SMITH (The Beckett Boys, Book One)

by Olivia Chase

A few moments later, the window opened. “You need to leave,” Caeli called down to me.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You should go, Zack.”

  “I’ll go,” I said, “but first I just want to see you. Just a minute, Caeli, and then if you still want me to leave, I will.”

  “No, Zack. Just forget it, I’m not speaking to you.”

  The window shut.

  I looked up and waited for her to reappear but she didn’t.

  I thought about leaving, since it was very obvious that Caeli wanted not part of me after what had gone down between us. And I couldn’t blame her one bit.

  But I also wasn’t ready to give up. I stood there, not moving. I remembered my time in basic training, how there were days where we would march and march until people around me were dropping like flies.

  I would never drop. I didn’t then and I wouldn’t now.

  I would do what I did whenever things got tough, and just suck it up and stick it out.

  Standing completely still, a strange sense of peace came over me. I remembered my brothers in arms, their faces, the ones we’d lost…and I smiled a little. My mind floated back to that earlier time, basic training before we’d been shipped overseas.

  Everyone had looked so young. Maybe it was just innocence. The laughter, playing cards, shooting the shit, even the arguments—what I wouldn’t have given to have my friends back and alive and my side once again.

  My feet never moved, my spine stayed straight. Standing there as if at attention, I imagined my drill sergeant screaming in my face. If I gave up and walked away now, I was just dropping, quitting on what I believed.

  And what I believed in was Caeli Powers. I wanted to see her again, talk to her again, tell her the truth.

  I wasn’t sure how much time went by, maybe an hour, maybe more. All I knew was that eventually the front door opened and she was standing in front of me, looking more beautiful than I even remembered.

  She was wearing light pajama pants and a Boston University t-shirt, her hair pulled back. Her big eyes watched me with caution as she shivered and rubbed her arms.

  “Zack, what are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m waiting,” I answered.

  “For what?”

  “You,” I said simply.

  She shook her head. “There’s no point. I’m sorry, but it’s just…I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  “I have something to say,” I told her.

  She bit her lower lip, sexy as hell, and looked down. “I don’t think I want to hear it.”

  “Maybe you’re afraid you’ll feel something if you actually listen to me,” I replied.

  When she looked up, her expression was furious. “You’ve been drinking. Tomorrow after you’ve slept it off--”

  “Listen to me, Caeli,” I said. “I know that the way I treated you before was wrong, but I’m going to show you it can be different. Just give me one day. One more day and let me prove—“

  “No,” she said, glaring.

  I moved towards her, walking up the steps. “Then just give me one last kiss,” I said.

  She stared up at me, her lower jaw trembling with emotion, and I couldn’t help but reach out and caress her chin with my thumb.

  “Zack,” she whispered, her eyes looking watery suddenly. “You can’t just toy with people.”

  “I’m not playing with you, I swear. Give me one day to prove it.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Come back tomorrow.” She stepped back to close the door and I blocked it with my foot. I pushed it open.

  “I want my goodnight kiss,” I told her.

  She stared at me, her plush lips glistening. “Fine, one kiss,” she said. “But that’s it, and I’m serious.”

  “I’m serious too,” I replied, and then I leaned in, my hands instinctively grabbing her around the waist as our lips finally met once more.

  I felt like I’d been waiting my entire life for this moment, felt like I finally had a grip on the first real thing I’d found since God knew when.

  I didn’t want to let her go, and as I felt her melting into me, our lips searched more intently, our tongues meeting, intertwining as our bodies pressed closer still.

  When we pulled away, she swallowed. “Want to come upstairs?” she asked, her voice softer.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  CAELI

  He slid inside me again, both of us groaning as his enormity fit between my legs.

  We were in my bedroom, lying in my bed together, and Zack’s naked body was on top of me as I spread myself for him, opening to him.

  Our bodies were slick with sweat.

  My nipples were hard and covered with his saliva. He’d licked and sucked them for so long, until I’d cried out for him.

  And then his mouth had been between my legs, his tongue effortlessly stroking me, making me come.

  Now that he was fucking me, I shuddered with emotion and pleasure. His body felt even better than I remembered it, and all I could do was hold onto him, let him take me wherever he would take me.

  My hands roamed across the hot flesh of his muscular torso, watching in awe as the glistening ink on his chest and shoulders rippled as his muscles contracted and released, contracted and released while he fucked me, making me cry out.

  His hips pumped into me, our skin slapping.

  The air smelled of our sex, and I’d never been more relaxed and yet also in such a heightened state of awareness. It was as if every detail my eyes and ears and nose took in was magnified.

  “Oh, Zack,” I cried out, as his wet cock popped inside me and stroked, then retreated briefly, teasing me. “Oh shit, I’m going to come soon,” I told him, reaching out and grabbing his shoulders.

  He slid back inside me with a low groan that emanated deep from his throat. His eyelids fluttered closed as he began pumping faster now.

  I could feel him throbbing, his shaft expanding as the intensity between us grew hotter.

  “Shit,” he growled.

  He crashed down on top of me with his full weight and I wrapped my legs all the way around him so that my feet were crossed over his clenched buttocks. My fingernails scratched his skin as I felt him penetrate so deep that the pressure was exquisite.

  I was coming now, and I hugged him to my body as he thrust inside me, exploding, his entire body rigid as he emptied everything into me.

  “I’m taking it all,” I whispered in his ear.

  “You’re taking everything I have,” he whispered back, and then his lips were covering mine, drinking in my air.

  We completed a circle, my air into his lungs, his cock releasing everything inside my pussy, which contracted and clenched him and sucked him dry.

  We laid together like that a long time, and I’d never felt so close to another human being before.

  Then he finally withdrew and slid himself out between my legs, but remained close, stroking my hair and looking into my eyes.

  “That was amazing,” I said.

  He smiled. “You’re so different from everyone and everything else in this world,” he said. “I don’t understand how I ever found you.”

  I felt my skin flush. “I’m just like anyone else.”

  “No,” he replied, shaking his head subtly. “You’re not.”

  I turned away, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze, even though my heart was racing happily in my chest. I loved the way he felt next to me, the way he made me feel when he looked at me with his eyes.

  “What changed?” I asked, finally. “When I was at your apartment you seemed like you didn’t think much of me.”

  Zack sighed and leaned back, his chest rising and falling, still beaded with cooling sweat from our lovemaking. “I’m a very fucked up person, Caeli.”

  I looked at him. “Everyone’s fucked up,” I said.

  “Not like me.”

  “How are you so much worse?”

  He turned
his head and grinned a little at me. “I want to tell you,” he said. “And I will soon. But can we just enjoy this moment together? I don’t want to ruin it talking about my life.”

  I turned onto my elbow and stroked his bare chest with my fingertips, tracing the lines of his tattoos. I knew that the flag and gun and the eagle with the tombstone told part of his story, but it wasn’t time to ask yet.

  He was getting closer but he wasn’t ready right now. I decided I could be patient, even as my stomach twisted uneasily when I wondered just what was so horrible that he’d been avoiding it like this.

  But for now, I needed to listen to him and just enjoy this time we were spending together. Enjoy the comfort, the safety, the way he looked at me.

  The way we looked at each other. “I feel strangely close to you right now,” I admitted.

  Zack nodded, his expression serious. “I know. I feel the same way.”

  “Is it real, though?”

  “Yes,” he replied, as if he knew.

  “You told me to give you a day,” I said, laying my chin on his chest now. “That means the clock already started ticking when you came upstairs.”

  “That’s true,” he chuckled. “Which means I still have over twenty hours left. Not bad.”

  “It goes fast,” I reminded him.

  He put a thumb on my cheek and caressed it softly, giving me chills. “Everything goes fast in this life.”

  I sighed, knowing he was right—and knowing that he was talking about so much more than this night, this day together, more even than about just him and I.

  I snuggled into him and he held me close, sliding his body around mine, and then we were drifting together.

  “I’m going to hold you like this every night for the rest of my life,” he whispered into my ear, softly.

  Or was it a dream? I’d been falling asleep and I couldn’t be sure.

  Everything was liquid, there was no solidity and I was floating, breaking apart as the darkness took me.

  I knew that somehow, somewhere I was happy and smiling and safe.

  But I just wished I knew if it was real.

  ***

  That morning, we got up around the same time as one another, and our routines were strangely easy and synchronized, like a couple that had been together for years and had those special rhythms and ways of doing things that just fit together.

  There was no awkwardness, no fear of him seeing me without my makeup or my hair done.

  He used the shower first while I went and put the coffee on, and then he came out of the shower in just a towel, looking hot as ever, and I went by and he gave my butt a playful slap as I passed.

  I squealed and then continued on my way into the bathroom and had a nice hot shower myself. When I was done, and changed and freshened up for the day, I found Zack sipping coffee and looking out the window, his legs crossed, looking oddly calm and serene.

  I made my own cup of coffee and then sat nearby and sipped at it, feeling warm inside. After a bit, Zack reached over and grabbed my legs and swung my bare feet onto his lap. He sipped his coffee with one hand and then rubbed my feet with his other hand.

  “I wish I could wake up like this every morning,” I said, moaning with pleasure.

  “You can,” he replied.

  “Sure,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “You think I wouldn’t rub your feet every morning?”

  “That’s right,” I replied, smirking.

  “Then you don’t know me very well.”

  My grin faded. I didn’t know him very well, and I knew that he had secrets, things he didn’t want to tell me about his life.

  All of this normalcy, the way we were behaving together—it was all just a mirage.

  It was going to disintegrate so fast, as soon as the real world intruded.

  Zack seemed to sense my change of heart, as I pulled my feel from his lap.

  “I’ve got something fun for us to do today,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked, turning away so he couldn’t see the sadness in my eyes.

  “We’re going into the city. So get ready, we should hit the road soon.”

  I looked at him as I stood up, and he glanced at me in return. His green eyes were so kind and soft, and I wanted it all to be true.

  I wanted to ask him when the next heartbreak would come. Just warn me and then I can at least prepare myself, I thought. I don’t want to be surprised when you run away from me—when you eventually reject me as you certainly will.

  But then I just smiled, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m ready now,” I said. “I’ll just get my shoes on.”

  “You do that,” he said. “I’m going to finish my coffee.”

  I went to the bedroom and grabbed my flats, assuming we’d be walking around the city—I didn’t want to navigate cobblestone streets in heels.

  And I found tears stirring behind my eyes but I blinked them back.

  ***

  We took a cab to the T station and then waited for the train to take us into the city. Zack held my hand and when a very frustrated middle-aged woman showed up at the stop, yelling into her cell phone at some unknown offending person, Zack started pretending to be the person on the other line.

  Zack was reacting to her comments as if he was a henpecked husband, crumbling under her brutal questioning. Every time she spoke into the phone, he would answer in my ear with a hysterically whiny voice that sounded nothing like him.

  He was so funny and almost bizarrely believable at his acting that I began to laugh so hard the woman turned and shot us a glare that might have killed us.

  Surely, it was intended to do so.

  We turned away from her and laughed all the harder.

  The train came soon after the two of us sat next to one another, still holding hands as the scenery passed by us outside.

  He was so different then he’d first seemed. Like an altogether new person. No, that wasn’t quite right.

  He wasn’t totally new. It was more like he was so fully real and present and…normal…that I thought something had to be wrong.

  Because I also knew that he fought other large men for a living—fought them in backyards and who knew where else. Punched strangers until they fell down.

  Had tattoos and a mysterious past and people chasing him.

  Yet here we were, together on a train heading into Boston, and Zack was laughing and joking, his green eyes bright and alive and warm with affection for me.

  It couldn’t be true and yet it felt so incredible that I refused to allow the dream to end. I was just going to hang onto it for dear life.

  The train let us off in the heart of Boston and we wandered over to Kenmore Square. The day was bright and sunny and students were wandering the streets, as were the office workers and the hipsters on their phones, carrying laptops and tablets, groups of students walking together.

  Zack’s hand never left mine.

  “Hungry?” he asked, and I admitted I was.

  We went to a nearby little hole in the wall bar that served incredible sandwiches, and we sat in a small booth by the window and ate sandwiches and chips and I chomped happily on a pickle.

  “What next?” I asked, as I saw him checking the time on his phone.

  “Who says there’s something next?”

  “I know you’ve got something planned, Zack,” I said, playing with the little toothpick that had once been stuck in my sandwich, poking the last bit of my pickle with it.

  “Maybe I do,” he said, “but I’m not telling you what it is. Come on, let’s go pickle girl.”

  “I’m not pickle girl!” I said, slapping playfully at his shoulder.

  He slid out of the booth and offered his hand. I felt myself suddenly blush, because for a moment I felt like Cinderella with my Prince Charming, which I knew was completely ridiculous.

  I allowed him to take my hand and help me out of the booth. We walked out of the bar, arm in arm, and he slowed down his stride to match me as
we continued towards the big CITGO sign looming overhead.

  When we were outside Fenway Park, Zack stopped and haggled with a thin guy who sported a heavy five o’clock shadow. He got us two tickets behind home plate and paid the man from his stack of cash.

  As we walked away, I grabbed his arm. “You didn’t need to pay so much!” I cried.

  “It’s just money,” Zack said, turning his head towards me now. His eyes were so solid, so soft, and I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I looked away.

  “I would’ve been happy up in the bleachers.”

  “With those animals?” he said, grinning. “My girl deserves better than that.”

  I bit my lip so hard I nearly drew blood.

  His girl?

  He just called me his girl. Was it an accident? Is he teasing me?

  I tried to catch my breath, but this whole change in demeanor was so strange, and I didn’t know if I could trust it. In fact, I was fairly certain I couldn’t trust it at all. But I wanted to, I needed to.

  Everything with Zack felt so good, so right. His body, his mind, the way he talked, the sound of his voice, the curve of his lips when he smiled…

  We went into the stadium and found our seats. The game was just about to start, but Zack managed to wrangle us a couple of sodas and a pretzel to share—not that I needed anymore food.

  But it was fun to sit close to him, his arm around me, warming me as the air was just chill enough to make me shiver without his body heat.

  We sipped our drinks, nibbled on our pretzel, and cheered for Boston in a game that was fairly eventful.

  The pitchers didn’t perform well on the day, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because there were lots of hits, a few home runs, and the crowd was on its feet consistently.

  Zack was standing up, whistling, cheering, clapping.

  When a song played over the loudspeakers, he would sing loud along with everyone else.

  I kept looking at him, unable to process what I was seeing. At one point, he turned and looked at me. “What’s with you?” he said, nudging me with his elbow.

  “Nothing. I just can’t figure out if I’m with a stunt double for Zack Wild.”

  “That’s fucked up,” he said, shaking his head but laughing.