Chapter 48: Charlotte Ainsley Hot Tits or Another Mature Beauty From Author

The Belrose Auditorium emptied the way all ego trips emptied: slowly, loudly, and with people still talking about themselves. Winthrope and the rest of the show-offs finally cleared the stage, and the freshmen got herded out for the campus tour.

A campus tour.

Damon stared at the back of somebody’s lanyard and tried to understand why a building with maps on every wall, signage on every corner, and a phone in every pocket needed a guided walk like they were lost children at a museum. Pointless. Most of orientation had been pointless.

He could’ve finished the website, stolen a coffee, and gone home to Camilla instead of following a herd of rich kids who couldn’t locate a bathroom without a keynote speech.

But he just happened to see who was giving the tour and the complaining stopped.

He wondered, briefly and sincerely, if this school ever ran short of mature beauties or if whoever was writing his life had simply decided to keep dealing them out one per building.

’Keep ’em coming. I’m not filing a complaint. I don’t care if you want votes, golden tickets and a few thousand dollar, Author, just keep them coming my way, readers would love you for it.’ He laughed at his stupid thought and looked at the woman.

The woman leading them had to be admissions staff... Damon had been half-buried in his own things when she introduced herself, so he only caught the name later, Charlotte Ainsley, after some boy near the front had already made his move on her in front of the entire group.

"So, Charlotte," the guy had said, way too loud and pleased with himself while leaning one shoulder against the nearest wall like it belonged to him personally. "You give this tour to every freshman, or do I get a private one after?"

A few nervous laughs had echoed and one actual groan.

Charlotte hadn’t even broken stride... she’d looked him over once, slow enough to make the silence hurt.

"Public tour’s fine. I don’t do private ones for guys who flirt like their personality came free with a bottle of cologne and a failed Tinder subscription."

That one landed so clean Damon nearly respected the architecture for providing acoustics.

That was not a lie this time... worse than a lie!

It was a verdict, delivered flat and unhurried, with the accuracy like she had clearly met several hundred versions of this exact boy and filed every one of them under the same folder.

The guy’s ears went red enough to notice from the back of the group. He tried recovering with the standard rich-boy grin, the one that said I was joking anyway, which was usually code for please stop looking at me while I die.

Charlotte had already turned away.

There was a real difference between confidence and cologne.

Charlotte Ainsley had decided a long time ago that most people couldn’t tell them apart and stopped being gentle about pointing it out. She wasn’t against confidence but against the costume version of it, the guy who leaned, smirked ad talked to her like that in public as if she was there to entertain them, and expected a woman to reward him because he’d watched three pickup videos and bought cologne expensive enough to count as emotional support.

Bradley, the boy, had simply picked the worst possible man to be, in front of the worst possible audience.

He hadn’t stopped there either. Recovering from the laugh, grinning at the group like he was somehow in on his own humiliation, he’d added: "Come on, it’s a fair question. Half the guys in this school probably haven’t touched a woman since freshman orientation last year." He gestured loosely at the crowd. "No offense to anyone currently in that category."

More laughter and somebody clapped him on the shoulder.

Damon’s jaw had gone tight for exactly one second before he caught it, because that particular joke, if not aimed at nobody, landed on him like it had his name printed on it.

Twenty-four hours ago that sentence would’ve been a documentary of two years of a locked door and a phone screen and a body that had never once touched a woman who wasn’t imaginary, and here was Bradley Ashcroft III, a man who’d just been publicly filed under cologne and a failed Tinder subscription, making a joke about exactly the thing Damon still hadn’t fixed, currently keeping classified, six feet from the man saying it out loud to a laughing crowd.

’Careful, buddy. You have no idea how close you just got.’

The whole pack had laughed at Charlotte’s Tinder line properly too, openly, a few people actually turning toward one another like they couldn’t believe she’d said it. Bradley had tried recovering with a grin and shrug like he’d meant to lose, the universal move like he was absolutely not made to lose.

Damon knew who it was; Bradley Ashcroft the Third, obviously.

Bradley Ashcroft III.

Handsome, polished, rich enough that rejection probably felt like a clerical error.

He was known to be a notorious playboy in elite circles, with family money that usually bought him whatever he pointed at, which was exactly why he thought he was good with women.

Charlotte had just publicly disproven that theory in front of forty witnesses.

Damon didn’t have a problem with Bradley.

Damon needed him.

Bradley was about to become the key, which was the nicest thing anybody had thought about Bradley all day.

’Charlotte Ainsley.’

Even her name sounded professional, beautiful like her, strict; she definitely belonged on a forbidden door and possibly a warning label.

Damon had looked at her once, before he’d even caught the name, and known, the same way he’d known a certain bedroom door had been left open on purpose, that if he didn’t do something with this hour, he was going to miss something ugly and useful.

And he was not in the business of missing the hot mature women today.

Charlotte was in her early thirties with dark hair falling down her back in a straight in a glossy line with a really beautiful strict round face and a cute pointed chin that somehow made her look not only as a mature beauty but adorable too in the same breath:

Fuck him actually... those bright unusual green eyes sexy and otherworldly.

God, she was hot like a song that gets stuck in your head — except he wasn’t trying to get it out.

She had on a classic white long-sleeved shirt, buttoned just enough to stay professional and not enough to hide what sat under it — which felt personal to Damon.

Like she knew what she held and was very proud of herself, well, Damon was, so she had to be too.

The black mini skirt stopped scandalously high on her thigh, and those black over-the-knee socks hugged her legs so tight they left this clean, criminal strip of bare skin between hem and sock.

’Smooth. Untouchable.’

It was highlighted like it was begging for a highlighter pen and his full attention, both of which it got; willingly if not eagerly.

Her ass filled out that skirt like it had been measured, cut, and sewn onto her that morning by someone who knew exactly what they were doing to him.

Her ass was perky, soft, rounded — and when she walked it moved with this slow, deliberate confidence, like gravity worked harder for her than it did for the rest of him.

’Every step is like a small religious experience in my pants, gods.’

’And the shirt. The shirt is a war zone, and I am a very invested civilian.’

The white fabric pulled taut across her chest the buttons almost straining down the front.

Her tits sat high and heavy-looking; they were big, round it made the shirt’s front seams look like they were filing complaints and perfectly curved on top where the neckline dipped, perfectly curved underneath where the fabric lifted away from her ribs.

They didn’t just sit there, they presented...

Two generous handfuls more than handful really, they pushed up and pressed together into a deep, soft canyon of cleavage that opened wider every time she inhaled, then eased shut when she let the breath go.

’I have started timing my blinking around it.’

The bra under all that was black — he knew because the white cotton had no secrets left to keep.

Where the shirt stretched tightest, right over the fullest part of each tit’s curve, it went thin enough to show the dark lace underneath like a rumor everyone had heard. The underwire’s arc printed faintly through the shirt, cupping them from below, holding all that weight up in defiance of physics and common decency.

The straps cut little indentations over her shoulders while the center gore sat flat and smug right between them, keeping the peace and doing the Lord’s work.

And the cleavage itself was warm-toned skin disappearing into shadow, the inner curve of each breast pressed flush against the other, a soft seam so deep the second-from-top button didn’t even pretend to reach it. The gap in the placket gaped right there, a little keyhole showing a peek of lace and bare skin every time she leaned forward even slightly.

From the base of her throat all the way down to where the shirt tucked into the skirt’s waistband, it was all them. The shirt didn’t just cover her chest but framed it so smugly and obedient in Damon’s opinion.