Page 22 of Beck and Call

"That's not ambiguous," I mumbled.

He paced back and forth, grabbing his hair with both hands and tugging. "I never tried to warn you off, only to manage expectations."

"I get it, okay, eventually you'll move on. I don't have expectations for you to worry about managing." Even though I had no idea where we were, my first instinct was to flee.

As I turned to walk away, Beckett reached out and grabbed my wrist. "It wasn't your expectations I was trying to manage."

There were lots of questions I wanted to ask him, explanations I wanted to demand. All of it evaporated when he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. His fingers tightened around my arms, like he was afraid I was going to leave. Once again we let our bodies carry the conversation our words weren't equipped to handle.

Chapter Eight

The smell of coffee permeated the air. I cracked open one eye, a difficult feat considering we stayed out late the night before trying to see as much of the surrounding area we could. Once we were too tired to continue walking, we headed for the U-Bahn.

"I thought I was supposed to bring you coffee," I rasped.

"It's room service. I didn't know if you drank coffee, so I had a carafe of orange juice brought up as well."

I sat up, and the sheet fell down to my waist, revealing the pink silk nightie. Beckett tried to hide his smirk behind his mug, but I caught him.

I raised one questioning eyebrow and waited for an explanation.

"I couldn't let you sleep in your clothes. It wouldn't have been comfortable."

"Mm hmm," I mumbled. "This just happens to be made of delicate silk."

"That was just a bonus, and more for me considering you were asleep at the time. I like seeing you in nice things. You haven't been spoiled nearly enough, and it brings me pleasure to be the one to do it."

"You seem awfully relaxed this morning." I lifted the alarm clock to look at the time. "Shit, it's nine AM. We're supposed to be in a meeting right now with the CEO."

Tossing off the blankets, I went in search of clothing. I'm sure he'd come up with a reasonable explanation for missing the meeting. It probably didn't mean the deal was dead.

"Relax, come and sit."

"But … " I wanted to ask him if he knew how to relax, but he did seem a lot calmer at the moment than I was. Then I noticed the suitcases sitting near the door. Except for one of the ones he'd purchased for me, which was laying open on a stand. As if buying me an entire wardrobe for a four-day trip wasn't excessive enough.

He held out his hand, and when I accepted it, he tugged me onto his lap and kissed me quickly. "They called this morning and accepted the deal. I've already sent word to legal to start drawing up the contracts."

"So, we're heading back to Seattle, then?"

He nodded. "There's several things that need to be done back at the corporate office to finalize the agreement. We'll come back some time to do some actual sightseeing."

I smiled because I'd never imagined I'd do any sightseeing in Berlin at all and he was talking about a future trip. "I should shower so we can get going then." Standing up, I started to head to the bathroom.

"Sit and eat. We have plenty of time."

"I don't usually eat breakfast."

He looked me over, and there was little hiding me in the pink silk I was wearing. "From the looks of you, there's a lot of meals you've skipped. Please, eat something."

Funny thing about wishes, when they came true it wasn't always the way you wanted. I'd wanted to be seen, but I hadn't realized it would make me feel so exposed.

"Let me go take a quick shower to wake up more, and then I'll sit and eat."

He smiled and relaxed back into his seat with his cup of coffee. "Hurry, I don't want it to get too cold."

* * *

The flight felt longer than the trip to Berlin, but only because I was awake for most of it. I took a short nap somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, but I spent the rest of the flight coordinating Beckett's schedule, setting up reminders for myself on my phone, and making sure all of my notes were written up to send to legal to have the contracts prepared.

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