I could almost feel Lance frowning through the line. Eventually, he said, “Feel better, Sunny.”
The call ended. Beckett and I stared at each other again. He set the phone down and dipped his hand into the water, trailing his fingers along my shin and over my knee. I leaned back and shifted, parting my legs a bit.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, his gaze unfocused.
“If there’s one thing we can rely on Lance for, it’s his maturity and perspective.”
Beck tipped his head back against the wall. “He’s such a little bitch sometimes.”
“Why do you even like him? I’m required, but for you, it’s a choice.”
“I have my reasons.”
I opened my legs as much as the tub would allow. I wanted to feel his hands on me, to feel good and alive. And I wanted the safety I found in his touch. The knowledge that he knew me, he understood me. And he’d care for me.
He skimmed his fingers along the inside of my thigh as I soaked, that gorgeous face of his settling into an old familiar scowl while his gaze moved between my face and my body. I loved seeing him like this, just sitting on the floor in his outrageously expensive shirt and trousers as he watched me in the bath. I loved the way the water clung to his arm, beads traveling down his forearm with the lines of his veins. I loved that I could find enough comfort and power in being exposed this way that I spread my legs and asked for more. I loved that nothing had really changed for us today, even with all the drama and upheaval. I lovedthis. I was beginning to think I might loveus.
I arched my hips up, asking for more. He shook his head, grumbling out, “Sunny, I can’t.”
But he swept his fingers between my legs and I sighed out a raspy, “Yes.”
He stroked me with the backs of his fingers and the pad of his thumb, and wispy curlicues of pleasure, of lightness twisted through my body.
“I can’t have you blacking out on me,” Beck said, and I felt the apology in his words. “I can’t risk that.”
I reached for his wrist, trapping his hand on my pussy. “Just a little more.”
“I swear to god,” he murmured. “If I have to take you back to the ER tonight—”
“I’m not going to come,” I said. “I don’t even think I can, but I just want—” I didn’t know how to explain that I needed this. I needed him. “Please, Beck.”
Minutes passed as he drew his fingers over me, circling near my clit but never giving it the kind of attention that would get us anywhere. My nipples were hard. An ache settled behind my belly button and it pulsed whenever he lingered near my opening, caressing my flesh with so much restraint that I could hear his jaw click.
Eventually, he said, “You’re going to be a raisin. And the water’s getting cold.”
“But—”
“You can spend the next month riding my face if you get out of this tub right now,” he said. “I’ll fuck you twice a day and suck your clit until it throbs at the sight of me. I’ll make you a punch-card and give you a freebie after every ten fucks, but I can’t do this with you tonight. Or for at least a week.”
“A punch-card,” I repeated.
“If that’s what it takes.”
“How would I ride your face with this?” I motioned to my busted arm.
“I won’t let you fall,” he said.
“And if I do?”
“I’ll catch you,” he said.
Beck helped me out of the bath and took great care to towel off every inch of me. There was a line between small, helpless child I’d been so many times and pampered adult, and I didn’t know which side of it I was on.
“I lied to your mother,” he said, studying the products in my cabinet. “I told her you have fresh aloe and—”
“Jesus, not the aloe again.”
“—I don’t think you do.” He held up a bottle of thick body lotion and the prescription-strength antibiotic ointment from the hospital. “This will have to do for tonight.”
