“I love you,” she whispered to him, and he said, “I didn’t know this existed. I didn’t know until you.”

“Make love to me.” Allie tried to move against him, but he rolled her gently onto her back and began to kiss her neck “I want you inside me,” she said, arching into him. “I’ve waited so long. Don’t make me wait longer.”

“Just a little bit,” he said against her throat. “Just a little bit.” His cheek was on her breast and then his tongue traced down the seam of her stomach, and her nerves fluttered and she forgot how to breathe.

“Soon,” he said, when his hands were on her hips, and her hips flexed on their own, tightening under his grip. “I just need to taste you. I need this first.” His fingers found her, and she moaned and stretched to ease the ache, then he licked his tongue inside her, and she jerked under the shock and grabbed the headboard above her in desperation, holding on to it as if it were sanity.

“You taste so sweet, Allie,” she heard him whisper, and she moaned at the thought while his breath tantalized her thighs. She gripped the headboard until her knuckles went white, trying to stay with him, but his whisper pounded inside her and she couldn’t breathe because the heat was everywhere. “You’re so sweet.”

And then he licked inside her again and again, and she writhed in his grasp, and he moved his mouth harder against her, holding her hips harder against him, and she couldn’t twist away, didn’t want to twist away, had to twist away as me heat screamed through her veins until she cried out, “Oh, Charlie, now,” and he whispered, “Soon,” and drove her on and on until she went over the edge, ecstatically out of control.

He moved back beside her then while she throbbed against him and the aftershocks of her climax wracked her. He whispered that she was beautiful, most beautiful when she was coming, and she breathed, “It’s not enough. I need you inside me.” And he closed his eyes and then moved over her, his lips saying her name soundlessly, his thighs moving her legs apart. She ached so for him that she moaned with it, her veins bursting under her skin. “Oh, please,” she said, clutching him to her, and he said, “Look at me,” and when she did, loving him so much she was insane with it, drowning in the heat and love she saw in his eyes, he moved into her, filling her, and they both stopped breathing for that moment, their eyes locked on each other, their bodies tensed together as the shock flooded them both.

And then they moved together, breathed together, and the heat rushed through them, and Allie surged and bloomed, feeling Charlie in her fingertips, in her heart, in her brain, as his warmth and light and love moved through her, and she fell into her climax, screaming with it, feeling him surge against her over and over, beyond measured rhythm, and his shuddering moans brought her back into the aching spiral again and again until she thought she’d die of ecstasy.

And when they were both quiet, both breathing again, holding each other in the early-morning sunlight, Charlie kissed her and said, “I love you, Allie. I’ll never stop loving you.”

She nodded against his cheek, weak with spent passion. “I know. This is forever.”

She felt him relax, and then moments later he was asleep in her arms, and she held him tightly until she fell asleep, too.


* * *

It was afternoon when she woke up, and Charlie woke, too, when she stirred. He pulled her close and she closed her eyes when he kissed her forehead. “I forgot to tell you the good news,” he whispered. “We’ve got a new show.”

Allie frowned at him, still half-asleep. “What new show?”

“Bill gave us the prime-time spot,” he murmured into her hair. “The one at 6:00 a.m. You’re back where you wanted to be.”

Allie sat up, suddenly awake and appalled. “Did you say 6:00 a.m.? In the morning a.m.? Are you nuts?”

Charlie blinked and pushed himself up beside her on one arm. “I thought that was what you wanted. The prime-time show. Back on top.”

Allie looked exasperated. “I can be on top at night.”

He grinned at her and moved his hand to her breast and said, “Anytime,” and she grinned, too, covering his hand with hers.

“You know what I mean,” she told him. “I like the ten-to-two people. They’re bizarre. Let Mark have the prime-time show. At least until Marcia takes it away from him, which should be any day now. We belong at night, Charlie.” She looked at him anxiously. “Don’t you think so?”

“Well, yes.” Charlie started to laugh and collapsed back into the bed, pulling her on top of him. “Wait’ll I tell Bill.”

Allie propped herself up on his chest, enjoying the way her breasts squashed against him. “I can’t believe you even considered the morning show.”

Charlie sighed. “I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”

“You always give me what I want. Which reminds me…” Allie moved her face to his until they were nose-to-nose, stretching and feeling the long hard length of his body against hers. He’d be hers for the rest of her life. She almost died just thinking about it. Then his hand moved lazily down her back to her rear end, and she brought her mind back to the subject on hand. “I have an idea for a new show,” Allie told him. It’ll run forever. Audience of one. I’m thinking of calling it Charlie All Afternoon. And the playlist-”

“I do my own playlist,” Charlie told her and kissed her to start the program.