Considering he himself was married, Carlisle had no right to be jealous. This is what he told himself. Over and over and over again as if by repeating it enough time he could make it a fact. He had to be up to a hundred and eighty times by now, and it definitely didn't change the feeling of jealousy curling hard and deep in his stomach.
It wasn't that Charlie didn't have a right to converse freely with whomever he chose. Carlisle just wished he wouldn't stand so close to that Clearwater woman. Or any woman. Better yet, any person at all.
All right, maybe that was a little dramatic. But… if that woman touched his arm one more time while laughing and tossing her hair in that particular way that screamed "fuck me", there was no telling what Carlisle would do. Carlisle sneered and mimicked her, tossing his head back in that "sexy" way before remembering that, hello, he was in a crowded room. Ergo, he should not be trying to mockingly impersonate the little harlot. At some human's disturbed glance, he wanted to kick himself, but that would be socially awkward.
He tried to remember all the reasons why he hadn't bitten a human without good reason for hundreds of years, but it was getting harder and harder. Besides, wasn't this a good reason? People—especially people affiliated with the Quileutes—weren't supposed to come anywhere near his territory. And damn him if she wasn't getting even closer.
Carlisle took a deep breath and loosened his grip on his champagne glass when he heard the glass crackling a little bit. Thankfully not too many people could see him losing his mind in this dark corner as everyone danced around him. His family, too, were mercifully caught up with the newlyweds and paying him no mind. Perhaps Esme would wonder where he had gone at some point, but tonight, there was no room in his mind for Esme.
Okay. Breathe. It was probably nothing, right? Charlie showed him on numerous occasions his loyalty and devotion, and if last night's antics had been any indication, then he certainly wasn't going anywhere and leaving Carlisle behind.
So let him talk to this Clearwater woman, even if she reeked of wet dog, had bad hair, crooked teeth, and a vapid mind. Breathe, he reminded himself. And look at that dress she was wearing. Talk about cheap, ill-fitting, and tacky. A woman who looked like that had no right to be hanging from the arm of such a dashing man as Charlie, he seethed. Breathe.
Except wait, he didn't need to. Carlisle sighed and angled his gaze back to the family table. Alice was fluttering about taking pictures of Bella and Edward, and Emmett was telling a story that had Bella looking playfully disgusted. Jasper sat. That was all. Esme was talking to Bella's mom—girl talk, from what he could hear, and quickly tuned it out. He had gotten enough of that from Alice the past few days. He couldn't see Rosalie, but imagined she was messing with all the human boys she could find, as had become her latest hobby.
With the images of his happy family before him, pleasant music, and the boisterous atmosphere, Carlisle calmed down a little bit (but set his champagne glass down just in case).
But when he chanced a look back at where Charlie and Clearwater had been talking, he found them not there. And then he panicked. The panic and jealousy flared up like oil on a fire and he scanned the crowd intently.
There. Of all the injustices of the world. He had been able to handle to Volturi and their odd ways, some involving tying him upside down from the ceiling and making him sing. (No one but Carlisle knew just how bizarre the Volturi could get when they didn't get enough food and entertainment.) He had been able to handle being assaulted by flapper girls the first—and only—time he had been to a city in the twenties. He had been able to handle being hunted down by the local sheriff on suspicion of being a Communist in the fifties. He had been also been able to handle the embarrassment of tripping on a rock and falling face first in the wet sand as he had been visiting the Quileute on the matter of the treaty.
But this was a slight that pierced him deeply and that would not be easily forgiven. He was about to start forward and—
"Carlisle, you don't want to do that," Jasper said, holding him back by his elbow. Carlisle turned sharply and glared down at his adopted son.
"I could feel your anger all the way from the table. It's just one dance. Nothing to freak out over."
"What would you do if you saw Alice draped all over some other guy? One who runs with the Wet Shaggy Dog Crew?"
"You should just calm down…" Jasper began, tactfully ignoring Carlisle's jab at his wife. Carlisle scoffed and shook his head.
"How can I sit here and watch that female creature cling to my Charlie?" he said, starting out angrily but ending up whining. He looked briefly away from Jasper to the dancing couple and let out a growl of rage. Now, as if to rub as much salt in the wound as the Romans had ground into Carthage, she was pressed up close against him, hanging off his neck like some kind of slutty lemur, or whatever the hell those monkeys were called that hung around people's necks.
Now he did start forward, angrily charging through the crowd and dislodging happily drunken guests. With zero regard for the Clearwater woman, Carlisle reached out and grabbed Charlie by the arm, hauling him out of her siren clutches.
"He's mine, Circe," he snapped quietly, probably not loudly enough for her to hear. She stared at hi with big, stupid, shocked brown eyes, mouth agape. He wanted to reach out and close it for her, tell her she looked like an idiot, but just as he opened his mouth to verbally flay her, the tables were turned, and Charlie seized him by the arm, dragging him away.
Charlie didn't lessen his grip until they reached the bottom of the staircase in the living room.
"What do you think you're doing?" he growled angrily, and Carlisle almost felt guilty before anger and jealousy flared up in him again.
"You can't just waltz onto a dance floor and pull someone away from his partner." Charlie sounded really, really mad, but Carlisle was having none of it. He took hold of Charlie by the shoulders and shoved him up against the stair rail.
"You can't just waltz onto a dance floor with some wolf-loving harlot making eyes at you when you belong to someone else," he said, and he may have growled at the end.
"Is that what this is about? You're jealous? I can't dance with one woman whose husband just died without you flipping out? And since when do you own me?" he demanded, voice rising in volume.
Instead of continuing an argument that would get neither of them anywhere, Carlisle lunged forward and violently kissed him. He had just managed to get a tongue into Charlie's mouth when he was shoved away.
"A kiss isn't going to make it any better," Charlie snapped, panting. "You can't just do something like that and expect me to be okay with it."
"Charlie," he whined. "She was all over you. I'm the one you take every opportunity to sleep with, remember?" he begged.
Charlie looked like he might be coming round, but then shook his head.
"You had no right—"
All right. If Charlie wanted to try to argue, fine, but Carlisle wasn't standing for any of it. He wedged a leg between Charlie's, pressing hard into his crotch and drawing out a loud, low moan.
"Carlisle," he pleaded, but Carlisle shut him up with another kiss, not any gentler. This time, however, Charlie invitingly opened his mouth beneath Carlisle's, and allowed an extra tongue to join his. But the kiss did not last long before Carlisle, against any better judgement he may have had on any other day, kissed his way hungrily down Charlie's neck, biting at the soft, warm flesh the whole way down to his collarbone.
When he was met with obstructive clothing, he shoved it aside, pulling off the black tie, the suit jacket, and starched white shirt in a hurry, trying to cover as much skin with his mouth as he could. Fingers tugging at his hair brought his head up, however.
Charlie shuddered when he saw the look in Carlisle's eyes, but swallowed his exhilaration and gasped, "We should move somewhere else."
So Carlisle, attempting to keep his lips glued to Charlie's, shoved him upstairs and down the hall, pushing him into the first room they got to. As soon as he kicked the door shut behind them, he had Charlie hard against it and was grinding down against his hips urgently.
"Never," he gasped desperately to the sound of Charlie's moaning, "let anyone touch you like that." That would ordinarily have sounded very threatening indeed, and Charlie ordinarily would have smacked him, but it sounded so needy and so hot that he let it slide. He would let anything slide in his current state. He could even agree to Beatrice moving in and becoming a surrogate housewife while Bella was gone.
He paused a moment. No, not even Carlisle could skew his judgement that badly.
"You're mine," Carlisle whispered, head against Charlie's shoulder, hands gripping his hips painfully enough to leave bruises, hips still moving roughly against his.
"Yours," Charlie echoed in a gasp, sliding his hands through Carlisle's soft hair. It was completely dark where they were, he just realised, so he couldn't push Carlisle to some horizontal surface so they could screw properly. Damn.
But as Carlisle bucked against him, harder and harder, building up, he thought that yes, this would suffice. Carlisle, though it was dark, found all the spots on his body that drove him crazy—just behind and below his ear, a particular place on his collarbone, his right nipple… Any insane behaviour Carlisle had exhibited earlier was forgotten and forgiven.
With a cry that was surely too loud for their own good, Carlisle shuddered violently one last time and then fell forward against Charlie. Charlie moved his hands so that he was holding Carlisle up, lovingly smoothing them up and down his back. Charlie rocked hard against him until he came as well, falling against the door in a boneless slump.
They both knew that they should get cleaned up and rejoin civilisation, but Charlie was so warm in his arms, and Carlisle was so sweetly exhausted, head nestled against his shoulder, that neither had the heart to move except to stumble around in the dark until they found a horizontal surface and collapsed onto it. Charlie fell asleep, and Carlisle, into a happy stupor.
xXxXx
Light poured into the room, and Carlisle sat up, staring blearily at the slender form in the doorway. He shook Charlie awake in a panic upon realising who it was.
"When I said get a room," Bella said in a strangely calm, high-pitched voice, "I did not mean my room!"
Thanks to happykid for the idea of a jealous Carlisle. I'm extremely busy this year, so updates won't be frequent, but trust me, there will be updates. I won't abandon this story any time soon.