Page 45 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)

BECK

H ours after our call with Charlie, I’m a ball of anxious, unspent energy.

I take all of the perimeter sweeps just to have something to do, and clean the entire kitchen alone after we finish the dinner Cal cooked, and Selene refused to come down to eat. Most, okay, maybe, all, of the anxiety I feel has to do with her.

Her silence.

Her pain.

Her safety.

Cal tries to keep me grounded, but I can tell he’s floating away on a cloud of worry, too. It’s evident in the way he keeps staring at the book he took off the shelf in the office, never turning a single page.

We’re on the couch with the TV on, but neither of us is watching the movie that’s playing because our eyes are on the stairs, willing her to appear.

And the volume is turned down low so we can listen to the shifting of the floorboards in her room as she paces back and forth.

My entire body burns with the need to go to her, to see her, to hold her, and just when I’m about to reach my breaking point, the pacing stops, morphing into soft footfalls that, seconds later, hit the stairs.

We trace her descent with our eyes, a current of anticipation arching between us when she appears.

She’s changed her clothes, back in the soft Stanford hoodie she flew in, and a pair of shorts that leave everything below her mid-thigh bare.

I hear Cal suck in a breath that matches the desperate gulp of air I’m holding in my lungs as we adjust to the feel of our bond stretching.

Opening up just enough to envelop the delicate creature in front of us and then closing again.

I wonder if she feels it, the way Cal feels about her, the way I do.

The fierce devotion, the concern, and way underneath, because I don’t know where her head is at, the raging desire.

It radiates off of us, thick waves of what if and if only.

Silent questions that must go unanswered because I can’t see a reality where we get to have her.

Where I get to have her and Cal.

Even as I surrender to my affection for Selene, I can’t help but think about the hard lessons life has taught me.

How it’s shown me that I never get to keep anything good for long.

How circumstance has mocked me when I got cocky enough to think I could have two good things at the same time.

How every time I’ve had palms full of blessings, both things were ripped from me so quickly, so violently, that I wondered if I ever had them at all.

That’s how it happened with my parents.

That’s how it happened with Diana and Cameron.

And that’s how it would happen with Cal and Selene.

It would be beautiful for a while, but then it’d break. We’d break.

I think that’s why I fought these feelings so hard, denying the truth of my heart in hopes of maintaining the delicate balance of my dynamic with Cal.

Stomping out the blooms of affection because I know I shouldn’t have been able to keep him this long, and I’m scared that adding Selene to the mix might trigger whatever hex has been put over my life and cost me them both.

“I’m sorry I missed dinner,” Selene breathes, lingering on the last step with her body angled like she’s poised to run away. “I just didn’t think I could hold down a full meal.”

Cal pulls off his reading glasses, closing the book. “No apologies necessary. I made a grazing board for you just in case you wanted something lighter. Let me grab it for you.”

He starts to stand, but she waves him off.

“No. You’ve done enough. You both have.” She splits a smile between us, and it’s so thin, so brittle, it looks ready to disintegrate.

I recognize it instantly as her First Lady smile and wonder how anyone could look at it and believe it to be genuine.

“I really appreciate you taking this trip with me, for making sure I felt secure and protected every step of the way.”

I want to touch her, to comfort her, but all I can do is say, “You don’t have to thank us.”

I intentionally stop myself from adding a qualifier about just doing our jobs because, whether she knows it or not, Selene is more than just a job to us.

She’s our family now. The quiet beat of our joined hearts.

The person we’ll do break oaths and bones for.

Cal and I have only ever been that for each other, and I don’t know if having that kind of intensity multiplied and focused solely on her will be too much for Selene.

I want to find out, though.

She clears her throat, stepping off the stairs. “Right, well, I still wanted to.”

Part of me hopes that she’ll cross the room and settle herself between us, allow us another moment like dinner the other night or breakfast this morning, but the other part of me knows she won’t.

She makes a beeline for the kitchen, and the quiet of the house makes her movements easy to track.

There’s the closing of the cabinet and the clinking of a glass against the countertop, followed by the opening of the refrigerator and the soft screech of the plastic pitcher filled with filtered water dragging across the glass shelves.

Within seconds, the quiet is pierced by the soft glug of cascading water and then Selene’s barely audible swallowing.

She finishes the glass and then pours another before returning the pitcher to its rightful place.

Cal, who has been as tuned in with her movements as I am, shifts in his seat, glancing over his shoulder to see what she’s doing now.

I look too, conscious not to let my gaze linger on the long, powerful legs and the toned muscles on display as she bends at her waist to rummage through the still full shelves.

Cal stands, moving to the kitchen with a single-minded focus.

It’s the same way he approached me in the office, with the intent to comfort and reassure lining the span of his shoulders.

He can’t touch her like he touched me—that would be a step too far—so he’ll do the next best thing: offer indirect care and aimless conversation meant to distract the person on the receiving end from the fact that he’s doing anything at all.

“We still have so much food left, maybe we can arrange to have it donated to a food bank.” He’s at Selene’s back, angling his body to the side as he reaches past her to assist with her search for what I assume is the grazing board he prepared for her.

“Or a homeless shelter,” he continues. “I’m sure one of the officers can help us arrange that before we leave in the morning. ”

“I’m sure they’d be happy to,” I say, pushing to my feet to join them in the kitchen.

Selene straightens, obviously giving up on conducting her own search for the grazing board.

She skirts around Cal, wary eyes on me as she reaches for the glass of water she left sitting on the counter.

The second she goes to lift it to her mouth, it slips from her hand, careening toward the tiled floors and landing at Selene’s feet in a shattered splash of glass and liquid that I notice immediately is tinged with red.

“You’re bleeding.”

“No,” she protests as I approach, recklessly reaching for her hips and lifting her off the floor. “I’m fine.”

Her voice is insistent, but there’s a low note of pain hidden in the two words, and she winces when I sit her down on the island, making sure we’re far away from the shards of glass Cal is already cleaning up.

“You’re hurt,” I shoot back, dropping down to my haunches in front of her.

She gasps when I grip her right ankle and lift her foot to my face to examine it.

There are no cuts or blood there, but I still lower it gingerly, in case there’s something I can’t see, before wrapping my fingers around her left ankle.

Selene whimpers, and I immediately loosen my grip, moving my fingers up to her calf to support the weight of her leg without agitating a clearly tender spot.

My examination reveals a gash in the bottom of her foot and an angry line of broken skin on her ankle near where I was originally holding her.

Both of the wounds are bleeding, and it’s only then that I notice crimson liquid on my skin, sinking into the lines of my fingertips.

The sight makes my heart squeeze painfully while my mind floods with images of Diana’s blood on my shaking and bruised hands, all over the floor and walls of our bedroom in the house I still can’t bring myself to sell, while every cell in my body works to convince me I could have found Selene that same way tonight.

Cut open.

Gutted and bled like an animal.

Suddenly, I’m paralyzed, unable to move or think of anything that’s not that day and how close I came to reliving the horror of finding someone I love….

Wait. Love? When did it become love?

My breath stalls in my lungs, as the word echoes in my mind, only coming when Selene calls my name.

“Beck.” Her eyes run lazy lines over my features, confusion at my reaction riding high on her brows. “It’s just a small cut. I’m fine.”

Something about her calm affect settles the anxiety that’s been swirling in my veins since I found her in the bathroom.

Then, as if to provide further proof that this situation is nothing like the horror-filled thoughts that just seized my mind, Cal appears at my side with a first aid kit in hand.

He pops it open, handing me an alcohol pad to clean the wounds and digging out two band aids to cover them.

Their size serves as a reminder of how small and insignificant Selene’s wounds are, and Cal’s assistance as I clean and dress the wounds drives home the fact that we face every issue—big, small, or in between—together.

When I’m done, Cal puts everything away, and I scoop Selene off the counter, carrying her over to the couch.

She holds herself rigid, refusing to let the lines of her body mesh with mine.

It happens anyway. I hold her too close, my grip a little too tight as I pull in greedy lungfuls of her scent.

Sugared wild berries and cherry blossoms accompanied by the nectar of ripe pears fill my nostrils, clinging to me even after I lower her to the couch.

“I could have walked,” she says without meeting my eye.

“You don’t have on shoes. I didn’t want to risk you stepping on any microscopic shards.”

Plus, I really wanted to hold you.

The errant thought begs to be set free, to move past the barrier of my lips and destroy every obstacle standing between what I want with Selene and what I get to have, which is nothing.

My sound logic seems to set her at ease, and she relaxes into the plush cushion in the middle of the couch. “Will you sit with me?”

I’m in the seat beside her before the question is fully formed, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and handing it to her.

She flips through the channels with no real intention or purpose, which suits me just fine because the last thing I want to do is watch TV.

I want to watch her, and I find myself sneaking glances, tracing the curve of her jaw and the details of her profile while Cal sweeps the floor for a second time and then runs a mop over it just to be safe.

He joins us a few minutes later, rounding the couch with the grazing board in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

“Don’t drop this one,” he jokes, handing the wine to Selene.

“I didn’t drop the other one. It fell .”

“That’s a weak defense,” I quip, tossing a pillow on her lap so the grazing board has someplace to sit. “It definitely wouldn’t hold up in court.”

“Good thing no one is suing me for a broken glass,” she remarks with a roll of her eyes. I can’t tell if it’s in response to our teasing or the obvious coddling, but I don’t care. It could be either, both, or neither, and I’d still be biting back a smile at the mundane exchange.

This. I think as Cal sinks into the spot on Selene’s other side and she stops the TV on a rerun of an old police procedural called Bones . This is what life would be if I got to keep them both.

One episode blends into another and another until we’re sucked into an unexpected marathon filled with Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth.

We don’t speak except to complain about the inaccuracies related to the Bureau, and each time we point out an error, Selene reprimands us for disparaging one of her comfort shows.

She falls asleep with a fading scowl of annoyance on her lovely features, and I scoop her up in my arms for the second time tonight, carrying her to bed while Cal does the final perimeter check.

Selene doesn’t so much as stir when I lay her on the bed and cover her with the blanket that’s folded on the end of the bed.

I back out of the room slowly, using the stealth getaway skills I perfected in preparation for Cameron and never got to use to make a clean escape.

When I make it back downstairs, Cal is coming through the front door.

We meet in the center of the open living space, both of us smiling like fools.

“I love her,” I murmur.

He nods. “So do I.”

We stare at each other, and it settles in the air between us.

The impression of her presence. The things she’s awakened in us that are both the same and different.

The scent of her in the air and something more.

A wispy billow of smoke. The result of a soldered bond crafted over the last two days, welded with words, forged in the fires of easy truths not lightly given, and care reluctantly accepted.

It explodes between us, demanding to be fed, and I’ve held back so much for so long.

I cave instantly, lunging at Cal with a ferocity and fervor that catches him off guard.

My hands go to his face, and I yank his lips down to mine as I urge him back, back, back, until he hits the wall with a groan I feel in my chest.

I pull back, biting his bottom lip as I go. “I love you.”

“And I love you.”

My lips are back on his in the span of a heartbeat, and this second kiss is more. More passionate. More sensual. More urgent. It goes on and on and on, only ending when it’s broken by the sound of a shocked gasp.