Undeclared News and Charlotte Chronicles XLII

August 21, 2014  | Charlotte Chronicles, Promo, Woodlands  | (3)

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For four years, Grace Sullivan wrote to a Marine she never met, and fell in love. But when his deployment ended, so did the letters. Ever since that day, Grace has been coasting, academically and emotionally. The one thing she’s decided? No way is Noah Jackson — or any man — ever going to break her heart again.

Noah has always known exactly what he wants out of life. Success. Stability. Control. That’s why he joined the Marines and that’s why he’s fighting his way — literally — through college. Now that he’s got the rest of his life on track, he has one last conquest: Grace Sullivan. But since he  was the one who stopped writing, he knows that winning her back will be his biggest battle yet.

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Need to catch up? Here’s a link to Charlotte Chronicles from the beginning.

Charlotte

I’m so torn. I love him and yet…part of me hates him and hates that he’s making me want him. I’m pinned to the bed, not by his gaze or his hands, but my own fucked up desire for him. The mixed emotions turn to anger. If this is all he’s willing to give me and my body is begging for it, why not give in to him? Let him fuck me. Let him give me pleasure. If this is all we have, I’ll take it. This one time.

I curl my heel into his back, right above his tight bitable ass.

“Take me. If this is all you’ve got to give me, make it good. Make it so good I don’t remember the last nine years.”

His eyes widen and I think he may pull away but he doesn’t. He pushes the broad head of him into me and he feels so big I’m afraid he’ll split me in two. “I’ve dreamt about this moment,” he says thickly. “Fantasized about it so many times. Wanting it to be true so many times.”

Each word pierces me, a dagger in my heart. If only those words had been spoken in all those silent spaces years before. Now it’s salt on the wounds of my heart. The wounds that started like small little paper cuts only to deepen as each year passed and the bonds that tethered us together for so long grew thinner and thinner until they were weak like a single thread.

“Don’t talk,” I beg because I want to be able to close my eyes and revisit my own fantasies. The ones where Nathan comes to my door on his knees and pours out his soul. The ones where I join him and our tears of past regret but current joy mingle together.

Today, the only tears are mine and they are bittersweet.

Charlotte, Charlotte, he pleads, what is wrong?

“I’m just…torn…apart.”

“Let me love you. I’ll make it better.”

I give in because the sensation of him being inside me is overwhelming. It’s been years. And i’m dying for it. My body is trembling with desire. And my flesh easily gives way with each slow push forward until he’s finally seated. “God, Charlotte. God!” He stands at the end of the bed, his nostrils flaring his hands biting into my hips as he shakes with the effort of standing still. Every line of his body screams for him to pull out and plunge forward repeatedly until he spends himself but he wants to make it good for me.

I can see the fierce determination in his face, the internal struggle between his mind and body. He wants to fulfill my demand that it be so amazing that I’ll never forget it. His eyes are glazed over and I wonder what he’s seeing–whether it’s me or young Charlotte or the Charlotte he’s created in his mind in the years of our absence.

“I want you so bad; I’m afraid to move. It’ll be over in five seconds.” His chest heaves as he grapples for control. I wonder if he knows how sexy he is. If another person saw him right now, they’d fall over in shocked arousal. He’s a stallion–a perfect construct of muscle, bone and flesh. Every inch of him is defined. If he’d told me he’d been hewn from a rock in the sea, I’d believe him. There was nothing soft. Even his cock is diamond hard, splintering me.

His hands roam everywhere leaving behind a trail of raised hairs, goosebumps and shivering nerve endings.

Finally he moves and the slow drag along my oversensitive tissues causes me to arch my back off the bed. His head falls back and his eyes close only to snap open. “When I close my eyes, I see you in every position I’ve ever imagined. You sitting on my face. You riding me. You on your knees while I’m fucking you like an animal. You covered in soap and water as I eat you out and then fuck you against the tile. I’ve had you in my mind in every way possible and some not possible ones. I’ve dreamt of fucking you standing, sitting, bent over and raised up. I’ve fantasized it all but none of it. None. Of. It. came even close to what it feels like to be inside you.” He plunges forward and I cry out.

His words, the fullness of him in my empty places are making me wild.

My hands scramble for some purchase and I find the padded headboard. I place my palms flat against the cushioned fabric and he follows me forward. Like a pagan warrior, he kneels between my legs and pushes my thighs as far apart as they can go while he spears me with his heavy weapon. My traitorous body weeps around his, lubricating his every thrust.

“This body is mine,” he growls. “I love every inch of it and it belongs to me.”

I close my eyes, trying to shut out his possession but it winds around me, trying to repair the frayed bonds. It’s chaotic in my head now and he’s frenetic too. His thrusts become less rhythmic as his control is leaving him.

“Oh no, baby,” I hear him say, “You’re coming with me.”

His hard big thumb finds my clit, circling it, pinching it, until now I’m the one writhing in jerky motions beneath him. He’s wrenching my orgasm from me, ordering it. Maybe my body does belong to him because it’s building, low and small. It grows and grows until it is too big for me to contain. My feet arch and my fingernails dig into the headboard and I hear myself scream, long and loud. Above me he’s grunting and growling. I want him to follow him into bliss. His hips jack fiercely against me when suddenly he pulls out.

“No” I cry at the loss. Even though I’d come I wanted him in my body still.

“Look at me Charlotte,” he commands in a dark voice.

My eyes open in response and I see him, thick and red in his hand. He pulls on himself, once, twice in motions so rough I fear that he’s hurting himself. But no. It’s what he wants and his come spills all over me, striking my sex, my stomach and the valley between my breasts. It’s shockingly erotic.

“You are mine since the day you were born until the day we die together.” His eyes glitter at me but when his large hand lands on my belly, I can’t look away. He rubs his sperm into me, over my lower lips, all across my stomach and over my breasts. “You know this.” His hand comes up to cup my chin. “You know this.”

And then he kisses me and I’m devastated all over again.

It is nearly dawn when I finally gather enough strength to leave the bed. He’s sleeping, sprawled across two thirds of the bed, one large arm heavy across my chest and a leg entwined with mine. I wince at the soreness between my legs. My whole body aches as if I’d just endured a heavy workout after a long period of idleness. Even though I’m slow and quiet, even one movement wakes him. His head turns and he rolls onto his back, pulling me close to his body.

“We’ve three more to go,” he says. He’s referring to the six orgasms he’s given me. He’d have probably fulfilled his stated goal if I hadn’t passed out on him a couple of hours ago.

“I’m tired and sore.” Since he is awake, I make no attempts to be quiet. Instead I push away from him relieved he lets me go without an argument.

In the bathroom, I turn the water on and stare at the disheveled mess that is reflected in the mirror.  My hair is a matted mess. There might be a family of birds in there but I wouldn’t know because it’s so damned tangled.  There isn’t an inch of me that wasn’t touched by him last night. I hardly know what to think of the ache in my heart. Is it because he’s back or because I wish he’d go away?

I need my friends. I need Lainey, Reese, even Nick. I need perspective and time. I’m so confused. The shower helps. It’s hot and cleansing. I spend a long time under the water trying to figure out what to do. Reese is right. I’ve idolized Nate and worse, romanticized our past to such a degree that I’d been unable to move forward. Even if I was meant to be with Nate forever, I should have used our separation to meet other people.

Last night I wondered if he was looking at the old Charlotte or the new one but who is the new Charlotte? Because her heart is stuck somewhere in her sixteen year old body. I’ve done myself a disservice. I don’t need to go out and have multiple one night stands, but I do need to be open to meeting new people—to finding a love that would make adult Charlotte happy no matter what teen Charlotte thinks. Draped in a hotel bathrobe, I take a deep breath and open the door.

Nathan is still lying on the bed staring at the bathroom door. His expression is one of satisfaction.  Lazily his eyes follow me. “Come back to bed, baby. Let’s cuddle.”

His nonchalant attitude converts my unhappiness to anger. It’s as if he does believe that sex solved all of our problems. My panties are on the coffee table. I shudder and make a mental note to wipe that down with some bleach. I gather up the rest of my clothes and the two pieces of his clothing —t-shirt and cargo shorts. His clothes go on the chair and mine into the dirty laundry bag in the closet.

“Don’t call me baby. I’m not your baby.”

“You should go on the pill. That way we don’t have to do condoms.”

“Why don’t you get snipped if you want to have sex without protection so badly. That procedures reversible.”

He covers his groin as if I’m coming after him with a scissors to do outpatient surgery on the hotel room bed. “Fuck no.”

“Then you’ll have to keep using condoms. Actually I don’t care what you use,” I say pulling out my suitcase. I need to get out of here and into a different hotel room. Actually I need to get out of San Diego. “I’m not sleeping with you again. This was a mistake. Sex solves nothing. If sex was the answer, I would have slept with any number of guys. If anything, our marathon showed me I was starving for sex. I should have been having it for years that way I wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to your physical advances.”

“What?” He shouts and jack knifes off the bed. His smug look is gone. “This was us reconnecting.”

“No, Nathan, this is about our bodies finding well needed released. Reconnecting would be you telling me why we had to reconnect. Since you don’t feel like it is necessary why don’t you take yourself out of my hotel room. If I want to reconnect with you I’ll give you a call.”

I pick up his clothes and throw them at him. Shock fills his eyes followed by determination.

Jerkily he pulls his clothes on. “I’ve got to get back to base but I’m on two week shore leave starting tomorrow. You can run, Charlotte, but there is no where on this goddamn earth I can’t find you.”

“Creepy much? I’m pretty sure that comes right out of the stalker handbook.” I cross my arms and glare at him.

“What the hell? We spent the night making love. You came six times. You love me and I love you. We can work this out.”

“You want to work this out? Then start talking.” I drop into one of the two upholstered chairs in the room and cross my arms, waiting.

He starts pacing and I, the stupid twit that I am, follow his every move. I watch the muscles bunch under his tight t-shirt and the way the veins stand out on his thick forearms. I can feel myself softening inside because god. damn. He is fine.

“I know I don’t deserve you,” he begins. His voice is so low I can barely hear him. “That you’ve been with no one in the last nine years blows my mind. When some guys on the team get their Dear John letters or find out from a buddy back home that their girl is cheating on them, they go out and try to prove their virility by fucking everything that moves. Most of that time that’s paid flesh but sometimes its other service women–nurses, supply convoy members, helo pilots. That was how they dealt with loss. You could have done that but you didn’t even though I’d cut you out of my life. I may pretend like it was fidelity that kept you away from other men, but that’s probably presumptuous of me. I don’t know why you were alone but I’m not sorry.” He grimaces. “Maybe I am a creepy stalker because I should simply want you to be happy. You weren’t though, were you?”

I glare at him because he didn’t deserve my fidelity even though he got it.

“Say something,” he begs.

I snort, a humorless short laugh. “That’s what I said to you a million times in my mind. But you didn’t say anything and now you’re waxing on and on about my state of revirginization. Why don’t we talk about your supposed abstinence? A man like you going without since you were eighteen? Do you actually think I believe anything that you’re saying?”

“You should. It’s true.” He squeezes the back of his neck.

I sit for a long time waiting but when he adds nothing, I rise. “If that’s all you have, I think you should go. I’ll think about it and if I want to see you again, I’ll call.”

He crosses the carpet in two giant strides and pulls me against him. With his head in my neck, he pleads, “Charlotte, God, give me another chance. Let me love you again.”

I stand motionless doing everything I can to resist. He kisses my neck, the tender part behind my ear. He rubs my shoulders but still I don’t move. His lips move to my forehead and he traces the small constellation of freckles along my cheeks and the upper bridge of my nose. “I’ve never stopped loving you,” he whispers against my jaw.

“And now, after all these years you’re ready to be a couple?” I finally say.

“I want us to try, Charlotte baby, to be what it was we were born for.”

“I can’t. I’ve already been stupid for 9 years. I don’t want to be this stupid again. I couldn’t even look myself in the mirror this morning. You hurt me so much Nathan. I can’t even begin to tell you how painful it was, particularly toward the end.  I deserve better than what I got from you and I don’t believe you are the man who can deliver that better for me. Not any more.”

My quietly spoken words stagger him. I feel him stumble and then right himself. “You don’t mean that,” he insists.

“I don’t think I can trust you.”

“Will you let me try to change your mind?”

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Need to catch up? Here’s a link to Charlotte Chronicles from the beginning.