Foster Justice

by Colleen Shannon

  “Lady, I’m just making this up as I go. How am I doing?” He poured his own glass.

  She laughed at his honesty. “Not bad for a guy from West Texas.”

  “Why don’t you just say it like everyone else? Cowboy.”

  Jasmine tilted her head as she studied him. “I have a feeling there’s much more to you than that.”

  They sat down before the tray and ate. Again, the companionable way they broke bread, he sensing her need for pepper and handing it to her, she picking up his napkin when it slipped to the floor, gave her deeper food for thought. But she’d think about it later; she could never keep her head when he was so close. She debated bringing up the articles she’d found, but hated to spoil their rare amity.

  When they finished, she insisted on taking the tray to the kitchen. “You cooked, so it’s my turn to wash.”

  “That the way your Mama raised you?”

  “Yes. In that way, I suspect, we had a similar upbringing.”

  When she came back out, Chad was standing at her bookcase holding the only picture she had of her father. She’d ripped it apart, intending to throw it away, but she couldn’t bear to and taped it back together, putting it in a beat-up, rickety frame that was almost coming apart, telling herself that’s all he deserved.

  “I can glue this back together for you if you want.”

  She snatched it out of his hands and set it back in the shelf, not needing to see the tall, stern figure in judge’s robes because her father was still a living memory to her.

  He looked at the patrician bone structure of her face, back to the picture. “You have his chin and cheekbones. It’s your father, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Why do you think I left Texas?”

  He nodded, apparently not surprised. “Whereabouts?”

  “Houston. I ran away when I was sixteen.”

  “Why?”

  She hesitated. Even after ten years, the tears still rose up to choke her and her voice was husky when she said, “He made me have an abortion. He wanted me to live his idea of the perfect debutante daughter, wedding one of the oil and gas heirs of Houston.”

  His gaze remained averted, ostensibly scanning her bookcases, but she saw his white knuckles as he gripped the edge of the shelf and knew he was acutely aware of every word.

  The story tumbled out then in a way she hadn’t shared before, even with Mary. “He didn’t approve of my boyfriend. I know now one reason I became so wild was because he was so strict.”

  Chad nodded, still not looking at her. “Ponies and kids need a light touch. I had to learn that the hard way myself with Trey.”

  She stared at the stern figure. After the abortion, Judge Routh had lifted a hand to slap her for the spiteful things she’d said, but when she shrank away, his hand fell. As soon as he hurried out to his Mercedes and screeched away, she packed one bag, took her mother’s jewelry and quilt, and ran before he ever came home. She’d already broken up with her boyfriend, and she was the perfect misfit in her elite private school, so she had no ties to keep her in Houston. It wasn’t hard to figure out where to go. Her mother had been born in Huntington Beach and her stories of growing up with a surf board in the golden years of the Golden State had made Jasmine’s destination the only easy choice.

  California. A new life. In the land of dreamers and misfits. She’d fit right in.

  “I’d always thought it would be fun to try my hand at acting, and California was as far away from Texas as I could get.” She kept the remark as light as she could, but he was good at reading between the lines. To her knowledge, her father had never tried to track her down, and she had never called. Texas? It stopped being home to her with the loss of her child. Jasmine started when Chad’s big hand took the picture out of her trembling fingers. Only then did Jasmine realize she’d picked up the photo again and had been stroking her father’s severe face with a compulsive finger.

  She tried to turn away but he was there, his broad chest and strong arms a refuge. She leaned into them, unable to help herself. The tears ran then, for the first time in many years. Tears for the girl she’d lost, the baby who never had a chance at life because of her foolishness, and the father who lost his only child to his own rigid sense of right and wrong.

  “At least now I understand why you have a thing against Texas males.”

  Jasmine sniffed and pulled away. “Why do you have a thing against strippers?”

  Chad hesitated, and then said baldly, “It’s wrong to use a man’s male instincts against him like a weapon and fleece him in the process.”

  She couldn’t disagree. On the other hand—“No one forces them to come.”

  “Some men, that’s all they have. Poor suckers.”

  Jasmine had to know. “Had you ever been in a strip club before you came to see me dance?”

  “Nope.” He flung himself back on the couch and picked up the remote. She wouldn’t allow him to barricade himself behind that male avoidance, especially after he’d been so empathetic to her history.

  Compelled despite the risks to all she’d struggled to become, Jasmine knelt in front of him and dared what they might be, together. She put her hands on his knees. Immediately he tensed up. Expecting it? Or longing for it? Was there a difference? They were very alike in this regard, at least, afraid of emotion. Not because they didn’t care enough.

  Because they cared too much . . . She tugged the remote from his hand and turned off the TV, knowing she was playing with fire but too agitated to let things lie. “Chad, I’m not what you think.”

  “You’re exactly what I think . . . a gorgeous, sexy woman. And I guess, if I were in your shoes, I might use that, too, to get what I wanted out of life.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’d go hell-bent for leather in one direction. Yours.”

  That impossibly strong but sensual male mouth quirked into an appreciative smile. “You are beginning to know me.” When she lightly moved her fingers up his thighs, he caught her hand on its journey and brought it to his mouth, switching the torment of touch given but not fulfilled right back to her. “You want to know why men come to strip clubs? You want to know what we think, what we feel?” Holding her eyes, he brought her fingers to his mouth and sucked them one by one.

  Oh God, finally she had a measure of the torment she’d wielded so uncaringly for the last few years since she took up stripping. Was that what men felt and imagined when women gave them a lap dance? The long, moist slide of hardness into softness, warmth into a clutching hold that led to pleasures all the more enticing because they were forbidden. Since she didn’t dare jerk away as she longed to, her body took the only protective measures possible; her toes curled inside her boots until they were compressed in the narrow tips and the pain snapped her back to her senses. “Stop it!” She pulled her hand from his mouth.

  “You stop it.” He firmly removed her other hand from his thigh and made to rise. “You started it.”

  She said, softly this time, “Stop it.”

  Under the intensity of her green eyes, he sank back to the couch. “Why?”

  “Because we’ve played games long enough.”

  He barked a harsh laugh. “Games? Not hardly. I’m trying to find my brother.”

  “If you stopped being so judgmental, so caught in a black-and-white world—” She wondered at the way his long, dark lashes went down like lights-out. “I know you’d see I’m trying to help, not stop, your investigation.”

  When he rigidly looked over her shoulder, evading both her and his own feelings, she scooted up on her knees, pushed his legs apart, and scooted between them. She didn’t care about the hard lump in his pants, she didn’t care about the moistness creeping out from the secret places she seldom heeded, no matter how she used them to pay her bills. In a very strange way she neither understood nor questioned, she only cared about truth. Without that, they had no future and all that had gone between them was a botched symphony: a prelude with no crescendo.

  The words came of th
eir own accord. “Stop pretending you hate me, stop pretending I don’t affect you, and I’ll stop pretending I’m not attracted to you. I’ll admit that if not for too many bad relationships, I’d have you pinned to my bed while I tried every weird position I’ve ever heard of in the Kama Sutra. How’s that for honesty?”

  His gray eyes darkened as they latched on to her passionate face with an intensity she could literally feel. “Stop. Don’t take this any further unless you want to go where it leads.”

  She was so tempted to test him further, but she felt the tremor in his strong thighs, took the prudent if cowardly path, and leaned back on her heels, outside the vee of his legs.

  He swung his legs to the side and stood to put distance between them. Staring at her father’s picture on the shelf, he said, his tone going that gravelly texture that betrayed his own stifled emotions, “How did you end up stripping?”

  “I couldn’t make my bills and when I met Thomas, he suggested it.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “He’s the only reason I’ve been able to afford law school. I owe a lot to Thomas.”

  “And if he’s behind Trey’s disappearance?”

  “Then I’ll do all I can to help you bring him to justice.”

  He nodded, but she could see he still doubted her. For a minute, she contemplated giving him that matched set of knots on his head that she’d threatened in the hospital. He was under her roof, she’d fed him, doctored him, and gone on a police ride to help him, even committing a possible felony by searching her boss’s private office and computer. And still he distrusted her? She debated telling him about the articles but before she could he shut her out. Chad picked up a book to scan it. “I know you have to go to work today, so we’ll talk more later.”

  He was dismissing her? In her own place? She tried one last time, the knowledge driving her that until he saw her as she really was, a woman on the verge of loving him, doing all she could to help him find his brother, they’d never bridge the gap of distrust between them. “Trey was never my boyfriend! He was only here once. He never left the living room.”

  He just looked at her. “How many redheads are there in this town with butterfly tattoos? Who just happen to be strippers? I saw your card at my house, in Trey’s car. Trey even told me he loves your scent, the scent of Jasmine—”

  “My tattoo is temporary, you know. Thomas suggested it.”

  “I bet he did, but that doesn’t change the facts. The tattoo implies you’re working with him. How much money have you really earned through him?”

  With an ooh! of frustration, Jasmine hurried into her room and slammed the door to finish getting ready. Or at least that was what she was supposed to be doing. Every nerve in her body felt on fire and she knew she wouldn’t be able to lose herself in the dance. Almost without her volition, she saw her hand reach out for her cell phone. After she got a coworker to cover her late shift, she shut off her phone and began to remove her clothes. She debated telling Chad about the newspaper remnants she’d found in Kinnard’s hidden drawer, but Riley was on the case now and Chad would just break in to look at them himself, possibly getting into more trouble. Besides, they had more volatile unfinished business first. They’d work together much more effectively once he admitted how much he wanted her. For now, the physical would have to do.

  Smiling grimly, she pulled on her favorite bustier and fishnet stockings. She owed him a lap dance, and he owed her the raw honesty of sexual attraction. Men bonded to women through sex. There was no bolder truth they could share as a basis for a real relationship. And she needed it, too. With this step she was banishing her own demons and taking a first step toward going home . . . And somehow, she knew Trey would approve.

  When she came back out of her room, she was calm. Contained. He couldn’t see what she was wearing beneath the coat, but she had on fishnet stockings. For her act, no doubt. For an instant he felt an urge to cover her in the quilt and lock her in her room. Other men had no right to see her so scantily attired . . . He squelched the primitive male instinct, and told himself she only had him so fired up because of her talk of the Kama Sutra and such.

  She stopped directly in front of him. “I got someone to cover my shift. I think you shouldn’t be left alone. You’re kinda in a tizzy, aren’t you?”

  He waved a hand. “I’m fine. Better by the minute.” To prove it he stood up quickly from where he sat and smiled. “Not dizzy anymore.”

  “That’s good. Because you owe me.”

  Chad was confused. She wanted him to pay her rent? He sat back down, getting a feeling he’d need the support for whatever was brewing between them. Whatever it was, he didn’t recognize the taste but he knew it was going to be volatile.

  “You never let me finish that lap dance.”

  His breath caught as her gaze raked him from his toes to the top of his head. His voice was husky. “I don’t have much cash on me.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Not much. A comeuppance first. Then an apology. And finally, honest emotions. No more games.”

  The coat dropped to the floor. Beneath it she wore a lacy corset that barely reached her waist, panties topped with a garter belt, and black fishnet stockings. “We’ll never see eye to eye on anything, even finding Trey, until we settle this between us. You despise me, right? You hate strippers because we use our looks to manipulate men.”

  His hands curled into fists. He stuffed them beneath his thighs on the couch to stop the instinct to grab her. He compulsively eyed her breasts, straining against their black lace confinement. Since he was sitting and she stood over him, they were so conveniently near his mouth. He licked his lips.

  All thoughts went out of his head. Even Trey . . .

  She leaned down to whisper in his ear, her minty breath setting fire to his lobe. “Prove it. Sit still without touching me for one entire dance and I’ll believe you find me distasteful. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about Kinnard. And I won’t ever bother you again.

  “Time to go the full eight seconds, cowboy, or quit the rodeo.” Jasmine went to her stereo and turned on a soulful blues song by Nina Simone.

  Chad wanted to get up and flee. He had to listen to the phone tap, he had to follow up on all his leads, he had to . . .

  When she lifted her arms above her head and began to sway, his list of to-dos became a list of why-nots.

  Why not let her dance for him? Why not see where it led? Why not end this burning ache in his gut and lower? Maybe if he fucked her he’d finally have a clear head and clean conscience to use her as ruthlessly as she’d used Trey.

  And then even those hard thoughts melted away under the warming grace of a woman. Chad’s reaction was immediate and physical, totally beyond his control.

  Jasmine swayed in front of him, almost, but not quite, within reach, her hips moving slightly from side to side. She tilted her head, her eyes closed, as if listening to some inner instinct that guided the rhythm of her dance moves. As the music’s rhythm quickened, so did her pace. Now her feet began to slide on the thick rug as her impossibly long legs, sheathed in the teasing fishnet, sinuously flexed with her flutter steps. While her lower body gyrated, her torso moved, too, but in the opposite direction, arms arching above her head until her body made an S shape so supple he had to touch her to believe. And the fulcrum holding the shape together was covered in a scrap of black lace, the lower part of a woman’s body but the apex of a man’s desire and aspirations.

  He saw long arms reaching for her and looked at them dumbly as he realized they were attached to his own bewitched body. Luckily her eyes were closed again so she didn’t see him haul them back to his sides. They felt disassociated, as if they didn’t belong there any more than he did. He couldn’t tuck his betraying hands into his pockets because the fabric across his crotch was stretched to the limit.

  He tried sitting on his hands, but that posture only made his hips thrust forwa
rd, right where they wanted to be. Now she was cupping her breasts, hips still moving in the dance, her half-closed eyes appraising him as she seemed to offer them not just to him, but for her own pleasure as well. Her palms kneaded exactly where he wanted to touch. Her cleavage deepened above the corset until she was in danger of spilling out.

  When the song crescendoed, she gave a husky laugh and spun on one heel only to end up facing him, arms flung out to the sides, legs firmly planted, head tilted back, long fiery hair brushing the upper part of her spine as she formed a bow about to fly free. The next song began even more softly, giving her an excuse to match it with subtle moves. Her arms reached toward him and undulated, mirroring the slow shifting of her hips from side to side. She seemed to have no bones, no banal earthly limits such as gravity, time, or space. She just was, as elemental as earth, wind, or fire. And he was swept away on every level.

  Each nerve in his body was on fire as again he was reaching out to touch her before he caught himself and jerked away. Chad’s erection had long since reached its full limit until it grew painful, thrusting imperatively against the confinement of his worn jeans. He was caught in that most atavistic of battles: fight or flight. Get the hell out of here before he was even more humiliated, or accept the living, breathing temptation she offered in a primal battle that was both aggression and surrender.

  Which did she want, really? Surely no woman who looked at him like that, eyes at half-mast, licking her lips, body a living, breathing flame topped by fiery auburn hair, could portray such desire if, somewhere, she didn’t feel it. As if to prove it, she wriggled between his slack knees, forcing them farther apart, and turned around to brush her supple buttocks, barely covered by a scrap of lace, over his erection.

  It was his turn to arch against the couch with the torment, but some stubborn remnant made him draw back the hands that would have reached to her waist to force her curves down harder where he needed contact most. He stuffed his traitorous hands against the couch again, but she saw his torture, and, damn her, she laughed, tilting her head back to brush her long, clean-scented hair against his face and neck. He couldn’t help it; a groan escaped his clenched lips. His hands came up of their own accord and reached around her for her breasts.