by Marata Eros
Not that Thad’s coming, I remind myself.
I’ve never been in Jewell’s room and I look around. My eyes find the ballet barre screwed into the wall and I laugh. Now that’s devotion, that ugly fucking thing erupting like a metal tumor out of her wall. The university is going to shit when they get a load of the scars that thing leaves behind. I grin, thinking about whatever deposit Jewell’s given being null and void. It fades when I search the darkness of her room. I’ve always had vision like a cat, and my eyes easily pierce the ebony softness. It’s with a pang of unexpected sadness that I notice not one photo, no memento . . . nothing decorates her room. Sure, there’s a mismatched earring or two lying around, and a used-up tube of that slug slime shit women use on their lips.
Jewell’s erased herself. The room’s spartan interior is proof of that and it makes my chest tighten, as I’ve seen her other room from before as comparison.
It had been overflowing with sterling-bordered frames of her and Faith. Jewelry and the trappings of childhood still fresh in a room where she became an adult in a day.
In a single night.
I swallow as I hear footsteps approach and turn on the bedside light, the low wattage chasing the deepest shadows of the room to the edges and leaving the small ones close.
I’ve pressed Jewell into service as I lay my cell phone on the nightstand, my messages saying just enough for her to force her way to me.
She’ll know I’m here. If Jewell’s half as intuitive as I suspect, she’ll know.
The knob rattles as she enters, her dancing slippers swing as she suddenly halts.
Her short breaths fill the room, igniting my switch. Flicking it as surely as a physical touch. I charge her, wrapping her small body against my own, and my emotions torch me, behind my eyes, in my throat as I hold a sob of relief to touch her again, a feeling so profound it robs my speech.
But I don’t need words.
We never have.
But I whisper against her temple, “You should get that knob fixed, Jess.”
I set her feet on top of my boots and walk her to the wall, my favorite place to be, the thought of pinning Jewell against a surface makes my cock hard. I feel like it could hold her there by itself as it throbs almost painfully.
“You shouldn’t be waiting in my room like a stalker,” she says, and I grin, covering her face with the heat of my lips.
True.
We reach the wall, and I use my hips to anchor her lower body against it, my hands on her ass.
“Don’t,” she breathes into my neck, but her hips grind back against me even as her palms push on my chest.
Fuck. I plant my hands on the wall, my hips holding her where I want her, my dick gently splitting her folds. Jewell’s breath hitches, the thin material of her leotard shifting to accommodate me perfectly. I’m at the center of her, my body tense with what it wants to do.
I press my forehead against hers. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t play me,” she says, and I grin in the gloom of the room. God, if she only knew . . . she is so playing me. I’m helpless before her now. And beyond fear. I’ve fallen and there’s no getting up from her broken hold of me. I’m healing into her, becoming part of her. Jewell just doesn’t know it yet.
I do what I’ve been wanting to for the longest two weeks of my life, a tortured sigh breaking the seal of my lips as I run a finger from her temple to jaw. “Beautiful Jess, my dancer . . .” I lay a hot kiss by her eye, the lashes brushing like silk lace against the stubble of my jaw and a shaky exhale drops from her parted lips and I nip at the lower one, sucking it into my mouth.
I lift my head. “Trust me”—I look into her eyes—“a little longer, and then I’ll let you in on my secret.”
“How can I trust you? You don’t text me for days, and then when you see me it’s all about sex.”
I shift my gaze away, my heart rate jacking up. I know I can’t keep my feelings secret much longer. I’ve lost my innate ability to school my expression into that perfect mask of neutrality. It’s gone, Jewell took it.
“You said only sex . . .” I say by way of distraction.
Then she wraps a small hand around my neck, hanging from me like a delicious little monkey as she threads her other hand through my hair, giving a tug that’s just shy of painful, and my dick gets harder, if possible.
I feel my expression darken with the lust that pumps through me like a shot glass of adrenaline. “Don’t do that, vanilla girl,” I say in warning, already half out of my mind with desire.
“Or what?” she asks in soft threat.
That’s hot as fuck. I hike her tight little ass up against the wall again, high and snug against my erection, giving a brutal press against the soft split of her, and we both groan in unison at the contact. “You said just fucking, Jess.”
Jewell widens her legs and I deepen the contact, little breathless gasps turning to moans as I dry-hump her in a mindless natural surge that she responds to with a small swivel of her hips.
“Ah . . . Jess,” I gasp, bringing my hand to her throat, nearly circling it completely. I gently pin her in place, keeping her face still as I pierce her with my eyes and move my cock against the center of her, increasing the friction to a rut that rides that thin line between pleasure and pain.
I’m going to fucking go in my pants, but instead I speak in a hoarse rasp. “Tell me it’s just fucking . . .”
I grind against her, flexing the tension in my hand, tightening the hold on her throat, loosening it as I move in a deliberate swivel against her swollen heat. I’m losing my mind here.
“Tell me!” I nearly yell into her face as my fingers go hard and tight and I feel her vocal cords against my palm as she yells, “It’s not just sex!”
We stare at each other for a heartbeat.
I let Jewell slide down, hot tears chasing each other down her face in a stream of sadness, and I feel like a jackass. But I have to know. This thing between us is more than raw chemistry. No one can make me think of nothing else but her if there aren’t emotions involved.
“I know it isn’t,” I tell her, but I’ve known for a long time; making Jewell realize it is different. I don’t want stolen interludes. When this case is over I want more than that. I want Jewell.
All of her.
Jewell grabs my shirt, hanging off it to get me to come nearer to her. I can’t, I’ll fucking lose it.
More than I already have.
The fissure that Jewell began inside me grows wider as she looks at me with that face, turning it up to mine as I nail my hands to my sides through sheer willpower alone. “Then what is it, Cas . . . ?”
I pull away as my shirt slips through her hands, and it feels like a small death. “Something we can’t do, not right now,” I answer through my teeth.
I see her heart shatter in front of me and realize I didn’t need to force her to say how she felt about me, the gore of her blown heart is all around me, I’m breathing it.
I choke. I’ve gotta get out of here before I never let her go, before I convince her of my love and put her in even more danger than I already have.
“So what? You bastard,” Jewell says, her voice breaking on that last word as she advances on me and I move deeper into her room, my escape route blocked by this girl I love.
“If you knew it had become more . . . why couldn’t you just Let. Me. Go?” she asks, her words soaked by emotion.
Heartbreak I’ve caused.
I look at her, taking in her beauty, which is more than the physical. Jewell fucking haunts my ass, like a living ghost . . . beautiful, ethereal, real.
When my eyes reach her face, I say the truth, my ears hearing what I’ve known for a long time. “Because I can’t. I never could.”
Her tears dampen her leotard, pooling in all the hollows that I’d just kissed, caressed, licked.
I scrub my face, hoping to erase this misery we’re in, and she asks, “Do you care for me?”
Christ, yes. “Not in t
he way you think.” Jewell doesn’t know I love her, or she wouldn’t be coming apart at the seams right now. My body’s been my only communicator and it’s an inadequate tool. I’ve stripped her bare when I want to shore her up.
Good fucking going.
Jewell moves to the door, one hand on her hip, her lower kissable lip trembling. “Get out.”
Looking at Jewell, I don’t know that I can take this. My loyalty to the Bureau, justice for Faith’s killer, and my love for Jewell collide into a blizzard of an emotional storm. I don’t have experience with this. I always just react, get by. Do what needs doing.
“Jess . . .” I say, reaching to pull her against me again. I know if we can just touch while we talk, that somehow what I need to communicate will happen. I suck at words, but my body, I know it can communicate for me, maybe the two together can clarify my emotional disaster.
Jewell puts her hand in front of her like a barrier. I could get to her, she knows that. I don’t. “No,” Jewell says, her voice shaking, “we’re so unhealthy,” she finishes low.
She searches my face for a moment, then says, “You thought you’d come by and fuck me and make it all better?”
Actually, yeah, I’m thinking that’s a damn fine way to start.
“Well, you’re not even a fuck buddy, Cas. You’re . . . I don’t know, worse than a user.”
I get pissed at that. I never used Jewell. I sure wanted to in the beginning, but the instant I touched her it was over before it started. I can’t be with her and not love her, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Imfuckingpossible. Period.
“It’s not what you think, Jess.” And it isn’t.
The color bleeds out of her knuckles from her grip on the door, the light from the corridor washing over her face in an unforgiving way.
Maybe it’s just the expression on Jewell’s face.
“Then you tell me what the fuck it is, Cas! Tell me right now, or go!” she yells as students crack their doors open to see what the noise is.
I stop communicating with my mouth because it’s getting me in so much fucking trouble. Instead I crush her against me, ripping her off that door, and bury my hand in the back of her head, burying my fingers in that silky knot, and I kiss her mouth, pressing my lips against her in the only way I can show her how hungry I am for her.
Starving.
Jewell opens her mouth and my tongue surges in, twining with hers . . . seeking, teasing, sipping, and she relaxes against me in total tactile compliance, her body remembering mine, what we are together, and her submission allows logic to reassert itself.
I am her protector.
But I’m not protecting her now by manipulating our chemistry, forgetting my responsibility to the Bureau and the greater one to the victims who will come if I don’t get my shit in one sock.
I break the kiss, never wanting something not to end as badly as I do in that moment. The coolness of her absence chills more than my body.
I hold her away from me. Tenderly, my eyes caress every curve of that face, her body, those eyes, and the words pour out of me, because they’re compulsively true. “When you know everything, then none of this will matter.”
I watch her shut down, hiding that openness away from me. “It will matter,” she answers and points into the hall, the students peeking out at me from their rooms. Whatever I look like makes them shut their doors.
Good thinking.
I turn to face Jewell, and she slams the door in my face. I hear the doorknob fall off on the other side where it shoots across the room like a torpedo. With a low cry, I hear muffled sobs, and my hand heats the knob on my side, my forehead pressed against the door.
I can do this.
I can walk away.
I release the knob and step back. I know it’ll be the last time I walk away from Jewell.
I won’t have the strength to do it twice.
“Holy shit . . . who pissed in your Wheaties?” Adams asks as I relieve him as primary.
“It’s been a few days, so just let me recap.”
He puts up his hands and I blow him off. He fucking asked.
“I don’t need to know that bad, Steel. You’ve been on your goddamned period since our girl was released from the hospital . . .”
Yeah, and the cramps are killing me.
“You didn’t . . . oh, for fuck’s sake, you didn’t do Jewell after O’Rourke gave you the ax?” he asks, making a slicing gesture over his neck.
I shake my head. “No.” I scowl before I continue, “not that I’d tell your stupid ass. This isn’t high school, Luke.”
“No, but she’s a target and you’re dipping your wick.”
Shit.
He sees my anger and says, “Sorry, I’m not trying to bust your chops, but you’re so fucking unreasonable with this girl and you used to be . . . I don’t know, so casual?” Adams looks at me and sighs, placing his fists on his hips. “What happened?”
“Jewell happened,” I say.
“Clearly,” Luke says, rolling his eyes to the heavens.
The silence spins out as we watch the subject and her girlfriends at the cafeteria. Her eyes are swollen, I note.
From crying.
I exhale loudly.
“What’s happened?” Luke asks.
“I tried to tell her how I feel.”
“Oh holy mother of God,” Luke mutters.
“What . . . am I that bad at it?”
Luke looks at me, then bursts out laughing, both of us rising up from our scopes. “You have to ask?”
Nice.
Okay, fuck it. “I fucked up, she told me to get lost.”
“Looks like that helped Maverick out.”
What? I bury my head against the binoculars, the tripod trembling against my press. “That fucktard,” I growl, and Adams replies, “Probably.”
I hate that guy.
“He’s apologizing.”
Right.
I study Maverick’s body language. When Jewell agrees to walk away with him, my eyes look at Carlie, and her body language is wary.
I don’t like it. Of course, I never have.
I stand.
“No,” Luke says, getting ready to hand me over the shift.
“Fuck yes.”
“Cas, you’ll kick his ass, you’re too close.”
I rip my arm out of his grasp. “I’ve got this, Luke. I don’t need a babysitter.”
He looks at me, then gives a disgusted sigh. “Shit,” he mutters under his breath as I tail them easily.
I watch, close enough to catch their words, amplified by a place not far from the courtyard. I lean closer, cupping my ears as I’ve been trained to do, amplifying the sounds of their conversation.
I miss some, but what I hear now is enough.
“I’m not a whore,” Jewell says so softly I think I hear it wrong. Bitter and numbing adrenaline sears inside my veins.
Maverick’s dead, he just doesn’t know it.
She swipes at eyes so swollen and red I have to fight not go to her right then, kissing her tender lids until those tears I’ve caused cease. I close my eyes in a slow blink, and when I open them Maverick is moving toward her.
“Jesus, Jess . . . I know. Come here.” He strokes her hair, shushing her, and I realize Luke is so right. I shouldn’t be here.
But I am.
I step out into the open, the hands that have been cupping my ears dropping to my sides. “Get your fucking hands off her,” I say, and it isn’t a request, that earlier fire inside me like molten energy I feed off automatically.
Maverick’s gaze locks with mine, and I swear I see the ghost of a smile curl that mouth from neutral to cruel, and that sense of his wrongness superimposes itself over who most see and it shakes me, firing up my instincts.
“Why don’t you ask Jess what she wants, Devin?” he asks, distracting me.
I stand there stupidly, my body and mind in an unbalance of dual intent.
“Well?” Maverick
says in a light, mocking tone. “Ask her, Castile.”
“Jess,” I say. My voice catches on her name, so I swallow to speak again, but she speaks first: “Go away, Devin.” And it scoops me out to hear that false name from her lips after I’ve heard her cry out my real name while I move inside her.
“Look at me. Tell me you want Mitch, and I’ll go.” I promise myself that I will.
So empty, I’m so empty.
“I don’t want you,” Jewell says from his arms, and my body goes numb, feeling seeping out like sand through a sieve, the fire to fight cooling.
“You’re lying,” I recite. She must be. I’ve seen her face, I know Jewell wants me. Maybe even loves me . . . like I love her.
“You heard her,” Maverick says, never losing his superior grin.
I move closer and her eyes follow me, huddling against that fuck Maverick, who is clearly enjoying the show.
“I want Mitch,” she says, her eyes cold like her voice, and I stagger back a little. I stare at Jewell a moment longer, trying to gauge her sincerity.
I have to leave. Another moment of seeing her with Mitch will be a death sentence.
For him.
I turn and go. Every step away from Jewell is a torture.
I imagine I can feel her eyes on me as I walk away from her, from us.
Wishful thinking. It’ll fuck you every time.
Still, I hope.
18
Thaddeus MacLeod
Thad watches his baby sister open that pie hole under her nose with her new little spic dancer friend. Good, Jewell, make all the friends you want so I can cripple you with their demise, Thad thought with a sigh of unrestrained joy.
He watches the two women, their hands warming on coffee from the local university coffeehouse and gets a little thrill deep inside himself.
Thad recognizes the feeling. The preemptive thrill of the kill. The gradual climb to the top of the fruits of his labors. His finesse is what has brought this entire plan full circle. Not Ben’s—his own.
It is Ben who’s broken into his thoughts. Of the two of them, he is the more volatile. “Does that Shelby cunt complicate things?” Ben asks without looking up from his binoculars, very much like the ones the feds who watch Jewell use.
