Falling into You

by Jackson, A. L.

  Rhys had manned the BBQ, dude playing it up, having a good time, when in reality, we were there as guards.

  All of us on high alert.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  The mood had shifted with the faint rays of moonlight that crept into the sky, had shifted with the streaks of clouds that hazed out its light.

  Royce kept shooting me glances through dinner. Dude knowing just as well as I did what this meant. What had gone down.

  Still hadn’t had the chance to talk with Violet in private considering Daisy wouldn’t budge on a nap, kid so full of life and loving every second of us being there that I’d had the hardest time pushing it.

  Honestly, I’d been thankful for the reprieve.

  Thankful to spend the day pretending like I couldn’t feel the earth trembling at its seams. Axis tilting. Worlds colliding that weren’t ever supposed to meet.

  Never should have come back here. Never should have dragged my mess into this town, leaving trouble at the doorstep of the ones I loved most.

  But I couldn’t change that now.

  The goal might remain the same, but I had to split the focus.

  From where we were out on the front porch, darkness swimming around us, the hum of bugs trilling in the trees and the sweet floral scent saturating the night, I hugged Daisy tight. “Goodnight, silly bird.”

  I tickled her side.

  She howled with laughter, squeezing my neck tighter. “Goodnight, Mr. Richard. I’ll see you so early in the morning. Right when the sun comes up.”

  Couldn’t help my grin when I edged back and ran my hand over the top of her head. “Yeah. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I was posting myself outside their door. Would sleep on the goddamn lawn if that was what it took.

  Reluctantly, I set her onto her feet, catching Violet’s wary stare.

  The two of us had hovered around each other the entire day.

  Magnets that didn’t quite touch.

  She stretched her hand out for the child. “Come on, Daisy. Let’s get you into bed.”

  “Are you really that sure that I’ve got to go to sleep? I’m not even tired a little bit.”

  Of course, she followed it up with a massive yawn.

  “I think there’s a little bit of tired in there.”

  “Just this much.” Daisy held her fingers in a pinch.

  “I think that’s enough.”

  Daisy blew out a flabbergasted sigh. “Fine. Make me miss out on all the fun.”

  “I think the fun is over for the night, Daisy Mae. Uncle Rhys here is leaving. Don’t think there’s any more fun to be had.” Rhys grinned at her as he gestured to himself.

  “Will you come back and play with me tomorrow?”

  “I just might.”

  “Shake it, don’t break it.” Daisy stuck out her hand for him to shake on it.

  Rhys cracked up. “A future ballbuster in the making.”

  Her nose scrunched in confusion. “Ballbuster? I don’t think I kick hard enough to go bustin’ any balls.”

  Between Mel and this clown, the poor kid was going to be scarred.

  I smacked Rhys on the back of the head. “Watch it, dude. Little ears.”

  His hands flew up in surrender and he started to back away. “My bad. My bad.”

  Asshole shot me a look, mouthed with a grin so only I could see, You’re so fucked. It’s all over, man.

  Was over a long time ago. Now it was time to restart.

  “Goodnight, everyone. Thank you again for being here today. It means more than you could know,” Violet said, her voice cracking.

  “We wouldn’t have been anywhere else,” Emily promised.

  Emotion crested from Violet. Could see weariness creeping in, chasing away the solace of the day.

  Reality setting in.

  Crowds were a good distraction.

  Comfort in numbers.

  But I think we could see that false security being stripped away.

  “Goodnight,” everyone else told her before she retreated into the house to get Daisy ready for bed.

  Once they disappeared inside, I turned, hands shoved in my pockets. “Thanks for being here.”

  Rhys clapped me on the shoulder. “Uh, no brainer, man. Who else were you gonna call? Look at me. If I were in trouble, I’d want me on my side, too.”

  I shoved him off with a laugh. “Dead weight, man, dead weight.”

  He smacked his hand over his heart. “Blasphemy. You know who’s got your back.”

  I fist bumped him. “Know it. Thank you.”

  “Always, brother,” he told me.

  I hugged Mel, Emily, and Maggie, saying goodnight, and the three of them headed for Royce’s rental car, Rhys right behind them, each piling in.

  Royce hung back, eyes darting over the fields, looking for anything out of place. “It’s not right, man.”

  “Nope,” I agreed, rocking back on my heels.

  “You gonna be good here with her, or do you want me to stay?”

  “I’m good…just watch my parents. Emily. Maggie. Who the fuck knows who they’ll be coming for next. No one goes anywhere alone.”

  No doubt, their goal was sending a message.

  A message of fear.

  It was the message they’d been perpetrating all along.

  My teeth grated.

  No more.

  Rage pulsed through his expression, our thoughts mirroring the other. “This has to end. All of it.”

  “It will,” I promised him. “We just have to get to the trial.”

  When we did, this would end.

  On a slight nod, he backed away and lifted his chin. “Anything goes amiss? Call. I’ll be here.”

  “I know.”

  Turning on his heel, he jogged around the front of the car and slipped into the driver’s seat. Rhys rolled down the back-passenger window, poked his head out, and slapped his hand on the roof. “Be safe, brother. You need the cavalry, holler, this boy right here is in the mood to do a little ass-kickin’.”

  “No fightin’ for you, cowboy,” Mel tossed out, yanking him back inside.

  Royce backed out, shooting me a glance of warning while Rhys’ razzing voice still carried to my ears. “No fightin’. No lovin’. No drinkin’. What good are you? That’s it. You’re fired.”

  “You wish, cowboy. This band would fall apart without me,” Mel punted back.

  “Cowboy? How many times do I have to tell you, darlin’? It’s stallion, baby. Stallion.”

  “That’s it, you’re walkin’ home. Royce, toss his ass out right here. I can’t take another minute.”

  It was still a tumble of teasing controversy as the car shifted into drive, and I stood there watching until they made it to the end of the long drive and turned left onto the two-lane road.

  Second the silence hit, my attention scanned, searching the shadows.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  Hands itching with the thirst for revenge. To expose it all. Right then and there.

  When nothing moved but the leaves on the rustling trees, I blew out a sigh and headed back inside the quiet house.

  Most of the lights had been cut. Mr. Marin had turned in about an hour before, curling up at his wife’s side.

  I sent up a silent promise that I wouldn’t fail them this time.

  After I locked every lock on the door and rechecked to make sure they were secure, I moved through the living room and into the kitchen, dipping out onto the back porch, doing the same inspection as out front.

  Silence echoed back.

  Nerves on edge, I scanned one more time before I retreated back into the house and deadbolted the lock behind me.

  Under the strain of it, I sank down onto a chair at the kitchen table and dropped my head into my hands, rubbing at my hair like it would conjure a solution.

  A true way to fix this without breaking more in the end.

  My chest
tightened when I heard the delicate footsteps coming down the second set of stairs that led into the kitchen.

  Could feel her presence rush me.

  Violets and grace and the girl.

  She stopped at the bottom of the steps, her face barely visible in the lapping, jumping shadows.

  Energy surged.

  Chills lifted.

  A shaft of electricity struck in the air.

  Slowly, I pushed to standing.

  The atmosphere sizzled.

  My breaths hardened while my heart careened out of control.

  I moved her way.

  A storm hovered over me.

  Thunder and greed.

  I felt her harsh inhalation, the girl sucking me down into the well of her lungs.

  She stood at the foot of the staircase, wisps of black hair falling over her shoulders, those eyes strikes of lightning in the night.

  Those plush lips parted, and her chin quivered.

  Hand shaking, I reached up and traced the tremor. Like it might be possible to hold it in my hand.

  “I’m scared, Richard. So scared.” Violet whispered the admission. Breaching the subject we’d been skirting all day.

  Giving me her truth.

  I cupped one side of her gorgeous face, thumb brushing across the defined angle of her trembling jaw. “I’m scared, too. Scared of what I’m willing to do to protect you.”

  Her throat bobbed when she swallowed, and she lifted her hand, fingertips grazing the healing wound between my eyes.

  A silent confession zinged between us.

  Acknowledgement that none of this had been random.

  She blinked up at me, and her tongue darted out to wet those full, pink lips. “I didn’t see anything, Richard. But I heard. My mama always taught me to listen with my heart…and I heard it, Richard. I heard the wickedness. I heard the evil. He said…”

  I inched forward. Possession gripping me in its storm. I tipped up her chin, staring down at her through the dim, bleary light.

  “What did he say?”

  She choked, barely able to press out the words, “He said not to go diggin’ up graves. That I’d never know when I might fall in.”

  What the fuck?

  I’d expected some veiled warning for me.

  Panic seized me. My chest constricted in a bluster of rage. Tongue the lash of a blade. “What graves? What the fuck was he saying? Who?”

  Her head shook, her own panic vibrating through her being, and she was clutching me by the shirt.

  Her little fists curled so tight they might as well have been embedded in my soul. “I just need to know one thing right now. Tell me it’s true. Tell me you still love me because I’m done pretending like I don’t need you.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Violet

  Sage eyes flared, and a play of shadows danced across the carved lines that made up his formidable shape. He took my face in both of those big hands.

  A tender bid of possession. “You want to know if I love you, Violet? Fuck. The only thing I feel is love for you. Loving you is the composition of who I am.”

  He looped an arm around my waist and tucked me close.

  The air thinned and my lungs squeezed, the beat of our hearts racing, racing, racing. A thunder that boomed.

  Encroaching.

  Rumbling

  A storm that gathered strength.

  And I knew—I knew it was getting ready to hit land.

  “Told you,” he murmured in his rough way. “You are every song I have ever written.” He brushed back the hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. “You are every lyric. Every riff. Every strum. Every echo. You are the song of my heart. I love you, Violet Ramsey. I love you with everything I’ve got and with everything I’ve got left to give.”

  And I was swept away.

  My feet no longer touching solid ground as he lifted me, my toes barely brushing the floor as he tucked me close against the warmth of his body.

  Joy slammed me.

  Overwhelming.

  Beautiful and terrifying because I knew I was giving myself over to this. There was no more fighting these feelings.

  They were free.

  Running rampant.

  His nose brushed mine, and he kissed the corner of my mouth. “I love what comes out of this beautiful mouth.”

  He ran his nose up my cheek, and then he pressed a tender kiss to my eye, then moved to the other, his voice a low roll of emphasis, “I love the way these eyes see the world.”

  He ran his lips to my temple, murmured there, “I love the way this mind thinks. The way it processes.”

  Then his hand was shifting, running down to palm flat over the erratic thud of my heart that expanded, swelling to overflowing, breaking free of its chains. “And most of all, I love this. I love the heart of you. The trueness of you. I love who you are in the deepest places that only I can see.”

  He grabbed my hand and pressed it over the battering in his chest. “Do you feel it, Violet? Do you feel it beating for you? It always has. And it’s never gonna stop.”

  “I feel it,” I rushed the whisper. “I feel it, Richard. I feel it to my soul. I feel it in every one of those places that you love. I can feel you lovin’ them. Do you feel mine?”

  My nails clawed at the fabric of his shirt. Digging in.

  His fingers curled into my hair, scraping into my scalp, Richard’s voice raw, “I’ve felt you all along.”

  That was it.

  The walls crashed down.

  Every reservation dismantled.

  The rubble in flames at our feet.

  We stood in them, in the fire that we’d walked through to get to this place, and I knew it didn’t matter that I didn’t have every answer—I trusted in this.

  Richard watched me with those eyes for a baited beat.

  In a moment of reverent silence.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” He brushed a thumb over the swelling on my jaw.

  “You won’t. Just…kiss me, and don’t you dare stop.”

  Then he curled his fingers tighter in my hair and dragged my mouth to his in a fiery, unapologetic kiss.

  That storm hit land.

  Mayhem.

  A beautiful, unrelenting disaster.

  A sudden deluge of desire.

  A tidal wave of greed.

  Bodies a needy collision of lust and everything we’d missed.

  Our mouths hungry for what we’d been starving for over the last six years, nothing but nips of teeth and tugs of lips. Tongues delving into a tangle of devotion.

  Richard hiked me higher, angling toward the wall to keep us balanced as I wrapped my legs around his waist.

  The second I made contact, I moaned, rubbing myself at the hot, delicious friction of his hard cock that pressed at his jeans.

  “Fuck. Baby.” He pressed a single hand to the wall and kept the other banded around my waist, angling me in the exact way he knew would light me up. “You are gonna kill me. Ruin me. Ruined me a long time ago,” he mumbled at my mouth.

  I kept kissing him, biting and licking and stroking my tongue into his beautiful mouth, like I could taste the meaning of his song.

  Knowing he would sing me.

  That he would write me with those fingers and love me with that soul.

  And I wanted it. Surrendered to it.

  My nails sank into his shoulders. “Richard. I need you. I need you more than I’ve ever needed anything. I’m so tired of goin’ this alone.”

  “You’re not alone. I’m right here, baby. Fall into me. Let me hold you. Let me support you. Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for you.”

  His words spun around as frantic as our bodies reached and begged and hummed.

  Those secrets there, vibrating, fracturing the stones, so close to being set free.

  He hiked me higher and started to carry me up the stairs, both hands on the outside of my hips, holding me tight, the man never breaking our kiss. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
/>
  He kept repeating it as we ascended the stairs and he rushed down the hall. He stopped outside my bedroom door to kiss me deeper. “I go inside your room…you’re mine, Violet. This isn’t a quick fuck. It’s not a distraction. This is you and me going back to the way we were meant to be.”

  “I think you know full well that I’ve always been yours.”

  “Mine,” Richard grumbled in something that sounded akin to pain, and he jerked me from the wall and carried me the rest of the way into my room. He set me onto unsteady feet, shut the door, and flicked the lock. “Mine,” he said.

  The man was a dark tower in the room, his shape an eclipse that covered me in warmth, sage eyes flashing in that magnetic way.

  For a beat, we stared, our hearts a mangle of the years we’d lost, writhing in the space between us.

  It was Richard who breached it, broke through the disorder, and my breath hitched when he dove in for a possessive, mind-altering kiss. No room left for questions. No space for reservations.

  We were bare.

  Vulnerable.

  We turned a circle, orbiting the other, our mouths fused while we fought to free the other of their clothes. He grabbed the hem of my shirt and eased it over my head, remembering my injuries, while I ripped and fumbled to get his shirt over his head.

  He helped me, stepping back to peel it up his gorgeous body and tossing it to the floor.

  A gasp ripped up my throat, and I gaped at him.

  Walls spinning around us while my eyes ate him up.

  Devouring the hard, carved lines of his abdomen.

  The man a sculpture.

  A god.

  But it was the tattoo that covered the entirety of his left side and chest that had me shaken. A haunting full moon hung over his ribs, and it was surrounded by a cluster of violets where it sat in the sky. Stars fell from that sky, falling and falling, disintegrating into nothing.

  It was suspended over what was unmistakably the rolling hills of Dalton.

  It gave me the impression that the tiny promise on the inside of his wrist hadn’t been enough.

  Like he’d gotten lost and this had been his map, only somewhere along the way, his compass had gone missing.

  “Richard,” I whispered, overcome, taken.

  I could feel myself falling right through the sorrowful abyss of that sky.

  Stepping forward, I kissed across the image, my hands gliding up his sides. “Richard. My husband. My sun that ushers in the day. You will always be the beat of my heart.”