and said he knew when you showed up at the restaurant that night, you were going to be a problem. But he’s still talking to people about the house.”

“Good,” he replies. He runs a thumb over my lower lip. His relief is tangible. And because of that, mine is too.

I close my eyes, curling against him, but I can still feel his gaze on me.

“Go to sleep, Charlie,” I tell him with a quiet smile. “We have to be up early.”

His lips press to the top of my head. “I’m not tired.”

I open one eye to peer up at him. “Should I tell you a story? That’s how I used to get Kit to sleep.”

“Yes,” he says. “Something boring, but not as boring as Andrew.”

I laugh and tell him a Greek myth, the sort I used to tell Kit when she was small. Just as I conclude, assuming he’s asleep, he pushes me onto my back.

“Sorry,” he whispers, pressing open-mouthed kisses against my skin. “But I don’t think your voice could ever put me to sleep. It’s sort of the opposite.”

I smile in the darkness, running my hand through his hair as he slides down my torso.

These are the thrilling, sun-soaked, besotted, orgasmic days I’ve always wanted.

It can’t last, but honeymoons aren’t meant to.

Eventually, when he moves on and I marry someone who wants a family, I will go on a second honeymoon with someone else. My new husband will be kind, nothing like Harvey…but it could never, ever be this good again.