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The moment was idyllically tranquil, and they lay serenaded by only the sound of breathing that was beginning to slow.  Charlie was utterly content to be bound by hairy limbs and melded to skin scented by nothing but the musk of the man wearing it. 

She and Jon might not be two peas in the same pod, but he was undeniably the yin to her sexual yang, and under the theory that everyone had only one perfect lover, it was astounding that she found hers through such bizarre circumstances.  Even if their relationship was limited to the time already shared, she was luckier than most women were.

“How does it keep getting better?” she murmured, unlocking numb legs from around his waist and shifting to find a more comfortable position.  She found it along with the emptiness left behind when he extracted himself and gave her about six inches of space. 

“Don’t know, don’t care.”  He sounded as agreeable as Charlie felt, a fact that was proven when he flipped onto his back held out an arm that invited her to curl into his side.

They sometimes spoke in terms of gruff fondness, something like he and Lilah did, but they had yet to do something as affectionate as cuddling.  Without wasting time weighing the pros and cons, she did what felt good and scooted around to press the front of her to the side of him and rest her head on his shoulder.  She also slung a leg over one of his, rubbing that foot up and down his calf.

“Can I risk ruining the peaceful moment with a question?”

“Since when do you bother asking first?”  It could’ve been snarky, but it was offered lethargically as he toyed with the ends of her hair.

“Good point.  Why’d you come over tonight?”

He fingers paused in their trifling and then resumed.  “If I give you an honest answer, I’m going to expect one in return when I ask a question.”

“Okay,” she agreed although not really wanting to.  It was probably something to do with Owen, whom she’d rather leave out of this bed.

“First night in my new apartment and, after the boys went back to Dorothea’s, it felt like another impersonal hotel.  I was lonely.”

That was… a big admission coming from him to her.  Bigger than his gesture of not treating her like a pro bono prostitute.  This was evidence that he wasn’t as invincible as he liked to appear, and Charlie would rate it up there with his admitting to the need for a hot shower after their unscheduled dip in the pool.  This was the private life he spoke of inviting her to.

He wasn’t being a public image.  He definitely wasn’t a faceless scapegoat in a divorce settlement.  He was just a man who was still getting used to being without his wife and family, and it prodded at Charlie’s conscience. 

Don’t bring it up now, when he’s really comfortable being with you.  He’ll only get tense and mad all over again.

Her explanations and a second apology would be put aside for now, but she wouldn’t do it indefinitely.  He might not accept either, but it ate at her.  Charlie would like to try and make him understand.  If he didn’t forgive her, maybe it would at least give him a better perception of her.  Yes, she was still a bitch under it all, but not a cruel bitch. 

“You’re welcome here anytime, even if it isn’t to get laid.”

“Thanks,” he murmured absently, having moved from her hair to running a hand along her arm.  “Before that night behind the guest house – when you were so excited to have a real dick instead of a vibrator…”

“I say my door is always open to you, and then get that sexual confession thrown back in my face.  Classy, Bongiovi.”

“I wasn’t throwing anything, I was qualifying my fucking question.  Now shush.”  The fingers that were stroking her tricep dropped to pinch her ass, producing an unintentional squeal from Charlie.  “How long since you’d had sex with a man?”

“How long had it been since you had sex?” she countered to diminish her embarrassment.  This line of questioning had the potential to be incredibly awkward. 

“I asked you first, and you promised an honest answer.”

He had her dead to rights on that one.  There was no choice but to sigh and answer, “Over a year.  Closer to a year and a half.”

“With him?”

“No.”

Jon’s reared his head back so that he could peer down at her.  “So just how many affairs have you had?”

“Make me sound a little trashier, could ya?” she grumbled dourly.  “That’s what earned Luke a week on my shit list.”

“Hey.”  He hooked an unyielding finger under her chin, and Charlie was forced to look up into eyes that were surprisingly placid.  “I’m not judging you.  I’m asking.”

She found nothing in his face that contradicted his statement, and he wasn’t yelling like he was upset or affronted by her promiscuity.  Jon was truly just asking a question, and the rigid set of her shoulders relaxed with the knowledge.

“One unplanned affair,” she revealed, once again using his shoulder for a pillow.  “Four dates/one-night stands with men who didn’t know my real name – of which Luke stumbled into two.  That’s why he considers me a slut.”

“I assume I know the answer to this, but just in case…  I’m the unplanned affair?”

“Yes.”

He went quiet for so long that Charlie couldn’t keep from taking another glance up at him.  There was a furrow between his eyebrows, but it wasn’t a frown so much as thoughtful contemplation. 

“What?” she prompted. 

Now realizing that he was being watched, a fleeting frown skittered over his mouth as Jon shook his head.  “I was trying to decide whether I really want to get into this tonight.”

“You don’t,” she advised, smoothing a palm over his stubbled cheek.  “I’d rather show you where I’m at on the mural sketch than talk about this.”

“Chiara, I'm not expecting a frigging dissertation on the subject of your marriage, but we’re gonna have to talk about it at some point.”

He was in her bed.  She had satisfied him to the point of complete relaxation.  They were getting along so well, and talk of her marriage wasn’t going to do anything but spoil that. 

Besides, without knowing the future direction their relationship – such as it was – she didn’t see the need in torturing herself over how much to risk sharing.  If they were just friendly-ish acquaintances who had sex when the desire arose, fine.  Charlie liked sex with him enough to be content with it for the duration.  In that scenario, though, there was no need to confide her deepest secret to a man who may walk out her front door one morning and never look back.

Maybe you should find out if he thinks you’re just sex partners and nothing else.

Pushing herself into a seated position, she tucked her legs to the side with a sigh.  “I very vividly recall agreeing to full disclosure, but can I ask why it matters?  You know I’m going to ultimately divorce him, and anything else is history that’s more or less irrelevant to our current situation.”

He must not like her towering over his prone form, because Jon scooted up in the bed so that their eyes were level with one another.  “Our current situation being what?”

“I guess that’s what I’m trying to pin down.  We have sex and manage to get through a whole day sometimes without fighting.  By most people’s standards, that makes us fuck buddies.”

From the look on his face, she might as well have just gone ahead with conversation of her marriage.  Frown lines creased the sides of his mouth and his brow furrowed with the same displeasure.  When he added crossed arms into the mix, there was no denying that he was getting tense and mad again.

So much for comfortable relaxation together.  Time for our daily argument.

“Clearly most people’s standards don’t match up with yours,” she observed.  “So what would you call our current situation?”

“It’s a little fucking hard to pinpoint when I don’t know what’s going on.  Right now I’m the guy who better hope you and your husband don’t have matching guns if he finds me in this bed.”

The thought of Owen with a gun was pretty amusing, and she couldn’t help but smirk at the thought.  He used to call her to come kill spiders in the bathroom.

“Let’s try a different slant on this,” Charlie chuckled, rising to her knees to straddle his upper thighs.  When settled there, she tugged at sinewy forearms until they grudgingly came uncrossed, and then pressed their palms together.  She folded her fingers down over the backs of his hands, and let her humor slide away to pose two earnest questions.  “If I wasn’t married, would you see a traditional relationship down the road ahead of us?  Could this be more than just sex?”

The frown lines had eased, but he hadn’t lightened up any.  Jon was sober as a judge when looking into her eyes and quietly asserting, “I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

Well, does that tell you what you need to know, Charlie? 

Not exactly a promise for the future, but it revealed that his interest in her wasn’t all about having a quick and convenient bed partner.  That in itself was significant enough to make her heart skip another beat.

“When it gets ruled in, we’ll talk all you want.  Fair?”  The frown reappeared with a vengeance, and she leaned forward to smudge it away with a series of soft kisses trailing from the right side of his mouth to the left.  “Don’t be crabby.  Be honest and admit you’re not vested enough to care about the whole story.  When – if – you ever are, I’ll tell it to you – including the parts that I’ve never told to anyone else.  For now, let’s just like each other and look at my sketch.  Okay?”

He considered it for a long moment and must have eventually come to the determination she was right, because he went in a completely unexpected direction.  “You like me, huh?”

“Yeah.  I do.”

“I like you, too, Counselor,” he reciprocated, extracting one hand from her grip so that he could push it through the fall of hair that was slipping into Charlie’s face.  “And that’s an endearment, because it’s yours alone.”

She had actually started to like the nickname since he’d stopped spitting it at her covered in venom, and this sealed the deal.  Counselor suited Charlie just fine when he wasn’t calling her Chiara.  They both belonged to him now.

“That mean we’re moving on and can look at the sketch now?”

“In a minute.  I just have one more question, out of sick curiosity.” 

That sounded… interesting, and she lifted a curious eyebrow as his hand fell from the wave of hair to sweep casually over her left breast.  When it generated a spark of electricity, she warned, “Keep doing that and all you’re going to get is molested.  Ask, already.”

His chuckle was so deliciously dirty that Charlie’s uterus clenched with desire when he did the same maneuver in reverse.

“Dammit, Jon, I mean it.”

“Okay, okay.”  The offending hand dropped to his chest and only the ghost of a smile lingered when he finally got around to the question.  “You said there were four one night stands and me, but what about Owen?  How long since you had sex with him?”

August 6, 2001.

She knew the date by heart, but performing the mental calculation to come up how long ago that actually was took a little longer.  She did so with a knot in her stomach, until the correct number surfaced.   “Fifteen years.”

The ghost of a smile vanished and probing blue irises focused first on one of her eyes and then the other, alternating between the two for long seconds as Jon processed the information.  “You’re not a slut.  Luke’s an idiot.”

Those seven words sparked her first feeling of deep affection for him, and Charlie’s heart skipped two consecutive beats this time instead of one.  Her mouth sneaked up at both corners while the guard that she always held to so fiercely slipped just the tiniest bit.

He really did like her.

“Thank you,” she whispered against his lips, sealing her gratitude with a gentle kiss.