The Contingency Plan (The Lonely Heart Series) (18 page)

“Love you too,” Charlize said, closing her eyes with a smile on her face.

***

Sully sat on the end of Benny’s bed and fiddled with his watch.  There was so much that he wanted to say to his son, so much that he needed to explain. He just didn’t know how.  Looking up at his boy, he smiled and tousled his curly locks. 

“So, did you enjoy tonight?” Sully asked pulling the covers up under Benny’s chin. 

“Yeah, Ms. Charlie is pretty cool.”  Benny yawned. “So you like her, huh?”

“Yeah, I like her.”

“You know that girls have
coodies
, don’t you?” Benny yawned. 

Sully laughed. “We’ll see how you feel about that in about three years.”

“I think she likes you too,” Benny said, shaking his head at his father. 

“You do, huh?” Sully laughed. 

“Yeah.  I know these things.”

“Well, do you like her?” Sully asked sincerely.

“Yeah.  You should keep her.” 

Sully laughed again.  “Well, why didn’t you just say so before?”  He wished that it was that easy. 

Mocking his father, he rolled over on his side, and cupped his hands under his face.  “Sarcasm will only get you so far, daddy.”

Sully grinned. “You’re growing up too fast.”  Bending down, he kissed his son’s forehead and stood up. “Love you.  See you in the morning.”

“Love you too,” Benny said, closing his eyes. 

As Sully walked out of the bedroom door and closed it behind him, he was met by Charlie in the hallway.  She wore a look of confusion and enligh
t
enment, like so many things in her life that were marred with questions before were suddenly answered and in just a short moment, new more important questions had arrived, filling her with the need to do some serious soul searching. 

Sully walked up to her and stuffed his fists down into his pockets.  “And those are the kids,” he said with a grin.

“They are amazing,” Charlie whispered.  “Abs
o
lutely incredible.”  She fought tears, clenching her jaw tight as she heaved a breath out.  Her eyes told him that she was torn – torn between two families, b
e
tween two lives.  There was an urgency in her tense body, rigid with worry and denial.

“Hey,” he said, touching her shoulder.  He looked down at her and lifted her chin with his index finger.  “What do you say, you and I go and grab one glass of wine before bed.”

Charlie nodded. “I could use that right about now.”

179

The Contingency Plan

Chapter 11

At exactly three in the morning, Charlene stirred from her deep sleep and sat up in bed. The darkness of the room first clouded her memory of where she was and then she realized that she was in fact at Sullivan Orrin’s home.  For real.   She sat rigid for a moment, starring across the room at her reflection in the mirror above the dresser.  Then, when her eyes adjusted, she pulled the covers from her legs and slipped off the bed into her fuzzy slippers and quietly exited her room.

With the large house committed almost to memory from her tour earlier in the day, she quietly moved through the dark hallway that led from her bedroom, down the long stairwell, across the dimly corridor and into the main house. 

The silence of the house reminded her of her own, with only the sound of appliances clicking on and off, the icemaker dropping ice into the icebox, the large, antique grandfather clock ticking and of course, the house settling.
No matter how new or old a house was, it always settled at night
, or so her mother had said down through the years.

As she passed all the art, photos and awards in the main hall, she approached the private quarters of the master bedroom.  She got to the hallway that led to Sully’s master bedroom and stopped.  The door was open, the room dark, the fireplace roaring.  From the angle that she was standing, she could even see a part of the large bed. 

“What are you doing, Charlie?” she asked herself aloud.

But she knew what she was doing.
  She was seizing an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before she went home to be with the man who seemed to hold her heart indefinitely.  She had battled with the thought since they first talked last week, but she had made her mind up minutes ago when she woke up.  She wanted Sullivan Orrin, and she knew that she had to make the first move, not because he was scared to but because he respected her far too much to compromise her. 

Tiptoeing lightly on cat-like feet, she used the light from the fireplace to guide her to his bed and then after a nervous sigh, she reached over to touch him.

“Sully?” She ran her hand over the jumbled covers and realized that it was only a large bed pillow.

“Sully?” she said again in a shaky voice.  “Shit,” she said, disappointed in herself.

Realizing that he was not there, she tried to tiptoe out of the room without getting caught, but the light suddenly flicked on, causing her to stop in her tracks.

Sully stood at the bedroom door in his black Nike shorts and no shirt with a bowl of baked ziti in his hands.  “Going somewhere?” he asked, licking his lips.

Charlie was busted and she knew it.  Shaking her head, she half-chuckled.  “Yeah, I was…umm.”  She looked back at the bed.
Was he really going to make her say what she was doing?
 

There was a long heart-stopping moment of s
i
lence between them.  Quietly, Sully looked in between her and the bed and assessed the situation, hoping that he wasn’t reading her wrong.  It was after all, it was the middle of the night and she was in his bedroom.  There was little to be left for interpretation as far as he was concerned.   

Slowly, he walked inside of the room and closed the door, locking it behind him.  Setting the purple ceramic bowl on the marble fireplace mantle, he wiped his mouth off.  “You were coming to say goo
d
night?” His voice was low now.  His eyes hooded. 

Charlie nodded.  “Yes.”  She stared at his bulging chest - the patch of masculine hair over his muscular build only added to his allure - and realized that he had only gotten more ripped as the years had gone by.  Her pulse raced as he approached. 

He walked up to her, blocking her path to the door and gave a naughty grin.  “Well, I’m here,” he whi
s
pered, voice deepening. His sultry eyes burned through her.  Grazing a thumb over her cheek, he pushed his body closer to hers.  “Say goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she murmured.  Charlie could barely breathe.  This was happening,
only not like she meant for it to
. In her mind, for a brief minute, she actually pictured herself as the aggressor, but somehow during the poor timing, she had become the aggressed.

Her shoulders tensed involuntarily.

“Relax,” he whispered, rubbing his hands down her arms.  “You want to be here, don’t you?”

His voice sounded sinful.  “Yes,” she hummed.  “Yes...”

The sound of the fire crackling behind them only added to the heated moment.  She gazed over at it and tried to get her bearings. 

Running a hand through her hair, he eyed her mouth.  “My Charlie,” he whispered.  “Sweet Charlie.”  He was slow with his kiss and intentionally erotic.  Bending down and pushing her chin up with his index finger, he tasted the sweetness of her mouth with teasing sucks that became deeper and deeper with each evolution.  First her tongue, then her bottom lip and finally, hungrily, he sealed her entire mouth with a kiss and picked her up off the ground.

She breathed into his mouth hungrily, feeling his own breath inside of her.  The exchange only made him want her more.  “Come into me,” she whispered.

“I’m already inside of you,” he said, unable to catch his breath.  “I never left you.”

Cupping her bottom in his large hands, he stood embracing her in the middle of the floor and kissing her more passionately than he had ever kissed a woman before her. 

She wrapped herself around his body, squeezing her legs tightly around his lower torso.  The muscles of his large, wide back tightened as he tilted his head to kiss her deeper still. 

Charlie expected for him to move, to carry her to the bed, but he did not.  He only pulled her closer to him, to his needy erection - hidden by the very thin layers of fabric between them - and to his beating heart that felt like it would pound right out of his chest.  He never wanted to let her go. 

A moan escaped her as he began to move her body against his own.  She needed more than this.  She needed him now. 

“Bed,” she uttered, not able to say a full sentence in between their kisses.

Sully carried her quickly.  Laying her back on it, he put a hand on her silk, pink pajama pants and began to pull at them. 
Now
was all that he needed to hear. 

Charlie caught his hand and stopped him.  “Co
n
dom?” she asked in between kisses. Her eyes were urgent. 

“No foreplay first?” Sully asked, heaving a deep breath. He swallowed hard and planted his fists in the bed beside her, showing the detail of his carved arms.  He shrugged with a playful grin.  “Or we could just go for it.”

Charlie laughed. “Sorry. I’ve been married for ten years.  So, foreplay is sort of one of those special treats.  But of course, I
want
foreplay. I’m a woman.”

“And of course, I don’t want foreplay.
I’m a man
,” Sully countered.

They both laughed as Sully pulled her pants all the way off.  He looked down at her body and licked his lips.  In a more serious tone, he growled.  “No, I’m lying.  I do…I want to.  All night if you let me.” 

A borage of illicit thoughts swept through his mind, and suddenly he could see his head between her thighs taking in her feminine scent.  He marveled at how she had changed, how voluptuous her body was now that she had had children.  In fact, he craved her more now than he ever did when she was a girl. 

“This is
different
for me, Sully. No other man has seen me in eleven years, and the children totally marred my body.  Twins?  Are you kidding?  I’m not a college girl anymore. I have stuff…”  She tried to hide the stretch marks on her stomach.

Sully stopped her attempt to down herself.  “You look incredible,” he said, touching her legs.  “Unb
e
lievable.”  Pushing up her night shirt, he kissed her stomach where the stretch marks visibly were.  “Amazing.”  He grew harder by the moment.  Starting to feel his penis throb, he growled again.  “As a matter of fact, you’re killing me.”

Charlie couldn’t help but smile.  “Thanks…for the compliment.”

He rose up with a calm peace in his eyes.  “I just want you to relax and know that I’m not interested in a school girl. I want to be with the
grown woman
in front of me.  There is nothing about you that I don’t want.  You gave me my children…my life as it is now.  I think that you’re perfect.” 

The lines in his beautiful face showed now under the cover of poor lighting, but Charlie thought it only made him more beautiful. 

She was speechless.
He sure knew how to make a woman submit
.  Letting out a sigh, she opened her legs further apart and forgot about her stomach.  “How can I say no?” she asked in a soft voice.  

Sully hovered over her. “You don’t say no.  Now, kiss me again,” he begged. Moving her legs part with his own, he nestled down in between them.
It felt like home there, nice and warm
.  A place that he could stay forever if she let him. 

Taking his face in her hands, Charlie kissed him slowly, enjoying the feeling of his body pushing hard on top of her own.

“If that is what the gentleman requests…” she toyed. 

Her hands tangled in his brown locks, accented with silver streaks.  She had wanted to do that all day, since she first saw him at the airport, but she knew then what it would lead to – the place that they were now. 

“You are so beautiful,” Sully said, looking at her face.  “Do you know how long I have dreamt of having you in this room, in this bed with me?  And now that I do, I’m not sure that I can handle you leaving it.”  Raw emotion showed on his face, unable to be cloaked by playful banter. 

Charlie held him closer.  “I never thought that this place would feel like home.”  A tear fell down her face. “This house, this family.  It makes me feel…,” she paused for a minute and tried to stop the burning tears that were running down her cheek over onto the bed.  “It makes me feel like I was supposed to be somewhere else all along.  And that scares the shit out of me, Sully.”

Sully wiped her tears with his thumb. “Maybe you were.”  He kissed her cheeks gently and then her shoulders and then lastly, her neck.  The warm flesh of his mouth lingered there until he heard her moan.

Her growing excitement pleased him beyond words.  He wanted more than anything to satisfy her deepest desires, to make her quiver in
ecstasy
.  Ru
n
ning his
fingertips
up and down her skin added to the fire boiling lava hot inside of her.  The simple touch was erotically tantalizing yet only made her want more. 

“My sweet Charlie,” he said, voice strained. 

“Sully, I love you,” Charlie felt herself say. The truth leapt from her before she had time to think about it.  Her eyes were closed as she drifted off to another place, but Sully’s eyes were open and locked on her.

After teasing her with damp kisses down her a
b
domen and softly kissing her navel, with care, he pulled down her pink lace panties and dropped them on the floor. 

Opening her legs further, he slinked up her legs with kisses starting below her calves, behind her delicate knees, in between her hot, steamy thighs and then finally he stopped. 

Her back arched in preparation.  Biting her lip, she waited, hands fisted and holding her breath.

Sully teased her, running a hand down the small strip of hair that led to her womanhood.  “Breathe,” he ordered, staring down at her and knowing that he was in complete control now.

She panted out hesitant breaths.

“Breathe,” he said again, this time placing his thumb on her pearl.  He applied just enough pressure to make her tremble. 

She rolled her head down into the disheveled co
m
forter, trying not to scream aloud.  Finally, giving in, she let out a deep breath.  As she did, he ducked in between her legs and sucked at the pedals of her throbbing, glistening flower.  The taste of her made him want to explode with an orgasm then, but he kept it at bay.  

Her hand grabbed the top of his curly locks and drew him in further. 

Grabbing her by the waist, he pulled her into his deep kiss and felt her body spasm.

He wanted to prolong her at this heightened peak.  “Not yet,” he said, pulling away.  The words were more for him than her.  At the moment, he wanted simply to plunge into her widely and sate his own desires, but her enjoyment was more important to him than his own. 

The teasing was killing her. “Sully,” she cried out.  “Please.”

“Please what?” he asked, wanting to hear her say.

“Make love to me,” she said, dripping wet. 

Sully’s entire body was burning hot with desire.  He pulled his shorts off in one motion and returned to her naked.  Every muscle in his body was taut and unyielding, every curve defined. His thick, elongated penis stretched up in front of him filled with blood and pearling at the tip.  

It was then and only then that she realized that the lights were still on.  She looked over at the light switch and made a motion for it.  “Turn it off.”