Fatal Beauty

by Andrews, Nazarea

  Dark eyes meet hers, and simply, “Yes.”

  EJ smiles, and rolls away from her. “Lay down,” she murmurs. Something flashes in Charlie’s eyes, but she does as she’s told, sliding down the bed. Her red hair is splayed around her head like a scarlet halo, and EJ allows herself one second to appreciate it as she crawls over Charlie. One leg on either side of her hips, pressing down just enough that Charlie can feel her. Big, wary eyes, curious, stare back at her and EJ smiles.

  She’s kissed Charlie before. On the dance floor in New Orleans, and once to piss Tre off at Charlie’s family beach house. But it’s never been like this. Not when Charlie knew it was a real kiss, and both of them were honest about everything that’s between them.

  She’s thought about it—of course, she’s thought about it. She’s lost sleep thinking about it. But it wasn’t possible for her fantasies to match the reality of Charlie, spread out and waiting for her touch, or for the first brush of her lips and hesitant touch of her tongue.

  EJ wants to go slow. Ease Charlie into this. But Charlie’s hands come up, latching into EJ’s hair and tugging her closer, and the kiss turns from gentle to demanding in the space of a breath. And she’s everywhere. The taste of her, the scent of her, the press of her body, arching off the bed to meet EJ’s, tiny, pleased gasp she makes when EJ finally relents and stretches out over her.

  She’s moving against EJ like a wave, all soft curves and it’s too much. Her hands are brushing against EJ’s hips, curving and gripping her.

  EJ nips her lip, hard enough that Charlie jerks back and she sits up. “Patience, sweetheart,” she murmurs.

  Hunger and anger flash in Charlie’s eyes, and EJ smirks, a quick little thing, before she slips her hands under the thin sleep shirt Charlie’s wearing. The other girl inhales sharply at the brush of EJ’s hands over her belly, skating upward until she cups a small tit, her thumb brushing lazily over the pale nipple.

  “Patience,” EJ murmurs again, and dips her head down, kissing a path over Charlie’s neck. “I’ve wanted this for too long to rush it.”

  Charlie whimpers, from her words or the slow kisses and gentle press of teeth, she’ll never know. She doesn’t care. She only cares that for now, Charlie is here, and panting under her. Her panties are wet, and she’s rubbing against EJ, almost helplessly, as EJ continues to kiss her and pluck her nipple, slowly.

  It’s torture. A slow assault that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and when Charlie groans and whispers her name—Ella—it’s desperate and demanding. She jerks Charlie’s shirt up, covering her nipple with her lips almost before Charlie realizes it, sucking hard as she brushes against her clit, the softest brush. Once. Twice. The third time, she presses hard and rubs and Charlie screams. Her body arches off the bed, scrambling to get closer and farther away, legs shaking spastically as the orgasm tears through her.

  She’s so wet, EJ can feel it, and the urge to slide between her legs and tongue fuck her into another orgasm is so strong, so overwhelming she sits up and rolls away before the tremors shaking Charlie have completely ceased. They sit that way, in the semi-darkness, the scent of sex and Charlie’s erratic breathing the only thing filling the air, for a long time. Until EJ finally relaxes a little, and lays down. Charlie is stiff and quiet on her side of the bed, the silence almost oppressive as it bears down on the room.

  “I stopped.”

  “No one asked you to.”

  “I didn’t want to.” She confesses.

  There’s a beat of silence and then, “Why?”

  “Because when I finish what we started here—and I will—it won’t be in this hellhole murder hotel. We’re both better than that.”

  Charlie inhales sharply, but EJ is already rolling to her side. She takes the hint.

  Neither of them say anything else. But it is a long time before either sleep.

  *

  They leave in the morning. When the sun is still rising behind them, with Charlie sleeping against the center console, her hair soft against EJ's arm. She tosses her purse and that damn cell phone into the backseat, and tucks the gun into a cup holder, and points the car to the west, and drives.

  It's soothing, watching the miles roll past and the world come alive. They hit Little Rock at rush hour, and Charlie wakes up. They stop for coffee and gas an hour after that and Charlie slides behind the wheel. She's been quiet since they fooled around the night before. It's vaguely worrisome, and annoying because of it.

  Of all the things they need right now, Charlie confused because of sex was the very last of those things.

  "You wanna talk about it?" EJ asks.

  Charlie gives her a startled look, one she meets with a bland stare. "You're thinking so loudly I'm pretty sure they can hear you the next state over."

  "I'm not used to that," Charlie says, shifting in her seat. A tiny blush is climbing her cheeks which is both adorable and ridiculous. Charlie hasn't blushed in earnest in years.

  "You're used to throwaway sex," EJ says. "And if that's what you want it to be, then fine. That's what it is, and we move on. Last night doesn't have to change anything."

  Charlie studies the road, long enough that EJ is convinced she'll ignore the statement altogether, that she'll ignore all of it. And it might be for the best, even if it's not exactly what she wants.

  "Why are you here, EJ? What the hell are we doing?"

  EJ blinks, and a startled laugh climbs up, filling the car for a moment before she shuts it down, clamps it off and shakes her head. "Is that what this is? The why are we doing this crisis? Is it because of your phone call to Daddy?"

  "It's because you just made me come, and I'm not sure what you expect from me," Charlie snaps, stung.

  "Nothing," EJ says, tightly, leaning forward and reaching for the radio.

  Charlie slaps her hand away. "Talk to me, EJ."

  "What the hell do you want me to say?"

  "What do you want?"

  "I want to cripple Jacobs, and I want a fucking castle in Ireland. I want you to come with me because you're my best friend and I can't imagine any of this without you. Because this—every fucking thing that's happened since Tre died—has been a giant snowball of insanity and Jacobs is still out there. So the snowball will keep growing. And I can't do this by myself." It hits her, like a punch in the gut and her lips are numb as she whispers, "I need you."

  Charlie's grip on the wheel tightens, but she smiles and some of the tension eases out of her. Just a little. Just enough to tell EJ that she had said the right thing. "And last night?"

  A deep breath. "Sex never means anything, right? So it doesn't."

  Silence lingers, and EJ reaches for the radio again. Just before she clicks it on, she adds, "Unless you want it to mean something."

  She catches Charlie's startled look, but she doesn't acknowledge it as music fills the car. Instead, she lowers her sunglasses, and tilts her head toward the sun, away from Charlie, and only then does she let a tiny smile play on her lips.

  Putting the ball in Charlie's court was a gamble, but she'd always been very good at playing the odds.

  *

  They drive all day and into the night. EJ has emails out to her people and it's almost midnight and they are approaching Santa Fe when she finally gets a response.

  "He's in Vegas," EJ murmurs. Charlie glances at her, a curious look in the dark car. She's driving again, but she's been fighting sleep for hours, and EJ knows they need to stop.

  "But he can do the IDs."

  "So we go to Vegas and then we get out of the country," Charlie says. It's so final, and so damn overdue. Everything she's been wanting and working for, dreaming of, since the first time her mother stood her in front of a mirror in a designer wedding dress.

  She shivers and nods. "Yeah. We go to Vegas."

  "You ok?" Charlie asks her, voice soft.

  "I'm fine. Tired. We should stop."

  "Ok," she says, a simple agreement that startles EJ. Charlie is so used to getting what sh
e wants that agreeing so easily is almost alarming. But she doesn't press, just sits up and twists around to grab her purse as Charlie drives through the night until they hit an exit with a decent hotel. Neither seems too eager to repeat the shit hole they hid in outside of Little Rock and there's enough distance between them and New Orleans now that EJ can breathe. Maybe not quit worrying altogether, but she can breathe and that's something.

  She shifts through the bag, until she comes up with the phone and her fake IDs and Charlie nods at it. "Why did Jacobs have a fake ID for you?"

  "Insurance. If he ever had to run, I'd be able to follow him. Any ticket he left would be in this name. My accounts are in this name. It's his way of making sure I had something to protect me and a way out, if shit ever hit the fan on his end."

  Charlie is quiet for a moment and then, "He loves you."

  EJ bursts out laughing, and Charlie blinks, startled as she stops at a red light on the exit ramp.

  "What?"

  "Jacobs doesn't know how to love. He takes care of me. He took care of Ziva and the house, and this car too, for that matter. It's what he does. He takes care of things he thinks are his," she says, simply and matter of factly.

  Charlie blinks at her, startled. “But you aren’t his.”

  She smiles, and it’s a bitter thing that is almost painful. “I’ve been Jacobs’ since I was ten years old, Charlie.”

  She pushes out of the car and disappears into the hotel, and Charlie stares after her.

  She doesn’t know what to do with that, with the quiet helplessness in EJ’s voice and the acceptance of something that doesn’t make sense.

  EJ is, in her mind, where she will admit it to no one but herself, a woman she admires. Because she lives on her own terms, and to hell with what everyone around her thinks. Because she’s wild and reckless and fearless, and completely unapologetic.

  It’s almost sociopathic, her casual disregard for the world around her. And it fascinates Charlie.

  Growing up Travis Brooks’ daughter, she was groomed early for a specific role. Groomed to be the smiling face who welcomed people into her family home for parties, and quietly ushered criminals into her daddy’s office for business. She was useful because she was lovely and complimentary and she kept her mouth shut. Later, when Tre swept into her life, she became useful as a way to climb into bed with Travis’ firm and a nice fuck to end a long day.

  She was raised to compliment the men around her and she quietly hated it while knowing there was nothing to be done. In her world—in her family—that was simply the way things were.

  EJ had never abided by those rules. She didn’t date in school, and she didn’t work for her father—or any of the subsequent stepfathers. She ignored her mother as much as possible, and started her own company, and traveled whenever she wanted, and no one told her anything. Some of the idiots at the country club used to whisper about it.

  No one understood her.

  But even before that afternoon so long ago when she caught EJ dealing coke in the locker room, Charlie had watched her and been intrigued.

  And jealous.

  To hear her say something like this. To hear the cold finality in her voice. It shakes her. And it enrages her.

  She picks up the phone and dials before she can think it through.

  “Ellie.” The voice is smooth and relieved and angry.

  “She’s not here. And you need to let her go.”

  A moment of silence and then Jacobs laughs. “Ballsy little mouse. You have no idea what you’re doing, do you? But you’re outraged about something and it has to be my fault. Please. Tell me. What has you so righteously indignant?”

  “She isn’t yours. And you’ve done enough to fuck her up. Leave her alone,” Charlie snaps. Her voice is shaking with anger and she can’t help but hate that. Hate that he hears her so unhinged.

  “Does it occur to you, little mouse, that she is who she is because she’s mine? Because I’ve taught her how to be who she is?”

  “EJ didn’t need you fucking around in her life to be amazing.”

  “No,” he agrees. “She was that well before I found her. I just cultivated the thing I found so naturally in her. Do you want to know what it is?”

  Fear settles in her gut, and she hesitates.

  She doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to tell her anything about EJ because that would admit something she doesn’t want to be true.

  He knows her. Better than Charlie does. Better than Charlie ever could. The history between them—it doesn't bother her that Jacobs was once her stepbrother. In their world, that is true of so many it's barely worth mentioning. It's a tiny blip on the radar. But the history. She can't dismiss that and she's been trying. Trying to ignore it.

  "Are you afraid, Charlie?" he murmurs and it sounds the way he did when he was inside her. "Are you afraid that when I catch up--and I will--she will forget you? If you aren’t, you're an idiot and I refuse to believe that of you."

  She thinks, in a twisted sort of way, Jacobs just complimented her and she almost wants to revel in it. Instead, she licks her lips and forces out the question. "What did you see in her?"

  He laughs. "The same thing she saw in you."

  Panic claws at her and her grip tightens on the phone. His voice is cool and detached. "Are you sure you want to know that?"

  "She left you."

  Jacobs scoffs. "Do you really think that means something? Would you like to know how many times she's done that?"

  "Bastard," she snarls, so furious everything else fades away.

  "Listen to me, little mouse. I'll drag her home because when everything else falls away, she chooses me. She always has and always will. Remember that."

  "Fuck yourself," she spits.

  "Give Ellie my love. And tell her I'll see her soon."

  The line goes dead and she drops the phone like it’s diseased, rubbing her hand against her jeans to shake the gross, skin-crawling feeling from it. She can’t shake the feeling that it was incredibly stupid to call him. That she should have left it alone and let EJ continue to deal with him.

  The passenger door open and EJ slides inside. “We got the suite,” she says happily. “Which comes with a real bathroom. Pull around.”

  Moving on autopilot, she pulls the car around the side of the hotel and parks. EJ is rummaging around, muttering under her breath and Jacobs’ words are swirling around her head, too loud and she wants to scream, wants to do anything to drown him out.

  “Ready?”

  She blinks at EJ, and leans forward, catching her in an unexpected kiss.

  EJ goes still for a heartbeat, and then her hands are in Charlie’s hair, holding her still as her lips part and her tongue tangles with hers.

  She tastes impossibly sweet, like strawberries and chocolate, and there is something intoxicating about the way she effortlessly controls the kiss, her hand coming up to cup Charlie’s throat, squeezing just a little. When she finally pulls back, Charlie’s breathing is choppy and her eyes are glassy, and EJ’s staring at her, lips full and red. “What was that for?” she rasps.

  Charlie shakes her head.

  “No reason at all,” she says with a tight smile, and opens her door. “Come on. Let’s go in.”

  Part 3:

  The Crash

  Las Vegas Police Department. Interrogation Room B.

  Detective Blackmon: Did you know that you were being sought in regards to the disappearance of your fiancée? Is that why you were on the run?

  Charlotte Brooks: I didn’t know any of that. When I left Charleston, I wasn’t under investigation. If I were, I wouldn’t have left. My father didn’t raise me to evade the authorities.

  Blackmon: Yes. Your father. A criminal defense attorney. Care to explain that?

  Brooks: (flatly) My father’s career choice is why I’m being detained? I’ve not passed the bar, but I’m pretty sure that’s against the law.

  Blackmon: Where were you two weeks ago?

  Brooks:
EJ and I were in Santa Fe. Why?

  Blackmon: Tell me about your time there.

  Brooks: (Silence)

  Blackmon: Something to hide, ma’am?

  Brooks: Not at all. But I’m tired. I’ve been here since four am. I’m hungry, and I want to know if I’m being charged. I want to know where the fuck EJ is.

  Blackmon: She hasn’t been brought in.

  Brooks: (laughing) Of course she hasn’t. You can’t find her. Can you?

  Blackmon: The FBI is searching the apartment of Blaincot. Will we find your DNA there?

  Brooks: Maybe. I visit him when I go through Memphis. I’ve been friends with him since we were at Vandy together. That’s in your records.

  Blackmon: You have pretty extensive training in firearms, Ms. Brooks. Why is that?

  Brooks: My father is a criminal defense attorney and I live in the Deep South. You do the math.

  Blackmon: Tell me about the events in Santa Fe.

  Brooks: (Silence)

  Blackmon: Still won’t talk about that? Why? What happened?

  Brooks: (Silence)

  Blackmon: Would you like to hear my theory? (Pause) I think she talked you into all of this. Blaincot, the John Doe in his apartment, hell, maybe even the disappearance of your fiancée. I think that Santa Fe was her idea as well. And it got out of hand—maybe more than even she—“

  Brooks: There was no plan. I don’t know what happened but EJ and I didn’t do anything. And if you had evidence that said otherwise, you’d have booked me. So why am I still here?

  Blackmon: (Silence)

  Brooks: This has been a lot of fun, Detective but put out or shut up—charge me or I’d like to go home.

  Blackmon: I can hold you for questioning for up to forty-eight hours. I can still find the evidence to pin all of this on you.

  Brooks: (Quietly) Then you should go find it. Because it’s not going to be found talking to me.

  Chapter 22

  “We have a problem.”

  Charlie looks at EJ. They’ve been in the hotel in Santa Fe for an hour, and both of them have showered. Exhaustion and temper are pulling at Charlie, and all she wants is to crawl into the big bed and fall asleep.