I move to the hall that leads to the other side of the condo, which takes up the entire top floor of my building. The bedroom areas are separated from the openness of the living, kitchen, and dining areas, with the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Normally, as soon as I step into the bedroom, my attention is always taken by the same floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the Financial District and Coit Tower, but instead I’m drawn to Sela sitting on my carpeted floor with a pile of my clothes all around her. She’s currently folding a white T-shirt of mine into a crisp, neat square and setting it carefully in a drawer.
“What are you doing?” I ask, watching her with a mix of amazement and confusion.
“Organizing your drawers and straightening up your clothes,” she says without even looking at me. “I’m guessing you just dump your clothes in whatever drawers are easiest to reach right from the dryer.”
Her voice holds a hint of an amused laugh, but I still can’t tell because her back is to me. I shed my suit jacket, as I had to dress up for some meetings, and work my tie loose. I move to the end of the bed and sit down, which now lets me see the side of her face…the graceful curve of her neck…the freckles across her nose and cheek.
And fuck…when did freckles start to get me hard?
“You don’t have to do that for me,” I tell her as she pulls another wrinkled white T-shirt from the pile beside her and starts to fold it.
She shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
I lean forward, snag her wrist, and tug at her. “But I do.”
Sela turns her beautiful head my way and grins at me. “You’re a total slob to live with, so while I’m here, expect me to do a little cleaning and organizing. Besides, I’m tired of living out of my suitcase and want a little room of my own.”
I pull on her harder and she comes up to her knees while dropping the shirt from her hand, and when I continue to pull, she finally comes to her feet. I bring my hands to her waist, lean back, and pull her down on top of me as I lay back against the mattress. She falls onto my body, her hands going to my chest and her long hair falling forward to shield us.
“Seriously,” I say with our noses almost touching. “You do not have to clean this place. Or organize me. Or do anything for me at all.”
The smile slides from her face a bit and she murmurs, “But I do have to do something for you, right? You are my Sugar Daddy, after all.”
I grimace and bring a hand to her face, gripping her chin. “Don’t call me that.”
She blinks in surprise at the vehemence in my voice. Tilting her head, she asks, “You don’t like your own business very much, do you?”
I’m now the one that blinks at her in surprise. “On the contrary, I like my business very much. We provide a great service to both the men and the women who have joined.”
“Then why don’t you want to be called a Sugar Daddy?” she asks.
I roll our bodies over, putting her flat on her back and coming to rest on top of her. I press my elbows into the mattress and stare down at her. “I had you sign that ridiculous agreement to get you here with no arguments. But I wouldn’t hold you to it. I have you here because I find you fascinating and I’m very much enjoying fucking you. That’s all there is to it.”
“But the money you paid—”
“It’s yours no matter what happens,” I tell her, and that’s true enough. I had her give me a summary of all related expenses for the year she’s already taken of the course and the one she’s now finishing up, as well as the information on her undergraduate loans, and I deposited those funds into her bank account. It’s an amount that’s paltry in comparison to my fortune, and I won’t miss it a bit.
Her eyes go warm and sad all at once. “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you. You pay for my college and give me amazing orgasms, and I can leave whenever I want. I just don’t get it.”
“I’m just fucking magnanimous that way,” I tell her with a grin, and then press my lips to hers. She laughs, which causes her mouth to open, and I slide my tongue in.
We kiss for a moment, but my cock seems to think that’s an open invitation to come play, so I pull my mouth from hers and push up off of her. Rolling to the side, I stand up and hold my hand out to her. “Come on…let’s go eat at The Slanted Door. We’ll gorge on oysters and ceviche.”
She places her hand in mine and lets me pull her from the bed. She looks absolutely amazing in jeans and a T-shirt, no makeup on her face. I imagine most Sugar Babies walk around with perfect makeup and hair along with whatever designer clothing their Daddies decide to buy for them. The only thing that Sela’s asked for since we moved in was a tea kettle, since she prefers tea to coffee.
“I’m going to finish putting these clothes away,” she says as she releases my hand and starts to kneel back down on the carpet. And then as an afterthought, she asks, “I was dust mopping the condo today but the middle bedroom is locked. Want me to clean in there?”
I roll my eyes and start to pull my tie from around my neck. “No, Cinderella…I don’t want you to clean that room.”
“What’s in there?” she asks as she folds another T-shirt. “Some top-secret stuff?”
I laugh as I turn to look at her, pulling the tie free. “It’s my office.”
I expect her to laugh with amusement and ask why the door is locked, which wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. I do have some proprietary information in there like my financial records and copies of my business agreements. Stuff that’s nobody’s business but my own, and before Sela moved in, I made sure to lock that door.
Yes, I expect but her to laugh and joke about the locked door, but instead, I see something cloud her eyes. Consternation, maybe? Calculation?
I’m not sure, and she turns her face from me to the next T-shirt, so I can’t continue to analyze it.
But then Sela says, “Want a blow job before we go to dinner?” and I’m completely thrown off track. Whatever look was on her face is completely forgotten.
She turns her face to me, blue eyes round and innocent with just a hint of mischief in their depths.
I start to unbutton my shirt as I look at her sitting on my floor with one of my tees in her hand. “Why do I get the feeling you’re redirecting me?”
She shrugs and gives me a tiny smirk. “I just wanted to return to the notion of you telling me that you don’t expect anything, because that’s not exactly true. You do expect to have sex with me, and I’m just reminding you of that. I’m just throwing in the cleaning out of the goodness of my heart.”
My fingers freeze on the buttons as I consider what she’s said, and I realize that while I very much would enjoy the fuck out of a blow job from her, she’s completely wrong about why she’s here in my condo. She’s not here so I can have available pussy 24/7 without having to work for it. And she’s not here for my pleasure or whim. That’s all easy stuff for me to get.
I brought Sela Halstead to my home for one reason only, and that’s because that first night we were together, with my lips sucking on her clit and I was three fingers deep inside of her, something happened when she came that changed the course of her life and mine. I can’t explain it, and perhaps it is nothing more than an ego trip for me like I told her a few nights ago. But I do know one thing for sure…there is some type of connection between Sela and me that I’ve never experienced before, and frankly, I’m just fucking curious about it.
Whatever the connection…for whatever reason that I’ve given her something that others haven’t, I have a deep gut instinct that it’s something that defies reason or logic. I almost get the sense it’s mystical in nature, and I’m intrigued beyond measure. And so for the first time in my life, I’m doing something that is completely unlike anything Beck North has ever done before.
I’m exploring something deeper with one woman.
This woman to be exact.
Chapter 11
Sela
Moving in with Beck was a bit disorienting at first.
New home.
New bed.
New sex life.
Sex every night, usually multiple times.
Orgasm after orgasm, Beck not once having failed to deliver. It’s almost effortless for him, and even I can’t bring myself to such quick and dizzying heights as he’s able to.
For the first few days, it was easy to give in to it. I’d go to my classes and then come back to his place. He gave me a key and told me to make myself comfortable, and thus I did. I treated his home like my own, and kept my schedule the same, outside of giving up my job at the diner. Beck’s “stipend” to compensate for that was so generous, and given that my school expenses were paid, I wouldn’t have to work again until after I got my degree, and hopefully never again in a diner. So in my downtime, I studied even harder, and the only deviation was when Beck commanded my attention. It was ridiculously easy for him to do so.
But after a few days, I settled in and started to think again of my plot to avenge myself. Beck and I haven’t necessarily talked a lot. I don’t get the feeling he’s closed off, it’s just that neither one of us has made much of an effort to get to know the other person outside of the best way to pleasure each other. For him, I think that’s because he’s focused on sex. For me, it’s because I need to remain aloof…detached. It’s the best way to keep my heart protected.
But on the sex front, we know quite a lot about each other, and I figure the more he’s distracted with sex, the less chance he’ll ever have of figuring out the woman behind the façade.
After I had been here four days, I decided I needed to get my bearings and figure out if there was anything about my current arrangement that was going to help me murder Jonathon Townsend. I searched Beck’s home top to bottom one afternoon after my classes got out. It was pristine, almost sterile, and in a fit of anxiety over not finding anything, I dumped out all of his clothes from his drawers to make sure I didn’t miss something. That, of course, led me to an impromptu lie when he came home and found me sitting amid all of his clothing.
But if I’m only here for a month, the clock is ticking, and I’m closing in quickly on the halfway mark. I’ve got to get closer to Beck and figure out more about his relationship with JT. Only then will I be able to determine if there is a way he can unwittingly help me achieve justice.
The only potential I’ve seen so far is his locked office. I’ve searched high and low for a key, and the only one I’ve been able to identify is the one that Beck keeps on his key chain with his car and house keys. He’s used it twice since I’ve been here, merely going in after work and placing some documents he brought home in there. He always has those keys in his pocket when he’s out and about, but when he comes home he places them on the side table by the foyer door. I haven’t quite figured out how to get in his office, but I’m mulling it over.
And while my ultimate goal is to use Beck to my advantage in my quest, there is a more pressing goal that came to my attention just last night. Beck had gotten to the condo around six P.M., which was usually standard. As normal, he had his mail that he’d picked up in his hand, flipping through it. I was sitting at his dining table, which sat perpendicular to the length of the open living room and afforded a gorgeous view of the bay at sunset.
He’d started a habit of walking over to me and kissing me on the top of my head. The first time he did it, I was taken aback. It had been so long since I’d been shown a spontaneous act of affection I wasn’t sure I liked it. But the next night he did it, it felt nice. And the night after that, even better.
It had gotten to where I expected it now, and it was a silly ritual that brought me a measure of almost schoolgirl giddiness, something I don’t think I ever experienced since my interest in high school boys was killed that night ten years ago. I avoided them like the plague thereafter and didn’t even kiss another man until I was twenty years old and quite drunk.
So Beck walked over to me at the dining room table and plopped the mail down by my books. He kissed me on the top of my head, and then grabbed my ponytail, tugging on it so my face tilted. He kissed me from above, this time on my mouth, and murmured, “Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hey,” I whispered back.
“What do you feel like for dinner?” he asked, releasing my hair and pulling his jacket off.
“I’m not picky,” I said. “And I’m done studying.”
“Let’s do something casual,” he said, and started walking back toward his bedroom. My eyes dropped to the pile of mail, and I saw an envelope that he had already opened with what was clearly a birthday card sitting on top of it. My hand reached out, never once considering his privacy, and I picked up the card. It was generic-looking with a birthday cake on the front. On the inside just a simple printed message, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
Under that it wasn’t even signed, but was stamped in calligraphy with the names MR. AND MRS. BECKETT NORTH, SR.
His parents.
A rush of anger and sadness hit me all at once, that this was the type of card they would send their son. I got up from my chair and walked into Beck’s bedroom. He’d already shed his work clothes and was pulling on a pair of jeans. He looked up at me with a smile, then his eyes dropped to the card in my hand, back up to me with the same smile.
“Today’s your birthday?” I asked quietly.
He laughed and nodded at the card in my hand. “Actually it was two days ago. My mom’s secretary is apparently late in sending that to me.”
I gasped in outrage. His parents actually had someone send a card to him? And it was late on top of that?
Beck buttoned his fly and walked up to me, taking my face in my hands. He looked at me with sympathy.
Me.
With sympathy.
“Relax, Sela,” he said with a laugh and then a kiss to my lips. “That’s par for the course. I didn’t expect anything different.”
And while that made me feel marginally better, I still felt terrible. “But I was here two days ago with you. We went out to eat at The Slanted Door. You gorged on oysters and ceviche, and never once did you tell me it was your birthday.”
“It’s just a birthday,” he told me as he wrapped his arms around me. He kissed me again on top of my head, a measure of reassurance and affection that I’m upset on his behalf, and this act caused my stone heart to start to crack.
Beck then started talking about a new restaurant he wanted to try that had opened a few blocks over from the condo, and the subject of his birthday was put to rest.
Until today, that is.
I woke up with a plan already formed. I went to my classes, and as soon as they let out at one p.m., I hustled to the local market. I bought some beautiful salmon steaks, fresh asparagus, and a chocolate-raspberry cake from the bakery. I had thought briefly to bake him a cake, but I suck at baking and am only mediocre at cooking, so in order to preserve the sanctity of the only birthday party he was getting this year, I went with items that I couldn’t screw up. I also bought a large roll of silk floral ribbon in a pale pink color.
I did my studying, took a shower, slathered lotion all over me, and curled my hair. I applied a little bit of makeup and brushed my teeth. Wearing one of Beck’s robes, I managed to get the salmon steaks and asparagus in the oven, let them cook the required time, and then turned the heat off. It was ten of six when I scurried back to the bedroom and ditched the robe, picking up the silk ribbon.
And now at six p.m. I am lying in wait in the foyer when I hear Beck’s key in the lock.
I quickly light the candles on the cake I’m holding in one hand and then toss the lighter onto the nearby buffet table. I have just enough time to place my free hand on my hip and cock it out in a sexy pose when Beck opens the door.
I wish I had a video to capture the look on his face. His eyes go to the cake first, then to my face as I smile at him and say, “Happy birthday, Beck.”
His lips curve up and his eyes roam over my body, turning hotter and hotter with every inch they cover.
“Are you my present?” he a
sks in a husky voice as his eyes light back on mine. He closes the door behind him softly and flicks the lock.
I look down at myself, once again impressed with my ingenuity. I’m completely naked except for two things. The high-heeled silver sandals with ribbons that lace up my legs that Beck had returned to me, and pink silk ribbon wrapped from the very top of my thighs, around my ass and pelvis, covering my stomach, and on upward to wrap around my breasts. I finished the wrapping off with a bow right in the center of my chest.
“Come blow out your candles and you can unwrap me,” I whisper.
What I’m doing right now is a monumental feat for me. It’s the only time in my entire life I’ve ever made a conscious effort to seduce a man. I have never once offered myself up in such a sexy and overt manner. Two days ago when I waited in Beck’s bed naked doesn’t count, because that was my terrible attempt to be a good Sugar Baby, and it was completely lame. I did it because I felt I owed him for paying for college, and no other reason. I did it because I thought he was expecting it.
Tonight is different though.
I am doing this for Beck because I want to do this for him. I want him to have a memorable birthday because the one he had three days ago was shitty. And I want to see him smile because of it and know that someone on this earth is thinking about him in the way that he deserves.
“You are too much,” he murmurs as he drops his keys on the side table and prowls toward me.
He stops just inches away, the light from the candles making his face glow and his eyes to sizzle. I give him an impertinent smirk. “I only put five candles on. Didn’t want to burn down the house, old man.”
Beck snickers and turns to blow out the candles. “I’m only twenty-eight and I’m going to make you pay for that ‘old man’ comment.”
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