Wendy Qualls
Jasmine didn’t see the creep until it was too late. Just my luck, she groused silently once the initial shock had worn off. The man wasn’t even all that well hidden in the alley—if she hadn’t been so deep in her own head, dissecting her busy schedule for the rest of the week, she would have had plenty of time to cross the street and avoid him.
“Your purse, lady.” It was a growl, a blatant effort to disguise his voice. Not that he needed to. They were far from the nearest streetlight, in a not-particularly-watchful part of town, and she was obviously in no position to identify him. He had a mop of dirty blond hair sticking up over a ratty jacket. Perhaps he was a regular in this neighborhood. His voice and posture said youngish, but his steady grip on the knife showed he’d probably done this before. Knife. Jasmine’s runaway train of thought ground to a halt, her attention narrowed to that single object. Fuck.
She did manage to get off half a scream before the man closed the gap between them and clamped a filthy hand over her mouth. The blade slashed through her purse strap, dropping the knockoff Kate Spade to the sidewalk before she could react. Jasmine held perfectly still under the man’s fingers, praying he’d just take the purse and go . . .
“Halt!”
She and the mugger both snapped their attention instinctively toward the voice. Which was apparently emanating from a caped figure who crouched atop a nearby fire escape.
“You’ve made a big mistake,” the figure announced with a dramatic flourish. “For I am Ebony Boneshaft!”
Shit. Shitshitshitshit. Jasmine suppressed a groan. Couldn’t she have been rescued by a different superhero? Someone less . . . flashy?
Everyone knew about Ebony Boneshaft. He was a regular figure in the tabloids, usually as a result of having rescued yet another damsel in distress and then providing her with a “night of perfect bliss,” as one recent headline had proclaimed the last time Jasmine had bothered to look. The man’s damn name practically screamed “porn star,” anyway. In other words, exactly what she wasn’t looking for. Not that she wasn’t appreciative of the help, of course, but shit.
It would have been rude to run off without thanking him, though. Is there a Miss Manners protocol for this? Jasmine grabbed the trailing end of her purse strap and shuffled back against the nearest wall. Her legs felt rubbery. Guess I wouldn’t have been running anyway. Ebony Boneshaft dropped to the street in front of her would-be mugger with a two-story jump down from the fire escape and a showy flash of his violet cape. Hands forward, threatening violence, he and the mugger circled each other.
Well damn. Okay, at least that part of the reputation was well-deserved. The man looked positively graceful while fighting. The black spandex was a bit much, but it did accentuate the way his muscles bunched and shifted as he moved. The mugger made a few ineffective slashes with his knife, which Ebony Boneshaft (Mr. Boneshaft? Ebony? Did it really matter?) easily dodged.
Okay, yeah, definitely good-looking. His skin was dark, even darker than her own, which just emphasized how well the streetlights reflected off the sheen of sweat on his bare forearms and the parts of his face not covered by his mask. He feinted sideways and followed up with a high roundhouse kick, allowing his long dreadlocks to swing dramatically as he turned.
His familiar smirk made Jasmine blurt out, “Raquel?”
The superhero froze, slightly off-balance, one foot still in the air where the mugger’s head had been only a second ago. The man was down on the asphalt, now, out cold, but Ebony Boneshaft ignored him completely in favor of whirling around and staring at Jasmine. There was no mistaking her brother’s face even beneath the mask. “Fuck.”
Oh God. Jasmine looked at her brother again, skin-tight spandex over a fantastically fit physique and that face women rhapsodized about in the tabloids.
“Jasmine.” Raquel’s eyes were wide.
“It’s you . . . I mean, you’re . . . fuck.” She spun away and clapped her hands over her eyes, although she couldn’t un-see the little things that had looked so deliciously attractive only a moment ago. “Please tell me the sex part isn’t mandatory.”
Raquel made a choking sound and it took several seconds of sputtering for him to get his voice back under control. “No,” he squeaked. “God, Jasmine, what the hell are you doing out on the street at this hour?”
“It’s seven-god-damned-thirty, and I was walking home from work. I’ve been busy. I’d ask what you were doing out here, but I think I’ve kinda figured it out.”
He glanced down at his spandex costume and finally looked a bit sheepish. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“I’ve got time, apparently.” She shot a pointed look at the unconscious would-be mugger.
“Yeah, I . . . oh hell.” Raquel’s head snapped up. Before Jasmine could open her mouth to ask what was wrong, he pressed her back into the rough brick wall and lowered his face against her neck. “Play along,” he breathed.
“What—”
“Photographer, across the street. She’s been following me for three days now, trying to get a picture of me in action. I thought I lost her tonight, but apparently not. Try to look a bit dazed.”
That wasn’t hard. Jasmine’s pulse still hadn’t slowed from the moment the mugger pulled out his knife, and the revelation that Ebony Boneshaft was her freaking brother hadn’t helped much either. She raised her head a bit, craning her neck to see past his shoulder.
“No, don’t look,” Raquel murmured. “You’re supposed to be focused on how I’m kissing you, right now. I’ve got a reputation to maintain, and if you don’t look awestruck, someone is going to start asking why. I don’t want them finding me through you. Your apartment is just two blocks from here, right?”
She nodded.
“Take me back to your place, then. We can’t keep her from taking pictures, but we can get out of the way so I can make my escape.”
* * *
They ended up holding hands the rest of the way, which wasn’t anywhere near as weird as pretending to be kissed by her little brother had been. Jasmine tried very hard not to think about the photographer she couldn’t see, but it was impossible not to imagine someone with a camera lurking in every window, doorway, and alley they passed. Raquel, for his part, just clung to her hand and occasionally leaned in as if they were whispering something sexy to each other as they walked. When they finally made it back to Jasmine’s building and got the door to her apartment safely locked behind them, Jasmine couldn’t hold in her sigh of relief.
“That,” she announced while flopping onto her threadbare couch, “was utterly ridiculous.”
“Agreed.” He grinned. “But I wasn’t kidding about the reputation. If they figure out you’re my sister, they’ll uncover my identity. And I’d much rather stay anonymous, thankyouverymuch.”
“So you’re claiming the tabloids are true? I think the last one referenced a ‘night of perfect bliss.’”
Raquel raised an eyebrow and snorted, but didn’t dignify the headline with a response. “Any chance you still have some of your ex’s clothes sitting around somewhere?” He ran his hands down his spandex-clad sides and grimaced. “This is great for fighting crime, but not so hot for avoiding the attention of the press.”
“Top shelf in my closet, box on the right. I keep meaning to take it to Goodwill and I just never get around to it.”
It felt like the right time for a beer (okay, possibly several), so Jasmine dug two out of the fridge while Raquel changed in her bedroom. When he came back out, he looked reasonably presentable in Kevin’s old jeans and overlarge t-shirt. They weren’t quite the right size, but they fit Raquel better than they’d ever fit Kevin. Jasmine abruptly realized it was the first time she’d been able to think of her ex without a surge of either guilt or resentment. It was . . . nice. And long overdue.
“Thanks.” Raquel popped open his beer and took a long slug. “So yeah, you’re probably going to be on the internet or something by tomorrow. Sorry about that.”
“Internet famous. Great.” Jasmine held her own bottle up in a mock toast. “So your disguise is . . . a mask, a cape, spandex, and pulling your dreads back into a ponytail?”
He responded with a shrug. “Half the population thinks we all look alike anyway, and the other half don’t look that closely. Took you a minute to catch on, too.”
“Any point in asking how you got superpowers?”
“You probably don’t want to know.” He grinned. “I will say it involved this amazingly hot blonde with big tits. And we were both more or less naked at the time.”
“Damn it, you could have just said not to ask.”
“I pretty much did.”
“So what next?”
Raquel took another long drink and leaned against the kitchen counter. “I sneak up to the roof, look to see if that reporter is around, and go down the opposite fire escape if she is. You try very hard to forget this all happened, promise me you won’t spill the beans, and avoid reading any more articles about me in the future.”
“The less I know about your sex life, the better.”
“Precisely why I’m not asking you about what happened between you and Kevin.”
Touché.
Raquel stuck around for another half-hour or so. It was actually kind of nice, getting the chance to catch up, and it meant that when it finally hit Jasmine that she had almost been fucking mugged tonight and it could have gone much worse, there was a comfortingly badass male around to keep her from having an utter breakdown. She didn’t even have to say anything; Raquel noticed the moment her vision got fuzzy and was leading her to the couch before she was able to crumple onto the carpet on her own. He triple-checked the locks on the door before he left and sent her a text ten minutes after that.
Avoided the photographer. Jackass mugger was having a nice chat with a police officer when I happened to walk past. Sleep tight. - R
* * *
Jasmine had thirty-two texts and fourteen voicemails on her phone when she woke up the next morning. None were from Raquel. She scrolled through the list. It didn’t take a genius to deduce that she’d made the news. Actual TV as well as internet, apparently. Most were from her friends, a few from co-workers, and one from her boss to say he heard what happened and was she okay? The rest were all variations of OMG I saw you on local TV!!!!!
A familiar name popped up while she was finishing her makeup. Aimee. There’s no way in hell her best friend would stand for being ignored, so Jasmine bit the bullet and answered.
“How was he?”
Christ. “No ‘Hi, Jasmine, how are you? Oh, sure, I’m great, just getting ready for work. Nice day today, yeah?’”
Aimee groaned. “Fine. Hi, it’s Aimee, how are you doing after your earth-shattering sex-fest with Ebony Boneshaft? Seriously, girl, how was he? This is the closest I’m likely to get, you know. I gotta live vicariously. Spill.”
“He was . . . nice.” She was going to need some serious brain-bleach to get the combination of Raquel and “earth-shattering sex-fest” out of her brain, but “nice” seemed safe enough. “The mugger was some young punk with a knife, but he didn’t have much of a chance once they started fighting. I was lucky we weren’t alone.”
“But once you and your superhero did get alone you both got lucky, am I right? Come on, details, seriously!”
Jasmine managed to change her groan into a noncommittal hum before it made it all the way out of her throat. “I kinda . . . sorry, Aimee, but I don’t want to talk about that yet.”
“You’re the worst friend ever.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Fine, just give me a call once the residual orgasmic aftershocks fade away, okay? My sex life is deader than the Pope’s. I need a pick-me-up.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Jasmine was running late for work by the time she actually got Aimee off the phone, but it probably wasn’t that big a deal. She had been working late last night, after all, and now that her run-in with Ebony Boneshaft was obviously the new office gossip, she could afford to be a bit tardy. Enough so to justify walking a different route, possibly, to avoid that particular alley.
No. If she started down that road (the figurative one, not the literal alternate route), she’d never be able to walk alone after dark again. That really didn’t mesh with city life. She’d gotten lucky once, and not in the way that Aimee had meant, thankyouverymuch. It wasn’t like she could count on a superhero to pop up and escort her every time she had to pass a strange man. There were . . . maybe a dozen or so superheroes who worked the metro area? Hardly enough to be everywhere at once.
Starting turned out to be the hardest part. Jasmine kept a tight grip on the strap of her backup purse—which wasn’t as comfortable on her shoulder as the knockoff Kate Spade, but was perfectly functional anyway—and ended up literally having to talk herself through the first dozen steps outside her apartment building. It felt ridiculous.
It’s eight-fucking-o’clock in the morning, on a sunny day, with plenty of other people out and about. Nothing’s going to happen. She deliberately took a deep breath, then another, and aimed her steps toward her normal route to work. That was the plus side of the tradeoff for living downtown: stupid high rent for a one-bedroom, but it was only a twenty-minute walk to the office and she didn’t have to worry about traffic or parking or any of that. Just a comfortable walk in the sunshine.
The woman appeared so fast Jasmine would have sworn she had teleported. It wasn’t a dark alley this time, just a closed-down storefront with a “COMING SOON” banner in the window. One moment Jasmine was walking past; the next thing she knew she was shoved roughly through a frosted-glass double door by someone short, blonde, and undeniably female. And wearing spandex, of course.
“What the—”
“Shut up,” the woman snapped. And then took a deep breath and screamed before letting the outer door fall closed behind them. It was a pretty good rendition of the panicked sound Jasmine would definitely have been making if her brain hadn’t been completely frozen up with why the hell is this my fucking luck? and generalized gibbering.
“What—”
“I said shut up.”
Jasmine shut up.
“Better.” The blonde nodded toward a display of chairs. “Sit.”
Jasmine did as she was told, although she kept her face toward her abductor. The lady was fucking crazy, there was no question about that. Who the hell kidnaps people off a busy street at eight in the morning and then purposely calls attention to themselves for it?
“Ebony Boneshaft,” the woman announced with a tilt of her chin. “Tell me about him.”
“Um.” Shit.
“He rescued you last night, took you back to your apartment—oh, of course I looked you up—and presumably you two went at it like rabbits until he slinked out early this morning. Yes, I do know his pattern. At some point he had to have taken his mask and costume off. What did he look like?”
“Um.”
“Don’t make me threaten you,” she said, her voice eerily devoid of inflection. “I’m not trying to be evil, I just want the rest of my powers back. I need to find him or make him come to me.”
“He’s, uh . . . black?”
The blonde rolled her eyes and knocked a stray strand of hair back from her face. “Duh. I was hoping for something more than that.”
“That's all you’re getting,” announced Raquel’s voice from the doorway.
Jasmine and the crazy super(-hero? -villain?) both spun to face him. He was leaning casually against the doorframe, cape and costume perfectly in place, but even at half a room away Jasmine could see the faint tension lines in the way he held his jaw.
“My god, you actually came.” The blonde stalked toward him, all petite lithe grace in her shimmery spandex costume. Jasmine could count her individual vertebrae as she moved. “I was afraid you’d forgotten all about me.”
Raquel’s eyes flicked to Jasmine and back again. “I find that unlikely, don’t you? Seeing as we enjoyed ourselves so very much.”
Fuck. Jasmine’s mental assessment of the blonde flew straight past obsessed fan and straight into obsessed ex. It wasn’t like Raquel ever had kept the family up-to-date about his freakishly variable string of girlfriends; it was entirely possible she was somewhere on that list. Although if she only knew him as Ebony Boneshaft and not his real name . . .
“What do you want?” he asked.
“What I want is to know how you stole some of my superpowers, you asshole.” She stopped just short of touching him, the top of her head barely clearing his chin. “You were supposed to just be a one-night stand in between other engagements, then all of a sudden I’m only half as strong as I used to be and you’re long gone. I want them back.”
“Mmmm.” Raquel pushed off the door frame and drew himself up to his full height, frowning down at her. “I think I have a pretty good guess.”
“Try me.”
“I think perhaps it’s because I’m a gentleman.”
Jasmine and the blonde both blinked. Neither the blonde nor Raquel were watching her, now. Since they were both standing in front of the doors, though, it wasn’t like she could sneak out past them. Much as she'd have given anything to not have to hear about this aspect of her brother's life.
“You fucked me six ways from Sunday,” the blonde said, tilting her chin upward and fixing Raquel with a challenging stare. “What about that was gentlemanly? I mean, I wasn’t complaining at the time, but . . .”
“I’m gonna make a wild guess,” Raquel interrupted. “And I’m going to point out that the first two or three of those six ways were all for you. Do none of your other one-night stands encourage taking turns?”
The blonde stilled. Then tilted her head to one side and assumed a more coquettish pose. “You’re saying I lost my powers because you weren’t complete crap in bed?”
“I’m saying I’ve never had any complaints, is all.”
“Mmmmmm.” She leaned in, breasts pressed against Raquel’s chest, and licked the side of his neck. “So would you be amenable to me trying to fuck them back out of you?”
“We are in a furniture store,” Raquel murmured, just loud enough for Jasmine to hear. “We’ve got plenty of options.”
“God, yes.” The blonde started peeling her spandex suit off her upper body, her leg hitched around Raquel’s waist, and Jasmine had to clap a hand over her eyes. Damn it. She’d never be able to get that “I’m getting lucky” look on her brother’s face out of her head. Maybe if she was completely quiet, she’d be able to escape.
Actually, silence probably wasn’t necessary after all. A bomb could have gone off and it wouldn’t have stopped Raquel and Blondie Big-boobs from putting on their own little pornographic show right there in the front of the store, complete with obscene squelching noises as they sucked increasingly desperate kisses into each other’s skin. Jasmine made a beeline for the back wall, hoping against hope there would be an accessible entrance to a fire exit, or a stockroom, or something.
There was. She did manage to make her way out to the loading dock door without vomiting, but only barely.
* * *
The family Thanksgiving dinner was awkward that year. Raquel brought his new girlfriend for the obligatory “meet the parents.” She was the first one in years who’d made that cut, so that was something. She was petite, blonde, and overwhelmingly familiar, and Jasmine nearly dropped the mashed potatoes when the two of them walked in the door.
“This is Emily. Emily, my family. My parents, Stephen and Yolanda. And my sister Jasmine.”
“We’ve met,” Jasmine and Emily said at the same time.
“Oh. Right.” Raquel flashed them a self-deprecating smile and took the bowl of potatoes from Jasmine’s suddenly-useless hands. “I’ll just take this to the table, then.”
Jasmine’s mother pulled Emily in for a tight hug. She never had understood the concept of personal space. “So wonderful to meet you, Emily,” she announced. “I swear, I’m always the last one to know anything. Come on in.”
Jasmine forced a mechanical smile to answer her mother's. “Yes, please. We’d love to hear all about you.”