Charlotte Chronicles XLVI

September 18, 2014  | Charlotte Chronicles  | (5)

Charlotte

I stand with the door open waiting for him. The elevator is around the corner, out of my sight line, but the faint mechanical noise as it stops on the floor and the ping that signals the doors are opening. I pretend I can hear his footsteps but the plush carpet is swallowing them. I devour him with my eyes, allowing myself to fully appreciate Nate’s adult form. He fills up the hall space, sucks all the oxygen from the building. I’ve certainly stopped breathing.

“You shouldn’t be out here Charlotte,” he says as he approaches. His voice has deepened and has a gravelly timbre to it that makes my insides flutter in response.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Very.” He doesn’t stop at the doorway but scoops me into his arms and strides into the hotel room as if he owns it. The door slams shut behind him and in the next moment I’m sandwiched between the smooth wood at my back and Nate blanketing my front. “Last chance to say no.”

His mouth is a whisker width from mine.

“This is your last chance.”

He nods somberly and sets me on my feet. I begin to protest but he’s not leaving. He falls to his knees and presses his face against my belly. “I know it is.” The words are almost too softly spoken to hear but I feel them. I feel his regret and sincerity. Nate needs absolution that only I can give him. I move away from the door and cross the room to settle on the end of the bed.

He watches me but does not rise. It’s as if he is afraid that if he does anything wrong, I’ll reject him.

If we hadn’t grown up together, if I hadn’t known what a genuinely good person he was, if I hadn’t felt the genuine torment in between the spaces of the words he wrote, maybe he would be right.

But we’ve spent too long apart and I’m ready to move forward even if he’s afraid.

“Would you do something for me?” I ask.

“Anything” is his immediate answer.

“Come over here and let me look at you.” I lean back on my two arms, allowing my loose fitting nightshirt to fall around me. It’s not the sexiest of bedroom attire but it’s a t-shirt of his. He’s always liked it when I wore his clothes. “And take off your shirt while you’re at it.”

He rises immediately and walks toward me, stalks me more like it. His shirt comes off in the way that men do—one hand at the back of his neck and then over his head. The reveal is delicious. His arms are muscular and veiny and his abs are every bit magazine cover perfect without any need for photoshop. Over the right shoulder are tendrils of a tattoo that cover his upper right back. The only mark on him other than the scars evidencing his time in a military. My mind takes a million photographs so that I can pull these out when we aren’t together. He stops about a foot from my bent legs.

I motion for him to turn around. He puts his hands on his hips as if to say really Charlotte but this is my show. He pirouettes, slowly, his arms stretched wide. I swear he could almost touch the walls, his wing span is so wide.

“Colin told me that SEALs can hold their breath for a very long time. Is that true?”

His nostrils flare, either in jealousy or excitement or both.

“Five minutes without exertion, at least. But it’s doing stuff while holding your breath like tying a knot in the precise way your instructor wants or doing a series of underwater maneuvers. Stress makes you lose oxygen at a quicker pace so you learn to regulate your heart rate, learn not to panic.”

“And your heart rate now? How is it?”

“You tell me.”

He places a hand on either side of my hips and stretches his neck forward. His face is so close I can hear him breathing, soft, steady and slow. But when I press my fingers against his pulse it is beating rapidly. The blood pumps quickly under my touch which, in turns, causes my breath to hitch and accelerate.

“You’re stressed.”

“No, aroused,” he corrects me.

We are not touching at any point but my fingers against his neck and it’s almost more arousing than having his hard body stretched across mine. Anticipation is stirring our appetites and it’s intoxicating. I drop my hand and lean back so I can stare into at his face which is tight with want.

“Take off the rest of your clothes.”

His eyes widen in surprise. This isn’t the Charlotte he remembers. The only Charlotte he’s ever had his hands on was the young, sick Charlotte and followed by the desperate, needy one. I want him to see me as Charlotte the woman who runs her own life and is in charge of her own future as well as her own desires. My demands catch him off guard, but he’s not turned off. Not in the least.

His hands fumble at his waist, the least smooth move I’ve seen him execute. He was right. He is a machine and most of his actions are executed with nearly careless ease. Except now he’s excited. Very, very excited and so am I.

He drops his pants to the floor and his tight boxer briefs go with them. When he straightens, his penis is thick, long and engorged. The head bobs eagerly in front of me and there’s a pearl of moisture on the end. I lick my lips and he releases an audible moan in response.
I can’t keep a wicked smile from curving the corners of my lips upward. I like being in control. I like it a lot.

“Place your hands behind your back.”

He gives me a questioning look. “But I thought I could—“

“Now,” I interrupt him. I know what he thought. He thought he’d come in here and overwhelm me with his mouth and tongue and fingers and all his moves. If he believes he is the only one who has built up a library full of fantasies, he is in for a big surprise. He slowly folds his hands behind his neck, his elbows pointing out toward the walls.

I slip off the bed and onto my knees. I run my hands over his ridged abdomen down the tops of his muscular thighs. He shakes—shakes!—at my caress.

“Can you stand still?”

He nods.

“Do you promise not to touch me?”

“I want to—”

I interrupt. “I’m going to put my mouth on you and give you the greatest blow job you’ve ever experienced, but only if you don’t touch me.”

He opens his mouth and then closes it. Then opens it again. Then closes it. Again. Finally he takes a deep breath and says, “No touching. Got it.”

With a smile, I congratulate him. “You’re catching on.”

I run my nose along the side of his erection, from the base where his heavy sac hangs down to the very tip that is wet with his ejaculate. I repeat the action on the other side, inhaling his masculine scent and reveling in the steel hard silk.

“You’re very long,” I say throatily. “Do you think you’ve grown?”

“In the time you’ve started touching me or since I was eighteen? Because I swear the damn thing grew an inch the minute you said take off your clothes.” His voice is full of strangled laughter.

Steadying myself, I lean in for a taste. A light lick across the head causes him to jerk. Ten years ago, I barely knew what I was doing. I’ve had spent those intervening imaging Nathan in dozens of  sexual ways. His head between my legs; mine between his. His body hovering over me. His front to my back. I’ve dreamt of this. My body has ached for it.

I open wide and take him as far as I can go. He cries out above me.

“Do you remember when you taught me this? How you introduced me to how it felt to have you in my mouth?”

His eyes widen in shocked memory. “Oh shit Charlotte,” is all he can manage.

I use his thighs as leverage and begin a slow steady rhythm. The hard length against my tongue is intoxicating and arousing. The sounds he’s making, the way he’s trembling under my touch is driving me crazy. And making me wet. So very wet.

I squeeze my legs together, turned on by the hardness of his erection and the desperate gasps he makes when his head hits the back of my throat.
So lost in the pleasure, he forgets my orders and his hand drifts down to the crown of my head, pushing my long hair aside. I stop immediately and release him with a pop.

I look up and his eyes flick open. His gaze snaps to his hand and he lifts it immediately back into place behind his neck.

“Good soldier,” I murmur.

“It’s sailor,” he corrects me.

“What?

“I’m a sailor. Army has soldiers, Air Force—you know what. I don’t really care. Call me a soldier. Will you just put your mouth back on me?” he begs.

With a wicked smile, I fist the base of him and attack, hollowing my cheeks and sucking harder and faster than before. His sounds take on a rough edge and his legs become tense. Above me he spits out single syllable words as if breathing is an effort.

Charlotte.
Your mouth.
So good.
Fuck.
I can’t.
Don’t stop.
Yes. 
I’m coming. Shit, Charlotte. Now. I’m coming now.

He tries to jerk away but I follow him, drinking him down until every drop of him has slid down my throat. And with his seed spent, his knees give way. He crumples in front of me, collapsing onto his knees.

“Charlotte, your gift. It was too much,” he says.

“It was no gift,” I drawl and take his hand to press it between my legs. “I wanted to. I did it for me.” All my modesty and shyness is gone because I don’t fear him. I don’t fear his rejection. When he asked me the other night to tell him what I wanted, I was afraid. I’m not anymore.

I want him to know that I’m turned on by pleasing him, by being with him, by him loving me.

He stills at the evidence of my desire and then slowly rubs between my legs. A slow, dirty smile spreads over his face. “My turn.”

He cups my face and draws me in for a fierce kiss—uncaring that I still have the taste of him on my tongue. The way his lips press against mine—it’s as if he wants to breathe only if he is attached to me. He conveys so much need and love though his lips. His hands glide down my back and then with a sharp jerk, pulls me tight against him. My legs fold around his hips and his rises in one swift elegant move.

In another we are on the bed, the weight of his heavy body pressing me into the downy comforter and the soft mattress.

“Start counting, baby, because I’m going to show you exactly how long I can hold my breath.”

He moves down my body until his shoulders are pushing my legs wide apart, exposing my core to his gaze. He spends a long time taking me in long slow licks, exploring every part of me, sucking my inner thighs, my sex, the tender crease at my hip. His ministrations are endless as he brings me to the brink time and again. His turn, indeed.

He slides a condom on and pushes into me, the ruddy head of his cock stretching the swollen tissues. I move restlessly under him and he whispers sweet things to me.

Let me in. Relax.
Shh. Doesn’t this feel good?
Your pussy is so tight. So fucking tight. 

I let my legs fall open as he pushes into place, thrusting in deep until his cock is fully encased inside of me. He begins to move in smooth, even strokes. Into my hair, he continues his litany of praise.

God you’re beautiful.
You feel like heaven.
I don’t ever want to leave this place, this moment. 
I love you.

“Love you too,” I answer back, squeezing him tight inside me. “Always have. Always will.”

“I was a fool, baby. Such a goddamn fool.”

The broken words elicit the words he’s been waiting to hear. The ones that have been on the tip of my tongue since I read his letter. “I forgive you.”

His sure strokes stutter and his head falls to the comforter beside me. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

He repeats himself and begins to thrust harder, pulsing against me. His words are drawn out and guttural as if they’ve come from deep inside him, a well of need that is exploding.

A hand dips between us and his sure fingers find me, pressing down, circling and bringing me over the cliff and into the free fall of space called ecstasy. His hips jackhammer between my legs as he finds his own release. He flops on top of me, a mass of unmovable man. He makes a half hearted attempt to move but I clutch him tightly to me. I want to be crushed into the mattress. I want luxuriate in the weight of his body heavy against mine. I listen to his breathing and match him, breath for breath until it is as if we are one being, inhaling and exhaling together.

My nails lightly score his back, over his muscled traps and down the valley of his spine to the top of his firm buttocks and then up again.

“You keep doing that and I’m going to get hard again,” he mutters into my hair.

Deliberately I inhale just to enjoy the sensation of him sinking even deeper into me. “Is that a threat or a promise?” I tease.

“Promise.” With a regretful sigh he pushes off of me and settles by my side. “Charlotte Randolph, you’re all grown up.”

“I am.”

We lie entwined together, hugging each other close.

“It’s still my turn,” he says, cupping the back of my head and delving in for a kiss full of carnality and passion.

“You’ve bossed me around for years,” I protest. “Surely I have several turns left.”

He chuckles and kisses me again. In the post coital aftermath, thoughts of the trauma Nate had suffered but so casually swept aside creep in. Hugging him close as if I could ward off the past with my body.

“You do know you were a victim, right? She didn’t rape you but she violated you in ways that hurt your soul. And here’s the kicker. It, like rape, was about gaining power over you.” Unstated is that she did gain that power.

He halts the circular rub of my back. “It’s hard for me to accept that. Even then I was bigger and stronger than the girls. And stupid. Very stupid.”

“If I’d gone to a party, been drugged and put in the same situation would you have blamed me or expected me to blame myself for nine years? Would you have said, oh Charlotte, if only you hadn’t gone to the party, if only you’d drank less, if only you’d sat inside your house, not touching a lick of alcohol and not venturing outside the apartment, we would still be together. The separation would never have happened. Would you have placed that burden on me?”

Mutely he shakes his head.

“Then why on earth Nathan, do you blame yourself?”

His internal dilemma played on his face while he struggled for the words. “I don’t like admitting I’m weak and not in control.”

“It’s better to shoulder the blame?”

“Easier to cope with.”

I have no response and so say nothing. He hasn’t coped with it or rather his way of coping was shutting down. I can only hope that if we hit rough times in the future, he doesn’t turn away from me again, for my own good. 

He pushes my face up to his for another kiss and I melt under his attention but there’s a tiny part of my heart that I’m afraid to give, for my own good.