She turns her face to me, blue eyes round and innocent with just a hint of mischief in their depths.

I start to unbutton my shirt as I look at her sitting on my floor with one of my tees in her hand. “Why do I get the feeling you’re redirecting me?”

She shrugs and gives me a tiny smirk. “I just wanted to return to the notion of you telling me that you don’t expect anything, because that’s not exactly true. You do expect to have sex with me, and I’m just reminding you of that. I’m just throwing in the cleaning out of the goodness of my heart.”

My fingers freeze on the buttons as I consider what she’s said, and I realize that while I very much would enjoy the fuck out of a blow job from her, she’s completely wrong about why she’s here in my condo. She’s not here so I can have available pussy 24/7 without having to work for it. And she’s not here for my pleasure or whim. That’s all easy stuff for me to get.

I brought Sela Halstead to my home for one reason only, and that’s because that first night we were together, with my lips sucking on her clit and I was three fingers deep inside of her, something happened when she came that changed the course of her life and mine. I can’t explain it, and perhaps it is nothing more than an ego trip for me like I told her a few nights ago. But I do know one thing for sure…there is some type of connection between Sela and me that I’ve never experienced before, and frankly, I’m just fucking curious about it.

Whatever the connection…for whatever reason that I’ve given her something that others haven’t, I have a deep gut instinct that it’s something that defies reason or logic. I almost get the sense it’s mystical in nature, and I’m intrigued beyond measure. And so for the first time in my life, I’m doing something that is completely unlike anything Beck North has ever done before.

I’m exploring something deeper with one woman.

This woman to be exact.

Chapter 11

Sela

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.”