How Beauty Loved the Beast

by Jax Garren

  But her voice was a low purr as she said, “Yay.” A hop, and her legs wrapped around his hips. He caught her, twining his arms around her waist as her wrists slid over his shoulders.

  Jolie had jumped into his arms.

  No hesitation, no consideration, she’d reached for him freely, as if wrapped around him was exactly where she wanted to be. Happiness lit him from the inside, relieving the tension that had increased with every beep of his heart monitor. She bit her lip and studied his wrecked face with no hint of anything but joy, and he didn’t know how she did it. Hell, he could barely look at himself in the mirror some days.

  But in the end, it didn’t matter how or why, just that she was here and she was happy. So he did what he’d been dying to do for two weeks. He kissed her.

  Jolie squeezed him tighter as she kissed him back fiercely.

  He didn’t know what he’d been thinking earlier. Today was a kick-ass day.

  * * *

  God dang, Hauk could kiss. Jolie wasn’t sure about soul mates or true love or any fairy tales like that, but she believed in chemistry, and nobody had ever made her insides sizzle and combust like Wesley Haukon. The pain in her cheek was gone. The fear was erased. Two weeks of worry for Hauk’s health and safety and two weeks of loneliness without her favorite person to talk to, all of that pain vanished. Now the only thing she wanted was to curl up in Hauk’s arms and feel the heat he inspired.

  But she could hear the mix of “awwwws” and jeers from her troupe-mates, and she had a show to get ready for. The door to the backstage opened. Hauk pulled away to see who it was, that wariness he carried with him suddenly back. She loved the way he pulled her tighter to him and instinctively moved to place his body between her and the door.

  This time, Catrina turned out to be the deep threat he protected her from. Her boss—the drag queen Ric Suarez had referred to—posed in the doorway, violet nails tapping on the frame. “Ladies and gentleman, do we have a show toni—” Her voice cut off as she flicked her gaze up and down their public display of affection. “About damn time. Everybody else inside. Jolie...” Satisfaction gleamed in Catrina’s eyes and brought a smile to her shimmering lips. “Don’t take too long. We need to prep your entrance. Something tells me our darling Hauk might get hard to handle should we wrap you up wrong and drop you on your head.”

  The crowd filtered inside, ribbing the couple as they passed until Catrina shut the door. Hauk focused back on her, and the raw need that filled his expression gave her a happy shiver. But he asked, “Do you need to get inside?”

  “Pretty soon. I have a lot of makeup to apply.”

  “You’re beautiful without it.”

  She grinned. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

  He loosened his hold, and she slid down his body. Not only was Hauk tall, but he was built. Every bit of him—at the moment, every single bit of him—was hard. Her feet touched the ground and she ran her hands up his stomach to his shoulders. He tensed as her fingers roved across him, almost as if he would step back. Again she was reminded that while he liked it, he wasn’t used to being touched. After they’d started working out together, it had taken him a month before he would take his jacket off and let her see and interact with his bare arms.

  They may have to take things a little slower than she’d been imagining.

  Of course, in her imagination, she’d disobeyed orders last week and showed up at the hospital in her own version of a nurse’s outfit. Jolie didn’t sleep with everyone she found attractive, but once she’d decided to go for it, she saw no sense in waiting around. She’d never dated a guy who wasn’t happy to hop to it the moment she made half a suggestion. If slow was what Hauk needed, though, she could do that. He’d be worth the wait.

  He touched her cheek just above where it throbbed. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

  She shrugged. “I’m glad you got here at all. I thought you were still in the hospital.” She pulled out her keys. “They were after a folder I have in my trunk, if you wouldn’t mind collecting it. I’ll feel better with it in your hands.”

  He took the keys with a nod. “No problem. I’ll get these back to you after the show.”

  “Thanks. I really should get ready. I don’t want to delay curtain.”

  Hauk nodded, squeezed her shoulder and let her go. His feet shuffled back and forth nervously, as if he didn’t know what to do with himself.

  It was strange. He was always so at ease in a fight or training her to fight, places where she’d been completely out of her element until Hauk had taught her to be sure of herself.

  Well then, she had a job to do. He was teaching her to be a fighter. She’d teach him to be a lover again. He’d been one before the fire had scarred him. Back then, from what she could tell, he’d been sure of himself and maybe even a ladies’ man. Jolie hadn’t thought much about their future; she wasn’t really a future-thinking kind of girl where guys were concerned. But regardless of what that future held, Hauk deserved to have his confidence back. She could help him find it.

  “I’ll be thinking of you while I’m dancing,” she said with a coquettish smile. “And when a burlesque dancer says that...” She winked and opened the door to the backstage.

  Hauk sucked in a breath. “What are you doing after the show?”

  “I had plans.” She crooked her finger at him, and just as she’d hoped, he came to her. Carefully this time, she put a hand on his chest.

  He watched the movement, stared at the connection. His breath heaved in and out once before his eyes found hers, a mixture of hope and hunger in them.

  She curled her nails into him lightly. The tension in his muscles ratcheted up, and not from discomfort this time.

  “But I could be convinced to change them.” She lowered her voice to a hum. “Wesley.”

  * * *

  The door shut behind Jolie, and Hauk couldn’t breathe. Two and a half months ago they’d met on either side of the sheet she used to make a changing station here at the theater. Before she’d seen his face, she’d let him touch her through that sheet. His hands had wandered her body and his mouth had tasted her. She’d come against his tongue.

  It had been the first time he’d heard a live woman yelling in ecstasy in over five years. Against his better judgment (he was a felon, after all) he’d told his first name. She’d nicknamed him “Wesley of the Divine Tongue.”

  Best nickname ever.

  Then they’d met face to face. After that, she’d called him Hauk, like everyone else did, and he’d kept his hands and his tongue to himself.

  But if she was calling him Wesley again...

  He headed out to her car with a big grin, a big hope and an even bigger hard-on.

  Chapter Three

  “Good gods, woman, when you rolled down from the ceiling I about had a fucking heart attack.” Hauk managed a teasing laugh, but his blood pressure still raced every time he thought of Jolie performing her first drop.

  She’d danced with silks this time, stretches of fabric that hung from the ceiling while she climbed, swung, tangled herself and unrolled dramatically. The show had started with her unraveling from the ceiling, hurtling twenty feet down before one silk caught her foot and the other she caught in her hand in an elegant but reckless feat of physical prowess.

  Hauk’s heart had plummeted right along with her. The impulse to launch onto the stage arms out to catch her had been near impossible to quell. Girl had no fucking fear, and her antics were going to be the death of him.

  “Did you like it?” she asked, oblivious to his concern as she dropped flip-flops onto the floor and slid into them. The crowds were gone, and she’d just exited the backstage into the bowels of the old electric company. Bright makeup and stuck-on jewels emphasized her green eyes and perfectly lush mouth. It also hid her freckles, which was a bummer, but the effect was enticingly exotic. Plus, Jolie loved dancing. She was damn good at it, and the joy it gave her made him happy. Even when it terrified him.

/>   She straightened and tipped her head expectantly, and he realized he hadn’t answered her question. He smiled. “You know I love to watch you dance. The show was great, despite my near heart attack.” Every straight man in the audience wanted to take Jolie home, that was for sure. And he might be the one doing it if their earlier conversation was any indication. But she hadn’t exactly said she’d go home with him, just that she could be convinced to do something with him. He found himself suddenly tongue-tied as to how to do that convincing.

  Five years ago, he’d have grinned, lifted an eyebrow (he didn’t have eyebrows anymore, just metal piercings where they should be) and said something complimentary. Then he’d have crossed his arms to show off the muscles and asked if she wanted to go for a ride on his motorcycle.

  He did still have muscles and a motorcycle.

  Fuck, what was he doing? He wasn’t sexy. There was nothing he could do to fix that. He had a metal leg, for Freyja’s sake. It was easy to forget he was missing a limb when his clothes were on and the replacement Tally and LaRoche, the Underlight’s scientists, had made for him worked so seamlessly. But if he took his pants off to do any of the amazing things he wanted to do with Jolie that required the removal of pants, suddenly it was damn obvious that the patchworked mess of skin on his left side ended in titanium.

  He was crippled. He hated that word so fucking much, but his leg was the definition of it—and he didn’t want anybody looking at it.

  Jolie stretched up then flopped over to hug her knees, folding her own flawless body in half. A wink as she stood and turned her prowling walk toward the back of the electric plant. A double-edged ache of need and doubt carved into him. If she meant to go home or out to meet someone, she’d head for her car. Back this way, though, was a hidden push-plate that opened a door to the maze of tunnels under Austin, where the Underlight was hidden. Where he lived.

  He stopped their progress and cleared his throat. “Paul Gellar was in the audience.” Oh, shit. He did not just say that.

  Jolie wrinkled her nose, confused. “Paul?”

  She and Paul were dating, and before Hauk went into the hospital, the pretty-boy front man for Spork, a popular local band, had been stepping up his game to win Jolie’s affections in a more permanent way. So Paul had been in the audience, Jolie had had original plans for after the show...it didn’t take a genius to do that math.

  “You don’t need to change plans for me just ’cause I got out of the hospital.” Hauk didn’t want to think about Jolie with Paul and what they’d intended to do together tonight. But he also couldn’t stand the idea that she’d be thinking about some other face if he kissed her. He couldn’t blame her, but it ripped him up inside.

  Jolie caught his scarred hand in her own smooth one and dropped all teasing pretense. “I was going for drinks with Mercy to talk about costuming the next show. We’ve already rescheduled. Paul was probably here because Spork’s bass player is dating one of the other girls in our dance troupe. He wasn’t here for me.”

  Hauk blinked. He’d been so sure... But Jolie had nothing but honesty in her eyes. He took a breath, trying to stay calm. “He was going to ask you out, then. They were talking about you.” He couldn’t hear them very well, but Paul’s infatuation had been abundantly clear.

  Jolie stepped closer to him. “Look, I’ve dated guys in the past. Paul is one of them. Now that Ben and Kelly are dating, I’m going to continue to run into him sometimes. You have to be okay with that, because I can’t change it. But I haven’t been on a date with Paul in nearly three months. We are busy people who want different things.”

  Three months? That meant she hadn’t gone out with Paul since...since Hauk had met her. He’d thought the only thing keeping Jolie and Paul from being a serious couple was Paul’s unwillingness to keep his dick in his pants when the band went on tour. Hauk had seen men in uniform stay faithful to their wives for a year in a war zone. He had no patience for Paul’s lack of restraint. That was likely the “different things” the two of them wanted.

  If Paul wised up and offered to behave himself, what would Jolie do?

  “So am I coming home with you or not?” Her voice had the teasing lilt that always brought a smile to his face. She was a shameless flirt—even with him—but she’d never been like this, holding his hands and sidling up next to him like this time she meant it.

  Hauk studied her eyes, all decorated with jewels and purple powder, and knew that behind the makeup was a good person, an honest person. His confusion and fears stemmed from one thing: he’d fallen head over heels for the woman.

  A deep breath helped calm the riot of emotions threatening to wreck his good fortune. Squeezing her hands, he asked the only question that mattered. “Do you want to come home with me?”

  She surprised him with a burst of soft laughter that she quickly got under control. “Yes, you silly boy. What makes you think I’d do this—” she stood on tiptoe and pressed her mouth against his in a simple kiss, “—if I didn’t want to?”

  He licked the taste of her off his lips, savoring the quick softness of her unexpected move. It was the kiss of a woman who knew there would be more kisses. A familiar kiss. The calm that settled over him wasn’t forced this time.

  He was an idiot if he talked himself out of taking her home.

  “I want you,” she said softly. “Get it through that thick skull.”

  Oh, yeah. He was a complete moron if he didn’t scoop her up and get her back to his bedroom as fast as his feet could carry her. He tugged her hands, pulling her against him, and tipped her chin up for one more kiss. He meant for it to be fast, a quick reassurance before they continued down to the Underlight.

  It didn’t turn out that way.

  Her lips touched his and that vanilla spice of her perfume filled his head. He pulled her tighter until her soft curves molded against his body. He parted his lips and she followed his lead, giving his tongue access to stroke hers. She tasted of cinnamon and sugar, sweetness and spice, and he wanted to devour every piece of her. Her first sigh shuddered against him. Her hands stroked down his back to clutch his ass, and she dug fingernails into the muscle.

  They needed to get home. Right. Now.

  He pulled away before the notion of slamming her into a wall to take her here in the hallway got too tempting. She groaned a protest as her eyes fluttered open. She’d completely relaxed into his embrace, and he carried her slight weight in his arms. “Let’s get home,” he said.

  She glanced at a wall longingly, as if thinking along the same lines he was.

  He chuckled. “Come on. I want to see you in my bed.”

  Her smile was half pouty. “You’ve seen me in your bed. If I recall correctly, you carried me there when we first met.” But despite the protest, she rolled her weight back onto her feet.

  “Yeah, but I don’t remember that, and when I woke up you were already gone.”

  “True. All right then, let’s go.” With a wink, she dashed down the hallway, daring him to chase her.

  And chase her he did, around a corner into the hallway with the secret panel. Jolie turned into the alcove, leaving his sight for a moment.

  She screamed.

  Panic gave him speed. He dashed to reach her, careened around the corner and every ounce of desire evaporated.

  Jolie kneeled in a pool of blood—not her own, thank the gods, but of a woman propped up to sit against the wall. Eyes, deep brown and devoid of life, stared at him over a mouth rounded in the woman’s last scream.

  “Cassie! Cassie!” Jolie repeated over and over. Her fingers stabbed at the girl’s neck, searching for a pulse that wasn’t there.

  Cassie was long past help, but Jolie was heading for shock. He’d seen it too many times on the war front. Hauk skirted a pool of congealing blood, trying not to interfere with the crime scene. “Jolie, sweetheart, step away.”

  She didn’t budge. “It’s Cassie. She works backstage. She’s applying for the Underlight.”

  There wa
s no present tense here anymore; Jolie needed to see that. He put a heavy hand on her shoulder and said as firmly and steadily as he could, “Jolie, look at me.”

  “No, Cassie—”

  “Come on, baby, look at me.” Slowly she turned to face him, and her eyes were wild. “We’re going to stand up, Jolie, and we’re going to walk over there.” He kept eye contact as he pointed back the direction they came in.

  “She’s bleeding.”

  He took her hand away from the body and held it. “She’s already bled out. There’s nothing we can do. Come with me.”

  “Oh, God.” The usually courageous voice was barely a whisper as tears filled Jolie’s eyes. It hurt to watch her crumble, but it meant she was feeling again, registering reality.

  “Come on. This way.” She let him pull her up and lead her back around the corner.

  Nobody should have to find a corpse like that.

  And nobody should have to die like that.

  “Jolie.” He used to do this with his men when they saw something no man should have to see. He’d repeat their name to keep them grounded. He’d explain each action as he did it so there were no additional surprises. “I’m going to go back and see if I can figure out what happened.” He’d also give the men something to do, a task to focus on so they weren’t replaying the memory. “I need you to call Catrina and tell her what happened. Have her call the police. Can you do that for me?”

  Jolie gulped. “The police can’t see you. They’ll arrest you.”

  “I know. That’s why you’re calling Catrina first. It’ll give me a chance to take a look around and then get scarce.” He sighed. “You’re going to have to talk to them without me. Are you all right with that?” Damn his fugitive status. He’d have to leave Jolie when she needed him, instead of standing with her like he should.

  She rolled her eyes and pushed tears from her cheek. “Of course I am. I’ll come up with some reason why I was back here alone.”