She was shaking. “It’s never enough. I…it never felt like enough. I could steal your entire apartment, I feel the urge to…it’s like I need to do it or I’ll die. But the strangest thing is…” She didn’t finish, walked naked across the hotel room to her suitcase and took them out, one by one, and handed them. “You know what, here. It’s why I brought them. I wanted to return everything to you. It’s the right thing to do…it’s probably what’s holding me back.”
Beckham hadn’t expected it, but he stood to hop back into his clothes and briskly denied the stuff she wanted to return. “Keep them,” he murmured, studying her petite body in her nakedness.
She was so beautiful and unguarded right now, her hair tousled like a curly black halo over her head, her tits reddened at the tips because of his mouth, her cunt still glistening from the pounding he gave her. He wondered what it would be like to have her around all the time—living in town. It’d be hell, asshole, so don’t even think it would be fun….
Her expression blackened, verging on annoyance when she kept extending out his things and he refused to take them. “Come on, please take them, Beckham,” she said, then, more saucily, “Stop looking at my boobs, you dick!”
He pulled his gaze up.
“Look,” she continued, flushed head to toe, “I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want to steal things from you. I don’t want to want you anymore.” Her eyes implored, and her words confused him.
“Ahh, see, we may have a problem cause I’m starting to very much enjoy being wanted by you,” he countered with a wolfish grin.
Flushing again in a way that pleased him immensely, she put up a brave front and shoved the whole bag with his things to his chest. “Nope. That right there,” she pointed on the bed where she’d been this delicious, dirty-talking innocent with her tight pussy and her innocent smile, driving him so insane he still felt half-stupid right now, “Was closure. Plus I’m not staying in Houston. I leave tomorrow.”
“What are you doing?” she demanded when Beckham started dressing her up by force.
“You said tomorrow. We still have today to fool around,” he said.
“But I—“
“Shh.” Beckham quieted her by pinching her lips shut and sending her a look. “You owe me.”
“So? I’m giving it all back now!”
“You still owe me interest.”
“You’re a fucking millionaire, geez!”
She complained, but she hated that, deep inside, she’d turned to gelatin. Not because he was inviting her out. The sex had left her feeling all deliciously used and the way Beckham gazed at her with those dark Gypsy eyes made her feel as though every second that passed by she was becoming more beautiful.
She didn’t know where Beckham drove to at first. She merely went with him on a taxi to get his car, which was still parked in his apartment, then she sat quietly as he drove a very fancy car that must cost more than her whole place in Florida, and then she tried to post a bored expression on her face like she’d ridden in these sorts of vehicles all her life.
Her stomach roiled as she thought of all his stuff that she’d had him put in his trunk. Her favorite sweatshirt, belt, T-shirt, ties. The socks, now those she’d miss the most. She felt like she’d just parted with everything good in her life. She’d taken them everywhere she went, all of them. It gave her comfort. Growing up, she’d been abandoned by her parents, who’d taken their trailer and just left her at her grandparent’s doorstep.
Her grandparents had never seen her before until that day.
She remembered feeling extremely anxious as her mother left, and how she’d clutch her scarf, the only thing left of her mother, every day, until Nana threw it away.
Sandy saw the way Beckham protected Calli and she’d wanted him to protect and coddle her, too. She’d watched longingly as he helped her do all the things a good big brother did, drive her places, kill a spider for her, and if anyone would have ever threatened Calli the way they did Sandy, Sandy was sure Beckham would have stepped up for his sister, too.
But she annoyed him. She wasn’t sweet, she was loud and demanding, and when she was hurting, she made her damnedest to hurt back and make sure it hurt even worse.
She’d never stolen anything in her life until the day Nana threw her blanket, and the first thing she’d stolen had been a picture of Beckham Calli had in her dressing table. From then on, the strangest part was that she mostly stole from him.
For the past decade of her life, she’d lived with her cousins in Florida in relative peace, and Glenn had been after her from the beginning. She didn’t have to steal into Glenn’s bed to get noticed. He was the one who kept pursuing her and annoying her until she’d caved.
But Beckham would never cave to someone like Sandy. He had the world at his feet, and who was she? She was a waitress, trying her damnedest to save up and open a small café, and she was a little thief who’d never given him anything but a headache. And okay, a few good orgasms, but she’d bet he got some great ones without having to pay any price for them.
She should be excited that he was taking her out, but instead, she worried it would be like showing a hungry person a feast, letting them take a bite, and then send them back to their paltry lives, where they would always, always know what they would be missing.
When he took her up the tall building of the Winters corporation, of which he was CEO, right to the helipad, Sandy forgot to keep worrying—she was so mind-boggled.
Her legs wobbled when she stood at his side and watched the helicopter approach. Soon, they were boarding it.
It was a big deal.
But it wasn’t a big deal. He was a millionaire. Hello? This was his daily bread and butter. He probably did this regularly and got laid very regularly.
So she bit back the shocked smile on her face and tried not to blink, aware of Beckham watching her with a smile. “Alright? Let’s take a ride. I want you to see the city from up here.”
She did. Boy, she did see the city. Everything looking so tiny, even the big, grand things suddenly seemed not as big, or as grand, from up here. Up here, only the sky seemed grand. And the feeling of Beckham reaching out to squeeze her hand as he grinned at her.
After a very exciting flight, they descended on a clearing in Woodlands—where the city had so much green and lush natural flora that she almost thought she’d been transported to a virgin island out of the country.
“This is gorgeous,” she told him, sounding breathless as they descended the noisy helicopter.
Beckham led her to a little cottage in the middle of what felt like nowhere, and Sandy was sure she had arrived in paradise. She smelled the fresh breeze and could make out the scent of flowers in the air, and especially was aware of Beckham taking her hand in his as he led her inside.
He gave her a tour of the cottage, where she admired the quaint little kitchen, a small cozy living room, and a bedroom with a king bed. Everything was pristine and clean, the furniture very tasteful.
She realized that while she’d been gasping, ooing and aahing over the little cottage, Beckham had been drinking in her reaction with quiet, thoughtful eyes.
When their eyes locked, her heart lurched in reaction and happiness to be here—alone with him. But as they stared, not knowing what he was thinking made Sandy instantly on the defensive, and she struggled to bring up her walls. She pulled her hand free.
“Why are you showing off in front of me? I already know you’re extremely successful, okay?” She laughed at him, but glowered too.
He smiled sardonically, but then frowned at her his usual black frown. “I’m enjoying myself here. I’m enjoying myself with you. I’m enjoying seeing that unguarded smile on your face. The one that comes up when you think I’m not looking at you. Can you cut me some slack, Sandy?”
She scowled and picked at an invisible dust particle on her blouse. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m having such a good time,” she admitted, lifting her gaze to his, unable to find w
ords to tell him she wasn’t used to being happy, that she felt so uncomfortable being happy and feeling so happy in his company that a part of her wanted him to stop making her happy while another wanted him to never, ever, stop.
“I’m having a good time too,” he said, taking a step to raise his hand and cup her cheeks. “There’s fishing nearby. Areas for picnics. Shopping, even. What do you want to do?” he asked.
Sandy wanted to stay in this cottage forever, preferably with Beckham’s clothes on the floor.
Next to her own.
But she was afraid of how much she craved him already, so she relented and admitted she’d love to stay in the cottage and play board games.
That’s exactly what they did. He had a collection of games. They played Monopoly (Beckham won) and Life (Beckham won) and Clue (Sandy won. It was Coronel Mustard, with the Wrench, in the Study.)
Afterward, Beckham ordered takeout to be delivered, and she was enchanted when she realized that they did—in fact—deliver right to their door. So they had Chinese food for dinner, and sort of picked food off of each other’s cardboard pail, and when they were done, they threw everything away (no washing needed.)
They lay there with the television on, and somehow Sandy ended up curled to his side with Beckham’s arm around her shoulder.
She absorbed the feel of him, everything about this day and evening. Beckham lounged back, sated from dinner and glorious, and she never expected he’d have a look quite like the one he was wearing at the moment.
As if she melted him.
“Do you bring many girls here?” she asked. Hoping maybe to remind herself that this didn’t mean anything but the fact that they were becoming friends. At last.
“No,” he surprised her answering. “I go out with girls, but none of them seem to make me engage in ways other than…physically.”
He grinned. Sandy grinned back.
“Sounds like me,” she admitted.
Becks smile faded and he glowered. “Don’t tell me about other guys. Not right now.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like hearing it, Sandy.” He sighed, glowering at her. “You ever got taken advantage of? Wait don’t answer that. Well, did you?”
She laughed. “First I’m a thorn on your side and now I’m a fragile petal?”
“You’re both. A flower is both.”
“You ass, you’re making fun of me.”
He laughed. “Sandy…come the fuck here,” he said, his tone growing gruff before he started to kiss her…and continued to kiss her for over an hour.
By the time they flew back to the city, it was close to midnight. They descended the helicopter and Sandy was certain that Beckham was driving her to the motel and that was the end of things.
And yet as they climbed the car and he took to the streets, he reached out to put his hand on her thigh. He looked at her wordlessly, and Sandy became breathless realizing he didn’t take the turn to her motel.
She pressed her lips shut, wanting to keep them shut in case her mouth said something along the lines of “you missed the turn!”
Neither of them said anything the whole way to Becks apartment. But the moment they walked past the doors and Beckham shut them behind them, they only had hands, lips, eyes, and teeth for each other.
He stripped her fast—as if he’d been eager to feel her skin, taste her skin, as eager as she had been. He carried her to the bed, and fucked her so well and so many times that night—in the kitchen, in the shower, on his bed, on the floor, and on a table—that by next morning, when Sandy woke up, she could hardly ease out of bed. Oh my.
She hurt everywhere.
She remembered the wicked things Becks had whispered in her ear at night like take it, take me, and you’re gorgeous, and I’m addicted to your taste, and a whole blush appeared in her body.
Shifting beside him on the bed, she drank in the image of dark-haired, bare-chested, sleeping Beckham with a painful feeling in her breast. Leaning to his ear, she spoke the words she knew she needed to say, in hopes that saying them would dislodge them from where she’d kept them buried all these years and they would leave.
“I love you,” she whispered, stroking her fingers over his dark messed-up hair. He muttered something in his sleep and clutched his arm tighter around her.
She held her breath at the touch, shutting her eyes for a brief, secret moment, and then she waited a couple of more minutes to ease out of bed.
As quietly as she could, she pried his arm from around her and set it down on the bed. She didn’t want to wake him. So she quietly eased out of bed, got dressed, and then impulsively, she scoured his apartment for the duffel bag with all of his things. She found it by the door and snatched it up and was tiptoeing out of the room when his voice froze her.
“Going out?”
“Huh?” She whirled around, eyes wide as she saw him in bed, arms folded behind his head. “Yes!” she quickly answered. “I have a flight to catch. I didn’t want to wake you,” she nervously rambled.
Beckham stood in all his delicious naked glory. He eased into his slacks (no underwear included) and scanned his eyes over her sensitive, very-well-fucked body. There was appreciation in his gaze as he drank her in, then, amusement as his gaze ran over the duffel she was carrying. “You packed your bag, it seems.”
“Yes,” she said.
Her heart pounded as he approached in nothing but his pants, his chest bare, his neck particularly pretty with a hickey Sandy had left as a reminder of last night.
“Let me help you with that, hmm?” He reached out and slid the duffel bag off her shoulder and then dropped it on the floor, knelt, and unzipped it.
She felt as if the world crumpled when Beckham saw everything that was inside the duffel. The duffel that she had been stealthily—or not so stealthily—stealing from his apartment.
This really took the cake of it all!
“Why give them back if you’re taking them again?” he asked her, studying her in confusion, his eyes full of…it wasn’t disappointment. It was something else that she couldn’t discern. Hating the idea of him hating her again, Sandy sat on the floor as Beckham reached into the bag and pulled out his things, one by one.
Beckham just didn’t know what the hell he was most disappointed about.
About Sandy—glorious, vexing, complicated Sandy Brown—taking his goddamned things again, or about her leaving his place like some felon in the night without even a farewell after the day—and fucking night—they’d spent together.
“I don’t know why I take them!” she finally cried, agitated. “I’ve been to doctors, okay? Nobody knows why I do it, I only get anxious and I do and I seem to do it…only with you.”
The revelation that he was the only he stole from threw him off for a moment. He rose to full height, digesting this slowly. “Do my shirts give you comfort?”
She started crying.
“Sandy.”
Sitting there on his floor, she hiccupped and sobbed into her hands.
“Son of a bitch,” he murmured, then turned to her and gentled his voice as he knelt beside her. “Sandy…if you ask me for them, I’ll give them to you. Have you ever tried that? Asking for something you want?”
“I’m not going to beg anyone for anything, much less you.” She pulled free of his hold, proud and stubborn, and Beckham cursed under his breath and pulled her close.
“You beg me in bed, Sandy. You beg me in bed and I’m begging you now. Ask me. Ask me, and I swear to God I won’t say no to you.”
She lowered her face, sobbing.
Then she spoke down at the floor.
“Can I p-please take your shirts with me back to F-florida?”
He thought he just shattered.
He’d thought he would free her, insisting that she ask for them. Instead she sounded broken, and the question had just shattered him. The victory he’d expected to feel never came. Instead he felt desolate and she hadn’t even left.
Hearing her star
t to sob again, he realized she waited for his reply.
“Yes, baby,” he said, softly, running his hand down her bent head, and he watched helplessly as she gathered his shirts. A decade old and worn and some, even torn. And he felt like she’d just washed and scrubbed the life out of his heart as she shoved them back in the duffel and carried them to the door.
He stared at his keys on the console by the door, suddenly hoping she’d make a grab for them. She paused and stared at them, then clenched her free hand into a fist and reached for the door. Beckham stood next to her and clicked for it to open, not even following her out. As soon as the door sealed shut behind her, he covered his face in one hand and stayed there, breathing through his nose, suddenly hating the emptiness she left behind, and suddenly hating himself even more.
Sandy paused outside his door while her chest hurt and her eyes burned, and there, standing just feet away from him, but with a door between them, she did the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. She waited for the elevator, and the moment the doors rolled open, she rang Beckham’s doorbell, and instantly forced herself to part with the duffel bag. She set it at the foot of his door, and ran into the elevator, the doors rolling shut once she was inside.
Inside, with her hands empty.
Empty of him and everything that reminded her of him.
Her therapist had said that she stole from Beckham Winters because she was trying to get his attention. That a part of her ached for his acceptance and that stealing was a way to ensure Beckham gave her attention—except it was never the good kind.
Not the kind she really wanted.
Even knowing this, she couldn’t stop.
But she knew it was time to stop. It was time for her to move on with her life and there was no room for anything of Beckham in her new one.
That had been the plan. This was closure.
But instead it felt as if some sort of wound had only been cut deeper and longer and now gaped wide open.