Page 26 of Salvaged Heart

26

ANDERS

“ T his sucks.” Beck pouted from where he stood at the counter, cutting up lettuce for tonight’s dinner.

Having a fully functioning kitchen again had been doing wonders for our diet, not that either Beck or myself knew our way around it. That hadn’t stopped him from making a better effort, though. It turned out Dr. White’s summoning was little more than him taking the opportunity to rip into me about my poor nutrition and need to increase my weight. While my blood work had come back showing nothing majorly wrong with me, it had shown I was deficient in several essential vitamins and anemic. So, Beck being Beck, he had taken it on as his personal mission to order in a heap load of fresh fruit, veggies, lean meats, and protein supplements. All of which I had just finished putting away.

“I know, but it’s for the best.” Margery was flying into town tomorrow to check on the progress of the house in person, and the last thing either of us needed was her reporting back to Laurel that Beck and I were sleeping together. A concept that still boggled my mind even weeks later.

“I don’t like being your dirty little secret, Anders.” He muttered, but his tone was playful.

He knew as well as I did that this was non-negotiable. While she was in town, we'd agreed that it was best for Beck to return to his room. The thought of sleeping apart from him left something sour and bitter in my chest. Even before things had grown sexual between the two of us, Beck had been sharing my bed for weeks. He had become a source of comfort to me, one I wasn’t sure I could sleep without. But I had to remain firm for both of us.

“It’s just three days.” I reminded him. “She will be gone before you know it, and I’ll make your patience worthwhile.” I shot a wink at him. One I knew would drive him crazy.

“You bribing me with sexual favors over there, Anders?” He cocked his brow, biting down on his lip. I wanted to walk over there and pull it out from between his teeth with my own. There was something about the way he said my name that turned me molten.

I held back and settled for a chuckle instead. “I’ll go drag your stuff upstairs while you’re finishing that,” nodding to the peppers he was now dicing.

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “But I’m going to keep you up all night to hold me over.”

Don’t threaten me with a good time. “I can handle that.”

I turned and left the room, feeling Beck’s steamy gaze focused on my ass as I went. Another laugh slipped from my chest, this one not out of amusement. It was out of the pure need to let some of the unbridled happiness overflowing in me out before I exploded. Things were so good between us.

We had been trying to keep things casual and undefined, but it was a losing battle. I was head over heels for him, falling a little more each day, and the way he looked at me told me he was feeling the same. One of these days, we would need to talk about it. About where we were headed after this renovation ended. But the reality of it didn’t matter. The truth was, I would follow him to the ends of the world if he’d let me. Beck was changing my life, each day I spent time with him. There was no way I could let him go.

I took the stairs two at a time, desperate to return to his orbit as quickly as possible. The air mattress was still shoved in the corner of my room, a thin layer of dust collecting on the top of it from disuse. I bundled it up with his sheets, which I had to shake out, a few clothes, and his cell phone charger. Last, I grabbed one of my t-shirts from the dirty clothes hamper, thinking maybe he would sleep in it while we were apart. The thought of him inhaling my scent while he drifted off to sleep made me glow inside.

I was a mess.

Arms now overflowing, I made my way up to the third floor, kicking open the door to what had once been Beck’s room with the toe of my boot and dropping the items in a heap in the corner. I folded his clothes neatly on the bench window seat before pumping up the mattress and slipping on the sheets. I tucked the bedding in neatly and plugged his phone charger into the outlet at its side. The room looked cold and empty. I could imagine him staring at the ceiling while I lay directly below him in my room doing the same. Neither of us would sleep. Maybe I could sneak up after Margery went to bed.

I made my way to the door to head back downstairs, turning slightly to hit the light switch on the way out, but something caught my eye as I stepped back into the hall. A floorboard to the left of the window lay poking up slightly. I would have missed it if the late afternoon sun coming in through the window hadn’t hit it just right.

It would need to be repaired, probably with just a few nails to pin it back down. Instead of troubling Beck with it, I decided I might as well handle it myself while I was up here. I headed to the study, where we had made similar repairs a few weeks ago, and found a few leftover floor nails as well as a hammer. I brought them back to the bedroom and knelt beside the loose board, tugging it free.

My heart stopped.

There, in the small opening below, lay three orange pill bottles.

“What the hell?”

My fingers shook as I leaned down, reaching into the hole to pull one of the small containers free. It was full, the pills inside knocking into one another as I lifted it, a familiar rattle in my ears. Why did he still have these? We hadn’t spoken about what he'd done with the pills he took from my room, but there wasn’t a single part of me that believed they still were in the house. Had these been hidden here the whole time? Just one floor away from where I fell asleep each night.

I opened the lid and stared at the little white pills that had destroyed my life. They'd taken Jonah from me, pushed away my family, and made me live on the streets, but still, they sang to me like a siren’s call.

Just one, they said. One won’t hurt.

One would ruin me.

I screwed the top back on and dropped it into the hole, jumping to my feet, putting as much distance as I could between me and a bad decision I was seconds away from making. I needed to get back downstairs to Beck. I would tell him what I’d found, and he would get them out of the house for me. All I needed was the strength to walk downstairs.

By some miracle, I found it.

Beck was almost exactly where I left him in the kitchen when I hurtled through the door. He glanced up the way he always did when I entered a room, his beaming smile turning into a look of concern as he took me in.

“Everything alright?” He lowered the kitchen knife to the counter and walked around it to me. “Baby, you’re shaking.”

“I’m okay.” I wasn’t sure if those words were for myself or him. “I will be.”

“What happened? What do you need?”

The words were on the tip of my tongue to tell him what I had found upstairs, beg him to flush them down the toilet before the screaming voices in my head took control. But the need for him to ground me won out. I needed the feel of his hands on my skin to remind me that I was alive and thriving and that the high I sort was in his kiss, not in a little medicine bottle two stories above.

Time. There would be time later to tell him.

Now, I needed him like I needed oxygen. I pulled him to me, bringing his lips to mine, kissing him as if doing so would heal every broken piece of me. He didn’t miss a beat, wrapping me in his arms and kissing me back hungrily. I backed him up against the counter, pulling his shirt over his head and tugging mine off after it. His muscular chest was pressed against mine, smooth and hard and warm. I wanted to bite my way along it, suck marks on him. The thought of it was burning me up inside.

He groaned, pressing his hips into me, sweats hitting the floor. I wasn’t sure if it had been my hands or his that pushed them down. We were lost in one another, the world outside these four walls a distant hum as our kiss slowed from a frenzy to something more profound. Something thick and overflowing with emotion. I knew it then, like I knew my own name, I loved this man. I loved him with my entire being, and just the slightest touch, one single kiss, heck, even a smile, was enough to bring me back from the edge.

I wanted to tell him. No, I needed to tell him.

My whole body shivered with it.

I pulled back, lips parting, words forming, “Beck, I…” His eyes were that hypnotic blue they always were, his gaze so intense it was like he was looking into my soul. “I think…” I tried again, pressing my eyes shut as he stole another kiss.

“I know,” He whispered against me, “I feel it too. I…”

Beck went ridged, suddenly pulling back and turning his head quickly toward the doorway. It was abrupt, leaving me cold, tingles running down my spine from losing his warmth. It was then I felt it too. Eyes trained on us, somewhere from the right. A throat cleared, and I didn’t need to turn my head to know who was standing there.