Chapter 24

Beck

“Good morning,” Linda chirps as I walk by her desk.

“Morning,” I grumble, completely not feeling her sunny attitude.

She stands up from her chair, grabs some folders off her desk, and follows me into my office. “Well, you’re all bright and chipper this morning,” she says sarcastically.

“And not in the mood,” I tell her darkly as I plop down in my chair before rolling my mouse across the pad to disengage my screensavers.

Her voice is brisk and efficient when she lays the folders on my desk. “Mr. Townsend would like you to go over these proposals, and your two o’clock meeting got pushed back to three because Mr. Perkins’ flight got delayed out of LaGuardia.”

I reach for the folders and flip through them briefly with a sigh. “Okay, thank you, Linda.”

“Anything else you need from me right now?”

“No, I’m good,” I tell her distractedly as I log on to the system. She turns to leave and then I change my mind. “Wait…I could use some help locating a service that could deliver a Christmas tree to the condo.”

Linda just blinks at me, confusion reigning supreme on her face. “I’m sorry?”

“A tree…you know, something green and Christmasy-smelling that Sela and I can decorate.”

A bright, knowing smile spreads across Linda’s face, making the wrinkles at her eyes and corners of her mouth deepen with romantic appreciation. “Oh, that’s lovely. Of course I can locate something. Would you like something in spruce, or maybe pine? Those smell so good.”

Shaking my head, I give her a quick eye roll and tell her, “I don’t care. Just see if you can get something delivered today. Sela will be there all day.”

Lying in bed moping, I’m sure, but she’ll be there all day.

Linda leaves and closes the door behind her. Rather than jump into work, I turn my chair to look out the windows, contemplating the conundrum that Sela has recently become. While our dinner with her dad and Maria went fantastically Friday night, things started going downhill on Saturday. I don’t think she was mad that I couldn’t pick her up, but she was almost coldly reserved during dinner with JT and Amelia.

And I didn’t get it.

JT was making an honest effort with Sela. From the moment we all sat down at the restaurant, he was charming and tried to engage her. He spoke warmly to her, was interested in her background, and tried to win her over with absolutely no success. I know he may have been laying it on a little thick, but JT was trying. He was happy that I found someone, and he could guess well enough that Sela was in my life to stay and he was honestly trying. He’d shown up at work every day fresh and lucid, rolling up his shirtsleeves and diving back into his business with renewed vigor and passion. We joked around like the old days, and it was even refreshing to see him with Amelia. She’s a sweet girl, a little naïve, but JT doted on her all night. When it became clear that Sela wasn’t going to participate in the conversation with JT, he turned his polite and engaging attention on Amelia, making her preen and swoon under his attention. It was the JT of old…the one who made me excited with the possibilities of a bright future.

It was the JT I recognize on a cellular level.

That night, Sela and I cabbed it home, but she maintained her aloofness with me, claiming she wasn’t feeling well when we climbed into bed. I thought this might be a brush-off, but she had no hesitation in letting me at least pull her into my arms to go to sleep. It was the first night we hadn’t had sex since we’d been together, and I wasn’t put off by that. I was more worried about her cold attitude toward JT, but maybe she just needed more time to warm up to him. I’m sure he could win her over eventually if he kept on this path.

I figured Sunday would dawn bright, and I’d have the old Sela back. I found her up and in the kitchen when I awoke, sipping coffee and surfing the Internet on her laptop she’d bought last week. Winter semester had started, and when I walked in to kiss her on the top of her head, I saw she was reading an article entitled “Psychology of Criminal Behavior.”

“Class you’re taking?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said distractedly, leaning in closer as her eyes raced across the screen.

“Cool,” I said as I moved over to pour myself some coffee. She ignored me, the fingers of one hand idly circling the top of her mug that I know held tea. She religiously had two cups every morning.

“Want to put up the decorations today?” I asked, figuring that would get her attention.

I was surprised when she shook her head, “No. I’ve got a few chapters to read before Tuesday’s classes, so I thought I’d get a head start on that.”

Staring at the back of her head, I tried to figure out what the fuck was going on with her. Just two days ago she was practically jumping with excitement as we drove back to San Francisco, the backseat and trunk of the Audi loaded with boxes of lights, ornaments, a ceramic Christmas village her mom hand-painted, and a collection of what I considered to be hideous nutcracker Santas.

Something was fucking wrong, and I’m not one to beat around the bush. “What’s going on, Sela?”

She kept her back turned to me, face closer to the laptop. “Nothing,” she said in a voice that clearly said she didn’t even take note of the worry in my tone.

I walked up to the table, reached out, and put my hand in front of the screen to break her concentration. She looked up at me with those blue eyes and blinked in surprise.

So I repeated, “What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong,” she said calmly. “I just don’t feel like decorating today.”

“Try again,” I said as I gently closed the laptop and pulled the adjacent chair out. I sat down, took her hands in mine, and squeezed them. “You clearly didn’t enjoy last night. You barely said two words at dinner even though I thought JT did an admirable job trying to include you in the discussion. And now you don’t want to decorate for Christmas when you were about ready to pee your pants just a few days ago over the prospect, so I repeat…what’s wrong?”

I thought the fact I called her out on her behavior at dinner would cause her to turn sheepish and apologetic; maybe get an admission that she’s being a bit unfair to JT, but instead her eyes flashed with both fire and ice at the same time. It was such a powerful array of emotions that I flinched.

Her voice was frigid when she said, “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you last night, but clearly I just didn’t enjoy the company. So fucking sue me.”

Every instinct in my body wanted to rail against her outright refusal to cut JT a break, but I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. “Sela…he tried last night. Why couldn’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said in a quiet voice, and tried to pull her hands away from mine.

“It does matter,” I said softly, holding on to her tight. “JT’s my partner…my friend. Yeah, he’s been a prick in the past, and maybe still will be in the future, but last night…he was trying hard for you.”

“He was trying hard for you,” she bit out.

“For both of us,” I counter, and reach a hand up to her cheek. “He likes seeing me happy. He wanted last night to be fun for both of us. Hell, I think he’s even taking a page from my book and maybe thinking of settling down. He and Amelia seemed pretty taken with each other last night.”

Sela snorted, brought a hand to her mouth, and covered it so I wouldn’t see the smirk on her lips. But I saw it in her eyes. “Last night was an act. He suckered you.”

“That’s a little harsh,” I reprimanded her. “Where’s the benefit of the doubt?”

“It got erased in the limo ride over,” she snarled at me.

“Why? What happened?” My chest got tight and anger surged within me. It made it clear that while I thought JT did an admirable job last night, just those simple words from Sela had me thinking the worst about him again. Clearly, I didn’t have the whole “benefit of the doubt” thing down to a science.

Sela leaned in toward me and said, “Nothing other than he was unbelievably rude to me and Amelia on the way to the restaurant. Made sure to point out all the ways I don’t measure up for you.”

“What did he say?” I asked, my voice forged with steel.

“Just pointed out all of Amelia’s good breeding and pedigrees and told her I was a Sugar Baby,” she spat out.

I smiled at her and tried for my most soothing voice. “Baby…he knew you started out as a Sugar Baby. I’m sure he was just trying to make conversation—”

Sela screeched at me and launched up from her chair. “Don’t you dare fucking defend him. You weren’t there…you don’t know.”

Her face was red and her eyes moist with frustration. I reached out to her but she spun away, ran down the hall to our bedroom. I followed her in there, finding her shoving her feet into her tennis shoes before grabbing a sweatshirt from the closet.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to the library to study on campus,” she gritted out, brushing back past me. I followed her back into the kitchen where she shoved her laptop in her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.

“Sela, just stop for a minute,” I said softly.

“I can’t talk to you about this right now,” she huffed, and barreled past me toward the door. I thought about grabbing her arm, making her stay, but anger started to flush through me over this bratty behavior. Clearly something must have happened to piss her off even more with JT, but she wasn’t seeing reason.

And frankly, I didn’t think forcing her to converse at this point would do any good in her current state of mind.

“I’ll be gone all day,” she muttered as she jerked the door open.

“Fine,” I snapped back her. “Maybe you’ll be in a more sane mood when you get back.”

It was a shitty thing to say, and yet it felt good at the same time. Her bizarre behavior had left me reeling and I wasn’t thinking clearly either.

She turned that beautiful face my way, looking at me over her shoulder. Her face was filled with anger and disappointment. She looked at me only a moment before she walked out and slammed the door behind her.

I spent the morning watching TV. I checked my watch about a thousand times. I made a sandwich for lunch and watched two football games. I made another sandwich for dinner, and still Sela hadn’t returned.

I then decided to get some work done and locked myself away in my office. It was almost eight o’clock when I heard the condo door open and close.

Heard her tennis shoes squeaking on the floor as she walked down the hallway to our bedroom.

I considered following her, testing the waters to see where her head was at. But I didn’t. I worked another two hours, and when I finally decided to go to bed, I found her sleeping on her side of the mattress, breathing deeply. I got undressed, brushed my teeth, and slid in to bed, wanting to pull her into my arms. I debated about it, wondering if it would wake her up. I even considered putting my hand between her legs and forcing her to give me something.

Instead, I just turned over on my side and watched my bedside clock tick away the time. It was well after midnight before I finally fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning with my alarm buzzing at 6:30 a.m., I found Sela’s body wrapped around me. We both lay in the center of the bed, somehow coming together in our sleep. I held her for a bit, relishing this warm woman who was quickly becoming my entire world, and wondering what I could do to fix things between us.

Apparently it didn’t take much, because Sela stirred in my arms and burrowed her face into my neck.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said, her voice husky with sleep.

“Shh,” I said in response, really not needing the apology. I just wanted things to be okay. I just wanted us talking again, and this was a damn good start.

Sela then surprised me by dropping her hand to my stomach, pushing downward until she found my soft cock. The minute her fingers grasped it, it started thickening and I arched my hips.

In the gloomy dawn hours, Sela straddled my hips, guided me inside her, and rode me to perfect completion. She was silent as she did so, her hands on my chest and her gaze solemn as she bounced up and down on my dick. The only way I knew it felt good to her was just moments before I came, her nails scored my chest and her head tipped back as she groaned out an unbelievably hard orgasm that left her shaking, and her pussy clamped down hard on me. I followed her immediately, punching my hips up and pulling her down for a long kiss.

I thought things might be okay. I got out of bed and showered. Her eyes followed me around the room as I got dressed, her cheeks flushed pink from that amazing fucking we just did and appreciation of my body. I loved her eyes on me so much.

Yeah…I thought it would be fine. Except when I went to kiss her goodbye, I asked her if she was interested in decorating the condo tonight when I got home. I thought that might get a renewed smile out of her. She merely shrugged her shoulders and said, “Maybe. Let’s see how I feel.”

And that made me realize things weren’t good at all.