“Marry me?”
His pleading words stopped her heart. Now? He was asking her now? Poised at the tip of climax and he wanted her to think? Her lips parted but no sound came. She had no answer. Her silence closed his lids, sorrow tingeing his face even as he took her mouth in promise.
One firm touch of his thumb and she exploded, a bittersweet burst of what might have been. Ripples of pleasure fought waves of grief, wrenching a keening wail from her throat as her body vaulted. She flew too fast and hard without an anchor. Blindly, she clung to him, nails biting into his shoulders. He held her. Bastian would always hold her when she was weakest.
Her cry faded to a whimper in his arms and she snuggled against his chest, trembling with release. His hold tightened. The emptiness lingered, just moving higher, where she imagined her heart would beat if she hadn’t given it to him. He asked too much, too soon, too swiftly for her timid heart.
Not sex, but making love was what he demanded of her. Did he know that she loved him with every breath? She’d loved him for years but could only now permit the feeling to be acknowledged. New love this strong scared her. Or was it old love realized? Could he understand she needed the physical before the emotional would release? How could she prove to him he wasn’t some faceless man in the dark? Charlie wanted to make love with him, she just didn’t know how. She never had.
Charlie shifted, reaching for him. Bastian moved away. The few inches he put between them spoke volumes as he caught her searching hands.
“No.”
“I want to.”
“I don’t.” His voice, colder than ice, coated her with numbness. “If all I wanted was an orgasm, I’d take care of it myself. I don’t need you for that.”
Angry shock blanketed her as he rolled to the side of the bed and sat blowing out long lines of air. He pushed the hair out of his eyes before shaking his head. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m not looking for a quick tumble with you.”
“Oh, I get it.” She jackknifed up behind him. His sanctimonious virginal crap was getting old. “You’re pissed because you want what you want right now. You turned everything upside down and I’m supposed to go, ‘Oh gee, how nice,’ and meekly fall into a bridal procession. I can’t,” she spat. “You’ve had God knows how long to get used to the idea of us. I’ve had what, a few days?”
He spun. “Enough time to try to get into bed with me every five minutes, to block your feelings with sex, to hide behind them.”
“Wait, which one of us just had their hands in my panties? That would be you, Einstein. So don’t tell me about using sex to get what I want. And what the hell was that ‘marry me’ shit in at the end? Did you think I was so far gone I’d say yes just to get an orgasm?”
Bastian shifted his jaw. “I don’t know. It just felt right.
We
feel right.”
“So let’s do it.”
“I don’t want sex!”
“I do! It feels good. But right now, I don’t feel good with you.” The mattress bounced as she leaped from it, snatching her shorts and yanking them over wet thighs. This was what frightened her. Love made people nasty, made them hurt each other and lash out. She could talk to Bastian her friend about anything. She couldn’t tell this man what she felt, how he confused her with things she’d dared not dream about.
“You felt more than good a few minutes ago with me. But that’s what you wanted, safe and shallow.”
His sarcasm bit at her and she bit back. She fisted her hands on her hips, letting the shirt hang at her side. “Get off your high horse. This is me. I know all about the tech in radiology and the bartender with the big boobs. You’ve got no room to talk about shallow sexual encounters, Saint Sebastian. It’s not like you’ve been married to every woman you’ve screwed.”
He growled, a totally foreign sound from his lips to her ears. “Damn it, you know what I mean. I need to be more than a notch in your bedpost.”
“You’re moving too fast.”
“Too fast?” Eyes wide, he faced her, his erection lost to anger. “Who wants who naked?”
“Who wants who in white? Me in white is a joke.” Floundering emotions rushed her mouth, pouring out with no thread of thought. “If I don’t know it, I can’t give it. I never had it to know what to do. I’m not the wearing-pearls type and I don’t know how to roast a turkey.”
He stared at her for a long tense moment but her rant had run its course, and she had nothing else to throw at him. Confusion blended with irritation on his face, angling his brows and dropping his jaw. “Jesus, you’re not making any sense. There’s no talking to you when you’re like this. I’m taking a shower.”
Furious waves licked at her as he passed. “You just took a shower.”
“I need another!”
The door slam shook the walls. Charlie pulled her shirt over her head and grabbed her bag, intent on stalking out of the room. The rush of water in the other room insulated him from her rage but did nothing for her mood. When she and Bastian argued, it got loud, that was nothing new. It rarely happened but when it did, she fumed for hours and he brooded. Her feet stopped on the threshold.
This was their first argument as more than friends. How did that change things? Was there some protocol she needed to follow? Her brain told her to talk to him as she always had, tell him why he scared her now when he never had before. Her heart wanted to flee, to escape more angry words. Charlie decided to listen to both but she wasn’t ready to sweet-talk him.
Her bare feet thudded on the wood floor. Thrusting the bathroom door open, she marched to the dark green shower curtain and yanked it back, two metal rings tearing the fabric with a sharp rip.
Bastian’s back was a smooth plane of gooseflesh as he braced on his palms against the wall. The cold water rained down on his head, sluicing over shoulders she’d just kissed. A fine chill mist peppered her face. He didn’t turn or acknowledge her intrusion other than the muscles of his bare ass tightening.
Grit struck the tile as he snarled, “Out, Charlie.”
“In a minute,” she snapped. “You need to learn something. Your bedside manner sucks. I don’t handle ultimatums well. If I decide to marry you, it’ll be because I want to, not because you
made
me by dangling a carrot-shaped orgasm in front of me. There’s a hell of a lot I’ve done in my life, but I’ve never whored myself out to any man and I certainly won’t do it for a gold band. What just happened meant something to me but you’re making me feel cheap. I will not allow you or any man to do that. Stay out of my bed if it makes you happy, but do
not
assume that’ll make a hell of a difference in my choice. Batteries are cheap. I don’t need
you
for an orgasm.”
The framed picture of a schooner falling from the force of her door slam made her feel marginally better.
Chapter Six
“Sit tight, sugar, and I’ll be right back. You’re
Hanging Out with Honey,
straddling the night and riding into morning. Back in three.”
Bastian turned the volume down as an advertisement for a local florist shop covered Charlie’s sultry tones. The faint buzz from the refrigerator echoed in the darkened kitchen interrupted only by the drone of muted static. A quick glance at the stovetop clock told him he had another half hour to kill until Justine left the station for the night. Then Charlie would be there, alone. Normally he hated that she was alone in the small station in the wee hours but tonight he was grateful. Groveling was hard enough without an audience.
Shuffled feet brought his eyes to the doorway.
“Since you aren’t bolting for the door, I assume the hospital didn’t call. That must mean you’re going to Charlie.” Caz’s smirk disappeared inside the fridge. “I swear you act married already. You two even fight like an old married couple.”
“You heard that?” Face warming, Bastian wished he could crawl inside his coffee cup.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Sorry. I tend to forget there are other people in the house at times. We shouldn’t have yelled.”
Caz shrugged and held out a foil-covered bowl of cold chicken wings. Bastian shook his head.
“No big deal. Fighting wasn’t all I heard.” He winked at Bastian. The blushing warmth increased to mortified heat as his brother chuckled. “Don’t sweat it. Charlie’s just vocal, means you must’ve been doing something right. You surprise me. Didn’t think you had it in you. There may be hope for your man-whore ways yet.”
The coffee lost all flavor and Bastian poured it down the sink. Rinsing the cup became a mission as his mind wandered. He didn’t want man-whore ways; he just wanted Charlie. Their arguments were infrequent but explosive. He’d always chalked it up to her being a passionate person and bringing out the fire in him.
But she could burn with words.
“Leave the porch light on. I’ll head out in a few minutes. Once I figure out how to drive with my tail tucked so far between my legs.”
“You scare her.” Mouthed around cold chicken, Caz’s words were garbled as he hoisted his behind onto the counter.
The mug smacked the sink. “That’s the second time today I’ve heard that but I don’t buy it. Charlie knows I’d never hurt her.”
“No, but she’s never given you that power. Think about it, man. Littlebit’s a headlining one-woman show. You’re asking her to share billing, bus space and a road crew.”
“Is it possible for you to speak in nonmusical terms?”
Caz tossed a cleaned wing bone onto the discarded foil and wiped his fingers down his jean-clad knees. “If something works, she did it. If something fails, she did that, too. Eddy’s a great lady but she was a lousy mom. Charlie doesn’t depend on anyone but Charlie. I don’t think she knows how.”
“She depends on me.” Bastian protested his brother’s words but a trickle of truth wouldn’t be denied.
Caz bit into another wing before agreeing. “Sure, as a friend. She’s comfortable with that, but she wasn’t always. How long did it take you all to, I don’t know, exchange house keys in case of emergencies and responsible shit like that?”
Bastian bit his cheek against the rationale. “Couple years.”
“See? Charlie doesn’t trust easy. She trusted you, though, and you shook her world up. Give her time, quit pushing. I heard the commercial for your show today, the bet you guys have going? If she’s worth waiting for in bed, wait on the ring. No rush, is there?”
Eyes narrowed, the older watched the younger with a new sense of respect. “I hate it when you make sense.”
“I know. Totally blows my image as the messed-up asshole, doesn’t it?” Beaming an infectious grin, Caz suddenly looked like the brother he used to know, the one who raided his
Playboy
stash and listened in on phone calls with girls. The bratty little kid who’d made his life hell until the neighborhood bully picked on him and Bastian would come out with flying fists. The same child who’d whip out a sonata while his older brother struggled with scales.
Flashes of fishing trips and campouts and late-night movies rushed him. They’d been close once. Bastian missed this brother. “How’ve you been?”
Used to the question and all its hidden meaning, Caz wobbled his head with a strained sigh. “It’s easier than it was.”
“Good to know but I meant in general. How are you? What’s going on in your life?”
Paler brown eyes looked away. Caz worked his way through three wings in silence.
Over four years filled with meaningless pleasantries and distanced silences ate at Bastian. His life was changing. Why shouldn’t he include his brother in that change, try to find whatever it was that they’d lost? “We don’t talk anymore. Why?”
“Life, Bastian. Shit happens and things change.” The bone-laden foil crunched loudly as Caz balled it up. It hit the trash with a thud. “Both our lives crashed the same year. We lived through it but we’re both different men because of it.”
Crashed.
That was one way of looking at it, Bastian supposed. In a twelve-month span, his marriage had ended, his brother had OD’d and his mother had died. No, he was no longer the same man he had been. It was unfair to assume Caz was any different.
He looked with a new perspective at the man in front of him. How many meals and talks had this kitchen hosted? It seemed every important conversation growing up had centered in this room. What better place to try to reconnect with the man his brother had become? “You’re right. But you’re still my brother. No divorces, drugs or daily life can change that.”
“I don’t need a lecture, all right?”
Bastian shook his head. “I’m not lecturing. You used to call just to bullshit. Now you don’t.”
Caz studied the cabinet door. “Don’t know what to say to you most days. I never know if you’re working or sleeping or whatever. I hate to bug you.”
“Bug me,” Bastian ordered. “Why stop now? You’ve been bugging me since the day you were born. That’s what little brothers do.”
“Little brothers grow up,” Caz snapped. His shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes. “Stop treating me like a kid. I’ll call more, okay? But the phone lines work both ways. I don’t know what’s going on with you, either.”
“True. Okay, rundown. A year ago, I looked at Charlie and realized she meant more to me than just a friend. But I didn’t say anything until we went camping. We made out, I proposed, she said no, and I refuse to sleep with her until she says yes. I’m tired of the ER and put out feelers. Got a nibble at the UC. So now I’m switching jobs and celibate. There, you’re all caught up with me.”
“You suck at replays.” Caz snickered.
“Your turn. Catch me up, what have I missed with you?” Something flickered on Caz’s face and Bastian waited, but it passed and he let it. Reconnection took time. Time he promised himself he’d find.
“Later. You’d better head out. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Any more man-whore insights on pissed-off women you want to share?”
Caz laughed. “Protect your balls. Heels hurt like a bitch.”
A womb. That was always how Charlie thought of the broadcast room late at night. She kept it dark, soothing, for the type of music she played through the night. The glow from the instruments and computer panel illuminated enough for her needs. Until the fire marshal stopped it, she’d kept a candle burning. Now she was reduced to using a Crock-Pot-type thing to melt scented waxes in. The small space cradled her but this was her domain, her refuge. From when Justine left at one until the day manager came in at five, it was her, the music and the airwaves. Four little hours that she controlled, the queen of all she surveyed.