The Charlotte Chronicles (Jackson Boys 1)

I am here before you, on my knees, to not only beg you to forgive me but to allow me to show you how much I love you for the rest of my life. Will you please marry me?”

Her shocking blue eyes, the blue the color of the pure ocean, of the clearest sky, fill with water that spills silently down her cheeks.

I don’t so much hear her response as feel it inside me. My entire body vibrates with her choked and shaking, “Yes!”

I sweep her up and crush her mouth to mine. Around us are laughter and cheers and people taking pictures that will be the source of mocking for years to come. But I don’t care.

I run up the stairs, still holding her, still kissing her. I somehow manage to fall into my apartment and into the bedroom. We rip at each other’s clothes, our mouths feverishly attacking one another until we are skin to skin. She takes me in her hand and guides me to the hot, wet center that I’ve come to identify as home.

Her eyes are wide, and her body is welcoming. I take a moment to appreciate the vision. Strands of her wheat-colored hair are spread across the navy blue of my sheets. She’s an angel spread for my enjoyment.

I bracelet her two wrists in one hand and pin them above her head, stretching her body to accommodate me in every aspect.

Her head thrashes as she moans my name, “Nathan, please.” She strains against me. Her legs widen and the heels of her feet press hard against my ass. “I never imagined we would be together again.”

“I know, baby. Push your hands here,” I whisper into her skin. I press her palms against the headboard so I free my own hands. One I use to brace myself, and the other I reach under her bowed back. “I can’t go slow, and I can’t go easy.”

She nods. “I want you. Take me hard.”

Digging my knee into the mattress, I thrust between her legs with as much finesses as a juvenile. I have barely any rhythm and almost no conscious thought. I am only blood and nerves. My focus is narrowed down to the pinpoints of sensation that are electrified by each slam into her body.

Forward and retreat.

Forward and retreat.

We are animals, recklessly straining for pleasure. Beneath me, her body jerks with each deep thrust. I’m abusing her, but I can’t stop. The way she’s locked around my body, I don’t believe she’d let me stop.

I kiss the valley between her tits, up the delicate column neck and along her jaw. Her head turns into the wall of my arm. She kisses the muscle, traces a tongue along the tendons and veins that jut out as I brace myself above her trembling body.

“Fucking come with me now,” I roar as the familiar tension starts to coil inside me. Licking my thumb, I press the dampened tip on her sensitive clit. She screams in response, and her cunt grips me like a vise. We wind tighter and tighter together until I feel her release shake her body.

I power forward, hips jerking, and then I’m coming. My hot seed jets inside her, coating her walls because in the heat of the moment I forgot to wrap up and so did she. That’s right, I think, that’s my seed marking my territory inside your sweet body.

After the storm is past, and we lie in a pile of destroyed sheets, abandoned clothes, and sweaty limbs, I press kisses all over her bare skin. There’s the hollow of her throat that I’ve not paid enough attention to, and the valley between her breasts that calls for my touch. I haven’t completely charted the rises and dips in her back or the location of each beauty mark. Even her toes are sexy. I want to suck and lick every part of her again and again.

“You’re going to have to marry me now,” I say.

“Because you didn’t wear a condom?” she says lazily, tracing my back with her fingernails. She seems at peace with this. I hope so because I want us to have a family right away.

I shudder beneath her touch. “No, because Mom will force you to make an honest man out of me. You can’t expect me to keep sleeping with you without the protection of marital vows.” I fall to my back and clasp a hand over my heart.

She pounces on me, her fingers digging into my hard muscled sides. When I don’t laugh from her tickling, she pushes her lower lip out. “I have serious doubts about how this is going to all work out if you aren’t ticklish.”

“I can pretend for you.”

Her face grows sober. “Don’t ever pretend. Let’s always be real with each other.”

“Always.”

37

Nathan

We lie together in silence, reveling in the closeness and the mere act of holding each other. I can’t sleep, but I suspect she dozes off. The thump of her heart under my hand slows, and her breathing evens out. I’m too wired to sleep, too excited that she’s here in my place. There are no parents to worry about. No sickness that will separate us.