Audition (North Security 4)

“I keep thinking—what if that was the night that changed him? He could have grown up, gotten a law degree, become a CEO or something. Instead he became… a traitor. What if that night set him on that path?”

“Do you know how insane that sounds? You aren’t responsible for his decision to steal weapons and sell them to the highest bidder.”

“Don’t you ever feel guilt? Or is that too human for Joshua North? You just go around doing what you want and saying what you want with no consequences.”

That’s how it should be. That’s how I pretend to be, but the truth is I feel guilt all the damn time. Guilt for leaving my younger brother. Guilt for wanting my older one to stay. We didn’t kill our father, but we had our own nights of hell. Nights he pushed us into the well. He didn’t throw down a rope until morning. I remember how my arms felt like jelly, but I held little Elijah out of the fetid water as long as I could. I remember how Liam sobbed from the ground, begging my father to let us out. You can’t do that with a person without tying a piece of your soul to them.

Bethany and I had our own night of violence. I came to her covered in blood. She put herself into my debt with that favor. You can’t do that with a person and walk away unscathed. A piece of her soul is tied to a piece of mine.

CHAPTER NINE

The first record of dancing appears in an Eqyptian tomb dated about 3300 B.C. Dance has served many purposes throughout history, including entertainment, exercise, courtship, and worship in religious ceremonies.

Bethany, present time

Something dark flashes in Josh’s eyes at the mention of me owing my brother anything. Like he knows what that means. He probably does, which would explain the black lightning across his emerald eyes. It feels like he’s slammed down a gate in the air between us. Subtle shifts of his body turn him away from me. “You should get your beauty sleep.”

My eyes burn, but I’m not sure if it’s from fatigue or the whiplash of this conversation. I’ve never once expected Joshua North to be anything less than an arrogant asshole, cocky to the end. But I thought I felt him leaning into me as we spoke. Like the barbs in our words held no actual bite.

He jerks his head over his shoulder, so handsome it cuts me to the quick. “I mean it. Rest up for tomorrow.”

My heart beats lightly, a hummingbird trapped in a cage. “Tomorrow will be like every other day.”

His smirk wounds as much from its hard beauty as anything else. “Tomorrow, everything changes. You’re with me now. And if you think I’m going to let you dangle yourself in front of all the fuckfaces of the world like a pretty prize, you’re kidding yourself.” With these last words he stands, his muscled frame silhouetted against the fire. He wears a white T-shirt over slacks I know are designed to conceal weapons. The pants skim the line of his hips in a sensual touch. I want to leap up and hook my hands under his elbow, using the graceful swing of my weight to pull him back down next to me. But of course I won’t do that.

And maybe it’s only the power of suggestion, but a certain tiredness comes over my muscles now. A heaviness. I leave him standing in the sitting area and pad back to the massive bed alone. I take a deep breath, like I’m waiting in the wings for the first strains of music to pull my arms and legs, like I’m held up by string. That’s how it feels when I climb into bed, as if someone else does the heavy lifting.

Joshua North’s sheets have to have a thread count in the thousands. They feel like silk against my skin compared to the secondhand set I got for the ratty twin mattress in my apartment. The pillowcase is very nearly silky enough to assuage my regrets about not bringing my own pillowcase, which was the one semi-expensive item of all my bedding, and absolutely necessary. I don’t have the faintest clue what the protocol is in this situation. Do I leave him a note on the bedside table? If you’re going to keep me prisoner, I need a pillowcase that won’t fuck with my hair.

The bigger problem, of course, is that his bed smells like him. Like electricity and man and a stiff breeze.

As much as it pains me to admit it, he’s right—I should get some sleep. But the moment my head hits the pillow, the reel of my memories begins. All of them suffused with his scent. With the ragged beating of my heart. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to guide my thoughts away from that night. I’ve tried so hard to forget it over the years, but the memory refuses to be anything less than crystal clear. That’s what I get for talking about my father again.

He was so angry. That’s the one part I can’t get straight in my mind. What was he angry about? In the end it didn’t matter, but the scared little girl in me can’t stop wondering what I did wrong. I only knew that the way his face twisted and reddened meant something very, very bad. One foot stomped the floor, his hand slapped the kitchen counter, a macabre dance.

Give in and it’ll be over quicker. It’s what I thought then, and here I am, doing the same thing all this time later. Squeezing my eyes shut. Hoping for it to be over. Tasting the bitter acid at the back of my throat.

Back then I didn’t see where Caleb came from. I heard him—I heard everything. The strangled sound

he made as he threw himself between my father and me. My eyes snapped open in time to see him bury his fists in my father’s shirt. My father’s weight should have been too much for my brother, but he was drunk. Wasted. And he teetered. He leaned far to the right, swiping at Caleb. The set of my brother’s shoulders looked like a man’s, but he was young, his shoulder blades fine like a bird’s wings.

How did it happen? It happened like this—Caleb let go of our father’s shirt. And because of the alcohol raging in our father’s veins, he didn’t fall backward, or sit down hard. His feet tangled underneath him, and he fell to the side. So many moments in our lives are decided by mere inches. A finger length can mean the difference between a solid landing and a broken ankle. Or a broken skull.

The crack of his head against the brick has me reaching for the blankets. So many years later, and I can still hear it as clearly as if it’s happening here in the room. I pull the sheets tight without thinking. I’m covered in the scent of Josh’s skin.

Caleb’s face, stricken in the dingy yellow light of the kitchen. His mouth in a horrified grimace. The darkness pooling beneath my father’s body.

But this time—this time—the sheets pull me back out of the narrative and into a strange, pulsing desire.

Because there are other memories. Memories I can’t chase away, not when I’m lying in his bed. The last thing I want is Joshua North. He’s too much like my brother—I know that. I know that. But the smell of him against my skin has heat curling through my belly. My skin tingles with the closeness of him. All that separates us is a few feet of empty air and an unlocked door. Once, he kissed the corner of my lips in a warehouse owned by my brother. His green eyes took in the lines of my body beneath my leotard, even then. Once, he bent to whisper a secret in my ear that made me feel like a grown-up instead of a child with my nose pressed to the window of a world I never wanted to be part of.

Once, I saw him sleeping—defenseless.

I traced the lines of his forehead and chased the dark thoughts away. He’s not sleeping now; I can feel it. Just like I can feel his skin under my fingertips still. And his mouth against mine. God, it could have gone so much further. Back then, I questioned it. I ran through scenarios in my mind. What would I do if Joshua North lowered me to the ground outside and peeled off my shorts? What would I do if my panties were next? I know the answers now. I would have let him.

At some point my mind slips from a white-knuckled awareness into a half-sleep. Is that his heart I hear, beating in my ears, or is it my own? And why does it feel like it’s somehow beating outside my chest, alongside the man who still sits on the sofa, guarding the door inside his own house?

The very last edges of my consciousness hear them—the raindrops. The night breeze tosses them gently against the windowpane by the bed. They can’t touch me. Only the sound can reach me here. Tap, tap, tap.