The Charlotte Chronicles (Jackson Boys 1)

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 sanitizer. 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 procedure’s 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 jackknifes off the bed. His smug look is gone. “This was us reconnecting.”

“No, Nathan, this was 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 nowhere 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—goddamn—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 the time that’s paid flesh, but sometimes its other service women–nurses, supply convoy members, helo pilots. That is how they deal 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 seventeen? 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 face 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.