Page 69 of Love Notes & Lifelines
Beck’s hands tighten around my biceps, the strength in his grip the only thing keeping me upright. His warmth seeps into my frozen bones. He’s the stability I’ve always yearned for but never had. And maybe it’s because he’s strong where I’m weak, or maybe it’s his haunted expression asking a million questions I don’t have answers to, but whatever it is, it makes me break.
Tears flood my cheeks. My shoulders shake while my body is wracked with violent sobs.
“Jesus, Stella.” His arms land at my back and under my legs, then he carries me to the sofa while I can only cling to him. He places me on his lap, holding me while I cry, his protection silent and stoic around me. Today was exhausting, yet in the comfort of another person, I find new pains and guilts to mourn.
Eventually, I muster the courage to pull back—to tear myself away from this comfort I haven’t earned—but when I do, I find my pain reflected in Beck’s watery gaze.
“I’m messed up, Stella.” His words ghost across my lips and nose.
“So am I.”
He searches my eyes before dropping his gaze to my lips.
They go dry, and I drag my tongue along them.
Neither of us move, yet our lips touch on an inhale. We explore softly at first, testing the connection, but the second his tongue teases mine, our worlds explode, and we pour every ounce of pain we’re hiding into feeling…something, anything that doesn’t hurt. Something that takes the heartache away.
“Stella,” he groans when I spin to straddle his legs. Somewhere in the back of my mind, someone’s yelling that this is a terrible idea. Screaming that this can never be. But for the second time in my life, and in the presence of this man, I shut out all the voices that rule my actions. There’s no future here, but maybe it’s the danger of it all that’s so thrilling.
If he fires me, I won’t have to feel guilty over not visiting my mom.
If he doesn’t fire me, this would be a much healthier way of coping—probably.
“I don’t want to think anymore, Beck,” I say as he trails kisses down the side of my neck. “I don’t want to cry or make life-and-death decisions. I just want to feel this and block everything that hurts me.”
“This won’t solve anything, and it won’t change anything either,” he says against my lips even as he’s lifting my shirt over my head.
“I know.”
His palms land on my breasts and he squeezes them roughly before tugging down the cups of my discount store bra. I don’tthink he even notices the quality of the fabric because his gaze sears a hole in my skin where his thumbs run teasing circles around my pebbling nipples.
His teeth sink into the sensitive flesh at my neck before his tongue darts out to lick it better. “I’ll make you feel, Stella, and you tell me no more lies. I can’t handle any more lies.”
He pulls back to put a few inches between our bodies and his fingers graze over my skin, leaving hot embers in their wake. But when he anchors me with his gaze, the pain he’s carrying shifts to me. I feel it as clearly as if it were my own, and I’m thankful we’re both trying to escape even though we know it’ll come rushing back in the morning.
Beck Hayes needs to feel alive as much as I do.
“No lies,” I agree, then reach forward and undo his belt. That tiny voice of reason asking me if one night is worth the risk of losing it all snaps her mouth shut and fades away.
His hands encircle my wrist, not tightly, but enough to halt my actions. “This doesn’t mean I need you.”
The words hit harder than my mother’s hand, but I nod and lower my lashes so he doesn’t witness the pain he’s inflicted.
But he leans forward and lifts my chin so we’re eye to eye, as if that will make his words sting any less. “It can’t.”
I try to jerk my head away from him, but he holds firm.
“I won’t allow it.”
“Jesus, Beck. I got it, okay. This doesn’t mean anything to you. You don’t need me even if you want me, but I want to feel something, anything to make me forget, just for a little while. I understand what this is, what it isn’t, and what it can only ever be—sex, a physical release for us both. Not a relationship. I got that message loud and clear.” At some point my tone turned bitter, but I don’t take it back.
“No, I don’t think you do,” he snarls, then leans forward and pulls my earlobe into his mouth. His teeth sink into the soft skin,causing goosebumps to cover my flesh. “I can’t need you.” His tone is tortured, and my heart rate spikes in response. “I can’t need you because everything I need in life becomes cursed. I can’t do that to you. I want you as my nanny, but I can never need you as more.”
He doesn’t give me time to process what he’s saying. Does it even make sense to him? I blink in confusion, but his lips are leaving damp kisses down my center.
My brain short-circuits when his thumbs slip beneath the waistband of my jeans, and my hips lift to him as though he picked them up himself.
His hot breath whispers across my chest, but when his teeth graze my nipple, he rips a ragged moan from my throat.
