Page 19 of Beck and Call

He kissed the side of my head. "We don't have to share all of our secrets right out of the gate, do we?"

"I guess not. But I don't have to stay in this room. It's okay to want to be alone."

He pushed me down into the mattress, and moved on top of me. "I rather like not having space between us. Let's not worry about the room right now."

For once I was okay with putting off my problems for later. It wasn't going to go away by ignoring it, but we didn't need to face it right now either.

This time we savored each other. The frenzy had dulled and was replaced by decadent caresses. We were both stubborn, guarded people. The needs we shared were vast and deep. The words that seemed to come so difficultly to us, we silently expressed with the brush of lips and friction of skin against skin.

Once the passion crested for the second time, I felt something shift inside me. One moment I was alone in the world, and the next I was tethered to him. It wasn't love, it was far too soon for that, but I felt like I belonged somewhere. For me, for now, it was everything.

Chapter Seven

Beckett wasn't kidding about us not having time to go sightseeing. The second day we were in Berlin, I accompanied him on a breakfast meeting with investors, a tour of the manufacturing plant, a lunch meeting with more corporate executives, and ended the day with a four-hour conference with Anderson Global's European legal counsel. The only plus side was he'd given me my work phone and laptop, which made keeping meeting minutes much easier, and I'd actually managed to eat.

When we finally made it back to the hotel, about twelve hours later, I limped through the door. The fancy shoes that were delivered with my clothes pinched my feet just like cheap ones. I longed to kick them off and dig my toes into the ultra-plush carpet.

"Why are you standing by the door?" Beckett looked at me with a puzzled expression as he worked the tie free from his neck.

If I told him the truth, I was waiting for him to ask me to stay. We never settled the issue of where I was staying. Not definitively. Sure, he wanted me to stay last night, but I didn’t want to assume we were going to spend every night snuggled together. I didn’t have much of a dating history, but I knew a lot of men liked to retreat a bit after spending the night with a woman.

He stared at me with half-lidded eyes, and I could practically read his mind. Still, we didn’t discuss the fact I had a room two floors down. Talking wasn’t on his mind though, and I let myself be carried away on a wave of bliss.

After we'd thoroughly enjoyed each other we had to rush to make it to a dinner meeting with the same gentlemen from lunch and their marketing team.

On the short drive back to the hotel, he took what sounded like a contentious business call, and by the time we arrived it seemed to be heating up rather than coming to a conclusion.

The feeling of awkwardness returned and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Watching him talk on the phone seemed pathetic, so I excused myself to my room. I hesitated by the door, but he didn’t stop me. I’m not sure he even heard me tell him I was going to my room.

When an hour passed and he hadn't come to get me, I took a bath. Another hour passed, and I ended up crawling into bed alone. I tried not to read anything into it. A part of me was even grateful to have a little bit of space to collect myself. But when the morning came, I was more confused than appreciative.

The only communication I'd had from him since we parted was an email with his schedule and usual morning routine. He asked me to meet him in his room and bring coffee. It threw me a little, going from intense passion to all business. Maybe I was being overly sensitive, but it seemed the closeness I felt to him yesterday was an illusion, and he wasn't done running hot and cold.

After I consulted the day's agenda, I got ready for the meetings he listed with enough time to meet him with coffee from the café I noticed across the street. It took a bit of fumbling, and some help from google translate, but I managed to order him a coffee with two creamers.

“How did you sleep?” he asked. He still sounded detached and business-like, but there was an undercurrent of annoyance I only detected because I was watching him so closely.

I fidgeted. I felt the need to explain why I’d gone back to my room last night, although I wasn’t entirely sure he cared either way. "Pretty good. I keep forgetting the rest of my clothes are in my room on the twelfth floor."

He didn't respond. Instead, he just stood studying me for an uncomfortably long time. Reading people was a skill I discovered he possessed after watching him conduct business all day. He was able to move seamlessly from group to group and command each meeting with finesse. It was impressive and made my infatuation grow while his feelings seem to have cooled.

My discomfort grew as he took off his blue silk tie and put it in the drawer, all while watching me. I shifted my weight from foot to foot. My mind was trying to conjure reasons to retreat to my room.

His mouth turned down in a frown, as if he could actually read my thoughts. While he was incredibly intuitive, I drew the line at believing he was actually telepathic.

He grabbed the phone receiver off the cradle and pushed zero. "Hi, this is Beckett Anderson. I'd like to have my belongings brought to me from room 1203, and to be checked out of the room. Yes, as soon as possible. Thank you."

Still, he watched me. I wanted to squirm under the weight of his gaze, but I resisted. “Why are you undressing? We’re supposed to be heading out.”

He didn’t answer me. Instead, he unfastened one cufflink, and placed it in a velvet pouch, then he followed with the other. "Any other excuses?"

I looked down for a second before meeting his eyes again. "I'm not sure what you mean."

He continued to undress, slowly. My stomach knotted with anticipation, ready to lose myself in him once again. "That's a lie. I gave you last night, but I've told you to stop running."

My mouth fell open. I tossed and turned all night thinking he didn't want me to stay, all while he thought he was giving me space. We were a pair of idiots.

"You should get out of those shoes."

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