Evie’s cheeks were still pink when she looked at me. “I’ll be done in about two hours.”
“I’ll head home. I could seriously use a shower.”
She smiled. “I was going to get pizza for dinner. Sound good?”
“Sounds perfect.” I couldn’t help it and had to step close just once more to press a kiss to her lips. I kept it quick, if only to prevent Grace from scolding us again.
A while later when I heard the door open, I drained my coffee and quickly rinsed the mug out in the sink. I’d been mostly abstaining when Evie was around ever since she’d gotten pregnant. I tried to be a team player and not tempt her.
Turning, I strode quickly through the archway into the living room, immediately taking the box of pizza and her bag of supplies from her arms.
“You shouldn’t carry so much,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God. It’s a box of pizza and a bag that weighs maybe a few pounds. It doesn’t matter. You also don’t have to sneak coffee behind my back,” she added as she followed me into the kitchen.
Sliding the pizza onto the kitchen counter, I turned back and winked. “I know I don’t, but I know you love your coffee, and I feel guilty whenever I have it in front of you.”
She grinned. Turning, she reached to take her bag back from where I set it on the counter, but I beat her to it. “Got it. Goes in the hall closet, right?”
“You are ridiculous,” she called after me.
Calling over my shoulder, I said, “Sit down and have some pizza.”
When I returned to the kitchen, she had two plates out and had the refrigerator open. “What do you want to drink?”
“Just water,” I replied as I reached up and got two glasses from the cabinet above the sink.
Minutes later, we were sitting at the table. Looking over at her with her lopsided ponytail, I smiled, a subtle tension unspooling inside my chest. I didn’t like being away from Evie. Not at all.
It wasn’t quite rational, to be honest. I knew logically speaking that she was fine on her own, but ever since she’d gotten pregnant, I found I could manufacture many, many things to worry about.
That sense of tension was an odd thing Evie had illuminated. Whenever I was with her, I enjoyed a level of comfort I’d never experienced before. I couldn’t say I had missed it before because you couldn’t miss something you didn’t even know existed. But she gave it to me. When I thought back to before we were together, she had always been so easy for me to be around.
I managed to temporarily forget my focus on her because I was fucking starving and had settled in to devour most of the pizza. After we finished eating, it was a race to beat Evie at her habit of cleaning up the kitchen. When I closed the dishwasher, I turned around to find her behind me leaning her hips against the counter opposite me.
Stepping to her, I slid my arms around her waist and buried my head in the curve of her neck. I’d never known the scent of a woman could get to me, but with Evie, it was like coming home.
“I missed you,” I murmured, sliding my hand up to brush her hair away and dust kisses along the side of her neck.
She leaned back, cupping my cheek as I lifted my head. “I always miss you when you’re gone.”
Somehow, we went from there to a hot, messy kiss. I needed her so fiercely that before I knew it, I was shoving her skirt up around her hips and teasing the slick heat between her thighs. I savored the feel of her everywhere—the press of her belly against me, her plump breasts, and the way my heart thudded when I came inside her slick core.
A while later, we were resting on the couch with Evie on my lap. She lifted her head from my shoulder, announcing, “We have to go outside.”
Considering that I was relaxed and sated with her warm on my lap, going outside was the furthest thing from my mind. “Huh? It’s cold out.”
She grinned. “We have a good view of Orion tonight, and it’s your favorite constellation.”
I could never say no to Evie, and the stars were sentimental for us. Because way back when on that rock in the darkness when I was having a bad day, Evie told me the Little Dipper was her favorite constellation, and she never forgot that Orion was mine.
Moments later, we were on the back deck, the moon illuminating the mountains encircling Stolen Hearts Valley. “See,” she said as I looked through the telescope over her shoulder. I marveled at the clarity. Evie let out a little happy sigh.
“We can do this, right?” I asked.
Every so often, the depth of what Evie represented to me, and of the family that we already had even though our little boy had yet to be born, came flying at me. Sometimes I didn’t know if I could forever be the man she needed.
Leaning her head back against my shoulder and sliding her hand to curl around the nape of my neck, she murmured. “Of course, we can. It’s you and me.”
A Note From The Author
Thank you for reading Break My Fall - I hope you loved Evie & Dawson’s story!
For more swoony & sassy romance…
This Crazy Love kicks off the Swoon Series - small town southern romance with enough heat to melt you! Jackson & Shay’s story is epic - swoon-worthy & intensely emotional. Jackson just happens to be Shay’s brother’s best friend. He’s also seriously easy on the eyes. Shay has a past, the kind of past she would most definitely like to forget. Past or not, Jackson is about to rock her world. Don’t miss their story, it’s free on all retailers! This Crazy Love
Burn For Me is a second chance romance for the ages. Sexy firefighters? Check. Rugged men? Check. Wrapped up together? Check. Brave the fire in this hot, small-town romance. Amelia & Cade were high school sweethearts & then it all fell apart. When they cross paths again, it’s epic - don’t miss Cade’s story! Free on all retailers!
For more small town romance, take a visit to Last Frontier Lodge in Diamond Creek. A sexy, alpha SEAL meets his match with a brainy heroine in Take Me Home. Marley is all brains & Gage is all brawn. Sparks fly when their worlds collide. Don’t miss Gage & Marley’s story! Free on all retailers!
Chapter 1
Elle
It feels like it’s been three years, seven months, four days and six hours. At least. It’s actually been ten days. Ten. That’s how long I’ve been on vacation with my family. I’m finally back home in the Queen City, where I can get chicken prepared as nature intended—on a biscuit with a slice of cheddar cheese.
Don’t get me wrong—the trip was amazing and the Bailey clan is great. My brother is hilarious, and my parents are loving and supportive, if a bit over-the-top. This year’s Bailey Family Bonding Adventure, the term for vacation that my father has insisted on using for the past twenty years, was a big one. Every other year, we go someplace outside of the U.S. that we’ve never been before. No phones. No computers. GPS is the closest thing to technology that’s permitted while we take in the culture and spend quality time together. The theme of this year’s trip was Black Forest to Bavarian Alps. Ten days of my father in lederhosen and my mother’s ample bosom spilling out of a dirndl is enough to send anyone into therapy. Somehow, though, I have survived.
I really missed my friends. Okay, friend. I basically just have the one. Noah Adler. He works across the hall, lives around the corner. He has been a part of my life for years, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
On the plus side, going to Germany, home of the world’s finest gummy bears, means I’ve been able to bring Noah back a suitcase full of the wriggly gelatinous little globs of sugar he so adores. Gummy everything, per his request.
My parents pull up to my building and my brother Andy gets my bags out of the back of the SUV. I lean into the window and kiss my Mom’s cheek, and wave goodbye to my Dad.
“Sunday night! Seven o’clock. Don’t be late or you’ll have a lot of dishes to do, young lady!” Dad winks at me. Late for dinner, wash all the dishes. Bailey house rules.
“Got it, Dad. Thanks again for an amazing trip. Love you guys!” I walk back to the t
runk where Andy is standing with my suitcases and clobber him with a hug. “Watch yourself, Bailey boy.”
“You watch yourself, Bailey girl. Love ya, sis. Thanks for making the trip more fun. Sorry we couldn’t find you an Alpine goatherd to marry,” he jokes as he hugs my neck.
“Sorry all the barmaids thought you were twelve.” Now that is a real joke because in the last couple of years, Andy has filled out and looks like a man – a big one at that. I’m the only one under five-ten, and the only real redhead in a sea of blondes. I swear they found me in a cabbage patch.
I grab my suitcases and turn to wave as they drive off. I lug the two huge suitcases up the four steps to the door of my building. At least I was smart enough to pick a place with elevators.
Outside my place, I put my ear to the door before I put the key in the lock. Silence. Noah must have decided not to come over and welcome me home. My heart immediately drops. It’s fine. There’s no reason he should rush over to see me just because I’ve been out of the country for ten freaking days. It’s no big deal. Really.
I open the door and roll my giant luggage into the foyer of my apartment. The number one thing that I want to do is have a shower. Well, the number one thing was see Noah, but that doesn’t look like it’s happening. The number two thing is eat pizza and drink a soda with ice in it, a luxury I have not enjoyed for ten whole days.
I walk over to the stackable washer/dryer combo in the back of the kitchen, drop my jeans, peel out of my t-shirt, and look for a towel in the basket of clean laundry I thought I had left on the washer, but it’s not there.
I must’ve left the basket in my room. Getting packed was a bit of a blur, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that stuff is still strewn across my bed.
I walk down the hall, and turn the corner into my room to find, to my shock and dismay, a wall of dripping wet muscle standing at the foot of my bed, toweling himself off.
I gasp, clutching my palm to the bare spot on my chest between the cups of my bra—thankfully, a t-shirt model that offers at least a little coverage. Hearing me, he turns, holding the towel just so that the most critical information is unavailable.
“Hey, you’re home!”
Noah takes three long strides toward me and leans forward to hug me. I put my palm out and it lands firmly in the middle of his perfect, muscular chest.
“You’re naked! You can’t hug me naked! It’s weird!”
“You’re naked too!” He argues, wrapping the towel around his waist and folding it into a not-very-secure-looking knot at the side.
I silently will the knot to fail and expose the only bit of Noah Adler that I’ve never seen, but sadly I still have not developed telekinetic powers, so nothing happens.
“There, better?” He stands back, cocks his head a little to the side and turns his palms up.
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer and instead wraps thick, muscular forearms and defined biceps around me as he pulls me into his sculpted torso.
“I missed you!” He says, laying his cheek against the top of my head.
I wrap my arms around his midsection and look up as I give him a squeeze, carefully jutting my ass out so my belly doesn’t make contact with what I imagine is a sizable and delicious member beneath the towel he’s barely wearing.
“I missed you too. You should’ve come with us,” I close my eyes, inhaling the soapy goodness of his skin as I do a happy dance on the inside because he came to see me after all.
“I’m not a Bailey. No Bailey family bonding adventures for me,” he laughs. “But I am going to need you to tell me every detail, Ariel.”
I squirm away from him. “Well, that didn’t take long. I’m over missing you now.”
Only my parents call me Ariel, a name I detest. My mother’s love of animated movies, the year of my birth, and my red hair collided in the perfect storm that led to her giving me the worst name a little red-headed girl could have. Instead, I choose to go by Elle so fewer people make the mermaid comparison.
“Aw, come on! It’s been nearly two weeks! You gotta give me at least one.” He puts his hands on his hips.
Drop, damn you, you stupid towel! Drop!
Nothing.
“Whatev,” I shake my head as I step toward the bathroom. “I’m taking a shower. Order us food, would ya? And put some damn clothes on, you pervert. Why are you showering at my place anyway?”
“Well, you clearly didn’t notice since I haven’t heard a thank you, but I cleaned your nasty apartment. I was gross after I finished. I wanted to clean up. Luckily, it was pretty easy to find one of my t-shirts, though, since you steal them like an unrepentant kleptomaniac. I had to dig around to find some sweats I’d left over here at some point, though.” He grins, cocking up an eyebrow, and I freeze in my tracks.
Shit.
“First of all, I liked my stuff where I had it. I hate it when you do this—it will take me weeks to find all my shit now. Second of all, when you say dig through...,” I trail off.
I take mental inventory of the contents of my home, wondering if I could’ve left anything incriminating.
Playgirl? ‘Sports’ massager? Voo-doo love potion labeled for use on best friend?
I think I’m safe. I mean, as a single woman, I have been known to take matters into my own hands, but if I’m being perfectly honest, the far-more-expensive-than-reasonable showerhead in my bathroom is my weapon of choice.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t find anything remotely fun or interesting. I did wash and put away about a hundred pairs of sad, white cotton panties. Sheesh! No wonder you’re always so cranky. You’re definitely not getting laid if you’re always wearing granny panties.” He shakes his head.
Well, he’s not wrong. I haven’t gotten laid in far too long. I haven’t really dated anyone since I broke up with Nathan a few months ago. That was the weekend I spent like a catatonic baby kangaroo, balled up on Noah’s lap for two solid days.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut your pie-hole, order us some pizza, and put some damn clothes on.” I smile sweetly and bat my eyelashes before disappearing into the bathroom.
I drop my bra and peel off my underwear, which are now completely soaked thanks to my bestie being naked and gorgeous in front of my poor, deprived eyes, and hop into a scalding hot shower. I wash my hair and slather myself with honey-papaya body wash. I’m running the soapy loofah between my legs, the valley between them twinges with ache, and I glance up at the detachable showerhead.
Don’t even think about it, sister. You can’t. Absolutely not. Noah’s right in the next room.
I try to tamp the thought down, but the ache is cruel. I’ve spent ten days sharing a room with my younger brother, and when I get home, the first thing I see Noah’s spectacular body, dripping and naked. I lick my lips and still everything, listening intently to see if I can hear where in the apartment he might be.
“It’s the showerhead, isn’t it?” Noah’s voice booms from the other side of the shower curtain, startling me and causing an avalanche that starts with me dropping the loofah, flailing to catch it, and ends with every bottle of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash on the shelf in my shower tumbling to the floor in a clatter.
“What the hell? Why are you in my bathroom? Dude! Boundaries—maybe you’ve heard of them?” I yell over the water.
I hear his deep, throaty laughter as it cuts through the steam. “I told you, I missed you. You were taking too long. But back to my point, the reason I didn’t find anything fun is because you use the showerhead, isn’t it?”
I place one hand on the edge of the shower curtain, and yank the edge back with the other, just enough to poke my head out. “Seriously, Noah. Get. Out. Of. My. Bathroom.”
He stretches his neck just a little as if he’s trying to see around me to sneak a peek behind the curtain, and smirks. He leans forward, and kisses the tip of my nose. “I’m waiting for us to catch up. Hurry up and get out here or I’m coming in.” He winks, and calls back as he walks out, “Food should be h
ere any minute!”
I have no response. The thought of him joining me in the shower is enough to cause my brain to implode.
I hurriedly finish my shower, grateful that Noah didn’t catch me in the act, and get dressed. When I walk out to the living room, Noah is sitting on the sofa in a pair of sweatpants and my favorite t-shirt, the green one that he bought on our trip to Cedar Point. The one that I very specifically did not return when I borrowed it because I love it so much.
He has the pizza laid out on the coffee table, along with a beer for him, and a soda for me. In a glass. With ice. Because he’s perfect like that.
“Please tell me you have pictures of Dr. Bailey in lederhosen.” He pulls a piece of meat-lover’s from the box.
“Oh so many,” I roll my eyes. “I have pics of Mom in authentic gear too, but I’m not sure if I should show you those. They are mostly PG-13, but some of them are going to cause me to need to call the company benefit line for the names of some therapists.” I pull up the photo app on my phone and hand it to him, then take a long sip of soda. “Mm. That tastes so damn good.” I smile and sink back into the comfy, oversized sofa I love so much, despite the fact that my feet don’t come close to touching the ground when I scoot all the way back in it.
He smiles. “I thought you’d be going through ice cube withdrawals.” He flips through the pics and lands on one of me, Andy, Mom, and Dad in the Bavarian Alps. We’re standing on the balcony of the hotel that we stayed at, which is built like a chalet with scrollwork and gingerbread molding all over. Mom and Dad are standing in front of the railing, and Andy and I are leaning over the porch above them, all of us in German outfits. It’s a cute picture, all of us smiling, and the dirndl and puffy shirt actually make it look like I have decent-sized boobs.
“Please, dear God in Heaven, tell me you brought this outfit home with you.” He smiles that broad, easy smile of his that reaches all the way up his face and flashes in his blue eyes.
Vote Then Read: Volume III Page 146