A Brutal Tenderness (19 page)

“Holy shit . . . who pissed in your Wheaties?” Adams asks as I
relieve him as primary.
“It’s been a few days, so just let me recap.”
He puts up his hands and I blow him off. He fucking asked.
“I don’t need to know that bad, Steel. You’ve been on
your goddamned period since our girl was released from the
hospital . . .”
Yeah, and the cramps are killing me.
“You didn’t . . . oh, for fuck’s sake, you didn’t do Jewell after
O’Rourke gave you the ax?” he asks, making a slicing gesture
over his neck.
I shake my head. “No.” I scowl before I continue, “not that
I’d tell your stupid ass. This isn’t high school, Luke.”
“No, but she’s a target and you’re dipping your wick.”
Shit.
He sees my anger and says, “Sorry, I’m not trying to bust
your chops, but you’re so fucking unreasonable with this girl
and you used to be . . . I don’t know, so casual?” Adams looks at
me and sighs, placing his fists on his hips. “What happened?”
“Jewell happened,” I say.
“Clearly,” Luke says, rolling his eyes to the heavens.
The silence spins out as we watch the subject and her
girlfriends at the cafeteria. Her eyes are swollen, I note.
From crying.
I exhale loudly.
“What’s happened?” Luke asks.
“I tried to tell her how I feel.”
“Oh holy mother of God,” Luke mutters.
“What . . . am I that bad at it?”
Luke looks at me, then bursts out laughing, both of us rising
up from our scopes. “You have to ask?”
Nice.
Okay, fuck it. “I fucked up, she told me to get lost.”
“Looks like that helped Maverick out.”
What? I bury my head against the binoculars, the tripod
trembling against my press. “That fucktard,” I growl, and
Adams replies, “Probably.”
I hate that guy.
“He’s apologizing.”
Right.
I study Maverick’s body language. When Jewell agrees to
walk away with him, my eyes look at Carlie, and her body
language is wary.
I don’t like it. Of course, I never have.
I stand.
“No,” Luke says, getting ready to hand me over the shift.
“Fuck yes.”
“Cas, you’ll kick his ass, you’re too close.”
I rip my arm out of his grasp. “I’ve got this, Luke. I don’t
need a babysitter.”
He looks at me, then gives a disgusted sigh. “Shit,” he
mutters under his breath as I tail them easily.
I watch, close enough to catch their words, amplified by
a place not far from the courtyard. I lean closer, cupping my
ears as I’ve been trained to do, amplifying the sounds of their
conversation.
I miss some, but what I hear now is enough.
“I’m not a whore,” Jewell says so softly I think I hear it
wrong. Bitter and numbing adrenaline sears inside my veins.
Maverick’s dead, he just doesn’t know it.
She swipes at eyes so swollen and red I have to fight not go
to her right then, kissing her tender lids until those tears I’ve
caused cease. I close my eyes in a slow blink, and when I open
them Maverick is moving toward her.
“Jesus, Jess  .  .  . I know. Come here.” He strokes her hair,
shushing her, and I realize Luke is so right. I shouldn’t be here.
But I am.
I step out into the open, the hands that have been cupping
my ears dropping to my sides. “Get your fucking hands off her,”
I say, and it isn’t a request, that earlier fire inside me like molten
energy I feed off automatically.
Maverick’s gaze locks with mine, and I swear I see the ghost
of a smile curl that mouth from neutral to cruel, and that sense
of his wrongness superimposes itself over who most see and it
shakes me, firing up my instincts.
“Why don’t you ask Jess what she wants, Devin?” he asks,
distracting me.
I stand there stupidly, my body and mind in an unbalance of
dual intent.
“Well?” Maverick says in a light, mocking tone. “Ask her,
Castile.”
“Jess,” I say. My voice catches on her name, so I swallow
to speak again, but she speaks first: “Go away, Devin.” And it
scoops me out to hear that false name from her lips after I’ve
heard her cry out my real name while I move inside her.
“Look at me. Tell me you want Mitch, and I’ll go.” I
promise myself that I will.
So empty, I’m so empty.
“I don’t want you,” Jewell says from his arms, and my body
goes numb, feeling seeping out like sand through a sieve, the
fire to fight cooling.
“You’re lying,” I recite. She must be. I’ve seen her face, I
know Jewell wants me. Maybe even loves me . . . like I love her.
“You heard her,” Maverick says, never losing his superior
grin.
I move closer and her eyes follow me, huddling against that
fuck Maverick, who is clearly enjoying the show.
“I want Mitch,” she says, her eyes cold like her voice, and I
stagger back a little. I stare at Jewell a moment longer, trying to
gauge her sincerity.
I have to leave. Another moment of seeing her with Mitch
will be a death sentence.
For him.
I turn and go. Every step away from Jewell is a torture.
I imagine I can feel her eyes on me as I walk away from her,
from us.
Wishful thinking. It’ll fuck you every time.
Still, I hope.

Good, Jewell, make all the friends you want so I can
cripple you with their demise, Thad thought with a sigh of
unrestrained joy.

He watches the two women, their hands warming on coffee
from the local university coffeehouse and gets a little thrill deep
inside himself.

Thad recognizes the feeling. The preemptive thrill of the
kill. The gradual climb to the top of the fruits of his labors.
His finesse is what has brought this entire plan full circle. Not
Ben’s—his own.

It is Ben who’s broken into his thoughts. Of the two
of them, he is the more volatile. “Does that Shelby cunt
complicate things?” Ben asks without looking up from his
binoculars, very much like the ones the feds who watch Jewell
use.

“No,” Thad says. “I’ve worked through every possible
contingency there could be and ones that I haven’t.”
Thad smiles and Ben grins back. “I get to scalp that Navajo
fed tonight,” he says as a promise.
“Yes, that will be quite . . . satisfying.”
“I don’t like him  .  .  . those fucking Nates give me the
creeps,” Ben says with a shudder.
Thad nods in agreement.
“But he’s not Jewell, so not as fun,” Ben pouts.
“Death is always a reward for patience,” Thad says and Ben
snorts.
“I doubt that most people have that perspective.”
Thad agrees. “We are not most.”
“Fuck no,” Ben agrees, dipping his head once more to the
binoculars. When the girls leave the coffee shop, he stands.
Thad looks up at him from his prone position. “You will
take care of the fed?” he says, more a statement than a question.
Ben gives a chilling smile that warms Thad, giving him
confidence in his prodigy’s skills. “Yes, that one.” Then his face
bleeds to introspection. “What about that stick of dynamite?”
“Devin Castile?” Thad asks for clarity’s sake. Unpredictable,
a wild card. Thad hates people whose actions cannot be
anticipated, who have the potential to muddy the clear waters
of his plan.
Ben nods. “Yeah.”
Thad has a wonderful plan for Castile. Though he is aware
the feds are trying to execute some sort of an elaborate game,
they are woefully out of their league, as they will soon find out.
His money has seen to the purchase of a mole within their
numbers—Thad’s eyes and ears.
“I think we will eviscerate him with the discovery of our
deeds alone.”
A slow smile spreads on Ben’s face, his gray eyes almost
silver in the weak light from their position across from the
coffeehouse, the deserted warehouse perfect for their quick
needs of reconnaissance.
“He might be the lackey of the feds, doing their dirty
work . . .”Thad begins, but Ben sums it up perfectly, “He gives a
shit about our Jewell.”
“More than a shit,” Thad says thoughtfully, nodding.
“Perfect,” Ben says.
“Yes,” Thad agrees, standing as well.
“First, let’s get our trophy before the feds stick their imbecile
noses up their own asses.”
“The slippers?” Ben clarifies with a small frown.
Thad nods. “Once that is accomplished, we can make our
way to Jewell’s meager accommodations.” It makes Thad’s cock
swell to think of the fun that will be had this night.
Oh, yes.
After all his careful planning, he will finally realize his coup
de grâce.
The brothers make their way to the girls’ locker room where
Jewell’s belongings are stored. He wants those shoes she’s
danced in. He wants a keepsake of talent cut short, beauty
broken by his hands.
Thad will have it.
Just as he will have Jewell.

I take a pull from my chilled brewski, the pleasure of the
cold slide of beer refreshing inside the blistered heat of my
body after getting hammered by some two-on-one. I need it,
crave it. After that bullshit dump from Jewell . . . God, I need
something.

I roll the cold bottle against my hot forehead, my heartbeat
still fast from what I’ve put my body through.
“Gonna bounce tonight, Cas?” Adams asks.
I nod. “Yep.”
“Just like that,” he says.
I turn. “Yeah,” I say, noting his smug grin. He knows I’m
burying the pain of the bullshit of Jewell. So what? It’s what
I’m good at.
Clearwater stands, throwing a wad of cash on the polished
top of the bar, the old-fashioned kind from back in the ’50s
when a plank of wood came thirty feet long as standard. It
shines like a mirror, his tumbler of whiskey a dull drop of
reflective crystal against the surface. Two fingers before his shift
is a departure for Clearwater, a precedent. I instantly wonder
what’s got him wound, ’cause not much does, he’s a Zen sort of
guy.
I dip my chin, sucking in a deep breath, the smells of the
tavern waft and fill my nostrils: people, sweat, that slight rank
smell of spoiled fruit . . . and in the head, there’d be the smell of
piss. Some things remain the same.
I smile at that dose of normalcy. Just a drink with my fellow
agents.
Right. Then why do things feel so screwed? A indefinable
quality of surreal surrounds the ninth hour of an investigation I
know is closing.
Clearwater’s got a bad feeling, and so do I. We’re as nervous
as a bunch of cats thrown into a room with rockers, every one
of them in motion. It isn’t a matter of if your tail will get nailed,
but when.
Clearwater gives my shoulder a guy clap—hard, definitive.
“Give it time, Cas . . .”
“Don’t. I think we fucking fought it out, right?” My
internal tension ratchets up another notch with his attempt at
condolence.
Dec smiles, doing a slow nod. “I think we did, yes.”
“Go do primary, then,” I say, taking the last pull of my beer
and standing as well. I have a shift to bounce at Skoochies. I
have plenty more aggression where the rest came from. I move
to pull out money, but Clearwater says, “Nah, I got it.” He taps
the bar top where the cash sits.
“Thanks,” I say, and Adams smirks. “Generous of ya.”
Decatur grins, sweeping his long dark hair into a tie at his
nape, effortlessly adopting the persona of Brad, his spiritual
intensity and serious personality flow underneath the carefree,
don’t-give-a-shit Brad. It’s something to witness.
A chameleon.
A sudden intense vertigo doubles my vision for a second,
an epiphany of epic proportions slides through my mind, and
suddenly out of nowhere I think of Maverick.
I struggle to grasp the wispy mental thread of connection.
Could Maverick be something more than a rival? Why has
my watching Clearwater put on his “Brad mask” triggered
something? Should I push the constraints of the budget to get
him checked out? Not a superficial check—that’s automatic—
but deep. Like I want.
“What? You’ve thought of something?” Clearwater asks,
his hawklike eyes pegging mine like a target. Adams silently
watches my mental wheels churn. He’s worked beside me for a
while, he knows I have to work things through.
I slowly nod. “I’m thinking our boy Maverick stinks.”
Adams puts his down his empty beer bottle, scrubbing a
tired hand over his face, his camouflage in perfect place. He
no longer looks like the Brock who should be in jail. Our press
clock ticking on and on.
And we’re out of time.
“Don’t pursue this,” Adams says. “You know it’s all because
of the fucking subject . . .”
“No.”
“You got a feeling, Cas?” Clearwater asks quietly but not
like he doesn’t believe.
Like he does.
“I think he’s more.”
“Listen to yourself, Cas. How does he fit?”
I have. He doesn’t, but somehow, I can’t shake his
involvement. It’s something I can’t put my finger on.
“Ask for a background,” I tell Luke.
He shakes his head, weary over the earlier argument of
going deep on Maverick’s background.
I put up a hand. “My dime.”
Clearwater whistles. “Holy fucking smokes. That’s going to
cost.”
Adams’s serious eyes meet mine. “Nope,” I say, calm as a
priest taking confession.
“Fine. But I’m not explaining this bullshit to O’Rourke. I’m
done with it.”
We look at each other, and I give a nod to the boys as I
leave: Brock on secondary disguised as himself and Brad on
primary.
I turn at the last minute and glance at Clearwater. “Watch
yourself.”
He lifts his chin in acknowledgment, his eyes swallowed by
the gloom, blacker than black.
Dead.

A light sweat covers my body though it’s well into December,
colder outside than it has a right to be in damp Seattle. But
in the deep heated pockets of the throbbing club, it’s a sauna,
bodies press in at all sides like a wall of flesh, encapsulating,
suffocating.

But Jewell’s heat is unique to my senses, and I feel it like a
warm burst and turn instinctively like a missile on a course.
Jewell moves past my fellow bouncer, a glittering aqua top
swaying with her movements, her natural grace allowing the
top to become alive on her body. I watch the disco strobe pulse
over her, flashing pieces of silver over the cutouts of the top,
slivers of her flesh within tantalizing view as my eyes swallow
her whole.
I give a hard gulp, watching Jewell from the shadows, my
cell in my pocket, waiting for the word on Maverick. Hoping
my hunch is right, that somehow that fucker’s involved in this
and I’m not just shooting in the breeze. Hoping I’m wrong as
I think about all the times Jewell’s been alone with him, semiunprotected. I’m aware how unlikely it is anyone other than
Thad. However, I can’t stop that nagging in the back of my
head.
It’s the same feeling I get when the Scent is reeking so bad I
choke from the stench. They’re not so far removed: gut instinct
and fact. Sometimes all that separates the two can be cut with
a razor’s edge.
My eyes move with hunger over Jewell, the skin-tight pants
lovingly hugging her graceful curves, and I close my eyes, my
desire reaching out to her with the power of its weight. When I
open them she’s already dancing.
Not ballet, but ball-busting, sucker-punching  .  .  . sex-inheels fantasy come alive.
My fantasy . . . my reality.
I stay where I am for all of three seconds and then move
toward her, ignoring everyone around me. I plow through the
steam of people, wayward limbs brushing me as I move onto
the small dance floor.
My eyes never leave her form as Jewell sways, her hips
moving to the beat, the colors from the rotating ceiling light
like shattered puzzle pieces of broken glass over her form as
they fall like rain, lighting some parts of her while casting
others in shadow.
I come up behind Jewel, stealing some of her natural grace.
I move into step with her, my hips pressed against her ass. My
erection comes to terrible intuitive life, rising to burst forth in a
stiff unrelenting tide of I want her now, and a groan escapes me
as I move into the heat of her body. Jewell responds by moving
deeper against me, our bodies like one that move in perfect
synchronicity.
She knows.
Jewell turns in my arms, her face unsurprised. I haul her
against me, my cock pressing against the front of her, leaving
nothing to guess about. I want her. If I could take her now, I
would. I’m not proud of it, but she stalls my thought process
like an engine without gas.
I feel her against me, so warm, so vital, so fucking brilliant
and real it’s a physical pain. “No,” she says, pushing me as her
eyes swim with tears.
“Yes,” I say. There’s not another word, and it’s not a script
anymore. I’ll never be able to role-play with her anyway. I never
could. I was lost before I started.
Our fingers part as Jewell runs from me, her spiky heels
stabbing the ground as the puddles of colored light jump and
quiver between her steps.
Fuck this. I move after her, the urgency I feel is a beating
tempo in my skull. Protect, protect . . . and its quieter neighbor,
claim.
“Hey!” Shelby says, inserting herself between me and Jewell,
and I smoothly outmaneuver her with a reach half the length
of her body.
Jewell turns to give me a piece of her mind and I take it,
right from her lips, jerking her so hard against my body I rip
the words out of her mouth as I eat the sounds she makes like
food.
Her words turn to a groan of sheer pleasure, our bodies as
close as two people can get with clothing.
“Way to play it cool, Jess!” Shelby shrieks over the pounding
music, the vibrations simple background to a sexual symphony
only we can hear.
But Shelby’s voice reminds Jewell of her anger, and she
steps away from me.
We stare at each other as those shapes of rainbow light
bounce and coalesce on our faces, then Jewell turns, leaving
through the back entrance, and I give only one glance at the
interior and leave Skoochies.
I won’t be coming back.
The cold wall of air hits me and I welcome it. My body is
slicked with sweat, not from the interior of the club, though
it’s hotter than Hades. I’m getting lathered up because Jewell is
here and she’s the woman who makes my bones melt.
And she’s pissed off.
I put up my palm inoffensively. “Don’t talk, Jess,” I say,
knowing words get us nowhere.
“No,” she says, backing away, shaking her head. I watch
her skin get tight, a riot of gooseflesh rising in the chilly air.
I can warm her . . . I can. “We don’t do enough of that. Has
something changed? Are you ready to tell me your secret?”
she asks. Her eyes find mine. “That’s what I thought,” she says
slowly.
Shelby gives me a head-to-toe eye rake of disdain and says
in a low voice, “Forget it, Jess.” She folds her arms, giving a
snort. “He’s not worth it. Kinda outta control, if you ask me.”
Absolutely, I mentally agree with her. “I didn’t. Ask. You.”
Fucking sideline commentary I don’t need.
Shelby grabs Jewell’s arm and begins to drag her along,
walking backward as she keeps her eyes on me. “Come on, Jess.
Let’s go get drunk or something . . .”
My guts instantly knot. No fucking way. A vulnerable Jewell
is prey . . . a certain victim.
“Okay,” Jewell agrees, and can’t read her face in this dark
fucking parking lot, every other streetlight busted out.
I can’t let her leave like this. “No . . . Jess. Don’t go off halfcocked. I know it’s my fault . . .”
It is.
Jewell spins and stabs her finger in my direction. “You got
that right.” Her anger beats against me like briar that scratches,
cuts, blinding me with the thorns of what I’ve done.
What I haven’t.
Jewell walks off fast, her arm looping through Shelby’s, and
I hiss a choice swearword between my teeth. She dips into
Shelby’s car, a last flash of glitter and skin disappearing under
the streetlight that no longer works, intermittent scattered light
spotting the car.
I flip open my cell, Clearwater will need to know this, she’s
entering primary. And a woman scorned . . .
Suddenly, all hell breaks loose outside the club and I shove
my cell phone deep in my pocket as I wade through the human
trash that’s just presented themselves at the entrance.
My duties as bouncer distract me from my duties as
protector.
It’s not long, but it’s enough.