Audition (North Security 4)

Shoulders back, head up. This is not a dilemma.

I’ve just stepped around the first corner of the king-size bed when the water shuts off. The abrupt silence freezes me in place. Shit. Shit. The average time it takes a man to dry off his hard, muscled body is going to be nothing like the time it takes me to hastily scrub off excess water in a disgusting shared bathroom. I weigh the options—get caught as a living statue at the foot of the bed or the floor of the bathroom?

The deliberations have taken too much time.

Footsteps on bathroom tile. I lurch into motion and make it around to the other side of the bed. The bathroom door cracks open, tendrils of steam reaching out and brushing against my cheek. His eyes flare when he sees me. No smile graces his lips. “You’re awake,” he comments. “Good. Noah will be waiting out front to take you to the theater.”

I’d expected a rush of heat after how long I spent pressing my thighs together underneath Josh’s sheets last night. Instead he brushes by me surrounded by a deep freeze. A thick white towel only serves to highlight his nakedness. The muscles, the hair, the maleness of him.

“Fresh towels are in the linen closet, as always,” he says over his shoulder on his way through the bedroom. I can’t help but watch him go. He must know I’m looking. He walks with his shoulders set. Every step seems planned. God, even his back looks strong.

He almost makes it out the door without looking back. At the very last moment I catch a flash of emerald. Amusement flickers at his lips. He saw me check him out.

Then he’s gone, the door shutting gently behind him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Forbidden from practicing any martial arts, slaves in 16th century Brazil developed Capoeira—fighting disguised as athletic, impassioned dance.

Josh, present time

I’ve spent nights in the mountain cold overseas.

I’ve pulled the trigger in life-or-death situations. I’ve hauled screaming men with bloodied limbs and crazed eyes into helicopters. And now I’ve done another torturous thing: walked past a sleep-rumpled Bethany without touching her.

Sleeping with her is not on the fucking table. It never has been, for a variety of reasons. Sleeping near her doesn’t seem to be an option, either. Every time I doze off with her in the house, I fall into vivid, filthy dreams involving the wide array of ways her body could bend beneath mine. So fuck sleep. I’ll try again tomorrow.

I thought I could put those thoughts out of my head. There was no way she was going to spend another night in that apartment, not even if I had to go and get her myself. That place might as well have been under a blinking neon sign that said OPEN FOR FUCKERY.

The way I feel right now, she’s not any safer in my house.

I brace one arm against the wall of the walk-in closet and rip the towel from my waist. My dick stands at full attention. Jesus, if she walks in now, if that doorknob turns, I’ll abandon the last shreds of self-control like the towel at my feet.

The doorknob stays put.

I can’t work like this.

Protecting Bethany isn’t some bullshit job that I can phone in. At North Security I don’t get those kinds of assignments. That’s not how we invest our time. I won’t say this is personal. It can’t be personal. Because letting myself get into that mind-set will get us both killed, or worse.

Sheer force of will isn’t going to rid me of this erection.

She slept in a tank top last night. It was so fucking close to the one she wore that night I went to her house for the first time. That was a big fucking risk, throwing pebbles at her window. Her grandmother could have walked in. Her brother could have shown up at home. Anything could have happened. And instead I lured her out into the dark. It must’ve been a tough decision for her—go against me, or them? Give in to goodness or the rush of knowing that life is more complicated than following the rules?

I don’t give a fuck about the rules right now. Not with my fist stroking hard and my teeth gritted to keep any sound from escaping. I’ll never forget the sensation of her lips against mine. That first glancing kiss. The things her body can do. What they would do for me if I peeled off those leotards and the breezy skirts and bared her skin to me. All her skin. Every inch. All her most secret places. They would all be mine. Mine, mine, mine.

My release spills out onto the discarded towel. My dick jerks in my hand. For the first time since last night, my head is almost clear.

Footsteps pad on the carpet outside the door.

Fuck it. Let her come in. Let her see me like this. Let her see everything. My muscles brace for the light from the bedroom to hit me like a slap. For Bethany’s wide-eyed gaze, no longer as innocent as it once was. Close. But not quite. She’s seen things, I know she has. This would be something else entirely. It would explode the cool distance I’ve so far managed to build between us. A distance that, right now, seems very fragile.

The footsteps pause. My breath stops in my lungs.

Then the footfalls continue on, moving away until I can’t hear them anymore.

Bethany, present time

Mamere lives in a green house with a red door not far from the French Quarter. You can’t see the Mississippi from her caved-in front porch, but you can smell it. You can smell everything from the tiny corner lot, including whatever the neighbors in the red house next door are cooking. Today it’s jambalaya. Easy enough to tell by the sizzle of sausage in fat and the toasty bite of spices on the breeze. My mouth waters, but I don’t so much as slow my step as I pass by Mamere’s neon sign in the window. It still announces PSYCHIC READINGS in letters dull from age. A single tarot card decorates the corner of the window. A part of me is aware of the old swing in the back, where I used to wait for Josh. Most of me is dying to hear her voice.