“Hey.” Her voice is annoyingly nonchalant. “Just sitting here and I realized I was supposed to start my new job tomorrow.”
I’d forgotten. “Yes?”
“I wasn’t sure if that offer still stood or…”
“You’re the one who ran away.” I snort.
She breathes into the phone. “Can you blame me, Beckham?”
No. I can’t.
“The offer still stands.” I tighten the bolt and grab the next of eight more. “You’re welcome to work out of Dane’s office if you’d like.”
“I’m not moving to Utah, Beckham.”
“Fine. You can work with me. Don’t expect any special treatment.”
“Special treatment? What, like when you fucked me against the wall of my office?”
“Exactly,” I smirk. “You do realize that the overwhelming majority of the women I fuck don’t get the pleasure of a second or third ride.”
I can picture her jaw hanging. If she were here, she’d slap me across the face good and hard.
“Lucky for you, I jumped off the Beckham King fuck-me-go-round back in Utah. I won’t be riding again,” she spits.
My lips spread wide. I haven’t smiled this wide in days.
“Did you get everything assembled?” she asks.
“I didn’t realize we were friends again. When did that happen?”
“It didn’t happen, smartass. I’m just asking a question.”
“Now that you’re my employee, I highly recommend not referring to me as smartass.”
“I’m not your employee until tomorrow,” she says. “And I’d like to take the time to remind you that respect is earned, not given.”
I tighten another bolt and move on. “Likewise.”
“You’re saying you don’t respect me?”
“It depends on which Odessa I’m experiencing at the moment.” I snicker. “The doormat? The one going above and beyond normal, everyday niceties? I don’t respect her. The one who refuses to take my shit and gives it right back? Respect the hell out of her.”
“So that’s the secret with you, eh? You prefer your women bitchy and mean.”
“Not at all.” My palm rakes the carpet for a missing washer. “Straightforward and allergic to bullshit is hardly the equivalent of bitchy and mean.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I guess I don’t understand how being kind to you makes me a doormat.”
“Nice people always have an agenda.”
“I never had an agenda, Beckham. I just thought we were friends.”
“Friends don’t fuck each other. We jumped off the friendship train a long time ago, sweetheart.”
“Ugh.” She groans. “I don’t have time for this. All I asked was whether or not you’d assembled all the baby gear. And since you’re not going to answer me, I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow.”
“Crib’s done. Starting on the changer now.” I prop up the changer and twist it to face me. A couple shelves and it’ll be done.
“Two down, ten to go,” she chuckles. “I’d offer to help you, but I don’t want to be too nice. God forbid you think I’m a doormat again.”
Glancing around the room at the never-ending packages of all things baby, I sigh. Help would be nice.
“You’re quiet,” she says. “Too proud to ask me to help?”
I bite my lower lip, stifling a smile. She may frustrate the hell out of me, but I’m glad she’s back.
“I think you want to help.” A bit of reverse psychology never hurt anyone.
“Actually, that’s where you’re wrong.” The sound of running water trails through the receiver. “I’m sitting here in my bathtub, surrounded by bubbles, sipping on champagne.”
My cock stiffens when an image of a soaking wet Odessa flashes in my mind. “Celebrating something?”
The clink of glass chimes. “Absolutely. I’m celebrating my freedom. No more Jeremiah.”
“Lucky you.”
“I’m starting to see why the single life appealed to you so much,” she muses, a hint of a smile in her voice. “I can get all gussied up tonight, walk down to the bar, go home with any man I want, and not have all that extra bullshit to deal with the next day, you know?”
I sit up, the image of her hooking up with some random schmuck sending an unexpected heat to my veins.
“Don’t be that girl,” I say, hoping to God she doesn’t see through me. “Don’t be that lonely girl who sits at a bar waiting for some horny asshole to pick her up and make her feel special for an hour or two.”
The gentle splash of cascading water fills my ear, as if she’s sitting up now.
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” she says.
“Obviously.”
“How about this? How about you just not worry what I do after the sun goes down, hm?”
“Believe me, you’re the last person on earth I’d worry about.” Uncle Leo always said anyone who prefaces their statements with ‘believe me’ is almost always lying. He’d be right.
“Right.” She doesn’t believe me.
“Why don’t we stop whatever it is we’re doing here,” I say. “And you come over here and fuck the shit out of me, and I’ll fuck the shit out of you, and then we can get it out of our system. Start Monday with a clean slate.”
“You and I both know it doesn’t work that way.”
“So we should fuck anyway.”
God, I want to fuck her. Need to fuck her.
She’s silent.
“My cock is throbbing right now, Odessa. It’s fucking massive. It’d be a shame to let it go to waste all because you want to prove a point.”
I hear her sip her champagne and listen for the clink of the glass when she sits it down. “You’re something else, Beckham.”
“You coming or not?”
She makes me wait a minute longer than necessary. “Give me an hour.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
ODESSA
I’m barely out of the elevator when Beckham takes me, his lips smashing mine, his fingers in my hair. I’m pressed against the wall of his foyer, half wondering what the hell I’m doing here and half not giving a fuck.
His mouth trails hot kisses down the length of my neck, and I pull his clean scent into my lungs again and again. My fingers search his hair, still damp from the shower he must’ve taken before I arrived.
Melting with each circle of his thumb around my woken nipple, my mouth parts with silent pleas. His hands glide down my sides, rounding my ass and lifting me up until my legs wrap around him.
We’re one, he and I. And he carries me to the sliders leading to his balcony. It’s late, and the city lights sparkle.
The city’s alive.
I’m alive.
Beckham twists me away from him, his hands dragging down the sides of the black dress I wore over here. I chose it solely for easy access reasons, this being an impulsive booty call and all, and paired it with a shiny pair of red fuck-me heels.
His free hand gathers my hair and tugs my head back as he nibbles my ear. Beckham’s other hand pulls the hem of my dress up to my hips and slicks back down until he returns to the warmth between my thighs.
“No panties,” he breathes into my ear. I feel his smile when he speaks.
A steady finger runs the length of my slit before slipping in. My stance widens, and the outline of his swollen cock presses against the back of my thigh. Beckham presses a second finger inside me, aided by my abundant arousal, and takes the skin of my shoulder between his teeth.
I glance to the left to find a neighboring balcony empty, though I’m not sure I’d care much if anyone were occupying it. The fresh night air swirls around us, and a symphony of honking cars and city life below paints this risky, but my mind isn’t there. My mind obsessively concentrates on the feel of his fingers grazing my body, the command in his kisses, the buckle in my knees, the track of tingles running the length of my spine, and the aching wetness in my core.
With his hands digging into my hips, he turns me to face him and lowers himself. Devouring me, his tongue performs miracles that threaten to bring me to my knees if he keeps it up much longer.