18:Walk of Shame

Taking deep breaths as she walked, Charlie fought to maintain her composure as she went to rejoin the Bongiovi family.  It had been hard enough to maintain during that little parting repartee with Jon, since he’d shaken her world from the inside out.

The chemistry with that man was lethal.  Good lethal, but lethal nonetheless.  Every sensation was intensified by the antagonism between them.  She had talked to him like a dirty lover when he was disparaging her legal techniques simply because she couldn’t tell him he was wrong.  When he’d reacted, the very horny devil inside her had taken great pleasure in seeing that same light of desire shining out of his eyes. 

He insulted, she encouraged him and acted as though his words couldn’t touch her.  Each sought to dominate the other up until the very end, when her mouth had outrun her obstinacy by begging in just the way he’d wanted her to – and he’d reciprocated by using her name to trigger the most intense orgasm she’d had in years.

Her inner thighs still quivered at the imagined heat in her ear from his whispered, “Chiara”.  Nobody ever called her that unless she was in trouble or the butt of a joke, yet he'd done it with calculated intent, willfully making it as aphrodisiacal as a dump truck full of oysters.

Charlie was very, very afraid that her vibrator would never satisfy her again, even as a simple tension relief.  Not when she knew what the possibilities were.  

Emerging from behind the house, she found that the two men and Lilah were still seated at the table, illuminated by strand lighting that she hadn’t noticed before.  The kids were missing and she assumed Desiree and Stephanie had taken them in the house since dusk had fully descended – for which she was grateful.  Desiree wouldn’t have bothered her too much, but how did one face the adult child of the man you’d just had hot and hard sex with? 

Thank God she wouldn’t have to figure out it.

“Hey,” Lilah greeted her a little too cheerfully.  “We’ve got strawberry shortcake or fruit parfaits for dessert.  Which would you like?”

Charlie sought to smile through her genuine remorse at not being able to spend more time with these likable people. 

“I think I’ve stayed long enough, but thank you so much for your kindness.  All of you,” she added to encompass his brothers and Desiree.  “And if my kids show up here after the movie, don’t let them take over the place as teenage boys tend to do.  Feel free to send them home.”

“You don’t really have to leave, do you?” was Lilah’s disheartened response.  “I really thought you two would work things out once you had a chance to talk.”

The two men presumably choked at the same time, and their overdone coughs sent conveyed clear amusement at the thought of ‘talking’.  Charlie knew her clothes and hair were as they should be, but if she wore some mysterious look of the sexually sated, there was nothing she could do about it – other than stand her ground.

“We managed to clear the air, I think, but I doubt we’ll ever be friends.”

“I swear sometimes I could kill that man,” Lilah huffed.  “He can be such an ass.”

“He is who he is, and no one should have to make apologies for that.  I sure as hell don’t,” Charlie asserted.  “And didn’t.”

“Oh, honey, I can’t tell you how that intrigues me.  Is there any chance at all of me gettin’ a blow-by-blow account?” 

The look on her face was equivalent to a starving woman being faced with a pan of warm, chocolate brownies.  Lilah was practically drooling at the idea and, after watching them interact for an entire evening, Charlie could definitely see that she had an unusual relationship with her brother-in-law.  It was an affectionate viciousness, if that made any sense. 

Knowing that there was no way she would share the details of that showdown with anyone but Izzie, Charlie laughingly shook her head and compromised, “Walk me out and I’ll give you the highlight reel along with something I got for Micah Jane.”

“Deal!”  The other woman immediately sprang to her feet.  “But you didn’t need to get her anything.” 

“It’s nothing much,” she assured.  “They had candy tattoos at Dylan’s and, since I made a judgment error in showing her mine, I thought maybe these might be an acceptable substitute.  Sorry about that, by the way, Tony.”

The cloud of confusion that settled on his face said he hadn’t heard that particular story yet.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that your daughter wants ink now,” his wife drawled.  “Charlie showed M.J. her Tinkerbell tattoo today, and it was like she’d been given the keys to the fairy kingdom.  She’ll be askin’ you, I’m sure.”

His sigh echoed that of an entire population of little girls’ daddies.  “Are you kidding me? I figured I had a good ten years before she got to that stage.”

“As I said,” Charlie reminded with an apologetic smile.  “Sorry, Tony.  Good night, guys.”

With Lilah at her side, she left the Bongiovi brothers behind – all of them.

J J J J J

Jon exhaled a deep breath and thought that the clash of two fiery Italian tempers and a round of blazing hot sex should’ve at least left black scorch marks on the lawn and hedges.  But, when he crammed his temper and rampant thoughts behind a mask of neutrality and emerged from the secluded corner of the yard, it looked no different than it had when he arrived.

He felt scorched though, and wasn’t interested in having salt rubbed in the wounds by his family – more specifically, his brothers.  Those two would give him ten different kinds of hell about nailing the lawyer even if he hadn’t nailed the lawyer, and he wasn’t in the mood. 

There was a particularly good bottle of wine stashed in the study, and his grand plan for the remainder of the evening was to sneak in through the kitchen door and go lose himself in that bottle.   Maybe once he hit bottom, he could come up with a plan to exorcise the demon that was Charlie Del Vecchio.

Chiara.

Jesus, he hadn’t planned to call her that.  It had just happened.  When she finally ceded control and went from dirty talking and demanding to sweetly begging, Jon had discovered a woman who was as sexy and ultra-feminine as the name she’d been christened with.  He had no choice but to acknowledge her and, upon doing so, found himself as strongly affected by it as she was.

Chiara was a woman he wanted in his bed, but only if she left Charlie at home.

Stepping onto the back step, he was just reaching for the kitchen doorknob when Matt’s voice boomed from around the corner. “I know you’re not about to go in and leave us hangin’.  Get your ass out here with the deets, old man!”

Busted. 

Knowing that they would be loud, obnoxious and persistent until he gave them something, Jon had no choice but to drop his hand to his side and go out to the side of the house.

“Is there any wine left?” he demanded from just beyond the lighted area where Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were side by side, both eagerly leaning into the table.  If he had to deal with their bullshit, Jon wanted a drink.

“Just get out here before Lilah comes back.”

Tony’s answer was a better motivator than wine and, cursing under his breath, Jon stepped into the light.  It was with belligerently crossed arms that he approached the table, mentally resolving that they were getting two minutes and only the barest of details.  No more.

“Told you!” Tweedle Dee crowed triumphantly and fist bumped Dum.  “He fucked her.”

Why had he asked his parents for siblings?  Right now, their only redeeming quality was that they worked cheap, and he scowled at them both, denying, “I don’t know what the hell you’re blowing about.  We talked.  That’s it.”

“Man,” Matt snickered before offering a crude observation.  “It’s a helluva talk that has you smellin’ like pussy.”

Experience told him that getting mad would only make them worse.  That was their whole goal, after all, so he forced a casual laugh and shot back, “That’s your upper lip you’re smelling, shit for brains.  I saw you head into the Airstream earlier for Des’s bearded clam appetizer.”

Grinning wide, his youngest brother happily volleyed, “Is that the green tinge of jealousy I see?  You don’t have a clam at your beck and call anymore, eager and waiting for you to open it.”

The only thing raunchier than smack-talk with his brothers was the same kind of shit with the band.  They would spout obscenities and vulgarities one after the other in a contest to see who was lewdest and crudest, and these were the times when Jon adopted the over-inflated rock star ego that so many assumed he actually had. 

“Motherfucker, have you forgotten who I am?” he boasted, jabbing an arrogant thumb into his chest.  “All I do is walk by and the alllll the clams open themselves, begging me to eat them.”

His tongue unexpectedly itched to sample of one very specific clam – the one whose scent apparently clung to him longer than the woman had.  Could he coax her into begging for his tongue the way she’d begged him to make her come?  Or would her begging, once again, come only after he’d bullied his way in?  What would she taste like when he did?

Focus, dumbass.

His brothers were like sharks in their ability to sense blood.  If he didn’t brutally quash his pornographic curiosity and do it now, they were going to be all over him like white on rice.  His game face had to be rock solid.    

“And they beg me to eat ‘em once you’ve passed by, so I’ve got the best of both worlds.” Matt sang his own praises with no lack of self-confidence.  “Take that, old man!”

“What a damn embarrassment.  Why would you be so proud of getting my sloppy seconds?  Does your wife know about your low standards, boy?”

Tony was either tired of hearing it or tired of being left out, and forced his way into the foul mouthed banter with, “Okay, cut the shit.  Lilah will be back any minute and I legit wanna know the story.”

No way were they going to find out what happened in back of the guest house.  He might revisit the scene a time or twelve in his dreams, but his brothers had never been privy to the particulars of his love life and Jon saw no reason to start cluing them in now.

Chiara was his secret.

Jon shrugged carelessly, leaving his arms crossed while tossing one open hand in the air.  “I ripped her a new ass and she tried her best to return the favor until we both ran out of insults.  End of story.”

“I don’t know that I believe that bullshit.”  There was a reason Tony had been dubbed Tweedle Dee and not Tweedle Dum – he wasn’t dumb. 

Echoing Charlie’s earlier words, he told his brother, “I don’t care what you believe.”

“You’re a secretive dick for not giving up the skinny,” Matt complained.  “We’re old married men who are not out on tour.  Give us a vicarious thrill or somethin’, man.”

“Nope.  No vicarious thrills here.”

Although still studying him, Tony switched tactics and sincerely asked, “Whatever the hell happened, do you feel better?”

Did he feel better? 

Yes and no.

He was completely satisfied that wild, spontaneous sex had ended in a mind-blowing orgasm.  Unfortunately, that satisfaction had only lasted about thirty seconds.  That was how long Chiara had been allowed to stick around before Charlie came back full-force, running her smart mouth and frustrating the hell out of him.

“Can you at least move on now?” his brother prompted when Jon didn’t respond quickly enough to suit him.

That question was easier to answer. 

“No.  I’m not done with her yet.”