Falling into You: A Falling Stars Stand-Alone Romance

by A. L. Jackson

  I looked to the worry carved on his face.

  “Be careful. That man holds secrets. Ugly, dark secrets. I can feel them.”

  I swallowed down the fear that slicked across my skin.

  The awareness of that truth.

  The only thing I could do was tell him the same lie. “Don’t worry. It’s fine.”

  I slipped out into the brilliance of the day, to Richard who had paced away on the porch, the disturbance amplifying with each step he took.

  Pieces of his long hair at the top whipping with the gust of wind.

  His shoulders wide and the muscles in his back rippling with strength. The colors painted on his arms twitching and curling with the vibrations that rocked from his bones.

  Reticent, my daddy clicked the door shut, and I took a couple shaky steps farther out onto the porch.

  Richard turned around.

  Energy snapped.

  Electricity sizzled.

  “What did you want to talk about?” I asked, the words cracking when I took in the ferocity that hardened his eyes.

  Something feral and ruthless taking him over.

  “This.” He erased the space in two steps and swept me off my feet. One arm banded around my waist and the other bunching in the disaster that was my hair.

  That was the very same second his mouth descended in a plundering, mind-bending kiss.

  Eighteen

  Richard

  I curled my arm around her waist as I gave myself over to what I’d been dying to do since the second I’d stepped through her door. Gave myself over to the fierce, unrelenting need to consume this girl.

  Taste her and take her and touch her.

  “Violet,” I rumbled as I held onto the curves of her gorgeous body.

  Lust blistered through my bloodstream. Careening through every cell. Thumping madness into my veins.

  Violet gasped a throaty, needy sound, and instantly, our mouths went to war. Our lips vying to overtake the other. Our tongues battling for the control that neither of us possessed.

  Insanity usurped logic.

  All rationale shot.

  Gone. Every fucking reservation I’d ever had slayed at the contact.

  Could tell the girl was half in shock from the sudden shift, the air panting from her mouth, the other half wild as she sank her nails into my shoulders and hiked herself higher to get closer.

  No chance we could get close enough.

  Because this…this was the way we were supposed to be.

  She was supposed to be mine and I was supposed to be hers.

  Violet and I were written in the stars.

  Fate.

  Destiny.

  My outcome before we’d even started.

  Her mouth met mine in a frantic bid, her soul shivering all around like it was looking for a crack, for a way to get back to who we had been, to where I’d gone, when my heart had been with her all along.

  This girl was nothing but a volatile ball of grief and need that I held in my hands.

  A bomb that was getting ready to go off.

  Heat coiled and lapped.

  Flames that started at our feet. Leapt and curled and ravaged.

  It wound around our bodies to set us afire.

  Shouldn’t have been surprised considering the choices I’d made had left us burning at the stake.

  In the middle of the storm, I couldn’t stop kissing her. Couldn’t stop from asking her for more when I knew I would never deserve it. That I’d never be worthy. But knowing I was going to fight for her with every fiber of who I was, anyway.

  Even if those fibers were frayed.

  Even if they were ragged and worn.

  Tarnished and defamed.

  My dick was hard as stone. Pressing and begging at her soft belly, the physical embodiment of how fuckin’ bad I’d missed this girl, while my spirit wept with every promise I’d made but had not kept.

  I angled my head in a demand to deepen the kiss, like it might make up for the disloyalty.

  For the deceit and deceptions that I still had to keep stashed in the deepest recesses where only the monsters could see.

  My wife. My wife.

  I found myself murmuring it at her soft, lush lips, my hands moving to frame her precious face. “My wife.”

  Violet whimpered. Fingernails scraped at my back. Need tore through her body. “Richard. Why did you leave me? Why would you hurt me so bad?”

  Frantic, her tongue stroked against mine. In the middle of it, I could taste the bitter salt from the tears that fell down her face.

  The fingers at my back turned to fists.

  Curling into my shirt before she pounded into my back, her kiss becoming more desperate as the offense flooded out.

  “How could you? How could you just leave me?”

  My hands gripped and pled, riding down her shoulders and locking around her back, holding her tight like I could keep her from floating away. From disappearing into the expanse of nothingness that had been born between us.

  The void we were trying to fill in a single moment too vast and extraordinary.

  “I know I hurt you, Violet. I know I hurt you. I didn’t want to. It killed me. Fucking destroyed me.”

  A sob hitched in her throat.

  Guilt throbbed, violent in its lash, and I forced myself to pull away.

  But I couldn’t go far.

  My forehead dropped to hers as I fought the compulsion to show her the scars the years without her had left.

  Marred and stained and disfigured.

  Because without her, I’d never looked the same.

  My hands were on her hips when I set her on unsteady feet.

  She dropped her attention to the ground as a cry wrenched free, and she started to back away. My hands shot out to take her by the face. To stop her from running. From hiding. “Violet.”

  “No.” It cracked like a bullet from a gun. Her head shook and she wound out of my hold, putting her hands up between us. “No. Richard. You can’t do this to me. I can’t let you do this to me all over again. I won’t make it. I already warned you…warned you that our hearts can’t take it, and you keep comin’ back here with the intention of wreckin’ me all over again. And this time it’s not just gonna be me who you’re going to ruin.”

  “Last thing in the world I want to do is hurt either of you. I won’t.” It was the stab of a confession. Probably the vilest lie I’d ever told. I didn’t want to hurt her. But there was no stopping this train that was barreling out of control.

  Asshole out on our property last night had proved that.

  “But you already did, Richard. You hurt me worse than anyone has ever hurt me before. You left me.”

  The last words cracked, and she touched her chest.

  Like the girl wanted to give me access to see what I’d done.

  She didn’t need to show me. I’d known it all along.

  “I’d take it back if I could. If I could go back and erase what was done, I would. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Violet. I want to be here. Right here, with you. I need you to trust that.”

  A motherfuckin’ fool. But I couldn’t turn back. Couldn’t turn away. Couldn’t leave.

  She blinked up at me with those mesmerizing eyes.

  Violets and the sky and eternity.

  The girl delicate and raw.

  Fragile and fierce.

  Every fucking day since I’d met her, I’d been in awe.

  She scoffed out a disbelieving sound. “And that’s the problem. I can’t trust you. Can’t trust that you’ll stay.”

  She stared up at me, wading through the turmoil, wearing this skintight white tank with no bra and sleep pants that hugged her in all the right ways.

  Distracting to say the least.

  “What do you even want, Richard? I’m over here telling you I can’t trust you, and I don’t even know what you’re asking me to give.”

  I took a step forward, cocking my head to the side, my words grit. “Not asking for a t
hing, Violet, because you and I both know you’re already mine.”

  Misery sliced through her being. A physical rendering. I felt it like a blow. “You’re right. I have always belonged to you. And look what’s left.”

  Stepping back, she held her arms out to the sides, tears streaming down her stunning face and glinting in the reflection of the sun.

  Wisps of black hair fluttering around her.

  My fairy girl.

  I was in front of her in a flash, one arm looping around her waist and the other cupping one cheek.

  Emotion crested through her features.

  Girl overcome.

  Disgust.

  Love.

  Goodness.

  Grief.

  Everything I wanted to gather up and hold forever.

  “You think you’re in pieces, Violet? Look at me. Look at us without each other.”

  That crystalized gaze blinked and fluttered, her lips parting and making me want to devour her all over again.

  “That’s your fault.”

  “I know it’s my fault. I know it. And I can’t change what I’ve done, no matter how badly I might want to. Question is, can you forgive me?” The last scraped up my throat.

  Violet stared at me, wavering and confused and unsure. Her attention moved to the injury between my eyes, and her hand trembled when she lifted it and feathered it over the butterfly stitch. “How could you ask me to forgive you when I know you’re hiding something from me, Richard? I see it. I feel it. What have you gotten yourself into? What happened last night?”

  I flinched. “My past is catching up to me, Violet. Every mistake I’ve made is right here, and I’m doing everything in my power to fix it. To make it right the only way that I can.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Anger blistered across my flesh. “There are things at play that I can’t show you, Violet. That I can’t let you see. But you need to know I’m going to destroy it. I’m going to end it. Burn it to the ground. And when it’s done? I’m going to pray you can find a way to forgive the unforgivable.”

  I was so close, our mouths grazed.

  Tiny wildfires erupted.

  “Just remember when you find out? Remember I did it for you.”

  That energy whipped. Agitated and wild. The girl’s heart started to pang in a disturbed, unsettled way.

  “You’re scarin’ me, Richard.”

  I exhaled a heavy breath. “Believe me, baby, I’m scared, too.” Not for myself. But I couldn’t shake the terror that I might not be able to pull this off.

  And if I didn’t?

  None of us could afford the cost.

  “One thing I need you to know is I’m not going anywhere,” I told her. “I’m going to be right here, taking care of you and Daisy, protecting you, until it’s over.”

  Confusion bound her, her defenses trying to make a rise. “When did you start caring about me and Daisy?”

  My fingertips played across her knitted brow. “When did I start caring about you and Daisy? Told you last night, I never stopped. Never stopped loving you. Never stopped wanting you. Not for one fuckin’ second.”

  “You didn’t sign the papers,” she whispered, still staring at me like she was going to stumble upon the answers hidden in my eyes.

  I recoiled at the memory.

  Way I’d nearly lost my mind when the divorce papers had been delivered to one of the hotels we were staying at on the road. The words had read like my own goddamn tragedy that I’d personally penned.

  In a fit of rage, I’d ripped them up and tossed them over the balcony.

  “Couldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  I snatched her wrist and brought it to my nose, inhaled across the tiny piece of art that represented us.

  A music note.

  Swore, the violet on my wrist throbbed, desperate for its match.

  “Because that would mean completely letting you go.”

  She exhaled a shaky breath, and I kissed across the lifebeat that thundered at her wrist and murmured the words like they were proof, “Funny how I never heard another word about it from you after that. Funny how you didn’t push. Funny how you felt the exact same way as me.”

  I let the implication hang in the air.

  Fact that we belonged.

  That it didn’t matter the space I tried to put between us.

  Our hearts were still touching from across the miles.

  “It was easier just to let you go,” she whispered.

  “Let me go? Don’t lie to me, Violet. Your heart wouldn’t be doing this if you had.”

  I set my palm flat against her chest. Against the thunder that raged and banged and fought for what was right.

  “Taking you to dinner tonight.” I was back to kissing across the tattoo on her wrist. “Want to take you out. You and me,” I rumbled at the tender flesh.

  Needed her alone.

  She raked out a surprised sound while goosebumps pebbled her skin. Her blood sloshed and her chest heaved. “Are you crazy?”

  Obviously.

  “Always have been for you.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Exactly.”

  I edged back, gazing down at my fairy girl. “Things were never quite logical for us, were they?”

  They were instant.

  Rash and reckless.

  Rejection shook her head, those cheeks so pink and her eyes so dark. “I’m not gettin’ back together with you, Richard. I might be a fool, but I’m smarter than that.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “You’re acting like I am.”

  “Just making it clear what I want.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I agree we need to talk, and we can do that over dinner. But no more kissin’ or touchin’.”

  I grinned in victory.

  She scowled the cutest scowl I wanted to trace with the tip of my finger. “I mean it, Richard. We are just talkin’.”

  I backed toward the steps, never taking my eyes off the girl who tried to keep her cool. To pretend like this wasn’t more than what she’d just agreed to.

  “I’ll pick you up at six.”

  Air huffed from her nose.

  “Don’t text me later giving me some line about you not feeling well.” It was almost a tease.

  “Fine,” she shot out.

  I turned and ambled down the porch steps, heading for my truck. I opened the door and glanced back at her through the intensity that shivered through the air.

  Like I was physically tied to the one thing I’d been missing.

  “Oh…and wear one of those sundresses I love so much.”

  I sent her a wink and hopped into my truck.

  I was fairly sure she stomped her foot.

  And I realized I was grinning when I turned around, took the long dirt drive, and pulled out onto the road.

  Like the dormant violet inside of me decided it was time to come to life.

  Nineteen

  Violet

  What had I done? What had I done?

  I was barely breathing when I stumbled back into the house. My daddy was there, concern disguised as disappointment etched on his face. Like that man was written on me. His touch leaving the glow of neon imprints all over my skin.

  I figured my swollen, reddened lips were proof enough.

  What was I doing?

  Despair swept through me, and my shoulders sagged as I leaned back against the door the second I closed it. My head banged against the wood.

  Several times.

  Where the hell was my resolve?

  “So?” my father asked from across the room.

  “So, we’re going to go to dinner to talk through the past. Figure out how we can get on until the wedding is through. Gonna have to be around him until then. He and I have some things we need to hash out.”

  At least that’s what I was telling myself.

  He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “I have a bad feeling, Violet.”
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  “We have unfinished business. We need to finish it. That’s it.”

  Sniffling, I rubbed the back of my hand under my chin that felt crusty with the tears that had dripped down my face. I had been tugged through so many emotions out on that porch that I didn’t know what I felt.

  Need.

  Hurt.

  Sorrow.

  Fear.

  Unrest curled in my belly.

  What the hell was he talking about? Protecting us? Not going anywhere?

  I wanted to reject it. Chalk it up to another flimsy, lame excuse. But I knew him well enough to know there was something there.

  I could feel his agitation.

  The burden on his shoulders.

  “I…I’m going to go check on Daisy.”

  I headed up the stairs, but I had another destination in mind. Needing to go to the one who always understood.

  My lifeline.

  My buoy.

  My advocate.

  I climbed to the top of the stairs, slowing when I got to the landing, my steps suddenly dragging with the weight of the reality I wasn’t ready to face. The thought of losing her, too, ripped that hole inside me wider. Demons clawing and grasping and tearing away more of what was most important to me.

  Leaving me gaping and bleeding out.

  I eased up to her door. The floor creaked under my footsteps, and I peeked in to find her already looking at the doorway. Expecting me. Anticipating me.

  “Come sit with me, my angel.” She patted the bed with a frail hand.

  A torrent of sorrow swelled in my chest. An eternal spring that would gush forever.

  Under it, it felt impossible to breathe.

  Her grayed hair was matted and stringy, her hazel eyes deep set in the shallow pools that sunk in her pallid face.

  It didn’t matter. It would still be the loveliest face that I’d ever seen.

  Choking back the tears I could feel burning in my throat, I eased inside and moved over to her. “Hi, Mama.”

  I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Lingering. Wanting to stay in the warmth of who she was forever.

  Finally, I peeled myself back to look down at the woman who’d always had every answer.

  She smiled up at me, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “I heard you had a visitor.”

  I sighed and sat down on her bed, facing her, bringing my knees to my chest like it could hold the brittle pieces together. Every crack running through the middle of me aching like mad. “He brought Daisy a present from him, Mabel, and Emily.”