A Terrible Love Read online

  “Take your hands off her... Brock,” a voice says, clipping his name like a swear word.

  I knew the timbre of that voice.

  Brock flicks his eyes behind my head and responds, “Fuck off, Castile. Jess and I were just... talking.” His hands are back on my shoulders with bruising force. He turns me to face Castile.

  Then Brock whispers in my ear, “Don't fuck this up.”

  Devin looks utterly at ease, his unhurried gaze traveling down our connected limbs. The hot line of Brock is against my back, his fingers digging... digging into my shoulders. The sweat from my work out chills with the fear and strain my body is undergoing with his nearness.

  “Do you want to talk, Jess?” Devin asks. “Do you want to be held by him?”

  Held by him? I wonder, my fear and confusion making my brain grind through responses.

  However, it's Brock that tears the involuntary response out of me. He squeezes me and I can't keep the hurt inside my body.

  I'd had many years of practice but have grown rusty, apparently.

  A small pain sound escapes my lips as I breathe out, “No.”

  Castile moves like wicked liquid lightning, jabbing a punch right into Brock's forehead, an easy target as he is six feet plus, his head eclipsing mine.

  He begins to topple like a mighty tree and I fall with him.

  Devin tears me out of his arms and puts me behind his body protectively.

  Brock staggers backward, his forehead split and bleeding and launches himself at Devin.

  Brock's head rocks back as Devin slams his fist into Brock's jaw and falls on his ass in a tangle of his own arms and legs.

  “Don't get up, Brock,” Castile murmurs in an even voice, crouched, with his fists riding high and tight next to his jaw.

  My face is buried in Devin's back, my fingers locked and chilling with the force of my grip against the smooth leather.

  Forever the smell of leather will bring me comfort. It's a basic fact that scent is the strongest memory trigger and Devin Castile saving me from Brock has gotten all wrapped up in the back of a leather jacket heated with his scent. His protection.

  This man couldn't be the pervert that Carlie made him out to be.

  Yet, he was undoubtedly violent.

  I peeked around him, seeing Brock's hate for me shining from his position on the floor.

  Devin had saved me.

  He'd also marked me.

  I saw it in Brock's eyes. He'd been emasculated and I bore witness to his embarrassment and Brock wouldn't soon be forgetting it.

  I am now a target and I move my face away from his line of sight.

  I take a deep, shuddering breath and think of how dangerous my life has suddenly become.

  I wonder for the second time that day if the predator I knew was better than the predator I didn't.

  I think of Faith.

  As I stand behind Devin Castile, inhaling the smell of warm leather and male, I finally decide I'd rather live with the potential than the reality.

  5

  My hands won't stop shaking and Devin covers them with his own, my eyes rising to meet his.

  I am so in trouble here.

  We look at each other for a moment then I look away from his intense inspection to see where Brock is. I watch his palm slap the wall, bracing himself as he stands. He pinches his nose to stanch the flow of blood. Brock's eyes meet mine with a glare of hatred that is so powerful I flinch. His eyes flick to Devin who stands quietly by my side and whatever he sees there convinces him to leave.

  While he still can.

  He stomps down the corridor and we watch him exit. I breathe deeply, a puff of air frosting as I exhale as we move out of the corridor to the outside.

  “What happened?” Devin asks, still holding my cold hands in his.

  I gently extract them and he gives a little tilt at the corners of his mouth. I am so not comfortable touching him.

  I lift a shoulder. “I don't know, he's pissed because Brad put him in his place last week in Biology.”

  “Gunner?” Devin asks, his brow cocked.

  I nodded but frown. “Do you know everyone?”

  “Just about,” he says. “But not you.”

  We stare at each other some more, the silence growing uncomfortable. Finally, I break it, “I don't think he liked getting dressed down in front of me.”

  Devin's brows come together, eyes that I'd thought were black were actually a deep root beer color, rich chocolate washed by amber.

  They're beautiful, lined by sooty black lashes that curled slightly. No mascara for him. I give a laugh at the thought of Devin in make-up and his eyes narrow. “What's so funny? Didn't I just interrupt an extreme manhandle there?”

  I shake my head (I wasn't answering that) and covered my mouth, still trembling slightly after the encounter with Brock. You know how it is when you try not to laugh and can't stop. That was becoming my problem. And I know part of it was the trauma of what just happened... and being this close to Castile.

  “You gotta watch him,” Devin said, his eyes straying to the corridor where Brock had disappeared. “He's got a rep. And now he'll be all ass-hurt because I stopped him from threatening you.”

  “Well, it's not like he was going to get a date with the way he went about it!” I laugh, folding my arms across my chest and Devin stares at my breasts in a leisurely way. When he reaches out to touch my shoulder I cringe and he ignores me, moving away the lightweight sweater I threw on over my ballet gear. I'd needed it when my body cooled after my exercises; it's chilly outside.

  He studies the skin there, bringing gooseflesh to the surface with his touch.

  His eyes meet mine. “You'll bruise... that bastard.” Devin's hands drop and clench into fists. “He needs a real beat down.”

  My mouth twitches. “Was that a fake one?”

  His eyes don't waver from mine, my comedy lost in the depths of his gaze.

  He moves toward me, contained violence in motion, backing me up against the wall, the courtyard bare of students at this odd time of day, between meals, after class, sports students not yet finished.

  I let him, my heart speeding. “What are you doing?” I ask.

  But I know.

  With a hand on either side of my body I'm caged. The brick facade of the dorm leeches cold through my leotard, the sweat of my workout chilling it further.

  Devin studies my upturned face, his eyes cannibalizing me with heat, with want. But instead of giving in to what I see there, he trails a finger down from my temple to my jaw, cupping it loosely. Then he answers my question.

  “What I should have done the moment I saw you with Maverick,” he says, his lips hovering across mine. They are so close I can feel the heat of his skin; I imagine the stubble that I saw on that square jaw rasping against me in places he hadn't explored.

  “May I kiss you, Jess?” he whispers above my mouth.

  No. “Yes,” I whisper back against every impulse not to.

  He doesn't take my lips softly but crushes my mouth against his, a storm crashing into the shore, his full lips working over mine, forcing them open and I groan as he gathers me against him, his huge hands splaying against my lower back in a convulsive surge, bringing me into the line of his body.

  “Respond,” he commands in a low growl.

  His verbal demand brings a primal coil of heat that begins from my wet g-string and tingles in an unending ripple of electric sensation, flowing to the tips of my fingers.

  Oh God.

  Devin raises his hand and cups my breast underneath the light sweater while his body presses me under the eaves of my dorm building. A man I hardly know has me against him and has rolled my nipple in a move so smooth I never saw it coming, the sensitive bundle of nerves a thread pulling the heat from my core and tethering the two on a taut line like an erotic ignition switch flicked.

  I gasp, throwing my head back. “Stop,” I breathe, not wanting his hand off me. Ever.

  “Your body say
s yes,” he says against my skin, his mouth buried in that soft area of the neck all females possess. “I taste your sweat, your sweetness...,” he says as his hand leaves my breast and walks its way down my ribcage.

  Lower.

  My panties flood with moisture in anticipation, my sex throbbing. I know he's going to touch me and a huge part of me wants it. A small part of me that's unraveled from the run in with Brock rebels. My body squelches it easily. I'm going to let him finger me in public; I haven't had sex in over two years and Devin has undone my resolve in five minutes.

  “Get off her!” Mitch says.

  I jerk back from Devin and try to scramble away, my leotard rasping on the rough brick. I can feel the heat of my embarrassment suffuse me from head to toe. I want to die.

  Where the hell is a handy rock to climb underneath when ya need one? I give a soft groan, and not the excited kind, the mortified type.

  “What's going on here?” Mitch asks, his eyes shifting from Devin to me.

  Shit-- deja-fucking-vu, I think.

  “I...” I begin miserably.

  “I was tonguing your girlfriend, Maverick,” Devin says casually, wrapping me against the side of his body.

  Oh sweet baby Jesus.

  Mitch looks at Devin in disgust. “You fuck-up.” He looks at me, dismissing Devin and I cringe from the betrayal I see there. One date and he owned me, I guess.

  “You're with Castile now? Seriously?” Mitch asks and I get pissed.

  “No,” I say, shoving Devin away. He pretend staggers, putting a hand over his heart. “He... Brock tried to threaten me and Devin...”

  The whole event came crashing down on my head: the creeper that killed Amanda, Brock accosting me in the hall and when I was at my most emotionally vulnerable point, Devin lit the fire of that spark between us as surely as a match to kindling. I covered my face with my hands.

  And now, like a cherry on top of the misery cake, Mitch Maverick, aka La Hunk, thought I was a whore that would let some strange guy feel me up in public.

  And he wasn't wrong. What had I been thinking?

  “Jess wait....” Mitch began, regret lacing his words.

  I ran into the building, scooping up the pile of clean clothes I'd dropped when Brock had laid his hands on me.

  “Don’t mess with her,” I hear Devin say.

  “Get your fucking hands off me,” Mitch says.

  I shut the dorm bathroom door, pressing my back against its solidness, clenching my eyes against the last half hour.

  I can hear loud voices outside and I ignore them, floating toward the mirror.

  I stare back at myself.

  Jewell MacLeod stares back.

  A girl with dark blond hair that's really a rich auburn. Blue eyes bore into the glass, with green ones lurking underneath the guise of contacts.

  I take my sweater off and see livid fingerprints where Brock held me and I shiver.

  Devin had held me harder but his touch hadn't left bruises.

  I shiver, not from fear or cold, but the memory of the press of his body through the denim he wore, his dick rolling between the folds of what my leotard barely covered.

  I stare at my reflection for a while.

  When the light dwindles to twilight I turn away with a sigh. Stripping off my gear, I walk naked into the tiled stall, a cattle call of six nozzles greet me and I travel to the end. My shower shoes smack the tiled surface in an echo that only barely-wet tile makes.

  I stand underneath the hot spray and think about Devin, my body aching to finish what he'd begun, a low pulse of residual desire my constant companion.

  I think about Mitch. No matter what, the kiss that Devin had given me eclipsed that of Mitch's. I can't even remember what it'd been like. I sigh, tilting my head back and letting the warm water run into my mouth and slide down my scalded skin in rivulets.

  Lastly, I think of Brock and why he has fixated on me. Maybe I'd tell Brad. Maybe I won't.

  I will be avoiding two men: Mitch Maverick and Devin Castile.

  Especially Castile.

  *

  I arrived for ballet at fifteen until four. I wasn't going to have The Patrick Boel meet me and have lack of punctuality to add to the list. No. I press my pointe slippers into an arch, then straighten them. I repeat the process a few times. I'd left my damp shoes on the clanking and hissing radiator in my room to let the heat soften them.

  They stink vaguely like sweat and copper. I'd bled in these shoes.

  I walk out into the huge auditorium and stop, four other dancers stand around in a loose circle, many with one knee up, a toe en pointe while they visit nervously. Then they'd switch to the other toe; equal billing.

  I move toward them, the final dancer. I feel like I am finally seeing light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. I study them and see that everyone has their hair slicked back from their face except me. Mine is braided tightly against my head, crossed tails and pinned.

  They quieted as I approach.

  “Hi,” I say.

  No one says a word. Ballerinas are notoriously competitive and I am no exception. However, introductions won't derail our performances.

  I sigh, ready to insert myself regardless when I hear a sharp clap behind me.

  It was Patrick Boel.

  He's built like a brick shithouse! Yet he moves so gracefully I stare well into the rudeness category.

  “Dancers,” he says by way of introduction. When all of us intimidated girls nod he continues, a graceful palm sweeping toward our general location. “Two of you will be removed from my presence today.” His hazel eyes meet mine. “I do not tolerate lazy, fat, clumsy or otherwise sub-par dancers.”

  I gulp. It seems that his words are meant for me and me alone. His piercing gaze roves our forms, missing nothing.

  He approaches a very short girl. She is a perfect size for ballet: five feet one and maybe ninety-ish pounds. “Too short, too clumsy... too fat, you are excused,” Patrick Boel says and my palms dampen.

  If he thought her too fat and short, what must he think of me?

  Only true grit keeps me anchored to the spot, my stomach churning with thoughts of my imminent dismissal.

  He reaches out with a snake-like precision mixed with the elegance of an antelope and grabs my thigh. I jump but he holds me. “How much do you dance each day?” he asks so casually that I blurt out the truth, “Two hours.”

  He slaps my thigh and the sting brings tears to my eyes. “Make it four... Jess,” he instructs, meeting my eyes.

  “Yes, Mr. Boel,” I say, resisting the urge to comfort my thigh with my hand, which he knows, a smile ghosting his lips then disappearing. He does a different thing to each dancer. The dwarf dancer's dismissal rings in all our heads. I can still hear her tears echoing in my mind and she's been gone five minutes.

  “Any other volunteers that wish to relieve themselves of my tutelage?”

  We shake our heads.

  “Fine,” he smiles.

  By the end of our practice there are two more girls that have quit and it leaves myself and one other. I can feel a new blister burst once I move across the auditorium, snapping my head to the corner, my feet screaming from the different abuse Boel puts me through, my body shaking from exhaustion.

  “Enough!” Boel fumes, stalking back and forth and I release from spinning, landing into third, the other dancer coming to rest beside me. She gives me a nervous look and shakes her head slightly. We're the smartest of the group. We don't talk, we just perform like his puppets.

  He is the master and we are the slaves.

  Dancing slaves.

  “You,” he points at the other dancer, “move like you must instead of with desire. Again.”

  She spins off and I control my breathing as he studies me.

  “There is passion in you,” he says in a low voice, walking in a slow appraising circle around me like a shark testing the waters. “You will have to learn to release it. Seduce us. Become sensual. It is not suggestion, but a
prerequisite,” he says at my back and I turn to face him.

  He gazes back at me. “Do you understand my implication?”

  I shake my head.

  “Take. A. Lover,” he says and a blush storms up my face, the sweat of my body slicking to a boiling heat.

  “Pish,” Boel hisses, seeing the redhead's blush that I can't hide, regardless of my disguised appearance. “Do not be naïve, each dancer has a catalyst,” he gazes off at the other dancer, who pirouettes flawlessly. “That one will make an excellent living background.”

  Non-front line performer, I translate.

  The sun slants through the high glass of the auditorium windows, striking the mirrors they've installed like a ruthless weapon and backlighting Boel.

  He looks slightly demonic as he stands there.

  “But you,” he circles me again as he casually commands my rival, “again,” he says, spinning a finger in the air.

  I can almost feel her sigh.

  I turn with him, I don't want him at my back.

  “You could be principal if you but released your passion.” His eyes drill me. “Something has held it back and I feel it,” he puts a fist to his heart, “here.”

  I nod like I understand and he moves with his powerful grace against me so closely a sheet of paper would be the only separator. I move to step back and he grabs my wrist.

  “Dance with me- now.”

  I want to argue.

  I want to dance more. He moves us out into the middle of the auditorium and swings me around, my eyes meeting his when I'm en pointe.

  “You're tall,” he says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Almost too tall,” he adds.

  I say nothing, moving against him, my eyes partially closed and I imagine only the music. It is all and everything I can do to relax myself.

  As it swells in the open we reach the crescendo and he grips my thighs to lift me and I let him.

  I rise above his head and he whispers, “Convince me.”

  I slide down the front of Boel's body and he throws me away from him. I spin into the momentum and at the last moment he grips my fingertips and spins me back into his arms where we end as the last note spins into the stale air of the auditorium.