Zelda
December 31st
Beckett returned from work around five, saying the day was cut short by the New Year’s Eve prep in Times Square. He had plenty of time to relax and eat before we headed out to a party.
After the night before, I expected him to withdraw from me again. But his smile was light and conversation easy as we ate dinner. More than once, I caught him glancing at me then looking away, and every time it set my pulse racing. Nothing had changed between us, still, even the smallest look or smile had the power to fill me with hope.
We layered ourselves in hats and scarves and jackets. Outside, the New Year was being heralded with sleet and frigid temperatures. Beckett was wearing Mrs. Santino’s turtleneck sweater, claiming it hadn’t gotten enough exposure on Christmas Day.
“Whose party is this again?” I asked.
“Friend of a friend,” Beckett said, pulling on his hat. “I don’t know them but Darlene and Kyle will be there. And my buddy Wes and his girlfriend Heidi. My friend Nigel and…whoever he’s currently sleeping with.”
I glanced down at my leggings, ankle boots and oversized sweater. “Am I dressed okay? Wait, what am I saying? You’re wearing that sweater. I could dress as a giant taco and you’d get more stares.”
The buzzer went off. Beckett pressed the button. “Be right down.” He grinned at me. “You reek of jealousy, Rossi.”
He toted two bottles of champagne I assumed were for the party, but he stopped at 2C and knocked on the door. Mrs. Santino opened and peered at us between the length of chain. Beckett held up one bottle of champagne.
“Happy New Year, Mrs. S.”
The door slammed, the chain rattled and then opened again. Mrs. Santino stared past the bottle of champagne, her eyes widening from under their nest of wrinkles at the lime green peeking from under Beckett’s jacket.
She clutched her hands over her heart. “La tua gentilezza mi lascia senza parole,” she said, then took the bottle, retreated back into her apartment. The door slammed.
I smiled up at Beckett. “And now she knows you’re wearing it. Your gift to her.”
He shrugged that off. “What did she say?” he asked as we headed for the stairs.
“I think something like, Your kindness leaves me speechless.”
Beckett’s smile tilted a little. “Okay,” he said, and jerked his chin at the window in the front foyer. “Darlene’s got a cab.”
“Happy New Year,” Darlene shrieked, hurling herself at me. She hugged me tight, her gold hoop earrings cold against my cheek. She wore tight jeans, a short-waisted faux fur jacket and boots. She released me to hug Beckett.
“Oh my God, that sweater,” she said on a burst of high-pitched laughter. “You look like you should be painting happy little trees. Are you ready to go? Let’s go.”
“Where’s Kyle?” I asked, as we climbed into the cab.
Darlene flapped a hand. “Oh, we broke up. Shit timing right? But what can you do? I’m ready to start the New Year off right. Fresh start and all.”
I sat wedged in the middle of them in the back of the cab. I glanced up and exchanged looks with Beckett.
“Dar,” he said slowly, his brows furrowed. “You okay?”
“I’m totally fine,” she said, and told the cabbie the address. “It didn’t work out, but that’s men for you, right?” She nudged my elbow. “But I’m over it. Over him. Ready to party.”
Darlene’s eyes were heavily shadowed in smoky makeup but looked clear, as far as I could tell. I shot Beckett another look and a small shrug.
The party was at a loft in the Meatpacking District—a huge, converted industrial space. Exposed pipes and brick, loud with the laughing conversations of what looked like more than a hundred people.
“Beckett, my brother.” A tall, athletic-looking guy with sandy-blond hair and an Australian accent approached, a petite brunette girl on his arm. “So glad you could make it this time after so rudely flaking out on Christmas.” He squinted and held up a hand over his eyes, as Beckett took off his jacket and threw it in the pile by the door, revealing the sweater in all its glory. “On second thought, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m going blind.”
“If you go blind, Nigel, I think we can all guess why,” said another guy, shorter with dark hair. He fist bumped Beckett and gave me an approving look. “I’m Wes. You must be Zelda, the comic book artist.”
“Graphic novelist,” I said automatically, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Nigel, the Aussie, gave Beckett an approving grin he must’ve thought I was too short to see, and introduced the brunette as Jackie. I met Wes’s girlfriend, Heidi, a pale-skinned, freckle-face woman about my age with blonde dreadlocks down to her shoulders. Wes, Heidi, and Nigel greeted Darlene with cheek-kisses and questions about Kyle that she brushed off with a laugh. She waved at someone she knew in the crowd and took off.
“What happened to Kyle?” Heidi asked Beckett.
“Not sure. She says they broke up,” Beckett said, his gaze following Darlene into the party.
“Maybe we should keep an eye on her,” Heidi said.
“Yeah, probably. She shouldn’t be drinking,” Beckett said. “It’s too easy for her to overdo it. Especially when she’s upset.”
“I, on the other hand, am not leaving until I get wasted enough that I can’t remember how I had to spend the holidays with my family,” Wes said.
We headed away from the front door, and Wes took my arm and slowed me down so that the others could get ahead. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
He jerked his chin at Beckett in front of us, talking to Heidi. “I’ve never seen him like this,” he said in a low voice. “Happy.”
A little thrill surged through me, even as I said, “We’re not together. Just friends.”
Wes snorted. “Someone needs to knock that stubborn fucker on his ass.” He winked at me. “I think you’re just the gal for the job.”
I tried to play it cool, but Wes’s words sank pleasant teeth into me and wouldn’t let go.
We moved further into the loft and were absorbed into the party. At the far end, a DJ with a small turntable played techno for a small crush of dancers. The loft’s slanted windows were lined in Christmas lights on the inside, and dusted with snow flurries on the outside. By the open kitchen, two tables of food, bottles of booze and Solo cups were set up for the guests.
Darlene bounded back to me, and took my hand. “I need you to meet, like, everyone.”
She dragged me all around the loft, introducing me to people whose names flew out of my mind a nano-second after I heard them. She talked and laughed easily with friends, nursing a single light beer.
Eventually I showed her my empty cup and left her caught up in conversation with two guys. I made my way back to Nigel, Wes and Beckett, who were standing by the window.
“It’s official,” I said over the pulsing music. “Darlene knows everyone here and I’ve met all of them.”
Beckett handed me a cup of beer. “How’s she doing?”
“She seems fine. Good spirits.”
“Are you responsible for this sweater?” Nigel asked me, jerking his thumb at Beckett. “I’ve been trying to come up with the appropriate joke but too many are clouding my brain.”
“He must’ve lost a bet,” Wes said. “I don’t think even Crayola has a name for that color.”
“They do, mate,” Nigel said. “It’s called Holy Fuck My Eyes!”
Beckett just smiled and shrugged and sipped from his cup, the jokes bouncing off of him. I felt a strange swell of pride rise in me.
I’m here with him.
The four of us talked easily. Nigel had an arsenal of filthy “Guy walks into a bar” jokes which left us howling with laughter. Jackie scolded Nigel for his vulgar language. He apologized, which immediately prompted Wes to rag on him for being whipped. Jackie blushed while Nigel stared daggers at his friend over her head.
I looked up at Beckett. “I like your friends.”
“They’re assholes,” he said loudly. Wes heard and scratched an itch on his eye with his middle finger.
“Nigel might be a lost cause,” I said in a low voice, “but that one…” I inclined my head toward Wes. “He’s good people.”
“He’s all right,” Beckett said, but I didn’t miss the fond look he shot his friend.
“You’re good people, too,” I said.
“Why? My taste in sweaters?”
Before I could answer, one of the party’s hostesses came by with a tray full of champagne. “It’s almost time,” she said. “Three minutes to countdown.”
Beckett took two glasses and handed one to me.
“You’re good for lots of reasons,” I said. “La tua gentilezza mi lascia senza parole.” My accent was nowhere near as fluid as Mrs. Santino’s and Beckett just stared at me.
“Your kindness leaves me speechless, Copeland,” I said. I couldn’t quite lift my eyes to meet his.
“You leave me speechless, Zelda.”
Heat swept across my cheeks, and I glanced up quickly to see him watching me intently. “That’s a pretty romantic thing to say. The Copeland I know would never say such a thing to his roommate in public. Too much to drink?”
“I’m stone cold sober.” His eyes were intent on mine. “And reckless.”
“You’re…” My voice trailed off. Because all I could think was beautiful.
Kind.
Good.
Sexy as all hell…
The crowd began to count down from ten.
“What am I?” His lips shaped the words over the noise. His gaze widened and the blue of his eyes deepened.
Mine, I thought.
“Five…four…three…two…one…Happy New Year!”
The crowd cheered and sloshed cheap champagne or cocktails onto the floor as they paired off to kiss. Nigel picked up Jackie, turning in a circle and kissing her as she wrapped her arms and legs around him. I stared, fascinated and envious. I looked up at Beckett then. His eyes were full of heat.
“I guess it’s you and me,” I said, moving a little closer to him.
“Guess so,” he said, moving closer.
“Happy New Year, friend.”
“Happy New Year.”
We stared.
“You don’t have to kiss me if you don’t want to,” I said. “It’s a stupid tradition.”
“Is it?” His gaze was steady, but the breaths he was taking looked shallow. At the base of his throat, his pulse was fast.
“I don’t know,” I said, my own heartbeat thrashing my eardrums, drowning out the party, drowning out everything but Beckett. “I just thought—”
“Zelda?”
“What?”
“Stop talking.”
I lifted my chin a little. “Make me.”
Beckett’s eyes widened. His smile flared, brilliant and wicked, then it softened into something beautiful. In a room of a hundred people, he saw only me. His hand came up to cup my face, his thumb brushing my cheek.
“Happy New Year, Zel.”
Beckett laid his lips to mine. A soft touch and then a retreat, before he moved in deeper. His tongue sliding softly, his mouth gentle and hesitant but wanting.
I was utterly unprepared for his kiss. It turned my bones to sand and stole my breath. My legs trembled and I clutched his arm with my free hand to keep upright. I could feel his muscles contracting. His body hummed with electricity and mine answered. We’d possessed the kind of magnetic tension that pushes the other away until right then, that that moment, where we finally crashed together.
And this crash…
From far away I heard the party guests cheer as the dance music kicked up. Beckett held my face in both hands now, angling his head to kiss me harder, his tongue sweeping deep into my mouth. I could taste champagne, a rush of sweetness chased by a bite of alcohol. Sweet and strong. Just like him.
I imagined he’d taste like this without the champagne, always, every minute of the day, and I had a sudden, fierce desire to know if that were true. To kiss him in the hottest, darkest part of the night, in the sleepy warmth of morning, or even after ten hours of biking across the city in the summertime, where the salt of his sweat would mingle into this intoxicating concoction that was him.
This is you.
Beckett’s mouth moved over mine and a hundred doors opened. I was out of my head and in the moment. I was being here. Letting it happen, warning bells silenced, shields down. This beautiful man was kissing me and all I ever wanted to do for the rest of my life was kiss him back.
“Get a room,” Nigel bellowed.
Beckett and I broke apart, breathing hard, the warm perfection of the kiss shattered. We stared at each other. A thousand unspoken thoughts danced behind Beckett’s eyes. He wrenched his gaze from me to glare at his friend.
“Not cool, man.” He looked ready to punch Nigel.
Nigel held up his hands. “Just playing, mate.”
Wes stepped in, clapped Nigel on the shoulder. “I’m cutting you off, buddy. You’ve done enough damage for one night.” Wes winked and manhandled Nigel back to Jackie.
“Jesus,” Beckett muttered.
Wes turned back to us. “Nigel’s a dick,” he said to me. “He’s better when he’s sober. No, come to think of it, he’s pretty much a dick then too.”
I laughed a little, unable to look at Beckett. The party was in full swing, the crowd amped up by the DJ playing “HandClap” by Fitz and the Tantrums. My nerve endings were lit up and my lips tingled from Beckett’s kiss. My entire body was clamoring for him now—more touches, more kisses. I wanted his hands to roam my bare skin instead of layers of winter clothing. I wondered if he felt the same. If we could slip out and go somewhere. Anywhere. I’d taken a hit from the most potent, euphoric of drugs and I needed more.
But some people whom Wes knew joined us, and new introductions were made. I smiled and said hello. Attempts at conversation fell out of my mouth. All I wanted was Beckett. All my senses were tuned into him. He could go hide in the crowd of guests and I’d be able to feel where he was. My body hummed with tension, and when Beckett slipped his hand into mine, I clutched him tight, like a reflex.
He bent to put his mouth near my ear. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I nodded and mumbled some excuse to the group at large. Beckett led me toward the kitchen. It was crowded with people talking and mixing cocktails from a dozen bottles on the counter. Off the kitchen was a T-shaped hallway. A bathroom must’ve been at the end, as there was a line of impatient people—mostly women—waiting to get in and complaining loudly about the wait.
Beckett tried the first door on his left. It opened on a dim, cluttered office. I caught an impression of rolled up posters, a graphic design desk, and huge poster prints. Then the door closed, cutting the noise of the party in half, and Beckett had me up against the wall. He pressed against me, tall and strong in the dark, and crushed his lips to mine.
With no audience and no drink in my hand, I kissed him back ferociously, my hands surging into his hair and down the broad muscles of his back. He pinned me against the wall, kissed me hard and deep. I clung to him, took his kiss and gave it back with a desperate intensity. He was all muscle and tightly coiled need, and it stole my breath to think of what he was capable of if we were home, in bed and naked. What he could do to me if the power I felt thrumming beneath my hands and pressed against my body was unleashed.
His hands skimmed along the sides of my body until they landed on my hips then he pulled me close to him, ground his hips against mine.
“Please,” I begged him against his mouth. “Touch me. Put your hands on me, Beckett…”
My fingernails dug into his skin through his sweater as both of his hands slipped under my shirt.
“God, baby,” he whispered, as he touched the bare skin of my stomach for the first time. “You’re so warm. So soft…”
I’d never let a guy call me baby before. It always sounded silly or condescending. But baby coming out of Beckett’s mouth made a wave of heat sweep over me. I arched my back, offering myself to his touch. He moved higher, my small breasts fit perfectly in his palms.
“Beckett…more…”
He pressed in harder, kissed me as if he were drowning and I was his air. His hands glided around my back, down to grip my ass and press me into his hips. Blindly, I slipped my own hand under the hem of his sweater, greedy for his bare skin. I found hard muscle, the ridges of a six-pack, all of him tight and defined everywhere my fingers trailed.
“Jesus, Zelda.” His voice was a damp growl against my throat. He drew up my sweater, then sank to his knees. His mouth kissed below my breasts, then my stomach.
“Oh God, what are you doing?” I asked, breathless as his hands traveled down my body, his lips following with delicious, biting kisses.
His voice a rumble against my bare skin. “Something we can never take back.”
When his fingers hooked in my waistband, my head fell back. “Yes.”
He tugged my leggings down, his tongue circling my navel. “Do you want this?” he asked, his voice strained with need. “I know it’s fast, but fuck, Zelda, I need you. I need to make you feel good. I want to so bad. Please…”
“Yes,” I breathed, then louder, “Yes. Anything. Everything.”
He stripped my leggings off of one leg, taking my ankle boot with it, and moved my panties aside.
“I want this for you,” he whispered, his breath hot against the inside of my thigh. “I want everything for you.”
I bit back a cry as Beckett put his mouth between my legs. His tongue sent licks of fire up and down my body, and my hands flailed against the door behind me, searching for something to grab on to.
He hooked one of my legs over his shoulder so he could go deeper, his fingertips digging into my hips. My scrabbling hands found his hair, made fists and pulled his head to me. Now that he was touching me I couldn’t get enough.
“You taste so good,” he whispered. “Want to make you come…”
He brought me to a crashing climax within seconds and I wondered, even in the fever dream of ecstasy, how he could make me feel this desired but cherished at the same time. This was no stepping-stone to his own pleasure or an obligation. It was Beckett’s pure desire to give me everything he had.
I came again with his name hissing out of my throat when I wanted to scream it. I wanted more skin, more nakedness, more of everything. I was desperate to give him a fraction of the searing pleasure that coursed through me. It left me shuddering and weak so I could hardly stand.
“I can't,” I whispered, my head lolling against the door, my legs feeling like jelly. “I can’t again…”
Still on his knees, Beckett put my underwear back in place and helped me step back into my leggings. I slid down the door, utterly spent. Beckett sat across from me, and even in the dimness I could see the satisfaction writ on his face, as if I’d been the one who’d given him two of the most intense orgasms of his life.
“So that happened,” I said with a tired little laugh.
“Too much?” Beckett asked, uncertain.
I shook my head. “No, it felt right. And amazing and incredible and mind-blowing…” I laughed again, feeling more than a little tipsy and not from any champagne. “You’re pretty good at that.”
“I like doing it,” he said.
“You do?”
“For you.” Beckett said. “I like doing it for you.”
“You know what this means don’t you?” I asked, hauling myself off the door to sit in his lap, straddling him.
“This means a lot of things,” Beckett said, his voice low. “You thinking of something in particular?”
I grazed my fingers on either side of his head, at his temple. “I’m talking about how as soon as we get home, I’m going to toss the air mattress out the nearest window.”
“It won’t fit out of our window.”
“I’ll find a way.” I held his face in my hands and kissed him softly.
“Let’s go home,” he whispered against my mouth.
I nodded and moved to kiss him again, but stopped when I heard a frantic commotion outside the door. Footsteps thumped down the hallway. Then a woman cried out, “Someone call 911!”
Beckett’s eyes widened in the dark.
“Darlene.”