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His words were simple, but I knew, somehow, that he was right in a way I couldn’t explain or comprehend. I reached out and took his hand in mine for just a moment, wanting to feel that electric tingle under my skin, but he squeezed it tight, keeping our hands clasped tightly as we followed everyone into the kitchen.
* * *
“Let me know if you need a break.”
Charlie’s breath tickled my ear as he bent and whispered to me. I was seated at the kitchen island–in the same stool I had sat to interview him, not so long ago–letting the flow of conversation wash over me. My offers to help Richard and Philip had been met with polite refusals from the two men–and emphatic declarations that Idid not want to help, believe her, from Rose, who had installed herself in the stool next to me and poured us both glasses of wine. “Just watch and admire,” she had said, ogling her husband. I limited my admiration to his exemplary knife skills.
“Hmm?” I said, tearing my gaze from the rapid chopping happening across the island.
“I know we can be a little bit…” he grimaced. “A lot.”
I looked out over the kitchen: Jack had disappeared somewhere else in the house, Rose was chatting (loudly, given the width of the marble-topped island) with tonight’s chefs, Asterid and Margaret were having some sort of emphatic discussion, Margaret’s arms crossed, a wine glass dangling precariously from her fingers. I swiveled in my chair to face Charlie, then had to tilt my head up to see him, he was so close to me. I reached out, wrapping my fingers around his wrist and pulling him even closer. “Charlie,” I said, softly so that Rose couldn’t hear. “Thank you for inviting me tonight. Really,” I continued, as he opened his mouth. “This is perfect.”
Despite our closeness, despite the rapidity of his heart, beating fast through his skin where my fingers lay over it, I was still surprised when he bent down, caging me in on my chair, to give me a soft kiss. The sounds of the kitchen faded as I felt his lips on mine for a quiet moment.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, and the smile on his face made my own lips curve, made my own heart beat with hope.
“Ooooh,” said Rose, startlingly close. I jumped, and Charlie’s eyes crinkled with a huff of laughter. “Delicious.”
I swiveled back around to face the island once again, to see her munching on a perfectly ordinary stick of carrot evidently pilfered from the mound of them on Richard’s butcher block cutting board. Her husband was blushing; he looked more like Charlie that way. I lost myself in the rhythm of knives on heavy wood and sizzle of butter and the deep current of the family’s conversation.
Charlie
Ella wasquiet while Richard and Philip cooked some sort of elaborate French dish I didn’t recognize from their usual repertoire. It took fucking forever; we should have gotten take out. Family dinner was never a quick meal, but at least Chinese wouldn’t have requiredcooking.I stood behind Ella, my eyes on the curve of her back, her waist and her hips as she perched on the stool, and wanted to peel her jeans from her. I wanted to get her upstairs, and alone, and naked underneath me. Or maybe on top.
Jack entered the kitchen, holding a sheaf of papers from the office he still kept here. He caught my eye and raised one eyebrow, eyes flicking to Ella and back to me, a slight smirk on his normally serious lips.
Fuck, I needed to tone it down. Everyone could probably smell how…eagerI was, even through the smell of garlic and leeks cooking down in the oversized enameled pot. I bent forward to give Ella a short kiss on the cheek, then busied myself getting out plates and linen napkins, setting them in their places on the dining table. Ella met me as I was selecting 8 settings of silverware from the drawer in the butler’s pantry.
“Can I help?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Can you grab some wine glasses from the cabinet over there? It’ll be Bordeaux, I would guess, knowing Philip.” She smiled, appearing pleased to have something to do, and I carried the silverware to the table. I was circling the table, adding utensils to each place setting, when she returned, hands full of–
“Oh, actually,” I said, “Not those ones. We need the–I mean, the ones Philip will want are the, um, the bigger ones.” She smiled, brows lifted. “Not,” I hurried to add, “because they arebigger. Well, I guess because they are bigger. It’s something to do with the shape of the bowl…”
She placed the wine glasses on the table carefully, and came closer to me: so close I could pick up her scent of peaches. My cock, which I hadjustmanaged to get under control, twitched.
“You littleliar,” she said with a teasing look on her pretty face. “You told me you couldn’t taste the difference between a Champagne and a sparkling wine, but I bet youtotallycan.”
“I swear to you,” I replied, bringing my hand to my heart. “Ella, baby,sweetheart.” Her nose crinkled adorably, and my cock twitched again. I needed dinner to be over, like, now. “I cannot tell the difference between a Champagne and a fuckingDiet Sprite.”
I wrapped one hand around the curve of her lower back, wanting to feel her body against mine, and was about to kiss her when Philip came into the room, carrying his huge pot of whatever it was–although it did smell incredible, meaty and rich–and pointing his chin at the trivet.
“Get that for me, Charlie, thanks,” he said, then “now?” as I hesitated to release Ella. I winked at her, then collected the desired item, placing it in the center of the table. Philip unburdened himself, then looked meaningfully at the small collection of wine glasses huddled together at one end of the table. “Awhitewine glass? Really, Charlie?”
I didn’t have to look at Ella to guess her reaction, and stifled a laugh myself.
“Apologies, m’lord,” I intoned. “It won’t happen again.”
* * *
Eight–count them,eight–seats were finally filled at the long, mahogany table that filled the dining room. Margaret had dimmed the lights, taking one end, Jack on the other, their partners on their right hand sides, and although it would have looked perfectly ordinary to an outside observer–just a bunch of people sitting down for a meal–I knew as they glanced at each other above the food that they were both feeling quite pleased with themselves. The pack that they co-chaired–or whatever they called their platonic head alpha/head omega relationship–was complete. Well–not officially. Ella wasn’t mymatemate. But still. I had never put much stock in the old ways the two of them so loved–mates and packs and bonds and fate. It wasn’t that I disagreed with them, or that I didn’t want it, but I just never thought about it much. It was just how I grew up; it seemed normal to me, even though as I got older–after my dad died–I realized just how unusual it was for one’s parents to have been mated, for your brothers to do the same with their wives.
Now, though, with the eight of us seated at the table that had held four, then five, six, seven… eight feltso right.
From the Pages of CityStyle Magazine
[Photo: Charles Prince, wearing a navy blue suit, sitting casually on the edge of a large white marble fountain in a grassy quad.]
