“Well, usually there are more dates,” Charlie says.
I look down at her, a smile tugging at her lips.
“This wasn’t a date?”
“This was more of a… sex appointment?” she says, thoughtfully.
“I’m not seeing the difference.”
“If it were a date, you’d have had to find a sitter, and we’d have spent a frustrated hour in a restaurant or something first,” she says.
“So we’re not dating, we’re sex appointing,” I say.
“While pretending that we’re engaged,” Charlie points out.
I glance down. The ring’s there, on her finger, glimmering away. I think she’s gotten used to it, because she isn’t constantly messing with it any more like she used to.
“Well, that was an incredible sex appointment,” I say, and kiss the top of her head. Charlie snorts.
“Do you have any openings on your calendar later this week?” she asks. The twist of her mouth says she’s making fun of me, not that I care.
“Well, Rusty’s got a piano lesson Thursday at five-fifteen,” I say. “Though that’s only forty-five minutes long.”
“We can make it work,” Charlie says instantly.
“And she’s with her mom this weekend,” I say. “Friday night until Sunday night, if you’re available.”
“I could make some time for you,” she teases.
I glance at the clock again. Now I’ve got two minutes before I need to be gone.
“C’mere,” I say, leaning down. I run my hand up the inside of her thigh, her skin soft and warm beneath my fingers. She tilts her head up and my lips find hers, her body splayed on the couch, naked and glorious.
It takes all my self-control to pull away from her, Charlie’s hand still on my face.
“Thanks for lying to a judge,” she murmurs. “It turned out pretty well.”
I kiss her again, quickly, then stand before I can be tempted further.
“You’re welcome,” I say, then sigh. I’m already running a minute late.
I hate running late.
“Be right back,” I say, and head for her bathroom.
“Daniel!” she calls.
“Yeah?”
“Make sure you wash your face so you don’t smell like vagina in front of the dance moms,” Charlie says. “Don’t go giving them ideas.”
I laugh, hand on the doorknob.
“I would never,” I say.Chapter Twenty-TwoDanielTuesday night, Charlie comes over for dinner, and afterward I clean up while she and Rusty play Go Fish with the deep-sea deck. When I’m done, I lean against the doorway into the living room and just watch them for a while: Rusty constantly trying to get one over on Charlie, Charlie having none of it.
They finish that game. Rusty wins. They play another one, I tell Rusty it’s bedtime, and she negotiates for one more game before she has to go to sleep.
I swear, she’s gonna work for the UN when she grows up.
Finally, she comes down in her pajamas — narwhals leaping through rainbows, a gift from Violet — to say goodnight.
“You brushed your teeth?” I ask, and she nods. “Washed your face?”
She nods again.
“Tell Charlie goodnight, then,” I say, standing.
“I want Charlie to read to me,” she says.
I raise both my eyebrows and look over at Charlie. Rusty’s never requested a bedtime book from anyone but me, but Charlie looks at me and shrugs.
“You have to ask Charlie,” I say.
“Charlie, will you read to me?”
“Sure,” she says. “You’ll have to fill in the backstory, though.”
“That’s okay,” Rusty says, bouncing on her toes. “Good night, Dad.”
“Good night, sweetheart,” I say, giving her a quick kiss before she’s gone like a flash, Charlie alighting the stairs behind her.
“Okay,” I hear Rusty say, slightly breathless. “So Sophia is a princess but she thinks that being a princess is stupid, her parents just want her to marry a prince so instead she goes and finds a dragon and asks if she can work for her…”
And then they’re gone. I sit back on the couch, suddenly unsure what to do for the next fifteen minutes.Thursday we have another sex appointment. This one’s even shorter than the last, and we don’t even make it to the couch. Charlie answers the door in a towel, somehow wearing even less than the last time I came over, and within minutes we’re kneeling on the floor and I’ve bent her over the couch while I fuck her hard and fast and deep and she begs me to do it harder, faster, shouting into the couch cushions when she comes.
I can’t get enough of her. I feel like an addict, unable to think about anything but my next fix. Even as I’m going soft inside her, my cock slipping out, I kiss the back of her neck, her shoulder, one hand cupping her breast. I pinch a nipple and she makes a soft noise, her back arching, the perfect globes of her ass against my hips.
I love how responsive she is, how she tells me what she wants, how her body moves under mine, and even though I should be going already I slide my hand between her legs again, her clit between my fingers. I stroke her until she comes again, moaning, bucking backward into me and then when she finishes, I kiss her hard and deep.