by Jamie Craig
When the chorus of the song kicked in, Emma twisted in Ethan's hold, pulling away at the same time. It was easier to breathe if she wasn't watching Jesse directly, but always, in her mind's eye, she pictured him still dancing, just a few feet away. The heady desire to be that unknown girl he'd partnered with rushed through her. She didn't care why he had come at that point. All she wanted was one dance with him.
The floor swelled with people, and they became boxed in, surrounded on all sides. She brushed against arms, legs, backs, and chests, and each time she touched somebody, she wondered if it was Jesse. Ethan's face was flushed, his hair standing on end, and she knew he was garnering appreciative glances himself, from men and women alike. But all she could think about was what Jesse was doing.
She knew it when he finally did touch her. Familiar fingers brushing against her back sent a jolt of electricity through her.
Her lashes fluttered shut. The world narrowed to those few inches where his skin scalded hers, and Emma unconsciously edged back, seeking out firmer contact with his hand, his heat, anything that was Jesse. When her ass brushed against something hard, she leaned her head back until it rested against a solid chest, curling an arm up at the same time to entwine with the damp strands of his hair.
"I'm so glad you came," she murmured, though she knew he couldn't hear her. The music drowned out the sound of her voice, so Emma opened her eyes to look back at him. And smiled.
Jesse returned her smile, his eyes flashing. When the song faded into silence, to be replaced by something with a slower beat, he spun her in his arms, one hand going to her hip to hold her in place. His eyes seemed to be challenging her, daring her to pull away from him.
Emma knew this was her opportunity to appease Ethan's earlier mood. Walking away from Jesse now would send a message, loud and clear. The only problem was, she knew in her heart that the message would be a lie. And in spite of everything that had happened between her and Jesse, in spite of how her feelings had deepened and taken root, she knew she could never lie to him.
Slowly, she lifted her arms to his neck and closed the distance between their bodies. A shiver ran through her when he slid the hand at her hip to the small of her back, followed by a small gasp when she felt the definite line of his erection against her stomach. Her eyes flew to his, but there was no apology there, no ambivalence. She wasn't sure what she saw.
There wasn't enough room for any fancy footwork, but Jesse still led her through the dance like they were born partners. She didn't know if he had any formal training, or if he just knew how to move to the music, but it didn't matter either way. His face was only an inch from hers. If either of them moved, just a little, their lips would touch. Her pulse raced at the thought. She swayed forward, but a strong hand on her shoulder caught her before she could close the distance completely.
"Can I cut in?" Ethan's voice, but it seemed like it was coming from a great distance.
"No," Jesse said, his eyes still locked on her face.
She didn't want to move. But Ethan's voice had brought her crashing back to reality.
"He's my date." Her hand slid away from Jesse's neck, but the furthest she could get was to rest her palm against his chest. "I should go."
Jesse shook his head. "No." Wrapping his arm around her tightly, he bent to speak into her ear. "You don't need to go with him. Stay with me tonight, Emma."
She stopped. Her mouth went dry when Jesse's lips moved infinitesimally against her ear. Her blood roared in her head, and her heart clamored in her chest, and all Emma felt was the sudden insurgence of hope that maybe her feelings weren't so orphaned after all, that Jesse's obvious desire meant exactly what she thought it meant, that she could have what she'd been wanting for months now. She could go home with him, and she could touch him, and she could say everything she'd been holding back, and the only thing that was stopping her from doing that was...
Emma squeezed her eyes shut. Ethan deserved better than to be walked out on in the middle of a club. He loved her. He'd done nothing but give her everything he had for the past four months. And as much as she loved Jesse, she still cared for Ethan.
"I can't." Using her hand on his chest to brace against, Emma pushed away, backing through the throng until she felt Ethan behind her. Her eyes pleaded with Jesse's. "I'm so sorry. I just can't."
Jesse didn't move immediately, like he was giving her the chance to change her mind. The music stopped, and the silence seemed to last for too long. He opened his mouth, but whatever he said was lost in explosion of music and excited whoops, and bodies rushed to fill the empty space between them. Gideon seemed to materialize on the edge of the crowd. They both noticed him at the same time, and Jesse turned to go to him, his earlier ease and grace gone.
Emma stepped toward them instinctively, but Ethan's hand curled around her elbow and pulled her back. When she turned to look at him, his face was grim, eyes dark even under the flashing lights.
His voice was tight when he spoke. "We're leaving."
"I need to talk to them," Emma protested.
Ethan shook his head. "You need to talk to me," he countered.
He had a point. It was why she had walked away from Jesse in the first place.
With a small nod, Emma let him lead her through the crowd, weaving between the thrashing bodies toward the exit. At the edge of the dance floor, she risked a glance back, seeking out the tall, dark bodies of Jesse and Gideon, but neither man was anywhere to be seen.
Tomorrow. She'd talk to them tomorrow.
And hopefully they would talk to her.
Chapter 9
* * *
Once Jesse found Gideon, he headed directly for the exit. His chest felt tight, like a vise was squeezing his torso. His head throbbed. His throat and eyes were scratchy. Jesse didn't know if he was more hurt than humiliated, but he felt like he could happily crawl under a rock and hide from the world until he died.
Jesse took a deep breath as soon as they were outside the club, but it didn't help. The force of his anger propelled him forward, but it wasn't enough to carry him all the way to Gideon's car. He stumbled and slowed in the middle of the parking lot, finally coming to a stop when he realized he didn't know where they were. Looking up, he met Gideon's eyes helplessly.
"I don't know where we parked."
With his features shadowed and inscrutable, Gideon reached for Jesse and pulled him against his chest, wrapping his arms around him in an almost painful grip. "Just let me," he murmured. He slid his hands down Jesse's back, but just when Jess was ready to sink into the sanctuary of the embrace, Gideon took his hand and began walking again, veering to the right until they were at his car.
It wasn't until they were on the road that he spoke again.
"Are we going home?"
Jesse was about to ask where else they would go, but it occurred to him that he shouldn't even give Gideon the chance to suggest going to Emma's.
"Please," he said, resting his forehead against the window. The glass felt cool against his flushed skin. He closed his eyes, but he could only see Emma's face right before she stepped away from him. She had wanted to go home with him, he had been sure of it. But maybe he had been wrong. Maybe he had read the entire situation wrong. "I just want to go to bed. Put this day behind me."
The drive was quiet, with only the rhythmic hum of the tires over the concrete as noise. In the parking garage, Gideon took Jesse's hand, leading him up the stairs that went directly to the apartment. He led him all the way to the bedroom, at which point he finally took Jess back into his arms.
"I know you're hurting," he murmured. "But I don't think you should give up hope."
"I never thought of you as the unfailing optimist before," Jesse said. "She went home with Ethan. I'm not sure if her message could be louder or clearer."
"She might've left with Ethan, but there is no way he's spending the night with her." Taking Jesse by the shoulders, Gideon held him at arm's length, forcing him to meet his eyes. "I saw the t
wo of you together. I saw the look on her face when Ethan tried to cut in. And I am telling you, Jess...she doesn't love him. And she sure as hell doesn't react to him the way she reacts to you."
Jesse heard every word Gideon said, but he didn't listen. It all just flowed over him and through him. It didn't matter. Gideon meant well. Jesse knew that. But it all hurt too much. Knowing he wasn't really right for her, knowing he couldn't be everything she needed, knowing that she'd rather go home with Ethan--it hurt. But Gideon was looking at him like he expected an answer.
"I don't really want to talk about it right now." He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to work his buttons free. Except he did want to talk about it. "God, Gideon, you should have felt her. She was so warm, and so soft. I don't think I've ever touched anybody like her."
The mattress bowed beneath Gideon's weight when he sat down next to Jesse. "You two were beautiful out there," he said softly. "Emma was practically glowing."
Jesse nodded. In his mind, she was glowing. But he didn't have the most objective view of her. Not that he trusted Gideon's to be entirely objective. "If she had come home with us tonight, what would you have done? I mean, I know what I want to do with her, but you haven't been so forthcoming."
Gideon leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees as he stared ahead. "I would've made her a part of us. Touched her. Fucked her. Watched you fuck her." He snorted. "I'm not doing this just as some sort of grand gesture for you, you know. I'm not interested in there being a you and me, and a you and her, and she and I don't have anything to do with each other. I want her here, with both of us." He dug at his nails, keeping his eyes averted. "I like seeing how happy you are when she's around. And I like that she doesn't look at me like a monster."
For the first time, Jesse really began to understand what Gideon wanted. This would shift the entire focus of their relationship, their world. Gideon was not a creature that generally embraced change. That he was willing to go that far demonstrated more than any words how much Emma meant to him.
"Then maybe you should talk to her, Gideon. Tell her what you feel. Because, clearly, I'm not cut out for the job."
Gideon looked back at him. "I'm not the one she's in love with."
"How do you know? Once you get past the hard exterior, the fangs, the growling, the violent impulses, and the anti-social tendencies, you're a very easy man to love." Jesse fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "What if she just keeps coming around here because she wants to see you? I don't know what she feels, or who she loves, or why you think she's in love with me, but I do know that the scenario you were just describing wouldn't work if she didn't have feelings for you."
Rising from the bed, Gideon began prowling around the room, his strides long and slow, his hands balled into fists in his pockets.
"I know it's better that Emma's learned how to control her powers," he said. "But this would all be a hell of a lot easier if she could just do what she did that time we had the fight about you doing another art exhibit for Andre. She could read us, we could know what she's feeling, everything would be out in the open. Now, if Michelle had found a female empath to train Emma, you can just fucking bet she wouldn't have to told Emma to block us out."
"I don't know. If Michelle had to settle for a female empath, she probably would have found a lesbian. And then she would be in love with Emma, and probably would have told Emma to do worse than block us out."
Gideon snorted, but the quick glance Jesse shot his way said it was out of humor and not something else. "What did you actually say to her?" he said. "I couldn't hear it over the music."
"You don't need to go with him," Jesse recited obediently. "Stay with me tonight."
"And what was she saying? It looked like more than a no."
Jesse sighed. "She said, 'I can't. I'm so sorry. I just can't.'"
Gideon stopped. "She said, can't? Not won't."
"The end result would have been the same anyway."
"Are you even listening to yourself? It's the same thing you were trying to pull. She wanted to come. That makes a difference."
Jesse finished unbuttoning his shirt. "It doesn't really make a difference to me, Gideon. The only thing that would have made this night worse is if I told her I loved her before she left."
"Pardon me if I don't agree." Marching over to the door, he yanked it open. "I'm going out to get something to eat. Try and get some sleep. Maybe that'll help get your head on straight."
He didn't wait for a response.
Jesse blinked and sat up, surprised by how quickly Gideon left. His gut twisted painfully. Was Gideon angry with him, on top of everything else? A part of him wanted to follow Gideon, but if Gideon was angry, it would just lead to a fight that he didn't want to have. And that was the best-case scenario.
He finished undressing numbly, but sleep seemed to be impossible. He didn't like to sleep alone at the best of times. But now every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Emma backing away from him, and Gideon marching out of the room like he couldn't stand to be there for another second. His exhausted brain was stuck in a groove, hitting the same two spots over and over, until he eventually drifted into a brittle sleep, the thoughts chasing him into dreams.
* * * *
Emma leaned her head against the car window, blind to the buildings and streetlights they passed. Her head was elsewhere, swirling with so many what-ifs that her eyes were starting to ache.
What if I'd stayed? What if I'd told Jess how I feel? What if he hadn't come? What if I'd called Jess first before Ethan made the date? What if...
She could still feel his arms around her, their deceptive strength holding her close. And she could still smell the musky scent of his cologne, remembered the urge to lean in and bury her nose in his neck. And the worst of it all was, she could still see his eyes when she'd stepped back, that second between hopeful and crushed when he didn't quite believe she was actually going away.
That one was a literal burn--in her eyes, in her gut--and Emma wanted nothing more but to get home and scrub it from her skin and memory in an icy shower.
"If you had to make a choice," Ethan said, his voice startling her from her thoughts, "who would you choose?"
"What?" Emma jerked to stare at him, but there wasn't any anger in his face, the glance he cast in her direction still infused with his usual warmth. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about making a choice, Emma. Deciding what's important to you. What you want out of life." Ethan shrugged. "That's what love's about, right? Deciding what's important?"
"And you think..." But they both knew it, she suddenly realized. Stating the obvious wasn't going to do either of them any good. "You're important to me," she said. "You've done so much to help me, taught me so much. I couldn't have walked into that club without you. But Jesse...you know what I went through. What he went through for me. I can't ignore that."
"You shouldn't ignore that. But maybe you should ask yourself if your feelings for him are based on anything real, or just displaced gratitude."
Something about his tone annoyed her. "You do realize the same could be said about you."
"Fine. Are your feelings for me just displaced gratitude? Do you even have feelings for me?"
"Of course, I do." It wasn't a lie, even if it wasn't the whole truth. "And they're just as real as the feelings I have for Jesse. But they're not the same, Ethan. None of it's the same."
"That brings us back to my first question, doesn't it? If you had to make the choice, who would you choose?"
He wasn't going to stop asking. It was the same as when he was teaching her new techniques to manage her abilities and one of the things she'd always admired about him; Ethan never gave up, even when she was ready to throw in the towel.
She had no other option but to give him the answer he was asking for. That didn't make it any easier.
"Jesse," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, I'm sorry, too. I was prepared to give you the
world, Emma. Do you think he could ever love you the way I do? Do you think you'll ever come first for him?"
"I would never ask him to do that," she shot back. "And I don't know how he feels about me because I don't read people any more, remember? But what I do know is that Jesse would lay his life on the line for me, that he would do absolutely anything to protect me, or to make me feel better. And I know when he's not around, I miss him." Her eyes burned from unshed tears, but she refused to let them become manifest. "I don't want the world. I just don't want to lose Jesse."
"And you think I wouldn't? Do you think I wouldn't lay my life on line for you, that I wouldn't do anything to protect you? I dropped everything for you, Emma. I abandoned my whole life so I could stay here, in Chicago, with you."
"I never asked for that. You did that on your own."
"Yeah, well, I guess I didn't realize that no mere man could hold a candle to Saint Jesse."
Emma snorted. "Jesse isn't a saint. He's a workaholic, he's got a death wish a mile wide, and he can be blind as a bat about some things if you don't point him straight at it. But he's my best friend. And you're the one who made me choose."
"You may be comfortable being second best in somebody's life, but I'm not. I deserve better than that. We both deserve better than that." He pulled to a stop in front of her building. "Nothing I can say will change your mind at this point, Emma, but let me tell you something, because I care about you. Watch yourself with Jesse. He's got dark places inside of him. Darker than you've seen or imagined. I touched on them for just a second, and I wish I hadn't. You once told me there's no explaining love. You might wonder to ask yourself what's inside Jesse that can make him slavishly devoted to somebody like Gideon."
Emma met his gaze and was glad that her walls were still firmly enough in place to prevent him from reading her. She didn't have to wonder about what Ethan was suggesting. She already knew. She'd experienced it straight from the source--from both of them--and she knew exactly what kind of dark places both men had inside. But she also knew the light, knew what kind of struggles had brought them to the place they were today, and it was the combination of all of it that made it possible for her to love them like she did.