Audition (North Security 4)

Bethany makes a face. “So far, we haven’t done anything except stand in the yard. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere you’re going to like.”

Skepticism shines from her expression. “How would you know what I like?”

“I was right about the beignets, wasn’t I?”

Even in the moonlight I can see the flush of her skin. “Everyone likes beignets from Cafe du Monde. Try again.”

I shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t—shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be taking her out, shouldn’t be giving in to this, whatever this feeling clawing through my veins is. But Bethany’s made the second move. She climbed out the window. So I take her hand and twirl her under my arm. My dick throbs so hard it’s at its limit. This goes much further and I’ll have her twirling and twirling under my hands. Mine.

For tonight I’ll pretend that this is simple. “There’s a hint.”

She comes to a graceful halt and lowers her heels to the ground, her eyes raking over my clothes. “I see. You want to get your hands on me.” A flicker of a smile. “That’s par for the course.”

Bethany is still smiling when I get us to our destination, pulling my rental car into into a spot that’s probably illegal, tucked into the end of an alley. She sits up straight in the passenger seat. “A back alley, huh? Very romantic.”

“I never said anything about being romantic.” She sticks close to my side when we get out. Smart. A nondescript metal door materializes out of the murky shadows at the side of the alley. “I said you’d like it.” I can feel her holding her breath while I rap my fingers against the metal. The door cracks open, golden light pouring into the alley so thick I could run my fingers through it.

“Who’s visiting?” The voice is cracked and smoky, almost worn through.

“It’s me.” The door swin

gs open the rest of the way and I catch a glimpse of Bethany’s face. Lit like the sunrise. Bright and open. Nothing like the way she looked when I saw her in that warehouse. Any other girl would be terrified at the sight of the narrow death trap of a staircase and my asshole brain wonders if she knows this place. Knows other things, too.

At the bottom of the stairs the room opens out into a mass of bodies. Darkness descends, broken up by pulsing lights from the DJ station at the far end. This place has a reputation for relative safety. Dancing. Drinking. No bullshit. House music beats against my ears. Lucky for me, my time overseas stripped the most sensitive layers of my hearing, so it’s bearable. “Do you want—” The question cuts itself off. Bethany’s no longer beside me. She has already plunged into the crowd. My breath catches at the sight of her. She has so fully inhabited the music that it seems to be emanating from her, and the movements she makes—I recognize them. I’ve seen them once before. This is nothing like tightly scripted ballet. It’s primal. A challenge.

An invitation.

The music wraps itself around my hips and pulls me forward with the same intensity as her dark eyes. There’s no room for us to dance apart and no room for anyone else to touch her.

I take full advantage of it. Hands on her hips. On the back of her neck, where a sheen of sweat gathers. Her ass brushes against the front of my pants, teasing, and I’m ready to burst into flames. The fire engulfs me, becomes me.

Bethany hooks a hand around my neck and bares her throat to me.

I let my breath skim along her skin in place of my teeth.

“You want more of that.” She breathes the accusation against my ear on the heels of a low laugh. “So even Joshua North needs a warm body.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. You think I’m the devil, but I’m human at the core.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Her hip under my palm, her curves against my bones. “I’ve had feelings.” The admission seems almost ridiculous in its simplicity. “I wasn’t always a cold bastard. No—I was always a cold bastard. Just not this cold.”

The energy around us, between us, shifts and changes. She keeps hold of me. Bethany’s little T-shirt rides up, and she presses flesh against flesh. I can’t get a full breath. The things I’d do to her if there were no clothes between us. If I could kick a door shut and flip the lock. Fuck the lock. Fuck the door, even.

“Feelings about what?”

Something snarky, on the edge of a lie, dies on the tip of my tongue. Truth blooms in its place. “I was pretty fucking pissed when my brother left for the army. For a while I thought I’d kill him myself if he ever came back.” The old sense betrayal is like any of my other scars from bullets or knives or fists, only invisible. “He left us with our father.” Who was a monster more terrifying than any I’ve met in the world—including traitors and bastards such as her brother. “And then I did the same thing to Elijah and came into my own as a piece of shit.”

“Nobody could blame you for that,” she murmurs into my ear.

But someone could. Elijah could. A cracking sensation at the center of my chest reminds me how much I miss them. “I blame myself for that. I’m a guilty motherfucker, sweetheart. I’m swimming in it.”

“Swim somewhere else.” Her body beckons. Bethany takes up space on the dance floor, her bends and turns forcing the world to recognize her existence. Push and pull, sway and dip. I won’t let her get farther than an arm’s length.

“Then they’d know.” The truth is a thousand stab wounds. What the ever-living fuck am I doing?