Page 23 of Degrees of Control

Charlie’s breath hitched. “Wait, can I just have a moment?”

“No you can’t, there’s no reason for you to still be here.” He marched her to his door and half pushed her through it. “That was a decent fuck, sweetheart. I’ll call you sometime.”

Before she could respond, the black and silver door slammed in her face.It was over.Charlie checked her phone. The last bus wasn’t for another twenty minutes. No time to hurry. She leaned back against James Hunter’s door and smiled so big and so wide she thought she’d burst.

Chapter 6

Charlie’s friends stared blankly at her over the crusty bread and olive oil dispenser.

“Uh, could someone please say something?” she asked.

Hayley’s forehead crinkled. “Okay, I’ll say something. Who the hell fantasizes about getting kicked out of a guy’s house?”

Charlie felt her cheeks head. “Uh, me, I guess.”

“So you actuallyaskedSophia’s hot cousin to throw you out of his apartment, for real?”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “I thought we agreed to stop calling him that?”

“And we all agreed we weren’t going to do it,” Jordan said.

The four of them were having dinner at an Italian place in Chicago. They’d flown up for a long weekend to sort out Sophia’s wedding and bridesmaid dresses, and after three days of being stabbed with dress pins, tensions were somewhat high. Charlie had wanted to tell them about James sooner but she’d underestimated Sophia’s ultra-conservative sister and her ability to be in every room of her house simultaneously. As a result, she had to confess her first real kinky sex encounter in a packed restaurant.

“You don’t have abandonment issues, do you, Charlie?” Jordan asked, her brown eyes wide.

“How could I? I’ve never been abandoned.”

The table fell silent as the waiter deposited their meals. He gave Jordan a wide flirtatious smile that she failed to notice, her attention still focused on Charlie.

“Okay, well, were your parents clingy? Have you fetishized being abandoned?”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “My parents are normal, lower-class Australians who neither smothered me with love nor abandoned me in a K-mart.”

Hayley swallowed a mouthful of linguini. “My mom left me at a Baskin-Robbins once, and I’m fine. Although, maybe you only develop weird kinks if you’re abandoned by your dad. Like Freud said, all girls want to fuck their dads.”

“Freud never said that,” Jordan snapped.

Sophia cleared her throat. “Girls, that’s enough pop psychology. Just because Charlie has dark sexual urges she wants to explore with powerful men, that doesn’t mean she’s a basket case.”

Charlie flushed. “Thanks, Soph, even though you made it sound like I’m a sex freak.”

Sophia patted her arm. “Oh, honey, you know I didn’t mean it like that. If you want to get thrown out of James’ apartment right after fucking him, then that’s your decision. I’m just saying we accept and support you.”

“We just don’t completely understand you,” Hayley added.

Charlie inspected a small coffee stain on the table. “I don’t know why I like things people think are fucked up, but it has nothing to do with my suburban childhood. If it did, I’d have a fetish for concrete and tiny backyards.”

Sophia massaged her arm even harder. “We know, honey, but this is new to us vanilla types, you’re gonna have to be patient with us.”

“I know, I’m sorry, guys.”

“Don’t be sorry, this is so fucking interesting. How did James know when to kick you out?” Hayley asked, clearly still fascinated by the idea.

“I told him in texts while we were exchanging our sexual health test results and such.”

Hayley groaned. “You are such a nerd.”

“There is nothing nerdy about avoiding gonorrhea. When was the last time you got a checkup?”

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