Falling into You: A Falling Stars Stand-Alone Romance

by A. L. Jackson

  A soft smile played across those full, lush lips that sent a tremor racing through me, the shadows in the room dancing along with it. “Not sure a thing could. She’s a force to be reckoned with.”

  I fiddled with my fingers. “She sure is.”

  God, this was awkward and horrible. Because I needed him to leave and the only thing I wanted to do was beg him to stay.

  A fool.

  A fool.

  “She’s tough. A fighter,” Richard grumbled in this low drawl. Showing just a hint of that southern accent he’d all but lost. “Brave.”

  He touched her forehead.

  Gently.

  Looking down at her with affection.

  With this adoration I didn’t understand.

  My heart tumbled in my chest.

  He ran his fingertips down her chubby cheek, and it was sorrow that came spilling out of his mouth, “Beautiful. So damn beautiful, Vi.”

  I gulped for the nonexistent air, and shivers raked through the length of my body.

  Hurt wept from my soul, colliding with the old love I’d buried deep, where I’d held it there knowing it would never die.

  It’d been too big and beautiful to ever succumb into nothingness, yet not strong enough to keep him there.

  Had he been immune to it?

  Had it been fake?

  My stomach toiled in rejection because it’d felt so real to me that him not feeling it too seemed impossible.

  Richard straightened, his spine going rigid, every muscle in that gorgeous body flexing and bowing as if he’d just gotten pummeled by every thought I’d had.

  As if he felt the turmoil.

  Did he know? Did he know?

  “I should go,” he said, barely able to glance at me. “I sent Rhys a text to pick me up. He should be here in a bit.”

  I nodded frantically. “Okay. Thank you.” The last two words gushed out.

  True in their form.

  Thank you. Thank you.

  He edged my way. Each step sent a tremor rocking through my body. Sage eyes caressed me slow. Lust and greed and shame.

  He came to a stop just to the side of where I stood, and he angled in low, rough words grazing my ear, “Don’t thank me, Violet. We both know I’m to blame.”

  There was no questioning what he was referring to had nothing to do with what had happened today.

  He ripped himself away and headed out the door.

  I squeezed my eyes closed almost as hard as I squeezed my fists. Praying for sanity. I could almost hear my daddy calling, Make good choices.

  But I wasn’t feeling quite so rational right then.

  I guessed that sometimes things just needed to be said. They could no longer be held or quieted or contained.

  Pulse a thunder, I rushed out into the hall where Richard was getting ready to take the stairs. “I didn’t think I was going to make it. When you left me, when you walked away, I didn’t think I would make it.”

  He froze, his hand on the railing, his head tipping toward the ground.

  Impaled by my confession. Bound by the pain that bled through the admission. While I remained in the darkness of the hall. Wishing I could hide.

  From what he’d done.

  From the way he still made me feel.

  From the fact he was there, destroying me all over again.

  Richard warred. His lithe body rippled, sinewy muscle flexing and bowing and twitching.

  With restraint or repulsion, I couldn’t tell which.

  But I realized I had none of it.

  Restraint.

  “How could you just wake up one day and not love me anymore?” The words quivered and shook with hushed misery. “Because I’m still waitin’ on the day when I wake up and I’m no longer in love with you.”

  I had no time to prepare myself.

  No time to put back up the walls I’d let down.

  Richard was there, a phantom that moved through the shadows.

  A plunderer.

  A thief.

  My love. My life. My greatest downfall.

  He pressed me to the wall and planted his hands above my head, that tall, strong body a fortress where it hovered over mine.

  Flames leapt, the air charged.

  A thousand volts of electricity.

  He breathed out a harsh sound, the force of it covering me in his raw, potent energy.

  Trapping me in that haze of seduction that had always hypnotized me. From the first second we’d met.

  Crackles of need. Sparks of lust.

  His nose ran along the curve of my jaw.

  Inhaling.

  Savoring.

  Remembering.

  Tingles raced, and my belly flipped.

  My heart was beating so out of control I could feel the storm of it bashing at my rib cage.

  Richard’s was, too, this erratic drum, drum, drum that called to me.

  Violent and fierce.

  A warrior’s song.

  This was wrong. So wrong. I needed to shove him off. Cling to the reality of what he’d done.

  Feelings were fleeting.

  But the impact of heinous acts were not.

  Thing was, I couldn’t react. I couldn’t move a muscle when his words were coming at me like a drug. “How could one lie negate a thousand truths?”

  Richard took my left hand, and he let his thumb gently trace over the musical note on the inside of my wrist that I’d forever written there.

  An imprint of him.

  A sharp breath left me.

  He inhaled it.

  Sucked me down like I was the granter of life.

  Our noses brushed and our chests heaved.

  And I swore, in the middle of us, I saw our spirits tangle. Saw them start to dance and spiral and spin.

  “Liar.” The whisper curled into the air. It was an accusation. A plea.

  “I am,” he grunted. “But loving you was never one of them.”

  “Or maybe it was the biggest one you ever told.”

  “No,” he rasped, and a shocked gasp raked from my lungs when he swept his lips against mine.

  The softest tease.

  Barely there.

  He pulled back a fraction, the mossy haze of those green eyes mesmerizing. Filled with something I’d be a fool to believe.

  Still, we rocked in time with the quivering of the ground. With the walls that began to spin. With my heart that faltered and sped.

  “Then prove it.”

  Oh god, that was a reckless thing to say. Just begging for a little more devastation.

  Because I saw the second he snapped. When those eyes flared in a shock of need, and his mouth was colliding with mine, his hands cupping my cheeks before one was twisting up in my braid and tugging my head back to meet the ferocity of his kiss.

  I needed to push him away. Fight this. But I was opening to him, giving myself over to the desperation.

  A possessive, dangerous plea.

  I was lost.

  Lost to the plucks and pulls of his plush, soft lips.

  To the play of his tongue that stroked me into desire.

  His hot, heated body pressed and urged, every inch of him hard and demanding.

  We spun and shifted, both of us vying for the upper hand. I edged him out into the hall, two of us twisting and twirling, going round and round in a tug-of-war that neither of us would win.

  Flames seared, and he had me banging back against the wall, the world nothing but grunts and whimpers and needy pants.

  He moaned. “Violet.”

  A tiny cry pulled up my throat. “Why? Why would you leave me when I needed you most?”

  He kissed me deeper, his hands rushing, searching across my body. Like he could chase the questions away. Like the trembling in his palms could give me an answer.

  “Hurting you was the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

  My spirit wailed, and he hoisted me from my feet and plastered me to the wall.

  I hit it with a thud, and my fingers drov
e into his hair and down to trace over his scruff. “Please. Take it away. Just take it away.”

  The pain and sufferin’.

  Maybe this time when he went it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

  I was a fool to think it, but right then, I’d give anything for him to quell the agony.

  To sate this need.

  To satisfy what had been missin’.

  I groaned into his kiss, rubbing myself against his body while he took handfuls of my hips. His erection pressed at my belly.

  Fire lit, and god, I needed him. I needed him.

  “Need you,” I rambled into his kiss.

  “Violeta.” The choked, shocked voice hit us from the side.

  It speared through the bubble that held us. The floor ripped right out of heaven.

  I froze in dismay, and Richard jerked his head back, still pinning me to the wall while my father watched us through the shadows in pure horror.

  The reality of what I’d done came crashing down.

  I’d let Richard Ramsey touch me.

  Had begged him for it.

  Asking for the pain.

  For the misery.

  “You little bastard,” my father sneered. “El ladrón de la alegría.”

  The thief of joy.

  Richard stepped back and set me onto my wobbling feet.

  His attention swung between us. Regret and guilt lashed through his expression.

  I felt like I’d been doused by a vat of ice-cold water.

  Woken from a blissful, perfect dream to the nightmare of what I’d done.

  How could I have ever put myself in the position where he could steal it all over again?

  Because there he stood with another piece of my heart in his hands.

  I guessed the horrible truth of it was that he’d held it all along.

  Thirteen

  Richard

  I staggered back while Violet’s father glared at me like I was the antichrist.

  The deliverer of wickedness and injustice.

  The thief of joy.

  He wouldn’t be wrong.

  My head shook as I looked between the two of them, guilt clotting off the air that was trying to scrape up my throat.

  Lust ravaged my body. Clawing and wailing. Seeking a way out.

  Dick hard and heart hemorrhaging.

  Just a fan-fucking-tastic way for her father to find me.

  Thing was, I respected the man with all that I had even while he looked at me like the vile, piece of shit that I was.

  Didn’t blame him a bit.

  Dude deserved to hate me with every fiber of his being.

  More than he already did.

  I would do well to bolt.

  Get the fuck out of there before I made it any worse than I already had which was damn close to being an impossibility.

  Because this was pure selfishness.

  Problem was, in the middle of it, I could feel what was coming off Violet. Desire coating every inch of her soft, seductive flesh. Her pulse drumming like mad, still caught up in the moment that had just been us.

  Like we’d been taken back to the way it’d once been.

  The way it should have still been.

  Worst were the questions that throbbed and spun.

  The reckless confession I had made.

  I wanted it. To drop to my goddamn knees and confess it.

  The lies I had told.

  I bit them back because saying a word wouldn’t help a thing.

  I’d only destroy the one thing I had left to give.

  There was no chance of redemption.

  This woman would despise me with every fiber that knitted her beautiful being when she finally found out what I’d done.

  The wickedness of my actions.

  I was in deep. Nothing but a captive to what I had to do. To the choices I’d made.

  Didn’t mean I didn’t want it.

  To fall at this goddesses’ feet.

  Worship her.

  Give into the hunger that lashed. A violent shout that demanded to be fed.

  Getting a taste of this girl tonight had been like taking the first bite after a five-year famine and now I was ravenous.

  Mouth watering and desperate to consume.

  “I should go,” I forced out.

  Rejection slashed through Violet’s expression.

  “You never should have come,” her father hissed.

  He was right.

  One-hundred-percent.

  “No. I shouldn’t have.”

  That rejection turned into a full-on tumult, torment crashing through Violet’s demeanor.

  I wanted to rush her.

  Tell her it was a lie. That I would change it if I could.

  But I was tied.

  Obligated to this debt.

  Still, I couldn’t leave her there that way.

  Not again.

  The consequences could go fuck themselves.

  I edged forward while her father seethed, and I traced my fingertip along the music note tattooed on her wrist, my admission low where I murmured it at her ear, “That is the one lie I never told.”

  A tiny cry slipped up her throat, and I forced myself to walk.

  I needed to get out from under her roof.

  Out from under her spell before I fucked this up more than I already had.

  I headed back for the stairs. Mr. Marin stood on the other side of them where he’d come out of his room. I paused for a moment, looked him dead in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

  For his wife.

  For his daughters.

  For every-fucking-thing.

  His lips flattened in misery. He gave me no response other than moving closer to his daughter. Shielding her from my depravity.

  I turned and bounded downstairs, refusing to look back to meet her stare that I could feel following me.

  Energy thinning. Stretching and pulling. Calling me back.

  Gritting my teeth, I refused it and sped up. I flew out the door, and I thought for the first time in my life I was actually thanking God that Rhys drove like a lunatic.

  I had to get out of there before I rushed back inside and told her everything.

  Stumbling out onto the porch, I sucked for clear air like it might stand the chance of eradicating her from my lungs.

  Like it might erase the feel of her hands that lingered on my flesh.

  Rid the taste of her from my tongue that only made me want her more.

  What I needed most was to obliterate the need of her from my soul.

  I bent in two, trying to right myself. To get it together.

  I had a purpose. A fucking purpose. I couldn’t forget it.

  I straightened, and then my spine went rigid when I saw a darkened shadow lurking at the side of Violet’s truck.

  A wave of protectiveness welled so fast I felt like I was going to come apart.

  Rip someone to shreds before they had a chance to get close to these girls.

  I would gladly die before I let that happen.

  It was the one thing I could give.

  I almost relaxed when the figure stepped forward, and I realized it was the worker from earlier who’d wanted to come to Violet’s rescue.

  Saul.

  That relief lasted for the blip of a second before I saw the hatred that marred his face. His lip curled. “Who do you think you are, coming here?”

  That was all it took to send anger burning through my blood, disbelief tightening my hands into fists. “I’m not sure how you think that’s any of your concern.”

  He pointed toward the house. “Think you’re wrong. Anything to do with them is my concern.”

  I saw it there.

  Possession in his stance.

  The way the asshole was staking a claim.

  I inched forward, coming down the stairs, aggression curling through my veins as I moved toward him.

  Couldn’t stop it.

  The jealousy that spun.

  The riot that refused the idea of this pr
ick touching my girl.

  My girl.

  My girl.

  My chest clenched with the truth of it.

  “I know who you are.” He said it like a curse.

  “Yeah, and who’s that?”

  “Her ex. One the town talks about like you’re some kind of superstar. The one who let fame go to his head and dropped her like a rock. Trash to be cast aside.”

  Rage blinded me.

  Asshole didn’t know a fuckin’ thing.

  His head shook. “In the last year I’ve been working here, she’s been happy. Moving on. You think I didn’t notice her falling apart the second you showed your pathetic face back here? You’re not welcome here, so why don’t you pack your things and go back to wherever you came from.”

  “And you actually think it’s you who gets to decide that?” Venom filled my mouth as I said it, and I edged deeper into the night.

  Encroaching on him. Trying to rein it in and knowing the only thing I wanted to do was tear this asshole apart.

  Rip him in two.

  The dregs of the light from the porch cast a dim glow on his face.

  I didn’t need it to see the hostility there. The animosity that crawled over him.

  If he were smart, he’d recognize mine. The way violence skated my flesh. Aggression coiling in my stomach, seeping through my veins and vying for a way out.

  “Yup,” he issued like a challenge as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  My nod was slow and fueled by menace. Jaw cracking under the pressure. “You’d do well to rethink your position.”

  He barked a laugh. “You think I’m scared of you? You’re nothin’ but a fuckboy. Know your type. Think you’re better than everyone else just because you wrote a song or two. Think you can come in and take whatever you want, whoever you want, just because you have a little fame tacked to your name. And I won’t let an asshole like you mess with a girl like her.”

  “You don’t know a thing about me. I’d suggest you don’t act like you do.” The warning hung heavy in the air.

  He scoffed and took a step forward. “Yeah…and what is a pussy like you gonna do about it?”

  Dude had the balls to spit on the ground when he said it.

  I had him by the throat and shoved against the side of her truck before he knew what hit him.

  Adrenaline coiled and rose.

  This poison that surged.

  The same bated violence that I’d lived by the last six years. So close to being unleashed.