A Terrible Love Page 4

  Mitch grows thoughtful then says, “There's something different about you, Jess. I can't put my finger on it.” He hesitates and I hold my breath, “But I like it,” he finishes and I let out the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

  “So,” he asks, grabbing my cup and standing. “Did we solve the problems of the world?”

  I shake my head, wisps of hair fluttering with the movement. I notice night has fallen, that two hours have gone by without me knowing it.

  “No?” His brows pop. “We have time for that...” Those translucent eyes bore into mine. “Meet me for dinner,” he commands, taking the hand that is now free of a cup.

  As our flesh connects, my heart speeds and I look up into his face, the butterflies in my tummy begging for release, my soul crying for freedom.

  I know it's a terrible mistake.

  I say yes anyway.

  Jess Mackey wants to see this man.

  Jewell MacLeod wants to be free.

  It's an irresistible combination.

  I don't realize it at the time but there is always a cost with freedom.

  4

  “What is that?” I ask, pointing and Mitch laughs self-consciously, moving a hand through his hair just as the meter clicks to expired.

  He'd fed the meter for two hours and it was hungry again, I thought.

  Was it flattering or presumptuous for him to assume the length of our date? I knew that I was splitting hairs, trying to find fault with the perfect distraction of our time together. Well, almost perfect, I had been dropped off by Devin Castile.

  “It's my weakness, Jess.” He strokes a finger down the flank of his vintage car like it's a lover and I actually feel a pang of jealousy. Mitch is a step away from calling the car by a female name. I can tell, he has that look.

  He sees my face and laughs, a rich throaty sound that makes me smile despite myself. “It's a 1974 LT-1 Camaro,” he says in the I'm-a-dreamy guy over-vehicles voice. I suppress an epic eye roll.

  I just want mine to start, thank you very much. That's the extent of my concern over cars.

  “So, it's a vintage car and...” I move my palm in the direction of the off-white color, a chocolate racing stripe beginning at the hood and finishing with a lick on the back spoiler, trying to rustle up the obligatory excitement. So isn't happening.

  I shake my head, putting a hand to my chest. “I'm the girl who got a ride with Devin because I ran out of gas.”

  Mitch looks at me and I suddenly feel bad for mentioning Castile.

  He gives a subtle shrug, not picking up on the reference. Point for Mitch. I wasn't fooling myself, all girls keep score.

  He opens the door and I lay down in the seat. At least, that's what it feels like. The car's built low to the ground, the seats in a semi-reclined position automatically.

  Mitch turns the key in the ignition and the powerful engine roars to life. I watch him touch the shifter which is located between the floorboards but is an automatic. His powerful hands wrap around the eight ball he'd replaced the original with and I feel a smile form at the subtle sense of humor in that choice.

  I watch him pull away and I stiffen when he asks a question I was sure he's been mulling over, “Where did you say you're from?”

  I hadn't. “Iowa,” I lie, hoping that's the end of it. Of course it isn't.

  He puts on his blinker and I automatically calculate the time before I'm to the dorms.

  Five minutes, I can get through that, I think.

  “I hear a little accent,” he says and I let the silence speak for me. Mitch takes me off guard with, “How long have you danced in bal-let?” he asks, pronouncing it like I do. Differently. Regionally differently, and I realize he's sniffing. How come Mitch is more interested in getting to know me then getting in my panties?

  Not that it isn't the greatest thing ever. I want a guy to want me and want me. It's not that a vibrator isn't a great invention, but it isn't the real McCoy. Not only were the first date inquiries getting a little old, they make me as nervous as a cat in a room full of rockers. Nor did I want a one night stand.

  Girls are complicated creatures and I fit right into that mold.

  I sigh and his eyes flick to mine. Not answering was an alert, answering is almost as bad. I answer.

  “My mom enrolled me when I was four,” I begin. When he says nothing, his eyes on the road, I continue, “But when I became a teenager, they thought I might get too tall for ballet.” I look down at my clenched hands, thinking about my parents ranting to keep my weight down. Who was going to partner someone they couldn't lift? That made me think about Thad and his unhealthy interest in my physique; it was part of his intimidation to secure my continued silence.

  I swallow and continue, “Anyway, I guess I was lucky and topped out shorter.”

  “You're not short,” Mitch observes casually. I know, that at five feet six, I'm not short, but a little on the tall side for ballet. If I was en pointe, my partner would need to be five feet ten. Most male ballerinas are built more like gymnasts and less statuesque. They have powerful bodies that are low to the ground, not generally tall.

  “No,” I say softly, seeing with relief as the dorm rises past the swell of the manicured grounds of the University of Washington. It's quite old, mid-nineteenth century.

  He pulls into a parking slot and turns the car off.

  “Who made you hate talking about yourself?” Mitch asks, turning his body at the waist, the streetlight shadowing everything but those glacial eyes.

  Pick one. “No one,” I say. I think quickly, “My family is reserved,” I explain.

  “Are you close to them?”

  Shit-damn-shit. “No...” I pause. “I don't have any siblings and my parents are... distant.” I almost laugh at that, 'distant' didn't even begin to cover it. The sibling thing didn't feel like it was a lie at all, it comforted me to put Thad in that category. Non-relative.

  Mitch doesn't say anything to my hastily contrived background. That's the trouble with lying, it's challenging to keep straight.

  Instead, he moves his hand to the many wisps of hair that have escaped my bun and twisting them together, he makes a small rope of my dark blond hair and tucks it behind my ear. “You don't wear your hair down,” he says and I shake my head.

  I know Mitch will kiss me as he leans forward and I meet him, our lips pressing together. Then they are seeking, his mouth moving across mine with the softest press of skin, like breath and air. My heart picks up its pace and I fall into the steady suck and tease of his mouth as his large hand wraps around me, pressing me closer.

  When my knee hits the gear shift I laugh, his tongue against my teeth and he smiles against my mouth, the windows are fogged up and I slide back in my seat where I watch Mitch slow his panting to a regular breathing pattern.

  “That was nice,” he says, blatant heat telling me it could have been more if I wanted it. The knowledge stands in those light eyes, the invitation as well.

  I know I'm not ready.

  I nod, then do something spontaneous, I draw a small heart on the foggy window glass.

  I open the door and get out, his eyes on the heart I made on his car window. I stick my head inside the sauna-like interior, our innocent kiss having changed that small sliver of atmosphere to what it is right now; heated and evolving.

  “Dinner?” he prompts with a smile, the warmth of our make-out session dissipating like smoke up a flue.

  I nod again, closing the door.

  I walk to my dorm, oblivious to eyes that watch my progress with the premeditation of a predator.

  *

  I stir the Hershey’s syrup into the glass, watching the stripe of chocolate get sucked up in the whirlpool of white.

  Carlie makes a gagging noise. “That's gonna go right to your ass, I'm just sayin'.”

  I grin. “It's the drink of the gods. Besides,” I say, going up en pointe, balancing the milk glass perfectly, “I need all the calories I can get.”

  Carlie ro
lls her dark eyes. “I though you said you were worried about being light enough?”

  I come down gracefully, the lambswool shifting to accommodate the movement and I sit on the edge of my bed, keeping my toes en pointe. “I am borderline...” I shrug but feel that tell-tale nervousness flood my belly in an uncomfortable surge, curdling the chocolate milk I'm drinking.

  I let my hands dangle between my knees, setting the glass between my feet which remain in perpetual pointe.

  “I wasn't saying you were fat,” Carlie says, backpedaling as she eyes me. “Shit girl, you're too thin as it is.”

  I'm really a marginally good weight for ballet. One hundred ten would be better, I was living with the one hundred fifteen I was at now.

  “I'll be fine, once I begin the workouts with Boel, that extra bit will come right off.”

  “This extra bit,” Carlie says, smirking as her hands grab her huge tits and jerk them up by her throat.

  I cackle at her. I still had boobs, so not all was lost.

  She laughs. “You need a decent tit trap,” she says then adds, “I have some...”

  I shake my head. “One, you're in the Oh My God section of the bra store...” I say. Then, “And however much I appreciate your offer I'll have to get my own...”

  “Tit trap,” Carlie repeats, grinning. “Now, ballet girl. Tell me about La Hunk.”

  I blush and she catches it. “What?” she nearly shrieks. “Did he pet the kitty?”

  “No!” I say, my face growing hotter, if possible. “We just kissed...”

  Carlie taps her foot. She definitely wants the goods.

  “Okay,” I say, giving up. “We kissed but I have to tell you what happened with Devin Castile.”

  “The Devin Castile?” she asks.

  I feel the furrow form between my eyes.

  “Yeah... unless there's some other intense dude in leather who skulks around?” I ask.

  Carlie slowly nods. “I know him.”

  Her lack of comment tells me a buttload. None of it good.

  “What is it?” I ask, thinking how stupid it was for me to get a ride with him. How he was a stranger to me.

  A powerful one.

  “He's so hot, there's no doubt. I'd do him...,” she says and I roll my eyes. If it was six feet, muscled with a dangling dick, Carlie was so there.

  “What?” she asks then gives a sheepish smile. Her gaze meets mine. “I've just heard some smack about him.”

  My frown deepens.

  “There's a few chicks that say he likes it rough.”

  What? My mind skittered over the memory of his tenderness as he held me. Rough what?

  “Catch a clue, ballet girl,” Carlie says. “He likes to do 'em and leave 'em. And it doesn't much matter where. A wall, a car, the elevator...” she shrugs.

  “We're not talking the R word here?” I whisper with barely contained revulsion, my sensory memory giving a hiccup as my windpipe threatens to narrow. I breathe evenly and deeply twice, heading off the semi-panic attack successfully.

  Carlie quickly shakes her head.

  “I hear a but...” I say, wanting to flesh this out.

  “I think a few didn't know what they were doing, they bit off more than they could chew. You feel me?”

  An image of Carlie crunching on the carrot rose in my mind and I laughed.

  “This is kinda serious.”

  “I just thought about you and vegetables and I don't know...” I grin and giggle helplessly.

  “Nice, ya tart,” Carlie says, trying to act mad and fold her arms, huffing. I don't fall for it for one minute.

  “So, Devin Castile will do halfway willing girls?” I say as a point of clarity. “But it's consensual?” I ask, mentally crossing him further off a list I didn't realize I was consulting.

  Kind of confusing; kind of intriguing, I admit. Then I think of Mitch. He seemed so much safer. Regulated.

  That works for me.

  “I just think your prissy ass should stick with Mitch. He's...”

  “Safe,” I finish her thought and she nods.

  “He's cute too,” Carlie sounds like she's convincing me.

  We stare at each other for a few moments.

  “You're dying to screw Castile, aren't ya?”

  I think about lying. Yeah. “Maybe,” I say.

  “I was afraid of that,” Carlie says then perks up. “I think we'll devise an Operation Avoid Castile.”

  Brilliant. A new scheme by Carlie.

  She rolls her eyes at me. “Listen, you don't seem like his type, K?” Carlie meets my eyes. “He can't possibly want to bother with you,” she says, sweeping her hand down my lean dancer's physique. I'm wearing my standard unattractive leotard and tights, my long thick hair wound in my standard braid crown.

  I think about the way Castile looks at me and shiver. Just remembering the way it feels to have his eyes on my body, my face.

  It carries weight.

  “Shit,” Carlie breathes, studying my kaleidoscope of expressions. “He wants to do you?”

  I look at her miserably and nod. “I think so.”

  “Well, you're not Miss Confidence so you thinking it's a possibility... I'll take that as gospel fact.”

  Carlie stands and I move to the barre, finishing my exercises as she paces.

  I begin deep pliés, not breaking the fluidity of the movement except to extend my arm and then sweep back down to graze the floor with my hand.

  “I think we need to start right away. You're gonna show Castile that you mean business with the other guy. Let La Hunk hanging off you like a cheap suit give him the message. He'll back down. He's smokin' hot; he's not gonna keep after your dancing ass when he can have one of the thirteen point one sluts that'll spread their knees for any swinging prick with a pulse.” She shrugs and I bark out a laugh, screwing my last dip six ways to Sunday.

  “Right,” I agree in a droll tone, “I'll just 'do La Hunk' and then Castile will forget me.” I can barely keep a straight face. I give up and burst out laughing.

  “It's better than old faithful,” Carlie says, making a circle with her left hand and stabbing the index finger of her other hand through the hole.

  My eyes stray to my lockbox and I giggle. “True... but...”

  Carlie pegs her hands on her curvy hips, tossing her dark curly hair over her shoulder. “Okay, I know you feel uncomfortable talking about your past.”

  I stiffen and she throws her hand out. “See? You don't trust me!” Carlie says.

  I stave off the old argument smoothly, “I haven't had sex in over two years so I feel...” shy, incompetent, undesirable... unwanted, scared. “Out of practice.”

  Carlie momentarily forgets that I never talk about myself or anything about my past and grins. “So practice.” Her eyes glitter with humor. “Offer it up, Jess. I bet you Mitch Maverick will jump on you.”

  Perfect... or not. “I don't know,” I say, spinning in the center of the room.

  “How come you don't puke?” Carlie asks, watching me before finally turning away.

  “I spot my corner.”

  “Riiiight,” Carlie drawls then asks, “when do you start the dance-o-matic?”

  I stop, landing in third position and lower my arms. “Tomorrow.”

  “You have to wear those?” She points to my toe shoes, beaten so hard the pink satin looks vaguely gray at the edges, my arch true and full while en pointe.

  “After warm-ups.”

  Amber bursts into the room.

  We look at her, startled.

  “There's been another one,” she says, her beautiful golden eyes scattered and wide. We're both blank for a few seconds.

  Then it hits us: We don't ask, we know.

  Another girl taken. Carlie and I look at each other in mutual horror. I gather my stuff together to hit the dorm showers. The lighthearted talk of screwing guys and ballet practice pales beside the news there's been another victim of violence in the school.

  “It was Amanda,”
Amber says and my stomach instantly gives a slow heated roil. Carlie's eyes find mine. She knows what violence against women does to me. She's never asked, she's just that intuitive.

  Someday I'll tell Carlie the truth. But that day isn't now.

  Amanda had been in my biology class.

  “How?” I ask.

  Amber responds, “The usual: on campus, between regular school hours, at night.”

  “Is there... a... body?” Carlie queries.

  “Not yet.”

  What Amber doesn't say is there always is one... eventually.

  They'll find a body and we'll all go back to being scared, a repeat of freshman year but worse. Some stalker was plucking out the plums of the female population and there was no correlation that the police could determine.

  “I'm... going to go,” I say to Amber and Carlie and she nods, the wind taken out of her sails as we exit my dorm room, little better than a closet. I'd opted for a non-shared room without a bath. Sharing a room and getting a bathroom or a single room and a communal bathroom. Not a hard choice for me.

  I didn't need any roommates. Living a lie will zap the energy right out of you.

  We parted ways, all of us contemplating another year of fear and our fragile safety.

  I was already watchful.

  A certain level of paranoia was normal for me; what difference did more make?

  I clutched my towel and toiletries to my chest, deep in thought.

  When I rounded the corner I plowed into a muscular chest and gasped as strong hands engulfed my shoulders.

  It was Brock from Biology. Instant fear coiled in my belly like a snake seeking a target, the conversation of the missing coed nipping at the heels of my thoughts.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked, his fingers biting into my shoulders.

  I jerked my upper body out of his hands.

  He let me go. I couldn't have gotten away if he'd wanted to keep me. We stared at each other for a heartbeat. “The bathroom,” I answer in a low voice. “Now, move out of my way,” I say, mustering a bravado I don't feel.

  He leans toward me and reminds me so acutely of Thad for a moment that I have a sense of vertigo begin at my feet and work its way up to my head in a heated rush of sick dizziness.