Beckett
Sobriety is a condition of my parole. I’m not allowed to drink and will have surprise piss tests. But I went to prison at seventeen. I should have been starting my senior year of high school. Besides a few beers that Clay and I stole from my parents’ fridge, I’ve never drunk alcohol. We were too involved in sports and girls to be interested.
Opportunities in prison to get into drugs and alcohol were constant. The dealers tried over and over to get all of us hooked, but I stayed away from it.
In ten years, nothing has changed. I don’t know what I expected. My parents, along with the majority of residents on the island, are big partiers. Growing up, parties at my parents’ house were the norm. Their home was a place everyone was welcome.
Having a son who is a convicted felon for murder should warrant their friends staying away. It should isolate my parents. The opposite seems to be the reality.
The entire night, I sit inside, keeping to myself and trying to avoid everyone. Everyone is here to gawk at the murderer.
I have five siblings. Ryland and Hudson are older. Gracie, Gabriella, and Connor are younger. Before the party started, I had dinner with my parents and all my siblings, except for Connor who is a bartender and couldn’t get off his shift with such short notice.
My mom and I are fighting when Connor brings Mia into the party, and the fear and pain on her face creates a knife that slices through my heart.
Why is she here with Connor?
As soon as she sees me, she runs, and it’s apparent she’s been drinking.
Mia’s had way too much to drink, and I want to kill Connor.
What was he thinking, letting her drink that much?
The quiet of her home, minus our little conversation, is a welcome relief after the loud party at my parents’ house. I tend to Mia’s arm and continue to ice it in twenty-minute periods.
In prison, I studied and passed my GED. I also took the offered college courses and obtained a nursing degree. Since I kept my head down and stayed out of trouble, they allowed me to work in the prison hospital.
Fire ants aren’t new to me. Their sting creates a burning sensation, but the risk is for those who have allergic reactions.
I want to give Mia the antihistamine to be safe, but I’m worried about how much alcohol she’s had, so I keep a careful eye on her arm throughout the night.
Her room holds a small closet, dresser, and bed. There is no chair, so I tuck her into the covers, put fresh ice on her arm, and sit on top of the duvet.
“You can go,” she sleepily tells me again.
“Shh.” I stroke her hair. “Go to sleep.”
“You killed my brother, and they throw you a party,” she mutters.
Is there anything else I can do to cause her any more pain?
I slide down on the bed until my face is next to hers. “I didn’t want that. That is my mom’s doing, and she doesn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”
“Everyone came to celebrate you.” Tears come to her eyes.
I have no right to touch her, but I stroke her cheek. “They came to get drunk and see what a freak show I am. No one cares about me, nor is there any reason to celebrate anything about me.”
“No?” She raises an eyebrow.
“No.”
“You murdered my brother, and you still have all those people who love you.”
“I’m sorry.” She’s right. No one should love me, based on my conviction, but my family ties are strong.
“I have no one, and you have everyone.” Tears soak her pillow.
My heart bleeds. How can someone so deserving be so alone?
“I know how that feels,” I admit.
“How?”
“Prison is lonely.”
She scans my eyes. “But now you get to live, and everyone loves you.”
I want to wrap her in my arms and tell her the truth. Allow her to see anything good that might remain in me from before that night—before inmate 4592 ever existed.
While I went to prison naive, I came out fully informed of the hell that can exist on earth. And the pieces that made me popular are now gone.
“People don’t know me. They love what they remember of me. He no longer exists.” I am not sure how the words flow out of me so easily after learning how to keep everything to myself and hardly speaking to anyone for a decade.
“I no longer exist,” she whispers.
Her thoughts crush my soul. I played a part in her demise.
I stroke her cheek again, and, against my will, my thumb brushes over her lips. “You’re beautiful, in every way possible,” I murmur.
I shouldn’t be touching her. My face is only inches from hers. The scent of her skin, the softness of her hair, and smoothness of her flesh are beckoning me, begging me to make her mine.
She stares at me. “Beautiful is misleading. You taught me that.”
A few days ago, I thought the teenage girl Mia Crimson had died. A stunning, sensual, innocent woman now lies next to me. All I hear is the sadness, pain, and loneliness she’s suffered.
She thinks it’s all my fault. In some ways, it is. “I grieved for you,” rolls out of my mouth.
Her head slightly jerks on the pillow.
“Every day I grieved for Clay, I grieved for you.” For the second time today, to my surprise, a tear escapes.
“You thought you killed me, too?”
“No,” I blurt out.
She squints. “Then who did you think killed me?”
Shit. I’ve said too much. I quickly look away.
The sound of ice hitting the floor coordinates with both her hands gripping my face and her body straddling mine. “Tell me who did it,” she demands, her face inches from mine.
“I can’t.”
“You can,” she cries.
One of my hands goes to her head. My other arm wraps around her back, and I roughly kiss her. I part her lips by shoving my tongue into her, greedily exploring what I’ve been dying to taste since I saw her in the courtroom.
She gasps then tears her head back, and I allow her to break the kiss but keep hold of her, gazing into her turquoise orbs. My breath is already labored as my lungs try to grasp any air they can.
She’s a delicious piece of heaven I’m dying to devour, and no matter how much I’ve told myself not to make a move on her, it’s like the devil himself is offering her to me.
Time stands still. She could move farther away but doesn’t. I could release her body, but I don’t.
What is she thinking?
I’m out of practice. Her lips felt like they belonged on mine, but what do I know? Maybe my kiss didn’t do for her what it did for me.
That and the small detail she thinks you killed her brother. She hates you, Beckett, and now you gave her another reason to hate you more.
“I’m sorry. I want you so much. I...I...” I release a breath, but I don’t let go of her and close my eyes, trying to figure out how to get her not to hate me more.
It’s so faint, I’m not sure if I imagine it when her lips brush mine. When I open my eyes, she takes a shaky breath.
I knead my thumb on her skull, slowly tasting her, allowing her to taste me back, in a deep, sensual kiss.
Her hands slide from my cheeks then under my head, locking together, pulling me into her.
My fingers slip through her silky hair and slide under her nightgown, palming the cheeks of her ass that’s circling on my cock in tiny movements.
I groan in her mouth, as she flicks my tongue, igniting my blood. My cock is hardening, and she shakes as her warm breath merges into mine.
Pulsing flesh, the heat of her sex penetrating the thin material of my shorts, and the glorious sounds of her whimpering make me feel alive for the first time in over a decade. I’m panting, my heart beating fast, my balls already tightening.
Fuck, I’m going to come in my pants.
I flip her on her back and move my lips across her jaw and down her neck. She grasps my shoulder and moans while bucking her hips up at me then crossing her calves around mine.
“You’re beautiful perfection,” I mumble as I release her straps and move my lips down to her breasts. My tongue hits her areolas, teasing them as they pucker and harden, my teeth gently nibbling between licks.
“Oh God,” she whispers as I slip my fingers under her wet panties. I brush her slit and glide through her slick folds. She opens her legs wider for me and wraps her legs around my body, gripping her fingers on my back.
Crushing my mouth against hers then slowly inching my finger in and out of her, I groan at the mere thought of how tight she is and what it would feel like to be inside her.
Mia’s chest heaves, her pert breasts warm, her fingers dig into my shoulders.
I circle her clit, and within seconds her body quivers.
Her hands trail down my back, slipping under my shorts. One hand cups my ass cheek and the other slips between us, rubbing my pre-cum and shimmying on my shaft. Heat scorches all my cells as my heart races.
“Mia,” I breathe, closing my eyes and moaning as she moves faster, and I increase the pressure on her clit.
“Beckett, oh God...oh...” Her mouth forms an O, her cheeks flushed red.
“I have you, angel.” I swipe her faster and rub my thumb harder, trying not to come all over her hand.
She unravels, eyes rolling, body trembling, moaning my name, and gripping my dick so hard, I lose myself and climax all over her.
We lie next to each other, gasping for air, skin full of sweat, mouths in each other’s necks.
You just came all over her hand in under a minute: way to go, Beckett.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry, Mia,” I mumble in embarrassment. “No one’s touched me...oh God, I’m sorry.”
She slips her hands out of my pants and wipes the one on the bed then cups my face. “Shh. It’s okay.”
“No. I’m—”
She smashes her lips to mine, drawing me into her world that’s pure and good, giving me hope maybe life could have a do-over, and we could get past all the issues we have.
But I know better. I no longer am the naive boy I was the night of the crime, and I need to remember who I am and how far I’ve fallen. No one can save me from who I’ve become and what I’m willing to do, not even an angel like Mia.