“Addicts don’t get better, Regina. They either find a way to live with their addiction constantly eating at them, or they die.” That was all he was going to say on the subject as he unfolded himself and straightened his knees enough to pull me down into his lap. We sat there for a little while, not moving, my back to his chest and my legs splayed over his. I didn’t know what to say. It seemed like there was still so much more to the story, and Bailey, but I had a feeling that Beck wasn’t in the frame of mind to spill any darker, personal details. So we sat silently, almost cuddling while letting our personal demons run loose around the room. It was me that broke the silence.
“This is the worst date I have ever been on.” There was a little humor in my voice, but I meant what I said. I was emotionally drained and I hadn’t even left my house yet. Laughter rumbled in Beck’s large chest, it vibrated against my back, tickling a little.
“I think we just had our first fight.”
“That wasn’t a fight, Beck, that was two people being crazy at each other.” I don’t know what a fight with Beck would be like, but I do know that we had both just let loose some weirdness in front of each other, and there really wasn’t any backtracking from that.
“And just to answer your question from before, I didn’t buy the painting, actually. I found it at a yard sale on the south side of town, and I loved it so much the lady who was selling it gave it to me. She said she would rather it went to someone who could take one look at it and love it, than rot somewhere where no one would ever see it. I didn’t think about what that meant at the time. But I meant what I said, I love that painting. I’m keeping her—she’s mine.”
“Okay. I understand. That also makes sense because when Mom asked me what I wanted her to do with it when she was cleaning things out of the house, I told her to throw it away. I thought she would actually throw it away. I should have known better than to think she would listen to me. On the plus side, you’ve already met my mom. Things are moving pretty quickly in this relationship aren’t they?”
It was a terrible joke but I laughed anyway. Turning in his lap so I faced him and placed my open hand on his chest, feeling the solid rhythm of his heart thumping underneath my palm. “I guess we all have something messy and difficult inside ourselves, don’t we?”
I’m not sure at what point the mood in the room changed. It could have been when I noticed the rhythm of his heartbeat changing under my hand, the hard swell of his cock pushing up under me, or the fact that I realized I was now straddling his lap with my bodycon dress hiked up over my hips and nothing between us but the thin material of his slacks and my ridiculously inefficient panties. His hands had already moved to the sides of my hips and he groaned as I shifted my weight a bit, accidentally settling against him in the most delicious and inappropriate position. Beck’s eyes flashed a dark promise. I had gone from turned on, to angry, to turned on again in the space of so many minutes. Things were happening that I didn’t understand and I couldn’t keep up. All I knew was that the man underneath me was so close to scratching my itch. The itch I didn’t even know I had until it was almost too much to handle.
“Beck, you look dangerous again.”
“Oh, good, then you know what happens next,” he said into my mouth right before he covered it completely. Yes. This. This was what I needed, what I had been craving. His hot mouth on mine, his hands—everywhere. I ground myself into his lap, feeling triumphant when he moaned into my mouth.
“Careful, Cinderella, I don’t know that I am capable of being gentle with you tonight.” My only response was to wrap my hands in his hair and tug. Screw gentle, who needed that? What we both needed now was a hard, dirty fuck. Please and thank you.
I wanted under those buttons, under that zipper to that hard warm skin underneath. I wanted to bite and claw and tear and have Beck do the same to me. To rip our outer selves apart and do nothing but feel something good for a change. I would think about the ramifications later, right now I just wanted him to make me forget who I was, even if just for a little while. The zipper on his pants did not want to come down while he was in a sitting position, and I grunted at those tiny metal teeth when they got stuck and wouldn’t move. Beck gently moved my hands away while lifting me up to my feet so we were both standing. I didn’t want standing. I wanted hands and knees, hair grabbing, and ass slapping. Beck had something else in mind, apparently.
“I’m a gentleman, Regina, I don’t want to fuck you on the floor.”
What? Okay. The kitchen then?
“Regina, the bedroom, where is it? Upstairs?” He was making me grumpy with his questions. There was some reason I didn’t want to go into my bedroom, but I couldn’t quite remember why. It didn’t matter, whatever would get him closer to being inside of me I was all for. Grabbing his hand I pulled him behind me, up the stairs and into the bedroom with the large four post king size bed in the middle of the room.
“Oh, that is a nice bed,” murmured Beck.
“Yeah, whatever.” I couldn’t agree, but it wasn’t important at the moment. What was important was unwrapping the nice Beck present that was in front of me. Passion was riding me hard, and I needed more of his skin touching mine. Would I be happy then? I didn’t know, but I was willing to try whatever I could to get to that point.
“Regina.” His voice was sharp and cut through my imaginings. “I have the feeling you aren’t paying attention to me like you should.”
There it was. That commanding tone I remembered. My knees wobbled a bit, but I still stared defiantly at the man in front of me who still wore all of his clothes.
“What is my name, Regina?”
It was difficult to swallow as my throat was suddenly dry as the desert, but I still managed to whisper, “Please, Beck. Stop teasing me.”
“Just making sure you know who I am, and what I am going to be doing to you. It’s me Regina—Beck. So make sure you are using my name when you are begging me to do things to you shortly."
“Fuck me, Beck, I’m begging you now. Jesus, this is torture.” I reached for him again but he just laughed, slowly unbuttoning his shirt and pulling both arms out of it before letting it drop to the floor. He stood there in front of me, broad expanse of ink and skin, still wearing the belted slacks riding low on his hips. Beck was a sinful shadow against the pale backdrop of my cream colored walls and beige carpeting. His hands ghosted to the buckle of his belt.
“Regina, do you want me to finish getting undressed?” I didn’t remember him being so fucking chatty.
“Beck, I am going to eat the rest of those clothes right off of you if you don’t hurry up. Either touch me or let me finish myself because I am out of my mind right now.” There was that dimple again, and it damn near took the breath right out of my body. He was having fun with me, I knew it. Well, he could have his fun to an extent, but I needed to be taken care of, too. I’d play, as long as he kept the game moving.
“Get on the bed Regina, and spread your legs as wide as you can. I want to see you, wet and waiting.” The belt was already off, and the pants slid to the floor as he was talking. No boxers, no briefs, just skin. More inked artwork marked his thighs winding around to the back of his legs. I wanted to trace all of that ink with my tongue. Beck was a big man, in all the ways that counted. I wasn’t going to be able to fit all of that in my mouth, but I would certainly enjoy trying. But if he wanted to play, I would play.
“Spread out on the bed, huh? I can do that,” I said playfully, crawling to the center of the large comforter and laying on my back, letting my dress hike up even farther over my ass and feeling the cool air play over my skin. “Panties on or off?”
“What panties?” His smile was nothing but teeth as if he was revealing the punch line to some secret joke. What panties? My panties were—and, oh my God, my panties were gone. When had I lost them? Had he taken them off downstairs and I was so blinded by lust I hadn’t even noticed?
“You thief!”
I wanted to laugh at the absurdity
but I couldn’t, because he was already on the bed and between my legs, his tongue touching me in the exact place where the tension was building the most. Fingers digging into the comforter as he licked and bit at the soft insides of my thighs, I could only open my legs wider—wider still—to welcome him.
“Regina,” he said as he lifted his head from between my legs to look at me, his eyes scorching a trail up my body.”
“Beck.” I wanted him inside me so badly I was going to start weeping soon.
“I am going to lift this dress from your body, a little at a time. I am going to touch every part of your skin that shows as it moves, and when it finally lifts away, then I’ll let you tell me what you want me to do. But only then.” Easier said than done. By the time my dress was completely off of my body, true to his word, Beck had touched, bitten or sucked on every bit of skin from my knees to my collarbone. By the time he finally slid into me, the hottest and hardest part of him, I was so wild with need I couldn’t remember my own name. The only thing running through my head, and the only word I managed to scream when my body finally couldn’t hold on anymore, was Beck. Only Beck.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Beck slept like a starfish. He was definitely a man used to sleeping alone, and he took up almost every spare inch of real estate in that bed, with me sprawled on top of him like a blanket. The bed that I had forgotten for a few moments had belonged to Richard and me. But I couldn’t even think of it that way ever again, because Beck had implanted himself on that bed. He’d manhandled me for most of the night, and I’d loved it. We’d both fallen asleep sometime around two in the morning, which made six am all that much harder, because we both had to get up and go to work.
Beck actually woke up before I did, and managed to fuss about in my kitchen until he found the coffee and the filters for the Bunn that I kept on the countertop. I had never been woken up by someone bringing me coffee in bed before, but I was experiencing all kinds of new things with Beck. He wrestled a pre-tooth-brushing kiss out of me, which I fought at first, but had learned over the course of the previous night that telling Beck no was more than likely a fruitless cause. He did what he wanted, and he wanted a goodbye kiss. Since he had obligations before opening the shop for the day, Beck was out the door and gone before I was even finished drinking my first cup of coffee. When I did manage to make my way downstairs to the kitchen, I found a jelly doughnut from the bakery a few blocks down the street, sitting on a plate wrapped in cellophane on my kitchen counter with a single serving bottle of orange juice next to it. Next to that was a napkin with a message written in very neat block letters—
A balanced diet is essential for a healthy body, so I brought you breakfast.
PS - I like you
PPS - Tag, you’re it.
Well, that was cute as hell. So, sexy Beck had a playful side too. As I wandered through the first floor of the house, cradling my warm coffee cup in one hand and munching my doughnut, I came to a complete stop in my front room. Beauty Sleeping was hanging in her normal place above the couch, the only reminder of our skirmish was her slightly smooshed lower left corner.
I forgive you, Beck.
What a weird night and a weird morning, but I was starting to be okay with weird. It was kind of starting to be my normal. Weird was certainly better than boring, and that was what Old Regina was used to. New Regina got doughnuts and love notes after a night of rough sex.
It wasn’t until I went back upstairs that I realized the extent of how rough our sex was. If the delightful soreness in my hips and back wasn’t enough of a reminder, the off-kilter tilt of my mattress really sealed the deal. We must have been really wild last night, because that mattress was definitely wrecked. I sat on the bed and felt the damaged springs inside. It may have been an expensive hybrid mattress with a foam top, but the inside was spring, and they were certainly broken. I had never been so satisfied to see something I paid so much money for destroyed in my whole life. I couldn’t wait to call customer service. The grin stretched wide on my face as I thought about explaining how the bed broke—the warranty should cover a complete replacement. I even whistled a bit as I got into the shower and got ready for the day, that positive mood would last me several weeks. But sure enough, given that it was Slow Grind, something would come along and screw it all up.
Middle of the week wasn’t normally a difficult time in my office. Wednesdays were usually good for catch up on sales calls and getting out big orders from Monday and Tuesday. The rushes didn’t call in until Thursday and most of those orders weren’t mine. I had a pretty good relationship with most of my clients, and they knew if they wanted to get a delivery date before a weekend, they needed to get their orders in at the beginning of the week. Nope, Wednesdays were other people’s shit show days, so why was Jack standing in my office looking harassed and in otherwise ill-temper?
Matthew-fucking-Jeremiah had screwed up again, that’s why.
“O’Shea, I need you to go out there and figure out what the deal is. There’s a pickup out there for Cindy Cain and it’s wrong, somehow. You know how her shit is supposed to go, I need you to go sort it out.”
“Wait a minute, why do I need to go out there? Jeremiah handles her orders and has for months now. I’m not even involved in their business anymore.” The command had me so pissed off I forgot for a moment that I was talking to the signer of my paychecks. Jack, however, did not forget, and did not like being spoken to in such a way by an employee. Much less a female employee.
“Because Jeremiah has a personal day today, that’s why, and because I just said so. Jesus, O’Shea, how many times do I have to remind you to keep your personal business out of the office? If your crappy relationships are going to make me lose money, then I might need to rethink your position here at Slow Grind. This is a business, not a clubhouse—now get out there and fix the order.” He swaggered out of my office and down the hallway, muttering about insubordination and making policy changes while I sat in my office for a moment with my mouth hanging open. TJ wasn’t in today because he had afternoon classes, it looked like I really would have to go out and fix Cindy’s order. The part of me that was thorough at my job was at war with the part of me that wanted to drop kick Cindy Cain out a window, but my professional self won. I was way too proud of the work I did to allow a screwed up order to leave the docks. It wasn’t like Cindy would be out there picking up anyway. More than likely it would be Kell, her warehouse guy that was out there with his box truck. It saved on shipping for local companies to pick their orders up, it happened all the time. He was an all right guy, I could deal with Kell for a little while so we could get the order straightened out.
It was not Kell, however, that was standing on the dock talking with Leon like I had thought. It was Richard and Cindy both standing there, arguing with the warehouse manager about something on their packing slip. Panic set in and I thought briefly about turning around and running back to my office, but then they saw me, both sets of eyes widening, and I got a slight sense of satisfaction from seeing the look of discomfort on their faces.
Yeah, it is awkward, assholes.
“What’s going on, Leon?” I could do this, I might even make it through without having to make direct eye contact or speaking to either of the two people who made my blood boil whenever someone even mentioned their names. I had done more than anyone could be expected to, in my opinion, so I would really appreciate it if God could do me a solid and let me get out of this without having to actually interact with either of them. Unfortunately, I could not be so lucky.
“The stock is supposed to come bulk, these are in clamshell packaging,” Richard was making a bold move even speaking to me. Cindy looked at him like she wanted to smack his lips off his face, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking and speaking to me. I ignored him and opened the first box, seeing the problem immediately. I opened a second and third box just to check, but it was the same in all of them. Cindy Cain’s adult store was huge in our area; she had several b
rick and mortar stores as well as a solid web following. She bought her vibrators from Slow Grind in bulk, which meant we sent them unpackaged, and she rebranded them in her own house packaging before putting them on the shelves or boxing them up for orders. This order was wrong, which meant one of two things—either Jeremiah forgot to put the notes in, or someone called in the order incorrectly. It could have gone either way, really.
“Who called the order in?” I asked Cindy. I didn’t really want to talk to her, but she looked the most nervous out of the two, and considering I still wanted to punch Richard in the dick, I thought she might be my better option.
“I did.” Richard just did not know when he was not wanted in a conversation, and Cindy was two steps away from shushing him with the back of her hand if the twitching in her arm was any indication.
“Look, the order might have been placed incorrectly or entered incorrectly. I’m not pointing fingers here. I just know this isn’t how we normally get it, you know that right?” I most certainly did know that, and I didn’t really care how the mistake was made. I just wanted to get off the back dock and into my office so I could take some Ibuprofen for the tension headache that was building behind my eyes. For fuck's sake, these two were pissing me off.
The Permanence of Pain Page 8
