Stripped Down (27 page)

“I thought I would bring it out too,” I softly admitted. My voice was still thick. No wonder tears still threatened the backs of my eyes.

Beck dropped the keys onto the island counter. The clink echoed through the cold, soulless room.

“Why didn’t you?”

I rested my chin on top of my knee, hugging it tighter. I dipped my head so my mouth pressed against my leg, and I pouted as I thought through what to say.

Ripping down the wall between my words and my heart was a mammoth job, something I’d long thought an impossibility. Now, it had to happen, because the hold CiCi’s excuse for a father had on me had controlled me long enough. I’d allowed it to dictate my life, my actions, and my emotions for far too long.

I didn’t want it anymore.

I wanted Beck.

“I thought it’d be the easy option. To bring it out.” I blinked, averting my gaze for a moment.
Don’t cry. Not again. No matter how hard it is.
“And it would have been. Turns out actually doing that was harder than I’d thought, and I couldn’t actually pick the damn things up.”

He didn’t say anything. He just folded his arms across his chest and waited. His indigo gaze never wavered from me, although mine did a few times.

“I thought about a lot of things—about what I was afraid of. That’s a lot of crap, but beneath all of that bullshit...there’s one thing I’m afraid of more than anything.” I paused and bit the inside of my lip to make myself talk again. “I’m absolutely terrified of walking away from you and never again being as free as you make me feel. Of never feeling the way you make me feel. Of never laughing as hard as I do with you. I’m terrified that, one day, I’d look into your eyes again and see everything we could have been. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do because I’ve never been afraid of anything so badly in my entire life—except you. Wanting you. Having you. Losing you. You’re the ultimate monster under the bed, Beckett Cruz.”

His chest heaved. His nostrils flared with the deep breath he took, and I swiped at my cheek as one of my tears fell down it. Emotion zinged between us, and inside myself, the wall shattered like a controlled demolition, because there was nothing left I could say that would open me up any more.

He was my monster under the bed. But nobody could scare him away.

I knew.

I’d tried.

He crossed the kitchen to me. With gentle hands, he put my foot down. Then he took my hands and pulled me up. I looked down as he slipped my fingers between us, tiny against large. His thumbs brushed the backs of my hands, and he scanned my face, his eyes flicking left and right, intense yet soft.

“Cassie...I’m afraid too, but I’m more afraid of waking up tomorrow morning and knowing you and CiCi aren’t in my life anymore. Rewatching movies and tantrums and all of that crap—I’ll eventually learn how to deal with it. Yeah, it’s scary.” He pulled me toward him and touched his thumb to my lower lip. “Hell, you’re scary. You’re my monster under the bed, but fuck it. I’ve got a damn big bed, so let’s crawl under there and snuggle.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. That answer was so very him, so very stupid, yet, at the same time, it made a lot of sense. If we were both afraid, being afraid together was the best option, wasn’t it?

“So don’t cry anymore,” he said in a low tone. “We can do this, Blondie. One way or another... We can do it. Just turn your flight switch to fight, yeah?”

“I’ll try.” I looked down at our clasped hands.

“I know. Hey.” He cupped my chin and lifted it, bringing my gaze back to his. “We have time. Just don’t push me away anymore. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right by your side.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“All right—so inside you is definitely the preferable option, but I’m trying to keep to my reputation of sweet here.”

“Your reputation of sweet?”

“It’s getting out that I like Tangled. I figure being sweet and not sexy might make me a little less desirable.”

I laughed, stepping back. “Really.” I dragged my gaze across his body. “It actually makes you hotter.”

“You have to say that. You’re stuck with me,” he teased, a grin breaking out across his face and lighting it up.

“True, true, but it’s not a lie. Sweet is sexy.”

“Shit. I’m gonna have to put that plan on hold.” His laughter was quiet as he wrapped his arms around me. “Do you think the smolder will work?”

“The smolder? Flynn’s smolder?”

“Is there another smolder in the movie? Maximus is pretty bitchy, but there was no smolder.”

“How many times have you watched Tangled, exactly?”

“I cannot, in good faith, as a thirty-year-old man, answer that question without my sexiness coming into question.”

I blinked at him. “Fine. How many times has my daughter made you watch it?”

“Six.”

“Six?” I leaned back. “When in the heck did you watch it six times?”

“Well, one time, she did something else and I kinda didn’t realize she wasn’t watching it with me still...”

“You watched it by yourself, didn’t you?”

“I...I wanted to know who the hell Flynn Rider was and why CiCi kept calling me him, all right? Don’t judge me.”

I giggled so hard that I had to move away from him. I didn’t believe that. There was no way he’d watched Tangled on his own.

Was there?

No. Surely not. I couldn’t imagine him sitting there, watching an animated Disney movie about a princess—albeit a kickass one—by himself. That just didn’t make any sense.

“I’m a little offended by your laughter,” Beck said, trying for serious. The shining of his eyes gave him away... And so did his own damn smile he really wasn’t hiding very well.

“I’m just trying to picture it.” I wiped beneath my eyes again. This time, the tears were of a different kind. “And I ca-can—”

Aw, hell.

I was laughing again.

He glared at me, smiling, and I put one hand on the table as I leaned over and looked down. I needed to stop laughing, and looking at him was not the way to do it. I didn’t even know if I could categorize it under “Sweet Beck” because he wanted to know about Flynn Rider. Although...

“Oh my god. The first time CiCi watched it with you. You pretended it was the first time.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “You’d already seen it.”

He looked embarrassed, and—
oh my god
. He was blushing. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t upset her by telling her I’d watched it, could I? She was excited, so I just played along.”

Okay. Now, that could be categorized under “Sweet Beck.” In fact, it pretty much blew everything else out of the water.

“That’s so sweet that it might not even be sexy anymore,” I admitted. “Although, if I’d known it at the time, I might have jumped you right after.”

“Actually, I specifically remember you being bent over that counter right there.” He pointed to it and flashed me a sexy grin.

So I had been.

“So, doesn’t it seem so much hotter now that you know?” He raised his eyebrows and pulled me against him.

My hands flattened against his solid chest. “I’m so turned on I can barely stand up,” I replied dryly.

His eyes twinkled. “I can help with that.” He cupped the back of my head and guided my mouth toward his. The moment our lips touched, my heartbeat picked right up, and I slid my hands up his chest to wrap my arms around his neck. Without that small barrier, I pressed right up against him. We were so close that not even a whisper of a breeze could get between our bodies.

There was nowhere else I wanted to be right in that moment.

Beck slid his hand down my back and cupped my ass, pulling my hips toward him. Only his tight grip on me stopped me from staggering and falling. He bit my lower lip as he squeezed my ass, and I gasped, jerking against him. Desire uncontrollably rushed my body. Every part of me lit up as he kissed me, nipping and teasing. His cock hardened inside his pants, but I felt it where we were so close.

It did nothing but make me hotter.

I wanted him. God, I wanted him badly—and right that second. Desire coiled desperately in the pit of my stomach. My skin tingled with the need I felt pounding through my veins.

“We have time, right?” Beck breathed against my mouth.

“A little.”

He let me go, and then, when I was expecting him to grab my hand, he took hold of my waist and hauled me over his shoulder. I screamed as he clamped one arm around me, just below my butt, and walked into the hall. He turned toward the stairs, and all I thought was, Oh shit. I fisted his shirt as I bumped against him every time he took a stair upward.

I’d never been so glad to be at the top of some stairs, but he didn’t put me down. No, he carried me right on down the hall and into his room. Then, finally, with a deep, dark chuckle, he threw me on the bed. I stretched my hands out to steady myself, but it was useless, because he kicked his shoes off before he fell over me and captured my lips in yet another kiss.

His fingers linked through mine, and my legs opened as he settled between them. His hard cock pushed against my aching pussy as he relaxed on top of me and my knees hooked over his hips. We moved together, kissing, writhing, wrapping ourselves around each other until, finally, I thought I would explode from kissing alone.

Beck peppered kisses all down my neck, one hand sliding down my body. “Let me worship you,” he whispered against my skin, his breath hot and heavy.

I answered by dipping my head and kissing him. I wouldn’t say no—I couldn’t say no. Everything that had happened between us, all the doubts and the fights, felt like it had been leading up to this moment when, for a flash of a heartbeat, I felt like we could be something special.

He quickly undressed me, his hands making deft work of his own too, until we were both naked. I was hot everywhere, a tightly wound bundle of desire and need that would explode any second.

His mouth trailed a hot path down my neck to my breasts, where he took each one in his mouth. His tongue expertly teased my nipples, and I arched my back, giving him more of me. Unlike the times before when we’d been together, there was no dirty talk, no dirty words, just work. He spoiled my senses as he ran his tongue down the center of my stomach and dragged his hands down his sides.

My panties disappeared in seconds. Beck covered my pussy with his mouth in another. My hips bucked as he wasted no time rolling his tongue over my clit. He devoured me as I grabbed the sheets and writhed beneath him. The pleasure he was giving me was overwhelming. Intense—so much so that I fought to get away as it threatened to consume me.

He wasn’t in agreement with my plan. He hooked his hands around the tops of my thighs and pulled me right back down the bed. Pulled my pussy right back into his mouth. Pulled me right back down onto his tongue. He held me there until I couldn’t take it anymore and gave myself over to the rolling waves of pleasure that cascaded across my skin.

I was still shaking from it when he once again pulled me down the bed, a condom rolled over his long, hard cock, and positioned himself at the opening of my pussy. I took a deep breath as he pushed himself inside me. My entire body burned as he buried himself deep inside me and held it.

His hands wove into my hair, his lips finding mine. My fingers trailed up his back as I closed my eyes while we kissed. I lost myself in everything he was as we moved together. I was spiraling upward and out of control. I was on fire for him. I couldn’t get enough of each and every inch of him.

More, more, more.

It was never enough.

I cried out as I came. The orgasm flooded me, shocking me into clenching every single muscle I had as it racked my body. Riding it out blindly was my only option.

So I did.

I rode it out, let it consume me, drown me, suffocate me, until Beck was as limp and breathless as I was. He all but collapsed on top of me, completely spent. His chest heaved against mine for a couple of minutes before he pulled out of me and rolled to the side only to roll me with him. He tucked me into the crook of his arm, and I wrapped my body around his. Our legs intertwined, my arm rested over his stomach, and the frantic beat of his heart pounded beneath my cheek.

And then there was nothing except the strange sense of belonging.

“S
leepover at Beck’s house?” It was the fifth time she’d asked it.

“Yes. Sleepover at Beck’s house,” I confirmed. For the fifth time.

It was already tiresome.

“Can I play in his pool?”

“Yep. If you find your swimsuit.”

Her eyes lit up. “Really? Really really?”

I shrugged. “Mia said you didn’t get a tummy ache after your pancake and your cupcake, so sure. Not late though because you have to go to school tomorrow.”

“Aw, Mommy, I don’t want to.” She jutted her lower lip out, widening her eyes in an obvious attempt to win me over. She flattened her hand over her belly and rubbed it. “I might have a tummy ache again.”

“Well,” I said, folding one of her dresses. “You can’t go swimming, then. No tummy aches in swimming pools.”

She sighed heavily and dropped onto her bed with the drama of any Hollywood star. “Oh, but that really isn’t fair!”