Chapter 17

Sela

I don’t hear the condo door open, but I do hear the jangle and clank of Beck’s keys as he tosses them onto the foyer table. I stay on my side, facing the windows overlooking the Financial District, and wait for him to come to me. I woke up about twenty minutes ago and was content to stay under the warm covers and consider how drastically my life seems to be changing on an almost daily basis.

I am now somehow involved in a relationship with a man I targeted as an unwitting pawn in a scheme to commit murder.

Beck North started out as a means to an end, most likely an innocent bystander, and I sacrificed what few remaining principles I had in order to bring him deeper into my web. And yet, as I lie here and stare out the window, envisioning the gorgeous man walking down the hallway to me at this very moment, I can’t help but feel that perhaps I’m the one who’s trapped in a web at this moment.

I can’t help feeling that’s not a bad thing.

Cool air hits my naked backside, then to my surprise, an equally naked Beck slides into the bed and presses in against me, his chest to my back, his arm around my waist, his pelvis and hardening dick to my butt, and his legs tangling with mine. He pulls me in deeper and rests his chin on my shoulder.

“Did I wake you up?” he asks softly, sliding his hand up to cup my breast. He does nothing more than press his warm palm to my skin and hold it in a gentle cradle.

I shake my head. “I’ve been up for a little bit.”

“How do you feel?” he asks tentatively.

“Very well used,” I tell him on a light laugh, and then after a slight hesitation, I offer an honest admission. “Fantastic actually.”

A low chuckle rumbles against me and he squeezes me closer. “Me too.”

Both of us…reveling in the newness of what we agreed to enter into last night. Me, right this moment, amazed at how good it feels to have him wrapped around me.

Me…Sela Halstead…perhaps no longer a victim? Perhaps becoming a normal woman who enjoys intimacy?

Craves it actually…with this man, that is.

Amazing.

“How did it go?” I ask him, and thus I’ve opened us up to have a discussion about his business. But I figured, what the hell…we are now in a relationship, so why not. Besides…all starry-eyed romantic notions aside, I still need intel on JT, and this is the best way to get it.

“I think we worked things out,” he says after a moment’s hesitation.

“How so?” I ask, feeling a little out of sorts. Beck sounds far too calm.

“JT’s promised to get his shit together. It seemed genuine—”

I spin in the bed, flopping over onto my side to face Beck. I’m outraged for a blinding second and my hands come to press on his chest to push him back from me so I can look him directly in the eye. “He tried to drug a woman last night,” I grit out, my blood raging with fury.

Beck shakes his head and his hands come to cover mine with a reassuring squeeze. “That’s what I thought too, Sela. I was prepared to force him to leave with that, and if he refused, I was calling the police.”

“So why isn’t that asshole sitting in the back of a police car right now?” I ask sarcastically.

“Because the woman agreed to it,” Beck says with what I admit is a clear sound of disgust. “There’s a written agreement.”

I rear backward and my eyebrows shoot to the middle of my forehead before coming back down in a narrowed gaze of suspicion. “Agreed to it?”

“It was a fantasy of hers apparently,” Beck says with a sheepish shrug.

“Or of his,” I retort, but then immediately ask, “Did you see the agreement?”

He shakes his head. “He’ll get it to me tomorrow.”

I drop my eyes, look at his hands gripping mine against his chest. “I don’t believe it. I don’t trust him.”

Beck pulls a hand from mine, puts his knuckles under my chin, and raises my gaze back to his. “Hey…I get you’re upset about what he did, but if there’s an agreement and that was consensual, I can’t do anything about it.”

“It wasn’t consensual,” I say bitterly, and pull away from him, rolling the opposite way toward the edge of the bed. Why can’t he see Jonathon Townsend for what he really is?

“Hey,” Beck exclaims, and his arm is wrapping around my waist, pulling me back. He comes to his knees, drags me back into him, and brings both arms around to hold me tight. His chin goes back to my shoulder and he asks softly, “What’s this all about?”

I shrug.

“Sela…talk to me,” he demands.

“There’s something wrong with him,” I whisper, my voice clogging with emotion. I want so badly to tell Beck exactly what I mean by that, but I can’t tell him the truth yet. To do that would be to expose my intentions. Beck would see immediately that he was targeted and he would question my feelings for him. I can’t do that. I can’t give him up, nor the close positioning that a relationship with Beck puts me in with JT.

“He’s wayward,” Beck agrees with frustration. “A douche. Irrational, impulsive, and immature. He’s all of that, but he’s promised to get his shit together, Sela, and outside of some clear wrongdoing on his part with regard to the company, I don’t have much choice but to go along with it. The only chance I had to break free was the threat of exposing him to the police last night, but that’s not an option now.”

I sag back against Beck, completely exhausted over this conversation. I hear it in Beck’s voice…he’s torn between wanting to get away from a bad situation and the hope that comes with promises of something better. It’s certainly an easier fix, and I try desperately to give credence to Beck’s thought process.

In his mind, he has nothing concrete to use against JT. He’s backed into a corner and he can either walk or hope for a peaceful resolution with a bit more patience on his part. Is it wrong that he’s choosing this option versus leaving his dream behind?

I don’t think I can find fault with that, and while I know deep in my gut that JT was planning to drug and rape that woman last night, and I don’t believe for a moment that there’s a legitimate agreement in place whereby that woman agreed to that, I have to be careful about how strong my opposition is at this point. I can never underestimate not only the bonds of a long-lasting friendship between those men, but the fact that Beck and JT are intertwined by a lot of fucking money that might be more important to Beck than how great a fuck I am.