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Authors: Marata Eros

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BOOK: A Brutal Tenderness
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5

I trap her against that rough surface, my fingers splayed
against the brick.
Mine.
“What are you doing?” Jewell asks, her breaths coming in
shallow almost gasps.
I trail a finger down her face, temple to jaw, then cup her
chin, forcing her eyes to meet mine.
“What I should have done the moment I saw you with
Maverick.”
I lean in until I can smell the heat off her skin like steam,
the light sweat that is the smell of female and heavens.
Uniquely Jewell.
“May I kiss you, Jess?” I whisper above her mouth. I
suddenly feel that I need her permission.
I feel her hesitation, her intellect struggling to reassert itself
against our chemistry. The animal magnetism roars for release,
and I see in her eyes when she frees it, giving her assent. “Yes,
you may,” she answers, just as quietly as her eyes flutter closed.
The word sets me loose, and I slam my mouth against hers,
dropping my hands to the small of her back, cupping the twin
bones into my palms where they fit like they’re custom-made
for my caress, and as I come up for air, I groan and sink back
down into her wet mouth, her gasping breaths coming shorter,
closer. Harder.
Her small hands clench and release me, the material of my
shirt bunching up in her fingers.
Still, there’s a piece of Jewell that resists, and I go after it
with the intensity that she provokes from me. “Respond,” I
growl in a warning. I’m commanding her to give in, to own
what her body’s begging from her.
Jewell moves deeper into the line of my body, molding
against me perfectly, and I wrap one hand around the tightness
of her ass, her leotard so thin that I can feel the heat and press
of her skin through the material. I jerk her harder against me
even as I pull away enough to palm her tit in my hand. Jewell
moans at the roughness as I soak in the verbal cue for what
it is: She’s liking it. She’s either inexperienced, or there’s a
wildness in Jewell that I draw out. With one hand on her ass, I
roll her nipple with the other in a supple flick and tweak, and a
soft whimper escapes her as she spreads her knees for me.
I move between them, pushing my dick between the cleft
she offers, and Jewell gasps out, “Cas. We shouldn’t here.” Her
breath warms my neck, her fingers kneading the bare skin of
my lats.
I can feel her split softly as I move against her, and my
fingers use each rib like a ladder, walking down, down, down
the rungs of delicately constructed bones until my hand
breaches the last frontier.
“Stop,” Jewel pleads as my hand hovers over her heat, the
sex I want to touch so badly I feel my mouth salivate. Her
words contradict her body as she moves tighter against me with
a small, reflexive grind against my hand, and I groan.
“Your body says yes,” I say against her neck as I peck
and lick a trail of feathering kisses between her earlobe and
collarbone. Even as she says no, her body lurches against
mine again. “I taste your sweat, your sweetness,” I say, having
abandoned her ass for her front, working her neck with my
mouth, beneath her breast with the other hand as I begin to
touch her.
“Get off her!”
I glance in the direction of the voice. Maverick. Fucking
figures.
I watch with some amusement as Jewell’s flush deepens,
her eyes flitting to the dick hole behind me as I turn to face
Maverick and hear a groan from Jewell. Not the kind I want
to hear.
I scowl at Maverick, the fucking cock block.
“What’s going on here?” Maverick asks, his eyes scanning
the two of us. Is he fucking stupid?
What does it look like?
I
wonder incredulously.
“I . . .” Jewell begins timidly.
Fuck this. “I was tonguing your girlfriend, Maverick,” I say
as I wrap Jewell against my side.
This is kinda fun
, I think, watching Maverick begin to
implode. If he thinks he’s froggy enough to jump on my lily
pad, well, I’ll give it a go.
“You fuckup,” Maverick seethes at me, and I grin back at
him.
But when he turns all his malice on Jewell, my amusement
fades to anger.
“You’re with Castile now? Seriously?” he asks, and I look
at him. Mr. Lacrosse pretty boy. My eyes narrow at him. He’s
just fucking off somehow. Too perfect. The idea forms and sails
through my mind, beginning to take shape when Jewell shoves
me.
“No!” she half yells in answer. I stagger back with my hand
over my heart like she’s wounding me. “Stop playing me, Cas,”
she yells.
“He . . . Brock . . .” Jewell covers her face with her hands,
taking deep shaky breaths, and I watch Maverick watch her. I
can tell she’s ten different kinds of embarrassed, and I’m partly
the cause. Jewell slowly lowers her hands. “Cas helped me with
Brock,” she finally states, boldly meeting Maverick’s stare.
“Uh-huh,” Maverick says with thick disbelief, his eyes
landing on me.
Prick
, I think, looking from Jewell to Maverick. I’m torn
over a woman. A woman I swore to hate. But suddenly, being
with her, feeling her so vulnerable against me, my forced hatred
has given way to something entirely different. Sometimes love
masquerades as different emotions but rises like cream on milk.
I had a perfect plan, but Jewell MacLeod just played fiftytwo pickup with my heart.
I know damn well Mitch Maverick isn’t what she needs.
There’s something wild in Jewell, and it calls to me to set it
free. It’s impossible to ignore. It begs that part of Jewell she’s
not aware of. That simp Maverick would put her through the
missionary-style paces, but they wouldn’t be the ones she needs.
Jewell doesn’t know what she needs. I do.
Jewell turns to go, disgust for both of us evident on her
expression, and Maverick tries to grovel.
Too little, too late, sucker.
My smile widens again, happier
than a pig in shit. This just gets better and better.
“Jess, wait,” Maverick calls after her, and I can hear the
sugar dripping from his voice and give a hard eye roll. Pussy.
“Give it a fucking rest, Maverick,” I say, grabbing his arm.
He tries to tear it away.
Strong fucker
, I think, surprised, but I’m stronger. As my
fingers dig in, he gives a little smile, and by fuck, it looks like a
feral sort of warning.
He doesn’t understand who he’s dealing with. “Don’t mess
with her,” I add, squeezing harder as his silvered eyes flash. He
tears his arm away, his eyes narrowing in on me as he steps into
my space, our chests almost touching. “Get your fucking hands
off me.”
This is getting interesting. “You wanna go, Maverick?” I
invite casually, though my voice is anything but.
“Maybe,” he says, pegging me with his gray eyes, now almost
white. His gaze lingers a little longer, but finally he backs down.
Giving a snort of disgust, he says, “You’re not worth it, Castile.”
Riiggght.
Maverick backs away, and I face him until he turns and
walks off, Jewell now long gone.
I don’t trust that fuck as far as I can throw him. Actually,
now that I think about him, I could throw him.
I’d like to try.

I’m perched in a tight spot deep within the ceiling above the
stage in the U Dub auditorium. The dust is thick, the air stale.
We’ve rigged a perch on the scaffolding platforms, now so
sturdy I could dance a jig up here in the dark, sweating like a
pig in my all-black FBI standard issue. The height sucks up all
the heat and makes the area feel like a sauna. But the vantage
point is ideal to watch Jewell and to see if anyone else is
watching as well. I’m like a spotter on Jewell. My eyes scan the
auditorium, paying special attention to the corners with their
murky shadows and the cold glass that soothes a dark sky as it
succumbs to the blackness of night.

I watch the roiling energy her instructor produces as he
storms across the open polished wood floor. Patrick Boel is
muttering to himself, twitchy. My lips lift in a small smile. He’s
obviously got energy to burn. I turn my head slightly, adjusting
the magnification on my binoculars. I shift my weight, and
there’s a subtle creaking as a small plume of dust sprays into the
gloom where I lie on my belly. It falls around me, and I quickly
look to see if anyone notices the small movement disturbance.

No one does.

I settle back against the unforgiving and beefy wooden
boards as the other four ballerinas watch Jewell arrive.
As I do.
Jewell glides in, wearing a short sheer skirt that wraps
around her hips and is loosely tied at her slender waist. It floats
around her like a black cloud as she moves toward the other
dancers, revealing opaque glimpses of her form. I swallow at
what I see. Jewell is beautiful in anything she wears.
I can only imagine her naked perfection underneath me and
close my eyes against it.
I sport wood, looking at the unobtainable, the woman I
stole a forbidden taste from, and I adjust my position to ease
my discomfort. Fat lot of good it does.
She greets the other dancers, and they turn away from her,
a clear snub.
But Jewell rises above it. She turns to bravely try another
greeting with the aloof group.
A sharp clap stops her second greeting, and Boel stalks
through the dancers. I frown at what he does. I’m too far
away to hear him, but the modulation of his voice tells me he’s
asking a question.
He grabs a girl with mocha-kissed skin, her hair slicked
back in a tight knot. Boel leans in, his face in a semisnarl, and
barks a question at the girl. She nods quickly and responds. He
moves down the row of dancers. Jewell, at the end, is the tallest.
I chuckle, Jewell’s so tiny to me. But I know from my research
that her height is tall for dance.
Boel gives the next girl the boot, and she stomps away in
tears. Jewell’s eyes widen at a girl now gone with a single word
from Boel. Her feelings are all over her expression, bare to
scrutiny of anyone. I find myself distracted by her braided hair,
my fingers tingle with wanting to undo each plait.
Then Boel’s hand snakes out, latching on to Jewell, and I’m
standing before I realize I moved. It strains my composure to
the outer limits of what I can even call restraint. I take deep
breaths, then let them out slowly, calming myself.
As Boel’s hand squeezes Jewell’s thigh, I fight not to run
down from my perch and take his hand off her. I fight to resist
the pull of our attraction so I can do my job.
I fight those contrary directives: and lose.
Making a decision against my express will can’t end well.
Ask me if I care.

I watch the entire practice. When there are only two dancers
left, Boel goes to the sound system and puts on the same song
that Jewell nailed the audition with. The one that turned the
emotional tide against me. I remember my anger at Jewell
during the audition, thinking that her life of ease had made her
soft and spineless. Now I watch her dance and see her bravery.
I see her conquer her vulnerability and emerge a woman in full
command of every muscle of her body.

As I watch her move, suddenly it hits me: Dec is right. How
could a ballet dancer defend herself against a serial killer? Who
is also her brother. How many shades of fucked-up is that?

Is my anger toward Jewell just misdirected guilt? Did I
really expect her to save Faith, or was I afraid to admit that
it should have been me—that I should have saved Faith. The
realization hits me like a brick.

I’m snapped back to reality by the sorrowful sounds that fill
the auditorium as the other dancer, the dark-complexioned one,
spins around them, and Boel approaches Jewell, speaking to her
in a low, intimate tone.

I narrow my binoculars on the pair and see Jewell blush.
Something he says causes her embarrassment. Boel tells her
something more, and she pauses as if frozen. Then Jewell nods,
and she’s in his arms.
Where I want to be
, I acknowledge with
numb detachment.

Jewell rises on her toes, the small muscles of her calves
delicate balls that taper to ankles held by tightly wound satin
ribbons. She is Boel’s height when she’s on her toes, and I
watch him work her. He strains as he picks her up, balancing
her body on one hand while she’s in the air, turning slowly and
gripping her thighs as he slides her down the front of him.

He’s stronger than he looks.
He’s also dead if he drops her.
My heart speeds as Boel does things to her body that should

break it, yet Jewell moves as if they’re one body. The music is
the backdrop of the melody of their bodies, and as the ending
notes filter to a close, he spins Jewell away from him, and just
as she will lose purchase of his fingertips, he grips her, coiling
her back into his body. Jewell instinctively spins into this move
as if choreographed, and the music stops.

Then a lonely chord resonates once more, and they stand as
still as statues for a heartbeat before breaking apart.
Boel stares at Jewell and asks her a final question. She
shakes her head in answer, briefly casting her eyes down.
She and the other dancer walk away.
I see the look Boel gives Jewell. It’s a look I see on people all
the time. Triumph. And its close relative: greed.
I leave Jewell and the other dancer talking on the bench as
the vibration of a text buzzes against my thigh. I jerk the phone
out as I quietly leave behind the bird’s-eye perch of scaffolding,
slipping into an adjacent janitor’s closet. The location is perfect
scouting for Jewell’s upcoming practices. I check my phone. It’s

Adams.
Body

I think furiously but know there’s only one possibility.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the anger and frustrated
disappointment that surge through me.

I tap my response, though I know the answer.
Miller?
Roger that
Where?

Adams tells me, and my stomach turns. I head out of the
university I’m too old to attend, my leather jacket a barely
sufficient barrier to ward off the November weather in a region
where it hovers above freezing, never committing to snow.

On this day, the snow would be a welcome reprieve; it
would cover the red.

I move closer to the crime scene, the grave markers a poignant
backdrop, the yellow tape snapping and moving in the light
breeze, the cold creeping at the edges of me.

BOOK: A Brutal Tenderness
5.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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