A Beauty Dark & Deadly (A Dark & Deadly Series Book 1) (19 page)

Her eyes looked so big and hopeful, like she wanted nothing more than to believe everything he was saying.  If he had to remind her every day of what a wonder she was, then he would.  He could promise that and be lucky to have the opportunity.

They stared at one another.  He wasn’t sure what was going to happen now.  All he could think of was that she wasn’t pulling away from him, she was leaning into him, her hand was soft and warm and maybe sometime soon, he could interlock his fingers through hers, bring her hand up to his lips, kiss every knuckle and simply hold her hand.  When was the last time he held someone’s hand?

He pulled back.  He didn’t know why, but he pulled back, dropped his hand from her neck down into his left, and resumed his kneeling position.  However, he kept a steady hand on her injured one, making sure the ice was still in position.  From the corner of his eye, he could swear he saw a hint of disappointment flash in her eyes, but it happened so fast there was a good chance he was mistaken.

“How’s your hand?” he asked.  His voice was like a crack in the sidewalk, searching for sunlight.

“It’ll survive,” she murmured.

“A leftie, eh?”  He picked his eyes up and locked them with hers.  “Well, you rest it for the rest of the day.  I’ll take care of everything.  You can hang out on the couch and read all day.  How does that sound?”

Even without hearing her say it, the look on her face clearly stated that she was about to object.  He pushed his brow up, indicating the matter was not up for discussion.  A lovely smile slid onto her face and he felt himself smiling in return.

“It sounds wonderful.”  She stood, as did he, keeping the ice on her hand.  He barely blinked when she placed a chaste kiss directly on his cheekbone before scurrying off without looking back. 

A smile broke out onto his face.  He could still feel her lips lingering on his skin.

Chapter1
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There was a light drizzle that lasted four days. Rumpel was disgruntled at the lack of exploration and exercise but he wasn't willing to venture farther out into the rain if he didn't have to. Emmy, as usual, didn't mind taking strolls in the rain. It helped clear her mind and the bitter air helped clear her thoughts. She noticed a changed had taken place in her body and in her mind regarding her current whereabouts and the person she was with. She actually slept through the night now, and when she woke up, her body wasn't as tense. She wasn't waiting for Jason to walk through the door and attempt to murder her any longer.

She trusted him.

It was scary the first time she realized it, truth be told. This man was intimidating if she had seen him in the street without the chip permanently on his shoulder. The fact that his wife and her lover were found murdered and he was the prime suspect just added to his mysterious drifter air. Once you got deeper, however, the man was gentle. Sweet. Kind. Warm. Completely unlike his public persona. The only reason she originally felt uncomfortable being with him was because there was a good chance he killed his wife, despite his acquittal.

Emmy stopped walking, swallowed. She looked out at the woods from the outer limits of Jason's backyard. Before taking the position here, Emmy had been so sure Jason was guilty, that the justice system had failed the minute he was able to walk free. He got off on a technicality, and now, even if he had committed the crimes, he would never stand trial for either one of them again. Now, however, her thoughts had shifted. She believed he was innocent. But a small part of her worried she only believed in his innocence because she needed him to be innocent. She had physically harmed someone in defense of that innocence. She was comfortable around a would-be murderer to the point of being attracted to him.

Because she was. Attracted to him. And if it turned out he did kill his wife and her lover, she would hate herself for the rest of her life. Emmy, for the life of her, had no idea what happened or when things changed. But they did, and she couldn't go back to the way things used to be. She got butterflies in her stomach and her legs were like yogurt whenever she was around him. Her eyes were glued to his form when he wasn't paying attention. She did not know how it was possible that someone so intimidating could be so beautiful. Truth be told, he looked like a red neck when he was in the public - plaid and jeans and boots. His dark hair was in his face. Covering his eyes. This made no sense to Emmy because his eyes were probably his best feature. They were a dark color. Initially, Emmy believed they were a brown. However, upon further inspection, she realized that she was wrong. They were blue, an incredibly dark blue like the bottom of the ocean. When he caught her eye, it was hard to look away, and her breath caught in her throat and she couldn't breathe, like she was drowning.

She didn't want to think about him being guilty. She wanted to believe the best in him, even though there was no reason for it and he didn't necessarily deserve it. She shook her head, her hair matted to her face. It was starting to rain harder, and there was a good chance there might be another storm coming.

Rumpel yipped, his tail wagging in the rain, his tongue hanging out of his mouth through a wide smile. Emmy could not help but chuckle at the excitement the dog was showing.

When she turned to see what had riled him up, her heart jumped into her throat and remained lodged there. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe. She was rooted to her spot, and there was no chance of her moving anytime soon unless Jason walked out to her and swooped her up in his arms himself.

And she wanted that. Badly.

Because he was the reason Rumpel was so excited in the first place. Jason Belmont was standing in the pouring rain in actual clothes and not his robe, getting soaked to the bone. And he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen before.

She wasn't thinking when her feet proceeded to hurry in his direction. Her thoughts were on mute. She wasn't acting rationally, and even worse, she didn't care.  Her hands were shaking but she couldn't distinguish if it was because of the cold rain or if it was because of what she was about to do. Her heart was slamming in her chest the way a child jumped up and down on a bed - enthusiastically and without pattern.

Jason's eyes were on her - so dark and difficult to read. She almost stopped herself due to the fact that she didn't know how he would respond, but she pushed through like it didn't matter. He looked puzzled, unsure what she was doing and why she was approaching him. In all honesty, she had no idea what she was doing either. She was acting on pure instinct, and even if her consciousness intervened, she highly doubted she would be able to stop if she tried. Rumpel was running with her, yipping happily over the falling rain. He only stopped to shake the rain off his fur as best as he could. It did not help, of course, but he tried all the same.

When Emmy reached him, she threw her arms around his shoulders and sprung up on the balls of her feet so she could kiss him without any inhibitions. Her eyes closed on impact, but her hands moved from his shoulders to his hair, and she buried her fingers in the now-dark tresses.

Jason seemed surprised at her show of affection, but that shock lasted only momentarily before his own arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her even closer to his body. There was no space between their torsos, much like their mouths. They couldn't breathe but they still continued to kiss. Jason made the first move to deepen it by using one hand to clutch her cheek, bending his thumb so it tilted her chin back and gave him better access to her mouth. His tongue slipped between her lips, tentatively at first, almost as though he was waiting for her to reject him, for her to demand he retreat and keep the kiss passionate but close-lipped. She did nothing of the sort, and instead, opened her mouth to give him better access.

Emmy's thoughts were muddled and foggy, probably because the rain was masking her better judgment. But she didn't care - goodness, she didn't care - not when his hands held her face and her waist as securely as his did, the roughness just adding to the safety she felt when he touched her. Not when his lips were claiming her mouth as his own, when his tongue burned every fragment of flesh it came in contact with. She didn't know kisses could feel this way. She didn't know Jason could kiss this way - that anyone could kiss this way. It astounded her, and as her thoughts continued to get heavy and difficult to decipher, she could not help but think why in the world any woman in their right mind would cheat on a man who could kiss like this? Maybe she deserved it...

The thought instantly made Emmy choke. She pulled away from Jason, suddenly glad the rain was falling hard. She needed to wash that terrible thought away from her mind, from her person. Regardless of the type of person Stacey
was, she and her lover did not deserve to die that way. Nobody did. Not even Linda Carter.

“What?" Jason asked, and his deep blue eyes filled with concern, like he was some sort of lost puppy, worried he had done something wrong and that his master wouldn't love him anymore. "I, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have" -

Emmy held up her hand, immediately silencing him. This was not what she wanted to hear though she was certain if he said anything else, anything sweet or romantic, it would be just as bad. She needed silence, she needed the soft drumming if the rain, she needed the absence of everything so she could clear her head and give her time to breathe.

It wasn't difficult to figure out, she realized. She didn't need that much time. Despite the fact that Jason was tried for murder, despite the fact that he was a writer that created realities that shocked his audience, despite the fact that she barely found out she liked him as a human being, she wanted him. She wanted him more than she should, more than she wanted anybody before. She wanted to feel his hands on her curves, his mouth on her neck, her fingers through his hair. She wanted to breathe the same air as he did and hear him moan her name. Just thinking about it caused her upper thighs to moisten, caused her pelvis to pulse in just the right way where she felt both pleasure and pain simultaneously.

The reason she pulled away was because her thoughts were becoming inappropriate. Despite her feelings for Jason, Stacey and her lover did not deserve to die. They could be the worst people in the world, but they did not deserve to die. No one did. Even if they were the most awful people on the planet, they did not deserve to go the way they went. And her desire for Jason did not give her the right to justify his actions - if he committed them in the first place. She needed to break apart from him in order to remind herself of that fact. She couldn't lose who she was and what she valued because she wanted to have sex with someone.

When Emmy picked her eyes up to look back at Jason, she realized he was waiting for a response from her, any kind of response. She didn't know if he realized it, but he was holding his breath. She smiled softly at the sight, not realizing she could possess such power over someone's emotions the way she did with him. More than that, she found she liked it, and her confidence continued to grow.

It was for that reason why she was able to step to him again, clutch his face within her watery hands and pull him down so she could meet lips with him once more. From there, she released his face so she could cross wrists behind his neck, and his own hands pressed the flat of her back close to his so no air could sneak through. It was as though he was breathing fresh air by kissing her, by holding her to him, by allowing himself to lose his control with her. She didn't know how long he'd been holding onto it, how hard he's been keeping it at bay, but once she gave him permission to let down his defenses, he didn't waste a moment. The rain started to fall harder, but somehow, Emmy wasn't cold. Heat radiated from her body, meshing with Jason's own heat, mingling together to create steam. The goosebumps on her skin were because of her feelings Jason was stirring within her rather than her temperature.

Somehow, Emmy ended up with her back against the wall of the house. Her arms were raised above her head and kept together at her wrists by one of Jason's hand. The other gripped her waist the way a dog gripped a bone - possessive and insistent, with no intent to let it go anytime soon.

Emmy felt a spark shoot straight through her pelvis, between her thighs, until it twisted into a throb and she couldn't help but moan against his mouth, a desperate sound that pierced the cold silence. The rain still landed in fat plops on the wooden cabin, the noise a symphony. She wanted more of him, and judging by the way his teeth nipped at her bottom lip and how the lower half of his body was pressed so tightly against hers, he wanted her just as much.

"Inside," she told him through the kiss, that blip of a moment where she could speak and catch her breath at the same time.

He nodded, and without releasing his grip on her, began to lead her inside. Their mouths were still connected, their bodies still molded together, and it was amazing that neither of them was tripped up of their way inside.

Jason knew his house well, so without looking up, he was able to find the doorknob and open the door. Emmy could feel Rumpel dart between her feet to get inside where it was warm, but she couldn't give the dog much thought. Not when she was wrapped up this way. She barely heard the door slam shut. Her hands were gripping his hair, her chest was pressed hard against his. She didn't realize she was cold until she was out of the rain and in the surprisingly warm cabin. It didn't even matter, though, not when Jason kissed her the way he was. All other thoughts, all other feelings, were tossed casually aside, left for another time. Not now. Not when she was in this moment.

The back of her knees hit the couch, and she buckled underneath it. Jason was quick to get on top of her. It didn't seem to matter to him that they were both soaked, which meant his couch was getting soaked.

Emmy's fingers let go of Jason's hair and proceeded to run down his back. She could feel his muscles twitch underneath her touch, and a surge of power coursed through her. The fact that she had such power over this decidedly masculine person was enough to want to go even further, to make him twitch even more. Her mouth yanked away from his and proceeded to find homes on his jawbone, the place on his throat where his pulse kept time, the column of his neck, and the connection point between his neck and his shoulder. With every kiss she placed on his body, his breathing caught in his throat and a small groan was emitted instead. The noise was unlike anything Emmy had ever heard before, and she found she liked the sound of it so much she wanted to hear it again. And again. And again.

He pressed himself down onto her. Emmy could tell he was being careful with his distribution of weight. Somehow, she was able to feel his entire length on her without being crushed by his girth. He never stopped kissing her. Not when he shifted his weight to position himself appropriately, not when she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. It was like she was his oxygen, and he wanted to breathe as much as he possibly could. His lips sought after hers, kept track of them the way a father kept after his daughter. He would not let up. His tongue was possessive, laying his claim on her mouth, branding her as his now for as long as he wanted.