He’s looking up from where he kneels at my feet, and I see a thousand expressions passing over his face. Shock and then hope and then guarded concern. “We just fucked, Charlotte. I don’t think it’s the right time for you to make concessions—”
“They’re not concessions,” I say. I run a fingertip over the scar on his cheek and then trail my fingers down to his jaw so I can keep his face lifted to mine. “They’re what I want.”
“But I fucked up,” he says hoarsely. “You shouldn’t want them.”
“Maybe,” I say, using my other hand to brush the dark hair away from his forehead. “But I do. So.”
My words do nothing to ease the turmoil in his expression, and he closes his eyes, as if he can’t look at me while he says what he says next because otherwise he won’t have the strength to say it. “Charlotte, please. Please don’t compromise on this. Don’t compromise for me.”
I don’t spare him the truth. “I’m not,” I tell him bluntly. “I don’t trust you right now and I can’t tell you that tomorrow will be the same as today. I definitely can’t promise you that I’ll ever put on a wedding dress for you again.”
His eyes open at this, full of shame, and I hate that my proud Church is willing to look my blame in the face but not my love.
“I don’t have answers to a lot of questions about us,” I admit, and I think of the four-years-ago Charlotte, trying not to cry on the Tube while people politely ignored the way her dress spilled over their feet. I won’t betray that Charlotte by unequivocally forgiving what was done to her. But I also can’t betray the Charlotte I am today—the one who is desperately in love with the possessive, hungry mystery that is James Cason. “But when I ask myself,what do I want today, I know the answer to that. I want you. I want to see if I can find all those other answers in your arms. I want that more than anything.”
His sapphire eyes search mine. “Are you sure, Charlotte?”
I take a deep breath. It feels good to admit this, it feels so good to set down resentment to reach for something sweeter. “Today, Church. Today, I’m sure.”
He gets slowly to his feet, setting his clothes to rights without ever taking his eyes from mine. Once he’s completely dressed again, he puts his hand over my heart, like he owns it.
“This is mine again?” he asks in a low, shaking voice. There’s fear there, and awe, and hope. Trembling, eager hope.
“Today, Church. And you can ask me again tomorrow.”
He leans and catches my mouth with his—a brushing, stirring kiss that promises wicked, greedy things. “Then I better make today count.”
And in true Church fashion, he tugs me impatiently out of the exhibit and down the stairs. He tugs me all the way to his house—and once the estate agent is booted from the premises and my brother knows I’ll be out late—we finally do what we want most in the world to do.
We worship.
Epilogue
Church
“Idon’t want to go home,” Charlotte says with a sigh. In front of her, the Mediterranean sparkles blue and brilliant, and a warm Tel Aviv breeze toys with her curls, occasionally revealing flashes of her delightfully freckled neck.
“I’ll bring you back,” I say, coming to join her on the balcony. “You’ll need to have more experience out here if you want to curate Levantine collections anyway.”
She pouts a little, that freckled lower lip making a plump little curve. “Do we really have to go back to Oxford?”
“We do,” I tell her, wrapping her in my arms and pulling her so her back rests against my chest. We look out at the turquoise sea together while I nuzzle against her hair. She smells like sunshine and shampoo—when we got back to Tel Aviv and a real hotel after four weeks digging near a dusty tell, she went straight for the shower and scrubbed her hair for about forty minutes. “But I’ll take you to that standing stone you like and fuck you for hours next to it. Will that scratch your prehistory itch?”
“It’s not the same,” she fusses, but she does push her bottom against my lap. “But you can still fuck me for hours. That part’s okay.”
“Hmm. How about we start on it now?”
“But we’re supposed to go to dinner with—”
I’m already slinging her over my shoulder and taking her back to the bed. I give her backside a swat before throwing her on the bed and then crawling over her. “Legs open, little supplicant. Show me what I want.”
I’m barely patient enough to wait for her to obey, wanting to tear her dress off with my teeth and then spear her with my neglected cock. Having Charlotte on a dig with me again was profoundly wonderful—I loved seeing her face as she finally freed some tiny, broken treasure from the earth, and I savored having her thoughts and observations available to me in the field. But it was also a problem, because all of the things that made it fulfilling also made me fucking horny. And turns out it’s next to impossible to get a leg over in the middle of the desert, so I’ve been very, very deprived.
Since that day three years ago in the museum, it feels like everything and nothing has changed. I rented a modest flat in London and stayed close to Charlotte while Jax finished school. Charlotte refused to move in with me—but she did finally accept my gift of rent that first year, which meant she could quit catering and sign up for night classes at UCL. She graduated—with honors—at the same time Jax did. And now she’s pursuing her graduate degree at Oxford, where I’ve also taken a post. Apparently my reputation was good enough to withstand my abrupt departure from UCL, and since we both came to Oxford at the same time, it was easy to prevent any nepotist speculation from the get-go.
Besides, I’m only at Oxford because she’s there. Once she wants to leave, I’ll follow her to wherever she finds the job of her dreams. She’s my passion now, and my calling.
Three years ago, Charlotte said five fateful words to me.Today, the answer is yes. And I’ve spent every day since then asking her, as gently and patiently as a monster like me is able,what about today?