The Charlotte Chronicles (24 page)

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.”

W
e 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.

I’m content for the first time in a very long while.

She rouses later as dusk sets in. The phone on my nightstand has vibrated several times. I glanced at the screen once or twice to read the onslaught of crude texts and pictures that the assholes think are going to get me out of bed and into Flannery’s. I’ll go if she wants, but I’d be fine lying here all night and for the rest of my leave.

“Should we go?” she asks sleepily, turning onto her back. She stretches her arms above her head, and the sheet drops down to reveal the tops of her breasts. I nudge the navy blue fabric down further to cup her fullness and tweak a quickly hardening nipple. “Again?” she asks, looking amused.

I dip my head and take the other nipple into my mouth so it doesn’t feel ignored. Having a mouth full of tit makes it hard to answer. I just nod.

“My spirit is willing, but my body has to use the bathroom.” She taps my shoulder and, when I don’t immediately release her, thumps me with a closed fist. Regretfully I release my prizes but am gratified to see her buds are tight and dark from my attentions. The sight of them makes me dive toward her, but she eludes me and scampers into the bathroom down the hall.

Tucking my hands behind my head, I wait impatiently for her return. She spends a long time in the bathroom, and then when the door opens, she doesn’t immediately return. The sounds from the living room indicate she is moving around. The remote is picked up and placed back down. The refrigerator door opens, and my empty stomach grumbles in response.

Her footsteps become louder as she approaches.

“Why is your place so soulless?”

I rise to my elbows. She’s wearing a T-shirt that she must have found in the bathroom. I probably discarded it this morning when I was dressing. Her bare legs stick out from underneath and it hides every curve, but I still love seeing her in it.

“Because you aren’t here.”

She snorts. “No really. You have no pictures up. The walls are white. The only decent pieces of furniture are your bed and your big television. I can’t imagine Aunt Grace didn’t want to decorate in here.”

Charlotte trails a hand along the barren wall as she moves around the room.

I squirm uncomfortably on the bed, recalling the fights I had with Mom about this place. “She’s never been here,” I confess.

“What?” Her head whips around.

“When my family comes they stay at a hotel. I go spend time with them. I fly back to Chicago. We stay at the North Shore house.” She continues to look confused. Throwing back the sheet, I push out of bed and in a stride pull her into my arms. “This isn’t my home, Charlotte. It’s just a place I sleep in between missions, training exercises, and when I’m not with my family.”

She shakes her head and laughs softly, although there’s no real humor in the sound. “God, Nate, you’re making me feel sorry for you.”

I try to lighten the mood. “You should feel sorry for me.” I bend down for her to kiss me. “So sorry that you’ll have to kiss me all over to make me feel better.”

She ducks away and avoids my mouth.

“Why did you punish yourself like this?” Her eyes spear mine, and I’m caught off guard.

I start to mouth an immediate denial but then shut up. I haven’t thought of it as punishment, but as she says the word, I can’t deny it. At least in part, I have refused to allow myself to be comfortable and happy. I have only existed. But in another sense, I couldn’t see myself having a future without Charlotte, so it didn’t make sense to do anything with the place where I feed myself and rest my body. Since leaving her, my life has always been off kilter. It was empty, so I put no effort into creating something that would just be a mockery of the real thing I could have but shunned.

“Well you can’t live like this,” she says, wrapping her arms around me.

I press her body into mine with a hard arm wrapped around her shoulders and a firm hand at the small of her back. “When can you move to San Diego? We’ll buy a new place together.”

She stiffens under my grip. “Move to San Diego? My business is in Dallas.” She steps away from my embrace, frowns and pushes her hair out of her face. “How long do you plan to be a SEAL?”

Her question catches me flat footed. I drop to the side of the bed. “I don’t know. I’ve never given it any thought.”

“My business is just starting up. This is my third year. It’s a crucial time for me. I’m expanding my territories, hiring new employees. I fly all over the U.S. I’ve even got athletes overseas interested in my services, along with major teams wanting to hire me to handle this transition work for them.” She thrusts her hand through her hair and begins to pace agitatedly.

“I’d quit the teams,” I hear myself say.

They are words I never thought would come out of my mouth. Quit the teams? SEALs hated quitting. They stayed in until a military disability kicked them out.

But the smile she returns is blinding. “Would you?”

I nod and am met with an armful of Charlotte. I grab her ass and let the momentum carry us to the mattress. My dick is hard by the time I’m horizontal. With a little maneuvering, I’m right at the entrance of her bare pussy. She’s not wearing anything at all under my shirt. I cup the back of her head with one hand and, with more roughness than I’d intended, fuse our mouths together. She kisses me back without reservation. Between her legs I find that she’s ready for me, more than ready. Her thighs are slick, and it takes almost no effort to slide between her legs and arrow my cock inside her body.

“Nothing is more important than being with you. We want to have kids and raise them together, like our parents raised us. We’re a unit.” I grunt each word in her ear as I shove my hips upward. She cries out at the penetration. I’m abrupt because I want to stop talking about the things that could keep us apart and focus on what makes it right for us to be together. She gets the message when I slam my mouth against hers and kiss her with every ounce of need and want in me.

We touch each other feverishly. Our fucking is frenetic, and soon we’re both coming. Exhausted, I lie back. My legs are still dangling over the edge of the bed, and the hair around her forehead is wet from sweat. Maybe hers, maybe mine. My heart is racing like a freight train, and I’m not sure whether it’s fear or passion with its heavy foot on the throttle.

Quietly, I tell her, “There are two SEAL operations, one on the East coast and another on the West coast. I’m stationed here in San Diego. There’s been some sniffing around by the higher ups to see if I want to move to another team.”

“Another SEAL team?”

She shifts, and my dick slips out of her. A stream of cum follows, wetting her pussy, her thighs, and down my leg. I want to cup my hand around her cunt and press all my sperm inside her so she’s pregnant with my kid. If she’s pregnant, she can’t every leave me. These thoughts are sick and wrong, but I’m not going to deny their truth. I’m tying myself to her with everything I’ve got, no matter how wrong it is.

“Like a joint team such as DEVGRU or JSOC. They’re a bunch of badasses from all different branches.”

“How do you get picked for that?”

I laugh lightly because she won’t believe it. I could hardly believe it myself when I was told. “Apparently they put your picture up on a wall and people write on it whether they think you’d be a good candidate.”

“Like some fraternity?” She shakes her head in disbelief. The corners of her eyes crinkle in amusement. “Or SEAL Facebook? Like me a thousand times so I can go to the next level?”

“Yeah, it’s very scientific.”

We both laugh, and I’m relieved as if we’ve conquered our first mountain together.

“And if you did something like that where would you be stationed?”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“But for the sake of argument?”

When I shrug her whole body moves with mine. “Probably Virginia.”

“Not Dallas. Not Chicago.”

“No.”

She’s silent for a long time and doubt begins to creep back in, but when she speaks it’s about another fucking awful subject.  “You know whose heart we’re going to break?”

“Nick’s.” Baby brother needs to hear from me what’s going on.

“Yes.” She sighs and gets up. “Ugh, I need to go to the bathroom.”

I eye her legs and the streaks of white on the insides of her thighs. “Don’t wash up on my account,” I murmur.

“Seriously, Nate?”

“As a heart attack.” I can’t look away. My cum all over her legs is about the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I want to take a picture of that, carry it in my sack, and pull it out whenever I need to spank it on a mission . . . except I won’t be going on missions anymore. I push down the anxiety that thought stirs up.

“I’ll call him.”

She taps her mouth in contemplation and then nods. “I’ll make us some dinner.”

“Sure. I have about five ingredients in the refrigerator, and two of them are liquid. Good luck.”

She flips me off as she exits. I pick up the phone, take a deep breath, and dial. Nick picks upon the second ring.

“Big bro. You close the deal?”

“How was practice today?” I ask, avoiding his question.

“I only spent one hour in the cold bath, so that’s a win.”

I frown. “Thought you were doing no touch practice with no pads.”

“Rookie clipped me.”

“Did you cut him?” The health of a starting quarterback is the foundation of every successful football team. Whenever I’ve watched Nick practice, which wasn’t often and sometimes only via videos I could find on his team’s web page, he was wearing a red scrimmage vest that designated him as off limits.

Nick laughs. “No, but he got an ass chewing from everyone from the coach to the kicker. You know it’s bad when the punter chews your ass. He’s feeling a little raw.”

“Harsh, man.” Then without any more preamble, I blurt out, “I asked her to marry me.”

Without skipping a beat, he retorts, “Are you calling me to cry about her saying no?”

“She said yes.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone. Finally he exhales. “You’re going to take her away, right? From Dallas?”

It’s resignation, not hurt that I hear. He could be hiding it, but I don’t think so. We’re too close. He always knew I loved Charlotte, even when I stayed away. He just didn’t understand it. “Only for a short while. I’m going to leave the teams as soon as I can. I’ll put in for separation. It’ll take maybe six months at the longest.”

“What the hell, man? You left for nine years because you wanted to be a SEAL, and now you’re saying you’ll just up and quit? That sounds like a fucking terrible idea. What happens a year from now when you’re sitting in some suburban home, looking at your stupid ass neighbors arguing about whose lawn is nicer? You’ll want to shoot yourself in the foot, and you’ll start taking it out on Charlotte.”

I don’t like what I’m hearing, but it’s only because he’s voicing what I’m too chickenshit to acknowledge. “What’s this all about, Nick?”

His retort is hard-edged. As much as I hate what’s coming out of his mouth, I swell with pride at his protectiveness over my girl.  “I love Charlotte like a sister. Never loved her any other way, but she’s my best friend and other than the time I went to Notre Dame, we’ve been damn near inseparable. You’re taking my best friend away, and you’re talking about shoving your dream under your bed like it’s an old shoe you don’t like anymore. I’ve spent a long time watching you hurt Charlotte, and it’ll kill me if you do it again.”

“I know.” I can’t say more because my heart’s in my throat.

His voice is lower, hoarser because it pains him too. “I kept her safe for you. Watched over her like you asked me to.”

My head’s full of emotion too. “I know,” I choke out. “I couldn’t ask for a better brother or a better friend.”

A noise at the doorway catches me attention. I jerk toward it and see Charlotte there, still wearing my T-shirt. Her eyes are big and watery, but she yells out, “I’m still going to be at all your games, you asshole, so you better play good this year. And don’t get sacked. I hate that. You hold on to the ball way too long.”

Nick bursts out laughing, and then I do too. It’s going to be okay, I think. By the time I hang up, I’ve got myself convinced that I’m not even lying.

Mostly.

M
y clothing choices
don’t give me many options for a night with a bunch of rowdy sailors. I have suits, dressy tops, and slacks along with a pair of very worn denim shorts and a tank top. I opt for the denim shorts and a silk sleeveless blouse.

Nate frowns. “If you bend over I can see your ass cheeks.”

“Then I won’t bend over, but I’m not wearing a suit to a bar where all your friends are hanging out.”

“I’m okay with the suit,” he offers. “Besides, if you wear those shorts, I’m going to be walking around with a semi the entire time, which is okay in the apartment but frowned upon by the general public.”

I hook gold hoop earrings through my earlobes. “Blah blah blah. I can’t hear you over the blanket of paternalism that is suffocating me.”

He spins me away from the mirror and wraps his arms around me. They are tight bands, but not suffocating in spite of what I said. His eyes are glittery, a mix of need, banked jealousy, and a helluva lot of love. When his lips crash down on mine, it’s hard to stay upright. His mouth is doing things to me that spin my head and make me question every decision but ones that keep me between his legs and in the circle of his arms.

In the long years of our absence, my memories of him had become faint. I tried to hold on to them for as long as I could, but things such as the motion of his hard body moving over mine and the rough but soft way he handled me were hard to conjure from the images and emotions I’d stored up in my head.

I’m still struggling with the reality of being able to touch him whenever I want. To know that the embrace is really happening. It’s his mouth trekking its way around my jaw, down my neck. It’s his rough, calloused fingers deftly undoing my blouse and dipping inside my bra to rub over my tender and sensitive breasts. It’s his thick erection rubbing between my legs until I’m reduced to a mindless puddle of squirming want.

The shrill sound of his phone going off breaks our trance.

“Shit,” he breathes harshly.

“We’d better go.” With some reluctance I push him away and go about repairing the damage he inflicted to my makeup and clothes in about five minutes flat.

“I don’t want to go,” he whines, flicking his phone to silent. As he sits on the stool next to me, I bite my lip to keep from laughing. With his head hanging down, he looks like a sad little boy.

“If we don’t, they’re going to call all night, and pretty soon they’ll show up at your door, pounding on the wood and disturbing everyone.”

“You’re right.” He stands up and runs a hand through his hair. His mussed hair and heavy-lidded eyes are criminally hot. I’m not leaving the apartment until I’ve got a little armor, so I slick on a new coat of lip gloss and run a mascara wand through my pale eyelashes so I don’t look totally hairless around my eyes.

“If anyone should be upset, it should be me,” I say, watching him through the mirror.

He screws up his face in confusion. “Upset about what?”

Still holding my mascara brush, I point to his reflection. “Look at your tight T-shirt, how it shows off your big chest muscles and isn’t even covering the bulges in your biceps. It’s like you want some girl to come over and run her hands all over your body.”

He comes up behind me and crowds me with his big body. “Is that right? Well, I’d have to tell her that if she touches me, my woman will go apeshit on her.”

“Then if anyone touches me inappropriately, I’ll knee him in the balls and then tell him my boyfriend is going to hit him so hard, he’ll be traveling back in time.”

Nate can’t suppress a laugh. Lightly swatting me on the ass, he chuckles. “All right. No more smart remarks about your shorts. For the record, my T-shirt is an extra-large. This is the way it fits.”

“Are you bragging about your size?” I tease.

“Who needs to brag about this?” he shoots back, cupping himself through his shorts. His thick length looks so hot in his grasp that I have to bite my cheek to keep from moaning out loud.

Instead, I shoo him out and tell him to get dressed. When he leaves, I let out a sigh of relief. Another minute with him standing with his dick in his hand and I would’ve jumped him.

We finally get out of the apartment without ripping each other’s clothes off again, although there was a tense moment at the door when he slammed it shut, pressed my back up against it, and proceeded to kiss me until I was weak-kneed and he was wearing all my gloss.

I’m going to have to buy two tubes of all my favorite colors at the rate I’m reapplying lip coloring.

Flannery’s is a self-proclaimed Irish pub, not too far from the Del. A green sign with white lettering over the entrance says “Kiss him, he’s Irish.” Nate tells me that the front of the bar is deceiving because it looks no more than about ten feet long.

The real action is in the rear, no pun intended. Nate maneuvers me through a throng of people, half of whom look like tourists and the other half military boys. You can generally tell which tribe each belongs to simply by haircut.

Over the bar hangs what appears to be at least a couple hundred glass mugs, each with a name etched on them. “How do you get a mug?” I ask.

“You buy it.” He grins at my disappointed face. “Wanted a more romantic story? Like I had to wrestle a bear or something?”

“Or maybe shoot an apple off the top of the head of the bartender.”

“I’m not sure Flannery’s workers’ compensation policy covers that,” he says wryly. His hand pushes me forward until we reach the patio, which is twice as large as the interior of the bar.

A group of men and women surround three small square tables pushed together toward the rear of the patio. As we approach, nearly all the males stand. One of them looks like a young Ron Howard barely out of his Mayberry days, with a smattering of freckles and wild reddish blonde hair. Next to him is a weathered face sporting the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on a person.

SEALs come in all sizes and shapes—tall, short, stout. Their one commonality is a superb physical state. Muscles . . . muscles everywhere.

I have no doubt that each one of them could break me in half without effort. Nate and the male next to the redhead are about the tallest, at a few inches over six feet. It’s easy to see why there are so many gorgeous women around, including the ladies sitting at the table.

It’s not easy to walk toward such avid interest, not knowing what’s coming next.

“Why are they all standing up?” I whisper out of the side of my mouth, dragging my feet a little.

“The guys are interested in you.”

“Why?”

“My nickname is Monk. That I’ve run off on shore leave with a woman is making them crazy.” He plants a quick kiss on my forehead and pulls me forward.

By the back slapping and fist jabbing, it’s easy to see Nate is well-liked. I hang back slightly to observe him. It’s no different than it was in high school. Men look up to him and want to be with him.

Actually, there is a difference. The way that they greet him is like how Nick greets him. This is his family.

He laces his fingers through mine and says, “This is Charlotte. And, Charlotte, these fools are my teammates.”

He introduces each one individually, and I try to memorize their names. It reminds me of the times I had to meet Nick’s teammates both in college and then when he went pro.

There’s something strikingly similar between these men and the ones that Nick plays with. Only, when these men go out to do their jobs, someone’s life is on the line. The work isn’t done for entertainment but for the protection of our country.

I have to remind myself that these men have hopes and dreams and heartaches like anybody else. It helps me to relax, but only for a moment because the interrogation begins before I even sit down.

“Tell us everything about yourself and don’t leave anything out,” orders the man named Cabby.

There are a few ways to handle being the new girl in an already established crowd dominated by certain male personalities, but my go-to one is that I’m confident, can take a ribbing, and spew my own flavor of bullshit.

“Well, my name is Helga, err Helga Charlotte, and I am an alpine skier. I met Nathan when he was vacationing with his family in Lake Tahoe. I was babysitting for a pro golfer’s family while they were on holiday. I didn’t speak any English, and Nate didn’t speak any German. Ultimately we were left to draw pictures for each other. We would exchange our stick figure messages for days until he left. This continued until one day I broke my hand and could no longer draw stick figures. At that point I realized I could not continue in a relationship where stick figures were our only form of communication, so we drifted apart. Then we discovered each other on the beach where the three of you were running. He convinced me that our stick figure romance could be revived, and so here I am.”

I lift my unoccupied hand palm up as if to say that is the end of the story. Nate coughs into his free hand and then pulls out a chair for me. Across the table, there are varying expressions of confusion and disbelief.

“Helga Charlotte?” Cabby’s one eyebrow is raised.

“I know, it’s a mouthful, right?”

“Your English has come a long way,” he replies.

“Thank you. I’ve worked hard on it.”

Nate’s humor is morphing into irritation. He doesn’t like to see me under attack, and there’s something about Cabby’s questioning—or perhaps the way that he’s looking at me—that is raising Nate’s hackles. He shifts and then leans forward, arms on the table. “You got a problem, buddy?”

Under the wooden table, I rub Nate’s knee to reassure him I’m okay, but he’s focused on his friend and teammate across the table. They stare at each other for what seems like a long time but is likely no more than a few seconds.

The freckled boy interrupts, “So does everyone call you Helga, but only Nate calls you Charlotte?”

The innocent question breaks the tension and everyone starts laughing. One of the guys cuffs the boy affectionately on the back of the head.

“What?” he asks, looking around. “I was curious.” But as the others start making fun of him, calling him Howdy Doody, he gives me a wink. By playing dumb, he’s drawn their attention away. Sneaky. I am super impressed and mouth a 
thank you
 to him.

None of this escapes Nate’s eyes. He flags down a waitress and whispers to her, “The redheaded guy in the corner? Everything’s on my tab tonight.”

With the ice broken, the conversation became easy. I admit that Nate and I were long-time friends and grew up together. His arm never leaves the back of my chair, and my hand never stops rubbing his knee.

“How was the golf game today?” Nate asks Cabby.

Cabby glares, first at Nate and then at the imposing figure at the end of the table who Nate had introduced as his commanding officer. “I hate that fucking game and you all know it. But instead of reminding me I hate it, you lure me onto the course with offers of free beer.”

“We got thrown out after fourteen holes because Cab threw the club at the clown face,” Lieutenant Sykes explains.

“I fucking hate clowns, assholes.” Cabby shudders.

At my confused expression, Nate clarifies. “Mini golf.”

“It’s the devil’s game, Charlotte,” Cabby says. “Never play it.”

“I swear I won’t.”

He leans across and offers his pinkie. “Pinkie promise?”

I hook my little finger with his, amazed at how it’s dwarfed, as if his hands have muscles mine don’t. “Pinkie promise.”

We shake and Cab’s eyes glitter mischievously as he lets me go. “Now that we’ve bonded, do we show each other our tits now or after we break out the glitter bombs?”

Nate settles his own heavy hand on the back of my neck. “The near daily sight of your manboobs is why I was celibate for nine years. Don’t punish Charlotte by killing my libido once again.”

Hoots fill the air at Nate’s easy admission of his nine-year drought. There’s something awesome and incredibly sexy in his openness about how he’d stayed faithful to me even though we weren’t together, even though he had thought we would never be a couple again. His confidence doesn’t flow from his crotch like so many others. There are few men who would be as unconcerned as he about not having any action for months, let alone years. I’m used to men measuring their self-worth by the number of hookups they have in each city.

Cabby grins broadly. “How was it? As good as pissing after a long walk outside the wire?”

“If you think pissing is comparable to having sex, I’m concerned,” Nate replies. They clearly enjoy ribbing each other.

“At least I did piss on a regular basis, unlike some people I know.”

I decide to break up their love fest before it turns south. “It was spectacular, Cabby, if you need to know. But don’t worry, he still loves you.”

“Good. Good.” He nods and winks. “He loves you too. Just remember that when he calls out my name the next time you’re getting it on.”

Nate’s hand drops from my neck to my shoulder and pulls me against him. “Cabby’s sad because I was his best wingman. Now he has to hang with the rest of these fools and try to prove he’s the better choice when last call is made.”

“True story,” Cabby says mournfully.

After we establish that Cabby is capable of closing deals without Nate helping, the conversation turns to the latest crop of potential SEALs. Cabby and Bride think they’re worthless, but Lieutenant Sykes argues that the fail rate is no different. The argument becomes heated as Bride says that his BUD/S class was the best. Everyone jumps in, even Nate, who says that Cabby and his class had the best pass rate, best water rescue performance, best rifle marks, and so on.

They keep arguing until another round is delivered and a new group of young ladies waltz in wearing barely-there dresses and high heels.

“Cab, if you keep eye fucking that brunette across the room, I’m going to get pregnant,” jokes Bride.

“There’s a threat to our national security,” says a short, rough-looking male whose nickname is Gonzo.

“I’m not eye fucking her,” Cab protests. He looks at me earnestly. “Ma’am, we do not eye fuck. I promise you that we’re better than that.”