Charlie was worried about people finding out Jane's identity. He seemed almost hysterically worried, to Jane. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that they needed to just come out with it. Camilla could cope. Camilla was the original reason for the secrecy, right? Jane couldn't really remember what her reasons had been.

"No! Jane, that's a terrible idea!" Charlie's concerned face filled the screen. It was after school, and Jane had the house to herself, so they were Face Timing, which Jane usually loved. "I told you about how Carla got death threats, right?"

Yeah, death threats, I remember," Jane said. "But look, I'm not a famous model or whatever, am I? I'm just a girl from New Jersey. I really don't think anyone will care.

"Just imagine, Charlie, not having to hide?" Jane said. She was eating Ben and Jerry's, straight from the carton, sitting in bed. "We could hire a horse and carriage and ride right up the middle of fucking Fifth Avenue. Well, you could hire it, I mean," she added, grinning.

"If it got out that you and I were involved, there would be paparazzi at your fucking school, in your back yard--" Charlie was nearly inarticulate, which Jane found so cute.

"Jesus, Charlie, I'd think you were trying to keep me a secret from your other girlfriend if I didn't know any better," she teased.

His face again filled the screen as he got close for emphasis. "That is so not funny! Can we please just agree to keep things under wraps until I have to go back to England? Please? We can revisit how to deal with all this then, all right?"

He also didn't want Jane to know that he'd recognized a photographer from one of England's most notorious tabloids in his hotel lobby the day before. The paper she worked for employed a writer, Donald Eversley, whose bread and butter was digging up dirt about all of his former bandmates, but him in particular, it seemed. Charlie was very uneasy about spotting the photog.

Jane sighed, taking another bite of her ice cream. "Fine. And sorry. Okay?"

"Okay. Good." He smiled, a little one. "And thank you." The thought of Jane at the mercy, not only of the paps, but his fans, scared him. She seemed as fragile as a baby bird to him, and utterly, blissfully unaware of how intrusive and obnoxious the world could be to the girlfriends of public figures.

Charlie put those nerve-racking thoughts aside for the moment. "So, I was thinking, about tomorrow?"

"Yeah?" Jane smiled. They were finally going to see each other, and not for fifteen minutes while she pretended to deliver coffee. For only the fourth time, Jane was going to sleep over, all night.

But then they didn't know when they'd see each other after that.

"I have a dinner I have to go with my team, a kind of wrap up of this year, and finalizing of things for next year," Charlie said. "I mean, the point is I'll have the car, so why don't I pick you up and we can do a little nighttime sightseeing? You know, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building and all that?" He smiled at the expression on her face. "So that's a 'yes', I take it?"

Jane nodded, her mouth full of ice cream. "Oh god, Charlie, that sounds like so much fun, thanks for thinking of it!" She beamed at him.

Charlie wished he could reach through the screen and touch her smile.

The next evening, Jane was waiting in her usual spot at Columbus Circle. It was very cold, but it was still teeming with people. New York City was a very popular Christmas vacation destination. Jane was wearing a sparkly black dress and heels, even though she knew they couldn't go out. She just wanted to look nice for what would most likely be their last time together, for a while, at least. A black SUV pulled up to the curb, and Jane ran toward it, jumping in as the door opened. She threw her bag in the bag and lunged onto Charlie, who laughed happily as he pulled her close.

"You got your hair cut!" Jane exclaimed with surprise. She stroked his black hair, which was still long, just not as shaggy.

"Yeah, I couldn't during filming,
but it was getting a bit wooly, you know? This looks better for TV," he said, rolling his eyes at her.

"You look really nice," Jane said, nodding at him.

"And you look simply outstanding, wow!" Charlie exclaimed, pulling her onto his lap. "Let's get this coat off so I can see you properly, hm?" He tossed her coat over his shoulder and leaned in to kiss her neck, moving up to her mouth, enjoying having her so close, finally.

Jane finally broke the kiss. She leaned over from her place on Charlie's lap and pushed the button that closed the privacy screen between them and the driver. Charlie grinned as she turned back to him.

"Ooh, is the girl from New Jersey feeling a bit randy?" he asked, sliding his hands up her thighs.

"You have no idea, Mr. McAllister," she said with a laugh. In one quick motion she pulled the dress off, so she was sitting on his legs in nothing but her underwear. In the dark car, with nothing but the city's nighttime lights shining in, her pale skin seemed to glow.

Charlie's eyes widened in appreciation and he slid his hands up her body, reveling in how she felt under his hands.

Jane smiled mischievously as she deftly undid his pants, prodding him to lift his hips so she could slide everything down.

"Now what?" he asked her, feigning curiosity.

"Now I'm going to fuck your brains out," she responded, her words making him start to throb with anticipation.

She reached back and unhooked her bra, baring herself to him, knowing it pleased him.

He leaned in wordlessly, attacking her breasts with his mouth. She leaned back so her head rested on the privacy screen, grasping his hair firmly, the sound of her moans filling the car.

"Jesus, Charlie, fuck, harder, harder," she encouraged him. "Mm, bite me, bite me--"

Charlie had never heard Jane talk like this. It astonished him.

It was also sexy as fuck.

He groaned, wrapping an arm around her back to brace himself. He could feel how hard her nipples were getting in his mouth, as he rolled them on his tongue. "I want to see you--" he muttered, reaching over his head to turn on the light.

Jane was on his lap, legs spread, with her head tilted back in abandon. Her nipples, only slightly darker than her lips, were engorged, swollen from Charlie sucking on them for so long. She took a deep breath, moving her ribcage up and down, and watching that almost made Charlie come. He could see how wet she was right through her underwear, he could smell the faint scent she gave off, and it made him crazy.

"Bloody fucking Jesus, Jane," he said softly.

Jane lifted her head and saw him, saw where he was looking. She hooked her undies with her finger, pulling them to the side so he could see her. Then she grasped him firmly, rising slightly, rubbing his velvety soft tip against herself where she was already slippery, nearly dripping.

Charlie couldn't take it any more and he drove up into her, hard, making her hit her head on the ceiling of the car.

"Oops, sorry," he said with a soft laugh. "You okay?"

Jane just nodded, and Charlie grasped her at her hips, turning them so she was lying down. The seat was narrow, so Jane hooked her long leg over the headrest, giving him plenty of room to drive into her, over and over, making her hips jerk each time.

The rhythmic sounds of them coming together filled the back of the car, and Jane wondered if people could see in, or if Tony could hear them.

Charlie saw her looking at the privacy screen. "Sound resistant," he reassured her.

Jane lowered her other leg so her high-heel clad foot rested on the floor, changing the angles a little, and Charlie found he could get even farther inside her than before.

"Oh god, this feels amazing, fucking incredible," he murmured against her mouth. He felt her nodding wordlessly. He also felt her come for over a minute, getting impossibly taut on him, relaxing slightly, then tightening again, over and over, while her breath hitched in her throat.

She finally relaxed under him, feeling a little looser, and knowing  he'd done that for her, he'd made her come for that long, made Charlie come, too, hard, plowing into her with such force that he moved her up the seat so she hit her head on the door.

He kissed her, smiling, making Jane want to cry at how much she loved him, his smile, the fact that he was inside her, all of it. He sat up, flipping off the light, and they pulled their clothes back on.

It turned out that Tony had been driving around to all the sights while they'd been otherwise engaged in the car, which Jane found hilarious. Charlie asked Tony to start over, so they could see what they'd missed, and this time they stood with their coats on, sticking up out of the sunroof, feeling the freezing wind on their faces as they enjoyed the Chrysler Building, the glittering financial district, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty, among other landmarks.

When they finally decided they were through and were heading back towards Times Square, Jane turned to Charlie saying, "Thank you, so much, for everything. The last couple of months have been the best of my life, I want you to know."

Charlie looked at the pale, skinny creature who had bewitched him. Her cheeks were ruddy from the cold, her lips were a similar color from him, and he knew that, under her dress, so was her body, and just thinking about that made him want her all over again, which found incredible and marvelous.

"I should be thanking you, darling Jane," he said seriously. "You can't even imagine how horrible my life was." He smoothed her hair away from her face and gave her a soft kiss on her lovely mouth. "It was a cesspool. Then I met you, and now it's not," he said simply.

He pulled her into his body and they rode the rest of the way to his hotel in silence.