Fallen Into You

by Ann Collins

  “So,” he began. “What’s going on, then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can smell something going on here between you and this Wallace. And what you told me about the car wasn’t strictly true, was it? I might be of the older generation, but I’m not an idiot.”

  “I know you’re not an idiot, dad, I…”

  “Scott is your boyfriend. Remember that.”

  He hated it when she interrupted, but she let it drop, like she always did, like she had done since she was old enough to talk.

  “Not only that, he’s very important to this business,” he continued. “To our business.”

  It wasn’t a coincidence that Scott Blake worked at the bank. He was from a high status family, higher even than her own. The Blakes owned the country club, and hence access to all the networking that went on there. Nothing happened without the Blakes knowing, and little happened without their approval. If you wanted to do business with the upper echelons of society, you had to keep the Blakes happy.

  And the Dermots did – that’s how the youngest of the Blakes had ended up working there. The position of Chief Loans Officer was a prestigious one demanding great responsibility. Yet despite his limited experience, Scott had walked into the role with the same sense of entitlement with which he walked everywhere in life. It suited the Blakes as it meant they spread their roots of influence yet wider, and it suited the Dermots as it kept them connected with rich clients.

  “You need to think very carefully about the things you do,” he said, sternly, “because they affect all of us.”

  It stung when he admonished her. Kara felt like she’d fell short of his expectations her whole life. She could hold her own in any company, as Scott regularly found out, but there was something about her dad that she just couldn’t fight against.

  Sometimes she wished she hadn’t come back to work in the family business after college. That she’d gone away, worked hard, and returned having gained her success independently. That she’d emerged from the cocoon as a beautiful butterfly with none of the stages in between. But her mom had got cancer and that had been the calling for her to return and take responsibility.

  Surely her father didn’t know that anything had happened between her and Anders – he just sensed the chemistry and detected her guilt. The car story didn’t help, of course. But then she was never any good at hiding things from her dad. She felt like she was a kid again, caught with her hand in the cookie jar. However one thing was for certain – this thing with Anders could go no further.

  Chapter Five

  By the time Anders got back to the shop, he was able to think a little more clearly. Now he recognized the name of the bank president – Alexander Dermot – as the same last name as Kara’s. Of course he was her father. Anyone could look at her, the way she dressed, that car she had wrecked, and recognize that she came from that kind of money. Why hadn’t he put it together in the first place? The Dermot family was like old money royalty in town.

  He supposed that he was too busy thinking about what she looked like naked to think about who her father was.

  He was in a foul mood for the rest of the day. The boys in the shop recognized it and steered clear, lest they risk a storm of work thrown at them simply because Anders needed to take it out on somebody. He knew damn good and well what he was like when he got riled up. Besides, it wasn’t fair taking it out on them. None of them knew just how tight money was. And if the garage did fail – God forbid – it would be all of them out of a job. So he stayed out of the way, doing inventory and trying to clear his head. He had almost succeeded when Jared, one of the newer hires, came to the back.

  “Boss?” the man asked, his voice rather timid for such a big man.

  “Right here.”

  “There’s a woman out there to see you…”

  “I’m not here.”

  “Yes, but…she is insisting. She’s not budging.”

  “Let her sit there, then. She’ll get the picture.”

  “She said you would want to see her.”

  “She’s wrong.”

  “Name’s Kara?”

  “Fuck.”

  Anders dropped the box of air filters and put his hands on his forehead. Jesus Christ, what a day, and now the last person he wanted to deal with was waiting for him outside. Insisting on seeing him, apparently.

  Anders looked at Jared, who had taken a few steps back toward the door. He suddenly felt like a jerk for being…well, a jerk. “You look scared,” he said.

  Jared just gave him a blank stare.

  “Did you draw the short straw?”

  “Huh, boss?”

  “Did they send you back here to get me because you’re the low man on the totem pole?”

  Jared had the grace to blush. “That’s me.”

  “I’m not going to bite your head off,” he said. “I know I’ve got a temper, but honestly, I think the guys make me out to be a monster.”

  Jared suddenly smiled. “They call you Anders the Hun.”

  Anders burst into laughter. It felt good, like new energy coursing through his body. He stepped toward the door and patted Jared on the shoulder as he passed. “You can brag about how you came into the Hun’s lair and escaped unscathed, huh?”

  His smile began to falter when he got to the front of the shop. Kara stood in the middle of the room, tall in her high heels, looking around with interest. The men in the bays kept glancing over at her, and Anders was certain they liked what they saw.

  Hell, he liked it, too.

  “What can I do for you?” he boomed, and was gratified when she looked a little startled. They keys in her hand jingled. She turned to him and just stared for a moment, but then mustered up a weary smile.

  “I’m here to talk about my car,” she said directly, avoiding pleasantries just as adroitly as he had. “I need to know what to do next.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I need to talk to you about what happened this weekend.”

  “Hell of a storm, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Anders picked up the paperwork that went along with her car and gave it a glance, avoiding her gaze. He took his sweet time, making her wait. He heard her toe begin to tap on the floor, and he glanced at her feet. Sure enough, there were those red soles.

  Louboutins.

  “Impatient much?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “I like to get to the point.”

  “So I noticed.” He gestured to the back. “If you want to talk about something other than your car, we should do it where the guys won’t hear.”

  “I don’t care what they hear,” she said, suddenly defiant.

  “Okay. They love some good gossip. They will be happy to tell their wives or their girlfriends, and then those ladies will talk down at the beauty salon or the grocery store, and word will eventually get around about how you get around. But if you’re cool with that, then let’s hear it.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

  He gestured again to the storeroom. “After you.”

  Anders watched as she walked in front of him. Her hips swayed just so, and so did her hair, that auburn fall of waves that touched the center of her back. He remembered how soft it was when he sank his hands into it. Her blouse was neatly tucked into her slacks, and those long legs were made even longer by the high heels, which made her almost as tall as he was. He watched her ass move as she walked and fought the effect that it was already having on his body. Jesus Christ – he was like a mushroom after a spring rain, shooting right up to attention.

  When they were in the storeroom, she spun to look at him. He stopped at the door but didn’t close it – the room was too small to allow that kind of liberty without giving both of them all sorts of wrong ideas. “You were saying?”

  She tossed her hair back and licked her lips. They were painted a deep red, and he suddenly realized she hadn’t had lipstick on this morning, when he saw her in the bank.


  “Friday night was a one-time thing,” she said.

  “It wasn’t once. It was four times.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No, it wasn’t – it was actually pretty hot.”

  She blushed scarlet but refused to look away. “Don’t make this difficult.”

  “So that was your boyfriend there at the bank? The patronizing creep?”

  “Don’t call him that.”

  “Which? Patronizing? Creep? Or boyfriend?”

  Kara rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to say that I don’t want any trouble, Anders. I have a good life going. A good job, a nice boyfriend, all of that…the white picket fence, so to speak.”

  “Nice?”

  She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “What?”

  “A ‘nice’ boyfriend, huh? Just ‘nice’.”

  “So?”

  “Doesn’t exactly sound like a thrill a minute, does it? Just sounds kinda…boring”

  She pressed those painted lips together and simply glared at him.

  Anders sighed. “Look…if you’re worried that I’m going to tell someone about what happened, you can rest easy. I have no desire to ruin anything you’ve got going on. We had some fun, and that was it. I’m okay with that if you are.”

  She tilted her head. “So that’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I guess you’re the kind of man who does things like that all the time.”

  Anders grinned. “Not nearly enough.”

  She gave him the slightest of smiles in return. “I don’t.”

  “Don’t do things like that?”

  “Never.”

  Anders raised an eyebrow. “You seemed to be…”

  “Okay with it?”

  “More than okay with it.”

  She suddenly put her hands over her face. He watched as she took a deep breath and then ran her hands through her hair, looking at him again with those wide brown eyes. “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “One minute I was out in the rain, and the next I was in your house, and the next I was in your bed. It was just…it had a momentum all its own.”

  Anders nodded. “But it was fun, wasn’t it?”

  Her face flushed again, and he remembered what she looked like when she was in the white-hot grip of ecstasy. “Yes.”

  They were silent for a long moment, staring at each other. Anders heard the ding of the shop door opening and the voice of one of his employees talking to a customer about their vehicle. Anders reached behind him and pushed the door shut.

  Kara nodded as if something had been settled. “So that’s that, then.”

  “Just out of curiosity…is he?”

  “Is he what?”

  “Boring.”

  She took another deep breath, then let it out on a shaky laugh. “That’s not an appropriate question, you know?”

  Anders shrugged.

  He watched as she looked up at the ceiling for a minute. “He’s…nice. Well, to me. That doesn’t mean he’s boring.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s exciting, either.”

  She suddenly glared at him again. “Why the hell do you care?”

  Anders had that sixth sense that something could happen between them again. There was just that…tension. Given who her boyfriend was, this was a bad idea. It was beyond bad, it was insane. He could put his whole business at stake. But that sense of danger was like a red rag to Anders. He knew he should keep away, but that was what made it almost inevitable.

  Anders took one step toward her. Before he could take another, she was right there in front of him, her eyes filled with stormy anger but her lips trembling as she ran her hands into his hair and pulled him to her. Evidently, she felt the same.

  Anders kissed her hard. He pushed her back against a stack of boxes, and when the boxes began to sway, he turned her so that she was back against the wall. He pressed up against her, making it clear how much he wanted her, and he was surprised when she slid her hands down to the front of his shirt and began to work the buttons.

  “Lock that door,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “Thought this wasn’t going to happen again,” he whispered back, reaching behind him to click the lock.

  “It isn’t.”

  “So that’s how it is.” He unbuckled her belt and then the button. The zipper was loud in the tiny space. When he slid his hand over her silk panties, her moan was even louder. “Hush,” he murmured against her lips.

  “Just one more time,” she whispered.

  Anders pushed her slacks down. She unzipped his jeans and pushed them open. What he had for her sprang out immediately, long and hard. She took one look at it, then lifted her leg to wrap it around his waist. He bent his knees, pushed her panties to the side, and was deep inside her with one long thrust.

  They both caught their breath. Anders held steady, already far too close to move much. Kara lifted her other leg and Anders caught it, pulling both legs around his hips. That drew him even deeper, and they both hovered there, their breath mingling while they looked into each other’s eyes.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered.

  He started to move. She bit her lip to stifle her moan. Then he was moving hard and fast, pushing her against the wall with every thrust. She clenched his hair so hard it made his scalp ache. He kissed her neck, careful not to leave marks even as he nibbled his way along her collarbone and up to her ear.

  “I need to pull out.”

  “No,” she hissed.

  “No condom,” he panted.

  “I don’t care.”

  Anders was so close, too close. “You sure?”

  “Give it to me.”

  He slowed down, then pushed deep into her. He watched as she moved her hips the slightest bit, grinding on him. He closed his eyes and tried to hold back, but then her body tightened around him and she cried out into his neck, the sound muffled and desperate.

  Anders drove into her over and over, pushing himself to the edge and right over it. He growled out his pleasure as he came, his body pulsing so hard that it almost hurt. He was instantly lightheaded, and leaned harder against her to keep his balance. Her legs and arms were tight around him as he emptied the last of himself into her.

  Neither of them moved for the longest time. Then there came a knock on the door. “Boss, I need some brake pads!”

  ***

  Untangled and still panting, neither one of them spoke as they put their clothes back in order. Anders watched as she straightened her panties and pulled up her slacks. Her face was an almost violent red, whether from the passion or from the subsequent embarrassment – he wasn’t sure.

  “This didn’t happen,” she whispered as she buckled her belt.

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, shocking him into stillness. “This could ruin my life.”

  “You’re not the only one with something at stake here,” he said. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but your creep of a boyfriend just happens to be in charge of my loan.”

  “Maybe, but even aside from everything, you and me…it would never work.”

  Anders knew exactly what she meant – the context of her words didn’t have to be spelled out for him. Forget the tangled mess of her relationship – people get together and split apart all the time. The real issue was that he was from the wrong side of the tracks while she was the wealthy girl from the hill – the one who would forever be out of his league.

  “I don’t know,” he said casually. “You seem to have no problem slumming when you want to get properly laid.”

  She stared at him. Her mouth dropped open. “That’s…that’s not what I meant…”

  “Yes it was,” he said softly. He reached back and unlocked the door, then hollered, “Come on in and get what you need.”

  He took her arm and quickly walked her down to the back of the room, where a second door led outside. They both stepped out, and he nodded at her. “Let
’s walk around to look at your car. Act like nothing happened, okay? Fake it ‘til you make it, so to speak.”

  “Anders…”

  “There’s nothing wrong with getting a little pleasure,” he said, and then started walking. A moment later he heard her heels on the pavement, coming after him.

  Chapter Six

  Kara was shaking as she followed Anders around the shop. What had just happened? Had that really been her doing those things in the storage room, having sex among all those dusty boxes? Had she really been unfaithful again?

  And had she really enjoyed it to the fullest?

  She could feel the proof of what she had done with every step she took. The wetness between her legs oozed out of her, caught by her panties to make her feel wet and ashamed and hot and all manner of things that she shouldn’t be feeling, especially not about this man in front of her.

  He didn’t turn around once, not even when she said his name. He did slow down his walk, though, which was good – there was no way she could have kept up with him in her high heels.

  Then he stopped so abruptly that she almost ran into him.

  “There’s your car,” he said.

  Kara took one step around him and stopped. She stared. For a brief moment all that had just happened in the storage room was forgotten. “That’s…that’s…”

  “That’s bad,” he finished, and she stared some more, taking in the bent fender and bumper, the tire that jutted up at a strange angle, the flatness of the rubber and, of course, the white moon of the deflated airbag that rested across the steering wheel. There was a starburst of broken glass at the top of the windshield, and the front of the hood was covered in mud.

  Kara suddenly felt dizzy. She swayed, and then Ander’s arms were around her, holding her up.

  “It’s okay,” he said into her ear. “Just breathe. Breathe…”

  She did, big gulps of air that seared her lungs. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I almost died,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I could have died out there…oh my god, how did I not die out there?”

  Anders nodded as though he had seen this all before. “You could have, but you didn’t. I know it’s a shock, though, seeing something that reminds you of how close you came.”