Jennifer Crusie - Charlie All Night

“How did you know he’d say that?” Allie asked him when they’d escaped unscathed.

“Grady tipped me off,” he told her. “Evidently, Bill’s a sucker for dogs. Grady told me as long as Sam was in the room, Bill would fold.”

“Well, good for Grady,” Allie said.

Charlie lifted Sam up in front of his face and said, “You’re in, kid, don’t screw up,” and when Sam licked Charlie’s nose, he laughed. He laughed a lot more when Sam became the new Flavor of the Week after his picture showed up in the paper, and the local animal shelter called and asked to begin a This-Dog-Needs-A-Home segment the next week on Charlie’s show.

They did still have a few problems. Somebody was still sabotaging the show, one night making crank calls that tied up the phone lines, the next swiping the ad tapes for the night. Charlie coped with all of it and avoided Allie like the plague, missing her so much that he couldn’t sleep at night, telling himself that once November came and he was out of town, she’d just be a pleasant memory.

He kept telling himself that, but he didn’t believe it. And it was getting harder and harder to stay away from her.

Charlie walked into the booth on Friday night, two days ifter he’d blown Sam’s cover, grouchy because he was in a booth and Allie was ten feet away on the other side of a glass wall wearing a pink sweater that made him crazy.

Once inside the booth, though, he stopped in his tracks. “What is that god-awful smell?”

“Well.” Harry leaned back in his chair. “It seems Mark got a dog.”

“What?”

“A dog,” Harry said. “At the pound. A Doberman-mix puppy. A man’s dog. Called him King.”

Charlie sat down on the edge of the console. “I don’t believe this.”

“And he brought King into the booth with him this morning so he could broadcast with him. Like we do with Samson. And after four hours, King scratched at the door to be let out.”

Charlie snorted. “King obviously has a lot of stamina. I’d have been clawing at the door a lot sooner if I was trapped in a booth with Mark.”

“But Mark ignored him, so King… uh, pooped.”

Charlie grinned. “And then?”

“Mark yelled at him and scared him.” Harry fought back a grin. “So King pooped again.”

Charlie’s grin widened. “Mark is an idiot.”

“So then Mark waved the script at him, and King-”

“Pooped again.” Charlie started to laugh.

“Then Marcia came in and threw a fit because of all the poop in the booth and because Mark was mistreating a puppy. She gave him ten minutes to get the booth clean, and she took the dog away from him.”

Charlie looked alarmed. “Not back to the pound?”

Harry shook his head. “Nah. She said she needed a watchdog. She took the dog outside and calmed it down, and then brought it back inside with her until her show was done.”

“Good for Marcia. Although I can’t picture her with a dog named King.”

“Dorothy,” Harry said. “The dog’s name is now Dorothy. Mark missed a few details, as usual.”

“You’re kidding.” Charlie closed his eyes. “What a dweeb. So then he cleaned up the booth-”

Harry snorted. “Fat chance. He made Lisa do it.”

“Oh, great.” Charlie shook his head. “Wait’ll I tell Allie. She’s not going to believe this.”

“And then Lisa sprayed the place with that stinking pine disinfectant…”

Charlie nodded. “Which explains why this place smells like-”

“-somebody pooped a pine tree” Harry finished.

“Sounds like a good time to do a remote,” Charlie said.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time out of here,” Harry said. “Thank God I don’t have a date tonight. This would not be in easy smell to explain.”

“Pooped Fine, the cologne of Kings,” Charlie said and they both started to laugh.

Allie came into the booth, and they stopped. “What’s so funny?” she asked them. “And what is that horrible smell?”

Harry and Charlie looked at each other for a moment and then they both broke up again.

* * *

The only problem was that since the booth reeked, Charlie had to spend most of his time out of it. With Allie. He was supposed to be talking about the ads for the rest of the show, but Allie was wearing a silky pink sweater, and her curves were right there in front of him. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear because of the rushing in his ears.

He had to touch her. Touching was not sex. Touching was just touching. “What we need here is a definition of sex,” Charlie said. “The bet said no sex. It didn’t say no kissing.” He took a deep breath. “I want to touch you.”

Allie flushed pink and Charlie felt dizzy. Usually when she flushed like that, it was because he was moving his hands on her. He thought of the nights he’d had with her the week before and thrown away, not memorizing every second of what it was like to touch her. How he hadn’t concentrated on the feel of his tongue against her skin, the slide of her body against his as she arched against him, the heat and the wet and the-“Oh, God,” he said. “I really need to touch you.”

Allie sat across from him and tried to control her breathing. I really need to touch you. He was making her insane over this stupid bet. If he wanted her, all he had to do was say, “You win.”

Of course, all she had to do was say, “You win,” and she could have him back. She could slide her hands down his back, bite into the muscle on his shoulder, lick her way into his mouth, arch her aching body into his hardness, and dear God, find some surcease for this endless need that was driving her crazy. She bit her lip to keep from saying it out loud.

And if she did that, he’d touch her like only Charlie could touch her, his hands on her breasts, hot and teasing, his mouth moving lower…

She drew a breath, suddenly light-headed from not breathing before, suddenly wanting his mouth more than anything in the world. Her breasts felt hot and tight and made her crave his touch even more, and she moved her hands to press against them, trying to ease the itch and the throbbing here.

And Charlie said, “Don’t do that, please don’t do that,” and she said, “You do it. I can’t stand it anymore.”

He got up slowly and came to her, and she stood and put her head on his shoulder. He finally touched her, smoothing his palms lightly over her breasts at first, then pressing against her, and then finally lowering his head to bite her gently through her sweater, and that’s when she dug her fingers into his shoulders and cried out.

He kissed her then, licking into her mouth, and the relief was like drowning. She arched against him, feeling how hard he was against her stomach, and his hands pressed her breasts in exquisite relief while every cell in her body throbbed for him. She laced her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth harder against hers, trying to drink him in, biting his lip, and his leg went between hers as he bent her back against the production table, moving against her, while she wrapped herself around him as tightly as she could.

He was heavy on top of her, wonderfully heavy, and she stretched up to him, trying to meld with him, using his weight to satiate her need to have him inside her. His lips were on her throat as his hands pulled her sweater down off her shoulders, and his tongue licked deep into her cleavage. She scraped her nails down his back and throbbed against him. He pulled her bra off her breast, and his mouth found her, hot and wet, and he sucked hard, and she cried out and tightened against him, blind with need. He shoved her skirt up and moved his hand between her legs, pressing against the nylon there, his fingers sliding under the elastic.

“Wait,” she breathed. “You, too.”

And he said, “No, this is just for you.”

She moved away from his hand. “No.” She pulled his head up to look into his eyes, and they both shook with passion. “No. Not unless it’s for both of us. It has to be both of us.”

“It is,” he told her. “I love watching you come.” His eyes were hot, and she wanted to drink them in with the rest of him and make them part of her, but she wanted him with her, too. They were in this together. They were in everything together.

“No.” Allie drew a long, shuddering breath. “No. I want you so much I’m dying from it. But that’s just sex. No. Both of us or nothing.”

Charlie closed his eyes, and she slid out from under him, memorizing the feel of him as she did.

Charlie leaned on the table, gripping the edge, his biceps taut from tension. “We could end this damn bet by mutual consent. We could both give in.”

Allie leaned back against the table, getting her breath under control while she tried to figure out why that was such a bad idea. It should have been a good idea. “Is that what you want?”

“It should be what I want.” Charlie stood up and tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling instead of her. “I don’t know why I’m so sold on this damn bet. It’s making me insane.”

“It’s making us different,” Allie said, and she knew that was why she’d pulled away. In the beginning, she and Charlie had been about sex. Now they were about something else. She knew it was love, but he was still getting there. So she’d give him time. “We’re different now. It’s just one more week.”

Charlie met her eyes for an instant, and then turned and walked back to the booth.

Allie felt light-headed. Probably from not breathing, she decided and consciously filled her lungs with air. She was dying from not having him, but she didn’t want him yet. She wanted him more than anything.

But not yet. Not until they both knew it was more than sex.