Charlotte Chronicles – Chapter Twenty-eight

October 23, 2014  | Charlotte Chronicles  | (0)

Charlotte

“You ready to go?” he asks hoarsely. His eyes are begging me to say yes. When have I ever turned him down?

“Let me run to the ladies room,” I answer.

He let’s me go reluctantly. As I move toward the short hall marked with the universal female/male bathroom cartoons, his attention is hailed by a friend.

Inside the bathroom, I quickly do my business and then wash my hands. I’m about to leave when two ladies walk in, one locks the door and the other approaches me. I recognize them as women from the table on the patio—wives of Nate’s teammates.

“So you’re the infamous letter writer,” murmurs the blonde. Her name is Patricia, if I recall it correctly. The other woman is blonde too, but her hair is a few shades darker. They look similar, like friends often do, wearing thin strapped tank tops, wedge heels and mini skirts.

I smiled self-consciously. “Yes, I am.”

Patricia reaches into her small purse and pulls out a tube of rosy lipstick. She stares at her perfect complexion in the mirror. “Your man’s refusal to welcome so many advances have been the subject of a lot of gossip.”

“Is that right?” Where she’s going with these questions isn’t clear but it’s obvious she’s got something to say and I’m not leaving the bathroom until she gets it off her chest.

“You’re childhood friends?” She asks another question.

I grind my teeth together to keep in the retort that it’s none of her goddamned business. It’s not, of course, but I want to make friends, not enemies. There’s a queen in every female group. If you slight the wrong football wife, you are dead to the entire group. The stakes are higher here because these are friends of Nate who belong to a part of his life that he’s excluded me from until now. So I’m going to make nice with this Patricia woman no matter how much I’d like to lay into her.

“Yes, Nathan, his brother, and I grew up together in Chicago.” I don’t tell her our families are almost one and that the penthouses that we called home for most of our childhood lives were connected by a hallway.

“How is it that you separated?”

“Nate joined the Navy.”

“That usually result in breakups.” She nods knowingly and the other woman joins her, like a strange silent puppet. “My daddy was career Navy.  A major.” She’s very proud of her father’s rank as if that somehow elevates her. “I’ve seen it all both the young relationships that were never going to last and the ten year marriages done in by separation. It’s real hard. I bet you told him you didn’t want him to join.”

I bristle because this woman knows nothing about me and less than nothing about Nathan and I. I’d never gotten the chance. He left before I got back from Switzerland.

“No, I never told him any thing like that.”

She purses her lips and starts applying a fresh layer, slow and measured making sure that I’m watching every movement. “Being a SEAL is a special calling. They suffer for months, undergo physical hardships that you and I can’t begin to comprehend. Their bonds to each other are deeper than families because they don’t just work together. They live each other’s lives. They are one unit and Nate is part of that. What is it that you do?”

“I’m a fixer,” I answer and then deciding I’m done with the private interrogation, I move toward the door which is blocked by Patricia’s friend whose name I can’t remember. She looks past me toward Patricia but doesn’t resist when I gently push her aside. “I’m happy that you care enough about Nate to ask these questions, but there’s no need to ambush me in the bathroom. How cliche. We’re adults and if there’s something you want to know, feel free to ask but we’re done here.”

With another small, but soft shove, I clear the door and walk out leaving a sputtering Patricia behind me. So much for placating the Queen.

As I reach the end of the hallway, I see Nate across the room. He’s smiling and talking to another man. As if he senses me, his head raises and our gazes meet. Then his smile broadens as I sense Patricia and her silent friend behind me. He is clearly delighted that I’m making friends with the wife of one of his friends. I paste on a smile for him and turn to the nosy woman. “I own my own business. I help professional athletes relocate and make their trades or signings on new teams as effortless and frictionless as possible. I meet many men and women whose lives are different and extraordinary.”

She raises her eyebrows in disdain. Patricia has made a judgment about me before I even entered the bar although I’m not sure why. “Not everyone is cut out to be a SEAL’s woman.”

Casually I respond, “I suppose that’s a special calling as well?”

My retort doesn’t phase her at all.

“Yes, it is a special calling. Not every woman can handle the months of separation. As the girlfriend or even the wife, they can’t tell you where they were or what they were doing for six months at a time. They’ll leave at a moment’s notice. You have to handle your own life and his shore life by yourself. Your air conditioner breaks down? You need to fix it. You have a leak? Get to know a plumber. Your man comes home from a mission with a used condom at the bottom of his ruck sack, you just throw that shit away because his life is so fucking stressful that sometimes he needs to let loose. You don’t let that touch you, your relationship or your kids. And you live in fear that every doorbell ring isn’t a uniformed officer at the door ready to share that the service of your man was honored.” Patricia’s nearly vibrating with emotion. The source of her unhappiness could be me but I think its the number of used condoms she’s found at the bottom of her man’s pack. Nate was faithful to me for nine years and we weren’t even together.

Her resentment over his fidelity her man’s lack of it is the root of her dislike. There’s nothing I can do about that.

“I appreciate your concern, but whether I can handle being with Nate or he can handle being with me, is solely our business.” I turn to walk away but she grabs my wrist.

“In the Navy, his home life is as much the Team’s business as anyone’s. Get used to it.”

I let her have the last word and she stalks off.

Nate strolls over then and leads me out into the fresh air. I thread my shorter fingers between his and lean into his arm. “That looked like an intense conversation.”

“Patricia was advising me that it takes a very special person to understand months of separation and silence.”

He cringes and releases my hand to cup my shoulder and draw me under the shelter of his body. “Did you tell her you already know all about that?”

“No, why would I?”

When we reach the Jeep, he turns me to face him.

“It takes a special kind of woman to keep her heart open for so long and to be willing to forgive innumerable acts of stupidity. The inability to talk about my missions will be like cake for you.”

He’s already forgotten he said he’d leave the Navy.

“I noticed that several of your teammates are not married.”

Running his hands over the goosebumps on my arms, Nate says, “Some think that they can’t serve the team and be a family man at the same time. Others believe they are too broken to have anything worth offering.” He tips my chin up with a finger. “I’m neither one of those but I’m happy to leave the TEAMs to be with you. We’ve spent too much time apart. Now that you are willing to let me back into your life, I want any scrap you will give to me.”

I want to retort that I’m not the one handing out scraps. He reappeared in my life a couple of days ago. I’m still reeling from the change and now I’m supposed to make a life decision in the span of time it takes to snap my fingers? But what’s the alternative? Not being together? I don’t want that either. Fighting with Nate is unproductive.

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re sacrificing for me.”

“What’d Patricia say to you?” He shakes his head. “Is she trying to warn you off?”

“She was looking out for you. I love that you have friends that are fiercely protective.” I don’t love how she attacked me but I can appreciate the sentiment behind it, regardless of how awfully she tried to convey it.

He snorts. “It’s as much loyalty as it is someone trying to prove her dominance.”

I release a small sigh of relief. He has her number. Leaning into him, I say, “I don’t care about Patricia or her role as the Queen Bee of South Side SEALs. I only care about us.”

“Me too.” His head descends and for a time he kisses away all the thoughts of his life in San Diego and my life in Dallas and our troubled pasts. But when we climb into his jeep, my gut is churning and my chest feels tight. The words of the wife tumble inside my head even as I try to shut them out.

•••

When we get home, I cling to Nate. I run my hands over every inch of his body, trying to replace my old memories with new ones. My throat is tight and hot and I’m afraid to give voice to any of my fears as if that will give them power. When he snaps on the bedside lamp as we maneuver into his utterly bland room, I throw an arm across my face.

“No light, please,” I beg.

He pulls me down to the bed but doesn’t turn it off immediately. “What’s wrong baby?” His beautiful eyes search mine and I try to hide away my unease and uncertainty.

“I want to feel you,” I say.

“And I want to look at you.” The left side of his mouth quirks up. “I can’t get enough.”

It’s hard to turn down the plea in his eyes. The light stays on and I focus on his beautiful face. His cheekbones are more prominent, all traces of boy have been erased and replaced with intense masculinity from his forehead down the straight line of his nose to his square jaw. I’ve always found him breathtaking but as a teenager I didn’t have many points of reference.

But since then I’ve seen some of the most magnetic males with the most perfect bodies but none of them compare to Nate.

I rub an arm over the hard swell of his biceps and under the short sleeve of his t-shirt. “Fill me up,” I whisper. “Let’s make new memories.”

His eyes widen and his nostrils flare. He tears at my clothes and then struggles with his own. I laugh but the sound dies in my throat as his heavy erection springs free. Red and thick, the velvet covered steel bobs in the air as he stalks toward the bed.

“Find me funny, do you?” He says in mock anger.

“I don’t know how you walk around with that thing between your legs,” I answer primly. I fold my legs together and rest my hands in a my lap. It would be a perfectly ladylike pose if I wasn’t nude.

“Maybe we should talk a walk while you have this between your legs.”

The thought of him carrying me about the apartment impaled on his cock is pretty damn exciting. I squeeze my thighs together, an action his careful eyes don’t miss at all.

“Another time,” he promises and then spreads my closed legs apart. The gaze he runs along my body is as erotic as any caress. “If the lights were off, I won’t be able to see how pink you get everywhere.” His hands slide from my inner knees to my inner thighs until his thumbs meet at my core. “Or how very wet you become.” In agonizingly slow measures, he inches his thumbs inside me. Every part of me begins to tingle. Sucking in his lower lip, he hisses. “Or how fucking sexy you look with me inside you.”

“Or my scars?” A little self consciously I rub my finger over the scar where my port once sat receiving injections of drugs that tried hard to kill off only the bad cells and preserve the good ones.

“I love your scars.” He presses a hot open kiss against the shiny, slightly puckered skin. “It tells your story—one that involves me, the beginning of us, your survival.”

I throw my arms around him and tug him to me until I the sparse, coarse hair of his chest rubs against my sensitive breasts. My nipples tighten upon contact and my eyelids start feeling too heavy to hold open. “I love you Nathan Jackson,” I whisper.

“I love you Charlotte Randolph soon to be Jackson.” His mouth muffles any response I might have. He places light licks against my lips and resists my lures to deepen the kiss. Teasingly he nips at the corners of my mouth, my eyelids and my cheeks. His touch is tender and the love is evident in every stroke and heated whispered endearment.

His thumbs leaves my sex and his hands travel north to cup my breasts in his large palms. He holds my sensitive flesh and bends his head to suck on the peaks he’s created with his rough palms and heavy thumbs. The devoted attention he gives them sends ripples of pleasure throughout.

Gently pushing me against the bed, he takes himself in hand and slowly pushes inside me. When he enters, it feels almost as reverential as our first time. His possession of me, the ecstasy he pulls from my body is a graphic reminder of that there will never be anyone for me but Nate. Careers, geographic differences, nasty people will never be more important than being together.

He latches onto a nipple again, sucking it hard into his mouth as he thrusts all the way to the hilt. I can’t keep my cry of abandon inside. It wails above us and he responds with a deep, hoarse groan of his own.

“You okay baby?” His voice is strained as if it is difficult to give volume to each word.

“Yes, more please.” I squeeze my thighs against his hard hips and my fingers dig into his shoulders.

His strokes are slow and measured as if he is trying to discover every nerve ending with his shaft. Each movement of his body rubs against my clit, my breasts until I’m drowning in the vortex of dark sensation where there is nothing but Nathan and I and pleasure.

His mouth is wet and hot on my neck and shoulders. Then he’s kissing me again, his tongue thrusting hard as he pounds into me. I pant meaningless pleas and writhe on the cotton under my body, begging for release. My legs hook around his hips as I try to keep him deep within me.

“Open your eyes,” he commands. I hadn’t realized they were closed. His teeth are clenched and the skin is pulled taut over his cheekbones. He has never looked so commanding or so fierce. I’m helpless under his orders. Our eyes catch and I see the fire of his love and his passion—all for me. “I love you,” he shouts. “Goddamn, I love you.”
His thrusts become ragged and disjointed as he jets his release inside me. His words, his utter love for me, his hot wild release triggers my own orgasm. The friction of our bodies hurtle us over the cliff together and our mouths find each other in a messy breathless benediction of our love.

A minute, twenty, an hour? I don’t know how long we lay together in sweaty satisfaction. With my head against his chest, the reassuring and steady beat of his chest soothes me.

“Don’t worry about it Charlotte. We’ll work it out.”

He sounds so confident. How can I do anything but believe him?