Earth Bound (22 page)

He liked her. Oh hell.

“Charlotte, you didn’t let Stewart finish. Surely we can discuss television hosts later.” Her mother’s tone implied that
never
might be an appropriate time.

Charlie turned back to Stewart and tried to shove the uncomfortable revelations about her feelings away. “Of course. How rude of me—please go on.”

So of course he did, blissfully unaware of everything churning in Charlie’s mind and body. How had she not known how she felt about Parsons? And what was she going to do about it? Something had changed at this table tonight, and she wasn’t sure it would or could go back.

When Stewart finished, their Caesar salads came—the waiter made the dressing tableside. The steaks and potatoes followed these closely. The meal finished with peaches, ice cream, and pecans. It was a thoroughly Texas menu. All the while, her father waxed rhapsodic about Tom’s work.

“He’s absolutely changing physics,” he summed up. “It’s pure theory, but the long-term implications are stunning. He’s changing how we see matter at the sub-atomic level.”

“I know,” Charlie said. “I’m proud of him.”

She was. Tom’s work was wonderful. She didn’t know if he was doing it for himself or for them—but then again, maybe she was merely rebelling.

“Your daughter’s work has intellectual integrity and long-term implications, too.” Parsons spoke softly, but there was iron in the words.

She looked at him and shook her head. He didn’t need to do this. She knew. He knew. That was enough.

“Oh, of course,” her mother said. “But it’s engineering. Tinkering. Important, but…” Her mother trailed off.
You know
was the part she left out.

“Charlie doesn’t only have ideas,” Parsons said. “She realizes them. She troubleshoots when her plans don’t work. She fixes the mistakes of others. She reconceptualizes when things go wrong. She is
accountable.
She is stunning.”

Charlie couldn’t breathe. No, that wasn’t true. She was breathing. She could feel the air moving in and out of her mouth, but oxygen didn’t seem to be getting to her neurons. He thought she was stunning?

“So with due respect, you’re selling your daughter short. She has one of the most extraordinary minds of anyone I’ve ever met.” At this, Parsons stood. “It was nice to meet you all. I hope that you enjoy the rest of your visit to Houston and your conference.”

With a nod to them all, he left.

“You know we think your work is important too,” her father said. She sensed he was telling the truth. He looked so pained.

“Yes, Dad. Of course.”

Except that was just one more lie.

“Well I don’t,” her mother snapped. “I wish you were living up to your talents, not being used by some engineer as a human slide rule.”

Charlie absorbed that for a moment, and her mother’s words reformed into something different as they echoed through her mind.

I wish I was living up to
my
talents. Not being used as a helpmeet for another scientist.

That was why Charlie couldn’t really be mad at her mother. All the meddling and chiding Mother directed at Charlie was what she’d wanted for herself. Charlie had opportunities her mother could only have dreamed of. Mother wanted to make sure Charlie didn’t waste them—but it never occurred to her that Charlie had always wanted something else.

“I… I know that my work hasn’t ever made as much sense to you as Tom’s,” Charlie said, playing with the napkin spread over her lap. “I went into a different field. It’s not that you respect my intellect less, it just isn’t as intuitive to you as Tom’s is.” This at least was what she told herself during the dark midnights when she wondered whether her parents thought her stupid. She still wasn’t sure if it were true.

But before her parents could respond, the waiter came over, apologetic. “I’m so sorry, but Dr. Eason?”

Three faces turned to him.

“Dr. Charlie Eason,” he clarified. “Hal Reed is on the telephone.”

Hal was calling her? Here? Now?

She got up. “I’m so sorry. He recommended this place. I must have mentioned when we were thinking about coming. Let me see if something is wrong.”

She followed the waiter away from the dining room, and he pointed to a dark hallway. She couldn’t see a phone booth, but she started down the corridor anyway. When an arm shot around her waist and pulled her into a closet, she gasped, readying herself to scream.

Except before she could, she recognized the distinctive mix of aftershave and starch, and before her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she’d caught Parsons’s mouth with hers.

He pressed the door to the closet closed. For several long moments, they kissed hungrily. His hands ran down her back, over her hips, into her hair. Every place he touched, he took back. For her, for him. He erased everything about the day, all the tiny injustices and insults, and left only want in their place.

“Thank you,” she whispered when he’d moved from her face to the place right beneath her ear. “For helping me… for wanting me.”

He released her waist and flexed his hands into the wall behind her. His mouth, however, stayed on her neck. “If I keep touching you, I’m going to tear your clothes off.”

“I wish you would.”

“That they would almost certainly notice.”

“They don’t tend to notice much about me.”

“Charlie, they see nothing about you.”

“But you see me.”

“Every inch.”

He moved back to her mouth. The kiss he gave her then, the soft, open-mouthed brush of his lips against hers, made her want to cry.

“Meet me,” he said, the words ragged. “Later. As late as you need. I just… I have to see you.”

“Yes.”

She pushed him away then. Gently, without any rebuke. She heard rather than saw his nod. He left her in the dark. Once she’d repaired herself in the bathroom, she returned to the table.

“Is everything all right?” her mother asked.

“Oh yes.”

And it was.

He was here.

Charlie had finished her peaches and ice cream, going so far as to scrape the bowl. Her mother had glared at every squeak of the spoon against the ceramic—which had made it twice as delicious. Then she had dutifully driven her parents and Stewart back to their hotel downtown.

Now she sat in the courtyard of Mulligan’s, contemplating Parsons’s Chevy. It was black, of course, and at least ten years old. What precisely did he do with the money ASD paid him? And what was she doing with him?

Their kiss at the restaurant had been devastating. All their kisses were intense, but that kiss… That kiss had been an amplifier, transforming their individual contributions into something beyond potent, beyond profound.

She sighed and tapped on her fingers on her steering wheel. A quiet minute passed.

If she went in there, everything was going to change.

Maybe it already had.

But maybe she wanted it to.

Well, she wasn’t going to figure it out in a parking lot. Charlie climbed out of her car, crossed to the motel room door, and twisted the knob.
 

He was sitting at the small table in the corner. His briefcase gaped open, and a stack of memos stood in front of him.

“Oh, hello.” He jumped up and began shoving the papers into his bag. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure how long you’d be, and I didn’t want to waste the time. I know we’re not supposed to have work here—”

Before he could get any more words out, she kissed him. It seemed like the right thing to do because he cared so much about rules. Because his face in the light of the shabby lamp was golden and boyish. Because he was mussed and stammering.

Most of all, she kissed him because she wanted to.

Parsons’s hands came around her neck. His thumbs rested along her jawline as he explored her mouth so, so gently. Whatever else this was, the softness made her feel weak, and she’d had quite enough of that this evening.
 

Without breaking the kiss, she balled her hands around his shirt and wrenched it from his trousers. She began pulling it open. Not disengaging the buttons so much as tearing them from their holes.

“What’s your hurry?” he asked against her mouth.

“Need this. Right now.”

He groaned appreciatively, and started to help her. Why was everyone always diminishing her? Assisting her? She could take off a man’s clothing.

She slapped his hands away and kept going. A moment later she managed to peel his shirt open and off.

He stepped back from her, and slipped his undershirt over his head. Parsons let it drop at their feet. He unbuckled his belt, and his pants fell to the floor. The rest of his clothing soon followed.
 

She loved his body. It held such contrasts, the firm muscles and dark curls. She knew it so well, but every time she saw him without clothing again, something warm stirred within her.

Desire, of course. They had enough lust between them for several lifetimes.

She scored her nails down his chest, before taking his nipple into her mouth.
 
She could feel it harden, and she ran her teeth over the texture. He gasped.

She released him and took several steps backward. She held his eyes as she located her zipper, and tugged it down. A moment later, her dress sighed open. She shucked it off and tossed it across the room.

She stepped out of her heels and kicked them away. He set his hands on his hips and watched as she held up her slip to remove her stockings from her garters. She turned away from him before rolling first one and then the other stocking down her legs. She’d worn silk tonight rather than her regular nylon, and it whispered against her skin. It was a silly illusion, but in that moment, she would have sworn his eyes on her ass were heavy, that she could feel his gaze.

He would think she was putting on a little burlesque performance for him, but she knew it was for her. Feeling his desire but keeping it at arm’s length had all of her pulsing. By the time her panties, slip, and bra had joined her stockings, she could have found release in a good sneeze.

She looked at him over her shoulder, no longer wearing anything except a strand of pearls. Each breath he drew had his chest shuddering. His cheeks were ruddy, and his cock juddered.

“Touch yourself,” she whispered.

He nodded, his eyes heavy-lidded. He closed his hand around himself. He pumped. Once. Twice. She squeezed herself together in the same rhythm, and it was almost too much. She set one hand lightly on the wall so as not to fall over. She wasn’t sure what they were doing, but it had her dizzy.

“Make me climax,” she said. She wanted it to come out as an order; instead it was a breathy entreaty.

The effect was instant.

He retrieved a condom from the nightstand, and then he had her against the wall. They rolled it on together, and he boosted her up.
 

But before he gave her what she wanted, he reached between them and ran a tentative finger over her. The move was tender, and she shook her head.

“I’m ready,” she protested.

“Just making sure.”

Then he was finally in her. His first thrust drove her several inches up the wall. She sank back down with a moan.

She cursed and wrapped her legs around him, let her head fall back, and shut her eyes. This was what she wanted: an orgasm, the press of a body against hers, and something gasping, hot, disconnected—and absolutely
not
lady-like.

His mouth was on her neck, open against her skin. “That noise you make,” he whispered. He moved again. “That one. Jesus, it’s gorgeous.”

His hands were under her, kneading her ass as he pumped in and out of her in long strokes. Oh damn, she was close.

“Charlie,” he ground out insistently.

She kissed him, needing him to be quiet. It was too much. She was feeling too much. Her bones were melting, the release was building in her back, in her stomach. She knew it was for him too, that he was going to finish soon, but she needed to—

That was when she shattered. She pressed her face into his shoulder and cried out as the orgasm shook her. When she was still trembling with it, she could feel the moment when his control ended, and he fell over the edge too.

When they’d stilled, when it had passed, she realized they were still upright and clinging to each other. How, she had no idea. He reached between them, and he pulled himself from her softly. She didn’t have it in herself to even raise her head.

Parsons gathered her up and carried her to the bed. He jerked the covers back and deposited her inside. He disposed of the condom, and then he slipped in next to her and rolled his body around hers.

“Only for a minute,” he whispered.

She was too tired to gripe, and besides, she wasn’t sure she could dress herself at the moment. She had no desire to face her empty house.

She sank into him, breathing in his soap and aftershave. “You’re warm.” She punctuated this oh-so-scintillating observation with a yawn. Lord, she was tired.

“My mom used to say I would stay hot in a blizzard.”

“Are there many blizzards in… Where did you grow up?” She was genuinely curious. She remembered that he’d grown up on a farm, but she didn’t recall, or he hadn’t said, where exactly.