Page 20 of No Small Sin

But this? Less than ideal.

“You have a migraine?” He seemed caught off guard, and… concerned? “Ijah gets those too.”

“That’s what I just said. Shhh.” I mumbled, waving him off. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him, becauseof courseI did. I just couldn’t deal currently. Hopefully, I would run into him again once I was some semblance of a functioning human being.

I’d barely settled my head back into the crook of my elbow when I was lifted over the back of the seat as if I weighed approximately nothing. He was carrying me cradled like a baby to… I had no idea where, but I couldn’t muster the strength to care at this point.

I cuddled closer to his body, and fuck, it was nice.

He carried me with a practiced ease, lithe and graceful as if he was certain of every movement before it happened.

A predator. Calculating even the most ordinary undertakings.

I should have been scared of him. Scared of what I knew he was capable of.

I wasn’t.

I ached for him.

I’d considered death a million ways in my lifetime. Intrusive thoughts are fun like that. None of those ways were as perfect as the thought of Beck being the one to end it all.

We would all die someday, and if I was about to go out now… what a fucking way to go.

My fucked-up thought process was interrupted by the sound of Beck opening a door. We stepped into a well-lit room and I winced at the brightness of it.

He ran his hand over my hair in a comforting gesture that I previously would not have thought him capable of.

The thunk of a fist meeting flesh broke the initial silence. He laid me on… something, and I forced one eye open a bit to take in what I could of my surroundings.

I was lying on the chaise lounge in Ijah’s office.

Another sick smack sounded throughout the space. “Beck. The fuck? You knew what I was doing in here. If Mattia finds out that you brought an employee back here tonight, you won’t live to see another day.”

Something scraped across a nearby surface, then a sharp clicking sound. Two excruciatingly loud pops sounded in quick succession. “Good thing you’re finished then,” Beck asserted, gently chucking the firearm back to where he’d taken it from.

It thunked and skimmed across the surface and I flinched, faintly conscious of the possibility that he hadn’t put the safety back into place.

In a small corner of my brain, part of me realized that I should not be okay with any of this. Any sane person would be totally freaked out.

I’d accepted that I lacked in the sanity department a long time ago. The warped parts of my mind took up more space and almost always won out. Especially now.

Especially with him.

Beck feeds the depraved parts of me all the wicked things they’ve never eaten before.

I was starved for more.

“Is she okay?” Ijah asked, perhaps just realizing that I was in somewhat of a bad way.

“She has a migraine. She needs medicine.” There was the sound of someone rustling through a drawer. “And that black thing you put over your eyes.”

A refrigerator door opened. The two exchanged words in hushed whispers, so quietly that I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Beck made his way back to my side and slipped a cold band around my head and over my eyes. I felt a small amount of relief almost instantly and sighed.

His finger gently nudged just under my bottom lip. “Open.”

I did as he asked. He slipped something under my tongue and then tipped my mouth closed again. I think I would have allowed him to do whatever he wanted with me without question or resistance.

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