The Charlotte Chronicles – Chapter Thirty-four

December 4, 2014  | Charlotte Chronicles  | (5)

Charlotte

Nathan carries me over the threshold of the presidential suite at The Drake Hotel. With its six rooms, it’s likely bigger than my condo. “Princess Diana stayed here you know,” I tell him as we sweep by the living room. I catch a glimpse of pale blue velvet covered sofas and ornate floor-to-ceiling drapery before I’m whisked into the bedroom and deposited onto a beige and white striped coverlet.

There’s a bowl of roses and a champagne bucket on the glass coffee table. None of that interests Nate. He deposits me on my feet next to the bed but doesn’t allow me to sit down. He kneels in front of me and lifts my skirt, slipping one shoe off and then the other. They are tossed carelessly to the side as if they didn’t cost a fortune. Still kneeling, he struggles out of his jacket.

“What are you doing down there?” I can’t keep the wide grin from my face as I watch his muscles bunch and move as he discards the coat. The tie, the shirt, and his undershirt follow leaving his gleaming chest highlighted by the golden lamplight.

“What do you think?” he says.

“Shouldn’t I be removing my dress too?” I’m anxious to love him. I lift up my skirt, but he stays my hand.

“Undressing the bride is the groom’s job.” His hands slide up my stockings, stopping at the garters. “So old-fashioned. I like,” he murmurs. A finger traces the tops of the silk stockings, pausing to climb over the small bump made by the clip of the garter and then continuing around. He does this again and again until the sensations make me dizzy, until my thighs are on fire, and he has barely touched me. My legs can’t hold me, and when I begin to fall his strong hands encircle the backs of my thighs and thrust me upright.

“Whoa there, baby. You’ve got to be standing up for this.”

“I can’t,” I whimper. It’s not a plea, but a statement of fact. I can’t stand up. My legs are jelly, my core is aching, and desire is making me cloudy headed. His features are carved out of stone. His jaw is solid granite and his nose a sharp blade. He’s beautiful and harsh like the mountains and yet, there’s softness in his lips and tenderness in his eyes.

I am your shield. Your weapon.

I am the Nathan of the Charlotte and Nathan we were meant to be.

Our love will never die.

Can I come just from a touch, a look, a word? Perhaps. If the touch is Nathan’s, if the eyes are his, if the words come from his mouth. My breaths come in short, shallow pants, and the ache in my stomach spreads.

“You can,” he replies implacably and moves my feet shoulder-width apart. “Hold your skirt, baby. My hands are going to be busy.”

I crumple the expensive fabric between tight fists and rest them against my waist. One broad palm at the base of my spine steadies me. His other hand? One long finger rubs along the edge of the silk panties—the ones I have ruined by my inability to resist even one caress from this man’s hands.

“Nathan, stop teasing me,” I demand. I may even stomp my foot.

“No,” he replies, but his finger slips under the sodden fabric to stroke my swollen flesh. The contact is electric, pulling a soft gasp from me. I feel the heavy pulse of my heart at every juncture—on my neck, in my wrists, between my legs. My knees threaten to collapse, and I rock backward against his firm hand. Two of his fingers bracket my sex, moving molasses-slow along my skin. “I’m here, on my knees, showing you my devotion.”

“Show me your devotion while we’re lying down and I can feel you,” I beg.

He ignores my pleas.

“All day and night I thought about what might be under this froth of a dress. After we walked down the aisle, after we were pronounced man and wife, I wanted to whisk you off to a private room. During the infernal never-ending dinner, sitting beside you, I wanted to ruck up your skirt and touch your knee, your thigh, your pussy.” He plunges both fingers inside me, and only because of his hands do I remain upright. A high-pitched cry escapes me, and I drench his hand. He laughs, a dark, throaty noise of satisfaction. With a twist of his fingers, he tears the delicate fabric and exposes me to his ravaging gaze. He attacks me with his mouth, sucking hard on my clit and thrusting his fingers inside me relentlessly until I hit the peak of ecstasy again. This time not even his hands can keep me upright.

I crumple, my body folding over his head as he continues to work me into a mindless frenzy. The mountain of fabric escapes my hands and flutters around him, like a curtain drawing act one to a close. God, if this is act one, I might not live to see act two. Certainly I’m blind. The sensations his tongue and fingers have wrought have set off explosions behind my closed lids.

He rises to his feet in a smooth, athletic move and captures my chin in his palm. Holding me upright, he devours my mouth, taking me over with ruthless intent. I cling to him as the storm rages around me. He grabs one edge of the buttons running down my back, and I feel his muscles tense as he prepares to tear through the dress. A sole kernel of preservation awakens, and I blurt out, “Zipper. There’s a zipper.”

After a moment of fumbling, he finds the zipper and I wriggle out of the dress.

“What in the glorious hell do you have on?” he asks, smoothing his hands down the sides of my tightly-bound waist.

“It’s a corset.” I spread my arms out along the crisp coverlet in a sultry pose, displaying the nipped-in waist and my breasts, covered in ecru satin, ribbons, and lace.

“Yes.” He licks his lips. “I’m going to fuck you in this. Spread your legs.”

His hot eyes rove over me with greedy raw desire. I do as he commands. A wild urge overtakes me, and I dip my French-tipped fingernails between my legs, rubbing the very parts that he had just sucked and licked until I was shuddering with passion.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

The momentum has shifted, and I feel infused with power.

“Take off your pants,” I order. He responds with hasty, jerky motions. His pants are ripped off, and his hard desire juts out proudly from the curls of hair between his legs. I want to investigate his length with my hands and tongue. Sweeping my legs under me, I attempt to rise, but he falls forward.

“Oh no, you don’t. One lick and I’m coming all over your tits,” he says, crudely pushing me down. “And tonight? Tonight, I’m filling you up.” He rolls on a condom and takes his hot shaft in his hand and arrows into my ready heat. The staff between his legs is his real weapon, and he wields it mercilessly within my delicate flesh. Each stroke of his hips, each deep thrust is made with deliberate intent. On either side of my head he braces an arm. The prominent veins in his forearm proclaim the effort of his restraint.

I wriggle beneath him. The tight corset binds me like a rope, constricting my breathing and heightening every sensation. He is everywhere. Inside me, surrounding me. The smell of his plain soap and clean sweat invades my head. Above me are acres of golden, muscled skin. And between my legs is the relentless invasion of him against my most intimate nerves.

“I’m ready,” I moan.

“Not yet,” is his dark response. His hips thrust and drag against mine, compelling me to some place I’ve never been. His clever tongue laves across my collarbone, up the delicate column of my throat to cleave to my mouth.

The sure, heavy strokes drive me deeper into the vortex of sensation. I grab at his arms, slick with perspiration as they strain to hold his body over mine, to hold his passion at bay until I’m there. At the ephemeral mountain that he keeps inexorably pushing me toward. Upward, forward, until the air is so thin, so wispy, so scant that I can only gasp in tiny, short breaths.

He does something with his body, some infinitesimal movement of his hips, some special caress deep within, and I can’t hold on anymore. My grip on his arms loosens, and I dive into the spiral of sexual euphoria as the waves of pleasure crash over me. His eyes gleam with triumph as I fall.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he demands.

His heavy chest pins me to the mattress as he powers to his own release. Elbows replace hands beside my head and hunger stretches the skin taut across his cheekbones.

“I’m yours. Now. Always,” I manage to choke out.

The words of submission light him up, and he tenses and then throws back his head shouting out his climax for so long and so loudly I fear the walls of The Drake Hotel might come down.

• ••

Nathan

I roll to the side so I don’t crush her. I should be exhausted. The day was long and tiring. Even on short notice, there were plenty of guests at the house wanting to congratulate us or maybe just stare at the spectacle we’d become. Charlotte’s flat stomach was the subject of not-so-quiet whispers. I wish that was the reason we married so quickly. Instead, her negative pregnancy test was met with relief on all sides. If she had been pregnant? I shudder at the dilemma that would have presented.

The doctor warned me that we’d have to use prophylactics, as birth control pills couldn’t be trusted during treatment. He’d also suggested that sex might be too tiresome for her. In fact, his whole private discussion with me while Charlotte was receiving treatment was how I should keep my dick in my pants.

I had to stifle my urge to punch him. I went nine years without. A few months of celibacy while I still get to hold my girl in my arms? That’s a cakewalk.

For now, though, I’m taking advantage. This is our goddamn honeymoon after all.

Charlotte lies in boneless repletion next to me. As pretty as her underwear is, I know she’ll be more comfortable out of it. Besides, I have a strong yen to see her tits unbound and suck on her nipples.

A perusal of her front reveals no obvious fastenings. As I turn her over, a murmur of protest escapes.

“I need a minute,” she sighs. “Maybe ten.”

“Take all the time you need.” I kiss her bare shoulder. “But I bet you’ll be more comfortable if we take this straight jacket off.”

“I thought you liked the straight jacket.”

“I love the straight jacket, but I think your squashed internal organs probably need to breathe.”

“You just want to look at my breasts.”

“That too.”

The corset has a silk cord interwoven between tiny eyelet holes and fastened at the base of her spine with a familiar mooring hitch with the one tie serving as the stationary object. A quick tug on the loop releases it. A shudder of relief chases up her spine. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say a sailor was in the sunporch tying these knots.”

“It was your mom. Maybe it’s all those years of sailing.”

A memory flashes before me of a rope lying half under the bed in my parents’ room. I shake my head quickly to dispel the image of my mother, rope, and a bed all in one setting. Instead, I concentrate on the pale skin before me. The corset sides fall away to reveal deep red marks running vertically along her frame.

“Poor baby. Do these hurt?” I press my thumbs against her shoulder muscles in long sweeping motions from the curve of her neck to the arm and back again.

She groans in delight. “No, but that feels good. Don’t stop.”

I apply myself with dedication to kneading out any soreness or cramping. Along the bruises made by the corset, I soften my touch. Around us is our wedding finery—my uniform that I’ve never treated so callously, her expensive dress, and fancy underwear.

“You’re my wife, Charlotte,” I exclaim in quiet wonderment.

After all this time, all of our years apart, after her disease, my fucked up head, we’re together. Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Jackson. She’s mine until time folds this world up and moves on. And even then, I imagine we’ll be two atoms bonded together floating out into the great unknown.

“Mmmhmmm,” is her sleepy response.

I keep massaging until her breath evens out and deepens and I know she is asleep. The bed in here is destroyed, but I manage to set one side to rights and tuck her in. Folding my body around her, I close my eyes and follow her down with a smile.

We make love for the next two days, stopping only to rest. The rest of the time, I’m touching her, inside of her, covering her. When we have breakfast, I hold her on my lap and feed her with one hand while the other one fingers her curls and rubs her pussy. When we shower, I take her up against the tiles, my arm holding her tight against my body as I pound into her from behind. The water sluices over us making everything slippery and wet.

This place has six rooms and a dozen flat surfaces. I’ve fucked her on all of them at least twice. By the day of her treatment, she is bruised, worn, and never looked more gorgeous.

When a knock on the door sounds, I think it’s room service and open the door. Leaving it ajar, I walk toward the bar where my wallet is. “Come in. You can put it on the coffee table by the sofas.”

“Chief,” the voice at the door says. I spin around because no room service wait staff is going to call me chief. The gold bars on his uniform mark him as a lieutenant junior grade.

“No.” It slips out involuntarily.

“Sorry.” And he is. The officer rocks back on his heels, as awkward and unhappy as I am.

“Is it room service?” Charlotte calls. She meanders out of the bedroom, swallowed up in the hotel robe and looking sexy and disheveled. Her hair is a rat’s nest, and her gorgeous skin is flushed with exertion.

The officer can’t stop gawking at her. I clear my throat, and his gaze falls to the floor.

“Your phone is off, and you were unavailable. According to section—”

I cut him off. “What is it?”

“You need to come in ASAP.”

Of course I do. “I’m on shore leave.”

“Not anymore, Chief.”

He apparently isn’t leaving until I go with him. Charlotte presses her lips together and disappears into the bedroom. Inside she is throwing my clothes into a case. There are a million things I want to do right now and none of them include leaving her. Throwing the LT out the window is one. Slamming the suitcase shut and shoving it in the back of the hotel closet is another. Tossing her onto the bed and ramming myself into the wet heat of her body is on the top of the list.

Leaving is way down on the bottom. It’s not even on the list.

Charlotte can read every sad and sorry thought. “Even if you wanted to quit, you’d still have this mission or training exercise or super secret adventure, so you have to go.”

I don’t want her to be right, so I keep my mouth shut.

She runs over to the desk and pulls out The Drake Hotel stationery and shoves it into the suitcase. “You write me every night, no matter what, and it’ll be just like you were here.”

Grabbing my robe lapels, she pulls me down and plants a bruising kiss on my lips. The force of her kiss is the first—and maybe only—indication she’s not happy.

“I can’t send mail all the time.”

“Save them up and send them when you can.” She throws underwear and then jeans and then a T-shirt at me. I catch them and start dressing.

“I didn’t write before in part because I’ve got zip to say. I’m shit at writing.”

“This isn’t for me, it’s for you, babe.”

I pause in zipping up my jeans and watch her as she dresses. Delicate blue and white polka dotted panties and matching bra are quickly covered by a slouchy silk blouse in a navy blue trimmed with white over a pencil thin pair of navy pants that stop around her calves. “How so?”

“You feel guilty leaving me, right?”

“Right.”

Guilty and mad. She pulls out her hair from the back of her shirt and attacks it with a brush. I’ve gotten so little time with her, I think, I can’t leave now. All these little intimacies that I’m getting acquainted with are being taken away, and I want to howl like a toddler at the unfairness of it.

“I need to be here with you,” I argue. “You’re just starting treatment.”

“There’s nothing you can do here but hold my hand. I’ve got a lot of people to do that. I have only one Nathan who owes me a shit ton of letters. Write me all those letters you owed me during the nine years we were separated.”

The reminder of my delinquency makes me wince. “I’m supposed to be your shield.”

“You are,” she says patiently. “You’re merely going to be farther away. Writing me every night will be doing something for me. I’ll look forward to getting your letters, and eventually you’ll think of me reading them and we’ll be connected.”

“It’s not the same thing.” Shit, am I whining? I think I am.

“It will mean a lot to me.” She zips my suitcase shut and then pulls it off the bed. Her struggle with the luggage rouses me out of my stupor, and I rush over to take it from her. I push my feet into my boots and heft the case in my hand.

“Writing a few words every night?” Color me skeptical.

“Yes. Every night. Consider it your homework assignment.”

Our argument, if we even had one, is over and I’ve lost. She’s pushing me out the door with one hand, and the Navy is pulling me with the other. Resigned, I grab her before she walks out the door. I don’t want our last moments to be morose. “I’m only doing this if we get to play teacher/student when I get back.”

She smirks. “I have no problem slapping your fingers with a ruler.”

“I was thinking of being the teacher, but if you want to dress up in a pencil skirt and have me nail you against a desk, I’m for that too.”

She places a palm against my cheek. “You come back to me safe and sound, and we’ll play out any fantasy you’d like.”

I capture her mouth. The LT can cool his heels until I kiss my woman goodbye. I pour everything I have into the kiss, and she gives it back a hundred fold until we are left gasping and clutching each other.

My forehead meets hers, and we rest against each other trying to catch our breaths. “I am your shield, your weapon. Fight for me too, Charlotte.”

She wraps her arms around my neck and buries her face into my chest. Through the thin fabric of my shirt, I feel the wetness of her tears dampen the cotton. “Our love will never die.”

At the LT’s cough, I separate from her and lift my bag. I don’t look back because if I do I won’t ever be able to leave.