A Brutal Tenderness

by Marata Eros

  “Excuse me,” Luke says, raising his hand, and O’Rourke scowls. “Doesn’t seem like his jealousy of our girl should make him go on a psychotic spiral. Just sayin’.”

  O’Rourke shrugs. “That’s what we do know.”

  What we don’t know is left unsaid.

  Clearwater turns away, his hands going to his hips, his long hair bound at the nape of his neck, his Native American heritage all the more prominent now that his black hair is pulled back.

  O’Rourke states what I already intuit: “Clearwater, you’re too close to the subject.”

  “Jewell,” Dec says. “She’s got a name. Don’t you think, by fuck, I know what it is now? After two cocksucking years?”

  The silence fills the space like heat from a sauna. O’Rourke answers quietly, “You’re going to step back, do you understand?”

  O’Rourke turns to me, not waiting for Clearwater’s response for the moment, though I know there will be disciplinary action. “Are you comfortable with the next phase of our assignment.”

  No. “Yes, sir.” I’m not getting fucking axed for attitude.

  O’Rourke nods. “Good, because it might just be one for the many here, Steel.” O’Rourke stares at me, commanding my understanding, and I give him steady eyes in return.

  Translation: We might have to sacrifice Jewell for the many women MacLeod plans to kill in the future.

  I turn to leave, abandoning Clearwater to the verbal shakedown he’ll get and possibly much more. O’Rourke stops me with my name.

  His low voice rings like a faint bell. “Steel.”

  I turn, and a small smile lifts his lips. “Check your swing.”

  “How do you know I’ll use my fists?”

  Clearwater snorts in the background, and we ignore him.

  “Isn’t that what you always do?”

  Yeah, it is.

  I leave with his eyes on my retreating back. Hating the next step, wanting the next step. Hating that I want it.

  I intercept Brock as he moves purposefully toward the girls’ locker room. He’ll meet the lovely Jewell there and accost her, and I’ll put “Brock” on notice. Adams and I are hand in glove in this sort of scenario; we’ve done it plenty of times. Like stunt actors, we are just two feds playing an intricate game. We do the dance in the hopes it will have an audience of one.

  Unfortunately, there’s a need for realism. And I’ve kept my reactive nature hidden. Like a monster who’s underneath a child’s bed, it’s suspected but, like so much lore, if it isn’t seen, it’s not real.

  Carmichael’s a believer now. She gives me wary and slightly excited eyes when we brush past each other at our temp headquarters. What does she see in my gaze?

  Lust? Hope? Anger? . . . Fear?

  I watch Brock wait for Jewell, and as she rounds the corner, she isn’t paying attention and runs right into him. Her things slide to the ground, and his hands close around her shoulders. A deep burn flares in my gut at the sight of his hands on Jewell. We’re role playing. I get it. But I react anyway. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

  My turn.

  I leave the outdoor courtyard, quietly swinging the door open.

  Jewell’s face is clenched, and the color leaves her face, paling her out before my eyes, my body physically responding to her distress.

  “Take your hands off her, Brock,” I say, each word clipped and short. Normally this is all playacting as we work seamlessly in tandem, but something has shifted in our relationship when she stands in the middle.

  “Cas,” Jewell whispers, her hands wrapped on the forearms that press against her chest. Her voice squeezes the breath from my throat. My will. My indifference. They’re vapor before her fear.

  He’s holding Jewell, and something instinctive and primal rises inside me like oil surfacing on water. I try to hold it back, but it comes against everything I am. All my anger at Jewell and my desire to get to the bottom of Faith’s death fade away as I look at the bruising hold Adams has on her.

  Adams plays along, though I’m not sure if we are anymore. I’ve never felt less like playing in the sandbox than I do now. He says to me, “Fuck off, Castile. Jess and I were just talking.” He spins Jewell around to face me, and as his fingers dig deeply into her small shoulders, rage that is both color and texture shrouds me. I taste it, feel it. He leans down next to her ear, her eyes wide, breath coming in gulps. “Don’t fuck this up,” he whispers.

  And still Brock doesn’t know that he’s stepping in hot shit. Hell, I don’t know until just then.

  I study her anxious face, the blue eyes all the more for the green that lurks beneath. “Do you want to talk, Jess?” I ask. Then, as if by compulsion, I add, “Do you want to be held by him?” My voice comes out in a low growl.

  Jewell looks dazed by the way I form the dangerous question. It means more than those words alone. She shakes her head, her eyes wide and shocky.

  Adams lifts his brows, and I can see the shrug in his eyes. I watch his fingers press harder on Jewell, and when her response bursts softly out of her mouth, “No,” I hear it like a syllable of pain, but it comes from far away because I’ve entered the zone. Suddenly all I can think about is protecting her, sheltering Jewell from anyone who would do her harm.

  “No!” she repeats in a hoarse shout, but I’m already moving, using my fists like O’Rourke predicted.

  I don’t check my swing and ring Adams’s bell with knuckledriving crack to his forehead that grazes his nose. He reflexively begins to take Jewell down with him, and I scoop her behind me in protection.

  Pretending, pretending, pretending, I recite.

  Intellectually, I know that Adams and I are playing roles here, but I stop acting when I take that jab, drawing first blood.

  I speak without thinking, my mind suppressed as my instincts sing a tune. “Don’t get up, Brock,” I hear myself say.

  I can feel the warmth of Jewell clutching the leather of my jacket as the solid heat of her seeps into me through the barrier. I clench my eyes against the rightness of her body against mine. Like it was always meant to be there. You know the feeling when something is so perfect, so right, that it feels like it’s always been?

  The girl who will get me the truths I need is the fix to my broken, the key to a lock I didn’t know existed.

  Luke holds his forehead tight, stanching the flow of blood, and looks at me. His eyes hold anger but something else too. Knowledge. Somehow my partner’s figured out what my problem is at about the same time I do. Maybe he’s always known.

  My days of lying to myself are over. The erosion’s begun. Jewell has gotten under my skin.

  I ditch Luke according to the plan and walk a shaken Jewell outside into the late autumn afternoon as twilight’s brightest stars wink in and out of existence in the uncertain light. I watch my partner lurch to a stand, using the wall to brace himself. He gives me a single heated glare, then stalks off.

  I look down at Jewell and cover her hands with my own; that electric signature begins humming between us, and I feel my body respond. The passion of violence lies dangerously close to sex for me, and the adrenaline that I summoned to deal with Adams awoke that need.

  But instead of gripping her body tight against mine, ravaging her like every part of me aches to do, I summon my self-control. “What happened?”

  Her shoulder lifts in a delicate version of a shrug, and my eyes catch on that sliver of flesh at the base of her throat, like a captured butterfly beneath the veil and cover of skin. Her heart beats toward escape. I want to lay my lips there so badly I bite my nails into my palms to keep from seeing the impulse through.

  “He’s mad because Brad put him in his place last week,” she explains, her voice shaky with the strain of the last few minutes. “I don’t know why he’s become fixated on me.” Her eyes roll to mine, still wide, still scared, but a little edge of trust glows from her. For me.

  She trusts me. Jesus, what a mess. My eyes slide from hers. Back in box.

 
“Gunner?” I clarify for her benefit, switching gears instantly to Dec’s alias: Brad Gunner.

  She cocks an arched brow that looks suspiciously dark against her golden hair. Of course, I’m looking for it because I know the flame of red hidden under all that gold.

  Jewell nods. “Yeah,” she replies slowly, as a cute stripe of a frown appears between her brows. “Do you know everyone?”

  I smile. If she only knew. “Just about.” I stare down at her, memorizing every inch of her face, mesmerized by her closeness, that addict part of me begging for a fix. The mix of what I must do and what I want to do an alluring blend and just the cocktail I want. “But not you,” I say, my voice a low and husky drawl as I watch her eyes go to my mouth. And just like that, I know she wants me too.

  However, I feel her insecurity, her need to pull away, and we continue the verbal circle of small talk. “I don’t think he liked getting dressed down in front of me. Not that my existence should matter to a jerk like Brock,” she says quietly, like an afterthought, and I’m left to wonder why she dismisses herself so quickly.

  Jewell is still looking at me when her face suddenly changes expression like she’s hit on something funny, and a giggle escapes. I feel my eyes move to her mouth.

  “What’s so funny? Didn’t I just interrupt an extreme manhandle there?”

  She nods, a huge grin plastered on her face. “I was experiencing a pang of jealousy over your lashes and thinking you’d never need mascara.” She covers her mouth, still trembling slightly after the encounter with Adams, I’m guessing.

  Or busy having a laugh at my reaction. I frown at the thought of makeup or the notice of my eyelashes for shit’s sake and guide the conversation back to Brock. “You gotta watch him,” I say, my eyes flicking away from those kissable lips to where Luke disappeared. “He’s got a rep. And now he’ll be all ass hurt because I stopped him from threatening you.”

  That isn’t the half of it, but it’s all I can say.

  “I hear you have a rep too,” Jewell says in a coy tone that baits, her level stare on mine, and I know her friends have passed on the gossip. My ruse for the Bureau is working. I’m just dangerous enough to intrigue, just protective enough to be safe. It worked.

  So why don’t I feel triumphant?

  Jewell stands indecisively before me as we stare at each other, looking like she’ll bolt, and then suddenly she says, “Well, it’s not like he was going to get a date the way he went about it!” She gives another nervous laugh and folds her arms underneath her ballet top that covers her completely. That’s why it’s tough to look at, it’s that subtle sexy I love. It shows every line, every curve, wrapped in a package of sleek black, her breasts offered up by her arms in and unwitting frame just for my eyes.

  I reach out against my express will. Everything I’ve commanded myself against doing I ignore, so I can touch her.

  I need to touch her.

  I shift the lightweight sweater off her shoulder and look at the prints of Luke’s fingers on her skin. For now, there’s a well of silence as students are occupied with things between school hours.

  It’s just Jewell and me.

  My mouth thins into an angry line. “You’ll have a bruise,” I say, then seethe, “That bastard.” I drop my hands and clench my fists. “He needs a real beat down.”

  I realize I mean it and thank whatever’s holy that Adams isn’t in front of me now.

  I can’t stand the wounds on her body, I can’t stand not touching them. As if I could erase their appearance.

  Her lips curl into a sardonic smile. What can possibly be funny?

  “Was that a fake one?” Jewell asks, her lips curling as she tries to lighten it all. “Do you always just show up at exactly the right time for saving me, Cas?” She buries me with her eyes, her question holding a weight only Jewell possesses.

  I give her a slow nod as our eyes lock.

  I can’t ignore the primal attraction that screams between us any longer. I back Jewell against the wall, caging her in with my hands spread beside her head, my fingers against the rough brick of the wall. I can almost hear her heart speed, and it makes me hard instantly. This is so wrong. She’s the subject. But if it’s so wrong, why does her body feel so right?

  5

  I trap her against that rough surface, my fingers splayed against the brick.

  Mine.

  “What are you doing?” Jewell asks, her breaths coming in shallow almost gasps.

  I trail a finger down her face, temple to jaw, then cup her chin, forcing her eyes to meet mine.

  “What I should have done the moment I saw you with Maverick.”

  I lean in until I can smell the heat off her skin like steam, the light sweat that is the smell of female and heavens. Uniquely Jewell.

  “May I kiss you, Jess?” I whisper above her mouth. I suddenly feel that I need her permission.

  I feel her hesitation, her intellect struggling to reassert itself against our chemistry. The animal magnetism roars for release, and I see in her eyes when she frees it, giving her assent. “Yes, you may,” she answers, just as quietly as her eyes flutter closed.

  The word sets me loose, and I slam my mouth against hers, dropping my hands to the small of her back, cupping the twin bones into my palms where they fit like they’re custom-made for my caress, and as I come up for air, I groan and sink back down into her wet mouth, her gasping breaths coming shorter, closer. Harder.

  Her small hands clench and release me, the material of my shirt bunching up in her fingers.

  Still, there’s a piece of Jewell that resists, and I go after it with the intensity that she provokes from me. “Respond,” I growl in a warning. I’m commanding her to give in, to own what her body’s begging from her.

  Jewell moves deeper into the line of my body, molding against me perfectly, and I wrap one hand around the tightness of her ass, her leotard so thin that I can feel the heat and press of her skin through the material. I jerk her harder against me even as I pull away enough to palm her tit in my hand. Jewell moans at the roughness as I soak in the verbal cue for what it is: She’s liking it. She’s either inexperienced, or there’s a wildness in Jewell that I draw out. With one hand on her ass, I roll her nipple with the other in a supple flick and tweak, and a soft whimper escapes her as she spreads her knees for me.

  I move between them, pushing my dick between the cleft she offers, and Jewell gasps out, “Cas. We shouldn’t here.” Her breath warms my neck, her fingers kneading the bare skin of my lats.

  I can feel her split softly as I move against her, and my fingers use each rib like a ladder, walking down, down, down the rungs of delicately constructed bones until my hand breaches the last frontier.

  “Stop,” Jewel pleads as my hand hovers over her heat, the sex I want to touch so badly I feel my mouth salivate. Her words contradict her body as she moves tighter against me with a small, reflexive grind against my hand, and I groan.

  “Your body says yes,” I say against her neck as I peck and lick a trail of feathering kisses between her earlobe and collarbone. Even as she says no, her body lurches against mine again. “I taste your sweat, your sweetness,” I say, having abandoned her ass for her front, working her neck with my mouth, beneath her breast with the other hand as I begin to touch her.

  “Get off her!”

  I glance in the direction of the voice. Maverick. Fucking figures.

  I watch with some amusement as Jewell’s flush deepens, her eyes flitting to the dick hole behind me as I turn to face Maverick and hear a groan from Jewell. Not the kind I want to hear.

  I scowl at Maverick, the fucking cock block.

  “What’s going on here?” Maverick asks, his eyes scanning the two of us. Is he fucking stupid? What does it look like? I wonder incredulously.

  “I . . .” Jewell begins timidly.

  Fuck this. “I was tonguing your girlfriend, Maverick,” I say as I wrap Jewell against my side.

  This is kinda fun, I think, watchin
g Maverick begin to implode. If he thinks he’s froggy enough to jump on my lily pad, well, I’ll give it a go.

  “You fuckup,” Maverick seethes at me, and I grin back at him.

  But when he turns all his malice on Jewell, my amusement fades to anger.

  “You’re with Castile now? Seriously?” he asks, and I look at him. Mr. Lacrosse pretty boy. My eyes narrow at him. He’s just fucking off somehow. Too perfect. The idea forms and sails through my mind, beginning to take shape when Jewell shoves me.

  “No!” she half yells in answer. I stagger back with my hand over my heart like she’s wounding me. “Stop playing me, Cas,” she yells.

  “He . . . Brock . . .” Jewell covers her face with her hands, taking deep shaky breaths, and I watch Maverick watch her. I can tell she’s ten different kinds of embarrassed, and I’m partly the cause. Jewell slowly lowers her hands. “Cas helped me with Brock,” she finally states, boldly meeting Maverick’s stare.

  “Uh-huh,” Maverick says with thick disbelief, his eyes landing on me.

  Prick, I think, looking from Jewell to Maverick. I’m torn over a woman. A woman I swore to hate. But suddenly, being with her, feeling her so vulnerable against me, my forced hatred has given way to something entirely different. Sometimes love masquerades as different emotions but rises like cream on milk.

  I had a perfect plan, but Jewell MacLeod just played fiftytwo pickup with my heart.

  I know damn well Mitch Maverick isn’t what she needs. There’s something wild in Jewell, and it calls to me to set it free. It’s impossible to ignore. It begs that part of Jewell she’s not aware of. That simp Maverick would put her through the missionary-style paces, but they wouldn’t be the ones she needs.

  Jewell doesn’t know what she needs. I do.

  Jewell turns to go, disgust for both of us evident on her expression, and Maverick tries to grovel.

  Too little, too late, sucker. My smile widens again, happier than a pig in shit. This just gets better and better.

  “Jess, wait,” Maverick calls after her, and I can hear the sugar dripping from his voice and give a hard eye roll. Pussy.