Sugar Daddy (8 page)

Moving in with Beck was a bit disorienting at first.

New home.

New bed.

New sex life.

Sex every night, usually multiple times.

Orgasm after orgasm, Beck not once having failed to deliver. It’s almost effortless for him, and even I can’t bring myself to such quick and dizzying heights as he’s able to.

For the first few days, it was easy to give in to it. I’d go to my classes and then come back to his place. He gave me a key and told me to make myself comfortable, and thus I did. I treated his home like my own, and kept my schedule the same, outside of giving up my job at the diner. Beck’s “stipend” to compensate for that was so generous, and given that my school expenses were paid, I wouldn’t have to work again until after I got my degree, and hopefully never again in a diner. So in my downtime, I studied even harder, and the only deviation was when Beck commanded my attention. It was ridiculously easy for him to do so.

But after a few days, I settled in and started to think again of my plot to avenge myself. Beck and I haven’t necessarily talked a lot. I don’t get the feeling he’s closed off, it’s just that neither one of us has made much of an effort to get to know the other person outside of the best way to pleasure each other. For him, I think that’s because he’s focused on sex. For me, it’s because I need to remain aloof…detached. It’s the best way to keep my heart protected.

But on the sex front, we know quite a lot about each other, and I figure the more he’s distracted with sex, the less chance he’ll ever have of figuring out the woman behind the façade.

After I had been here four days, I decided I needed to get my bearings and figure out if there was anything about my current arrangement that was going to help me murder Jonathon Townsend. I searched Beck’s home top to bottom one afternoon after my classes got out. It was pristine, almost sterile, and in a fit of anxiety over not finding anything, I dumped out all of his clothes from his drawers to make sure I didn’t miss something. That, of course, led me to an impromptu lie when he came home and found me sitting amid all of his clothing.

But if I’m only here for a month, the clock is ticking, and I’m closing in quickly on the halfway mark. I’ve got to get closer to Beck and figure out more about his relationship with JT. Only then will I be able to determine if there is a way he can unwittingly help me achieve justice.

The only potential I’ve seen so far is his locked office. I’ve searched high and low for a key, and the only one I’ve been able to identify is the one that Beck keeps on his key chain with his car and house keys. He’s used it twice since I’ve been here, merely going in after work and placing some documents he brought home in there. He always has those keys in his pocket when he’s out and about, but when he comes home he places them on the side table by the foyer door. I haven’t quite figured out how to get in his office, but I’m mulling it over.

And while my ultimate goal is to use Beck to my advantage in my quest, there is a more pressing goal that came to my attention just last night. Beck had gotten to the condo around six
P.M.
, which was usually standard. As normal, he had his mail that he’d picked up in his hand, flipping through it. I was sitting at his dining table, which sat perpendicular to the length of the open living room and afforded a gorgeous view of the bay at sunset.

He’d started a habit of walking over to me and kissing me on the top of my head. The first time he did it, I was taken aback. It had been so long since I’d been shown a spontaneous act of affection I wasn’t sure I liked it. But the next night he did it, it felt nice. And the night after that, even better.

It had gotten to where I expected it now, and it was a silly ritual that brought me a measure of almost schoolgirl giddiness, something I don’t think I ever experienced since my interest in high school boys was killed that night ten years ago. I avoided them like the plague thereafter and didn’t even kiss another man until I was twenty years old and quite drunk.

So Beck walked over to me at the dining room table and plopped the mail down by my books. He kissed me on the top of my head, and then grabbed my ponytail, tugging on it so my face tilted. He kissed me from above, this time on my mouth, and murmured, “Hey, gorgeous.”

“Hey,” I whispered back.

“What do you feel like for dinner?” he asked, releasing my hair and pulling his jacket off.

“I’m not picky,” I said. “And I’m done studying.”

“Let’s do something casual,” he said, and started walking back toward his bedroom. My eyes dropped to the pile of mail, and I saw an envelope that he had already opened with what was clearly a birthday card sitting on top of it. My hand reached out, never once considering his privacy, and I picked up the card. It was generic-looking with a birthday cake on the front. On the inside just a simple printed message,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
.

Under that it wasn’t even signed, but was stamped in calligraphy with the names
MR. AND MRS. BECKETT NORTH, SR.

His parents.

A rush of anger and sadness hit me all at once, that this was the type of card they would send their son. I got up from my chair and walked into Beck’s bedroom. He’d already shed his work clothes and was pulling on a pair of jeans. He looked up at me with a smile, then his eyes dropped to the card in my hand, back up to me with the same smile.

“Today’s your birthday?” I asked quietly.

He laughed and nodded at the card in my hand. “Actually it was two days ago. My mom’s secretary is apparently late in sending that to me.”

I gasped in outrage. His parents actually had someone send a card to him? And it was late on top of that?

Beck buttoned his fly and walked up to me, taking my face in my hands. He looked at me with sympathy.

Me.

With sympathy.

“Relax, Sela,” he said with a laugh and then a kiss to my lips. “That’s par for the course. I didn’t expect anything different.”

And while that made me feel marginally better, I still felt terrible. “But I was here two days ago with you. We went out to eat at The Slanted Door. You gorged on oysters and ceviche, and never once did you tell me it was your birthday.”

“It’s just a birthday,” he told me as he wrapped his arms around me. He kissed me again on top of my head, a measure of reassurance and affection that I’m upset on his behalf, and this act caused my stone heart to start to crack.

Beck then started talking about a new restaurant he wanted to try that had opened a few blocks over from the condo, and the subject of his birthday was put to rest.

Until today, that is.

I woke up with a plan already formed. I went to my classes, and as soon as they let out at one p.m., I hustled to the local market. I bought some beautiful salmon steaks, fresh asparagus, and a chocolate-raspberry cake from the bakery. I had thought briefly to bake him a cake, but I suck at baking and am only mediocre at cooking, so in order to preserve the sanctity of the only birthday party he was getting this year, I went with items that I couldn’t screw up. I also bought a large roll of silk floral ribbon in a pale pink color.

I did my studying, took a shower, slathered lotion all over me, and curled my hair. I applied a little bit of makeup and brushed my teeth. Wearing one of Beck’s robes, I managed to get the salmon steaks and asparagus in the oven, let them cook the required time, and then turned the heat off. It was ten of six when I scurried back to the bedroom and ditched the robe, picking up the silk ribbon.

And now at six p.m. I am lying in wait in the foyer when I hear Beck’s key in the lock.

I quickly light the candles on the cake I’m holding in one hand and then toss the lighter onto the nearby buffet table. I have just enough time to place my free hand on my hip and cock it out in a sexy pose when Beck opens the door.

I wish I had a video to capture the look on his face. His eyes go to the cake first, then to my face as I smile at him and say, “Happy birthday, Beck.”

His lips curve up and his eyes roam over my body, turning hotter and hotter with every inch they cover.

“Are you my present?” he asks in a husky voice as his eyes light back on mine. He closes the door behind him softly and flicks the lock.

I look down at myself, once again impressed with my ingenuity. I’m completely naked except for two things. The high-heeled silver sandals with ribbons that lace up my legs that Beck had returned to me, and pink silk ribbon wrapped from the very top of my thighs, around my ass and pelvis, covering my stomach, and on upward to wrap around my breasts. I finished the wrapping off with a bow right in the center of my chest.

“Come blow out your candles and you can unwrap me,” I whisper.

What I’m doing right now is a monumental feat for me. It’s the only time in my entire life I’ve ever made a conscious effort to seduce a man. I have never once offered myself up in such a sexy and overt manner. Two days ago when I waited in Beck’s bed naked doesn’t count, because that was my terrible attempt to be a good Sugar Baby, and it was completely lame. I did it because I felt I owed him for paying for college, and no other reason. I did it because I thought he was expecting it.

Tonight is different though.

I am doing this for Beck because I
want
to do this for him. I want him to have a memorable birthday because the one he had three days ago was shitty. And I want to see him smile because of it and know that someone on this earth is thinking about him in the way that he deserves.

“You are too much,” he murmurs as he drops his keys on the side table and prowls toward me.

He stops just inches away, the light from the candles making his face glow and his eyes to sizzle. I give him an impertinent smirk. “I only put five candles on. Didn’t want to burn down the house, old man.”

Beck snickers and turns to blow out the candles. “I’m only twenty-eight and I’m going to make you pay for that ‘old man’ comment.”

Beck takes the cake from my hand and turns to set it on the table beside his keys. As he turns back to me, he eyes the bottom of the ribbon hugging my thighs. “Got anything on under that pretty bow?”

“Nope,” I tell him, my hand still resting on my hip and trying to hold my sexy pose. I have no clue if I’m pulling it off, but Beck seems to appreciate what he sees.

“Perfect,” Beck murmurs, and his hands come to my shoulders. He turns me around and starts pushing me toward the dining room table. He kicks one of the massive chairs covered in cream leather to the side and uses an arm to push my books away, clearing a space just in front of me.

“Bend over,” he says as he puts a hand to the center of my back and starts pushing me forward.

Immediately I flush all over with warmth and awareness of what this must look like. I know the farther I bend over, the more the ribbon is going to ride up high on my ass and bare myself to him.

But even as I experience the thrill of excitement over the position he’s putting me in, a wave of anxiety hits me hard. My chest tightens and my muscles tense all over. My hands are practically shaking between nerves, fear, and desire as those emotions battle within me.

I consider pushing back against him, refusing to give him my backside. I know it will immediately ease my fear because I do not fuck doggy style.

Never.

Not since that night.

I’m betting the few partners I’ve had just assumed that means I’m just too vanilla for that, or maybe they just don’t care as long as they get to fuck me, but I’ve never been pressured before to do it. Only one guy had an issue with it, and he ultimately declared me too boring in bed to satisfy his needs when I refused.

Of course, he only said that after he fucked me missionary and got his rocks off.

But as much as this situation concerns me, there’s an equal part that is curious. My fight-or-flight response would normally gear me to flight, too terrified to do anything that would too closely resemble those vague flashes of memory that haunt me.

But Beck has proven to be different. That was apparent the minute he made me orgasm that first time, and thus there is a part of me that has formed a measure of trust in him to not hurt me. This part of Sela Halstead wants to push at my boundaries even though I’m scared shitless to do so.

With a deep breath, I take a moment to also remind myself that I don’t want to do anything to turn Beck off. I don’t want him to lose interest in me, and thus lose my tenuous connection he gives me to Townsend. So as if that sentiment almost gives me permission to explore my desire for him, I decide to let Beck have his way with me from a position where I can’t see a damn thing he’s doing to me.

My hands lower to the dark Danish teak wood to support myself and I lower my torso until my ribbon-covered breasts are mashed against the table. I turn my head to the side, rest my cheek against the cool surface, and stare out the window at the twinkling lights of the Bay Bridge. I take deep breaths to try to calm my racing heart, which is fueled in equal parts by apprehension and desire.

“I think this might be the most beautiful and amazing gift I’ve ever been given,” he says, and I know he’s knelt behind me as I can feel his warm breath from those words whisper against the flesh between my legs.

He doesn’t touch me though, and doesn’t say another word, which makes my heart pound harder. I only feel the warmth of his breath fluttering and I start to tense with anticipation.

Crack.

His palm comes down on my right ass cheek with the force of what feels like a sonic boom. It scares me so badly I scream, “Fuck!” and push upward from the table, but then just as quickly groan and flop back down when he sinks a finger inside of me.

My legs start to buckle as Beck runs his lips over the stinging skin on my butt and his finger moves gently in and out of my pussy. He bares his teeth, bites my flesh, and murmurs against me, “That was for the old man comment.”

I laugh for just a brief moment, almost hysterically, as I realize with relief that he just spanked me and it wasn’t all that bad. But then it’s not so funny anymore when his finger is gone and his tongue takes its place. He works at me from behind, finally bringing his hands into play to help spread my legs further with extreme gentleness.