I spent the next couple of days trying my best to focus on the work I was there to do. What should have been comfortably endless hours of profit and loss statements, distribution analysis, market assessments, and other reports required in order for me to make my recommendations were actually a torturous chore as my thoughts kept going back to the one place… or person, rather, they shouldn’t.
And the nights were even worse because they were full of dreams I’d never had before.
Warm skin covered in coarse hair, the scrape of prickly scruff against the sensitive skin of my neck, deep-voiced grunts and moans, and the absolute giving over of myself to hot, sweaty sex unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.
Sex with a man.
Sex with Charlie.
By the time he returned to the pub three days later, I was desperate to find out if the reality of sex with a man was anything at all the way it had seemed in my dreams. I’d spent hours debating whether or not I could bring myself to sleep with a man, but when the hottest dream of my life happened the night before Charlie came home, I awoke gasping and rock hard, realizing five seconds of sex with Charlie in my dream was better than any sex I’d ever had with anyone in real life.
I wondered if I could ever get up the nerve to try it. Just sex. Just to see once and for all what my brothers were always bragging about. Surely I wouldn’t actually like it. I couldn’t have possibly made it to the age of thirty-four not knowing I was attracted to men. Could I maybe… experiment? I’d never done anything crazy in college or any other time, really. But perhaps the lady on the plane was spot-on when she said I needed to live a little.
Everyone had at least one big insane sexual exploit they could look back on and reminisce about, right? Didn’t I deserve to go wild for once and do something impulsive and crazy?
But I knew I wouldn’t do it. After everything Cait had told me about Charlie being used by assholes in the past, the last thing in the world I wanted was to be another asshole added to his list. I never wanted to be the cause of pain for such a sweet man.
In addition to not wanting to use Charlie that way, I just wasn’t a casual-sex guy. While I was Mr. Wilde, I wasn’t Mr. Wild. I wasn’t impulsive or crazy. I was a serial monogamist, always the dutiful boyfriend. I was the guy who opened doors for women and who knew how to buy tampons. I knew when to offer a woman Ben & Jerry’s after a bad day and when to offer her my suit jacket against the cold.
And I liked that. I liked having a woman’s softness and sweetness pressed up against me. I liked having someone to protect and take care of. I liked the idea of building a steady life with someone back home and settling down near my family.
No. I’d just go home and let my life get back to normal. Recommend the acquisition and move on with my life and career in Dallas.
It was fine.
I was fine.
8
Charlie
Charlie’s Revelation:
For fuck’s sake, absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
By the time I pulled the van into the brewery car park, my head was pounding and my jaw was sore from grinding my teeth. I kicked myself for the stupid fucking decision I’d made to flirt with Pat in Waterford.
He’d come on to me the way he always did, and I actually thought a quick fuck with the man would help erase a certain straight American from my daydreams. All I could think of was how grateful I’d been when a couple of drunk patrons had accidentally slammed into his office door, cutting short my delirium before I’d been able to take Pat up on his offer. But coming so close still made me feel like a complete arse.
And it made me feel desperate, which pissed me the hell off. I was mortified at myself—so much so that I’d put off coming home for an extra day until Cait had called and bitched me out.
I slammed the door behind me, slung my overnight bag on my shoulder, and ducked into the warehouse office to turn in some paperwork and the van keys before making my way down the footpath to the pub for a pint.
Please don’t let the beautiful Yank be there. Please don’t let the—
“Oh, hi.”
The familiar cadence of his voice wrapped around me, causing my eyes to slide closed and my chin to drop to my chest. A deep sigh blew out of me, expelling all of the shit that had happened in Waterford. If I was going to sleep with someone I shouldn’t, it was this guy, not Pat.