Page 67 of Degrees of Control

Charlotte set the pace, moving so slowly it was torture. He twisted beneath her, a slave to the lush, sucking pulse of her cunt. He reached up to turn her onto her back but her hands pushed gently on his shoulders.

“Stay. Finish with me like this.”

She moved against him in short sweet strokes, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. The words he couldn’t say before tumbled out. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Charlotte. I love this, I love your body.”

Her response was to reach down and kiss him, pressing her entire body along his chest and bathing him in her scent. He sank back into the floor, dissolving into pure sensation. What they were doing was a million miles from fucking. It was that whiskey-warm feeling he’d gotten from taking her under the covers in her bedroom amplified to a thousand-fold. Every pressure point from his jaw to his toes was tingling.

Their pubic hair kissed; dark on blond, rubbing and stroking and searching for something. This felt huge, bigger than just him and her. James opened his mouth to ask Charlotte if she felt it too, but the blazing look in her eyes was all the answer he needed. They were one thing, joining together in the dark. She was going to come. James grazed his thumb across her clit, delaying his own pleasure by a thread to watch her eyes close and her cheeks flush with pleasure. She was so beautiful riding him. So beautiful all the time.

Climax surged up his shaft the instant she was done and the oblivion he’d always sought from sex engulfed him, body and soul. He kissed her as he came, both empty and fulfilled at once, unsure of anything but content to let it unfold as it came. Afterward, they dressed in silence. There was nothing to say, no words that wouldn’t belittle what had just happened. They turned out the lights, locked the studio doors and left.

Chapter 17

Charlie wove through the crowd at the bar, ducking outstretched arms and fielding unwelcome advances until she reached the couches Sophia was guarding like a pit-bull.

When her friend saw her, she swept a hand through the air in a wide arch. “Sit with me, my little Australian. Tell me things. Love me.”

It was the early hours of the morning and most of the softball team had already left the club, but Sophia was determined to party on. Thanks to the complimentary champagne, everyone at the bar except herself was pretty damn drunk. Not that Charlie minded, she loved dancing and with James out of town it was a good distraction from all the sex she wasn’t having. She kissed Sophia on the top of her drunken head and sat down between her and Jordan. Together they watched Hayley and another redhead grind against one another on the dance floor. After a couple of songs, she bolted over to their area, fanning herself rapidly. “Did you see my man? What a fucking babe. He’s gone to get us shots.”

Jordan smirked. “Redheads shouldn’t screw redheads. Everyone’ll think you’re brother and sister.”

Charlie laughed. “That’s not true, everyone knows redheads need to stick together. They’re a dying breed, they need to multiply.”

“Exactly,” Hayley said. “Speaking of multiplying, how’s your ongoing southern fuckfest, Charlotte Bell?”

Everyone’s eyes locked on her and she squirmed with embarrassment. “It’s going well. That’s all you need to know.”

“Charlie’s a witch,” Sophia declared. “She’s put a spell on my slutty cousin with her vagina and now he’s going to marry her forever.”

Charlie shot Sophia a disapproving look. “No marriage talk. Or witchcraft talk. It’s sexist.”

Sophia sucked her straw innocently.

“But you’ve got James locked down, right?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well if you’re officially a couple can you like…get me a photo of his dick?”

Charlie rolled her eyes.Drunk people. “James and I aren’t officially a couple. We’re going to talk about it when he gets back from Texas and even if we do get together, I think the answer to your dick-pic question will still be no.”

“Shit.”

Sophia clapped her hands together. “Ladies, ladies, ladies, I asked Charlie before if she loved James and she was all ‘I don’t know, I’ve never felt this way about anyone before’.”

Hayley and Jordan led a chorus of “Ooooooooohs.”

“I told you that in confidence,” Charlie protested.

“I know but the others had to know too. It’s a miracle darlin’, a goddamn miracle.”

Before Charlie could protest that it wasn’tthatmiraculous, Jordan was clapping her on the back. Hard. “Congratulations babe, if anyone had the magic pixie dust to tether James Hunter’s famous penis, it’s you.”

Charlie smiled. “Thanks, Jordy, but seriously, stop talking about my possible boyfriend’s dick.”

“So where is this man anyway?” Hayley asked. “Why is he not here proving he’s good enough for my little bumblebee?”

“He’s gone to his brother’s tenth wedding anniversary,” Charlie said. “Speaking of, how come you didn’t go, Soph?”

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