Free Victim of Love by Darien Cox Page B

there.
    “Hey!” I whispered as loud as I could.
    “I just want to wait until Townsend’s gone back to his room,” came Beck’s voice from the other side.
    “Well can we do that with me outside of the closet? I feel like elf on the shelf in here.”
    The double doors opened, Beck grinning down at me. “That is one big fucking elf. What has Santa been feeding you?”
    I climbed out, groaning as my knees creaked.
    “You better get out of here,” he said. “Before Kamal decides to show up or something.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. While I hadn’t expected poetry and kisses, his quick dismissal of me stung a bit. I headed for the door. “Okay, see you tomorrow.”
    Beck walked me to the door. As I stepped outside, he gave me a quick, hard slap on the ass. “Later,” he said, then went back inside and shut the door.
    I grinned as I made my way covertly back to the rear entrance of the bungalow. Okay, so it wasn’t a kiss. But something about that swat on the ass made me warm and fuzzy. There was affection in it, a playfulness, and it was a relief because it meant that despite the night’s craziness and...other things...it wasn’t going to be awkward between us. I hoped.
    I wasn’t fooling myself. I knew Beck wasn’t boyfriend material. But I was still itching to get him under my microscope. I wanted to know more about him. He wasn’t the type of person I’d normally be friends with, but that he was so different from me somehow made him more intriguing.
    That I was accepting of the fact that I’d messed around with this guy, and probably wasn’t going to get any more than that, surprised me. I’d never received a hand job from someone I wasn’t already dating, so had just experienced my first real meaningless hookup. And I wasn’t plagued with self-loathing or curled up in a ball waiting for the phone to ring. I was okay with taking it for what it was, and that made me feel very grown up. Very in control .
    Which was nice, because Beck had more or less stolen my control this evening, snatching it from me with such calculated ease it should have made me feel weak.
    But I didn’t feel weak. I felt fucking fantastic. Which likely had something to do with the meteoric sexual release, but either way, I went to bed truly relaxed and devoid of anxiety for the first time in ages.
    Unfortunately, my subconscious was still a hopeless romantic, and my dreams were riddled with passionate scenes involving Beck. In one of them we were rolling around in wet sand as waves crashed over us, From Here to Eternity style as we made out and tore at each other’s clothing.
    But the dream became nightmarish as an undertow began dragging Beck away from me, out to sea. I clung to his hands, trying to pull him back as the ocean grew more violent. Don’t let go, Olsen, he said. I need you .
    Then for some reason Laurie was standing beside us in the lab coat she wore at work, seemingly unaffected by the turbulent waves as she filled a rack of test tubes with sea water. Laurie , I said, still clinging to Beck’s slippery hands. Help me! Help me pull him in!
    Just let him go , she said. He’s going to leave anyway. He always does .
    Beck’s fingers slipped from mine as a wave took him. I could still see his head, bobbing in the water, grinning at me, no longer my passionate lover, just plain old, smarmy Beck again. Later, he said, then sank beneath the stormy waves, and was gone.

Chapter Four
     
    The Big Bang
     
     
    “Hey, you up? We had breakfast delivered.”
    I smiled at Kamal, who peeked his head cautiously into my room. “Yeah, sounds good. I’ll be right out.”
    I’d been up for a while, actually, but while I’d normally have just stumbled out of bed and munched down a muffin, today I felt the need to look good, so had already showered, dressed, and made sure my hair wasn’t sticking up like a strawberry blond scrub brush before presenting myself to the world. Or rather, presenting myself to Beck, because who was I