Endless Possibility: a RUSH novella (City Lights 3.5) (14 page)

I stepped out of my pants, kicked off my shoes and socks, and wrapped her in my arms. She was so light; I lifted her off the ground so that she was taller than me, her forearms resting on my shoulders, her fingers raking through my hair.

“I like it up here,” she whispered. “Gorgeous view.”

“Bed?”

“Three steps back.”

My legs found the bedspread, and I turned and gently laid her down. We kissed and touched wordlessly for a long time and it scared me how much this meant to me. How much I loved her. But I was triumphant. I slayed the dragons that stood between us, and now was free to love her this much, knowing I’ll be goddamned if I ever hurt her again.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she murmured.

“Yeah, baby.
I got myself back.”

She stifled a little cry and I gathered her to me, wrapped myself around her and her around me. Her breasts pressed against my chest, our legs entwined. Another condom was procured, and then we were joined in one easy movement. I buried my face against her neck as the sensation of her enveloping me made me shudder.

“How can it feel this good?” I breathed, my face lost in the silky curtain of her hair.

“Oh, Noah,” Charlotte said, her mouth at the hollow of my throat. “My Noah…”

Yes. I was hers and no one else’s, until the day I die. And with that certainty came the greatest peace I’d ever known.

The following morning I woke to Charlotte nuzzling my neck and laying feathery little kisses along my jaw. She felt so warm and soft, and very, very naked.

“Please tell me I’m not dreaming,” I murmured.

“I know what you mean.” Charlotte snuggled closer. “I feel like I’m being rewarded for something, but I don’t know what I could have done to deserve this happiness.”

“Are you happy, baby? Truly?”

“More than I thought possible.”

“You waited for me,” I said, my hands roaming over her shoulders, her neck, her exquisite breasts; looking at her the only way I could.

“Of course I waited for you. Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“This trip wasn’t the easiest thing in the world,” I said lightly. “I had a lot to worry about.”

She shifted and I could feel her studying me. “Did something happen to you, Noah? Tell me. Last night you said it was hard, but that doesn’t seem like enough.”

“No, but it’s enough for now. Right now, I just want to be with you, Charlotte. I’ll tell you about it someday, but not
this
day. Okay?”

I felt her reluctance but she nodded, and kissed me, and the kiss started to become more, when a knock came at the door. We were too tangled up together for either of us to want to move, and I sure as hell didn’t want to let her go. But the knock came again, accompanied by a voice.

“Zimmerservice? Room service?”

“You?” Charlotte asked.

I shrugged. “Wasn’t me.”

She extracted herself from my arms and the warmth of the bed.

“Our tawdry affair has left me with nothing to wear,” she said. “I’m borrowing your dress shirt, if you don’t mind.”

She was being playful again but I couldn’t muster anything witty to say. I envisioned her wearing only my shirt and nothing underneath, and sucked in a breath. Even more than that, her very presence was still extraordinary to me after what felt like eons of solitude.

I heard the door open, and a hotel clerk rolled in a cart—I could hear the soft squeak of its wheels. A cloud of delicious smells wafted in with it.

“We didn’t order this,” Charlotte was saying. “Um, wir nicht...um,
order—
I don’t know that word
—
die Frühstück.”

“Yes, madam. From our British guests in the room adjacent. There is a note, there,” said the clerk in perfect English, and then departed.

“A note…” Charlotte said, and then loosed a peal of laughter. “Oh my god, listen to this.” She plunked down beside me on the bed. “
Judging by the sounds from last night, you both could probably use some refueling. Enjoy! Your tired—but amused—neighbors next door. PS, Tonight, perhaps a movie and a cuddle?”

I fell back on the pillows, laughing long and hard and from the gut, until my sides ached.

“It’s not funny!” Charlotte cried, trying to be serious and failing miserably. “Oh my god, I’m mortified!”

“You should be,” I said. “It’s all your fault; you’re so loud.”

She swatted me on the arm with the note. “It’s all
your
fault I’m loud!”

I grabbed her and flung her, squealing with laughter, on the bed beside me, and covered her body with mine.

“I hope our British neighbors are out for a morning stroll right now,” Charlotte said with a sigh as I laid kisses down her neck.

“I hope they aren’t.” I nipped at the soft skin beneath her ear.

“No?” she breathed, arching into my touch.

I grinned. “Free lunch.”

Sometime later that morning, we finally put our clothes back on, and Charlotte made a call to Sabina Gessler, the director of the Vienna Touring Orchestra.

“I don’t have to be back until later this evening,” Charlotte told me. “I want you to come with me and meet everyone before the concert. Sabina, and Herr Steckler, and—oh! Annalie! My best friend here. She is lovely. I told her all about you. Except that you’re blind. Funny, that never even occurred to me. I just don’t think of you that way first.”

“Neither do I,” I said. “Not anymore.”

Charlotte gasped. “Really? Oh, Noah...” I heard the bed creak as she stood on it and wrapped her arms around my neck. I breathed in the perfume of her skin. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

God, this woman. I pressed a kiss between her breasts, over her heart. That sound, her heart quickening its pulse under my touch…the best thing I’d ever heard. 

“We have one problem,” Charlotte said, slipping her arms down around my waist. “It’s nine a.m. and I’m wearing a fancy black velvet dress. The Walk of Shame imagery I have going on here is pretty epic.”

“Hey, I’m in the same boat. How many buttons did you rip off my vest?”

“Maybe one or two.”

I arched a brow in her general direction.

“Or all of them.” She giggled. “So what do we do?”

“Let’s go back to my hotel…” I cocked my head. “Unless this
is
my hotel. Is this my hotel? Where are we?”

Charlotte laughed again, a rich sound, and cupped my cheek. “Oh, Noah. You sound so…happy. But tired. You look tired, honey.”

I held her hand. “I’m fine, baby. Really. Never better, now that I’m with you.”

“You promise you’ll tell me what happened? I mean, all of it. Your whole trip?”

I kissed her hands. “I promise. Right now, I need a shower. Or, more specifically, I need to get
you
in a shower. In my hotel room.”

“You’re insatiable,” she laughed. “That doesn’t solve my current clothing predicament. You tore my underwear to shreds, mister.”

“In my defense, a thong isn’t really underwear. It’s more of a torture device to drive men insane. And it worked.”

“I love how it worked,” she purred, her lips brushing mine. “You have something for me to wear at your hotel?”

“Leave it to me. I’ll take care of you, baby.”

“Mmm.” She rested her head against my chest. “I like the sound of that.”

Downstairs, we stood in line in a busy hotel lobby, executing a midmorning checkout in evening formalwear, though honestly, I couldn’t give a shit what anyone thought of us. Another casualty of my lone trek across Europe was that narcissistic paranoia that everyone was staring at me, and judging or snickering or pitying me. It was dead and gone. Charlotte was chagrined, but I wore the evidence of our nocturnal activities like a badge of honor. I’d been with my woman all night, driving her to pleasure again and again—loudly—and the
last
thing I felt about it was shame or regret.

Charlotte returned the key card, and the clerk tapped at his computer for a minute. I heard a printer churn softly.

“Here.” Charlotte pressed a pen to my fingers, and guided my hand so I could sign the credit card receipt on the right spot.

This is how I’ll sign our marriage license,
I thought.
Her hand over mine, showing me where to sign.

The thought slipped into the dark recesses of my mind and lit up like a flare. It drove my desire for her into a stratospheric level, when I thought I couldn’t possibly love her more.

We took a cab to my hotel that wasn’t any newer than the one we’d spent the night in, but larger and more opulent. I heard the difference in Charlotte’s oohing and ahhing.

“You travel in style,” she laughed, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Is the shower as nice as the rest of this room?”

My hand was already on the zipper of her dress. “Let’s find out.”

After an interlude under hot water with slippery soap, and then me on my knees before her, on a personal quest to see how loud I could make Charlotte’s echoing cries, we finally emerged from the cloud of steam. I dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt while Charlotte curled herself in my bed, wearing only the sheet.

“Are you sure you can do this?” she asked. “I mean, I
know
you can, but…”

“I got it,” I said, slipping on my sunglasses. “One dress, coming right up.”

“
And
underwear, don’t forget.”

“Sure, sure,” I said, and turned away to take up my white stick.

“Don’t you need to ask me my size?” she asked coyly.

I snorted. “As if I don’t know your every dimension.”

“Damn, but you are sexy.”

“Stay right there,” I told her, shouldering my bag. “I want to imagine you just as you are: naked and waiting for me.”

“Such a caveman,” she teased, but when I went to kiss her goodbye, she ran her tongue along the seams of my lips before plunging her tongue inside. “Hurry back,” she breathed.

As if I needed the encouragement.