The Darkest Joy (24 page)

Brooke presses her head against the top of the piano, running long slender fingers over the keys reverently, and my gut tightens at her raw expression of sadness. That sick fuck didn’t just take her family.

He stole her dreams.

Killing someone’s spirit should be as illegal as murder. I swallow the ache caught in my throat.

Some sixth sense makes Brooke turn and she finds me standing there, her face breaking into a smile so broad, so real, it makes my chest tighten at her expression. Having that much love from a woman aimed at you is like a weapon. But only when you feel the same way about her.

And I do.

I walk to her and Brooke stands as my arms slip around her waist.

“Hey,” she says in soft greeting. I put my head against hers, smelling the fresh scent of her, and underneath that—the smell of us.

“I made coffee.”

Brooke tilts her face back, the sun caressing her eyes, taking the guesswork out of the color.

“I smell that,” she answers, standing on tiptoe and nuzzling my neck. I take her face in my hands and stare into her eyes. “You have purple eyes y’know,” I comment, running a finger
from her temple to her jaw. I search her precious skin, thinking about where I want my mouth to be.

She blinks, then without flinching says, “That’s why my middle name is Elizabeth. My mom”—she takes a painful swallow—“thought I looked like some actress . . .”

I snap my fingers, the name on the tip of my tongue. “Yeah, an old gal . . .”

“Elizabeth Taylor.” Brooke shrugs and I watch the sway of her hips as she begins to move up the stairs. I chase after her and she giggles as I grope her from behind. The violet eyes, my last name. It’s not until we’re at the top that I realize she really could be Elizabeth Taylor.

If she were my wife.

“I saw that Fed guy on your phone,” I say casually, grabbing the stack of mail off the table beside the front door and bringing it to her as she closes the basement door I left standing open.

Brooke’s eyes move to mine. “What . . .” she snorts, then laughs, “going through my cell?”

I smirk. “Not exactly.” I place the mail beside her and sit down at the small kitchen table. I rake my fingers through my hair, causing it to stand wildly. “I didn’t want to wake you up after . . .” I move my hips forward and backward as I sit on the chair, making it groan with the motion. Brooke’s lips curl.

“Nice . . . classy.”

I lean back in the chair and lace my hands together on top of my head, giving her a speculative look. Holding back my grin hurts. “That’s me, babe, all the way.”

“You’re a class-A slouch is what you are.”

My eyebrows rise and the legs of my chair strike the floor. The grin takes possession of my face. “Take it back or I’ll tickle you until you scream for mercy.”

“No, sir, you should be fishing today,” Brooke says in a coy voice, the table skittering as I grab her and she shrieks. The mail I’d carefully placed floats around us and lands on my head as I lower her to the floor gently. My thumbs are in her armpits and Brooke holds her breath.

“Don’t you dare,” she warns me, those cool lavender eyes glitter like diamonds shot through with violet fire.

“Ha!” I yell, working my hands into her sides, and she yelps, twisting and squirming.

Suddenly I’m eating at her lips, those noises of excited escape becoming contented moans.

We don’t make it to the bedroom.

I feel the weight of his lips like an echo of pressure and let my hand fall from my mouth as I remember our lovemaking.

And try not to feel guilty.

I don’t feel worthy of this soaring happiness . . . not after all that’s happened.

I fight with myself, the contrary emotions warring with each other. I’m not at peace. Yet . . . I want joy. Even if it is dark, I yearn for it.

The darkest joy is better than none at all.

Imperfect, vital . . . it comes like a thief in the night and
robs your heart of its energy to resist the love that has been offered.

I watch Chance come to me, tenderly . . . brutally. The hallmark of consuming me with tenderness is a slow erotic devour.

“What are you thinking?” Chance asks, kissing his way from my ankle to my mouth.

I can’t think . . . I’m barely breathing, but I answer. “I don’t know if I deserve it . . . this,” I say in a low voice, not meeting his eyes.

“Hey.” Chance raises his head from my bare body, which he’s just had every way a man can have a woman. And just the thought of what he’s done makes heat rise to the surface of my skin like a brushfire.

He reaches out from between my legs, his face level with my belly button and cradles my chin, not letting me escape that seawater gaze. “You do . . . listen, Brooke . . .” Chance sighs and sits up, pulling me up to my knees then swiveling me around to be on his lap.

“Toss me around, why don’t you?” I say and he smiles, but he’s gone all serious.

“I thought we already did that?” He quirks a brow and my blush deepens.

“I love that you do that . . .” Chance says, kissing my temple.

He keeps his mouth on the side of my head, his lips moving against my skin. “You
do
deserve this. You’re not responsible for what happened to your family, Brooke.”

Then he takes a deep breath, saying the worst part of it. “You would only be dead too.”

A crushing weight lifts from my chest, like I haven’t been breathing before and now I can.

“I know,” I whisper, admitting the deepest guilt of all. I want to live. I always wanted to.

“Don’t feel guilty for surviving, for finding some goddamned happiness,” he says in a fierce voice. “They’re gone, Brooke. But we’re alive. Here. Right now.”

I look up at Chance and he meets my gaze, full of conviction, sincerity. “I never needed anyone until I met you.”

“Okay,” I say. And finally, I might mean it.

“You all right?” he asks.

I nod. “I’m going to clean up.”

“Yeah, I’ve made you dirty . . .”

“You have,” I say with a wink.

The hot water feels good as I open my mouth, letting it fill and slide down my chin. I lather my hair and wash my body, every part sore, tingling with that pleasant ache that follows great sex.

Mind-blowing sex.

I hear clattering around the cabin and step out of the antiquated shower pan, small little hex tiles grabbing the water in the thin grout lines as I towel off.

I get dressed in jeans and a light tee, then pull over a wool sweater. I pad out to the kitchen and see muscular forearms buried in suds and say what I’m thinking, “That’s sexy . . . Just sayin’.”

Chance smiles and finishes with our chipped coffee mugs. The old speckled-blue enamel mugs drip on the antique porcelain drainboard, the handles curled to the base of the cups
as suds and water slide down the integral ribs of the board and swirl into the basin.

“I do dishes,” Chance says, wiping his hands off on a bright hand towel. “I save damsels in distress . . .”

I approach him, putting my palms on his chest for balance. “And you give great orgasms,” I say.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and swats my ass.

“You’ve got mail,” Charlie says, pointing to the stack he straightened on the table after our interlude and I give a small frown. Did it get buried somewhere? I’m sure I’ve only got junk.

I see the Juilliard logo and my heart stutters. My head whips to Chance and he’s grinning so hard I swear he’ll chip a tooth. I grab the envelope, pressing it against my chest.

“What do you think it is?”

Chance just shakes his head. “Open it, Brooke.”

I tear it open, then hesitate. Why would Juilliard be sending me mail? I’ve formally bailed on my scholarship, the final audition—missed.

I feel my heartbeat thump where the envelope is pressing against my chest.

The hell with it. I open the letter, scanning the contents. As I read I get more flustered, hot, agitated.

Happy.

I look up at Chance and he knows from my face.

“You got in,” he says as a statement.

I slowly nod. “I don’t know how . . .” Then a strange idea occurs to me. Or not so strange.

Lacey.

That turd.

I jog over to the table where I keep my banged-up cell and look at the messages. Jesus, there’s ten from Clearwater. What’s got his government-issue boxers in a twist? I ignore those, getting to Lacey and swipe her image. I wait as it rings.

Chance raises his brows. I shake my head, putting up a finger and he walks over as it’s hanging there in the air and in a long pull . . . he sucks it into his mouth. Our eyes meet and Lacey answers.

“Hey ya!”

I startle and Chance begins working his way up my wrist with his lips.

Oh my God
, does the man have a mouth? It should be illegal or bottled for sale. The thought makes me smile.

“Hello?”

“Hey Lace,” I say and give a mock frown to Chance. He gets to the bend of my elbow and I melt.
Stop it
, I mouth and he releases my arm, stepping back.

We stare at each other.

I turn away or hang up on Lacey. Those are my choices.

“Are you okay? You sound like you’re in a daze or something . . .”

I nod then realize she can’t see it. “Listen . . . I know what you did.”

Silence. “What’d I do?” she asks innocently.

She’s so conniving, I know she did.

“You put my name in for Juilliard.”

More silence.

“Please tell me you’re not pissed, Brookie.”

I wait, biting my lower lip, glancing at Chance, who’s watching me across the room. I know why they call them bedroom eyes now.

He’s got them. Uh-huh.

I look away again, hoping for concentration.

“No . . . not really.”

“Are you okay? I mean, I know the FBI is there and . . . well, I’ve been worried.”

“Why? I mean, besides the obvious. I know I was a mess when I left. And some stuff is happening . . .”

“What stuff?” she asks.

Stuff I don’t want to talk about right now, over the phone, with my new hot boyfriend listening to it all. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Oh dear baby Jesus . . . Have you, are you with
him
?”

Gawd, we’re gonna do this.

I step outside and Chance gives me the space.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Why are you whispering?” she asks in a whisper.

“I’m not.”

“Right. Well, it sounds serious if you’re whispering.”

I huff and she ignores me.

I wait and so does she.

Fine
. “I did . . . he’s . . .” How do I begin to describe Chance?

“Hot?” she prompts.

“Yes.” Hell yes.

“Good with his hands?”

Oh yes
. “Yeah,” I breathe out a syllable that sounds like an answer.

“Lace . . . I think.” I stop and take a deep breath. “I think I love him.”

“Your boss?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know . . . Is this like insta-lust and you’re getting all your parts all mixed up? Like your vagina and your brain? Sometimes those two switch places.”

“No.”
She has a point but she needs to simmer down . . 
.

“Huh,” Lacey says. A pause, then, “Okay, spill. Describe Alaskan Man.”

I do.

“Wow. Okay, so he’s your boss . . .”

“He fired me.”

“God, that’s hot. He wants you so bad he fires you. I can go with that.”

“It had occurred to me as a good point.”

“What about a job now?” Lacey asks.

I blow out air, the wisps of my hair floating then settling around me. “I think I’ll have to use some of . . . my parents’ money.”

“It’s about damn time. They’d want it for you, Brooke. You know they would. And they’d be so excited about Juilliard.”

She’s right, but I can’t escape the knot in my throat.

“Oh!” she squeals and my heart skips a beat.

“What?” I ask.

“Agent Clearsign—”

“Clearwater . . .”

“Pssst . . . yeah, okay. Agent Dirtywater is starting to get on my last nerve.”

I roll my eyes. “Starting to?”

“Okay, he’s using it as a trampoline, ’kay? Just call him back. He said he sent you registered mail, left ten kazabillion messages. He’s threatening to come up there.”

“Or send someone here,” I say, thinking Clearwater should back off now that an agent’s here.

“He’s just worried, Brooke. This freak is running around, killing families . . .” She trails off in the well of silence her reminder wedges between us, but finally finishes, “of Juilliard competitors . . . He wants the surviving family members accounted for . . . protected.”

I think about it. I’m pretty well protected, way out here in the middle of nowhere, a state so far removed from the others they call it going “Outside” when anyone travels to the Lower 48.

I peek through the window at Chance, his head bobbing in a soft rhythm as he strums his guitar. My head turns to his vintage Hemi ’Cuda and it occurs to me that he must bring his guitar everywhere with him. I wish I could do that with a piano.

“Brooke!” Lacey’s voice cuts through my mind fog.

“Huh?” I ask.

“Are you sleeping?”

I giggle and she sighs. “You’re boning him to death, I get it. Pay attention,” she says, snapping her fingers next to the phone. “I’m coming up there. I want to meet the stud muffin. I can’t have someone replacing me, y’know. I must be Queen Bee in your affections.”

That’s it. I choke on my laughter, howling. That’s Lace, so full of herself.

“Gawd, ya horndog. I’m coming. You’re an unemployed
flake now, so when? You have no schedule and I live the life of leisure so I can breeze up there.”

“What about your job?”

Silence.

“I got canned.”

That’s weird
, I think. “Why?”

She sighs again and I get a mental image of Lacey blowing her pale hair off her forehead.

“Texting during work hours.”

Imagine that.

“Yes, do come and meet”—I throw my hand over my mouth, lift it, and say quickly before the gales of laughter can take me away—“stud muffin.”

“That’s right baby, somebody’s got to be in charge of the two of you.”