A Brutal Tenderness (16 page)

She shivers and begins to collect her clothes. “We shouldn’t
have done that  .  .  . here.” Her small hands push her damp
hair behind her ears. I feel Jewell’s shame, her uncertainty, it
permeates the room. I don’t want her to feel bad about the
moment I know I love her.

She looks full on at me. “Don’t you see that?”
No. But my perspective comes from a point of knowledge.
I know what’s happening. I sigh, rummaging around in my
pocket and pull out a smoke, a nasty little holdover from a
rough patch in my life that clings with stubborn fingers. I’ll
never admit it, but when I get anxious, I light up.
I strike the match on my boot and it flares as the first
acrid inhale singes and bakes, grounding me. Only smokers
understand that nasty little secret. Cigs give something back,
and they don’t talk back. Simple.
Jewell turns, only her profile illuminated  .  .  . and a
tantalizing glimpse of one upturned nipple catches my
complete attention, her bra hanging off one shoulder like a
sexy flag. I give a low laugh, the smoke rising in a spiral as I
reach out and press that beautiful soft flesh in my palm. It fits
perfectly.
Like Jewell.
She frowns. “You’re not smoking in here,” she half asks,
incredulous.
I smirk, barking out a short laugh. Fuck yeah, I am  .  .  . I
want to get calm fast. I need to. Jewell’s face tells me that. It’s
like a feminine storm’s brewing and I’m caught before the rain
without an umbrella.
Screw that, without anything. I smell the ozone of her
emotional signature and brace myself.
“Doesn’t look that way,” I answer, giving her a puzzled look.
“Somebody’s going to smell that, Cas!” she says in a low
voice as I take another drag. Something besides me smoking
has her ire up. The red glow from the cig lights up her face, her
eyes narrow on me, her body tight with tension.
Where does intimacy go when one of the players is
frightened by it?
I’ll tell you, it chills my balls off that I can feel her
withdrawal, her distrust, and it makes me goddamn frantic.
We’re too close to the end of this thing, too near to realizing
what we can be to each other.
Once Thad’s put away, I can have her . . . I know she’s the
one I want.
I stub the cigarette out with a practiced crush against the
bottom of my boot, and the dark gloom swims in around us
again. I watch Jewell put her clothes on, giving a sigh of disgust
that her panties are in shreds.
In the darkness, Jewell misses my smile at her ruined
underwear.
I can’t let her leave; escaping what’s happening between us
won’t make it go away.
“Wait,” I say quietly as Jewell moves toward the door,
shoving her G-string in her small gear sack.
She doesn’t stop, and as she opens the door I slam into her
from behind, the door shuddering as my palm shuts it with a
bang. I move her body into my waiting hands as I cup them
against her chest, pressing her back into me. I move my hands
and cover her breasts completely, breathing in her scent against
her neck, and my cock gives a responsive lurch and I reel as just
her nearness alone has me on my proverbial knees to be in her
again, touching her, loving her.
I’m so fucked.
I can’t have her leave, I can’t have her with anyone else, and
it’s beyond unfair to ask her. So I don’t.
I tell her instead, “Don’t see Maverick, Jess.”
I feel her go stiff and know I’ve lost her.
“No, you don’t get to control my life. You haven’t earned that
right yet,” she says against me as my hands knead her softly, my
lips kissing her neck. Jewell says the words even as she moves
to open her neck for me and I suck in a breath, biting back the
emotion that surges forward, that mix of fragility and defiance
intoxicating.
God, how I want her.
She throws cold water on my face with her next words. “You
came in me.”
Fuck.
Jewell pulls away and I keep my hands on her, though they
grow cold when she gives me a look filled with anger.
“Oh . . . pregnancy?”
Sometimes we do unconscious things that get us what we
want. It punches me in the gut when I realize I don’t care if
she’s pregnant. A small part of me hopes she is.
It’s beyond screwed up but also so right it makes my chest
constrict.
I look down at her without remorse. Knowing how I feel
and not being able to say it is killing me slowly, this kind of
lie by omission is the worst one I’ve never told. I hate what it’s
doing to her.
“STDs,” she says, probing for a reaction I won’t give, can’t
give. I know I’m clean, I haven’t been with anyone for a while.
Like my mind isn’t giving my body permission. The roles with
the female FBIs nothing more than a stepping-stone for the
case, not reality.
This, this woman in front of me, vulnerable, fragile  .  .  .
mine. Jewell is my new reality.
“I’m clean,” I say in a terse one-two.
Jewell folds her arms, unsatisfied with my short answer as I
knew she would be. “Can you say something, Cas?”
No . . . Yes. “I don’t want anyone but you. Only you.” I cup
Jewell’s face, her cheek moving into my palm like a perfect
scoop of flesh and warmth. I stroke my thumb lightly over her
lips, plumped by my brutal attention.
It’s all I have, all I am. A brutal tenderness is all I’m capable
of giving.
I don’t know if it’s enough.
I’m willing to try with Jewell forever.
“You’re lying,” she says softly into my hand.
I’m finally telling the truth and she doesn’t see it, hear it.
I drop my hand and reply, “I’m many things, but I’m no
liar.” Then my mouth is on hers, moving and sipping at those
swollen lips that move seamlessly beneath mine in a savoring
mutual taste. The smell of our lovemaking is on my mouth, on
hers . . . it instantly gets me ready again.
I come up for air and she throws her palms out in a
warding-off gesture. “We can’t do this!” Jewell’s hand covers her
mouth, eyes round . . . even she doesn’t understand our pull. I’ve
given up trying to reconcile the inexplicable. It is what it is.
I won’t fight it anymore. Our chemistry has beaten me into
submission, my love for her solidifying my choices.
“Which part?” I ask, stalking toward her as I cup my hand
around the heated core of her, the place I licked, kissed, and
stabbed with everything I am. It isn’t just my flesh that’s
pierced her but my heart. Jewell doesn’t know it, but a little torn
piece of my soul’s inside her.
“This part?” I continue, kissing her forehead. “Or this part?”
I lean into her body, my hand still against that soft heat, and
kiss one of her eyelids, my lips brushing over the bridge of her
nose as I move to the opposite, blowing the heat of my mouth
against the other as the fragile little lashes tickle the stubble of
my jaw like a butterfly begging for escape.
I straighten and Jewell falls back in a kind of sexual lethargy
against the cold cinder block of the closet’s interior. “Or this?” I
back away swinging my hand at the odd surroundings of where
we’d just fucked each other senseless.
“Which part do you not want to do, Jess?” I ask in a low
voice I hardly recognize, raw and filled with anger. Because
Jewell doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass when I’m moving inside
her, taking her every way a man can have a woman.
Jewell doesn’t answer, casting her eyes down.
Fuck this, She. Will. Answer. “Don’t you want to fuck me,
Jess?” I ask. I’m in front of her now as I place a finger under her
chin and lift her gaze to mine.
“Don’t lie. I deserve more,” I say, searching her face.
Seconds tick by, and I see the answer on her face before she
says the word. “Yes,” she confirms softly.
“Then tell me What. The. Problem. Is?” My voice doesn’t
camouflage my hurt, my frustration.
“Why were you following me?” she asks, turning the tables
so fast I have to fight for a neutral.
I grunt and scrub my skull with a harsh grating sweep as I
step away. “I don’t know.”
Because I don’t. Beltaine had it. There was no need for me to
be secondary. Maverick isn’t a labeled threat, target, or anything
really. He’s just the prick who wants to fuck Jewell, and I want
to crush him for it.
My pulse pounds with it.
Now it is she who stalks me, stepping into my personal
space, and I have to keep my hands at my sides, the urge to
hold her . . . touch her is so strong it’s unnerving, undoing me
like a spool of unraveling yarn.
“Tell me,” she demands, and for the first time I waver.
Women don’t realize their power over men. If they did,
they’d rule the world.
I get hold of myself with an effort, resolve kicks in, saving
my ass. “I can’t say.” The second truth I’ve told tonight.
“No,” Jewell says, part statement and part dismissal. I know
she’s leaving.
Leaving me.
I can feel a tear start, a sort of slow-moving fissure like a
Band-Aid being pulled from a wound, torturously slow.
I begin to bleed as I move forward.
Then I remember. My mind already giving me the time
before I can confer on my cell.
My partner will be waiting in that hall. Not expecting us to
be in this closet.
I’m supposed to stall, delay Jewell in the hall.
Shit, that plan got . . . sidetracked.
“No . . . Jess, wait!” She’ll get in the middle of it . . . she’ll . . .
“No!” she responds, blowing my ass off as she swings the
door open. It’s what my ambiguity deserves.
The glare of the hall sweeps inside, momentarily blinding
me, and I hear it before I can stop it: Luke taking a checked
swing at Jewell.
She’s not prepared, no woman would be. Jewell is trying to
escape our interlude, avoid more words . . . so she runs out into
the hall and into the mess of our staged conflict.
Fuck me running.
And I do, I sprint the fifteen feet that separate us as Jewell
plows into the opposite side of the wall I’d just pinned her
against.
Jewell! My mind roars and I pivot, catching her loosely just
as the first hit strikes my head.
I allow her to gently slump against the wall and turn like a
machine of vengeance.
My eyes snag on Luke’s, and he sees everything in that
unguarded moment like a captured heartbeat of time.
Three of his thugs move in, and I defend myself, moving
through them like a watered wall of pulverizing flesh, the
jabs and sweeps of my legs moving like a well-oiled dance of
violence.
My mind hovers apart from my body, hurting over Jewell’s
second injury at my hands.
Because I can’t fool myself on that score.
It’s like I beat her myself, because just knowing me put her
square in harm’s way. I’m as guilty as the perpetrator.
The fourth and fifth guys have more of their way with me
than I want, and I take some abuse, so beat I can barely lift my
arms to defend my face. Then Adams is there.
I want to kill him.
I want to thank him.
His mouth moves, but no sound reaches my ears, my head’s
ringing from the assault of fists, too many in too little time.
I grab his shirt, jerking him down into my face. I hear
the sound his hand makes as he slaps his palm to keep from
landing on me. I ask one thing.
“Jewell,” I half croak in a voice thick with blood, which
I spit out to the side. It lands with a splatter, brilliantly red
against the old tiles of the corridor.
“Hospital,” Adams rasps out, his face turning colors as I
choke him with my hold.
“Cas . . . she’s okay . . .” he gasps, trying to dig my one hand
off with his two.
Didn’t need to bother. Blackness slips in at the edges as my
head cracks on the floor behind me.
My last thought is of lost treasure.
Jewell.

Adams shakes me, and my eyes roll in my head. It takes a
second to orient myself, but my vision sharpens and I realize
I’m on the floor of the corridor that separates the auditorium,
lockers, and . . . that closet.

It will always hold special significance now.
On the heels of that thought, the image of Jewell slams into
me, a vivid picture of her sagging unconsciousness against the
wall.
“Showtime, pal,” Adams whispers as my colleagues jerk him
off me, slapping cuffs on him and two others, dragging three
unresponsive jerks off too.
Clearwater’s eyes meet mine without an ounce of humor.
We need to play this perfectly. His eyes skim behind me and I
sit up so quickly the blood rushing to my head plays with my
vision again.
There’re two of Jewell . . . then, just one.
Holy fuck, she’s on a stretcher. Two paramedics are bent
over her, their hands busy binding that small body that I’ve
made love to tenderly . . . savagely, on a flat board with a neck
brace.
Oh, God.
I crawl on my hands and knees to her side, reaching out to
touch her.
“Back off, pal,” the male medic of a male/female team says
in a matter-of-fact way, his eyes never leaving his patient.
“Fuck off,” I say in a voice that cracks.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Officer?” he calls out softly, one of
Jewell’s limp wrists in his hand, his eyes tracking the second
hand on his watch.
“Come on, buddy . . . don’t be a boyfriend now, let them do
their job.”
I’m out of control and fucking know it.
Not that it ever matters.
I turn and punch him before he can close his mouth, the
skin of my abused knuckles shifting as he crumples to the
ground.
He doesn’t do anything wrong, but seeing Jewell wounded
hits me like a sucker punch to my stomach, my inadequacies
roaring up to bite me in the ass.
First Faith.
Now Jewell.
Why can’t I protect the women I love?
It takes three cops and a pissed-off marshal by the name of
O’Rourke to settle the situation.
It’s not settled for me. Not by a long fucking shot.
I stand with my legs spread, ointment coating my shredded
hands, the flesh a stinging, burning nightmare.
Not that it matters, the pain keeps me alert, alive. On the
other side of the glass, the real wound against me lies as pale as
the sheets beneath her.
I’ve done this. I let that self-hate sink its teeth into me.
I’m so buried in my emotional bullshit I don’t hear Adams
behind me.
He claps me on my back and I turn.
“Whoa . . . fuck,” Luke says, backing up, his palms spread in
supplication.
My eyes meet his, my hands in clenched fists at my sides.
“Why did you fucking hit her, goddammit, Luke?”
His eyes narrow on mine, leaning into my body. “Where.
The. Fuck. Were. You, partner?”
I say nothing, and the silence between us stretches on a taut
cord of discomfort.
“Well?” he asks, poking my chest with his finger.
I grab it, twisting it. “Don’t,” I hiss in warning.
“Stand down, Steel.”
Fuck, O’Rourke.
His face is a sick-looking gray and I think how good it
is we’re in the hospital before I can stop the thought from
coming.
I feel Luke’s finger come out of my hand and he spins,
glaring at me with a death wish.
Probably deserve it.
“Listen up, Steel. That partner of yours went to the ground
for you, not that you deserve a fucking bit of it.”
I look at Adams, then away, heaving out a sigh of pure selfdisgust. I’m fucking whipped, so tired I can hardly stand. So
scared to leave Jewell’s side I can’t think, and it makes me off
balance, and I hate it. So I react in the usual guy fashion when
lit up by fear: in anger.
“He hit the subject,” I seethe, searching his face for the
telltale flinch. I find it and minutely relax.
“I have spoken to Agent Adams about his efforts at realism
and how they were a bit . . . enthusiastic.”
Adams says nothing. “Enthusiastic? Fuck, O’Rourke, he
about knocked her block off!” I half shout, and a nurse jerks her
head up from her station with a stern look.
O’Rourke gives us both his best withering stare. It’s not half
bad.
“Follow me.” He turns and we do. I chance a glance behind
me, first at a sleeping Jewell and then at the guard by her door,
mentally securing her protection.
We step into a room and O’Rourke throws the lock,
taking me by the scruff of my shirt as he blasts me into the
wall beside the closed door. Half a head shorter, twenty years
older, O’Rourke is stronger than he looks. I squash the urge
to perpetrate violence against him motivated by the wounded
female in the hospital bed.
Even now I can’t stand her being out of my sight.
“Adams is taking the fall as Brock now, Steel. No thanks to
your stupid ass. And I know, I know what’s going on with the
subject. You bitch about Adams hitting the subject while you’re
banging her? Oh, that’s fucking rich!” He releases my collar and
stalks across the room, his gray pallor becoming an alarming
red.
He swings around, spit flying from his enraged mouth.
“We’re this close”—he puts his index finger and thumb a
paper’s breadth apart—“this fucking close to nailing this
bastard.” O’Rourke punches his open palm. “And you need to
what, get a piece of subject tail?”
I cross the room as Luke rushes forward, putting his hand
on my arm.
He’s either brave, stupid, or both.
“Feel like taking a swing at me, Steel?” His eyes glitter with
goading. “You feel froggy enough to jump on my lily pad?
Go for it, son. But know this  .  .  .” He gets in my face and I
itch to hit my superior. My lack of control shames me, but it’s
unstoppable now, a locomotive without a brake. I rush down
the tracks, ready to plow into whatever stands in my way.
He shakes his head, giving a disgusted snort. “I couldn’t
believe the line of horseshit Adams was feeding me.” His eyes
search my face. “But now I see it’s true.”
I look at Adams and his eyes tighten. “What did you tell
him?” I ask with enough heat to fry an egg.
O’Rourke suddenly sighs like a deflated balloon. “I thought
maybe it was some whacked-out conquest thing, Steel. You
understand, hero’s complex, right?”
Yeah, I do . . . more than he knows.
He ran a hand over his comb-over, making it stand on ugly
end. “I see now by your reaction it’s more . . . you’ve fallen for
this girl, haven’t you?” he asks in patent disbelief.
I say nothing, the three of us standing there. Seconds
become minutes.
“Haven’t you?” O’Rourke repeats sharply, and I feel myself
give a small flinch.
Still I say nothing, standing in stoic silence, watching his
face molt with color.
“Fuck, fuck . . . motherfuck!” he yells, pacing the length of
the room.
“Marshal . . .” Adams starts.
“Don’t,” O’Rourke says, his finger swinging up like a sword
to cut off his comment.
He turns on me and says, “Tell me one thing, Steel.”
I look at him, my silence more telling than words.
“Why her? What’s an emotionless bastard like you see in
this vulnerable . . . goddamned ballet dancer?”
My gaze narrows until it’s only the whites of his eyes I see,
the room melting away.
“A chance,” I say, leaving the room and the consequences of
my actions behind.