Every One Of Me (20 page)

I heard the blow dryer going in Tessa's room as I walked
into the suite. What I would give to watch that. I know it sounds weird, but
watching Tess do anything slightly domestic would be a dream come true.

I knew for a fact that her bedtime routine took a little
while. I had spent many nights at her house ready to watch a movie and waiting
for her to get her cute ass back to me. I never watched, but I always wanted
to. If that makes me a creep, then so be it. I hurried into my room before my
thoughts took me any closer to hers.

"Get it together, Charlie." I had to keep saying
it to myself over and over.

I stripped down and walked into my bathroom, shutting the
door behind me. Quick shower, fix up my face with some bandages, then bed. That
was the plan.

I could still smell Tess on my shirt and it took me a few
minutes to finally convince myself to take the thing off so I could shower. The
shower was incredible for my sore muscles. The bruises on my side were a whole
lot darker and the cut above my eye was throbbing like hell.

I always hated patching myself up. I could always let
someone else do it, but when I was alone and had no one else to turn to, it was
awful. For a guy who sees a lot of cuts and bruises, who
gets
a lot of
cuts and bruises, I didn't handle it too well.

I don't know how long I was in there, a while. I had my
towel wrapped around my hips and took my time reapplying the few tiny bandages
I needed. I sat on the closed toilet for a good few minutes just thinking about
all the things Tess was going through and what I needed to do to be there for
her.

After her appointment, I decided I needed to get a handle on
this thing. I had found a couple of books on dissociative identity disorder and
had been reading them religiously. She seemed convinced that integrating the
alters was the best thing to do. After reading as much as I could on it, I had
been convinced that there was more to it than just therapy.

 I needed to figure out what I could do to show her that no
matter what, I wasn't going anywhere. She was it for me.

I finally stood, gingerly, and opened the door. I froze
after grabbing the frame for support.

Tess was sitting on my bed, dressed in my gray dress shirt
and striped boxers with her endless legs crossed and head bent down looking
through a book.

Yeah, she's trying to kill me.

Tessa

I had spent more time in the shower than I originally
intended. That time was spent thinking about Charlie and dancing and what his
hands felt like at the small of my back when he led me into a room. I couldn't
stop myself from thinking about what it would be like to be kissed by him. Then
I got upset. I
had
been kissed by him, I just didn't remember it.

I didn't know Charlie had come back and never heard him come
in. Probably because the shower was loud, then the blow dryer was loud and I
didn't think he would be back anytime soon. By the time I finished drying my
hair, I realized that I never grabbed any clothes from his suitcase.

Benny was probably wishing she was a fly on the wall at this
point.

At the club, she had reminded me a few times to just let
things happen. As a result, I had allowed Charlie to turn me on more than I had
ever been turned on before. He was an incredible dancer and his hands… oh, his
hands knew what to do. I thought I was going to pass out when he had pressed
his lips against my neck and tasted me. I had been about to turn around and
just kiss him when Jake showed up on the dance floor. He was a nice guy and
all, but he had started to get on my nerves when he wouldn't stop staring at me
the whole time. Thankfully, Charlie didn't leave my side.

I wrapped the towel around me and hurried over to his room
to find his suitcase on a plush chair next to a nightstand. There wasn't much
left in there. A t-shirt and some jeans, which I assumed he would wear the next
day, a gray dress shirt and several pairs of boxers and socks.

I decided on the dress shirt and some boxers and quickly put
them on. I turned to go back to my room when I noticed the book on his
nightstand.

A book about dissociative identity disorder.

Now, I don't know about other people, but this made me
smile. I didn't feel any kind of anger or intrusion at all. He couldn't
possibly know how much him reading something like this actually meant to me. I
opened it up, intending to look through it quickly, but couldn't seem to put it
down. There were case studies galore and testimonies from family members,
friends, employers, and all kinds of people about living with someone who had
multiple personalities. I was engrossed in one particular case study of a young
teenage girl who was struggling through school, but receiving treatment and
doing well despite her having 10 different alters.

I didn't hear the door open, but I felt the warmth hit me
from the steam in the bathroom.

Apparently, Charlie was back already and I was sitting on his
bed, in his clothes, while he was wrapped in only a towel and holding onto the
door frame with both hands looking like a man ready for dinner.

"Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were
back. I didn't hear you in there and… and… holy shit your side is black and
blue, Charlie!" My eyes had roamed his entire body, taking in each defined
muscle in its entirety. He had an edible six pack that could almost be mistaken
for an eight pack and his pectorals were hard and beckoning my hands to run over
them. His towel, wrapped low on his hips to reveal that delicious V, was my
worst enemy. It was a damn efficient towel. I had continued to let my gaze roam
over him until my mind registered the bruises from his fight.

I stood quickly, dropping the book back on the nightstand,
and rushed over to him to get a closer look. Stupid men. Why did they think
that getting beat up was worthy of a career. I mean, I had seen mixed martial
arts throughout the years plenty, and it was fun to watch because I didn't know
the guys. But this was Charlie.
My
Charlie. I couldn't let him get all
busted up just because it kept his mind busy and had a good paycheck.

I ran my fingers over the bruise on his ribs, he flinched,
but didn't move away from me. When I looked up at his face, his expression was
still the same as before. His breathing was shallow and the rise and fall of
his chest was mesmerizing.

The bandages that were supposed to be holding his cut
together were loose and I immediately reached up to fix them. He held still, so
stoic, so quiet, but I felt his eyes on me, burning through my skin and
caressing me.

I tried to ignore it.

I fixed the bandages and dropped my hand to his cheek and
fingered the bruise under his eye. Without thinking, I stood on my tip toes and
reached up to place a kiss there, thinking that somehow it would feel better
just by kissing it. His eyes were closed when I pulled away and I could see the
rapid thrum of his pulse in his throat.

That's when I looked at his shoulder and saw the tattoo I
had been wondering about earlier. At first, it looked like a bunch of celtic
knots shaped into some sort of design. It was beautiful and elegant. Then I
took a closer look and gasped. It was in the shape of a 'T'.

"Charlie…" I looked up into his now open eyes as I
ran my fingers over the graceful curves of each knot. "Is this…?"

He looked down at my fingers with heavy lidded eyes and
nodded.

"When?"

He cleared his throat and moved his beautiful, bright green
eyes back to mine. "After I couldn't find you in Kansas. Since I couldn't
be with
you
, I wanted you with
me
."

I caught my breath and kept my eyes locked with his,
smoldering and hungry. Mine were probably needy as hell and begging him to take
me. I wanted to cry and scream, run and fight, all at once. How stupid we had
been. How stupid and ignorant
I
had been.

He slowly bent his head down close to mine until our lips
were just a breath away. I took a slow breath and basked in the heat radiating
off of him. I wanted him to kiss me, to possess me. I wanted him to erase all
the years we had missed together and tell me that everything was going to be
alright. I wanted to turn back time and realize what I had in front of me.
Right now though, I just wanted him to kiss me until I couldn't breathe
anymore.

Then his lips crashed to mine in a soul searing, heart
wrenching kiss. The passion of it being built up for years with every thought
and fantasy each of us had, with every gutting decision we had made, it was an
inferno that could never be tamed.

Oh, he kissed me, and I couldn't breathe anymore. His arms
came around my waist and held me against him as he ran his tongue along my
bottom lip, seeking entrance.

I didn't hesitate. He plunged his tongue between my lips and
moaned when mine tangled with his. One hand clutched at the small of my back
while the other made a searing path up between my shoulder blades to the nape
of my neck to bury itself in my hair and hold me against him. My hands clawed
at his shoulders as he angled his head to deepen the kiss, taking even more of
my breath away and causing my knees to knock. He held me up against him when I
couldn't stand any longer, locking me in his strong arms.

When he broke the kiss, much too soon, we were both gasping
for air. He rested his forehead against mine and looked into my eyes.

"I love you, Tess. I never stopped loving you."

He didn't wait for a response and before I could blink, his
mouth was on mine again and he had turned to press me against the wall next to
the bathroom doorway, gripping the backs of my thighs with his hands and
hauling me up to cradle him between my legs.

His towel, by some stupid goddamn miracle, stayed wrapped
around his hips even when I wrapped my legs around him with his encouragement. 
He never broke the kiss and now that he had me anchored against the wall with
his hard body, his one hand moved up to the back of my neck while his other
firmly gripped my ass and pulled me toward him even tighter than I thought
possible.

I was still clinging to his shoulders and decided it was
time for me to do myself a favor and move my hands where I wanted them. I ran
my fingers through his hair and tugged his face closer so I could kiss him more
thoroughly. He moaned into my mouth before pulling his soft lips away and
running them down over my jaw and down the column of my throat.

"Tess. You taste incredible, God, I could kiss you
forever."

I couldn't hold back the whimper of pleasure at his words.
Forever wasn't long enough.

In the back of my mind, someone was questioning what was
happening, whether it was smart or responsible. I ignored the voice and held
Charlie against my neck as he devoured me with kisses. It was just me here. No
one else.

He kissed down to the open skin just below the collar of his
dress shirt, that I was still wearing for some ridiculous reason, and warmth
shot down my belly and between my open legs. The heat must have been intense
against his lower stomach because he responded with a growl and supported my
weight with both hands on my ass as he pulled away from the wall and turned to
the bed. I didn't want to let go of him and it seemed he couldn't let go of me
either, so we both fell to the bed, still clutching each other frantically and
exploring the planes of each other's bodies with our hands.

He kept himself between my thighs and ran his hand down to
the back of my knee to hitch my leg up higher so he could grind against me
similar to the way he did while we had been dancing. Even though the towel was
blocking my view, I could feel how much he wanted me. His lips stayed on the
skin at the base of my neck, sucking and nipping until I was dizzy from the
pleasurable pulse of blood running through my body. I don't think I had ever
felt anything so incredible in my life. He was everywhere, surrounding me with
his warmth and filling each breath with his incredible scent.

He finally moved up my neck and jaw and took my lips again,
caressing them tenderly, but passionately. His body was a fire pressing me down
into the mattress and I had no qualms about being burned. I needed more.

I rolled my hips up and arched my back, telling him what my
body wanted. What my whole being wanted from him. He gasped and broke our kiss
but stayed close enough so we were still breathing the same air, still able to
see into the deepest part of each other as his green eyes looked into mine.

"Charlie."

"Tell me what you want, Tess."

I was suddenly nervous and felt a blush run from my toes to
my face. He grinned as he always did when I blushed. I wrapped my hands around
the back of his head and dug my fingers into his hair, needing to touch him
more. He moved a hand to press into the mattress next to my head and supported
his weight as he waited patiently for my directions. The muscles in his arm
flexed and oh boy, he was fit. I had no idea what I wanted. At least, I
couldn't pin point one specific thing.

I wanted everything.

I wanted all of him.

"You, Charlie."

He leaned in and swept his lips over mine so softly, if it
wasn't for the heat coming off of him, I would have never felt it. "You've
always had me, love. You own me."

"Then, please. Show me what I've got."

He smiled, baring his perfect white teeth to my eyes, and
then tearing it away from me by moving down to the collar of that damn shirt
that was still on me. He pulled one side of the collar open and kissed a path
over to my collar bone where he used those beautiful teeth to nip me and send
lightening down my body. His fingers barely brushed over my still covered
breast to find the buttons running down the middle of my torso.