Page 9 of Unearthed Dreams (Sable Point #3)

Chapter Eight

KAI

It’d been a week since Charlie ran out of my bar—a week of kicking myself for being a goddamn idiot.

What the fuck had I been thinking, almost kissing her? Actually putting my mouth on her skin?

Wouldn’t want my first kiss to be with an asshole, anyway.

Her words had played on a loop in my head for the last seven days.

She’d never even been kissed. She was far more innocent than I’d first assumed, but fuck if I didn’t want to take all her firsts.

Show her what she’d been missing. Let her skip all the awkward, fumbling guys her age and give her exactly what her body craves.

Because she craves it. I’d felt it in her breath, the way it hitched when I held her. Heard it in that gasp when my lips brushed her skin. I’d bet I could’ve tasted it too—with my face buried between her thighs.

The thought had me gripping my aching cock as I rested my forehead against the shower wall.

When was the last time I was this turned on?

The last time I gripped my dick thinking about burying inside a warm cunt?

For the past two years, this kind of release had been few and far between—more a physical necessity than something pleasurable.

But as I stroked my hard length, pleasure coursed through my veins.

Pleasure at the thought of kissing Charlie’s soft pink lips—the ones on her face and between her legs.

Pleasure at the thought of being the first man to make her come, to make her scream my name as she chased a high only I could give her.

I ached to plunge my fingers into her pussy, stretch her wide so she could take every inch of my cock as she rode me hard and fast.

I squeezed the base of my dick before stroking harder, faster. In seconds, I was barreling toward a release more intense than any I’d felt in years. My hips bucked involuntarily and I erupted, cum painting the shower walls as I let out a raspy, “Fuck.”

I panted through the pulsing aftershocks, cursing once more under my breath. Damn, if just the thought of her did this to me, what would the real thing feel like? I knew I was getting slightly obsessed with this girl, but I couldn’t stop it if I tried—and I had tried.

Sighing, I washed away the evidence of my Charlie-induced fantasy and made a plan to get my mind off her.

Twenty minutes later, I was shaved, dressed, and my damp hair was pulled up and out of my face. I slipped out the back door of the bar and locked up before taking the alley toward Main Street. First stop—Harbor Pantry for the staples: bread, peanut butter, jelly, milk, and cereal.

What more did a man on his own need?

I’d just finished bagging my groceries when I spotted Chase and a certain doctor heading down aisle two. I shook my head, knowing he was likely getting in way over his head, but I reminded myself that it was none of my damn business. Again.

Clutching two bags and a gallon of milk in one hand, I walked the few blocks to my next stop. The bell chimed as I opened the door to Books and Crannies.

“Hey Kai!” Jennifer chirped. “How’s it going?”

“Not bad. What do you have for me?”

I stopped here once or twice a week. At first, I’d browse and choose my own books, my lack of trust showing even in the simplest of decisions, like letting someone recommend a book. After two years of weekly visits, Jennifer had earned my trust and I’d let her choose my next read.

“Okay, you’re going to have to trust me on this one. It’s a little outside your normal genre, but I think you’ll love it.”

She handed me a thick red paperback. “Seriously? A Court of Thorns and Roses ?”

“Have a little faith, Kai. It’s amazing.”

“What’s amazing?”

My heart stuttered as the woman who starred in all my fantasies rounded the corner from the shop office. Charlie was looking at the stack of books in her arms as she approached the counter.

“Oh, perfect! Kai, do you know Charlie?”

Her head snapped up at the sound of my name and that beautiful blush broke out across her cheeks.

“I do. Charlie,” I said, by way of greeting.

“Hi.”

We stood there staring at each other like a couple of idiots. Jennifer glanced between us, clearly sensing the tension .

“Okay…” she drawled. “Great. Well, Charlie’s going to be running things while I’m out on maternity leave,” she said to me, then turned to Charlie. “Kai’s a regular, and I always have a recommendation handy for him. Today, that would be A Court of Thorns and Roses. ”

“Oooh, it is amazing,” Charlie said, her eyes sparkling.

“Alright, I’ll try it. Maybe I’ll like a little romance with my fantasy.”

Charlie’s cheeks deepened to crimson as I spoke the words directly to her. Jennifer, still clocking the awkward energy, broke the silence that stretched between us. “Amazing. Charlie, want to ring Kai up?”

“Oh, right. Sure.” Charlie fumbled through the process, causing Jennifer to shoot me a questioning glance. I shrugged, trying to stifle my smirk. Charlotte Everton was as affected by me as I was by her.

I just didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.

Two days later, I walked back into the bookstore.

Normally, with my schedule at the bar, it’d take me a lot longer to finish a book this length, but I was highly motivated to get back to Books and Crannies.

Since it was the middle of the week, I usually shut the bar down sometime around eleven, kicking out the regulars who’d ponied up hours ago and wouldn’t leave until they got a swift kick in the pants.

Then, I’d taken my book to bed and read for hours, sleeping in way later than I normally would and rushing to get the bar opened each morning.

The motion-activated bell chimed as I stepped inside, and Charlie looked up from her place at the front register. A stack of white pages lay spread in front of her, and her laptop was open off to the side. “Find a quiet place to work, after all?”

She smiled softly. “In more ways than one, though I should probably be doing actual work work now that Jennifer is out.”

“She had the baby?”

“Yep, a little boy.” Her smile widened. “Tyler.”

“Do you want kids?” Where the fuck did that come from?

Charlie snorted a laugh, and a grin stretched across my face at the sound. “No way. I enjoy my peace and quiet way too much to have a screaming kid running around. My books are my babies.”

Fuck , when was the last time I smiled this much? “I know what you mean.”

She matched my expression, cheeks flushing that pretty pink I’d come to crave. “You here for the next ACOTAR book?”

“Hmm. I was thinking something else.”

Her shoulders dipped, and that little furrow appeared between her brows, somewhere between concern and disappointment. “Oh, you didn’t like it?”

“I did, actually. But I’d love to read something with dragons,” I said, brows raised and looking pointedly at her manuscript pages.

“May I suggest Fourth Wing ?”

“You may not.”

She giggled, the tinkling sound warming me from the inside out. Then she let out a sigh. “You really wanna read it?”

“I do.”

Her tongue poked against her cheek as she thought it over—unaware of how fucking distracting that simple motion was. My cock jerked behind my zipper, begging to be the one to press along the inside of her hot mouth.

I shook my head slightly, chasing the lust out of my thoughts.

“Okay,” she relented. “You can read it, but only if you promise to give me your honest opinion. If it sucks, you have to tell me.”

“Promise.”

“Okay.” Then she gathered the pages, bound them with a black clip, and squeezed the stack to her chest before handing it over, like she was saying goodbye to her child.

My books are my babies.

“I’ll take good care of your baby.”

Charlie nodded, rolling her lips between her teeth, looking so unsure of herself. I ached to ease her worries. If she wanted honesty, she’d get it.

And honestly?

I was already fucking amazed by her.

“I see you got my note.”

“I did,” Charlie said as she slid onto a bar stool across from where I was pouring a round of beers for a few off-duty cops playing pool.

I’d taped a note to the back door of the bookstore, asking Charlie to meet me here after she closed the shop. Monday nights were slow, and I’d finished reading her manuscript the night before. To say I was impressed would have been a gross understatement .

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Oh, um, a Coke?”

“Is that a question or a request?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I feel like I should get a beer or something if I’m sitting at the bar, but I don’t really like drinking much.” Her nose wrinkled adorably, and I laughed, the sound increasingly less foreign the more time I spent in Charlotte Everton’s presence.

“There’s no rule that says you have to drink alcohol to sit here. You’re allowed to have a Coke, Charlie.”

“Okay.” She straightened her shoulders back and said with more confidence, “Then I’ll have a Coke, please, Mr. Bartender.”

“Mr. Bartender?” I raised a brow, grabbing the soda gun.

“Well, I realized I don’t know your last name. I’d assumed Callaghan, but if Billy was your wife’s?—”

“It’s Callaghan. I took her name.” I grabbed a cocktail napkin and set it in front of Charlie, followed by her glass of Coke.

“Well, that’s very progressive of you.”

I shrugged. “Wasn’t so much about being progressive as it was me not wanting anything to do with my family name.”

She gave me a sad smile before that pensive look returned—the one I’d now determined to mean she was working through something. I waited, anticipating her next question.

“But if your wife didn’t know Billy was her father, how did she have his name?”

I smiled. “Always looking for the plot holes, huh, pretty girl?”

She tried but failed to stifle her returning smile.

My jaw clenched as memories of Kelsey surfaced, her rage- filled eyes as she’d ranted about her mother’s betrayal. I gripped the glass in my hand tighter, focusing on the cool condensation against my palm.

“That was the real kicker. It pissed Kels off that her mom knew where her dad was from the beginning, but never told him. Cursed her mom’s grave for years over it.”

Charlie leaned forward, elbows resting on the bar.

“They couldn’t find him after her mom died?”

I wiped down an already clean spot, needing something to do with my hands. “Social services tried, but all they had to go on was a last name, and it’s not an uncommon one.”

“No, I guess it’s not.” Charlie traced patterns in the condensation on her glass. “That’s so sad. Sounds like she had a hard life, your wife.”

My shoulders tensed. “She had thirteen good years with her mom. Was far more than I had.”

“I’m sorry.”

My head snapped up, anger flaring hot and quick. “Didn’t say it for your pity.”

“I don’t pity you.” Her voice held steel beneath its softness. “Seems like you turned out a pretty decent human after being dealt such a rotten hand.”

A bitter laugh escaped my throat. “I’d say ‘decent human’ is generous.”

“Why?”

The weight of my past pressed down on my chest. I shrugged, unable to meet those searching eyes that saw too much. “You don’t know me, Charlie.”

Her lips parted slightly, uncertainty crossing her features. “No, I guess I don’t... ”

A shout from across the bar broke the charged silence. “Kai! Where’re those beers?”

I shot a glare at Andy and the other two, muttering to Charlie I’d be right back. I made a triangle with the three drafts I poured and gripped the glasses between my spread fingers. When I set them on the table in front of the guys sitting by the pool table, beer sloshed over the sides.

“You’re welcome.”

“Dude, you didn’t even give us a chance to say thank you.”

I didn’t spare them a backward glance, sights set on returning to the pretty girl at the bar.

“Where were we?”

“Hmm, you were just telling me I don’t know much about you,” Charlie said, taking a small sip of her Coke through the straw. She had no idea what those lips of hers did to a man. “How about we change that?”

I grunted, but she took it as my agreement. Funny thing was, she could’ve asked me pretty much anything and I’d agree.

“Where are you from?”

“Grand Rapids.”

“No way!” She beamed, and it lit up the whole damn bar. “That’s where I’ve been the last four years. Maybe we bumped into each once and never even knew.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn’t say we ran in the same crowds.”

“Okay, but did you go to the grocery store?”

“Yes.”

“Starbucks?”

“Reluctantly. ”

“The movies.”

“Never.”

“Never?!”

“Nope.”

“That’s just not right.”

“Taking ten kids to the movies wasn’t in the foster family’s budget.”

“And after?”

“Our extracurriculars were a little less wholesome.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I don’t think you do, Charlie. I’m not a good man.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “ I’m not a good man ,” she mimicked in a comically deep voice. “You sound like such a cliché right now. I will be the judge of that, thank you.”

This girl. She came across all meek and shy, but I had a feeling she was anything but. Had she gotten swallowed up in the chaos of her family? Overshadowed by her old siblings? Did nobody see the spirit in her? The fire? Did nobody nurture it?

I could.

But I wouldn’t.

It was a conclusion I’d come to over the past few days. I could be her friend. I could read her novel, give her feedback, and talk books with someone for the first time in years.

But that was all it would be, no matter where my fantasies took me. No matter how those erotic words she’d written in her book affected me.

Charlie may have wanted to be the one to judge my character for herself, but I’d looked in the mirror enough times to know one thing for certain: I was no good for Charlotte Everton.