Page 18

18. Charlie :

(Sex. It’s like riding a bike …)

Bloody Valentine’s Day. I did not think this through.

Scuffing my shoe along the dirt path, I cursed every decision I’d made tonight. Or at least the last one. The one where I’d left Violet at her door.

I wasn’t sure it was possible to be an idiot and a genius at the same time, but I was definitely giving it a good try. I, Charlie Masterson, was definitely an idiot.

Yup. You are. The voices in my head agreed. You really ballsed this one up.

I couldn’t deny it. Up to approximately twenty minutes ago, everything had been perfect.

The whole day had; from the moment I’d left Violet at the theatre, and kissed her goodbye with a promise to see her later. Even training hadn’t been too hard. And we’d just returned from dinner.

In hindsight, the second she opened her door, I should have known I’d choke. Sweet, lovely, funny Violet had been replaced by a fifties sex bomb. The smile she greeted me with wrapped around my heart and whispered, ‘You’re totally fucked.’

I was.

Violet had looked nothing short of spectacular. I mean, every time I saw her she looked beautiful, but tonight my mouth had dried up.

Just like the day she’d walked into the pub, I hadn’t known where to look. I was also seriously considering making an eye appointment because I couldn’t understand how I’d possibly missed her and that body . Her dark-green dress had wrapped around her like a bandage, stretching across every curve she had and ones I didn’t even know existed, with heels so high they almost brought her up to my height. Her thick blonde, violet-tipped curls tumbled across her shoulders and down her back, and all I’d wanted to do was wrap them around my fist.

I mean, I’d had my hands on her. I wasn’t a complete stranger to how perfect Violet’s body was, but that dress … it should have been illegal.

I’d taken her to The Snail – a minuscule French bistro just outside the city centre, owned by a friend of my father’s. Only six tables, I figured it was unlikely we’d bump into anyone we knew. I knew we could still get away with the pretence of fake dating, but until I told Brooks, a date on the most romantic night of the year with his sister was probably best kept on the D/L.

Which brings me to my problem.

The most romantic night of the year. The one day of the year dedicated to love. Or sex. Or both.

It had been a while since I’d celebrated Valentine’s Day. The only other time had been with Evie, and because that particular year the day had fallen on a Tuesday we’d celebrated the weekend after, when all the hearts and flowers had been taken down. And the Valentine’s cards had been replaced by Easter ones.

The point … on that Saturday after Valentine’s Day, when I’d been sixteen, I’d completely bypassed the pressure. There had been none where now I wish I’d had some. Some idea of what I was doing, that Valentine’s Day is the day. The Day .

Because the pressure … my god. The pressure is monumental. I’d competed in the last three Boat Races, the rowing world championships, Henley Regatta to name a few, yet the pressure of Valentine’s Day is unmatched.

Like I said, I did not think this through.

It’s what happens when you swear off love and refuse to have anything to do with girls. And it’s been … let’s just say … some time since you last had sex.

You forget.

Up to twenty minutes ago, I had never choked in my life. But now I could add it to my list of things I’d overachieved in.

Because I’d forgotten about the pressure . I’d had no expectations of tonight, not a single one. Until she opened the door.

Now, I’m not going to lie and say I haven’t thought about sex and Violet. Sex with Violet.

Of course I have. I’m a red-blooded twenty-one-year-old man.

But the second I laid eyes on her, all I wanted to do was drag her straight back in, lock the door behind me, and only come up for air and snacks.

Instead, we’d gone for dinner. With that dress. The Valentine’s Day dress that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and no doubt as to why it was being worn. It was possible that Violet had been thinking about sex as much as I had.

You know when you really don’t want to think about something then it becomes all you think about?

Well, that’s where I was up to.

That dress and sex with Violet. That dress and her expectations.

In hindsight, we should have talked about it sooner. But I’d wanted to be respectful. Because Violet is special. I wanted to let us develop at a pace she was comfortable with, that we were comfortable with. But based on her wardrobe choices tonight, she was right there waving the chequered flag. She was very comfortable.

And I’d choked. Full on in-need-of-a-Heimlich choked.

I’d stopped talking five minutes before we reached St Anne’s. With all the voices going round in my head, shouting over each other, it was virtually impossible to form a coherent sentence. By the time we reached Violet’s room, I hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

I became so paranoid about what I’d missed that I figured it was best to cut my losses and leave with what little dignity I had left, and hopes of salvaging it in the morning. As she’d gazed at me, her blue eyes filled with expectation, the scent of her hot, excited body shot an arrow directly into my frontal cortex. She’d been given nothing more than a quick peck on the lips before I’d taken off.

I’d been mentally plotting my apology before I’d even left the building. Violet was too special to have been left on the doorstep. Maybe I needed to take a page out of Oz’s book and send her some apology flowers, or whatever it was he’d done.

The thoughts were still going round and round in my head when I turned down Tolkien Lane, and up the path to number 5. The house was eerily quiet when I opened the front door. Quiet and dark. Too dark for anyone to be here, given they usually lit the place up like it was a football pitch. I guess it was still only nine, but I figured one of the boys would be home, especially as we had to be awake for training in seven hours.

‘Brooks? Oz?’

No reply.

‘Anyone?’ I shouted louder.

Of the two of them, I assumed Oz would be home. I’d hoped he’d be home, because I really needed to talk to someone. Not that he’d been in the talking mood since he stormed off yesterday.

The kitchen was tidy when I walked in, like the type of tidy I left it, so maybe neither of them had been home at all. Dropping my bag on the table, I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and trudged up the stairs while the voices in my head shouted at me.

Idiot.

Scaredy cat.

Shouldn’t have left her.

Idiot.

You would have choked anyway.

Idiot.

She’s perfect.

Idiot.

‘God, shut up!’ I snapped, kicking open the door as I pulled my jumper off. The quicker I got in a hot shower and rinsed away the evening, the quicker I could go to sleep and forget this day ever happened.

Actually, I just wanted to rinse away the part where I’d left her standing, slightly open mouthed and definitely confused. Everything leading up to that moment could stay.

My head was still in the confines of my jumper when I heard a small but purposeful throat clearing. The jumper was yanked off and tossed to the floor, along with quite a few brain cells.

‘I’ve never been in your room before. And I wanted to see for myself.’ Picking up the bottle of aftershave I’d left on my desk, she sniffed it. ‘I like it. It feels like you.’

Well, this was new. I’d never hallucinated a person before.

Bollocks. Maybe it was the voices. It had to be their work.

I squeezed my eyes tight, then opened them.

Nope. It was still there. Maybe I didn’t squeeze them hard enough. Next I tried jamming my fists into my eye sockets and giving them a good rub, but that didn’t make a difference either. Unless you counted the stars I was seeing along with the hallucination of Violet.

This Violet, dressed in trackpants and a hoodie, was my Violet. Not the Violet I’d left at her door, the one who looked like she could break me.

‘Charlie, what are you doing?’ the hallucination asked, while I stood there having some kind of blinking fit in case that might jumpstart my brain into working again. ‘Charlie?’

‘Look.’ I said to hallucination Violet, ‘I just left you at your door. There’s no way you got here before me.’

‘I got an Uber and I have a key.’ She held her fist out and uncurled it. Indeed there was a key lying in the centre.

‘But –’

‘I’m not an hallucination.’

Did I say that out loud?

I sat down on the bed, ‘Okay, if you’re real, what did I give you for Valentine’s Day?’

She smiled softly, so softly it made my chest ache. It made me want to sprint back to St Anne’s, take back the peck on the lips and go with my original plan of dragging her inside her room, locking the door and only surfacing for air and snacks. ‘Twenty-one cupcakes asking me to be your Valentine.’

Not snacks. We’d live on the cupcakes.

It had been a stupid question, anyway. The voices would know. But okay … I’d play their game.

‘Violet, what are you doing here?’

She bit down on the corner of her lip, ‘Because you kind of left me standing in my doorway, and I wasn’t ready to end Valentine’s Day with you just yet.’

‘So you came over?’ I asked quietly, though she might not be able to hear me over the hammering in my chest.

‘Yup. And I know you have rowing in the morning, so I can totally leave if you need a good night’s sleep. Or …’ she paused, biting into her lip again, and I wanted to pull it free. ‘I could stay.’

‘Stay?’

‘We don’t have to do anything, but I just wanted you to know that if you did want to do something, I’m okay with that. More than okay.’

‘You are?’

With every word she spoke, she was stepping closer to me, slowly like she was afraid she might scare me off if she went any quicker.

‘Yes. I am,’ she replied, taking position between my legs.

If there was any part of me which thought this was a bad idea, it was silenced the second my hands touched the backs of her legs. Running up and down her firm hamstrings. No, there were no bad ideas here. Every cell in my body was thinking Violet in my room was the best thing that ever happened.

If my body was cheering, my dick was holding the megaphone.

It was as she ran her warm palms along my shoulder and up my neck, pushing fingers through my hair, that I realized I was half naked. The t-shirt I’d removed along with my jumper was currently lying in a heap on the floor. And my door was still wide open.

‘Hold that thought.’ I leapt up and slammed the door shut as quickly as I’d opened it, turning the lock behind me.

She looked so beautiful standing where I’d left her at the foot of my bed.

I had a girl in my room. A girl I really liked, and one I couldn’t get caught with. I may as well have been fifteen again.

And I knew that fifteen-year-old would be yelling at me to stop being such a pussy.

I made my way slowly back to where she was standing, her eyes raking over me until I sat down and pulled her into my thighs. The sigh that escaped as I dropped my head on her stomach went part way to releasing some of the tension knotting between my shoulder blades.

‘I’m so sorry I left you, Violet,’ I whispered, before leaning back to peer up into her beautiful face. ‘I shouldn’t have … I …’

Fuck. God, I was lame. I swallowed down the thick ball building at the back of my throat.

‘You what, Charlie?’

It was hard to think with Violet’s fingers twining through the ends of my hair. I reached up and stilled them. ‘I shouldn’t have left you. You looked so beautiful tonight, and you deserve everything to be perfect, and truthfully I panicked.’

‘Charlie –’

‘No, hang on. I know this is new and we’re figuring it all out, and even though we’ve known each other forever, we’re actually just getting to know each other … shit. I mean, what I mean is …’

I was stopped mid-sentence, silenced by Violet’s lips, and her tongue sliding into my open mouth. She was an elixir, relaxing every muscle in my body with her calm. Her touch was so soft that I barely felt her hands leave my grip and ghost their way back to my neck, pushing into my hair.

By the time she pulled away from me, my breath was shaking. Me a semi-professional athlete shaken from a kiss.

‘You talk too much, Charlie Masterson. Did anyone ever tell you that?’

‘No,’ I chuckled. ‘Not with you around. The queen of talking too much.’

‘Ah yes, true. But I also know when to shut up.’ She shifted away and I almost asked where she was going, but then she straddled my lap, fitting as perfectly now as she did that afternoon in the Blue Oar. ‘As I was saying, I just didn’t want tonight to end, and you looked too freaked out to leave alone. Plus, I didn’t get a proper goodnight kiss. And I want one.’

‘That’s all you came for? A kiss?’

‘Yup.’

But as I leaned forward to oblige her request, she arched back. ‘Why did you panic?’

I sighed. ‘Because … I’m nervous. I’ve never done this before, Violet.’

The freckles splattered across her nose almost disappeared as her face scrunched. ‘You’ve never had sex?’

‘What? No. I’ve had loads of sex …’ I scoffed and, taking in her arched brow which had shot up, immediately wished I hadn’t. ‘Shit. I mean, I’ve never done the dating and the relationship and leading to this bit. The feelings bit, and I don’t want to fuck up.’

One hand moved from the back of my neck and cupped my cheek, soft skin against my scratchy stubble. ‘Charlie, you’re not going to fuck up. We’re good, this is good. I like what we’re doing.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah, it’s us, we’re just figuring things out along the way. I’m not going to break, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ I hadn’t been, but her smile was so bright and warm that it pushed away the last pieces of worry and anxiety that had been rolling around in my belly, and no new ones took their place. ‘Plus, sex is like riding a bike.’

Riding a bike …

Before I could think any more about it, I flipped her over and onto the bed, bracketing her under my body. In hindsight, I probably should have given her forewarning because then she wouldn’t have squealed loudly enough to alert the entire street. If there was anyone in the house, they’d have heard.

We both stilled, waiting for one of the boys to bang on the door and demand to know what was going on.

‘Violet, we have to be quiet,’ I whispered. ‘No one can know you’re here.’

She nodded, silently. Her eyes portraying exactly what I felt, that we were about to cross a line.

My head dipped down, and the second my lips made contact with hers, I forgot about everything else. There was no rush as our tongues tangled together, their own little dance of happiness, as Violet’s fingertips ran up and down my spine. We’d done so much kissing over the past few weeks, I could safely say I knew what she liked. I knew how to tease her until a little moan escaped, like just now. I knew that she loved it when I held her face, so she could surrender control to me. Let me decide the rhythm.

I didn’t break contact as I moved away from her lips, travelling across her jaw down her neck until the barrier of her hoodie stopped me. Her gaze never left mine as my hands slid inside and pushed the thick fleecy fabric up, revealing a slice of smooth creamy skin I was desperate to run my tongue along. So I did.

When my fingers brushed over her pelvis, her belly convulsed, her hand shooting to her mouth to cover her giggles. I hated she had to do that, her giggle was perfect and I wanted to hear it on repeat.

I don’t know if she’d done it on purpose, but as I pushed higher, the green lace bra – the one she’d worn to the Blue Oar – came into sight, along with the boobs I’d been dreaming about since that day. Then I spotted something else, nestled on her left side, right below her ribcage.

A tiny handwritten tattoo: one must have chaos within oneself to give birth to a dancing star.

That day. The Blue Oar. More memories flashed as I remembered her asking about Nietzsche. I remember thinking about the chaos which came with Violet, the whirlwind she rode on … but really a dancing star was much more accurate.

That’s exactly what she was.

I reached out and ran my thumb along the letters.

‘Charlie …’

My eyes refocused back on hers, with a grin. ‘You have amazing breasts.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied and sat up.

In the next moment, her arms were crossed over her chest and her hoodie had been chucked across the room. I never realized how hypnotizing boobs could be, or maybe it was just Violet’s sending me into a trance as they bounced from the movement.

I stilled her hands as they eased under the elastic of her track pants. ‘We’re not in a rush. Plus,’ I grinned wide, ‘I want to do it.’

‘Go on then.’

And just like that Violet Brooks was naked in my bed.

Her gaze was soft as she peered up at me, but it was the crook of her mouth that had me grinning down at her. She broke through the intensity of the moment, creating an ease that I hadn’t otherwise felt. But that was exactly Violet. Easy and thoughtful. She had an awareness about her I’d never seen in anyone else.

Barely-there tan lines accented her smooth skin, and I couldn’t stop myself from dragging my lips across her stomach, and up to the words I’d forever associate with her. The gasp she let out as my tongue flicked across her peaked nipple hit my groin dead centre.

‘Did you like that?’

‘Mmm hmm.’

The attention I gave to her other nipple earned me a deep groan. Shifting forward to steal a kiss, at the same time my hands reaching between her thighs, trailing slowly up her warm skin and slipping inside her, I was rewarded with a deep arch of her back. One of her fists bunching the sheets flew to her mouth, smothering a low rumble.

Just that small action made me want to take her to the middle of a field or lock us in a padded room, so she could let rip. I wanted to hear every sound which fell from her lips.

This entire time my own body was beginning to resemble a nuclear reactor. The pressure inside me was nearing combustible levels. Beads of sweat appeared at my temples. One more muffled groan from Violet and I couldn’t wait any longer. Tugging off my jeans and boxers, a rip of foil, and a much needed thirty seconds for me to regain composure later, I was once again bracketing her under my arms.

‘Are you ready?’

‘Oh yeah,’ she giggled, breaking through the thick tension which had built around us. ‘Show me what you’ve got, Mr Masterson.’

Burying my face in her neck, I muffled my laugh, ‘Jesus, Violet …’

I wish I could have captured it; the way her jaw dropped and her long black eyelashes fluttered. It was so perfect I would watch it over and over. As for me, the composure I’d regained flew right out of the window, especially when her legs wrapped around my hips. My teeth clenched, my jaw hardened, the pressure in my spine became almost unbearable.

I’d never felt anything like it. Nothing. I didn’t know if it was the way she pulsed against me, or how the blue of her eyes had somehow darkened to almost navy – the little flecks dancing like stars in a night sky.

I just knew I’d found a perfect moment, and I would never be the same.

We became a tangle of limbs, trying our hardest to stay quiet, though it only served to increase the intensity we both felt. To speed up the combustion we’d been trying to keep at bay.

‘Are you okay? Is this okay?’ I asked, between peppered kisses, pinning her fists above her head and holding her gaze for as long as I could.

She replied between long quiet moans, where her mouth would drop and her eyes would roll back. ‘Yes, Charlie.’

I’d never heard my name spoken like that before. Like it was the answer to all her questions.

The end came too quickly, too intensely. Black spots blurred my vision, until it narrowed so much that her face was the only thing I could see. We lay there, catching our breath, silently, slowly, letting the reality sink in.

She turned to me on the pillow, her blonde hair splayed out behind her, except for one violet strand resting on my shoulder. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ I replied, kissing her nose.

‘Told you, it’s like riding a bike.’

Later, I looked down at Violet, asleep on my chest, and I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt more content. We were miles away from the snowy afternoon at the beginning of January when I’d asked for her help. Miles.

And it hit me. I was falling for this girl.

But then, as it always did at the moment you least wanted it to, reality slapped me hard in the face. The floorboards creaked above my bed. Brooks had returned from wherever he’d been.

I was acutely aware of the magnitude of having sex with Violet. The potential cost it came with.

I was not going to fuck it up.