Marrying the Wrong Man (12 page)

Charlie nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

The door slammed shut, and Charlie stilled. Was Morgan here, or did she manage to sneak out with Hannah? She’d stayed away most of the evening, probably because he’d been grouchy. At least she didn’t quit.

Morgan walked into the kitchen. “Did Corbin leave?”

Her hair was down, and she was missing the sweater she’d been wearing. Now, she was dressed in nothing but a tiny white T-shirt and black pants that fit her like a second skin.

Heat slithered around in his gut. “He’s gone.” Like she should be.

“Shoot. I wanted to split some tip money with him.”

Charlie slid a carving knife into its case. “Keep it. You barely make anything in tips.” The more tips she made, the faster she’d get out of town and out from under his skin.

“Well, I made plenty tonight. The Mitchells tipped me extra, and it’s only fair Corbin gets half. He was at that table as much as I was.”

Charlie stared at her for the longest time.
Don’t go there.
It wasn’t worth it. He had Charlotte, and she was way more than he ever expected.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Charlie. I know you well enough to know when you want to say something, but you won’t let yourself.”

“It’s not worth saying.”

“Say it anyway.”

Why the hell not? He’d never held his tongue before. “Fine. I can’t believe you’re chasing after Mark Mitchell.”

She had the nerve to grin. “I am not chasing after Mark.”

He grunted. “Well then he’s chasing after you. He’s in this restaurant all the time, now. He’s taking you to lunch on your day off. What would you call it?”

“Charlie, we’re friends.”

“That’s what you said about Justin.”

Her smile fell, and her face paled.

He felt like he’d flipped a switch, sending them back ten years, when suddenly her visits home from college, which he’d lived for, were complicated by her father’s constant push for her to go somewhere and be someplace with Justin. Every time she’d cancelled on him for some swanky Parrish-Mitchell political affair, he’d handled the disappointment with a bottomless stiff drink.

“Charlie, listen to me.” She stepped closer. “This is not the same thing. Mark is not a replacement for Justin. I’m not trying to replace Justin. I don’t care about Justin. I never really did. I cared more about pleasing my father and the status that would come from being a politician’s wife. That probably makes me the worst person in the world for agreeing to marry him in the first place. But it is what it is. I can’t go back and change those things. All I can do is not make those same mistakes again.”

Was he one of those mistakes? She’d tossed him aside like he was the trash everyone had said he was, the minute her daddy threatened to disown her. “What about me? Do you care about me?
Did
you care about me? Or was I just a thorn you liked to stab into your father’s side?”

“No. You know that’s not true. Before we broke up, I told you I loved you.” Her voice rose sharply. “I can’t believe you are questioning that!”

“Love? I don’t think you had a fucking clue what the word meant. I sure as hell don’t believe it applied to me. No, I was your entertainment. Sloppy drunk Charlie Cramer, always up for a good time when the pressures of being the Parrish princess weighed you down again.” He shook his head. “I was such a sucker.”

“No!”

“Then what was I to you?” he yelled. “And for once in your shitty life tell me the fucking truth.”

“You were the only real thing in my life.” Her finger jabbed at him through the air. “Everything else was so planned and calculated. Everything’s worth was measured by how much money and power it made, or how good it looked. But you—you were—you—” She groaned, but when the sound faded, her eyes widened, as if she suddenly saw the truth. “You were the only thing I could
feel!”

Silence fell over the kitchen. Nobody moved. He stared at her, so damn afraid to believe her words. Then he couldn’t stand not touching her a minute more. He reached for her, running his hand up the warm, soft skin of her arm. When she closed her eyes, he reached for her other arm, sliding both hands upward until he cradled her neck.

His heart beat in his throat. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

“You could show me.” She slid her hands over his.

Charlie kissed her, fusing his lips to hers, holding her face at a slant, letting her exhalation warm his cheek. It was rough and hard and as distant as he could make it—just in case he got spooked and needed to walk away. He couldn’t help but think one of them would. But then, he parted his lips just enough for his tongue to take the smallest taste. And that was it. Like the addict he was, he opened his mouth and swallowed her. Distance be damned.

Their mouths found a familiar rhythm slipping and sliding, opening and closing, probing and pulsing until he knew nobody was walking away without being well and truly fucked.

“Charlie,” she whispered on her next breath. “I want you. I never stopped wanting you.”

Somewhere in the back of his hazy head he knew what a person wanted wasn’t always what he needed. But he didn’t care. The desire ran too deep.

With his mouth covering hers and his arms holding on for dear life, he walked her backwards into his office.

She tugged at his pants. “Now, Charlie. I want you, now.”

“Not now,” he growled. “I’ll tell you when.” She’d been calling the shots in his life for way too long.

She hissed as he rolled the tip of his tongue over the curves of her ear to the base of her neck. Every muscle in his body swelled from the energy building inside of him.

He kept his mouth on her mouth and his hands on her body, ridding her of the T-shirt.

She stood before him with her hands clutching his waistband, dressed in a white lace bra that barely fit. So damn soft. He traced the mounding flesh. His pulse quickened, his groin tightened, and a spot beneath his ribs clenched.

Don’t do it. She may want you now, but she’ll leave in the end.

“Charlie,” she whispered again. She pushed his T-shirt over his abs and lowered her lips to the skin above his navel. Her mouth doused his body in pricks of pleasure that made it mercifully hard to think. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He closed his eyes and lifted his face to the ceiling while her breath tickled and her tongue teased. He smoothed his hands over her arms, her back, to the nape of her neck, where he threaded his fingers into her silky hair. Screw it. He’d take what he could take, because when it came to her he’d always been desperate.

It was then that he realized her mouth had stopped exploring, and her puffs of breath concentrated on one stretch of skin—the collection of numbers tattooed over his heart.

Dropping his chin to his chest, he looked at her looking up at him, a million questions in her eyes.
Don’t answer her
.
Not if you want to survive this.

He flipped her, bent her over his desk, and pulled her pants lower over the curves of her hips. He’d rather admire her ass than answer her questions. Answers were complicated. Sex was easy.

She wiggled against him, as brazen as she’d ever been, and he worked himself free. He wanted her—maybe even more than he’d ever wanted her before. So he was going to have her.

He’d never been any good at impulse control.

Gripping her hard around the soft waist, he slipped inside … and waited for his heart to start beating again.

• • •

Morgan braced herself against the desk and welcomed every blow. She wanted Charlie’s thrusts to shake the sense right out of her. Because, otherwise, she might be absolutely, positively certain he still loved her. He had her birthdate tattooed on his chest. Over his heart. Right above Charlotte’s birthdate.

Pleasure lifted a moan from her lips.

What if he did still love her? Would that change anything? Would that change this?

“Yes!” she screamed just to release some of the pressure.

He cupped her breasts, tightening her nipples until she yelled again.

It felt so good. Always had. When they’d been like this, they’d been perfect.

He reached between her legs and rubbed. She dropped her forehead to the desk and let the friction coax her orgasm. Time and place slipped away. There was just her … and him … like this.

When she shuddered, he groaned. And with one last thrust, he collapsed against her back, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him. The warm, luscious weight made her want to crumble to the floor and take him with her.

But then the haze cleared. The air chilled. And Charlie released her.

“I’m going to get cleaned up,” he said.

She closed her eyes and swallowed the embarrassment-induced surge of acid. In the darkness behind her eyes, all she could see was the tattoo on his chest. He’d loved her right before she’d left town. Maybe he’d gotten the tattoo shortly after that.

It didn’t mean he loved her now. Maybe he even regretted getting it.

And even if he did love her, it didn’t magically fix anything. In their case, it always seemed to make things worse.

Charlie couldn’t get the taste of Morgan out of his mouth or the feel of her off his skin. More than her birthdate was tattooed on his heart. Loving her was bound to kill him.

He glared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

Just because he felt something, didn’t mean he was going to die. He could handle this. Better than he’d handled everything else. Because this time, he wasn’t going to drink over it.

And he wasn’t going to be the one to walk away—even though he
was
the one hiding in the bathroom.
Pathetic.
He opened the door with a huff.

She stood at the end of the hall, wearing the shirt he’d removed, with a wide-eyed expression on her face.

Words stuck in his throat. Maybe he should’ve stayed in the bathroom a little longer. How was it possible to feel awkward around someone you knew well enough to have a child with?

“We kind of got carried away,” she said.

He ran a hand over his head to the back of his neck. “We always do.”

Her gaze wandered lower and seemed to linger on his chest. He wanted to scratch the hell out of the spot. If she asked about the tattoos, he could easily explain Charlotte’s birthdate—he hadn’t wanted to forget the child he was never supposed to meet. But Morgan’s birthdate? He couldn’t explain that without admitting he had always loved her, and he always would.

She lifted her purse onto her shoulder. “I don’t want things to be weird between us.”

“You mean weirder than they already were?”

“Exactly. So, I’m fine with pretending like whatever happened here didn’t even happen.”

He’d be good with that, too—if it were possible. “Okay.”

She smiled. It wasn’t the least bit flirty, but his engine revved. “Look at us being all mature.”

Was that what you called it when you bent a woman over your desk and pounded into her like she was the last woman on earth? He swallowed his disgust. She’d always been better at pretending than he was.

He stretched his neck to either side. “You should probably get back to Charlotte.”
Before I drag you into my office again.

“Maybe you could come by the house to see her tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” He shoved his hands into his jean pockets.

She was kidding herself if she thought they could pretend nothing happened.

“Okay.” The alley door was behind her, and she stumbled as she walked backward. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Her voice quivered, and he grinned.

Even if he stayed away from Phyllis’s house tomorrow, he’d still have to see Morgan again at work. She was everywhere. He had no doubt that was going to include tonight’s dreams. He couldn’t seem to get through an interaction with her unscathed.

At least he got out of this one without having to talk about the tattoos.

• • •

As Morgan drove out of town and up the windy road toward Aunt Phyllis’s farmhouse, she couldn’t suppress the tears. Through everything that had happened to her in the last three years, she’d rarely cried. Her parents’ instruction in stoicism was too engrained. But tonight, she made up for it.

By the time she pulled into the dirt driveway, she wasn’t even sure why she was crying. Was it because her father turned out to be a villain instead of the savior she’d been raised to believe he was? Was it because her mother, who was too cold and cowardly to care about her daughter, ran away, leaving Morgan to deal with the fallout from their transgressions? Was it because she was stuck here, where plenty of people enjoyed her misfortune? Or was it because of Charlie? Because she loved him, lost him, found him again—but it could never be the same?

The rush she used to feel from being with him against all odds and expectations wasn’t there anymore. Now, she just felt raw … and sad.

She stayed in the car long enough for the tears to dry, and then she walked with heavy steps across the porch and into the living room. Aunt Phyllis was sleeping in the recliner chair with her legs lifted and a kitten curled on her lap. This was what every second of every night had been like before Morgan and Charlotte roared into town. So lonely. What had chased Aunt Phyllis into this solitary life? Morgan didn’t even know why her parents had been so adamant about staying away. Now, this woman they’d laughed at and ignored was all the family support Morgan had.

And Morgan loved her for it—more than she’d ever loved her parents.

“I’m home,” she whispered. “Why don’t you go up to bed?”

Aunt Phyllis’s eyes fluttered open. “How was your night?”

“Exhausting.” Physically and emotionally.

“Well, it’s over now.” She smiled. “Oh, before I forget. A man from Denver, Colorado called for you about a job. I wrote his number and his name beside the phone.”

Snap.
Just like that her exhaustion waned. “Seriously?”

Aunt Phyllis nodded and righted the chair, pushing the kitten from her lap. “And there’s something else in the kitchen for you.”