After I Fall: A FALLING NOVEL

by Jessica Scott

The urge to press my lips to that pulse point pounds through me. I close my eyes, breathing deeply, reminding myself that I am not an animal. I will never again release the beast inside me.

  I am…I am me. Not the shadows and pain. Not the war, etched into my skin.

  I am not the callous bastard the Army tried to make me into.

  Only when I am certain of my control do I lean closer and press my lips to her neck. She makes a warm, smooth sound, deep in her throat.

  "It's soft."

  I nuzzle her skin. "What is?" I whisper.

  "Your beard. I didn't imagine it would be soft."

  I smile at the amazement in her voice, nuzzling her neck. "What did you think it was going to feel like?"

  She shifts and looks up at me. The shadows in her eyes are still there. No magical sex to clear away the pain.

  Maybe that should be hell on my ego but it's not.

  I'm too cynical about the cost of war to think it can be healed with a good cry and a bottle of Jack.

  Her lips curl slightly at the edges. "I don't know. Scratchy?" Her palm comes to rest over my heart. "This isn't exactly what I had in mind," she whispers. She doesn't meet my gaze when those words cross her lips.

  "I kind of figured that."

  I lower my hands, leaving her in control, letting her set conditions here.

  She narrows her eyes at me. "Any other red-blooded American male would have had me naked up against that wall in thirty seconds flat." She tips her head. "Why didn't you?"

  There is uncertainty in that question. A painful kind. The kind that tells me about wounds that run deep. Very deep.

  "Maybe I wanted to know your name first."

  She shakes her head. "That's not what this was supposed to be."

  It’s a single sentence, the sharpest blade. Honest, even as it cuts me. She'll be perfectly happy to fuck me here in this alley but can't be bothered to ask me my name.

  Something about the acknowledgment that she’s using me for a cheap, anonymous fuck burns on a fundamental level.

  "Why are you here tonight?" There is an edge to my voice.

  Her eyes sweep down over the full sleeves of tattoos and back up to my beard before she meets my eyes. "Why are you asking questions?”

  There's something deeply unsettling about this moment.

  I step into her space now, unreasonably angry at what she's trying to do here. I back her up against the wall. "So tell me. Is it the tattoos, the beard, or the fact that I work in a bar that made you want to fuck me tonight? What points were you trying to score with your ex? Or is it your daddy?"

  She flinches but doesn't look away. She holds my gaze for a long moment, maybe more. Then she finally looks away, into the darkness at the end of the alley. "Neither." It is a long time before she looks back at me. "I just wanted someone to touch me."

  She ducks out beneath my arms and disappears. Into the darkness. Away from me.

  And I am alone once more. Just like I will always be.

  * * *

  Parker

  * * *

  It would have been simpler for me to go back into the bar and get hammered with Kelsey but I have some pride. I honestly can’t face the burning embarrassment of my failed attempt to be something more than a doll playing dress up. It would be awkward as hell but if I got drunk, I wouldn't care about the shame of rejection, right?

  Except that I can see him looking at me with the same level of disgust I see in the mirror and, well, I get enough of that on a daily basis.

  My apartment isn't far from The Pint and honestly, it's better if I go home. I can drink alone and no one else will get hurt. At least not tonight, anyway.

  I guess nobody gets what they want these days.

  I am running away again. Something I've never been particularly good at.

  I was trying to get away from the silence. I want it to stop. I don't want to hear the sound of my voice. I don't want to relive the shame or the hurt or any of it.

  For just one night, I wanted to be a regular girl having a regular hookup at a regular bar.

  But there was nothing normal about tonight. Not the way he looked at me. Not the way he touched me.

  My apartment is silent and cold.

  I crawl into bed. I can still feel his lips on my throat, the touch of his beard against my skin. It was soft; his lips warm and moist where they traced over my flesh.

  And then he stopped. Just as quickly as he started, everything came to a screeching halt.

  And he knew. He fucking knew I was not there to feel good, not there for me, but to lash out. I don’t know how he knew, how he saw it, but he did.

  He was actually pissed about it. I could have walked up to any other guy in that bar and asked them to take me outside and fuck me and they would have. I don't say that to brag, but I understand how men work. They are wired to their cocks.

  So why didn't he?

  The street lamps cast long pale strips of light across my bed. I lie there, wondering about him. What is his name? He has so many tattoos. I've never seen a man with so much body art. I suddenly very much want to know if the tattoos extend across his chest, his back.

  Why couldn't he have kept kissing me? His touch made me feel desirable. Like a real person, not the shadow of who I am supposed to be.

  He could have backed me against the wall. It would have hurt. Brick does not feel good against skin. I wish I didn't know that, but I do.

  He could have lifted my skirt with those big, rough hands. God, but it would have felt amazing. The bite of pain mixed with the pleasure of his touch.

  I squeeze my thighs together. My hand drifts down my belly. I know what I'll find. I know what pleasure can and cannot happen between my thighs.

  Davis has made it abundantly clear that I'm inadequate in all the important ways. There's really no coming back from that in a relationship. Not that there was ever really a relationship there to begin with.

  I have some pride, after all.

  But him—that's how I think of the man at the bar—his touch would have been good. He would have known to slide his finger over me until I was wet. He would have waited until I was ready instead of pounding into me and telling me I don't love him because I'm not wet enough.

  It would still have hurt with him. It might not have come even remotely close to the fantasy that is making me arch my back and spread my thighs.

  In my head, he is standing there, watching me, urging me on. Stroking my thighs with his big, rough hands. Whispering encouragement.

  Whispering my name.

  Covering my hand with his. Slowly drawing our index fingers through the slick, wet heat that doesn't exist in my reality. Slowly drawing the pleasure from the pain.

  Slowly, slowly filling me.

  Showing me that it doesn't have to hurt. That it doesn't have to be like it always has been.

  That there is someone out there who will see me for me. Who will not be drawn in by my father's money or the power my name evokes.

  Someone who will stroke me with his fingers as I come and whisper my name and hold me as I shatter.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will start to take back my life.

  Always tomorrow.

  Because the pain of today hurts too much.

  Chapter 6

  Eli

  * * *

  As much as my cock is highly pissed at me, fucking that woman would have been the wrong thing to do. My dick isn’t speaking to me right now because of my moral standing on these types of situations. Morals don't get a guy laid.

  I've made plenty of the wrong choices in my life. I don't need to add to my list of regrets.

  So why the hell am I still thinking about her? Especially when I’ve been up for six hours and have already had three cups of coffee and two meetings with distributors. I should be thinking about work, not how her skin tasted.

  Christ, why didn’t I take her up on the offer? She was so fucking primed it wasn't even funny. She'd melted the minute I touched her and I hadn�
�t even really got started. One touch of my lips on her throat and she’d practically started purring.

  My life has gotten too damn serious these days. For a guy who runs a bar, I'm depressingly celibate.

  Thirteen hours later and I'm still wired for sound after that stunt in the alley. I've got nothing to do with the pent-up need throbbing in my balls. Which means I’m strung out from too much coffee and not nearly enough sex.

  Maybe I should take an hour before I head into the bar. Detour upstairs to my apartment over the bar and spend some private time with a bottle of lotion and some creative and filthy thoughts.

  Jesus, I’m like a twelve-year-old with a walking hard-on and no self-control.

  To spite myself, I’m not going upstairs. I’m going to be an adult.

  I arrive at my building—irritated from fighting traffic on I-40—in time to find someone has parked their fucking Mercedes in my parking spot.

  I sit there for a minute, staring at the sleek silver car that’s sitting in the parking spot that I pay five hundred dollars a month to reserve.

  I don’t have time to be riding around looking for a place to park. Not as a resident or as a business owner.

  Ignoring how much of a tool it makes me feel like, I block them in. Someone will get the message soon enough. Hell, I pay the city enough damn money for that spot. And it's meant specifically for days like this when I can't afford to be running around looking for somewhere to fucking park.

  Which makes me really fucking cranky as I walk into the bar. Deacon is already there, bright-eyed and far too bushy-tailed, cleaning the chalkboard behind the bar and prepping it for the day's drink specials.

  Deacon has more ink—and more scar tissue—than I will ever have but he's magic behind the bar.

  "The Pale Horse Brewery was already here," he says by way of greeting. "I took the delivery and left the paperwork on your desk."

  I clap him on the shoulder as I lean down and pull an iced coffee from the micro fridge beneath the bar. Because more coffee is exactly what I need right now. I’m lucky I’m not pissing pure caffeine at this point. "You are clearly on your way to sainthood."

  I count myself lucky every single day that I was able to lure Deacon away from the big money he was making up in New York City. I still don't honestly know what made him make the change. He said he was ready to leave the city behind. I don't think that's the entire story, but I learned a long time ago that when guys are ready to talk, they'll talk.

  And he may never be ready.

  But I'll be here if he ever is.

  I don't ask, though. I'd hate for him to get buyer's remorse and go back to the big city he's left behind to come work for me.

  I head into the office and start tallying receipts. I already dropped the deposit at the bank, since it's like asking to get robbed to keep anything over fifty bucks on the premises. Durham is a weird town undergoing rapid gentrification. On this block there are houses going for a quarter of a million dollars; two blocks over, you still have rabid poverty.

  There's a distant shout from the bar area. I usually don't get involved in those unless I have to—my bartenders can generally handle themselves.

  But the noise is coming closer.

  "Who the hell blocked me in?"

  I frown at the angry female voice. It's not a voice that's attached to any of the women I have working for me.

  "My boss." Deacon sounds perfectly reasonable. Ms. Mercedes, however, sounds just this side of irate, hissing kitten. "You're in his spot."

  And then said kitten is standing in my office.

  I lean back in my chair, folding my arms over my chest. The universe is fucking with me. I must have kicked a puppy in a previous life. Or at least stepped on a snail. Christ, I don’t need this right now.

  Of-fucking-course it’s the woman from last night. Because my life is a goddamned cliché.

  She's wearing white designer jeans that are damn near painted on her tight ass. To be honest, I give myself high marks for not staring at those exquisite curves, the curves that just last night filled my hands.

  Yeah, I’m working toward my own canonization. It’s a herculean effort to drag my eyes off her body and focus on the irritation looking back at me.

  Because that’s helping get my one-track mind out of the gutter.

  Everything about her screams Old Money, from the expensive wedge espadrilles to the fine stitching on the pale peasant blouse that does nothing to disguise her perfect body.

  She looks like she belongs on a yacht in Bar Harbor, not slumming in my bar in downtown Durham.

  And yet here she is.

  I'm not prepared for the force of my own reaction. My cock doesn't normally have a mind of his own, but he’s damn sure stood up and taken notice now that she’s stormed into my office, her heels clicking on the polished concrete floor.

  I'm definitely not into rich girls. I got that out of my system last year when I discovered just how high maintenance they could be.

  Which means I'm being a dick. Still.

  It smarts that last night I was only good enough for her to fuck to piss off Daddy or whoever.

  I finally break the silence. "Is there a problem?"

  She's going to have to make the first move. I might be highly pissed off right now, but if she'd rather pretend that last night didn't happen, I'm fine with that.

  It’s no sweat off my sac if she sets the pace. It’s powerful, letting a woman have control.

  I bet she doesn’t even know how to let go. She’s probably always in charge of everything. That’s the way money works. Always has.

  "Yeah, you've blocked me in."

  "I think Deacon already told you. You're in my spot."

  She rotates her jaw in a way that reminds me of my younger sister when she's in her most pissy mood. "And you blocking me in gets you your spot back how?"

  I fight the urge to smirk at her. She’s pissed off enough. "It doesn't. But it does make you—or whoever—have to come in and ask me to move. At which time I can point out that I pay the city of Durham a very pretty penny for this private parking space for my employees."

  "Your employees?" There is a level of disdain in her voice that I haven't heard since I told my father and stepmother I wasn't a virgin and—oh, the humanity—had gotten my first tattoo when I'd come back from Iraq the first time.

  I lift one eyebrow. "Yes, my employees."

  "You’re…the owner?" Angry Kitten Parking Space Stealer has consumed my attention from the moment she walked into the office, so I notice when all the color flushes from her face. It could be comical if she weren't so seriously pissed about the car.

  "You could try sounding a little less shocked, honey."

  "Sorry.” She clears her throat and sniffs, then shifts her stance. It’s an almost physical change in her. “But I was here for a meeting with the owner of The Pint."

  "Which is why you parked in his spot?" I ask. Yes, it’s weird that I’m talking about myself in the third person, but she’s got me all twisted up right now. I’m lucky I’m even able to form a conscious thought.

  She finally flushes, and it is fucking adorable. "So…yeah…could we possibly move beyond the parking spot?"

  I lean forward, bracing my elbows on my desk. I’m enjoying myself tremendously for no apparent reason. And my dick clearly has an opinion about how we feel about that. I haven't had a Thayer Dragon in a long, long time but I'm about to embarrass myself like a nineteen-year-old cadet getting called to the boards.

  Which means I'm not getting my happy ass out of this chair for anything short of a nuclear apocalypse.

  But I can still enjoy this moment. “Maybe if you say sorry.”

  “It’s just a parking space.” She sighs and folds her arms over her chest, mirroring my stance. And quite literally digs in her heels. “Fine. Is this about last night?”

  Parker

  * * *

  I did not mean to bring that up. I honestly was hoping to forget the whole damn incid
ent. But oh no, I have a pathological inability to keep my mouth shut.

  And seeing him sitting there, looking smug and sexy and quite possibly undressing me with his eyes, I’m pretty sure there’s no way out of this situation while still retaining my panties.

  And I’m okay with that. After last night, I’m pretty sure they’ve disintegrated just by being in the same room as him.

  If only my reality was as erotic as my imagination.

  This whole situation just went sideways. Because now, instead of a brief moment of insanity against a cold, damp brick wall, I’ve now got to choke down a giant helping of crow and ask him for a job.

  Jesus, you can’t make this shit up.

  "What about last night?" he asks mildly.

  I’m reasonably certain his lips are quirked at the edges. And sweet baby Jesus his mouth is ridiculously full beneath that beard.

  I never thought beards were sexy before but in this moment, I’m ready to head to the great North Woods and molest an LL Bean catalog.

  "Well, ah…" Oh god this is awkward. It's one of those moments when you hope the earth will open up and swallow you whole. ’Course that never happens, so I guess I need to start digging my way out of the massive cavern I've managed to dig into because I decided to try something new that backfired in an epic and unforgettable way.

  Guess there’s only one way through this massive wall of man who is determined to make me squirm and not in any way that I’d like to be squirming.

  "Thank you."

  Both of those dark brows shoot up, then down into a scowl. His lips are parted, just a little, pulled into a thoughtful line. "For what? Not sexually assaulting you?"

  Holy crap he’s not making this easy. "I was perfectly willing to participate in whatever might have happened in that alley last night."

  "Okay. Then what are you thanking me for, if that's what you wanted and that's not what you got?"

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I can feel him waiting, like a feral cat stalking its prey. Patient, oh so patient.

  I shift my purse to my other shoulder. My sleeve shifts with it and his eyes are drawn to something I’d rather forget.