Chapter 15

Sela

For the first time in just over six months, I actually consider letting go of my vengeance against JT.

For just a moment, I consider what would happen if I focused instead on what I have here with Beck. He’s given me so much more than money for my education. He’s given me pleasure and respect. He’s given me self-worth. Beck has made it so that I don’t consider myself a victim. Without the weight of victimization on my shoulders, I have to wonder why revenge would be needed. And what would happen if I let the anger and rage go and opened up the empty space left behind to Beck North. I think I understand, deep in my heart, that he’d fill that space up perfectly.

The thought is thrilling yet scary.

It’s also short-lived, as I realize that Beck tonight saved a woman from JT’s clutches. What about the next woman though? And the one after that?

Because while Beck may think this is an isolated incident with his partner, I happen to know that a zebra doesn’t change its stripes.

When I saw JT boldly and assuredly sprinkle powder in that woman’s drink, I was overcome with hopelessness for the situation, inundated with fear for the unsuspecting, and flooded with painful memories of shame and humiliation. My stomach curdled, nausea rose, and I watched in stunned fascination as Beck pushed away from the bar. It was almost as if he was in slow motion as he strode angrily up to JT and pulled him roughly away. I watched as he yelled and pushed his partner across the floor, his face livid and flushed red. Internally, I chanted to myself, Kill him, kill him, kill him, wanting Beck to be my avenging angel, and was disappointed I didn’t see bloodshed before they walked out of my line of sight.

I considered following but was frozen to my seat. I shakily sipped at my martini until I finally just gulped it down before pushing the empty glass away. What if Beck right now called the police and JT was arrested? How would I ever get to him?

But maybe if that happened, I could come forward to the police with my story and he’d go down for my assault too. That wasn’t ideal to me, because while I had briefly considered this route when I first realized who Jonathon Townsend was, I just as immediately discounted it because it didn’t seem satisfactory enough for me. I needed to know the identity of all my rapists and there was no guarantee he’d give them up. I also don’t want JT populating this earth. As much as the idea of him getting gang-raped in prison appeals to me, I want to snuff out his wretched life so his brand of evil no longer exists. Finally, I want to make JT suffer before I end him. I want him scared, and I want him just as terrified of me as I was of him. I want all of them to suffer, and while I can’t bring down on them the same horrors they perpetrated on me, I can end their lives, and that was suffering, right? Not to get to live their evil, sociopathic lives?

After the martini flushed its warmth through me, I then briefly considered taking my purse and following them both out. Within that purse sat my Walther PPK.

Well, it was my mom’s handgun, because given my psychiatric history, there’s no way I’d ever be given a permit, but it’s in my possession now. About a month after she died, my father and I went through all her stuff. We gave her clothing away to a homeless shelter and Dad insisted I get her modest collection of jewelry except for her wedding band. All of her knickknacks stayed in their exact places within my family home, except I’ve noticed over the past year that some of them have been packed away, and I think that might be Maria asserting her influence. I figure Dad has them boxed and ready for me when I want them.

There wasn’t much left, but in addition to her jewelry, I got her gun. My parents have always had guns for as long as I can remember. I grew up shooting with them from the time I was a little girl, my dad often driving us up to Marin County on the weekends for target practice. Sometimes we’d hit McClure’s Beach on early foggy mornings and shoot beer cans off driftwood. Other times we’d head into Mount Tamalpais State Park where it was easy to get away from people and shoot into the silent forest.

I was comfortable with the gun. Knew how to load and shoot it.

While my long-distance aim is probably shit because I haven’t been able to target shoot given the illegality of my possession of this gun, I intend to be up close and personal with JT when I use it.

I won’t miss.

But ultimately, before I could rashly stalk out of the ballroom and commit cold-blooded murder to ease my pain, Beck was walking back in toward me. His jaw was locked tight, his eyes dull and grim. With a swiftness that surprised me, thoughts of vengeance and bloody death just evaporated, and I was filled with an overwhelming concern for Beck and his peace of mind. There’s no doubt he’s troubled by what he saw, and there’s also no doubt that when provoked, he’s a man who will react quickly and harshly. My empathy for Beck actually overtook my hate of JT, and I was compelled to help ease his distress. Granted, dancing may have been a stupid idea, but it put us in an immediate situation where I could put my hands on him in a calming fashion.

Where he was tense and still vibrating with restrained anger when he took my hand in his and pressed the other into my lower back, within just moments of us touching each other, I felt his shoulders relax and his breathing even out. Right after that, Beck was inviting me to stay in his home on an indefinite basis and said we were scrapping the entire hoax of a sugarship that we had been perpetrating.

Then he invited me to cook Thanksgiving dinner with him.

To meet his sister and niece.

He was telling me that I was becoming important to him.

All things that I never imagined I’d gain when I started this quest.

And once again, I’m wondering if the path I’m on seeking retribution is a fool’s errand when I consider what I can lose. Best-case scenario, I achieve my plans and get away with murder and Beck is never the wiser. We continue seeking a potential happily ever after.

Worst case, I get caught and spend my life in prison wondering if I lost something that may have had the potential to give me a normal and fulfilled life.

“You about ready to get out of here?” Beck asks gruffly, his hand rubbing sensuously on my lower back.

“If you are,” I say as I pull my head off his shoulder and gaze up at him.

He smiles softly at me, tips his head down, and rubs his nose against mine. “I just really want to be alone with you. Away from all this shit.”

With a slight tilt of my face, my mouth finds his and I answer with a tongue-filled kiss that causes him to groan and pull me in closer so I can feel the start of his erection burning through our clothes. The adrenaline, high emotions, and sexual longing in his eyes right now overwhelms me.

“Let’s go,” I murmur, and that’s all he needs before he’s leading me off the dance floor, through the ballroom, and out into the hotel lobby as he reaches into his pocket to pull out his cell phone. With a few quick taps, he dials his driver and merely says, “We’re ready. Pull around.”

Beck’s hand is tight on mine as we step out into the chilly air. He doesn’t say a word, but just stares intently down the street until he sees the limo rounding the block to pull up in front of us. He doesn’t wait for the driver but pulls the back door open for me and helps me inside.

Crawling in right behind me, he tells the driver, “You can take us back to the Millennium, but circle the building when you get there until I tell you otherwise.”

The driver barely gets, “Yes, sir,” out before Beck is hitting the button that closes the window screen that separates us from him.

Beck lowers himself back on the seat beside me, and I gasp in surprise when he turns, puts hands to my hips, and drags me onto his lap so that my ass presses into his erection and my back into his chest. His arms circle my waist where he squeezes me briefly, places his lips to my ear, and whispers, “I need you right now. Can’t wait.”

My head spins and my entire body flushes hot with lust brought on not by the compromising situation he just put me in, but by the need in his voice. I answer by wiggling my butt and grinding down onto him.

Beck hisses, in pleasure…in pain…I don’t know, but then his hands go to the hem of my dress and he roughly pulls the material up my legs, right past my hips where it bunches around my waist. No sooner is the dress out of his way than his hand is between my legs and his fingers are inching under the white cotton lace of my panties. No sooner is his hand in my panties than his fingers are against my clit, dipping inside me, massaging me in and out. My heels punch into the carpeted floor of the car, my legs straighten, and my back arches away from him as the back of my head presses into his shoulder for leverage.

“That’s right,” he growls as he finger-fucks me, moving his other hand over my chest to pinch at a nipple through the silk of my dress. “I want you to come on my hand, baby. Come for me, Sela.”

My eyes roll into the back of my head as the pleasure threatens to consume me. His fiery touch, his filthy words, the mere fact he couldn’t even wait until we pulled away from the hotel has me racing toward climax at Mach speed. I vaguely wonder if the driver knows what we’re doing, figure he probably does, and God help me…that turns me on even more.

“Come on, Sela,” Beck grits out, his stiff cock grinding into my ass from below. “Give it to me so I can fuck you. Please give it to me…I need inside you so bad.”

And holy shit…I give it to him with a scream that reverberates through the limousine and no doubt that the driver heard that. My pelvis shoots up, grinds against his hand, and an animalistic groan of relief tears free.

“Oh, fuck me, that’s hot,” Beck says as he continues to rub circles around my clit while I shudder and shake in his embrace.

My head is still spinning, my body deliciously weak when Beck spins me in his arms, pulling me into a full straddle over his lap so I’m now facing him.

“Get my pants open,” he huffs out urgently as his hand dives into his pocket for his wallet. I push up on my knees and quickly get his belt undone as he tries to get a condom out, both of our chests heaving with unrestrained fervor.

“Fuck,” Beck barks out in frustration as he rifles through his wallet. “I don’t have a goddamn condom.”

My hands freeze and I raise my head to look at Beck. His face is awash with pain and need, and his voice cracks when he looks me right in the eye and says, “Christ…I want inside of you so fucking bad.”

The sound I believe I hear is my stone heart cracking open even further in response to Beck. I hesitate only a moment before my hands start working again at his fly.

“Please, Sela,” he croaks out as his fingers dig into my thighs. “Suck my dick…make this ache go away.”

His zipper open, I pull at his pants, reach into his boxers, and take his cock from the material. It jumps in my hand and pearly pre-cum dribbles from the tip. I stare at him thick and hot and pulsing with need, squeeze him hard, and stroke up and down a few times.

Beck groans and his head falls back against the seat, eyes squeezed shut tight. “Please, Sela…”

“Shhh,” I murmur low in my throat as I scramble backward off his lap. “I’ve got you.”

His eyes open and he watches me with fascination as my knees hit the carpeted floor of the limo and I surge up over his lap. With one hand on his thigh, the other squeezing him around the root of his cock, I take the tip of him into my mouth and suck against him lightly. Beck moans in relief, and the fingers of both hands thread through my hair on either side of my head. He grips me lightly, his fingers pressing into my scalp as a means of holding me steady and not to force action.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had Beck in my mouth, but it is the first time that I’ve truly wanted him there. The first time in my entire sexual life that I’ve seen the beauty of such an intimate act, and I take my time licking and sucking him so I can savor this experience. I’m torn between wanting to drive him wild and needing to end his suffering. As good as this feels to him in this exact moment, I want it to feel better to him in the next. So I squeeze, jack, lick, suck, hum, and flutter against his warm skin. I suck down the pre-cum he gives me and brace against his hands when the inevitable time will come that he’ll pull me off his dick.

Beck is a considerate lover, and for whatever reasons, he’s warned me every time before he’s unloaded. He’s never begrudged my unwillingness to swallow and has seemed satisfied with me stroking him to completion at the end.

I’m confident he’ll give me the same courtesy here, but he’ll be surprised to find it’s not needed.

Not now.

Beck’s hips start to punch upward, seeking more depth. He groans when I go down on him and grunts when I hollow my cheeks against the pull up. He calls my name when I slide my tongue down his shaft and curses loudly when I suck gently on his balls. As I stroke him faster at the base and bob my head with more vigor, Beck sounds like he’s strangling.

Then comes the slight pull against my hair and he mutters, “Back off, Sela. Gonna come.”

I grip him harder, take a deep breath, and plunge down so I take him in deeply, move my other hand to stroke the skin behind his balls, and then suck hard on the way up.

“Holy fuck,” Beck shouts as he orgasms and I nearly moan in satisfaction as I swallow everything he offers.

I swallow.

All of it.

And wish there was more, so I continue to suck against him.

“Oh, God, Sela,” he groans as I keep squeezing and stroking, running my tongue around the fat head of his cock, trying to find any last droplets I might have missed.

His hands fall away from my head and find their way under my armpits, and then he’s hauling me up. His dick falls away from my mouth and the next thing I know he’s got me cradled on his lap with his face pressed into my neck. His breath is labored and I can feel his heart thundering under my hand as I lay it on his chest.

Beck’s arms wrap around me and squeeze me tightly.

My own heart is racing right along with his and I’m high on the excitement of my new revelation.

An epiphany that will make me begin to question everything I thought I knew about myself.

I, Sela Halstead, am not as broken as I thought I was. While I thought Jonathon Townsend took everything away from me, I’ve realized just now that he took nothing. He only warped my perception.

Granted, I’m still pretty warped, but I learned something very important as Beck was coating my throat with his semen.

I realized that intimacy is actually something that I could learn to crave with a man like Beckett North and that I’ve only just begun to discover the true potential inside of myself.