Naughty Little Thief

Afterward, Beckham ordered takeout to be delivered, and she was enchanted when she realized that they did—in fact—deliver right to their door. So they had Chinese food for dinner, and sort of picked food off of each other’s cardboard pail, and when they were done, they threw everything away (no washing needed.)

They lay there with the television on, and somehow Sandy ended up curled to his side with Beckham’s arm around her shoulder.

She absorbed the feel of him, everything about this day and evening. Beckham lounged back, sated from dinner and glorious, and she never expected he’d have a look quite like the one he was wearing at the moment.

As if she melted him.

“Do you bring many girls here?” she asked. Hoping maybe to remind herself that this didn’t mean anything but the fact that they were becoming friends. At last.

“No,” he surprised her answering. “I go out with girls, but none of them seem to make me engage in ways other than…physically.”

He grinned. Sandy grinned back.

“Sounds like me,” she admitted.

Becks smile faded and he glowered. “Don’t tell me about other guys. Not right now.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like hearing it, Sandy.” He sighed, glowering at her. “You ever got taken advantage of? Wait don’t answer that. Well, did you?”

She laughed. “First I’m a thorn on your side and now I’m a fragile petal?”

“You’re both. A flower is both.”

“You ass, you’re making fun of me.”

He laughed. “Sandy…come the fuck here,” he said, his tone growing gruff before he started to kiss her…and continued to kiss her for over an hour.

By the time they flew back to the city, it was close to midnight. They descended the helicopter and Sandy was certain that Beckham was driving her to the motel and that was the end of things.

And yet as they climbed the car and he took to the streets, he reached out to put his hand on her thigh. He looked at her wordlessly, and Sandy became breathless realizing he didn’t take the turn to her motel.

She pressed her lips shut, wanting to keep them shut in case her mouth said something along the lines of “you missed the turn!”

Neither of them said anything the whole way to Becks apartment. But the moment they walked past the doors and Beckham shut them behind them, they only had hands, lips, eyes, and teeth for each other.

He stripped her fast—as if he’d been eager to feel her skin, taste her skin, as eager as she had been. He carried her to the bed, and fucked her so well and so many times that night—in the kitchen, in the shower, on his bed, on the floor, and on a table—that by next morning, when Sandy woke up, she could hardly ease out of bed. Oh my.

She hurt everywhere.

She remembered the wicked things Becks had whispered in her ear at night like take it, take me, and you’re gorgeous, and I’m addicted to your taste, and a whole blush appeared in her body.

Shifting beside him on the bed, she drank in the image of dark-haired, bare-chested, sleeping Beckham with a painful feeling in her breast. Leaning to his ear, she spoke the words she knew she needed to say, in hopes that saying them would dislodge them from where she’d kept them buried all these years and they would leave.

“I love you,” she whispered, stroking her fingers over his dark messed-up hair. He muttered something in his sleep and clutched his arm tighter around her.

She held her breath at the touch, shutting her eyes for a brief, secret moment, and then she waited a couple of more minutes to ease out of bed.

As quietly as she could, she pried his arm from around her and set it down on the bed. She didn’t want to wake him. So she quietly eased out of bed, got dressed, and then impulsively, she scoured his apartment for the duffel bag with all of his things. She found it by the door and snatched it up and was tiptoeing out of the room when his voice froze her.

“Going out?”

“Huh?” She whirled around, eyes wide as she saw him in bed, arms folded behind his head. “Yes!” she quickly answered. “I have a flight to catch. I didn’t want to wake you,” she nervously rambled.

Beckham stood in all his delicious naked glory. He eased into his slacks (no underwear included) and scanned his eyes over her sensitive, very-well-fucked body. There was appreciation in his gaze as he drank her in, then, amusement as his gaze ran over the duffel she was carrying. “You packed your bag, it seems.”

“Yes,” she said.