49. Elouise
Elouise
His breath is hot along my skin while his lips graze my neck, sending tingles up and down my spine.
“Beckett,” I groan out his name, not caring about our surroundings.
A large hand clamps over my mouth, as his body shifts until he’s above me, pressing me into the floor.
“Hush, Smoky,” teeth nip at the curve of my breast. “You don’t want to get caught, do you?”
My head shakes even as I try to ask him for more, but his palm is still silencing my words.
I writhe, not caring about the dirty carpet beneath me. And when his teeth scrape over my nipple I reach out and grip the base of the chair next to me.
Then his mouth moves lower… and lower… my heart rate increasing as he inches closer to where I want him. Where I need him.
Strong hands pry my naked thighs apart and I groan.
Shushing fills my ears… getting louder… until it’s all I can hear.
Opening my eyes, I look up and find an entire auditorium full of people looming over me, with judgmental looks in their eyes and fingers in front of their lips.
“I told you to be quiet,” Beckett says, before lowering his face between my legs.
I want to tell him to stop. We shouldn’t do this. Not here. But then his tongue laps against me, and then all I can hear are the wet noises between my thighs. The strokes of his tongue sounding like the strikes of a hammer.
Hammer?
My eyes pop open.
For a second, I almost expect to find a bunch of disapproving adults staring down at me, but it only takes me a few blinks to come back to reality and I recognize my bedroom ceiling.
I let out a deep sigh.
This obsession with Beckett is affecting my dreams.
But after a few more blinks I realize that the hammering sound didn’t end with my dream.
“What the…?”
Throwing back the covers, I glance at the clock, shocked to see I slept past 9:00.
I’m settling my feet on the floor when the hammering stops. My palms scrub over my eyes. And I have just enough time to think that I’m totally losing it when the unmistakable sound of an electric saw filters in through my window.
“Seriously?”
With an un-ladylike grunt, I stand and shuffle to my window. Pulling the curtains open, I see that Beckett’s truck is parked in my driveway. I can still hear the sounds of a power tool, but I can’t see him.
Half awake, I trudge down the hall, down the stairs and across the living room, stopping only to unlock the deadbolt before yanking open the front door.
I had a suspicion of what I might find, but that didn’t prepare me for the site in front of me. Because it’s not just Beckett. It’s Beckett in a tool belt. With little bits of sawdust stuck in his hair and a sweat-dampened white shirt clinging to his broad back.
Facing away from me, Beckett leans over a bench, moving his saw across a board, and just like that, my ovaries pop out of my body and roll across the porch, in an effort to get closer to the testosterone on display.
The way he’s bending highlights the fact that his jeans are molded to his ass. And, fuck me, even his usual black leather work boots look hot.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “I had no chance.”
Beckett straightens but before he can turn around, I snap the door shut. If I’m going to deal with him, looking like that, I need to change.
And brush my teeth.
Ten minutes later, I’m opening the front door again. Only this time I step out onto the porch, closing the door behind me.
Beckett’s standing at the bottom of the short set of steps, still looking hot as hell.
He smiles, “Morning.”
I lift a brow and hand him a mug filled with black coffee, taking my own over to the wicker bench in the corner of the porch.
In leggings, a sports bra and hoodie, I’m far from put together, but everything is held in place. And after throwing my hair into an extra-messy bun, I feel like myself.
Settling onto the seat, Beckett holds his ground as we take matching sips of coffee, our eyes locked over the edges of our mugs.
“So,” I make a point of looking around, “what’s going on out here?”
Beckett mimes my action, slowly looking at the tools and lumber scattered around my porch and yard. “Just replacing some of your floorboards.”
I can see the ones he’s already done, their color slightly lighter than the others.
“Oh?” I infuse the why into my tone.
He shrugs, “I spent a lot of time here this week,” he taps his foot against the steps, “and noticed a few bad boards.”
“You spent a lot of time here? ”
Beckett nods, “Yeah. Waiting for you.”
Oh.
Really?
“You did?”
“Of course, I did.”
His simple answer hits me square in the chest. “When?”
He looks exasperated at my question. “Every day, Elouise. I came here every single day since the disaster at my parent’s house because I needed to see you.
Explain to you what happened. And as I paced back and forth across this damn porch, I couldn’t help but notice that a few things needed to be fixed.
And so here I am, fixing it.” Beckett sets his coffee on the railing and climbs the steps, crossing over the newly replaced flooring until he’s right in front of me.
He smacks a hand against his chest. “Me. I’m fixing it.
Because the thought of some other man over here, working to make your house a safer place, makes my blood fucking boil.
” He leans down, hands braced on either side of my shoulders, caging me in.
“I don’t think you get it, not yet, but you’re mine, Smoky Darling.
You’re mine to touch and spoil and keep safe.
And while you’re letting that sink in, I’m gonna do what needs to be done.
Because the only thing worse than thinking about some strange man fixing your rotten floorboards, is the thought of you being unsafe.
I won’t fucking have it, Elouise. So don’t ask me to.
The last time I saw you injured it nearly killed me. ”
My pulse is skittering. His intensity is such a contrast to the calm Beckett from last night, pleading with me to believe him. This Beckett… fuck, this Beckett is hot.
“When did you see me injured?” is the only question I can think to ask.
“Do you remember that kick ball game?”
My heart skips a beat.
He can’t… he can’t possibly…
“When that little prick from down the street knocked you over?”
I nod. Because I know exactly what day he’s talking about. It’s a memory that’s formed my existence. The moment that started everything. One I’ve relived countless times in the years after. Because it’s the moment I fell in love with Beckett .
But I was sure – I knew – it meant nothing to him. Just a random fleeting moment in his life.
But… My lungs fight to inflate. But I was wrong. Because if what he’s saying is true… Oh my god … that means that same moment meant something to him too.
Beckett’s hands move to my shoulders, dragging his palms down my arms as he lowers himself into a crouch.
Beckett’s gaze holds mine, his tone softening, “Seeing you sprawled on the blacktop that day… it broke something inside of me. Or maybe it fixed it.” His fingers squeeze mine.
“I was always aware of you after that. Every time I saw you, or heard your name, or thought of you, a feeling of protectiveness would overcome me. It wasn’t like it is now.
It wasn’t filled with this need . You were just a kid back then.
” His chest expands. “But you aren’t a kid now. ”
The air between us fills with a tension I can feel. Past and present colliding and forming something new.
How is this possible?
“You…” I trail off. Not sure what to say after that.
The corner of his mouth twitches but he doesn’t attempt to fill the silence. He just lets me take in the meaning of his words.
We’re still staring at each other when my phone starts to ring, and I make no move to answer it.
When it continues to ring, Beckett reaches into my sweatshirt pocket and pulls out my phone. “Answer it.” He punctuates his statement by flipping my hand over and setting it in my palm.
“Beckett-”
“Better yet,” he cuts me off then taps the screen, “Maddie?”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line before my friend’s voice sounds over speakerphone. “Um, yes?”
“Are you at home or at BeanBag?”
“I’m at the shop. Is everything okay? Where’s Elouise?” She sounds curious but not too alarmed.
“Everything’s fine. Elouise is gonna come hang out for a bit.”
“Beck-”
He cuts me off again, while he hangs up on Maddie. “Go. I need to wrap up here, and if you stay, you’ll just distract me. ”
Rather than arguing, I let him help me up.
He’s right. Not that I care about the front porch. It’s more that if I stay, I’ll end up tearing his clothes off in about, oh, five minutes. And what I really need is time to process the emotional bomb he just dropped on my childhood.
Beckett presses his lips to my forehead then turns back towards his tools.