A Brutal Tenderness

by Marata Eros

She takes a cautious step back; she knows when she sees something wild.

  “What are you going to do about it, huh?” I ask, walking toward her.

  Carlie stands her ground. “I don’t know. I just wanted to put you on notice.” Her eyes search my face, and I let her see what everyone sees.

  Nothing.

  She sighs. “Jess has been through some tough stuff.”

  Does Carlie know? My step slows, and then Carlie answers the question she sees on my face. “I don’t know what secret she’s guarding, but Jess has been hurt.” She flips a long spiral curl behind her shoulder and moves forward again. “She doesn’t need any more hurt, Castile.”

  My shoulders relax. There are more innocents in danger if others know who Jewell really is. Thad has a large appetite. How many more deaths might pile up before we can nail his sick ass?

  I gaze down at Carlie, who is so fearless, who reminds me so much of Faith it makes my teeth ache, and I know she’s vulnerable too.

  But I play my part.

  “She’s not an infant, Carlie,” I state logically.

  Of course, logic is an art lost on most women. They get all the intuition, and we get stuck with the logic. God is up in heaven with a large keyboard that has two buttons: humility and humor.

  “It’s not about that,” she seethes, her hands in fists.

  “She’s seeing Maverick anyway,” I say in my defense. Two can play are my unspoken words. I’m not the only player, my inference comes across loud and clear. I spread my palms out, like see?

  Carlie puts her fists on her hips, then lifts a hand, fluttering her fingers like bird’s wings. “He’s an appetizer, stud,” she says dismissively, giving me her version of a hard look. “You’re the entree. And I, for one, don’t want her to get a never-ending case of indigestion.”

  I move into her personal space. “Have you warned her off me?” I ask quietly.

  Her eyes search mine. “Not yet.”

  I can feel the surprise on my face. “Really?” I drawl.

  “Yeah, really,” she says, stomping a heel dangerously close to my boot. Bet she wants to spear me. My eyes flick to her shoe, and when they meet hers again, she gives me an evil smile.

  “Why not?” I look at her with my question, gauging her reaction. “I mean . . .” My eyes pass over her body with feigned interest. I’m in the middle of a raging obsession. I might as well be a eunuch right now, courtesy of Jewell. She gives a grunt of disgust and takes a step back as I give my best lascivious smile. “I mean,” I begin as I prowl toward her, regaining every step she puts between us, “if I’m such a man-whore, you should warn your dancing friend. Right?”

  “Gawd, just keep your distance, ya pimp! Just . . . keep . . . your distance!” she says, and I stop, a small grin on my face as my point is made, her discomfort obvious and advantageous. It is a difficult thing to make someone like Carlie squirm in her own skin. It’s almost unfair that I use my education and experience against an unarmed opponent.

  Again, necessary.

  “I didn’t tell her about Madison because . . .” She drops her eyes and I wait. When she raises them, she meets my stare. “Because I think it would make her want you more.”

  Insightful, I marvel. She’d make a great agent, I note randomly.

  “Jess doesn’t have good instincts, Castile. It’s like she’s one of those girls without self-preservation instincts in place. Like the perfect . . .” She can’t say it because saying it will make it real. I do instead.

  “Victim?”

  She gives me a sharp look and nods.

  “I don’t plan on victimizing Jess,” I say in a flat voice, crossing my arms again.

  I have an entirely different agenda.

  Carlie shakes her head, the riot of curls bouncing around her shoulders. I can tell she is going to bestow a point of clarity if it kills her. “No, you won’t mean to, but it’s what might happen. Jess is naïve. She doesn’t know how to deal with someone like you.”

  Carlie doesn’t either.

  I step forward and she literally digs in her heels. “I’m giving her what she needs, Carlie,” I say quietly.

  Her eyes shine at me and I swallow. Jesus, don’t cry. Not that.

  I watch her pull herself together, relieved she’s not going to fall apart. “What she needs might not be good for her, Castile. Don’t you see?” she pleads with me, begging with her eyes for me to be a good boy and leave Jess alone.

  I can’t. I couldn’t if I wanted to, which I don’t.

  “What do you think she needs?” Carlie asks in a whisper.

  “Me,” I say simply.

  “What?” she asks, her eyebrows raised.

  “All of me,” I say with the first sincerity of the conversation as I pivot and leave.

  That’s enough truth for now, maybe forever.

  I leave Jewell’s best friend in the courtyard that day with more questions than answers.

  I watch Jewell come to me with a tightly sprung reluctance, her normal grace replaced by guarded anticipation. Even from the distance across the smoothly manicured stripe of lawn that separates the dorms from the parking area, I see it on her body as she closes the distance.

  Clearwater is still on “vacation” from primary for his scripted beating of “Brock,” clearing the way for Thad to wrongly assume that some of the males sniffing around his prey are out of the picture, with only one remaining.

  Me.

  Brock has only one more performance to execute, and it better be Oscar-worthy because Thad has to feel his control is tenuous at best, that he must act now.

  As she draws nearer, I wait in staged nonchalance, as tightly strung as I’ve ever been in my life, leaning up against my bike, a spider waiting for the prey. I’m always in control, especially with my emotions. They roam the guts of what makes me tick, never rising to the surface. I’ve been with lots of woman, the soft heat of their bodies a welcome distraction.

  Jewell is different. At first I believed it was my role as her protector that made me feel this way. However, I’ve protected before and felt nothing more than a cursory and deliberate detachment. It’s more than that.

  Suddenly my thoughts turn to Faith. Faith knew we were tailor-made for each other long before I could let go of my hatred in the wake of her death. There’d been plenty of other women, but none I loved. My heart never beat for anyone but myself.

  I look down at my scuffed black boots, recrossing them, thinking of Faith’s words before she died.

  “I’ve got the girl for you!” she said for the millionth time. I raised my palm. “No. No bullshit matchmaking. Just let me sow my oats in peace.” I said it with a smile, but there was a subtle warning threaded through my words. I hate being fucking handled. Even by Faith.

  She huffed, flicking a strand of hair behind her shoulder. Faith’s coloring was given to her courtesy of my auth and shared by myself.

  “You’ll see, Cas. She’s different.” My face went dark. I didn’t need some rich girl. Don’t dig that package: the selfishness, the maintenance, the commitment. No. Just no.

  “Nah, I got the job. I don’t need the entanglement.” Faith got a subtle blush on her face.

  My brows rose, my eyes narrowing on the evidence of

  shame. “What did you do?” I asked slowly as my hands landed on my hips. Faith bit her lip. Bad sign. “Well, I kinda told Jewell you’d go out with her.”

  “What the hell?” I scrubbed my head and paced away from her better to turn away than use words that maim, then spun around. “I don’t want to date your rich little girlfriend, Faith.” My eyes peg hers. “Don’t push me on this. She’s got a senator for a father, a whack-job for a brother . . .”

  A shadow crossed her eyes, and I straightened, my earlier irritation vanishing. “What? Has something happened?” I feel my body tense.

  Faith looked at me. “He’s threatening her, Cas.”

  I stopped breathing. Faith was like a sister to me. We were both only children, just a
few years separating us, and my aunt half raised me. I was more a big brother than the cousin I really was. “Is he threatening you?”

  She shook her head. “No, he knows I’ll go and rat out his dickless ass.”

  I smirked. So classy, my Faith.

  “Jewell’s not my responsibility. You are.”

  Faith frowned. “No, I’m not.” She stopped when she saw my expression.

  I rolled my shoulders into a shrug, saying nothing. We’d had the discussion before. She wanted independence, and I wanted her safe. And safe was not going over to the MacLeods’ McMansion where that fuck-up perv lived. Best friend or not, she had to watch out for her own safety.

  Faith moved toward me, and I flicked my eyes away. She knew I had a soft spot for her. “Please, Blaine, just see if it would work.” She looked up at me with her big puppy dog eyes, working me.

  I grunted, folding my arms again. “What does she say?”

  Faith brightened at my softening, then sighed. “She just broke up with a guy. He couldn’t deal with the melodrama of Thad.”

  I gave an exasperated laugh. “What makes you think, one, I want to date her? Two, that it wouldn’t compromise what I do?”

  “Why does it always come back to the Bureau?” Faith asked. Aren’t you allowed to have a life?” I knew Faith saw my workaholic ways and wanted to help. But why Jewell MacLeod? She was barely eighteen, and I was twenty-four, a year past graduating from the academy, with a great future ahead of me—a plan. And it didn’t include a relationship. I didn’t need to coddle some whiny society girl barely out of high school.

  “Trust me, Cas. She’s perfect for you.”

  I looked at her and caved, knowing Faith wouldn’t stop until I said yes. “One date?”

  She nodded her head excitedly, holding up her index finger. “One!”

  “Wait!” I said as Faith tried to escape after wheedling her agenda. “Why her? Out of the three billion women on the planet, why do I need a ballerina with baggage?”

  Faith’s smile was brilliant, certain, absolute. I would have committed it to memory if I’d known I’d never see it again. Her face is fuzzy now, but not her words: “I have a feeling about you two.”

  Faith had skipped out of my house that day, confident in her matchmaking skills.

  A week later, she was in the ground, and the girl I was supposed to have a blind date with wept over her coffin.

  Now Jewell stands before me, a match made by my dead cousin, Jewell none the wiser that I’m Faith’s cousin.

  Destiny has a sense of humor.

  I shake off the disquieting memories as I straighten

  and move toward Jewell, neither of us talking. It’s like this

  moment’s been set since time began and we’re moving toward

  the inevitable. The pull of her is a real thing to me, physical. I

  don’t fight it, I don’t need to.

  She’s agreed. Jewell’s permission has released my desire to

  dominate her, own her.

  I hold out my hand and Jewell moves into my arms as I fold them around her, just holding her against me, the perfect key to my lock. I clasp both her dainty wrists in the palm of one hand, putting them at the small of her back. Jewell’s unbalanced, necessitating moving backward, which exposes her throat, and I watch that pulse beat erratically with what I’m doing. Jewell’s my opposite, my complement. I want to consume her and she

  wishes to be consumed, though she may not realize it yet. “I shouldn’t do this . . .” she whispers as I hold her wrists.

  Jewell’s head tips back and I eat at that hot little pulse in the

  hollow of her throat, never releasing my hold. I keep her bound

  with one hand and bury the other in the back of her hair. “Then why are you?” I ask softly against her neck. The plaits twine with my fingers perfectly as I tighten my

  hold, the warmth of my breath the prelude to my kisses on

  her collarbone, begging for attention. I work from the farthest

  corner of her shoulder until I make my way to the center as she

  gives a small whimper of pleasure.

  “I need to . . . I have to . . .” Jewell tries to answer in a voice

  gone rough with her desire.

  My breathing changes at her words, Jewell’s blatant

  passion causes my body to harden against her as her breathing

  quickens. It doesn’t matter that we’re in the parking lot, that

  there could be witnesses. Our heat for each other bleeds out

  everywhere, for all to see. I rein it in with a supreme effort. “We’re going, or we’ll give people a show,” I say against

  her flushed skin, a case of raging blue balls settling in for the

  duration. I finally raise my head to her face, gripping her hair a

  little tighter, and watch the breath catch in her throat. The moment hangs suspended, too short . . . and going on

  forever.

  Jewell likes it, that finely held control; fear and excitement

  war with each other in her eyes. Then I say what I swore to

  myself I wouldn’t, changing the dynamic between us. I can’t

  help it, it’s compulsive. I know what it means for me, for us,

  but I don’t analyze it or I’ll quit this thing between us before it

  starts. “Promise me you won’t do that again.”

  She looks at me and finally realizes what I’m asking. I never

  want someone to hit Jewell again. It’d be more than losing my

  job, it’d mean jail time.

  I’ll kill him.

  My mind supplies the image of Jewell, her handbag spilled

  on the wet pavement, purged of its contents. Her supple

  dancer’s feet encased in fragile little heels, the tense male body

  between her and me—the moment when I know he’ll hit her. I shut my eyes, then open them, nailing her with a level

  stare.

  “I won’t have you in harm’s way,” I add, kissing the tip of

  her nose, the skin of her face warm from the grip I have on her

  hair, the kisses I place everywhere there’s exposed skin. “I can’t

  protect you if you’re walking in front of the truck, Jess.” I hold my breath as my heart lies open in her hands, beating

  and ready for massacre.

  “I don’t know why you have to.” Her eyes move through

  mine like smoke, and there’s no barrier there to keep her out. But Jewell doesn’t crush my fragile attempt at truth, at real

  emotions. The things that happen to others.

  That are now happening to me.

  I see it before she knows she’s given it.

  Her trust.

  It shines out of her eyes, her body . . . all of Jewell is held in

  that look she gives me, and I suddenly know why Faith thought

  we’d be perfect.

  “I just do,” I reply and hold her tight against me, our

  heartbeats working in tandem, like they’re reluctant to part. Jewell is that missing piece of me I’ve been looking for and

  didn’t know it.

  Faith was intuitive enough to see it in us both.

  Jewell’s missing something too, and I’m the fix for that. We’re the fix for each other.

  No more broken . . . but whole again.

  10

  I feel Jewell’s heat pressed against my back as we ride toward my apartment, my heart speeding with anticipation. Her arms encircle my body from behind, feeling as right as the bike beneath me. A recipe for perfection.

  My apartment’s located very close to the campus by design, and it’s in a turn-of-the-last-century group of cloistered rooms that were later broken down to even smaller-size units for troops during World War II. But what they lack in space, they make up for in tall ceilings, wood floors, and windows that allow light to pour through, bathing the dim corners of my temporary dwelling. A critic
al component in a place that rains more often than not.

  I pull into my parking slot, tapping the kickstand down. My eyes scan my surroundings as they always do, taking in the solid brick structure that rises into the grayness of the sky like a salute of stone, the arches in the windows accented by central keystones like eyebrows. Their placement feels like gaze of glass that watches us.

  I don’t turn around but grab Jewell’s hand and haul her behind me, my heart thumping in a loud and fast rhythm inside my chest—tight with excitement, tight with fear.

  I’m falling without end, like in a dream where you fall endlessly without landing. I keep the hope that I can catch myself.

  A small and secret part of me knows I won’t. Jewell’s not the only one without self-preservation instincts; mine have gone AWOL.

  We walk hand in hand into the dark hall that leads to the stairs. Our feet take the treads of exposed aggregate pebbles, a nod to the ’70s when stairs were added to stuff even more humans in a sardine can of brick. We climb the single flight to my apartment door with purpose.

  I jam the key in the lock and swing the door open as I release Jewell. She walks through, missing the varied floor height in a stumble that’s the first klutzy thing I’ve ever seen her do. I snag her, swinging her around. It’s as good an excuse as any to lay my hands on her. I kick the door shut behind me and walk us to my bedroom, her feet on mine, my forehead pressed to hers. I shove my bedroom door open with my palm, knowing the weight of the solid fir door needs the momentum or it’ll just fight back. It opens with a smooth groan and I toss Jewell on my bed. She bounces, wide-eyed and flushed, from the ride or our closeness or my actions, I don’t know.

  “Oh, my God.” She laughs, a fine tremble in her elegant hand as it covers her mouth. Jewell’s eyes are bright above her hand. Sexy and engaging me.

  Seeing Jewell in my bed, where I’ve wanted her since I saw her dance in that audition, does something to me. Suddenly, I can’t stand not being against her . . . in her. Jewell sees it on my face as hers grows serious in response. Whatever my expression says prompts anxiety, and Jewell moves away from me until her back presses against the headboard.

  Not the response I’m looking for.

  However, I have a remedy.

  “No second thoughts, Jess,” I say in soft reminder.