“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered, and bent to kiss his bearded chin. “It will be different this time, I promise. I’ll talk, and no one will split us up. Not my silence, and not Juanita either.”
***
Normally, Bekka wasn’t a breakfast person, and neither was Corey. But by the time they crawled out of bed, both were ravenous. They would both be late opening their shops today, thanks to their all night sex session.
Corey was an excellent cook, from his summers spent helping his father in the family restaurant, before his parents divorced when he was seventeen. After the split, Corey had stayed with his dad in Ontario. Bekka hadn’t had a chance to meet Paul Varkov before he’d passed away from lung cancer.
Corey whistled to the tunes he had playing on her stereo. He’d picked her favorite Scorpions CD, and Bekka smiled as Rock You Like a Hurricane pumped through the speakers. He turned as she entered the kitchen, smiling as he scrambled a large bowl of eggs in his old robe.
“Good morning, darling.” He leaned forward to plant a kiss on her lips as she stepped up on tiptoe in front of him. “Tired? Hungry?”
She returned his devastatingly handsome smile. “Yes and yes. I might leave the shop closed today and sleep all afternoon.”
He laughed as he poured the eggs into a frying pan and buttered some toast that had just popped. “Wish I could do the same.” He mock scowled at her as he set the toast on the table, along with a plate of bacon. “I’ve got some customers scheduled for this afternoon, so I can grab an hour or two of sleep before I have to open, though. Damn.” Corey turned suddenly, egg flipper raised in his hand. “You didn’t happen to put my clothes in the dryer last night, did you?”
Bekka bit her bottom lip and looked at him sheepishly as she poured herself a coffee. “I don’t have a dryer in the apartment, babe. I go next door, to the small laundromat there.” She pointed out the window, across the short alley, to a sign that read Suds N Duds.
“Shit.” Corey slapped a hand against his forehead. “I hope Jamie came home last night from his partying with the boys. I need him to bring some clothes on over if I want to get back to my place without getting arrested for indecency.” He opened his robe just enough for her to see his naked, taut form through the slit.
Bekka slid her hand inside the parting in the cloth and wrapped her grip around his cock. She felt the shaft twitch in her hand and she grinned. “I can get dressed and run over. Did you have your keys on you last night?”
Corey handed her the egg flipper and walked over to where his damp jeans sat in a pile on the edge of the kitchen floor. While Bekka checked the eggs, he rifled through the pockets, letting out a triumphant “Ahah!” when he found his apartment keys and held them up for her to see.
She took them from his long, outstretched fingers. “I’ll go slip into some jeans and a shirt and pop on over.” Bekka untied the sash of her robe and she let the silky material fall to the carpet in the hall as she walked to the bedroom in search of clothes.
Corey emitted a low growl at her nakedness and the way she purposefully swished her ass to tease him. Bekka heard him coming behind her as she crossed the threshold of her master suite. Before she could pull out something to wear, he pinned her to the bed and tasted her freshly showered skin, trailing lower to her pussy. He ate her greedily, teasing her inside with urgent strokes against her g-spot from probing fingers, twirling his skilled tongue over her throbbing clit in delicious patterns until she came yet again.
***
Chapter 7
Just as Bekka gathered up a pair of jeans and a tank top from Corey’s closet, his smartphone rang. He had forgotten it on the coffee table when he showed up at her place last night, and now it vibrated across the shiny wooden surface. She sighed and rolled her eyes. Well, I’ll leave it. It isn’t mine, after all. The thought caused a slight pain in her gut—a twitch of loneliness.
As Bekka made her way toward his bedroom to grab some clothes, the phone chimed and vibrated again. She couldn’t help herself this time, and she flipped it over to take a peek. A text message waited from someone named Gwen. That surge of gut-sickening jealous returned, and she gave into the impulse to read the message.
Gwen: Hey, Corey. Got your number from Juanita. Had a great time on our date. Was wondering if you’d like to get together again? Miss you.
There was a phone number also.
Now the jealousy and hurt burned in Bekka’s gut and throat like bitter acid. Angrily, she punched a button and erased the message. Then she slammed the phone down where she’d found it.
She made her way into the bedroom and yanked clothes off hangers and out of drawers, gathering Corey a fresh outfit. Then she stomped back into the living room.
Bekka sat beside the scattered clothes on the couch and rested her chin in her hands, propping her elbows on her knees. Once again, Juanita seemed to rear her meddlesome head.
It wasn’t that Corey’s step-mother wasn’t a good woman with a kind heart, but she had a problem with acting rashly, inconsiderately. Her mouth ran off before she thought sometimes. Bekka got along with Juanita, for the most part, but it was her clingy, meddlesome tendency, and enduring those characteristics while sharing a home with the woman, that had driven Bekka and Corey apart.
Now, Juanita knew that Corey had come to the city with more than just the goal of expanding his tattoo business. He had sent her, after all, to Moncton to Bekka’s book shop to spy on her. Yet his step-mom was once again meddling by giving Corey’s phone number to some old fling—or, perhaps a new fling.
Why would she do such a thing? Bekka chewed on her lip as she rose from the couch and gathered Corey’s clothes in her arms. Walking to the kitchen, she found a plastic bag in a dispenser next to the fridge and slipped the garments in.
Bekka had always wondered if Juanita really liked her or not. She had initially been the one to introduce Bekka and Corey, when Bekka was working in a coffee shop-cum-souvenir-store in Ontario. Back then, Juanita and Bekka had been great friends, despite their over twenty-year age difference.
But as soon as Bekka became Corey’s girlfriend, things changed between her and Juanita. While they were still good friends, Juanita became less trustworthy of Bekka. Where she had once praised Bekka for her feisty, individual spirit and independent mind, Juanita suddenly became suspicious of Bekka’s strength as a woman.
Comments were uttered about Bekka’s lack of a “domestic streak,” and her “unique nature,” that Corey still didn’t know Bekka had overheard, while he and Juanita were having coffee one morning, just after Corey and Bekka had moved in with her.
“Are you sure she is what you want, kiddo?”
The question, filled with doubt and uttered by Juanita, still caused a sharp pang in Bekka’s heart. She re-experienced that feeling of betrayal all over again.
“Of course, Mom.” Corey had put his coffee cup down too hard and he cursed when coffee sloshed over the sides. “You know that I’ve always been pretty damned unique, as you put it, too. I love Bekka, and we connect like no one I have ever been with. She’s everything to me. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“I just hope you don’t regret it down the road.”
Juanita’s suspicions toward Bekka had been like a cruel slap in the face. When the two women had met through Bekka’s uncle, Juanita had been so kind to her. Despite their age differences, and life differences, the two had gotten along very well, and Juanita had commented more than once on Bekka maturity and sharp intellect, and how well she’d be suited for her step-son, Corey.
“He’s into almost everything that you are, Bekka.”
Bekka still remembered the conversation over her afternoon break in the shop, when Juanita had come in to have coffee with her Uncle Gary. Juanita, only widowed two years at the time, had been casually seeing Bekka’s uncle at the time.
“Heavy music, horror, tattoos…in fact, he’s thinking about taking up a tattoo apprenticeship since the accident.” Bekka
remembered the sadness in the older woman’s eyes.
She’d been hesitant to meet Corey at first. Bekka hated set ups, and she was no relationship guru. She’d grown up an awkward tomboy, raised by her father in Pincher Creek, Alberta, surrounded by rough-and-tumble farm boy cousins. She was one of six girls in her extended family of uncles, aunts, and cousins.
At five-foot-six and just over one hundred-twenty pounds, Bekka was a firm yet woman. Her body was used to hard work after years of helping her dad on her uncle’s farm. She was used to physical labor, and she craved that outlet to this day, either through a workout in the room she’d set aside as a small gym in the apartment, or a walk through the city on a warm spring day.
Her sculpted face, handed down from her Germanic and Celtic blood, had a strength to it that showed the scars of her life. She was no wilting flower, and at first Juanita had seemed to respect her for that, but after living with her over a three year period with Corey, she saw a side to Juanita that left Bekka distrustful of people, fearful of giving too much of herself, and feeling betrayed. Bekka walked out the door after a huge blowout between her, Corey, and Juanita locked her heart up tight, and while rebuilding her life in Moncton, she nursed this wound lashed upon her broken soul.
Bekka took one last look around the kitchen, locked Corey’s door, and moved out on to the concrete landing as she pulled the door shut behind her and tossed his keys into the plastic bag with his clothes.
***
After the big blow up that ended Bekka and Corey’s relationship, Juanita had come to where Bekka was staying with a friend to apologize.
“Please come back, Bekka,” she’d begged, tears streaking her mascara down her apple-round cheeks. “He’s lost without you.” She bent her head and swallowed before she continued, “He even tried…something, stupid.”
Bekka had guessed what that “something stupid” was. Corey had tried to take his own life after she’d left him. The thought made a cold fist of fear tighten in her stomach, and she’d agreed to come and see him.
Bekka had tried to tentatively patch things between her and Corey, but that tension left by the bitter words said between the three of them could never be relieved. It hung in the air, cloying and choking, especially between Bekka and Juanita when they were alone. Corey started treating his step-mom different. He was short and sharp with her. The tension mounted, and Corey confided his sole purpose to Bekka over and over.
“The tattoo shop in Rexton is growing. One more year, Bekka, and we can get our own place.”
But they didn’t make the year. When one of Bekka’s favorite aunts became ill, there was no choice but for her to rush to the city and help her cousin nurse her back to health. But Bekka’s aunt never made it, and six month later, after continuing their marriage via phone and trips back and forth between Moncton and Rexton, Bekka’s aunt succumbed to her sickness and passed on.
Bekka wasn’t the same after the death of her aunt, and she admitted that. She’d needed time alone, time to think. For a second time, because her head was in a strange place, she’d ended the relationship to stay in Moncton with her cousin and open her own book shop / gift store.
When she broke the news of her departure for a second time to Corey, his initial reaction had been one of hurt and wounded bewilderment. Why did she want to leave again when they’d just gotten back together? She hadn’t given him a fair chance.
“It’s not because of you or Juanita this time,” Bekka had tried to explain, but even her excuses sounded weak to her own ears. She was running away, because she feared losing another who was close to her. Her fear of abandonment went deep, and it reared its head that second time she’d called it quits, and she would be the first to admit that.
But now, with the odd phone call, and the woman stating Juanita had passed Corey’s number on to her, Bekka had to wonder if the games Juanita once played would start again. She sighed heavily as she walked up the final three stairs to her apartment, plastic bag filled with Corey’s clothes swinging low by her hip. Why couldn’t everyone just leave her and Corey alone and let them get on with their lives? Why did someone always have to have their nose in their business—namely, his step-mom.
Bekka opened the door and called out to Corey. His head popped up from the back of the couch and he flashed a brilliant smile as he stood, still naked as the day he was born.
He took the bag from her hand and bent to give her a quick kiss. “Thanks, hon. I’m just going to go get dressed in the bathroom.”
Corey went to walk away, but as he dropped his hand from hers Bekka gave a half-hearted smile. He frowned and stopped.
“You okay?” He tilted his head and examined her with a concerned gaze. “You look preoccupied. Like something is weighing on your mind.”
“I’m okay.” She waved him away, trying to appear nonchalant—not let her preoccupied thoughts show on her face. “You’re just paranoid, hon. I’m fine.”
Corey took her chin in his hand and tilted her gaze up to meet his. “You sure, Bekka? I know when you are deep in thought—lost somewhere else—and that sure is how you look right now.” His eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed.
Bekka heaved a deep sigh, looked away from him and then looked back, then crossed her arms over her chest. “You forgot your smartphone at your place last night. Someone…” She cleared her throat, anticipating the fight she could feel brewing in the thick electricity that now filled the air about them. “Someone texted you while I was getting your clothes—some woman. She said Juanita had given her your phone number.”
He stared at her, blank-faced, for a minute or two, and she stared back, feeling numb and nervous. Her gut churned like she was back on the Zipper at the East Coast Amusements Carnival.
“Did she give a name?” His voice was thick, and it cracked on his last word, making Bekka strain to hear it.
Bekka fidgeted her fingers near her waist and looked away from Corey again. “I…I can’t remember.” She bit her lip. “I got angry when I read the message and I erased it.”
He chuckled lightly and took her into his arms. Bekka’s stomach tightened when his warm, flaccid cock brushed against her jean-clad thigh.
“Don’t let it worry you, baby.” He kissed the top of her head. “And I don’t care that you erased the message.”
Bekka pulled back from his relaxed grip and looked into his eyes as she bit her lip. “But…” She paused. She didn’t want to make this into a big affair and have another angry spat break out between her and Corey when they were just starting to smooth things out, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel hurt at Juanita’s action. If she knew Corey was here to patch things up with her, what was she doing giving his number over to strange women?
Corey sighed a heavy sigh and buried a hand in her hair. He tugged her head back gently so she had to meet his gaze. “But what, Bekka? I can hear your wheels turning, and you won’t be settled about this, I know. Remember.” He shook a finger at her. “You promised to be straight up with me this time, all the time.”
Part of her wanted to desperately bite back the fears, the uncertainties, clawing at the back of her throat, burning in her gut. And she had promised Corey she’d be upfront this time. “It just seems a bit strange…” She thought about how to word this tactfully. “I mean, you asked Juanita to come here and track me down.” Looking up, Bekka saw the restrained tension in his face and she dropped her gaze back to her hands. “And now she’s giving your number out to some woman, who says she went out with you—”
“I honestly have no idea who she could be, sweetheart.” Then he pulled his gaze away, tapped his bottom lip, and he seemed to be hiding something. “I haven’t been out on any dates with anyone.”
Bekka frowned, hating herself for being suspicious. “We weren’t together. It’s okay if you did see someone.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t interested in being with anyone but you. Maybe she’s some former client who’s got a crush on me.” He shrugged. “I d
on’t know.”
Bekka wasn’t ready to let it go yet. “But why would Juanita give your number to her?”
He rolled his eyes at the ceiling as he took his bag of clothes from Bekka and started to get dressed. “How do you know this chick wasn’t lying? She could’ve gotten the number from anyone, really. Even Sarah, who owns the Rexton shop now. Maybe she just knows Juanita and figured I’d text back if she dropped my step-mom’s name.”
The explanation sounded lame to Becka. The knot in her gut had only grown tighter. So, she thought. Nothing had changed after all. Corey may have moved out to the city on his own, but he might as well still be living with Juanita. She was controlling his life from afar, by the looks of things. And he was still defending her when she was clearly guilty. Plus he was hiding something about this woman.
Before she could stop herself, Bekka blurted out, “You’re lying, and Juanita is still meddling.”
Corey let out a long sigh and his hands dropped from her arms. Bekka’s stomach dropped like a stone, but she found she didn’t regret the words. Perhaps they were blunt and a tad heartless, but they were truthful, and wasn’t that what he had asked of her with this second chance?
“Look.” He tucked a finger beneath her chin and raised her face so that she had to meet his gaze. “I promise I’m telling the truth. I have no idea who could be texting me. And since you deleted it anyway, let’s forget about it. I doubt Juanita’s out giving my number to strange women.. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, is going to come between you and I this time.”
Bekka wanted desperately to believe him, but putting his foot down with Juanita was something he’d promised in the past, and Corey had never delivered on his promise. Every time he’d start in on laying down boundaries with Juanita, somehow, someway, she’d lay a guilt trip in Corey’s lap and sweet talk around his admonishment. Instead of voicing her doubt, however, Bekka just nodded and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. From the angry flash in Corey’s eyes, her body language was enough to speak her disbelief.
Bad Boys of BDSM Omnibus No. 1 Page 15
