Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (57 page)

My toes dug into the bed. My pelvis pressed hard up against him, our bodies mashed together as I clutched and spasmed around his fingers. I felt the flush soak through me from my cheeks to my ankles. And this time, there was no fainting. This time, I was awake for every glorious second of it, staring into his eyes as I thrashed and bucked to his command.

When I finally stopped moving, he slowly withdrew his fingers. Almost before he’d done it, I was reaching for him to pull him closer. I needed him inside me.

He pulled off his shirt, revealing those full pecs and powerful shoulders, his body narrowing like an inverted triangle down to his waist. He stripped off his pants and shorts and I watched as he rolled on a condom, his cock already hard. It was bright, in the bedroom, and I could see every detail of that perfect body, from his chiseled abs to the straining skin on his throbbing cock, the tight curls of hair on his balls. I lay back, opening my legs a little wider.

He let out a groan as he entered me, a groan of pure pleasure the like of which I’d never heard from the guys who’d been just lovers. It was raw relief, as if he’d come home, as if, by joining with me, he was complete. And my own cry, as he filled me and stretched me, was just as heartfelt.

Our bodies slid together, his chest rubbing all the way up me, my nipples dragging along his chiseled hardness, and I went wild beneath him, my ass clenching tight and my breath catching in my throat at the sensation. His hands grabbed for mine and our fingers instinctively laced together. We held our arms out straight to the sides, our knuckles pressing into the sheets as he started to take me with long, smooth strokes, burying himself completely on each thrust. My world seemed to narrow down until it was just the feel of him against me: the press of his muscles against my breasts, the hard stretch of him inside me. I hooked my legs around his and urged him on. It was perfect—hot and gentle and loving and perfect.

And then it changed. We locked eyes and there was a shift in mood to just
hot.
Hot and primal. The hard globes of his ass were rising and falling between my thighs, his hips pumping between mine. He was hard and so deep inside me. Any thought that I might once have been made theirs was forgotten; I was his, irreversibly and forever.
His.

My writhing became a bucking, twisting, screaming dance beneath him and I heard his pants turn to savage grunts. We came together, clinging to each other, as connected as it’s possible for two people to be.

Chapter 70

Jasmine

It was the first day of the trial.

We’d traveled to the hotel, just down the street from the courtroom, late the night before. Ryan had driven his car with me in the passenger seat and Karen and Connor in the back. Clarissa had driven Bartholomew with Natasha and Darrell in the back. And around us, in a growling, snarling circle, twelve bikers from Neil’s motorcycle club, including Neil himself. They were more intimidating than any number of police cruisers could have been. We knew now that we were being watched every time we left the mansion, but if my dad’s friends had had any ideas about trying something, they quickly abandoned them when faced with the bikers.

Darrell had, quietly and without being asked, booked out the entire top floor of the hotel. He’d given the bikers free rooms for the duration of the trial in return for them standing guard. With them sprawled in chairs at either end of the corridor, it was physically impossible for anyone to creep up on the three rooms in the middle where Ryan and I, Natasha and Darrell and Clarissa and Neil were staying.

Even so, I’d barely slept. Ryan had noticed, of course, despite my best attempts at pretending to snore, and had stayed awake most of the night with me, holding me and reassuring me. Now he was next door with Darrell and Neil, getting into his suit. Like Neil when he’d first met Clarissa, Ryan didn’t own a suit, so Darrell had put in some calls to his tailor.

And meanwhile, I was trying to decide what to wear. A suit? A dress? I’d tried on everything I owned and nothing felt right.

There was a knock at the door. I recognized it immediately. No one else knocked with that perfect, staccato rhythm, not even Clarissa.

I opened the door and Natasha was standing there, a garment bag in her arms. I was pleased to see her, of course, but my heart sank a little. The last thing I needed was another expensive gift.

She must have seen through my smile because she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I haven’t bought you anything.” She closed the door behind her and lay the bag on the bed. “Open it,” she said, stepping back.

I frowned and unzipped the bag. The blouse and skirt inside were familiar but I couldn’t place them, at first.

“First semester at Fenbrook,” Nat said. “I was going for the job in Flicker; you were going for the temping job in the office.”

“We both had interviews the same week,” I said, remembering. “But neither of us could afford anything to wear. So you said let’s pool our money and buy an outfit in your size and keep the tags on it—”

“—and it worked, I got the job at Flicker—” said Nat.

“—and then I took it back to the store and said
oh no, I bought the wrong size!”
I smiled. “The sales assistant looked at me like I was a moron because the blouse was so small—”

“But they took it back and you got your size and wore it for your interview and you got your job, too, because—”

“—it was
the lucky outfit!”
I said.

We both stared at it. Luck was exactly what I needed.

“I’m sorry,” said Nat out of nowhere. I turned to look at her. She took a deep breath. “It’s difficult to explain. I know you think I changed. I got caught up in the lifestyle, the money….”

I shook my head. But Nat shook hers. “No, I
did.
I know I did. But I want to explain why. It was the change. I went from worrying about how I was going to make rent to worrying about how many people were coming to my garden party. I suddenly had six bathrooms and eight bedrooms and a garage full of cars and...
I was afraid it was all going to disappear.
If I looked up. If I even blinked. It felt like it was all a dream and if I stopped playing along, I’d wake up. I didn’t know how to be around you and Karen and Clarissa, anymore. That’s why I offered you money. That’s why I bought you the dress. I forgot how to be
me.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I know what that’s like.”

“But you snapped me out of it. When you told me about what had happened to you. I suddenly saw how you were all slipping away.”

I threw my arms around her. “We’re not anymore.”

“Damn right, you’re not.”

We rocked like that for a moment. For the first time in a long while, I felt like all the pieces of my life were coming back together.

After a while, I wrinkled my forehead. “Wait,
six
bathrooms? I can only think of five.”

“Oh, there’s another one off the dungeon,” she said absently. Then she jumped back from me, both hands over her mouth in shock.

I punched the air. “I
knew it!
I
knew
all billionaires had one!”

“We barely use it! Most of the time I just hang laundry on things!”

I shook my head. “God, I really am the only one of us not having kinky sex.”

“
Don’t
tell the others,” Nat said without much hope. She took a deep breath. “
Anyway.
I’m moving back in with Clarissa.”

“
What?!
Are you and Darrell—?”

“No no, we’re fine. But I think we moved too fast.
Dating
a millionaire is enough change for a while. Living like one is screwing me up.”

“But won’t he...I mean, won’t he think there’s something wrong?”

“Oh,
please!
I love him like crazy but when it comes to domestic bliss? The rest of that mansion outside his workshop could cease to exist and he wouldn’t even notice. As long as I go down there and dance for him a few times a week he probably won’t even notice I’ve moved out.”

“You still do that? Dance for him?”

She flushed and nodded. “Anyway, I can stay there a few nights a week and he can come to the apartment the other nights. It’ll do him good to get out of there. And no more garden parties!”

I pulled her close again. “If you want to
really
keep it real, you can come eat instant noodles with me at the end of the month, like the old days. And those chocolate desserts they sell off cheap because they’re out of date.”

She squeezed me. “Let’s not go overboard.”

***

Eyes straight ahead.

Ryan kept his hand on my shoulder as we walked in and took our seats. My friends took their places in the public gallery. I watched as the room filled up: lawyers, police...and then there was an ominous silence and the metal clatter of a handcuff chain.

Eyes straight ahead.

The judge walked in, a man in his sixties with a thin, sour face. We rose and sat again.

“State your name for the record,” the clerk ordered.

And I heard my dad say his name. I knew he was a good distance away from me but it sounded as if he was close enough to touch me. Close enough to grab me.

Eyes straight ahead.

***

They started with the opening statements: how my dad was a notorious and feared criminal whose capacity for cruelty was matched only by his greed; how he was an upstanding pillar of the local community who helped families in need and was the victim of a vindictive group of cops and former cops.

His lawyer was good. He had a whole little conspiracy theory about how the Chicago PD had been the ones exploiting my dad, extorting money from him under threats of violence and using his bar to conduct their shady deals. And of course there was plenty of evidence that did indeed show money flowing from my dad to the cops. Spun the right way, it actually backed up his claims. The lawyer made out that my dad was the little guy, crushed by a corrupt police department—and everyone loves an underdog.

He might actually get away with this,
I realized in horror.

My dad’s business had been conducted with handshakes and cash, nothing ever written down. Beatings had always been carried out behind closed doors, after the customers had gone home. Killings were done out in the woods. Even after years of violence, there was precious little actual evidence.

Which meant it came down to me.

***

“State your name for the record,” the clerk said.

I opened my mouth to say
Jasmine
.

“Emma MacGinnis,” I said. “But I changed it three years ago to Jasmine Kane.”

I was presented with a bible. I put my hand on it, shocked at how cold it felt, like a solid block of stone. I raised my hand. I’d watched countless legal thrillers and these had always just seemed like words. They didn’t, anymore.

“Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” asked the clerk.

“I do.”

The counsel for the prosecution approached me, a friendly, sandy-haired guy in a dark blue suit, too smart to be over-confident when faced with someone like my dad. I liked him. He’d told me what to expect.

“Miss Kane,” he began. “What relation are you to the defendant?”

I swallowed. I thought of all those years of barely-concealed hate. Of how I’d tried, age six, to dye my hair black by soaking it in the toilet, into which I’d put the innards of all my black felt-tip pens.

Eyes straight ahead.
But I could feel them being drawn across the courtroom until they finally settled on...him. Gray-haired and smug, as if he was sitting on a throne.

“He’s my step father,” I said. “I don’t know who my real father is.”

The attorney nodded solemnly. “And could you start by describing your childhood?”

I opened my mouth and no words came. The courtroom seemed to expand, a space at least a mile across filled with a million people.

“Take your time,” the attorney said.

I told them. He asked questions to clarify, but mostly he just let me speak. I didn’t embellish or exaggerate. I didn’t have to.

“And did the abuse change as you got older?” the attorney asked.

“Yes.”

The attorney looked at me with pain in his eyes. Apologizing for what he was about to ask me to do. “And was there one night in particular that marked this change?”

I swallowed. “Yes there was.” I found Ryan in the crowd and focused on him as the rest of the room started to swim.

“Would you tell us, in your own words, what happened that night?”

I nodded.

And began.

***

There was crying coming from the jury when I’d finished. One woman was doing a soft little sob and I heard a guy—I think it was a guy but I couldn’t look—cursing repeatedly under his breath.