Chapter 8 Beck
BECK
It’s been years since I’ve lived with a partner, so I’d forgotten what it was like to go from sipping coffee and watching the morning news as you get ready for work to being balls deep in a person you’re incapable of saying no to in the span of a second.
Cal so rarely lets me have this.
The honor of control. The gift of sacred invasion.
The sight of his back muscles straining to maintain the position I’ve put him in.
The soft, crushing weight of his walls contracting around my dick as a reward for every inch I feed into him only to take it back and start the process all over again.
“Don’t fucking tease me,” he grunts, rocking his hips.
“Always trying to top from the bottom,” I mutter, holding his ass cheeks apart to enjoy the view of my length disappearing inside him. “Trust me to take care of you, Drake. It’s all I want to do.”
He softens then, surrendering to the pace I’ve set. It’s a slow, demanding rhythm filled with restraint and tenderness that suggests we have all the time in the world to indulge in each other when we’re really flirting with being late.
Still, I can’t find it in me to rush.
My hands move to Cal’s hips. One set of fingers finding purchase in the hard flesh while the other continues up his body, coming to a rest at his throat.
Cal pulls in a harsh breath when they wrap around it, my palm barely grazing his Adam’s Apple as I bury my fingertips in his skin, using my grip to pull him into my chest.
We’re both kneeling now, and the new position turns us both feral.
All thoughts of careful control turned to ash in the wake of a flame that knows nothing but the impatience of desire, the demand of need that erupts like a volcano between his body and mine, leaving us both panting and filthy on the closet floor.
Cal recovers first, because of course he does, and goes to the bathroom to wash up.
I’m still trying to find the strength to do the same when he returns with a warm, soapy wash cloth and an adoring smile on his face.
He makes quick work of cleaning me up and drops a kiss on my forehead when he’s done.
“You know I’ll always trust you to take care of me, right?”
I curse myself silently for the inadvertent exposure of my insecurity. “Of course,” I answer, finally making my way to my feet. It’s not a lie. I know Cal trusts me. The problem is I don’t always feel worthy of that trust. Mostly, I just feel destructive, like I can break anything or anyone.
Like I broke Charlie.
Before the thought can take root and cast a shadow over my day, I push it away, maneuvering around Cal’s large form to get back to my side of the closet to finish selecting an outfit.
It’s not a hard choice since the only thing either one of us ever wears to work is a black suit, and yet, we always find ourselves standing back-to-back considering the options on our overfilled shelves.
“We need a bigger closet,” I announce, pulling a crisp white shirt from the folded stack in front of me and shrugging it on.
“No, we just need less clothes.”
“Yeah, that’s true too, but even if we get rid of half of our stuff this closet still wouldn’t be big enough for the three of us.”
Thinking about the future we will hopefully get to share with Selene is the only thing that seems to help me forget how fucked up I am. I don’t get the logic behind it, can’t see how daydreaming about a future I don’t think I deserve soothes any part of me, but somehow it does.
Cal’s eyes are bright with hope and the taste of future joy when I turn to face him.
“You’re right,” he says, gazing around the space.
Before I moved in, it would have been considered generous, but now it can only be described as cozy.
There’s no word for what it would be if we tried to fit even a fourth of Selene’s shoe collection in here.
“I guess we’ll just have to get a bigger house,” he concludes as he makes his way into the bedroom with me on his heels.
The news is still on, and the anchors are, yet again, discussing Aubrey pulling out of talks with Qatar about a military base here in the states. I grab the remote and shut the TV off.
“Just like that?”
He nods, stepping into his pants while I do the same. “Just like that. I never planned to stay in this house forever anyway. It was always supposed to become a rental property.”
“Yes, I know, but you said that was a few years down the line, not anytime soon.”
“That was when I only pictured sharing this house with you. I knew we could make this space work with no problem, but I didn’t see her coming.”
A soft smile curves his lips as he tucks the hem of his shirt into his pants, and I fasten my belt, shaking my head. “Neither did I.”
“Of course you didn’t, Beckham. You didn’t see me coming either.”
Although I agree with his statement, I find myself flipping him off as I sit on the edge of the bed to put on my shoes. “Go to hell, Drake.”
“We should probably look for something with more square footage,” he says, ignoring me. “Four or five bedrooms so we’ll have space for guests. An office so Selene can work from home. A big kitchen for holidays.”
I straighten, studying the happiness that’s written itself into his features. “You want to host holidays?”
His brows furrow. “Well, yeah, I thought it’d be nice to have everyone together. Hunter, Rae, Riley and—” He hesitates over my mother-in-law’s name. “—and Erin. Unless, you were planning on keeping things separate.”
Any significant holiday is months away, and yet, I can see the wheels in Cal’s mind churning, trying to sort out what a holiday apart will look like when we’ve made so many strides towards building a real life together.
Strides that included having a conversation with his younger brother, Hunter, who laughed and told us he already knew we were more than best friends, and Diana’s mom, Erin, who tore me a new one for thinking my love for Cal somehow canceled out my love for her daughter.
With everything out in the open, there’s no reason for us to be considering anything but shared holidays and a house full of our favorite people, so I don’t let him sit with the thought a second longer.
“No, of course not.”
Relief settles over him immediately and then he narrows his eyes at me. “Then why would you ask me that dumb ass question, Beckham?!”
“I was just curious! Plus, we’re talking about holidays in a home that would belong to someone besides us. We don’t know what Selene would be comfortable with.”
“She might get a bit overwhelmed, but I think she’d mostly enjoy it. Can’t you just see her with Riley? Nerding out over some science shit while we all try to keep up?”
The image leaves me with no choice but to smile. I have no doubt Selene and Riley would adore each other, that she’d fit perfectly into our families the way she fits seamlessly with us.
“We’d have to tell them who she is to us,” I say, heart beating a little faster at the thought of claiming her publicly even as the fear of being judged for our non-traditional dynamic trickles down my spine.
Cal huffs his amusement at my worry. “They’ll know exactly who she is to us the moment they see how you look at her.”
The entire drive into work is spent arguing about who has the worst case of heart eyes when it comes to Selene.
I get the last word, whispering ‘you’ to Cal just before we walk through the doors of the situation room we reserved for the multi-team meeting we always have before large events like the State Dinner happening tonight.
Most of the people in the room are from our team and Agent Shaw’s team, but we also have Lee, the head of Singapore’s Presidential Guard, and representatives from the security details of a few key Cabinet members.
Lee is a quiet, observant man who has enough respect for the authority Cal and I hold to let us run through our plan for the night without so much as a grunt.
Agent Shaw and her team are just as respectful, but the same can’t be said for the other assholes in the room who don’t understand what it means to be seen and not heard.
Chief among the poorly behaved mongrels is none other than Daniel fucking Hicks.
Our former team lead who managed to turn his numerous failures on the campaign trail into a promotion, though not the one he wanted.
Instead of guarding Aubrey, he’s stuck leading Cordelia’s detail, and by leading I mean staying in the cushy office they gave him at Headquarters while his subordinates do all the work and only coming into the field when it suits him.
Unfortunately for us, today is one of those days.
“Your intervals are all wrong,” Hicks mutters, interrupting Cal who went over the page he’s currently staring at five minutes ago.
“We’ll have uniformed agents at the gate,” Cal continues, cutting an eye at Hicks but still addressing the rest of the room. “Any questions?”
Of course, Hicks raises his hand, speaking before anyone has called his name. “Yeah, I want to know why you’ve got the uniformed officers doing perimeter sweeps at fifteen minute intervals. That seems excessive. I would suggest once every hour.”
He looks around the room for support, but I’m the only one who meets his eye. “No one asked for your suggestion, Dan.”
“But I’ve got decades of experience—”
“Remind me, how much of that experience was gained guarding Presidents?”
Red creeps up his neck and into his cheeks. Satisfaction sweeps through me just as fast. Having the power to not only dismiss Hicks but to make him feel as small as he tried to make us feel when we worked under him, makes this one of the few times I’ve felt grateful for this position.
I tilt my head to the side. “Well, Dan, we’re all waiting. Please share with the class how many years you’ve spent coordinating security for State Dinners at the White House.”
“None,” he grits through clenched teeth.
“Exactly.” I nod. “So please do us all a favor and save your comments for discussions where the topics are within your limited realm of expertise.”
If we weren’t in mixed company, I’d get a little more specific, directing him to update his charge on proper security protocol so she never makes the mistake of bringing perfect strangers into what was supposed to be a secure space.
I swallow that urge though, turning the meeting back over to Cal with a smirk.
We wrap up minutes later, and Hicks storms out of the room before anyone else can leave their seats.
“That looked like it felt good,” Agent Shaw muses, approaching me and Cal once the room has cleared out. “I take it there’s history there?”
Cal lets out a low whistle. “That’s an understatement.”
“Former boss,” I explain. “He’s the asshole who was in charge of Selene’s detail during the campaign.”
“I thought he looked familiar,” she says, shaking her head. “It must have been so frustrating to have to take orders from someone like him. Is it true he didn’t take any of your assessments about the online threats and Marsh’s connection to them seriously?”
“Unfortunately,” I confirm with a grimace.
My blood always starts to boil every time I think about how differently things could have gone if Hicks had listened to me and Cal all those months ago.
We could have gotten to Jacob sooner. We could have avoided bringing Charlie in for intel.
We could have had backup when we went into that factory.
Cal wouldn’t have walked away with a head injury, and I wouldn’t have come out of there with blood on my hands.
Shaw’s eyes harden, her gaze turning serious but sincere. “I want you to know I’m not like that. I investigate every piece of information I get regarding Mrs. Taylor’s safety no matter where it comes from or what it might lead to.”
“So we can assume you looked into Conlon?” Cal asks, taking advantage of the opening she’s just given us to follow up on the intel we shared with her about the reporter who interviewed Leland.
“Absolutely,” Shaw says. “Morgan and I paid him a visit.”
My interest is immediately piqued. “And?”
“And we determined he doesn’t pose a threat to the First Lady. He doesn’t even seem to believe in all that right wing propaganda he’s platforming on his site. I think he’s in it for the views.”
Cal and I share a look, the question of whether to trust Agent Shaw’s judgment passing between us in an invisible wave of tension and fear.
I want to push for more information, to ask Shaw for her notes and have her walk us through the entire meeting with Conlon so I can analyze it thoroughly.
Cal looks ready to seek the man out and question him himself.
Neither of us are in a position to do any of those things, so we do the only thing we can: thank Agent Shaw for pursuing the lead and rest easy in the knowledge that no one will protect a Black woman more than another Black woman.