Stripped Down (23 page)

That I didn’t believe. “More like you’re trying to
get
the blow job.”

“Shit. You see right through me, don’t you?”

My lips flattened into a thin line, and I nodded once. “Like a jellyfish.”

He lifted one hand and touched the pad of his thumb to my mouth. My lips relaxed as he dragged his thumb along the curve of my bottom one. The warmth his touch left sent a shiver down my spine, and try as I might, I couldn’t ignore it. My entire body shuddered as it went down, and Beck smiled the teeniest bit.

He knew what he was doing to me, and he was loving every second.

“Cassie,” he said in a low voice and met my eyes. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

“You are?”

Ignoring my breathy question, he didn’t even nod as he lowered his face and pressed his mouth to mine. My hands slid around his neck as my eyes fluttered shut. I fell into the kiss too easily, losing my mind far too quickly.

It always happened that way with him. One kiss and I was lost. Lost in nothing but the hot, rich taste of his lips on mine and the rapid beating of my heart.

He was an addiction. One I couldn’t kick. One that would ruin me.

The sounds of floorboards creaking above our heads smashed through the reverie I’d fallen into. Instinct kicked in and I jumped back from Beck, my eyes wide as I waited without saying a word. We were both breathing heavily, and our exhales mingled in the silent air between us, sounding far more like screams.

Creak. Creak. Pause. Footstep.

“Mommy? Are you here?”

I let go of the breath I’d held at the sound of the steps. “Yeah, I’m here.” I walked out of the kitchen and to the bottom of the stairs.

CiCi was standing at the top of them, her hair stuck to her forehead, Cookie clutched to her bare chest.

“What’s up, little one? Do you feel better?”

“I’m thirsty,” she rasped out. “Can I have a drink?”

“Sure you can. Come down and I’ll get you some pajamas. Go right into the front room, okay?”

She nodded and grasped the banister to come down. I left her to make her way down and went back into the kitchen to the clean laundry I’d put down to do...something...and apparently never picked back up. I pulled a Cinderella nightie from the top of the pile and turned to Beck.

“Wait here a sec, okay? I need to get her dressed.” I took a bottle of water out of the fridge and carried both it and the nightie through the front room.

CiCi was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the rug, Cookie on her lap.

“Here,” I said, kneeling in front of her. “Put this on.”

She gave me her arms so I could put the nightie over her head. She didn’t feel as hot as she had been before. Hopefully the mammoth three-hour nap she’d just taken had helped her body work through the majority of the fever.

“Who did you just talk to?” she asked, taking the ice-cold bottle of water from me.

“Sip it, okay?” I swept her hair from her forehead and touched the back of my hand to it to make sure. She felt like she was almost back to normal. “I was talking to Beck. I told him to wait in the kitchen while I dressed you.”

Her face lit up like a dozen Christmas trees despite the fact that there was no color in her cheeks. “He’s here?”

“Hey, I said I would be, didn’t I?”

CiCi’s head snapped around so fast that I was surprised it didn’t do a full three-sixty and spin right off. “You’re here!”

Ah, it was great when kids stated the obvious.

In all seriousness, the look on her face—the pure joy that just radiated out of her at the sight of him—both terrified and thrilled me. I’d never felt such vibrant, conflicting emotions, although it was a way Beck made me feel on a regular basis. They seemed amplified when they were connected to my daughter, and I was sure it was my mom instinct kicking in and the dire need to protect her from anything and anyone who might hurt her, but as I looked at her and mentally stepped back, I saw something very real.

As I physically moved away from her to the sofa and she got up, discarding Cookie and her water to hug him, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. When he picked her up, my heart clenched at the obvious tightness she hugged him with... At the obvious tightness he hugged her right back with.

As I saw my daughter wrapped in the arms of this man who shouldn’t have been there, who was so far out of my league that we weren’t even talking backyard training and major league differences, my perspective shifted. The longer I watched this rich-as-hell, demanding, stupidly sweet man hold my entire universe in his arms and smile at her like she could have been his too, everything I thought...changed, distorted. And it took every single plan I’d made and threw them all out the window.

Maybe he wouldn’t hurt her.

Maybe he wouldn’t hurt me.

Maybe, just maybe, that drunken mistake I’d made might just have been the best one I ever had and ever would make.

“You feeling better, princess?” he asked her after a moment of hugs.

“Little bit,” CiCi answered. “My tummy hurts a bit and I’m thirsty still.”

“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” Beck put on a horrified expression that looked a little too real, but the fake gasp made it funny.

“No, silly!” She smiled as widely as she could and tapped his shoulder.

“Oh, good. Because guess what? Don’t tell Mommy this.” He glanced at me guiltily as he shifted her to hold her in one arm then whispered in her ear.

She gasped, and I narrowed my eyes.
Don’t tell Mommy what?
In my experience, that statement almost always preceded a secret present.

Beck carried her out of the front room. I folded my arms across my chest as I waited for them to come back, but I didn’t need to wait to know that, whatever he’d done, he’d just made a little girl very happy.

I thought the dogs down the street heard her shriek of excitement.

“Mommy, look!” CiCi came back into the front room, still in Beck’s arms, but she wasn’t alone.

A toddler Rapunzel doll from the Disney store was cradled in one arm, and somehow perched on Beck’s shoulder was a stuffed chameleon that looked suspiciously like Pascal.

A glance at the label attached to his ear proved me right.

I had a mini heart attack at the thought of how much it had cost, but then his words from not so long ago came back to me.

It was just money, and it was no use to anyone sitting in his bank account, doing nothing.

I get it.

Like the unexpected bang of a rocket you’re not sure will crackle or explode, I got it. I got why he had done what he’d done earlier and what it must have been like for him to make a difference to me, because I was looking at that same difference on a much tinier me.

Her face... I fought the lump in my throat. She was beyond happy, even though she undoubtedly felt horrible. But he’d changed it in a heartbeat, even if it only lasted for five minutes.

“Well, now, I understand why he said don’t tell Mommy!” I put my hands on my hips. “And where’s she gonna sleep, huh? And is Pascal going to lick my ear?”

I had to joke or I’d cry.

She giggles. “Silly Mommy! He’s not real!”

“He’s not? Well, hell. He looks real.”

“Nooooo. He’s stuffed. See?” She took him from Beck’s shoulder and squeezed his head. “Can we take Rapunzel out of the box?”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Please,” she added.

“Of course.” I smiled and took the box from her. “Let me go get the scissors.” I eked past them both in the doorway to retrieve the scissors from the kitchen drawer to remove Rapunzel from what would ultimately be a packaging prison.

“Thank you, Beck,” I heard CiCi say. “You’re the best.”

My steps faltered in the kitchen doorway, but I forced myself through and out of earshot before he could reply.

I am so screwed.

I stepped out of the shower for the second time today. Long story short, allowing CiCi to have a bag of chips after her second nap hadn’t been the best idea in hindsight. Unfortunately, that time, I had been unable to catch the vomit.

In my hand, that was. My shirt and my boobs had caught it just fine.

So had Pascal, who was now spinning in the washing machine with half a bottle of fabric softener so “he stays squishy, Mommy.”

Sicky Girl was now cuddled up in bed, and she’d fallen back asleep before I’d even left her room, which had allowed me to shower, while Beck had insisted he could mop up the mess on the kitchen floor. It was about the only plus to that vomiting session—she’d been on her way to throw the chip package in the garbage.

I didn’t want to think about what would have happened had she have vomited on the carpet. I shuddered at the potential thought, clutched my towel around my chest, and ran across the hall to my bedroom.

Something about the idea of Beck seeing me wet and in nothing but a towel was... Well. I swallowed and shut my bedroom door. Just in case. I wouldn’t put anything past that man.

I quickly dried off and pulled some underwear from my drawer. They didn’t exactly match, but they were both black, so they’d do just fine. Underwear was underwear, and it wasn’t like anyone would be seeing it any time soon, was it?

Yep.
Keep telling yourself that, Cassie.
Nobody seeing your underwear is exactly why you spent an extra ten minutes in the shower...
shaving
.

For nobody to see it.

God, I was such a lost cause. I felt like a damn teenager waiting for her first date or the night she’d finally lose her virginity, and it wasn’t even like I couldn’t pinpoint the reason why my feelings had changed. I should have been desperate to get Beck out of my house, yet there I was, hoping he’d stay.

All night. With me.

I snapped my bra straps up over my shoulders and sighed. I sat on my towel on the edge of the bed and grabbed my thong. I pulled it up over my legs, ignoring their smoothness—and the smoothness of...well, my pussy—as I lifted my butt and tugged them up . I straightened the strings around my hips, still sitting down, and looked at my door when they were done.

Really, he needed to leave. His staying there was...not a good idea, but every time I tried to will the words to the tip of my tongue, they wouldn’t come. If I could say the words out loud in my bedroom, how could I say them to him?

I couldn’t.

Honestly, asking him to ravish me in my bed like a chocolate fudge sundae felt like a far easier question to ask.

But only if he liked chocolate fudge sundaes. If not, that wouldn’t work at all.

What the hell was I thinking about? I really was messed up. Not that anyone could have blamed me, I supposed. My life had tipped upside down and shaken itself about somewhat in the past week or so, and it didn’t look like it was going to right itself any time soon.

“Cassie?” Beck’s voice came from the other side of my door. “Are you all right? You’ve been up here a while.”

I glanced at the clock and quickly got up. He was right. Almost an hour. Jesus, had I really been lamenting and feeling sorry for myself for that long? I needed a life. And a smack on the face.

“Yeah.” I ran to my dresser and opened one of the lower drawers for a pair of shorts. “I’ll be right there.”

I slammed the drawer shut a little too hard. It rattled the dresser, and the lamp fell over with a loud crash.

“Are you—”

I shrieked, grabbing the shorts to my chest as Beck shoved the door open. “Oh my god!”

He opened his mouth, but after a moment, he closed it again when his eyes landed on me. They slowly perused me, from my wet hair, to my makeup-free face, to where the shorts were clasped against my breasts, and down farther to where, despite my efforts at covering my boobs, the rest of my body was completely exposed, save for the small scrap of black fabric between my legs.

I swallowed hard. His eyes darkened, his jaw twitching as his gaze lingered on my panties. I clenched my legs together. One of my knees almost crossed over the other as a ridiculous wave of embarrassment flushed through my body and made me inhale harshly.

The air sizzled with electricity between us, and the hair on my arms stood on end as goose bumps erupted across my skin. Neither of us spoke. I didn’t think either of us could. I couldn’t even move to hide myself as he looked me over again and again and again.

Head. Hips. Toes.

Toes. Hips. Head.

Head. Hips. Toes.

Toes. Hips. Head.

Eyes.

I swallowed hard as our gazes met.

“Cassie, I swear to god. Get dressed right now.” His voice was sexily dangerous, so much rough promise in each word.

“Or what?”

“Or I’m going to throw you on that goddamn bed, flip you over, and fuck you until you forget your own name.”

Against the ache of my clit, I hurried into my shorts and pulled a shirt from another drawer. I had them both on and me dressed in less than a minute, and I dragged my attention from Beck to right the lamp. It clunked as I set it down and wiped a little dislodged dust onto the floor.

“I was thinking about ordering some food,” he said in a low, tight voice. “I wanted to check with you.”

“I can cook.” I grabbed my brush and dragged it through my hair. “I don’t mind.”