Chapter 2: Charlie

NOVA PORTER IS walking toward me like she can’t decide if she wants to dance with me or tear me limb from limb.

Storm cloud eyes. Dark blond hair twisted in a low messy bun. A dress that was either made in my dreams or my nightmares. It shimmers as she walks, a soft gray material that looks like it would slip through my fingers like water. Plunging neckline and a skirt that flares out around her ankles. Bare feet. Pink cheeks. Tattoos all along her arms and down her shoulders.

She looks like she could eat me alive.

I fucking love it.

She stops six inches away from me and tips her chin up, a queen on her throne from half a foot below my chin. I grin, she scowls, and everything is as it’s always been between Nova and me.

I had my doubts that she’d actually come out on the dance floor. She hasn’t taken an ounce of my shit since I met her.

“Hey” is what slips out of my mouth as I stare down at her, like I haven’t spent the past seventeen minutes trying to coerce her out here with my entire arsenal of ridiculous behavior. I reach out and curl my hand around her hip, tugging her closer. “How’s it going?”

She falls into me with a huff, both of her hands flat against my chest. I get half of an eye roll and a quirk of her lips. “It’s going.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Better if this giant buffoon of a man would stop yelling across a tree field.”

“Hmm.” I pick up one of her hands and fold it in mine, taking care to trace my thumb over the delicate bouquet of flowers inked from her wrist to her knuckles. I arrange her into a proper dancing stance. “That sounds embarrassing.”

She gives me a droll look, unimpressed as ever.

“You’ve been bellowing my name across the dance floor, Charlie.”

“Wouldn’t have to bellow if you joined me sooner.” Closer like this, I can see the deep navy-blue halo that rings her irises. The one, single freckle under her left eye. “But let’s let bygones be bygones. The end result remains the same.”

“And what is that?”

“You, dancing with me. I didn’t even have to bring out the big guns.”

One eyebrow pops up. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“It involves a string of lights, the bottle of moonshine Clint spiked the apple cider with, and a very elaborate choreography routine.” I tip my head closer to hers. “Maybe if you’re good, I’ll show you later.”

She snickers under her breath. I grin and spin us around.

Flirting has always been easy for me, but flirting with Nova is a goddamn delight. Her whole body comes alive under the attention, like a flower tilting toward the sun. I’m greedy for her reactions. For the way pink lights up her cheeks.

The song switches from a Spice Girls remix to something smooth and sultry, Duke Ellington’s horn echoing out the long notes to “Stardust.” It’s a deep swelling beat, slow and romantic.

Her entire face collapses in dismay.

I laugh, grip her hand, and spin her once, watching the material of her dress flare around her legs. I get a tease of ink on the smooth line of her calf before I tug her back to me and set us across the dance floor.

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” she grumbles up at me.

“What did you sign up for?”

“A perfectly respectable top hits pop song and four feet of distance between us.”

I tug her closer. My nose nudges her ear. “Liar,” I whisper.

She tilts her face until her nose brushes against mine, wide gray eyes blinking up at me. I think it’s the closest I’ve ever been to her. I like it a lot.

“Yeah,” she smiles, slow and teasing. “You’re right.”

A deep, rumbling groan rushes out of me. Only half of it is for show. “Say that again, but lick your lips a little when you do.”

She laughs. “Maybe later.”

“That sounds promising.” I adjust my grip on her and ease our steps into something slower. Something she can follow with her bare feet against the rugs. Her shoes are still probably sitting kicked to the side in the big red barn. I think she waited all of six minutes into the reception to slip them off.

She hesitates slightly behind the beat, attention focused almost entirely on her steps. I squeeze her hip and then her hand. I thought she was sitting on the side of the dance floor because of her moral opposition to fun. Not because she didn’t know how.

“Follow my feet with yours,” I tell her. “I won’t let you fall.”

“I know you won’t,” she mumbles with her eyes cast down. It’s the bare minimum of compliments, but it’s enough to have me tugging her the slightest bit closer, every puff of her breath warm against the hollow of my throat. I like the way she feels beneath my hands. I like the way I feel with her against me. Like one of those flickering light bulbs I twisted around the trees last night at two in the morning, trying to make this day as special as Stella deserves.

A smile hooks the corner of her mouth as she falls into the rhythm I set, her face watching mine in consideration. I always get the feeling Nova wants to crack open my head and take a look around.

I’d probably let her and thank her for the pleasure.

“Did you bribe the DJ?”

“For what?”

“The song.”

“What about the song?”

“It switched to a slow song as soon as I came over here.”

I did bribe the DJ. Best twenty bucks I’ve ever spent. I would have given him my Rolex if he had the sense to barter. I clear my throat. “A gentleman never tells.”

She gives me a look.

“What?”

“You. A gentleman.” Her fingertips inch under one of my suspender straps. She toys with it and then snaps it against my chest.

All the blood in my body surges in one direction, and I have to force myself to keep moving around the dance floor. This is a development. Nova doesn’t typically flirt back. She entertains it, sure, then moves our conversation along to something mundane.

This is a first.

My eyes narrow. I’m suspicious. “I’ll have you know I can be very gentlemanly.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“I’d be happy to demonstrate.”

She tucks herself closer to me and I get a hint of honeysuckle. Paper and fresh-spilled ink. “I’m sure you would.”

I don’t know what to do with her easy agreement. Conversations with Nova usually feel like a battlefield where she’s armed with the infinity stones and I’m wearing a bunny suit. Curious, I take a chance and inch my thumb up higher to where her dress dips in the back. I trace bare skin, and a hum catches in the back of her throat, her body lightly pressing into my touch.

I am bewildered.

Also, a little turned on.

Okay, a lot turned on.

“What’s going on with you?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

I glance pointedly at where her hand is still toying with my suspender strap. She smiles at me, all predator, and slips her hand from my chest. I should probably be afraid, but I’m too entranced by her fingers playing along the neckline of her dress. It’s like silver ink poured over her skin, clinging to her curves. The cut of it frames the tattoo between her breasts almost perfectly.

She traces it with one manicured finger. “A gentleman would probably tell me he likes my tattoo.”

I clear my throat and stare at it. I can’t seem to drag my eyes away. “I like all your tattoos.”

“But especially this one,” she encourages.

She leans back in the hold of my arms and glances at herself. She has a deep red rose between her breasts, the long stem dipping down her sternum.

I can’t stop looking at it.

I’d like to bite it. Very much.

I drag my attention back to her eyes. It takes me a full minute to figure out where we are in the conversation. Luckily for me, Nova is focused on our footwork and not the length it takes me to reply. “All right,” I snap. Explain yourself.”

She blinks up at me innocently. “Explain what?”

“Why are you flirting with me?”

A faint blush rises on her cheeks. I think I like that more than the rose between her pretty tits.

“You always flirt with me,” she points out.

“And you usually tell me to get lost,” I say with a laugh. “Take, for instance, about three minutes ago. When I had to yell across the dance floor for you.”

She huffs, puffs, and averts her eyes over my shoulder. I laugh again, delighted, the material of her skirt brushing against my suit pants with every shift of our feet. The music feels far away, nothing but me and Nova and the twinkling lights overhead. A flower petal in her hair and her hand in mine.

“Okay, so I was thinking—”

“Whoa.”

“Shut up. Let me finish.”

A thrum of heat pounds once, right at the base of my spine. I love an authoritative woman. My hands flex and release. “Okay.”

She takes a deep breath. “Well. You know I’ve been busy with the tattoo studio. It’s been brought to my attention that I could”—she scratches once at the back of her neck—“relax a little bit.”

She stares at me meaningfully. I stare back. If she wants me to infer something from that, she’s going to need to elaborate.

“Relaxation is great,” I try.

She gets a little line right between her eyebrows. A frown on her pretty lips.

“Do you need a referral for my acupuncturist?” I offer. “Because he’s really…great.” I swear I know more words than great.

She blinks at me. “No, Charlie. I’m not asking for your acupuncturist.”

“Massage therapy?”

“No.”

“Goat yoga?”

She sighs. “Shockingly, I am not asking about goat yoga.”

I swear to god I need a road map with this woman. I never have any idea what she’s thinking. “What are you asking about then?”

“I’m asking—” She exhales sharply and looks up at me with her bottom lip between her teeth. She lets it go and I barely track the indents left there before she releases in a rush. “I’m asking if you’ll come home with me.”

My face twists in confusion. “Sure, Nova. I can walk you home.”

“No, you idiot. I want you to come home with me.”

I stare at her blankly. “For snacks?”

She drops her head back and looks up at the night sky, pleading for help. I’m distracted by the line of her throat and the little black stars inked behind her ear. They slowly twist into flowers as the ink moves down her neck, delicate petals falling across the slope of her shoulder.

“Not for snacks,” she says, still gazing unseeingly at the sky. She tilts her head back and levels me with a look. I am being weighed and measured. Probably found wanting. “You know what? Forget I said anything.”

“I don’t even know what you said.”

“Good. Let’s leave it that way.”

“Nova.”

“Charlie.”

“Nova,” I laugh. “It’s hysterical you think I’m capable of letting this go. Tell me what you meant.”

The color on her cheeks burns darker. Her eyes flick over my shoulder and back. I tighten my grip on her hip, unwilling to have her run off through the trees. I can tell she’s considering it.

“I don’t know, Charlie,” she bites out. “What in the hell do you think it means when a woman asks you to come home with her?”

It takes me a second, but the words finally slot themselves together in my brain. My chest pinches, my mouth goes dry, and I stumble over my own feet. I almost send us head over ass into a Douglas fir. I try to correct us and almost dislocate her shoulder.

“Shit. Sorry. Shit.”

I catch us at the last moment and swing Nova around me, arm outstretched. I tug her back into my chest and try not to freak the fuck out.

I’m wheezing. Am I wheezing? What is that ringing noise? Am I having a stroke? I might be having a stroke. Maybe I fell over one of the twenty thousand boxes my sister keeps stacked haphazardly outside of her office and I’m in a hospital bed somewhere, hooked up to some really stellar drugs. I don’t know.

The pinch is a punch now, a faint ringing in my ears. The constant chatter in my brain has gone silent. Everything around us has too. I don’t know what to do with the quiet. I don’t think I’ve ever been so caught off guard in my life.

Nova is watching me with a faintly amused expression. “You doing okay over there?”

My mouth opens and nothing comes out. I close it, then open it again. “I, ah—I don’t think so.”

For all my flirting with Nova, she has never shown an ounce of interest in return. Not once. Most of my text messages get a vaguely apathetic smiley face back. I have categorized her under the unattainable category. Unavailable and uninterested.

Not that I’ve let that deter me, but…she wants me to take her home? Tonight? I’m no stranger to a fleeting romance with a woman, but Nova—I see her every time I’m down here. I know how she likes her tea and the kind of car she drives. I know the names of her sisters and her least favorite categories at trivia night.

It’s Nova.

I’m having trouble untangling my thoughts.

I’m also unreasonably, incredibly turned on. Half of my brain is trying to make sense of her request while the other half is running wild with the possibilities. I am the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of one-night-stand requests.

The longer I’m quiet, the more her expression slips. She drops my gaze to look back at our feet, her mouth set in a firm line. Her hand tightens against the back of my neck, and she puts two inches of space between us. I’d wince if I were capable of feeling a single thing above my belt.

“Stop making that face,” she seethes from between clenched teeth.

“What face?”

“The one you’re making.

“I have no idea what my face looks like, Nova. It’s my face.”

She huffs, leans back, and presses her fingertip to the corner of my lips. “You look like someone just shoved an entire lemon into your mouth. Fix it.”

“Sorry.” I try to school my features into something neutral, but everything feels numb. Like I’m underwater. I’m not entirely convinced I’m not having a medical event. “Is it better? Did I fix it?”

She shakes her head, sighs, and looks at the trees around her, her chin to her chest.

I’ve embarrassed her.

Worse, I think I’ve hurt her feelings.

“Nova.”

“Forget I said anything.”

I don’t mean to laugh, but I feel slightly hysterical. “It is burned into my brain.”

I’ll be hearing her murmur come home with me in her husky, sweet voice for the rest of my life.

She frowns. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“That makes one of us.”

She makes a frustrated noise under her breath. Finally, she meets my eyes again. “Charlie. Please. I don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s just…let’s just talk about expense reports instead.”

A faintly pained noise leaves the back of my throat. “I don’t know how you expect me to talk dirty to you on top of everything else.”

Amusement flickers across her face. “You’re ridiculous.”

I am ridiculous. I’m also confused.

“Nova,” I say gently. “Last week I told you that your hair looked nice and you told me to get a grip. I’m trying to figure out how we got from there to here.”

She gives me a long, considering look. Her eyes look darker tonight, like a dense fog in the middle of the woods. Lazy mornings beneath the sheets, rain pelting at the windows. Tea on the kettle and nothing but socks and bare skin.

“You know how we got here,” she says quietly. The start of a confession, I think.

“Humor me.”

She catches her bottom lip between her teeth again. Before I can even think about it, I reach up and curl my fingers around her jaw, my thumb popping it free. It feels imperative, a need burning through my blood. I rub once. Her mouth feels like silk. Her tongue barely touches the pad of my thumb and I almost send us back into that tree.

“That’s how we got here,” she explains, her voice still a low hush. “You’ve been flirting with me forever, Charlie. You’re surprised I want to flirt back?”

“I’m surprised you want me to take you home,” I murmur.

I return my hand to the small of her back, fingertips splayed wide, and then clear my throat three times in a row for absolutely no reason. She looks up at me from beneath golden-tipped lashes, a smile flirting with the corner of her pale pink lips.

I move us across the dance floor, painfully aware of every place our bodies touch. Thighs, hips, chest.

This dance I begged her for is now my personal hell.

I blow out a slow breath. “How much have you had to drink tonight?”

“Enough to make me feel warm and fuzzy, but not enough to have me asking for things I don’t want.” She pats my chest once, a resigned look on her face. “It’s okay, Charlie. We’re going to finish this dance. I’m going to go find something else to drink. And we will never discuss this again.”

My hands tighten against her. I do not like that plan.

“Nova—”

“Please,” she whispers, eyes still carefully averted from mine. “Please, can we not?”

I give her a jerky nod, but my mind is still racing. My thoughts slip through like tiny grains of sand, slowly piling up until I feel overwhelmed. My brain is excellent at catastrophizing. I spin us around, one thought screaming louder than the rest.

“Are you going to find someone else?”

“Hmm?”

The song plays out its final slow notes, a lone trumpet echoing out over the field. I panic. I’m not ready to let her go yet.

I nudge us farther into the trees until shadows are clinging to our ankles.

“Are you going to find someone else?” I ask again.

She loosens her hold on me but stays in my grip. “For what? A drink?”

Now I’m the exasperated one. “To go home with you.”

“Ah.” Understanding lights her eyes and her lips twist to the side. “Maybe—”

“Don’t.” I cut her off. If I see her talking to Jimmy from the bar or Alex from the bookshop, I will lose my actual shit. I scratch my hand over the back of my head roughly and try to organize the scattered pieces of myself. I have no right to ask anything of her, I know, but the idea of her asking someone else what she just asked me has me borderline murderous.

God.

She broke my damn brain.

She crosses her arms over her chest and arches a single, imperious eyebrow. “Any particular reason why I should let you dictate what I do and don’t do?”

“I’m not trying to dictate anything. I’m just—” I drag one hand over my face and curl my hand around my jaw. I won’t be able to stand it if she sidles up to goddamn anyone else at this wedding. “You wouldn’t want to miss the cake,” I point out half-heartedly.

“The cake,” she repeats.

“Yes, the cake.”

“The cake that has been out for almost an hour now.”

“It’s going quick.” I wince. I sound like an asshole. An idiot asshole.

She scoffs and steps into my space. I try to back up, but I’m standing right in front of an evergreen. The needles scratch roughly at the backs of my arms. One rogue branch slaps me across the back of the head. It feels like immediate karmic retribution.

Nova digs one finger right into the center of my chest. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Color blazes in her cheeks. Anger this time, instead of embarrassment. She pokes me again. I am a bizarre combination of scared and turned on. I hold up both hands, palms up. “I know.”

“Especially after you said no.”

“What? I didn’t say no.”

“You said no.”

“I did not. You didn’t even let me answer the question.” I curl my hand around the finger digging into my chest and pull our hands to the side. “If you’d like an answer, ask me again.”

Her eyes flash in the fairy lights twinkling over our heads. She has a faint dusting of something sparkly on her cheeks. She looks like she’s glowing.

And glowering. She’s definitely glowering.

“Excuse me?”

“If you want me to take you home, I’m going to need you to ask me again.”

I’m not opposed to the idea of a hot and heavy night with Nova Porter. It sounds like something out of my dreams, actually. She’s gorgeous. Funny as hell. Sarcastic and sharp as a whip. I’ve thought about tumbling into bed with her more times than I can count. I’ve been flirting with her for months, for god’s sake.

But her request is out of left field. I had no idea Nova was even…looking at me like that. I’m used to being a good time. A fun deviation from normal patterns and behaviors. But with Nova, I want to be a choice. Not a whim. Not a regret.

So, yeah. I need her to ask me again.

She scoffs and wraps her arms around herself. “I’m already halfway to pretending this never happened.”

I step into her space, closer than when we were dancing. Her head tips back as she watches me with heavy eyes. She acts like she’s unaffected by me, but I’m on to her now. She’s been hiding a big ol’ secret beneath all that indifference. Little Miss Grump put all her cards on the table when she asked me to take her home.

“You’re not going to pretend it didn’t happen.” I take a chance and drag my knuckles down her arm, delighting in the goose bumps that rise in response. “You’re going to ask me again.”

“Oh yeah?”

I nod. “Yeah. I can be patient.” I let my hand drop to my side. “You don’t need to ask me tonight. You can think on it.”

A disbelieving laugh bursts out of her. “Oh, thank you very much.”

I smile because she’s not moving out of my space. She’s shifting closer, one of her hands curling beneath my suspender strap. She tugs on it, testing, and my hand finds her hip above the silky material of her dress.

“The only thing I’ll be thinking on—” She tips her face toward mine, her breath ghosting over the hollow of my throat. Fuck. She smells incredible. Something wild and dark and just out of reach. “Is the look on your face when you almost dragged us both into a spruce tree.”

“It was a Douglas fir,” I mutter back. I slip my hand up her side until I can curl my palm around the back of her neck. I’ve just unlocked a new level of flirtation with Nova Porter, and it’s my favorite yet. “And at least you’ll be thinking of me.”

“In your dreams,” she breathes.

“With alarming frequency and incredible detail,” I answer back.

She tries to hide her smile by ducking her chin, but I see the edges of it. Her eyes cast over my shoulder to the dance floor. Muted music drifts around us. The branches rustle in a slow-moving breeze. She shivers, and I’d offer her my jacket if I had it.

She’d probably light it on fire.

“I’m gonna—” She pulls herself out of my grip and nods toward the barn. Her smile is soft, her cheeks are pink, and I want to taste the edges of that quiet, rare amusement. “I’ll be seeing you, Charlie.”

I dig my hands into my pockets. “You sure will.”

“Okay.”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

A ghost of a laugh slips from between her lips, “unbelievable” whispered under her breath. She gives me one last look and then wanders in the opposite direction, shoulders back, chin up.

“Pretend this never happened,” she yells over her shoulder, a parting shot. Her hands grip the fabric of her skirt, her bare feet hopping along the path.

I grin at the smooth line of her shoulders, the slip of silver material over the curve of her ass.

“Highly unlikely,” I yell back.

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