Who Falls Hardest (Clearwater University Book 3)

by Eva Ashwood

  The thought makes my blood turn to water, but I steel myself against the fear. My dad loves me. I don’t think he’d ever cut me out of his life entirely. And if he disavows me because he can’t handle the truth of who I am, of what feels utterly right to me, then I’ll forge a path on my own.

  If he can’t love me for who I am, I don’t want him to love me for who I’m not. I refuse to wear a mask around him anymore.

  Dad still hasn’t spoken, and to my surprise, West’s voice fills the silence.

  “It’s true, sir. None of us expected things to work out this way either, but now that we’re here, I can’t imagine it any other way. We love your daughter. And we want your blessing to be with her. But—and I say this with all due respect—there’s nothing, not even your disapproval, that could make us stop loving her.”

  His words are simple. Plain. Spoken with such blunt conviction that they make my heart expand in my chest until there doesn’t seem to be room for anything else.

  I take a step backward, closer to the three Icons, and I feel each of them move forward to meet me, their bodies supporting and sheltering mine. Each one of them touches me somewhere, and the warmth of their skin seeps into me, lending me strength.

  “Dad.” I meet my father’s still shell-shocked gaze. “Look at me. Really look at me. Can’t you see how much happier I am? How much more solid I am? This is who I want to be. This is my choice.”

  He blinks, a line appearing between his eyebrows as his gaze shifts a little. He stares at me, and the knot of worry in my stomach begins to unwind as I see his posture relax.

  He sees it. He knows it’s true.

  Clearing his throat, he nods. Then he looks sharply at Trent, a warning flashing in his eyes.

  “You’d better treat her right, or I’ll kick your ass.”

  I sputter at his words, but Trent just chuckles. When I glance over at him, I see him sharing a look with his two best friends.

  “Understood,” he says, turning back to my dad. “Although if I ever hurt Emma again, you wouldn’t be the only one who’d want to kick my ass. I’m pretty sure you’d have to get in line.”

  23

  Reese

  Holy fuck, it’s been a long couple of months.

  And I know Emma’s right—if we hadn’t all gone through the shit we did, there’s no way to know if we would’ve ever gotten to this place, where things are so fucking amazing.

  Still, sometimes I can’t help but wonder if we could’ve bypassed the multiple shitstorms to reach our happily ever after. Not that it matters now, because we’re here, and I’ve never been happier. And honestly, we’ve all changed a lot, so maybe we needed to go through hell to really appreciate and take care of what matters most in our lives. Maybe we needed to almost lose everything to learn that lesson.

  I’ll tell you what though, I will never fucking forget it now. If a day goes by when I don’t acknowledge that I’m one of the luckiest three men on earth to be with a woman like Emma… well, I’ll kick my own ass for that.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Emma’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I wrap an arm around her waist as we follow West and Trent toward Louie’s Steak House. I’ve never been here before, but apparently it’s one of the best joints in town. And it’s got special meaning for Trent and Ems and their parents, so it seemed fitting that we all come here for a celebration dinner.

  And we’ve got a lot to celebrate tonight.

  The guys and I just finished out our semester, and Emma will be starting summer classes soon, officially becoming a student at Clearwater once again. Plus, Paul and Claire set a date for the wedding, so they’ll be getting hitched in July.

  Glancing down at Emma, I pull her a little closer and nuzzle her hair with my nose. “I was thinking about you. How fucking amazing you are.”

  She blushes in response. I don’t even have to see her face to know that. I can feel it in her body, in the way she leans closer to me, tilting her head down a little. I’ve made it my mission in life to know her completely, inside and out, and I’ve dedicated a lot of very pleasurable hours to that study.

  I still love how responsive she is. Not just during sex, but in life. She cares deeply about shit, and when she sets her mind to something, she becomes an unstoppable force of nature.

  After everything that happened over the past year and all the effort she put into getting readmitted to Clearwater, she spent a lot of time figuring out what she wanted to study. She wanted to make it all worthwhile, and she eventually decided on law. She’s been loving her job at the law firm, and she’s decided that’s what she wants to do for the rest of her life.

  Personally, I’m all for it. There’s nothing in the world hotter than watching Emma argue. She might be one of the sweetest people I know, but there’s a fire in her that burns like the fucking sun.

  “I lost you again. Now what are you thinking about?” Emma presses, but by the way her hands are roaming over my stomach and back as she leans against me, I have a pretty good idea she knows exactly what.

  “Still how amazing you are,” I murmur, stopping in my tracks so I can wrap my arms around her fully and press a kiss to her lips. I smile against her mouth as we break apart. “Just… the context has changed.”

  “Oh?” She shifts closer to me, her breasts pressing against my chest as her hips roll against my hardening cock. “What context is it now?”

  “Come on, you two!” Trent calls. “Stop making out in the street and hurry up. We’re gonna be late! My mom and Paul are waiting!”

  “Kiss-ass!” I call back, lifting my head to roll my eyes at him.

  I like to give him shit for it, but honestly, I think it’s pretty cool how hard he’s been working to bury the hatchet with Paul. There was a lot of bad blood between them—more than Emma’s dad has with either me or West—and even though Paul gave his approval in theory that day Emma got readmitted to school, it wasn’t like things automatically became all sunshine and roses after that.

  There’ve been some hard conversations, but I think Paul is finally starting to see that we’re all serious about this. That all we want is Emma’s happiness, and that by some incredible and insane luck, the three of us make her happy.

  “Come on. Let’s go.” I grin down at Ems, taking her hand as we hustle to catch up with the other two.

  The four of us enter the restaurant as a group, and Trent leads us confidently into the back room where Claire and Paul are waiting for us.

  “God, please tell me we’re not that gross,” Emma whispers to me with a giggle as we catch her dad and Trent’s mom kissing like lovestruck teenagers.

  “Hate to break it to you, Ems, but I think we’re worse.” I slide my hand down her back to rest it briefly on her ass, grinning at the flare of heat in her eyes even as her blush deepens. “With you, me, West, and Trent, it’s like that, but times three.”

  “Times three and a half,” West grunts, nudging me with his elbow. “Your PDA is out of control.”

  “Hey, I’m an affectionate person,” I joke as we near the table. “I can’t help that. And I haven’t heard Emma complain.”

  I wink at her as I hold her chair out, and she laughs out loud at that. “Nope, I have no complaints.”

  “No complaints about what?” Claire asks, finally dragging her attention away from her soon-to-be-husband and smiling at all of us.

  Emma grins, her expression so bright and carefree that it hits me like a punch to the chest. I swear my fucking heart stops for a moment, unable to continue beating under the wave of happiness that crashes over me.

  “No complaints about anything,” Ems says softly, her smile widening. “About anything at all.”

  We all settle in around the table and the waiter comes by to take our order a few minutes later.

  Emma gets absorbed in a conversation with Claire about wedding planning—talking dresses and venues and other shit I can barely comprehend. Trent and Paul get into a debate about sports,
which has become a point of common interest they’ve been able to bond over. West, always the quietest one of our group, surveys the table with the intensity of an alpha wolf keeping watch over his pack.

  And me?

  I’m happy to just sit here, eat my steak, and try to figure out how the hell I became one of the luckiest sons of bitches in the world.

  As we eat, the conversation shifts to our plans for the summer, Emma’s school schedule, and what we’re all starting to think about for after graduation. Claire and Paul talk about the four of us as a unit, an us, and I fucking love it. My parents have been a little slow to come around to the idea of this whole relationship thing we’re doing, so it’s nice to know that some of our folks are completely on board.

  When we’re finishing up dessert, Emma scoots her chair back and excuses herself to go to the restroom. The conversation ebbs and flows around me, Claire and Paul fighting over the last bite of ice cream while Trent and West joke among themselves.

  A few moments later, my gaze flicks to the doorway Emma disappeared through, and the little bit of the hallway I can see beyond it.

  Murmuring a half-formed excuse, I get up and follow the path Ems took, stepping into the long back hallway that leads to the bathrooms. It’s dimly lit, but Emma’s hair still gleams in the low light as she emerges from the bathroom and heads toward me.

  She catches sight of me and smiles, opening her mouth to say something. But whatever words were about to leave her lips, all that comes out is a small gasp when I reach her and spin her to press her back against the wall. My body leans against hers, and I can see her pulse fluttering quickly in her neck.

  “What are you doing?” she murmurs.

  “This.”

  I drop my head to claim a kiss, bringing us right back to where we were outside the restaurant, right back into the consuming need that never seems to really die out.

  Her body responds instantly, her hands threading through the hair at the back of my head as she tilts her neck, arching her back away from the wall to press more of herself against me.

  “God, life is so fucking crazy,” she whispers when our lips finally break apart.

  “Yeah. It is.” I chuckle. “But what made you think of that right now?”

  “This restaurant. This hallway.” She glances up and down the empty corridor, her fingers still sliding through my hair, driving me crazy with just that small touch. “Back during fall semester, Trent and I had a moment in this hallway.”

  “A moment?” I arch a brow, my hand sneaking up under her shirt to drift across the bare skin of her waist, fingertips brushing her ribs. “What kind of moment?”

  She shivers. “We kissed, and it was… I don’t even know how to describe it. It was fire. It was hate. It was want. It was all the things we both craved but wouldn’t admit we needed. I think it was one of the first moments when I realized that we felt inevitable. You know?”

  My cock is hardening as I inhale her sweet scent and feel her soft body molded to mine. The image of her making out with Trent, of the two of them so consumed by the chemistry between them that even the animosity and bad blood that existed too couldn’t override it… fuck, it’s hot as hell.

  I have no sexual interest in either of my best friends at all, but I’m man enough to admit that watching them fuck the girl I love—watching them turn her on, break her down, and drive her wild—gets me hard as a damn rock. The three of us are so close that watching one of my friends with her is almost like being with her myself. And when all three of us are with her, it’s like everything is heightened to an insane degree.

  “What did he do?” I murmur roughly, grinding against her a little. “Did he have you up against the wall like this?”

  She nods, a small whimper falling from her lips.

  “Did he kiss you hard or soft?”

  “Hard,” she whispers. “Like he couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to. Like he was throwing himself off a cliff and I was the only thing that could save him.”

  Fuck.

  “Like this?” I demand in a low voice a second before I crash my lips against hers.

  My blood is burning, my cock aching to bury itself inside her, and her tongue strokes against mine with matching hunger as I kiss her hard and deep. She can’t answer. Her mouth is too busy warring with mine.

  But the answer is clear in the way she wraps her arms around my neck, rising up onto her tiptoes as one leg hitches around my waist, her hips angling so that my swollen cock presses right where she needs me.

  Yes.

  Yes, exactly like this.

  We get lost in each other, forgetting about the dinner, forgetting where the hell we are until a server clears her throat as she passes by. I rip my mouth away from Emma’s in time to see the server smirking as she walks down the hall. A flash of jealousy lights in the woman’s eyes, and I think I hear her mutter something that sounds like “you go girl” as she glances at Emma.

  Ems and I look at each other and both burst out laughing.

  We get ourselves back together, smoothing our clothes back into place, and I try to think unsexy thoughts to banish my raging hard-on before we head out into the restaurant to rejoin the others.

  I’m only somewhat successful. My dick doesn’t look like it’s trying to forcibly break out of my pants anymore, but I’m still so fucking turned on that I’ve got a semi, which I hide by sitting down quickly.

  West and Trent both turn to glance at me as we settle back in at the table, and from the looks on their faces, they know exactly what Emma and I were just doing.

  West’s nostrils flare, and Trent’s jaw ticks. When they shift their focus to Emma, I feel her shiver beside me.

  “So, should we get the check?” I say quickly, lifting my hand to signal for the server as I smile at Claire and Paul. “This is on us tonight, guys.”

  The food was excellent, the company was fantastic, and it feels like things are finally in a good place between all of us.

  It was a great dinner.

  But I can’t wait to get home.

  24

  Emma

  My pulse is still racing from my kiss with Reese in the hall at Louie’s, but I manage to keep it together on the drive home.

  Well, mostly.

  Trent is driving like he often does, and I’m in the backseat with West. Reese is fiddling with the dial on the radio, hopping stations in a way I know drives Trent crazy.

  I feel… happy.

  So grateful for where my life has ended up through all the twists and turns, ups and downs. Things have never felt more perfect.

  Maybe it’s that thought, or maybe it’s the heat still pooling in my lower belly from making out with Reese, but as we near the neighborhood where we all live, I unbuckle my seatbelt and crawl onto West’s lap.

  His eyes widen in surprise, but it doesn’t take him long to respond. His hands palm my ass, holding me close as my lips find his. Our kiss is deep and slow and easy. Exploratory, as if we’ve got all the time in the world.

  “Fucking hell,” Reese groans from the front. “I knew I should’ve sat in the back with you two.”

  The car lurches a little as Trent steps on the gas, suddenly driving a little more urgently. Anxious to get home.

  I can feel Reese’s gaze on me, and I know Trent’s eyes are flicking to the rearview mirror from time to time. It lights a fire deep inside me to know that West and I have an audience, that his friends are watching this and loving every minute of it.

  “Give them a show,” I murmur to West as I draw back from our kiss. I feel a little drunk—on lust, probably, since I didn’t have anything to drink at dinner. “Make them a little jealous.”

  He growls under his breath, thrusting his hips up into mine and grinding his cock against me. Using one hand to support my back, he leans me away from him a little. I’m wearing a cute little sundress, and he pulls the top down, sliding my bra cups down too to leave my breasts completely exposed.

  Dim flashes of l
ight from the streetlamps outside illuminate them briefly before they’re plunged into darkness again, and when West lowers his head and laps at my nipples, Reese lets out a muffled curse.

  “Fuck. God, that’s hot. What does it feel like, Ems?” he asks roughly.

  “Good.” I’m panting a little, already drowning in sensation. “So fucking good. His mouth is hot and wet, and my nipples are so hard. So sensitive. I can feel him everywhere.”

  “Jesus.” Trent accelerates a little more. We’re close to home now, I think. At least from the flashes of scenery I catch when I’m able to focus on anything outside the car. “What does she taste like, West?”

  “Sweet. Like vanilla and honey.”

  West’s voice is muffled as he licks and sucks my breasts. I know the car is in motion, but the idea that someone could look in and see us sets my blood on fire, making me grind down harder on his stiff cock.

  “Fucking finally,” Reese says on a groan when Trent pulls into the driveway a minute later.

  The car engine turns off, and then Reese and Trent quickly slide out of the car. They both come around to the side and open the door next to West, and I wrap my legs around him as he steps out too. My bare breasts are pressed against his chest, and the other two men gather around us protectively and possessively, making sure no one else can see.

  I’m so desperate for more that I’m practically writhing in West’s arms as he carries me to the door. Trent shoves his key in the lock, and a second later, we all spill inside.

  I’m expecting West to carry me to his bedroom. The guys aren’t picky about which room we end up in, but whoever makes the choice usually goes with his.

  But we don’t even make it that far.

  Instead, I’m deposited on my feet in the middle of the living room. Before I can even worry about finding my balance, Trent and Reese are on either side of me, holding me up and supporting me. And it’s a good thing they do, because a second later, West drops to his knees in front of me. He lifts my sundress with one large hand as his other yanks my panties down my legs, quickly getting rid of them and my sandals.