I sigh, sink further into Beck, and lean my head back so it rests on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I just don’t like your partner, but I totally get where you’re coming from.”

“Sela,” Beck murmurs, sounding frustrated and exhausted all at once. “This is my only option at this moment. It doesn’t mean I trust him fully and doesn’t mean that he won’t fuck this up. It’s just the only play I have.”

I nod and bring my arms up and over his, holding him tighter to me. “I know. I understand.”

Beck sighs in relief and then places his teeth at my earlobe. He gives a playful bite, then licks before he says, “JT wants to do dinner with us both. He seems happy for me.”

I tense up but try to sound inquisitively relaxed when I ask, “Oh yeah? You told him about us?”

“I did,” Beck says, sounding happy with himself. “JT called you my girlfriend. Sounds sort of high schoolish, doesn’t it?”

There’s no helping the laugh that comes out of my mouth, because it does sound a little immature. I can’t help jumping off track from my concerns when I ask, “So…is this like official or something? We’re, what…dating?”

“Dating, fucking, cohabitating,” Beck says as he pulls me down to the bed. He rolls, and I go to my back, then he rolls right on top of me. My legs spread on their own accord and he settles in between them. I love the way the hairs on his legs brush against my smooth skin and the warmth of his cock that’s semihard and nestled against my bare mound. “I’m not sure what label you and I have at this point, but I’m liking where we are right at this moment.”

My eyes flutter closed and I moan as he presses his pelvis down and rotates his hips a bit. “Mmmmmm…me too.”

“Sela?” Beck says softly, and my eyes open slowly to look at him. His face is hovering over mine and his gaze is sparkling with intensity. “Do you trust me? I mean…at least in the way I’m handling JT right now?”

“Well, that’s not for me to say,” I offer hesitantly.

“Yes, it is,” he admonishes me with a stern look. “You don’t like him. Your run-ins with him have been less than stellar, and so you have very good reason not to like him. And while you and I haven’t known each other long, I think we’re both trying to build something here, and I don’t want my personal or business decisions causing you to doubt me.”

I blink in surprise at the desperation in his voice. I raise a hand, place it to his cheek, and realize with utter honesty that while I may not like what JT is doing to Beck, I do in fact trust what Beck’s decided to do in that regard. I, better than anyone, know that sometimes you have to go with the long-range plan when it comes to dealing with snakes like Jonathon Townsend.

I nod. “Yes. I trust what you’re doing with JT.”

Relief swells within Beck’s blue eyes and he smiles at me in gratitude. His face drops closer and his lips brush against me briefly before his forehead drops to mine. He holds still there for a moment, and I close my eyes, relishing this softly intimate embrace of silence.

“Sela?” Beck whispers my name again and then he pulls his face away. Looking down at me with the most serious expression I’ve ever seen on his beautiful face, he asks, “Would you trust me to let me fuck you without a condom?”

My entire body tightens with shock over his proposition and then clenches even harder with the sinful wonder of what that would feel like. I then flush warm, not from the erotic suggestion, but from the care and trust that this implies. I think I feel the stone of my heart actually start to disintegrate, collapsing in wispy, dusty piles at the bottom of my chest.

I open my mouth to answer him, but he’s apparently not done. He kisses me hard, then speaks to me in urgent whispers. “You see, because here’s the thing…I’m closer to you right now than any woman in my life outside of my sister, and that’s a different kind of closeness. But I want to be even closer to you. I want to crawl inside of you, Sela, and feel every inch of you against me. I don’t want any barriers and I don’t want any fucking walls between us. Just you and me, touching…you melding into me, me into you. I want to know what that feels like with you…the bare skin of my cock slippery from your juices. I want to come deep inside you, planted to the root. Mark you as mine. I want that so fucking bad. Is there enough trust between us we can have that? Would you give that to me?”

My head spins and my chest constricts with aching pleasure over his words. The lust wrapped with infinite tenderness and yearning. His eyes begging me for something I’ve never given another man. Never wanted that closeness. Always wanted that thin barrier of rubber protecting me not just from STDs but from a true connection.

But so help me God…I want it now with this man.

He knows I’m protected from pregnancy because he’s well aware of the packet of birth control pills that sits out in the open on his bathroom vanity. He even reminds me each morning to take it, but I’ve never failed in that responsibility. I think by the mere fact he’s asking if I trust him must imply he trusts me, but I need to make sure.

I’m pretty sure that on my sixteenth birthday, my rapists used condoms. That’s a thought that’s always increased my humiliation, because they didn’t wear them out of any concern for me. They did it without knowing I was a virgin, had never had sex before, and just assumed that perhaps I was filthy and would give them something. Let’s face it…I’m pretty sure I gave them that impression.

I also remember, in my nightmares, which I think are actual memories, the distinctive sound of a rubber snapping off just before he came in my mouth. I didn’t know what that sound was then, but when the doctors found trace lubricant from condoms in my vagina and anus, it pretty much confirmed that they all covered up to protect themselves, not me. In addition, I was tested for every STD known to man, as well as given the morning-after pill as a precaution, and I came away from that experience with filth on my soul but not in my vagina.

“I’m clean,” I say, my voice rough with emotion of why I can say that. I’ve never been with a man unprotected. Ever, and it’s nice I can give that assurance to Beck.

“I know,” he says, and while he’s not saying he knows from actual knowledge, he’s saying he knows to trust me. “You have nothing to worry about me. I promise you’re safe.”