Trust by PJ Adams Page A

hands of Maliakov. When he’d seen his kid brother lying there in the ring, unresponsive. He’d been concerned, of course: they’d known the risks, known what could go wrong.
    He’d felt all kinds of things at that moment, but the kind of fear that chisels away deep inside you and threatens to tear apart all the things you believe you are...
    No.
    He’d only felt that at one point.
    It was when she’d come to him.
    Jess. A bundle of furious, self-righteous energy, throwing herself between him and Reuben’s boys.
    It wasn’t even that he’d feared for her at that moment.
    It was the look.
    A brief flash of something, and suddenly everything else dissolved away.
    Her. Standing there in her ripped jeans and that leather jacket hanging open. The fall and rise of her chest. The look in those pale blue eyes. The connection .
    She was totally fucking gorgeous.
    §
    Later, at the house. The memory of how he’d played her body like a fine instrument in the back of Ronnie’s car still fresh. The small sounds she’d made and tried to suppress. The hardness of the fabric of her jeans, the softness beneath, and the hardness, too.
    Trying to turn away, to stop himself getting drawn in.
    Turning away from her, then back.
    Those eyes again. The lips slightly parted. Her face flushed with passion and need.
    She was a siren.
    There was no turning away.
    Now, he led her upstairs to the bathroom – a wet room. Everything was tiled in dark gray granite flecked with flickers of quartz. Whoever Owen had hired to fit this place out had done a decent job.
    “You’re covered in blood,” he said. A broad red smear was still spread across one cheek. More – just a smudge – on her neck.
    Like war paint. Something very primitive about it all, and only adding to the animal intensity he felt, and was desperately trying to rein in.
    And he knew she felt just the same.
    The look in her eyes. The way she touched him. The way she responded.
    “So are you,” she said. His nose was swollen, one eye puffy, half-closed, from the brief beating he’d taken.
    She reached for his neck-tie and pulled at the knot. Feeding the tie under his collar, she pulled it clear and dropped it to the floor, even as his hands slipped beneath her jacket and eased it back across her shoulders. She let her arms hang, so he could slide the jacket clear, and immediately his right hand went to a breast, taking its weight, sliding the thumb across a stiffening nipple.
    She pulled at his shirt, fumbling with the buttons. When she was three buttons down, he just reached for the shirt and pulled it up over his head.
    For a few long seconds they paused. He looked down at the swell of her breasts under that flimsy top, the narrow straps of the top, the lacy strap of her bra. Her eyes roamed across his body, and she bit at her lower lip again.
    Then she reached for his waistband and drew him closer.
    He reached around her, set a tap running in the basin, found a cloth. Moistened it and raised it to her cheek, gently dabbing at the blood until it was gone.
    Moved to her neck, then allowed the damp cloth to move down across her collarbone to a breast again, soaking through her top so that when he let the cloth fall the fabric of her top clung tight.
    He dipped his head, mouth following the course that cloth had taken from neck to collarbone to breast, kissing her through the damp fabric.
    He pulled at her top, sliding it up so that she had to raise her arms to let it pass. He dropped it to one side and in a single smooth movement as his hand fell back down, he hooked finger and thumb into the catch of her bra, released it, pulled it aside.
    Her breasts were full, the nipples stiff, inviting.
    He pressed his lips around one hard stub and flicked with the tip of his tongue. Cupped the other breast in a hand, and teased his thumb around the areola.
    He guided her back against a tiled wall, his leg coming to press between hers.
    He reached down, found the button of her jeans and