After I Fall: A FALLING NOVEL

by Jessica Scott

  She was lying, even as she tried to convince me she was telling the truth.

  I sit there for a moment longer, pulling all of my storming emotions back into the box where they belong, so I can function for the rest of the evening. So I can not throat punch this motherfucker and end up in jail.

  As much as I bitch and complain every time Noah or Josh gets in a fight in the bar, I'd never hear the end of it if Deacon had to bail my sorry ass out.

  I let her go. The very act of standing still corrupts something I thought was already black and broken, but apparently, I had farther to fall.

  This night needs to end.

  But instead of losing myself in inventories and end-of-month statements, I'm now smiling and making small talk with the wives about their favorite charities, at least one of whom wants to take my mind off my current woes. The woman chatting me up over a glass of Johnny Walker Black has to be twenty years older than me if she's a day. Her body is cloaked in a clingy white sheath dress that accents her curves. She's a stunning woman by any measure.

  I'm not interested, but I smile and listen to her talk about her charity work, raising money for the local magnet school for gifted kids. It's supposed to be egalitarian, drawing the best kids from the state. But it's not. It never is. They let in just enough poor and minority kids to look diverse.

  God, when did I become such a cynic?

  Kelsey strolls back up and hands me a business card. "Bennington Hauser is in the green room, and he wants to meet you. He's throwing an impromptu dinner party Tuesday night and he wants to know if you can provide the drink service." She's looking at me expectantly. "I already told him you could do it."

  "How do you know I'm not booked already?"

  "Checked with Deacon." She tucks the card in my shirt pocket and pats my chest. "According to Deacon, Bennington Hauser likes to run thirty-thousand-dollar bar tabs."

  My throat closes off at the dollar amount. "How much have we run up tonight?"

  "We're closing in on fifteen. And the cost of alcohol—even the private label—isn't anywhere near that much."

  I scrub my hand over my beard. Jesus that's a lot of fucking money for two nights’ work. I want to say no, to not support the man who's putting Parker in this situation with her fiancé.

  But then it dawns on me that I'd be able to keep an eye on things. An eye on her.

  To provide cover and maybe a little moral support as she navigates a world I left willingly when I walked away from the gilded parties of the D.C. officer corps. Not the everyday officer corps. No, the rank and file were just like everyone else.

  But I'd been different. Granted access to the top, if only I'd wanted to play the game.

  And I'd wanted to. I'd wanted to see how it felt to command a battalion. To maneuver tank companies across the desert in formation.

  That was over now. My aspirations, my moral compass, all ground to dust in the dried blood of a desert war my brothers are still fighting.

  It takes money to have principles. And I want to keep my bar open. To keep my group of misfit toys together as long as I can.

  I can do this. At least for a little while.

  And I'll keep telling myself that it's all for a cause.

  Even if that cause is a woman.

  That I am lying to myself about, even now.

  Chapter 21

  Parker

  * * *

  I'm ignoring my phone. Again.

  I've never contemplated murder, but I'm seriously considering it if Davis doesn't back off.

  How am I going to survive being married to him? Maybe this is why so many of my friends’ moms use prescription drugs. And wow, that's a hell of a life to look forward to.

  Maybe if I wasn't such a coward, I could have broken free when I first tried.

  The bar is empty, which is to be expected at ten in the morning. Light pierces the dark hallway that leads to Eli's office. After last night, I'm not sure why I'm hesitating but I am.

  Last night, I'd been on the edge, perched precariously near the abyss of my future with Davis. Last night, I'd wanted to leap into the darkness, to fly away from all of it. To simply be in the darkness and alone. Free to make my own decisions.

  This morning, all that felt melodramatic. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but it certainly felt like a completely different person had walked away from Eli last night than the one who was walking toward him this morning.

  Eli is deeply focused on his computer. His fingers are flying over the keyboard. Something dark and pounding is playing in the background. His desk is chaos, covered in papers and sticky notes and scattered pens. Behind him, a board with push pins and more sticky notes.

  It’s like a disorganization bomb went off in his office. Such a stark difference from the first time I was in here.

  "How on earth can you concentrate in all this?"

  He looks over the moment I speak. The concentration on his face is shattered, and his eyes flicker for a moment before shuttering closed. "It’s actually driving me crazy. My OCD has been pinging all day."

  I lean against the door. "You don't strike me as the kind of guy to make sure his socks are all folded the exact same way."

  He folds his arms over his chest and rocks back in his chair. "It's not the same for everyone. Just like a lot of things." His eyes are boring into me, intense and inscrutable. "How did the rest of your evening go?"

  There's an edge to his voice now. A latent energy just below the surface. "It was fine. I left a few minutes after I talked to you."

  "And your stalker?"

  "If by stalker you mean fiancé, he left me alone. He was more focused on meeting my father's partners for potential campaign donations."

  His lips press into a flat line. There is caution in his eyes now. "So what are you doing with me? Because I assume this engagement didn't happen last night."

  I have to look away. "I don't suppose there's a right answer to that question, is there?" My voice is steady. Barely.

  "Depends."

  "On?"

  "Whether you're willing to be honest."

  I look back at him now. "I've never lied to you."

  "I didn't specify who you had to be honest with." His voice is smooth and steady. Way cooler than I feel at the moment.

  I nudge my toe against the edge of the door that separates the hallway from his office. The floor is polished concrete. Style and function mixed into the perfect design.

  "What do you want from me?" The words rip free, tearing at my throat despite their almost whispered tone.

  He pushes back from the desk, the veins in his neck pulsing against his skin. "I want you to be honest with yourself. I want to know why you're staying trapped in a life that you clearly want to escape. I want to know what made you this intoxicating mix of fearless and terrified."

  His words slice at me, cutting me in a thousand tiny nicks. No slashing. No burning. Just soft flaying of the shield around my very concept of self.

  "It's not simple." I finally look up at him. "It never is for people like me."

  "It's not the 1950s anymore. You have your own money, your own degree. You're not some piece of property to be traded for more land and cows." Frustration now. I can hear it lacing his words.

  "You don't understand."

  "Then make me. Tell me what the fuck is going on. Because right now, you want me to believe you have no choice, and I just can't fucking swallow that pill. You don't have to let him hurt you."

  "Where am I going to go? Everywhere I go, people recognize me. I'm not one of the Kardashians, but a powerful defense contractor’s daughter doesn't get to just let her hair down and do what she wants. If I break things off with him, he will cause a scene. And that will detract from my father's carefully constructed business campaign."

  "Who gives a fuck about your father's business? I'm talking about you." He shakes his head slowly. "The consequences for your decision are one day in the news cycle at worst. The most you'll get is a ticker below the lat
est bombing in Syria."

  His response sets something off inside me. Maybe it's defense. Maybe it’s the need to justify my decisions. The anger unfurls easily in my belly, like a pot that suddenly reaches its boiling point. "You don't get to tell me that the risks aren't that much. You've never been in the world I live in. You have no idea the power that my father wields and how many people would love nothing more than to drag him into a scandal."

  He says nothing for a long moment. The silence drags on, spreading through the room and wrapping around me like a layer of regret. "Maybe I'll come back later." I turn to go.

  Of course, he stops me in a way that is one hundred percent Eli.

  "I'm afraid of heights."

  I frown and turn back. "Now there's a non-sequitur."

  "When I was a cadet, they sent me to Airborne School at Fort Benning. When you drive onto post, you see these massive airborne towers. My first day there, they're hitching kids to wire harnesses and dragging them two hundred and fifty feet into the air."

  I'm intrigued enough to turn fully back and listen to this glimpse of his life before the bar.

  "I was fucking terrified. I thought there's no way I'm going up that fucking tower and falling back to earth with a little piece of canvas that you hope breaks your fall." He stands and circles the desk, approaching like a panther stalking his prey. He is standing in my space now, his body close enough that I can feel the heat from his skin radiating into mine. His mouth is there, just there.

  He lets the story hang there, unfinished and rough, his palm sliding down to cradle my throat. One thumb presses on my pulse. If he were Davis, his touch would inspire fear, not heat. But with Eli, every touch makes me feel alive. Burning.

  I'm tense, waiting. Afraid this is some kind of game. Afraid that he will walk away again and I'll be left alone, with nothing but the shattered remains of my pride.

  He nuzzles my cheek, making a warm sound in his throat. His beard is scratchy today, not soft. I feel every prickle along my skin.

  "It's funny. You think you're going to die during the fall. That your heart will stop, and you'll be dead before you hit the ground." He reaches for me then, his palm rough and hot on my cheek.

  He brushes his lips against mine. Need unfurls low and hot in my belly.

  "But after you fall, you realize there was nothing to be afraid of after all."

  * * *

  Eli

  * * *

  I'm still angry with her. With her boyfriend/fiancé/whatever the hell he is. I'm angry at the man who raised her to think she's nothing more than a prop on someone's arm.

  But in this moment, seeing her on the edge of despair, I can't push her any harder. She's not one of my soldiers. She hasn't been to war. Hasn't seen the world through the eyes of someone who has.

  I know obstacles. And what she's facing isn't impassible.

  But to her they are. They are deeply rooted at the core of who she is. Where did that fear come from? How can that uncertainty be mixed beneath the backbone I see on a daily basis in my bar and in my arms?

  For her, the consequences of her decisions are life and death. I have to respect how she sees things. I can't force her to see it my way. No matter how much I want to rail at her to break free.

  She can.

  She just doesn't know it yet.

  I have to wait. And I hate waiting. I hate being strategic and feeling like I'm manipulating the situation.

  I haven't felt this level of helplessness since Iraq. Since that night when I found out what the men in my formation were capable of.

  It was the stuff of nightmares.

  It was the stuff that ended careers.

  I didn't have to walk away. But I did. Because the decisions I made and failed to make led up to that day.

  I hate that these memories keep circling. That I can't disconnect from them.

  This feels like the same helplessness. Parker shivers beneath my touch. I want to rail at her. I want to tell her she can leave, that she can jump, that I'll be there to catch her.

  But she doesn't believe. She doesn't trust. I wonder if she's ever had anyone in her life she could count on.

  I want to drag her into my lap and let her hands explore my body. Feel her fingers trace the scars and the ink and the blood and the bone. I want her hands on my body, her tight little body to sink over mine and take me into her.

  I know, I just fucking know, that if she has someone to run to, she'll take the leap. And even if I'm just a temporary landing, I'm okay with that. It would be enough knowing she was safe.

  It's torture thinking of her going back to him. To not know if she's safe. Because she's clearly not.

  He'll hurt her again. Because that's the way men like him are built. They're weak. They need power.

  I don't move away. Don't give her space to breathe, to run. I'm daring her to touch me. Daring her to reach out and take the leap.

  "I've never jumped out of a plane before. Seems like a foolish thing."

  "It's the most terrifying fun you'll ever have."

  She lifts her chin, just a little. "There are much more mundane acts that could be called terrifying."

  "Such as touching me?" My patience is razor thin. I want to pull her away from the edge where she is close, so close to running away.

  "It takes more courage than you know to keep my hands to myself," she whispers.

  "Why?"

  Her throat moves as she swallows. The action is entrancing, drawing me closer. "Because I can't. Things are different now."

  "You were perfectly willing to fuck me the first night I met you. Nothing has changed."

  Her lips press into a flat line. "Everything has changed."

  "Why?"

  She lifts her palm and slides it over my heart. The heat from her touch penetrates the thin material of my t-shirt, burning me. I want her hands on my body, her fingers digging into my skin.

  She finally lifts her face and looks at me. "You wouldn't be some mindless fuck that I can forget." She swallows again. "I have to forget. I have to go back." Her fingers curl into my heart. "I have to let all of this go. And that's going to be hard enough already."

  "What is this power that they have over you that you can't control your own life?" I cover her hand with mine. I can feel all the bones beneath her skin. Her fragility. Her strength.

  "It's different for me."

  "Everyone thinks it’s different for them. It's not. You just have to take the leap."

  "Leap to what?"

  I'm not prepared for the challenge in her words. The dare.

  The words lodge in my throat, rising faster than I'm prepared to admit.

  I stand there, mute, tension winding through my veins, tightening until my skin feels too small for my bones. I can feel it, just beneath my feet.

  I cup her face then with both hands. She is soft and warm and infinitely strong.

  "Me," I whisper before I capture her mouth.

  There is no restraint in my kiss. There is only need, raw and hungry. I need her to know the truth of what I feel. The strength and the promise of everything that could be.

  I take the leap, leaning into her, drawing her close until her body is flush with mine. Her softness fits to mine perfectly. Like every other woman was just practice for the perfection that Parker is in my arms.

  My name is a gasp on her lips. A prayer before she buries her face in my neck. Her hair is soft on my fists, a golden mass tangled in my fingers, her breath hot on my skin.

  She makes the tiniest of movements. A thousand beats of her heart pound into mine. The feel of her breath absorbing into me.

  For a moment, I simply hold her. Allow her to hold me. To lean as long as she wants.

  She moves, then, her body arching into mine. A subtle touch. A hint of movement. But it's enough.

  My hands slide down her back, cupping her ass and drawing her up, until her thighs circle my hips and her feet lock behind my back. Until she is pressed against the wall, her body flush wi
th mine.

  Until I can't tell where she begins and I end.

  Until I am lost in the fall.

  And Parker is tumbling with me.

  Chapter 22

  Parker

  * * *

  It's so easy to lose myself with him. So easy to shut the world out and pretend this is a lifetime, not a moment.

  With Eli, every moment is forever. A dark, sensual touch of pleasure.

  I surrender as much as I am able. Drowning in his kiss, his taste—the hard, rough feel of his body against mine. I want to feel his skin against me. I want to drop to my knees in front of him and taste him again. To feel him tense and tighten beneath my lips.

  I want to forget.

  I cradle his cheeks, the wall holding me up, pushing me closer to him. "Can we go upstairs?" I'm impressed I'm able to talk.

  He lowers his forehead to mine. "A better man would ask if you're sure." He nips my bottom lip. "I'm not going to ask if you're sure. If you come upstairs with me, I'll give you what you wanted that first night."

  I smile then. "Took you long enough."

  He makes a sound that could be a growl, could be a groan. I'm not sure and I'm not sure I care.

  We are upstairs before I can blink. The apartment is Spartan and small. Functional. It smells like him. Like whiskey and spice and something crisp and clean.

  It's funny that I didn't notice that the first time I was here.

  I was distracted then in a way I'm not now. Every sense is heightened. Tuned into the scent, the color. The very feel of the man behind me, surrounding me.

  Consuming me.

  My blood is burning. I want to fold over in front of him and feel him slide between my thighs, fill me with that delicious pain.

  I lean back, lifting my arms over my head, offering myself to his touch. My breasts are tight and full and I want nothing more than to crawl into his lap and let his hands wander over my skin.

  His hands slide over my ribs, circling gently, just below the swell of my breasts. God but I want his hands on me. He nips my ear, his breath scorching a shiver down my spine.