The snowpocalypse did change a woman’s standards of bliss.
By some miracle of poor supervision, we managed to escape our coworkers’ attention for hours. We snacked on little packs of Teddy Grahams. We napped. We talked about our favorite Saturday-morning cartoons. I was so tempted to ask him about his reasons for his distance over the past months, but I was afraid that would summon Josh for another proposal brainstorming session (all of which had failed so far, by the way). The subject seemed to conjure him up, like speaking of the devil.
“I can’t believe you never saw a single episode of Captain Planet,” I said with a sigh, thumbing through a six-year-old copy of Us Weekly I’d found on the rec room coffee table. It was weird. Britney was still crazy. TomKat was just new enough that people weren’t sure how creepy it was. And there wasn’t a single mention of a Kardashian.
Charlie snorted, reading through the Archie comic like it contained the secrets of the universe. “My parents barely let me get away with The Smurfs, which my mother thought encouraged children to adopt Communist values and bad grammar. Captain Planet was a bit too tree-huggy for them.”
“Well, that’s too bad. You missed out on a lot of ham-handed indignity on behalf of Mother Earth.”
“And I’m worse off for it, I’m sure.”
I grinned at him and realized he was staring at me. I squirmed a little under the intense green gaze and wanted to glance down at my magazine, but I wasn’t sure when I would have a moment like this with Charlie again, given Josh’s constant interruptions.
“Hey, Kelsey, I need to talk to you—” he started, but he suddenly whipped his head to the side as we heard the rec room door open. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, and I dove across the fort to clap a hand over his lips. It was entirely possible that the people who’d just walked in couldn’t see the fort and didn’t know we were in there. I landed with a soft thump beside him, which was covered by a familiar girlish giggle from outside the fort.
Bonnie was the only person I knew who could giggle like that without irony. What the hell was she doing in here?
“Are you sure this is a good idea, babe?” I heard Will ask in a throaty tone. “Luke’s already antsy because he hasn’t seen Kelsey since breakfast. Separatin’ off from the group like this might make him even crankier.”
Charlie’s brow furrowed at the intrusion of my palm over his mouth. I raised my other hand to my lips, shaking my head. Maybe if we were quiet, they would just go away. It would be awfully embarrassing to make our presence known at this point. It was better to just ride out the potential eavesdropping trauma.
No, not ride. That was not the right word to use right now.
I burrowed into the blankets, which were still warm from Charlie’s body, and prayed Bonnie and Will would move along quickly. I didn’t know how much longer I could stay in this position without embarrassing myself. Charlie was so close, and his lips were so incredibly soft against my palm. The blankets and pillows had taken on his spicy scent and all I wanted to do was wallow in them.
I heard the hiss of a zipper and the distinct sound of Will’s heavy belt buckle hitting the floor. Charlie’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates.
Oh, no. Please no. I did not want to hear my friend and her hunky beau having illicit rec room sex while I had to make prolonged eye contact with Charlie.
“It will be fine,” Bonnie whispered. “We’re only going to be gone for a few minutes.”
“Hey! Now is not the moment to be criticizin’ my performance times!”
“You know what I mean. I just need some time away from the others. I love them all, but they’re driving me crazy! Sadie’s determined to get some sort of bonding out of this experience. If Gina keeps making eyes at you, she may not come back from her next firewood run. Even my patience has its limits. And poor Kelsey is so wound up about Charlie, she can’t seem to focus on anything for more than a few minutes, which has me worried. I just wish she’d get it over with and tell him she’s crazy-stupid in love with him and has been for years.”
Charlie’s eyes somehow went wider, while I could only blush and close my own. I changed my mind, I told whatever deity was listening, just let them have their illicit rec room sex and get it over with so they’ll stop talking!
“Well, not everyone is as honest and forthright as you are,” Will teased.
“Shut it, you,” Bonnie retorted.
Yes, please, everybody should just shut it.
Fortunately, their revelations were replaced by the smacking sounds of kisses and soft groans. I bit my lip to prevent my own groan of mortification from escaping. As horrifying as it would be to pop up and yell “Surprise!” at this juncture, I certainly didn’t want to hear the Will and Bonnie Show up close and personal. Maybe I should just move my hand and let Charlie decide whether we should be subjected to this.
I pulled my fingertips away from his mouth. His lips parted and I expected him to scream bloody, sexually awkward murder, but we heard Sadie call from the hallway, “Bonnie, Will, are you guys in there? We’re still trying to find Kelsey.”
This just kept getting worse. It was like one of those dreams where you were naked in school right before a big test and you couldn’t find your keys. And there were clowns, lots of clowns. It was the Inception of mentally traumatic situations.
On the other side of our blanket walls, we heard the hasty zipping of pants. Bonnie stammered, “Uh, y-yeah, Sadie, we were just looking for her.”
The door opened and Sadie said wryly, “I’m assuming she’s not in there?”
“Nope! Coast is clear!” Bonnie chirped, slamming the door behind her as she and Will made their exit.
“Maybe she went for a walk or something?” Will suggested, his voice muffled through the door.
Sadie snorted. “It’s more likely she’s hiding in one of the rooms with a bottle of Grey Goose.”
“And Ho-Hos,” Bonnie added. “And she’s probably singing Adele, really off-key. We can’t let her do that to herself.”
It was nice that my friends knew me so well.
Sadie and Bonnie’s voices faded as they wandered down the hall, leaving me to deal with the fallout from Bonnie’s chatterboxing. I scootched back across the fort to put some distance between me and Charlie.
“Charlie, I’m so sorry, Bonnie doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s got a condition. It’s like Tourette’s only with gross exaggeration—mmph.” Charlie pulled me across the fort, rolled me onto my back, and gave me one of the five greatest kisses since the invention of the kiss. Thank you, Princess Bride.
He tasted like cinnamon graham crackers and sin. I had guessed his lips were soft, but I had no idea how inadequate that description was until they were touching mine. His fingertips ghosted over my cheeks and slid into my hair. I groaned, sliding my foot along his leg until his hips were cradled in mine.
Charlie leaned his forehead against mine and whispered, “I love math because it makes things predictable. I can expect people to behave a certain way based on the behavior of hundreds of other people. But you defy all logic, all probabilities. Believe it or not, when I compile results, I add a variable into the formula that I call the Kelsey Factor, accepting the likelihood that a very small percentage of the polled population will eschew the predicted action and do whatever the hell they want.”
“I do not know how to take that.”
“It’s a good thing. I like it. It’s a little boring being able to anticipate what’s going to happen. I like that I never know what’s going to come out of this mouth,” he said, rubbing his thumb along the seam of my lips.
He kissed me again. I pulled away briefly enough to say, “You, too. As well. Also.”
I know, even I was blown away by my eloquence.
“I need to tell you about something,” he murmured against my mouth.
My heart dr
opped. “Did you just decide that you’re celibate?” I asked him.
His eyes went wide. “No.”
“Okay. Are you currently involved in a green-card marriage that you’ve kept secret from me over the last few years?”
He shook his head, trying like mad to suppress the grin on his lips. “No.”
“Do you want to borrow money?”
He shook his head again, dragging the tip of his nose across mine. “No.”
“Then it can wait,” I whispered. “All talking from here out will be of the sexy kind.”
He laughed and kissed me while trying to nod in agreement. Just when I was comfortable with his hovering over me, he wrapped my thighs around his hips and rolled me over him. I was straddling his hips, leaning back against his bent legs. He took my hair down, letting it fan around us like a dark curtain. Charlie grinned, wrapping the length of it around his hand and tugging my head back so he could nibble along my neck.
He arched his hips and my eyes flew wide. Every bad romance novel description of “turgid members” and “stiff wantonness” ran through my head in an obscene fast-forward. For a slender guy, Charlie seemed none-too-slightly above average in the proportion department. I was not ashamed to say that I ground down against him, keeping the pressure against my center at just the right angle to make me moan.
And the moan was followed by a soft yelp when his hands slid under my sweater, the cold fingers slipping over my skin, making me jump as they eased toward my bra. He laughed against my mouth, murmuring apologies as he worked loopy circles against my skin to warm them up. Gently pulling my sweater over my head, he nuzzled the cups of my bra, his lips tracing the mounds with a reverence I’d only seen paid to religious icons and mint-condition action figures.
I plucked at the buttons on his shirt, slowly revealing more of his skin—smooth, pale skin stretched over lean muscle that I wanted to lick and kiss and bite until I left little Kelsey stamps all over him. Charlie left my breasts to their own devices long enough to kiss me again, and somehow my pants fell right off.
It was broad daylight. There was nowhere to hide from the reflected snowlight streaming through the blankets. Charlie would be able to see every ripple, every blemish. I supposed I could dive under the blankets and pretend I was cold. But I didn’t want to be silly right now. Kissing me, he gently pushed me back on the pillows and peeled down his own jeans.
He promised, “When we are not trapped in a bad survivalist TV episode, I will worship your breasts with the reverence they deserve. Because I feel like I have been offered a glimpse of one of God’s greatest masterpieces.
“It’s not that I’m only interested in your body. You being a funny, adorable, intelligent, kind, fierce, loyal person is, of course, a lovely side benefit to looking like you were designed by some brilliant, deviant pinup cartoonist.”
“That may be the dirtiest thing I have ever heard you say.”
“I’m just getting started.” He laughed into the mound of my left breast. I realized that I hadn’t worn the irresponsible black lace panties I’d smuggled into my suitcase. I had worn ninja panties with a little pink bow on the waistband.
Charlie didn’t seem to care much, given the way he pushed the panties aside to trace the outline of my sex with his index finger, making me shudder. I gasped, bucking against his cool palm and pulling back from his kiss.
“Are we about to have sex in a pillow fort in broad daylight?” I asked.
He nodded. “I think we are. Unless you forgot to pack condoms in that enormous bag of yours.”
I scoffed and reached out of the fort to locate my Mary Poppins purse. Condoms were in their own secret compartment in the liner. I pulled out a neon blue glow-in-the-dark model in extra large.
“Just checking,” he said, eyeing the package. “And thank you for the vote of confidence.”
He kissed me again and I felt like pinching myself to make sure this wasn’t a dream or a bout of snow madness. I was more-than-half-naked with Charlie Bennett, waiting patiently as he rolled on a condom. I’d wanted this for such a long time that I was a little frightened now that it was happening. What if we were no good together? What if I couldn’t guess what he liked? What if . . .
Charlie ringed my bottom lip with the tip of his tongue and I completely forgot what I was dithering over internally. The laughter was gone as well, but I found I didn’t mind so much. The quiet intensity with which he studied me and considered his options before choosing just the right course of pleasing me was possibly the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. He slid inside me, so silky smooth that I barely felt anything beyond the potent, powerful sensation of being filled.
I shifted over him, but couldn’t rise fully on my knees because I would whack my head on the tabletop. I could only roll my hips, keeping our bodies in full contact, skin against skin. He spanned my waist with his hands, helping me find a rhythm. It was slow, so slow I could appreciate every movement, every slide. And it gave him the perfect angle to nuzzle and kiss my breasts as I rode him.
He sighed my name against my skin over and over as the coiling tension built below my stomach. His hips pumped faster as he dragged his thumb in tight little circles between my thighs. I was going to come. It had been such a very long time since I’d come, and the little noises in my throat were starting to sound desperate.
Charlie cupped my face in his hands, forcing me to look him in the eye as he gave one last rolling thrust. That was it.
I threw my head back and howled as everything inside me rippled into release. Charlie’s hand snaked up between my breasts and over my mouth as he moaned and followed me over the edge. He had to keep me quiet now, to keep our friends from catching us. And even as the lovely throbbing energy ebbed out of my body, I had to find that sort of hot.
Sighing, he drew his hand away and fell back. I tried to catch myself against the blankets, bracing my hands behind his shoulders to keep my weight from falling on him. But Charlie’s shoulder nudged my wrist out of the way and I landed against his chest with a thwump.
I reeled back, expecting a sharp complaint, the sort of thing Darrell would have turned into a nightlong gripe session. But before I could apologize, Charlie was kissing me, chuckling against my mouth.
“I have to say that was the best pillow fort sex I’ve ever had,” he said with a sigh, pulling me against his side.
“Me, too. Not that I’ve had a lot of pillow fort sex. Or any, really.” I nibbled his bottom lip. “But I’m really glad that this finally happened.”
“Finally?” he said, shifting up on his elbows. “Have you wanted this to happen for a while?”
For some reason, the teasing words made the smile slide right off my face. “Don’t.” I rolled away from him. “Don’t do that.”
“Wait, wait.” He caught me by the shoulders and pulled me close, drawing a blanket around me. “What did I say?”
“Don’t pretend with me. Just ask me to tell you how I feel. Or better yet, tell me how you feel so I don’t feel like a total idiot. But don’t sit there and pretend like you don’t know that I have wanted you for a really long time . . . a ridiculously long time.”
He kissed me long and hard, pressing his forehead against mine. “How long?”
“I just said not to do that!”
“Really, I mean it. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never saw any signs from you of being interested in me. Believe me, if I had seen them, I would have thrown you onto the nearest flat surface and put your thighs over my shoulders while singing the Hallelujah chorus at the top of my lungs.”
I tried to ignore the insane rush of images that description called to mind. “Then either you have a serious vision issue or I need to go over the checklist of signs that a woman is interested in a man.”
He stared at me. I sighed. “I hung on every word you said. Translated our idiot coworkers’ antics into
a language you could understand. I even smiled when you made math jokes. I couldn’t laugh, because I didn’t understand them, but I smiled. I wouldn’t have done any of those things for someone I didn’t have a significant interest in.”
“How was I supposed to know that meant you were interested in me? For all I knew, you were happily ensconced in your relationship with Darrell. And for the record, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want you. I’ve wanted you from the first second I saw you.”
“Oh, come on; when we met, I was walking around the office with a Post-it stuck to my butt. I remember because it contained a particularly embarrassing grocery list.”
He ran his hand over my bare ass cheek. “I only remember what seemed like a bright yellow flag waving from your perfect heart-shaped butt, screaming, ‘Notice me! Ogle me! Touch me!’ And then wondering if you were going to slap me for putting my hand anywhere near you. But you smiled at me, made a joke about you being clumsy, and put me at ease. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I was a goner. You really had no clue?”
“Not one. Your ‘man on the prowl’ signals leave much to be desired.”
“Well, then I am going to spell it out for you. I like you. ‘Like’ does not begin to describe what I feel for you, but I think it’s all we’re comfortable with for right now. And I want you even more. I want the whole Kelsey package,” he said, turning my back to him and sliding his lips down the column of my spine. He gave one butt cheek and then the other a little bite. “This is my second favorite of your physical features.”
What had I done to sweet, unassuming Charlie Bennett? I shifted toward him and stared into his deep green eyes, looking for some sign that he’d undergone a sort of sex-based Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality change. But he just gave me that sweet grin in return, stroking his hands down my arms.
I threaded my fingers through his hair and snuggled closer to him. “Maybe you should list them one by one.”
The pillow fort seemed warmer, somehow, even though we were wearing a lot less clothing than when we entered it. I curled against Charlie’s side, enjoying a quiet post-second-round moment while he played with my hair.