Page 45 of Don't Fall

“I didn’t sleep with Jules, Tess. I didn’t even know that was her name until I heard you call her by it when we were out. The only reason I went, is because she said it was a group thing and it gave me an excuse to spend more time with you. It wasn’t supposed to be a date at all.”

The piercing gleam in his eye is enough to make me start to back away, but his grip on me is firm and he stops me. The left corner of his mouth rises briefly, letting me know he noticed my attempted escape.

“I’m sorry you were hurt,” he whispers in his deep rasp. It’s unhinging-ly sexy and I feel as though parts of me are bursting to break free from the confines of my body. “I don’t want to be someone who hurts you. And if you think I could, then maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“Will you? Will you hurt me?” My whisper is more like a squeak and not remotely seductive.

“I might,” he relents with a strained sigh. Still sexy. “But it won’t be with someone else. This thing between us, it’s just us. I’m not interested in being with any other women. But I also can’t give you more than what it is. This is all I’m offering.”

“It’s not a bad offer.”

A gentle curve returns to his perfect lips. “So, you’re accepting?”

“I’m entertaining.” I’m stalling. I’m totally accepting. Just wrapping my brain around the things my body is fully committed to. “But, I have conditions.”

“Name them.”

“This just us business, I want it to apply on all levels. No one needs to know. It’s better for keeping the job you don’t give two shits about, and frankly, better for my reputation which, I do kind of like to maintain.” Not to mention, my scholarship is also kind of riding on playing by all rules, and this, well, clearly doesn’t.

He leans in and I back up until I’m one with the door behind me. “Anything else?”

I nod. “You hurt me again, you forfeit your lease.”

“Fair enough.”

“Also, I think we should probably sleep on the whole thing. Cool down. Make a level-headed decision in the morning when we’re thinking rationally.”

He keeps coming closer, hands moving tighter around my waist, up my back until his fingers are pressed firmly to me along with every other part of him. “I haven’t had a rational thought since you walked in swinging an umbrella at me,” he rasps, “now stop talking, I’ve been dying to kiss those lips since this morning and I can’t do that when you keep moving them.” Just in case I attempt to argue, he takes my lower lip in-between his teeth and tugs until my eyes roll back into my head and my mouth crushes his, ready to be devoured.

His grip moves and before I know what’s happening, my toes are no longer touching the ground and he’s lifting me up, wrapping my legs around his waist. Rapidly the distance between my back and my bedroom door increases as he carries me backwards to his own room. There’s a brief fumbling as he struggles with the door one handedly, unwilling to untangle himself from me long enough to see what he’s doing.

“Shit,” he grumbles into my mouth.

“You really need to stop saying that when we’re together like this,” I mumble back between heated kisses.

The handle clicks and the door opens. His mouth moves under mine, grinning. “Got it.” We back inside and he kicks the door shut on his way toward the dresser where he sets me down without ever breaking contact with my lips.

My hands steadily make their way down to his pants so I can begin to peel his shirt up and off his body while he undresses me with a ferocious speed giving every indication we’re doing this right here and now. No moving to the bed. No wasting time on anything but each other.

High on everything from his cologne to the touch of his skin on mine, all reason escapes me and I give in fully to the moment. This moment. Right now, between us. Unfolding at such rapid speeds, I can barely catch my breath. And yet, I can’t slow down. Don’t want to slow down. Don’t want to have even a second to waste on second thoughts or doubts or reminders of how I know better. Every instinct to be responsible and make the right choices falls by the wayside tonight. I want this. I want him. Just for me. Just because it feels so damn good.

The sound of my zipper coming undone briefly breaks through the delirious trance and my eyes meet his in a moment of total stillness.

“Don’t fuck this up,” I whisper.

“I won’t if you won’t,” he answers softly, the tip of his nose nudging mine.

“Deal.” The moment passes. The stillness speeds up. And I’m free falling with no end in sight.

Lane

After the dresser, we move it to the shower where things get hellishly hot and dirty before they get even remotely clean. When we finally make it to the bed, it’s nearly five in the morning, but that doesn’t stop me from rounding out the night by taking my sweet-ass time taking care of every last inch of her in ways I was too wound up to do earlier when my every thought was about getting inside her and making all of the shit images still floating through my head about that bastard who tried to hurt her disappear.

When she falls asleep still wrapped up in me, all the fear and tension of her night have melted away and a contented smile is resting beautifully on her perfect mouth.

I close my eyes, roll my neck and drop my head back into my pillow. Every tedious word Alexis ranted at me tonight comes flooding back. She’s never been one to side with our parents, but tonight, even she told me I was fucking up my entire life. She’s not wrong. I ditched my practice, my patients and right along with it, my reputation. All to take on a new job I’m well on my way of fucking up just as bad, if not worse. And for what? To prove Olivia was right to walk out like she did? To validate her decision to choose Brant over me? Or is it simply an act of giving up and giving in. Accepting what I’ve been told most of my life. That I’m a second rate, slacker with zero ambition. I make bad choices, and my judgement is total shit.

Well, that last part at least, I can now attest to. In all my infinite insight into people’s minds, I still couldn’t see the lies the two people closest to me were telling straight to my face, day after day, for nearly a year.

Tessa shifts her body, moving closer into my chest and pulling me back out of my head. I used to think this is what trust looks like. Her, vulnerable and nestled against me, as if I’m a safe place she can fall into. But it’s as much a lie as everything else is. It’s why this thing between us works. Because the only one either of us truly trusts, is ourselves.

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