Near the end of Chapter Six:
'It was a very near thing because they had almost made it out of the club. Sparked by whatever insane notion, she stopped on the dance floor as “World in My Eyes” by Depeche Mode started to play. All of a sudden she was 19 again, hanging out in one of these places for the last time, as she knew she was heading to design school. That night she had let everything go. She had danced her heart out, drank too much, and flirted too hard. She would remember that night till her dying day as being one of the best nights of her life.
The day after tomorrow she could be dead. It wasn’t just a morbid thought any more. It could be the truth. Just like that this trip could be over. She was in the company of one of the most delicious men she had ever had the chance to encounter. Even if her over wrought moral code wouldn’t let her sleep with him, it would let her dance with him. It would not only let her dance with him, it would even allow her to dance dirty with him. She looked back at Thomas, and started to dance. She began moving slowly, seductively. For a few moments he just watched her not moving, and not saying anything. Then he pulled her into himself.
Most people who witnessed what happened on the dance floor would call it what it was, vertical non-penetration sex set to song. But it was a gothic club; there was a lot of that going on. Most of the time he let her set the rhythm, and then he would take over by pulling her hips in the direction he wanted. When the song ended she had her arms around his neck, her body pressed intimately to his, and his hands on her ass as she nearly rode his thigh. His hands slowly slid up, and lifted his hood just enough that she could see his lips. He then he lifted her veil only enough to settle his lips over hers.
She moaned into his mouth when he pushed his tongue between her teeth as the original German version of “99 Luftballons” played overhead. Her arms tightened around his neck as his hands trailed down her back pressing her even closer than when they had danced. Suddenly he pulled back his eyes closed.
“Slap me,” he ordered in a husky but sharp tone.
Charlotte frowned, but more at the fact that he wasn’t kissing her anymore. She opened her mouth, and he cut her off before she got any words out.
“Just do it, hard.”
So she wasn’t waiting till they got back. She pulled back, and wailed across his face as hard as she could.
He grabbed her hand, and they finally made it out of the club. Thomas had needed that slap. While he had been kissing her he hadn’t been able to find one single solitary good reason why he shouldn’t just pin her against the nearest wall, and have her. However he had been reasonable enough to understand that not being able to think of a single good reason not to take her against some random nearby wall was very unreasonable. Charlotte muddled his mind when she was being a good girl. Naughty Charlotte was sending him into premature meltdown, and he needed to get her secured, and back to her old self quickly or his self-control wouldn’t last the night.
“I’m sorry” Charlotte whispered in the quiet of the long drive back to their base of operations.
Thomas was a little distracted making sure they weren’t being tailed, but he did eventually respond. “For?”
“I was an unmerciful tease tonight.”
“Yes, but you were supposed to be.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Got reminded of who you used to be. It’s unsettling.”
She paused, and nodded knowing that he was right, and that really had been her problem. “I’ve come a long way. I don’t want to start back peddling. But with you---,” she stopped herself.
“Charlie, I’m not going to judge you, not now, not ever. There’s a saying about whores, stones, and glass whorehouses that I’m sure you’re familiar with.”
Despite herself, and the twinge of self-hate she was feeling, Charlotte giggled a little. Then started to laugh in earnest. “I fogged up your glasses pretty good huh?”
They came to a red light, and he looked over at her until she locked her eyes with his. “There aren’t words to describe the type of desire you make me feel. You respond to me without being ashamed of your own reaction, and that’s hot enough. But when you bait me without feeling guilty or without being apologetic it’s like tossing out the Bunsen burner for a flame-thrower. I was nearly unmanned.”
The light changed, and the force of his golden eyes was pulled away from her. Charlotte tried unsuccessfully to suppress the shudder of sheer desire and awareness that flooded through her at his words.
“I can’t be the only woman that’s ever tried to entice you.”
His eyes didn’t leave the road as he answered. “You are the only one that has done this for the most basic reason. It’s not because you want me to save you, protect you, or back your play. You already have that from me. You bait me because you want me to want you for the sake of your own desire.”
Charlotte understood now why this was uncharted territory for him. Honestly she had never had a man just desire her for the sake of desiring her. There had been guys that had cared for her, but it hadn’t been insane love or even nearly unmanageable desire. There had been the guys that had just wanted to get laid, and for them any woman would do. Then as her self-esteem had done a real noise dive there were the guys that had wanted her to support them because of her business. Charlotte had been in love, and in lust before, but she had never felt the type of emotions that Thomas Glendel made her feel. As they spent more and more time with each other she was starting to understand that he could say the same for her.
“Thomas—” she started.
“I meant what I said tonight. We’ll get to it.”
