Falling Deeper (Falling Series)

by Lucia Grace

  Before I know it a waiter is bringing over the tray of drinks along with a pitcher of water to share. “Thank you.”

  He slides me a smirk then a wink before walking away. I blush at the act.

  As I take a sip of my strawberry daiquiri, I look up to the dance floor to see the girls dancing their hearts out. Amber notices me watching and gives me a sassy shake of her hips, making me laugh.

  I wave over to them as the group looks over and they all offer me a wave or smile in return before returning to finish dancing to the song playing.

  While sitting at the booth and looking around, taking in the décor that hasn’t changed a bit, I feel a presence to my right.

  I look up and there he is.

  Kayson is making his way toward me, wearing dark wash jeans and a black button-up shirt, untucked at his waistband and unbuttoned at the collar.

  It is so unfair how amazing he looks all of the time. It’s effortless.

  My heart skips a beat as he makes it to the table.

  Before I can think better of it, I blurt out, “What are you doing here?”

  It comes out a bit harsher than I intended, but he’s been keeping his distance like I asked these past couple of weeks and his appearance here, now, shocks me.

  Is he following me?

  I offer a glare to go with my question as that thought filters through my mind. And Kayson smirks.

  He smirks. The big jerk.

  “Damon may have told me about your run-in today and he may have let it slip about girls’s night. Since there is only one club in town I took a chance that you didn’t leave Pleasant Beach.” He shrugs as if that’s explanation enough. As if this is any Saturday night and he’s done this dozens of times before. He shrugs as if I wasn’t shot just a short few weeks ago and that we haven’t been separated for over four years.

  The nerve of him.

  “I don’t know what the purpose of you showing up here tonight was, but I can tell you that whatever it was, isn’t going to happen.” I give him a dismissive look before looking back to the dance floor to make sure the girls haven’t noticed him. It doesn’t seem that they have, so I swing my gaze back up to his.

  He still hasn’t looked away from me.

  “Come on, Ember. I saw the way you looked at me last week at The Coffee Press. I know you know I’m the one who is sending those deliveries. Let me sit with you for a little while. I’ll have a glass of water and we can talk over drinks. Catch up.”

  He’s trying to seem unaffected by my brush-off, but I see it in his eyes. He’s nervous. And hurt.

  “Like I already said, I don’t know what you expected to happen tonight, but it isn’t happening, so you can leave. I’m not ready to catch up, to talk about old times—nothing. I’m here to have a couple of drinks and spend some time with my girls.”

  “You shouldn’t be drinking while you’re on pain medication, Ember.” His voice is hard.

  “As a matter of fact, I haven’t been taking my pain pills for the last week. Not that it is any of your concern.” I shake my head slightly and pick up my drink. “You can go now, Kayson.”

  I hear him huff a frustrated breath before he speaks. “You’re going to have to talk to me eventually. You know this, I know this, the whole damn town knows this. The sooner we do the quicker we’ll get it over with. Then maybe you’ll understand more and finally accept that I’m back for good.”

  His casual tone does nothing but piss me off.

  “Well it won’t be tonight. So do us both a favor and leave. Whenever I’m ready to talk with you, I’ll let you know. But it sure as hell won’t be my first night out though, that’s for damn sure.” My tone is hard and irritated. It seems that he’s finally gotten it through his head that I’m not talking, nor do I want to hang out with him.

  I catch him turn and walk away through the crowd of gawking girls from the corner of my eye.

  Jealousy overcomes me as I see their eyes follow Kayson through the club, as he gets lost in the crowd.

  I shake off the feeling as all the girls except Sam return to the table and take their drinks.

  Then I know why.

  I oversee Sam talking with Kayson and immediately hop out of the booth and rush over. From the corner of my eye I see Amber grab Tracey’s arm, like she’s holding her back from joining Sam.

  I may be wary about letting the man who obliterated my heart back into my life, but I can’t toss him to the wolves, also known as my best friends.

  As I’m walking over I catch the end of her rant.

  “…you have some major fucking balls showing your face around here again, fucktard. So if you plan on sticking around you better plan on fighting for her. And I mean fight. Do you hear me? She wants the Statue of Liberty? You better uproot the fucker and put it in her yard. You get me?” Sam fires off, tossing her hands on her hips while throwing her signature sass around.

  If the hair flip comes out I know we’re all in trouble.

  “Okay. That’s enough catching up for now,” I say aloud, quickly glancing over at Kayson while shoving my crazy, overprotective, beautiful best friend away. He shakes his head and turns away.

  “Thanks for that,” I say only loudly enough for her to hear, while she smiles at me like the cat who ate the canary before turning back to Kayson, with her best evil glare, and giving him the universal sign for ‘I’m watching you.’

  Yeah, did I mention she’s overprotective? God, I fucking love her though. She just gets me, and if it wasn’t for her and the other girls, who knows where I’d be right now.

  “What the hell, Sam? Did you drink the bar of all the JD already? We’ve only been here an hour!” I try to bite back my smile, but I can’t contain it and a giggle bursts through.

  And cue the shit-eating grin of hers yet again. “What? He needed to know what it was going to take to win you back. Whether it be as friends or more. You know how we feel about him, but we also know it’s all up to you. So I was just making it clear that he has his work cut out for him.”

  I offer her another shake of my head before I ask, “What did he say?” I didn’t hear him reply, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t.

  “Girl, please, I didn’t give him the chance to get a word in. I don’t have time to listen to his excuses.”

  At her reply I catch sight of Kayson pushing through the rest of the crowd, and just as he disappears completely, “Worth It” by Fifth Harmony starts blasting through the speakers.

  What timing.

  “Let’s fucking dance,” Sam shouts as she tugs me to the dance floor, the rest of my girls in tow. Where we shake and shimmy and laugh through the whole song. Heads thrown back. Arms raised in the air.

  They were right, this is exactly what I needed.

  KAYSON

  Tonight did not go as planned.

  That’s fine though. I knew it wouldn’t be easy and Sam wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know.

  I’m ready to fight for Ember. I’m ready to prove to her that I’m a changed man, and that I can be the man she deserves.

  Fuck the past. Fuck all the hurt and the time we had to suffer apart. I’m back and I’m here to stay.

  Hearing Sam reiterate how hard I was going to have to work to win Ember back definitely had a surge of urgency rushing through me. I know in the grand scheme of things I haven’t been back that long, but fuck, she hasn’t even let me utter more than a few words to her whenever I see her.

  I knew showing up at Smoke tonight could go either way. And to be honest, I figured it would be a struggle, but I didn’t see Ember being as cold as she was. As hard. I guess our years apart damaged her more than I thought.

  Tonight wasn’t a total disappointment though. Because when I turned back to look out to the dance floor after Ember pulled Sam away from me, I caught a glimpse of the carefree Ember from four years ago. When shit was good between us.

  She was dancing with her friends. Shaking her luscious hips and ass. Running her hands through her hair as s
he lifted them into the air. But what caught my attention the most, what almost brought me to my knees right there in that club, was the smile lighting up her face.

  It was the smile I have yet to see once since my return. It was the smile that always had me pressing my lips to hers when we were together all those years ago. And it was that smile that lived in my dreams each night as I closed my eyes.

  She was radiant, gorgeous, and most of all, happy. I vowed then and there that I would be the reason behind that smile. And fucking soon.

  Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t mean to come to Ember’s apartment. I was just driving the back roads trying to clear my head. Then all of a sudden I’m taking a right onto Main Street and swinging my jacked up Chevy truck into the visitor’s parking spot at her apartment complex.

  Ah, fuck it. I’ll just sit here and make sure she makes it home safely. From where I’m parked I have the perfect view of the side entrance that is on her side.

  But what if she is dropped off and goes through the front door?

  With that I am hopping out of my truck and making my way into her apartment building, taking the elevator up to her floor, and sliding my pathetic ass down her door to take a seat.

  Who knows how long I’ll be waiting here. But that doesn’t matter.

  I would wait for an eternity for her if I had to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  EMBER

  I’m still bopping around to “Worth It” in my head when I step off the elevator and come to an abrupt stop. Sitting against my apartment door is Kayson.

  And he’s looking right at me.

  “What are you doing here?” I feel like a broken record.

  He slowly stands up before he replies.

  “I just wanted to make sure you made it home safely.” He looks a bit nervous, but his eyes darken as he takes me in under the fluorescent lights of the hallway. “Since you had been drinking and all.”

  I ignore the warmth that spreads through to the tips of my toes at his sweet gesture and move next to him to unlock my front door. Careful not to brush my arm against his chest when he doesn’t give me much room to maneuver.

  As I get the door unlocked and walk through the doorway, I feel warmth hit my back and Kayson’s warm breath flutter against the top of my head. I rub my hands up my arms to mask the shudder that runs through me. I spin to look at him when I hear my front door close and the lock click.

  He stands at the entrance of my apartment as his hooded gaze scans me from head to toe then back up again. Raking his glazed eyes over my little black dress, wedge sandals, then back up to my loosely curled hair. Balling his massive hands at his sides while watching intently as I bite my bottom lip.

  I go to lift my thumb to bite at my nail nervously, out of habit, when he shoots across the space, separating us in three strides.

  There’s a shift in the air around us. A sexual tension so sudden and so thick surrounding us you could cut it with a butter knife.

  I swallow hard as he stares down into my eyes.

  “Am I making you nervous, Em?” he asks quietly as he grabs my raised hand, suspended by shock. “You used to always bite your nails when you were nervous. It’s your tell.” Lifting my thumb to his mouth he nips the pad gently then places my open palm over his chest, over his wildly beating heart. “I’m nervous too, baby.”

  I’m too shocked at his bold move to say anything. To protest. To snatch my hand away from his grasp.

  I’m also too turned on to move.

  Then without warning, his lips are claiming mine in a searing kiss sure to bruise my lips, and I’m up against my closed front door.

  Even though he didn’t slam me against the door—like I know he’d like to—due to my still sore injuries, his intensity is no less explosive.

  His passion is a blazing heat scorching my skin. Igniting an inferno deep within me. He lights me up from the inside out. I’m free falling. Chasing that feeling of weightlessness. Of letting go and just being. His hands are everywhere. Touching and feeling and groping. Needing and wanting and craving. He’s hard and soft. Tender and rough. Loving and demanding. He’s everything all at once.

  Just as quickly as he ravaged my mouth he’s pulling away and dropping to his knees. “I know we still have a lot to discuss. And I know I’m a fucking asshole. But, baby, give me this. Please? Let me taste you and make you feel good. Let me remind your heart of what your body already knows. I need your taste running though my veins.”

  His eyes have darkened to a gray that’s almost navy, and as he peers up at me with those pleading dark eyes, shaking with his restraint, I give in. Because ever since Kayson Williams slammed back into my life all I’ve wanted is to feel his touch again. No matter how badly he’s hurt me, or how deeply I wish I could hate him, I think I’ll always want him. And Lord knows it’s been a long time since I’ve felt the tender touch of a passionate man.

  So with a nod, I consent, and his restraint snaps. Quicker than lightning he has my dress hiked up to my waist and my panties shredded from my body. It happened so fast and I’m too turned on to care.

  With the first swipe of his tongue I’m moaning out in pleasure.

  “Fuck,” he groans. “I forgot how good you taste, baby.” He breathes against my tender flesh. Working my clit with his teeth and tongue like a man starved, like I’m his last meal. “Let me see you come, baby, I wanna watch you fall apart.”

  That endearment should have me pushing him away, but I push back the memories that start to filter through when he sucks my clit into his mouth and the pleasure takes over.

  He slides two fingers into my quivering sex, and before I know it my back is arching off the door, my eyes are rolling shut, and white lights are exploding behind my eyelids. I’m gasping, shaking, squirming. I can’t feel my legs that have somehow been draped over Kayson’s shoulders during my ecstasy. My body going numb from the most exquisite orgasm of my life.

  When I come to, my feet are back on the floor, legs weak, chest heaving, breathing choppy. Kayson has me braced against the door behind me, hands to my hips. His lips glistening with my arousal, his eyes lit with hunger.

  I look up into his gray eyes. Lost in wonder.

  Once the cloud of euphoria dissipates around us, the shock of what I let happen settles over me.

  Oh my God, what have I done?

  What did I just let happen after I swore to myself I would make him work for my time?

  “Oh God,” I whisper aloud, loud enough for Kayson to hear. So the smile that started to lift his lips quickly drops as he sees the tears shining bright in my eyes.

  His eyes lose their heat and then slide closed as he steps back, away from me.

  My legs are now shaking for a whole new reason.

  Shock consumes me as I utter through the fingers placed against my lips. “I just let you get back into my pants without any struggle at all.”

  “Ember, baby, relax—”

  “Relax? I just let you do that to me against my front door for goodness’ sake. I barely put up a fight. I let you kiss me and touch me as if we haven’t spent the last four years apart. I mean, goddamn it, Kayson, we haven’t even had a conversation since you came back to Pleasant Beach. We went from one extreme to the other.” Shame rolls over me, mixing with the pleasure still coursing through my veins.

  “For Christ’s sake, Ember, I’ve been trying to talk to you. Why can’t you stop and let your heart listen to what your body is telling you?”

  “Because my body is a damn fool, and I can’t forget what you put me through.”

  First when you left me, and then when you left me alone to deal with our son’s death.

  I push off the door and finish righting my dress so I’m completely covered again, ignoring the thought that just ran through my head.

  “Jesus Christ, if you’d just give me a chance you’d see that I have changed, grown, and matured.”

  I huff a breath, not believing him because ever since he’s returned all he’s
proven to me is that he’s still just as possessive, hotheaded, and selfish as ever. If he really is clean right now, who’s to say that the drugs won’t follow again?

  “It’s the fucking truth, Ember.” He surprises me by yelling, his temper getting the best of him as my doubt fills the silence. “If it’s the drugs you’re worried about I can promise you that I am clean. I have been ever since I woke up in that hospital room two years ago from almost dying of an overdose.”

  Utter silence follows his words. I freeze like a bucket of ice water has been dowsed over my head. “What did you just say?”

  “A little over two years ago I woke up in the hospital after having my stomach pumped. I was found by my landlord, unconscious on my trashed apartment floor and rushed to the emergency room.”

  I don’t believe what I’m hearing. He can’t be telling me that he almost died. That there was almost a world without Kayson in it.

  We may have been apart, a million hurts and lies may have separated us, but I never thought of a world without him in it. Of course with his lifestyle when he left me, I shouldn’t be surprised over this news. But it doesn’t hurt any less.

  Silent tears are streaming down my face as I look up at Kayson.

  “Do you want to know what my first thought was when I woke up in that hospital bed two years ago? Huh? It wasn’t about me, how I got there, or what happened. No. It was you, Ember. You! Because even after two years without you, my thoughts were still consumed by you and my heart still owned by you.”

  A gasp works past my lips at his admission. I bring a hand to the base of my throat.

  He takes a step toward me. “So from that day forward, I vowed to pick up the pieces of the wreckage that became my life so I could make it back to you, baby. You. Because you are mine.”

  Mine. His possessive tone works through my body, mixing with the grief I feel over his words.

  He continues on. “I checked myself into the hospital-provided rehab center. Suffered days of withdrawals. Cleaned myself up. Looked around my trashed studio apartment and saw how it resembled every aspect of my life. I needed direction and knew I wanted to help people, so I enrolled in the medic training course and certificate program and have been a medic for a little over one year now.”