Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(115)

“Hey, hey. What’s going on?” Charlotte voice, soothing but edged with concern, cut through my recriminations. Her fingers speared into my hair and she brought my forehead to hers. “What are you thinking about? Where did your mind go?”

“I can’t believe I—” I had to clear my throat before I could continue. “I didn’t want our first time to be in my club, and I definitely didn’t want it to be in this stupid fucking office. Charlotte, I’m so sorry. I lost control. That’s on me. That’s—”

“Shh.” She silenced the remainder of my apology with a tender kiss, embracing me and holding on tight. “No, Hank. No,” she said, dipping her chin and pressing our foreheads together again. “I loved it, every second. I lost control, too. I feel so needy for you all the time. I’d do it all over again, right now, if you wanted.”

A stunned laugh burst out of me.

She grinned, and her smile fractured something hidden and secret, a part of myself I wasn’t ready to examine or acknowledge. Not yet. Not until she admitted it first.

I’m not saying it first.

“I don’t care where we are,” she said, sounding certain, confident. “Personally, I didn’t need our first time to be on a bed of roses or in a fancy hotel suite. I’m more of a let’s rip each other’s clothes off kind of gal. I don’t care where it happens, just as long as it’s sexy as hell and we both got off. So, mission accomplished.”

I laughed again, finally giving myself permission to touch her. But then, with her bare skin beneath my hands, I had to battle the urge to touch her everywhere. I fucking loved this woman.

I loved her and—fucking hell!—I’d loved her for a while. I’d probably loved her since the moment she put sunscreen on my face and neck, and then marched around the parking lot of The Pink Pony like the boss she was, and I’d certainly been in love with her since I watched her struggle to calm Kimmy in that alleyway, her compassion on display as she put her daughter’s needs first.

That was the thing about Charlotte, she was always putting everyone else first. It was infuriating how she put herself last, how she seemed to think the best of everyone when they didn’t deserve it, how she loved everyone for who they were and not what they could do for her.

So why did these faults in her character make me love her so much?

“Haaank,” she said, drawing me out of my circular thoughts, her voice sweet and coaxing and stirring my blood.

“Yes?”

Whatever she wanted, I’d give it to her. I felt certain of this. She only needed to ask and it would be hers. Oddly, I didn’t want or expect anything in return, and it was this realization that made the air seize in my lungs.

“You look upset.” Her gaze concerned, her smile soft, Charlotte petted my beard, her nails scratching lightly against my cheeks and jaw. “Don’t be upset.”

“I’m not upset.” I was upset, but I also wasn’t. Mostly, I was freaking out.

“Then kiss me, my love, and tell me again how easy I made it for you to dirty talk.”

My love.

Forcing a smile, I rasped out, “Like I said, you make it incredibly easy, Charlotte. You inspire me in so many ways.”

“I inspire you,” she echoed, lifting her chin, and pummeled me with a sublimely happy expression. “I love that.”

Licking my lips, I stared at her. There it was again. I love that.

She said the word so easily, like she came by it naturally. But that word didn’t usually come naturally to me. With Charlotte, though? It felt as natural as admiring a sunset, or listening to the ocean, or enjoying sunlight on my face.

It felt too natural.

It felt like I had no choice.





CHAPTER 31





HANK





“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self-respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.”

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD





“Hank?”

Tipping my head back, I looked up to find Beau and Shelly frowning at me. Presumably, my presence on their doorstop at 9:30 PM on a Tuesday night confused them.

I’d only lasted thirty-six hours, just a day and a half after realizing I was totally fucked.

Thirty-six hours of lying to myself that I’d figure it out, that loving Charlotte was no biggie. A day and a half of searching for her wherever I went, of making excuses to stop by her house, of constant distraction and an inability to draw a full breath and heart palpitations. Twenty-four plus twelve hours of catching myself staring at her when she walked into a room and feeling an ache of sharp longing every time she left.

I was pining. PINING! I stewed, I considered, I measured, but I never fucking pined.

“Oh. Fancy running into you two here,” I said, standing from their porch steps.

“We live here,” Shelly said flatly, like I was an idiot.

Which I am, so . . .

“Why are you here, Hank?” Beau asked, his voice full of concern. “Did something happen?”

I glanced at Shelly and her impassive but focused attention. Beau’s woman was notoriously difficult to read. This might’ve been her happy face. It might’ve been her angry face. Hell, it might’ve been her O face. All her expressions—as far as I’d seen—were exactly the same.