The Charlotte Chronicles (Jackson Boys 1)

My nails lightly score his back, over his muscled trapeziods 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. I hug him closely, as if I can 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?”

An internal dilemma plays on his face while he struggles 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. I melt under his attention, but there’s a tiny part of my heart that I’m afraid to give, for my own good.

35

Nathan

“Is there a family joining us?” Charlotte asks. Her voice is husky from sleep. As she raises her arms to stretch, her oversized robe gapes in the front, revealing the edges of her delicate collarbones and the soft inner flesh of her breasts. Beyond her is the bed that we spent the better part of the afternoon, all of the evening, and some pre-dawn hours destroying. And I’m still ready for another round.

Trying to distract myself, I assess the room service cart that was just delivered. There are six silver-domed plates full of steak, waffles, bacon, three different types of eggs, fruit, and oatmeal. Seems reasonable.

“I see only enough for me,” I joke. “Unless it’s a family of mice, I think everyone but you and I are going to go hungry. Come on and sit down.”

I’m sprawled on the sofa, wearing nothing but a towel that has loosened at the side, and I pat the cushion beside me. She settles under my arm without argument or complaint. It’s not easy eating one handed, but I’m not taking my arm off of her. Part of me is unconvinced she’s real and thinks that the whole night was just one fucking vivid dream.

“What do you have going on today?” I ask.

“I’m finishing up with a client. We’re closing the sale on a house, and then the wife and I are meeting with the principal of the new school.” She leans forward and takes a bite of the omelet.

“School’s already in session?” I ask. It’s July.

“No, but I want to make sure that the transition is smooth. That’s what I’m hired to do.”

I know about her job because I have grilled Nick constantly about it, but there’s something domestic and comforting about hearing her explain. “Let me come with you. I’ll be your assistant.”

The request causes her to fumble with her coffee mug. After a noticeable hesitation, she asks, “Is shore leave like some kind of vacation?”

Her uncertainty is disturbing, and my hand tightens around her shoulder unconsciously. She’s forgiven me, but she’s not forgotten, and her heart isn’t fully mine. If it was, she wouldn’t pause for a second to invite me along. She’s okay with fucking me, but she’s not convinced she wants me in every part of her life. I see it in the stiffening of her body and how she shrinks in my embrace.