When I Fall

by Tamara Morgan

  “Delicious,” she cooed, and held her hand toward him, her smile teasing. There was nothing he could do or say or ask for that would discomfit this woman. It was, at once, the most frustrating and the most incredible realization in the world. “Want some?”

  He did. He wanted to taste her, devour her, suck on her fingers and her clit until she was no longer able to say her own name, let alone taunt him like that. So of course he just shook his head and sat back. Twirling a finger, he said, “No, but thanks for offering. In exchange for your generosity, I’ll allow you to finish.”

  She didn’t wait for any more instructions. Without bothering to pose herself or toy with him or even recognize that he was there, she got to her knees on the bed. He thought for a moment she was going to get up, but she was merely angling her body so she could penetrate her middle finger deeper, riding her own hand to completion. She captured her lower lip in her teeth, and her eyes took on the glazed look of a woman who was about to come and didn’t care who was in the room with her.

  He knew that without question. Becca wasn’t getting herself off because he said so or because she wanted to please him or even because she wanted to toy with him. She was getting herself off because she was hot and horny and those two attributes were the only ones that mattered to her right now.

  And he fucking loved it.

  She cried out and bucked her body against her hand, her face a gorgeous mask of ecstasy. She lowered herself closer to the bed’s horizontal surface, presumably to draw her fingers deeper as her body clenched and unclenched around her. Jake could practically feel it, his own body hot and clenching, his balls tight in ways that were unfamiliar to him.

  “That’s so much better.” Becca fell back to the bed, landing with a soft whomp. “Now I feel fantastic.” From his vantage point, Jake could see that her panties were still very much askew, the inner lining caught on the fold of her vulva, leaving her exposed and glistening. He got to his feet slowly, enjoying the tight fit of his pants over his engorged cock, reminding him of his desire—and of his ability to place that desire second.

  “You did that exceptionally well,” he agreed.

  With a hand flat on her stomach, he reached closer and slipped his forefinger under the leg line of her panties, drawing his touch along the curve where thigh met pelvis, straightening the fabric. She moaned and shuddered, opening her legs as if to draw him in deeper, but he pulled back and moved on to her bra. With a careful hand, he adjusted each perfect mound of her breasts, returning them to their soft, lacy cups, her nipples so flushed and erect he could have hung clothes on them.

  He stopped before fixing the necklace, admiring the view, but that too eventually went in its place. Nestled carefully between her breasts, rising and falling with her slowly normalizing breath, that ring filled him with a sense of satisfaction not dissimilar to an orgasm of his own.

  “Am I all properly covered now?” She smiled up at him. Pandered to him, he realized. Mocked him. Then, lifting the ring he’d so carefully placed, she admired it for a moment. “I do like it. And I promise you don’t have to worry. I’ll be careful. It obviously means a lot to you—and all newspaper articles to the contrary, I don’t always fuck things up.”

  He smiled, touched by her concern, and ran a finger along her cheek. “I wouldn’t have given it to you unless I trusted you.”

  I wouldn’t have given it to you unless I cared.

  But he didn’t say that part out loud.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Becca woke with a start, her heart pounding in a slow, rhythmic beat that seemed to be gaining momentum in time to a distant song. Her automatic response to a startled awakening like this was to jolt upright in bed and scream—a fairly common occurrence until a few weeks ago—but the feeling was quashed by the heavy arm wrapped around her waist, the warm press of Jake’s body against hers.

  “Jake?” She blinked at darkness in the room, rendered all the more shadowy by the lack of daylight streaming in the window. It had to be insanely early, but there was no visible clock for her to check. “Jake—wake up.”

  “Mumnum,” he muttered. His voice was grumpy, but the arm around her waist tightened, pulling her close.

  “I mean it. Listen. Is that...is someone playing Eminem at us right now?”

  This time, the sound he released was less of a mumble and more of a laugh. “It might be.”

  Realization crept over her—as did a smile, though it was too dark for him to see it. “Jake Montgomery, is that the sound of Mean Max ‘8 Mile’ing us out of bed before the crack of dawn?”

  “Irritating, isn’t it?”

  She squealed. “No. It’s fantastic. I can’t believe you got him to come all this way. I’m almost scared to ask what you had to offer him in exchange. I didn’t think Max traveled for anyone.”

  Jake shoved his head under a pillow and held it firm. The music grew louder, moving down the hallway at an alarming rate, and he finally peeked one eye out when it stopped outside the door. Sleep had a way of transforming Jake from the devil to a minor demon, his hair rumpled and his grouchy face on—as if he wanted to stab her with a pitchfork, but only in a good way.

  “It’s better if you don’t know. That way you can claim plausible deniability.”

  “You’re so cute when you’re breaking the law for me.”

  “Oh, I didn’t break any laws.” Jake rolled out of bed and flipped on the bedroom lights, wincing as the sudden illumination hit his pupils. “But don’t be surprised if he’s the best man at our wedding. And we might have to fix it so his girlfriend catches your bouquet. Why is it that the biggest, meanest men are always the softest at heart? I do so hate a cliché.”

  Becca stopped in the act of stretching and stared at Jake. It was impossible to tell if he was joking when he used that tone of voice—the one so dry it crackled in her throat. Of course he hadn’t invited Max to the wedding. There was no wedding. There was an engagement party—one progressing at an alarmingly rapid rate—but she was trying not to think too much about it.

  It was difficult, though. With the weight of the Montgomery sapphire pressed between her breasts all day long, she was having a hard time thinking of anything else. In fact, if Jake’s plan had been to get her mind off Sara, he’d done an admirable job. She thought about that ring. She thought about the way Jake watched her get herself off. She thought about how easy it would be to make this her life, this magical country manor where nothing bad was allowed to happen.

  She could understand why her sister loved it so much here—why she was happy anchoring herself to her husband and letting him keep her safe. When you had a Montgomery protecting you, not even pain was allowed the get through.

  You aren’t okay, Becca. But you will be.

  That promise scared her—not because Jake couldn’t see it through to the end, but because it was beginning to appear as though he could. All she had to do was put her happiness in his hands and pray to every deity known to mankind that he wouldn’t destroy it.

  No biggie.

  “Thank you for Max,” she said, her heart alternating between light and dark with each beat. “That was really sweet of you.”

  He just laughed. “Why don’t you wait and see if you want to thank me after your workout?”

  She wasn’t about to let it go so easily. “What’d you really have to do to get him to come?”

  “It’s not important,” Jake said gruffly. “Let’s call it an engagement present.”

  “You’re giving me an overly muscled, good-looking man in his prime as a gift?”

  “Yes, I am. And I expect him to leave you sweaty and heaving.”

  She didn’t move right away as she struggled to form her next thoughts—thoughts she didn’t get a chance to finalize. It turned out there was something to this watching and waiting thing, because Jake sighed an
d pulled her in for a rough embrace, his body still warm from bed. “You always seem to sleep better on Max days,” he said, lips caressing her hairline. Not a kiss, but soothing in ways a real kiss from this man could never be. “That’s the only thing I had to tell him to get him to come out for a few weeks. He’s on your side, Tiger. We all are.”

  She nodded into his chest, not trusting herself to speak.

  “But you better go out there and tell him to turn his music off, or your sister is going to murder us. We’re pretty secluded in this wing, but we’re not that secluded. That man has no volume controls.”

  “Does this mean you’re not coming with me?”

  “I wish. I’ve got tee time in an hour.” He withdrew his embrace, returning to his usual composed self as he stripped off his shirt. God, that man was cruel. He’d button himself up any time they approached the bed, but he had no qualms flashing his perfectly tanned torso everywhere else. “You go exercise your way to serenity. I’m going to golf my way into Monty’s good graces.”

  “That’s not fair. Yours is easier.”

  His eyes flashed with humor as he turned to the closet. “You’ve obviously never golfed with my brother before.”

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you hit a birdie on that last hole.”

  Jake stood with Richard Bridgeport in the golf course parking lot, his hand out to accept the tee that had remained carefully tucked behind Ricky’s ear for the entire back nine. His lucky tee, he called it, unearthed from the seventeenth hole at St. Andrews, a treasure he’d sworn had allowed him to go over a hundred games without losing.

  He gestured at the tiny white splintered piece of wood as he handed it over. “And take good care of that. I hope you know I wouldn’t have wagered it with any other man.”

  “You’ve always been a superstitious bastard,” Jake said, but he slipped the tee carefully in his pocket all the same. He had a feeling Becca believed in things like lucky tees—throwing it away probably equaled twenty years of bad luck or something. “Wasn’t it you who didn’t change your gym socks for an entire year when the rugby team had that championship run? By the end of the season, I’m pretty sure we could smell them all the way in the chemistry lab.”

  Ricky laughed and nodded. Jake could tell he wanted to clap a hearty hand on his back in the manner of Good Old Boys Clubs everywhere, so he stepped carefully away. Yes, they’d bonded over Monty spending ten minutes teeing up every shot and generally sucking all the fun out of life. And yes, he’d done an admirable job of playing into every one of Ricky’s weaknesses—jokes in bad taste, embellished stories of the halcyon days of boyhood—but back-slapping was taking things too far.

  “Yeah, well. It worked, didn’t it? I still have the trophy at home. The wife likes to take it out and polish it every now and then.”

  “I’ll bet she does.” Jake winked.

  Over the top of Ricky’s head, he caught Monty’s eye and allowed a look of satisfaction to cross his face. It had taken him all of five minutes to move from Richard to Ricky, fifteen minutes to get him laughing over the memories of once having scared him into a state of incontinence, twenty to extract an invitation to visit the Bridgeports in France during the frigid Connecticut winter. This wooing stuff was easy.

  “So you’ll come to Nice, right?” Ricky asked as their caddies loaded up the cars. “In January? We have a week-long house party every year, but nothing we say will tear your brother from his work long enough to stop by. We’d love to see a representative from the Montgomery Foundation there this year.”

  A week in the Mediterranean? Yeah. He could manage that.

  “I’m sure I can figure something out,” Jake promised.

  “And of course you’ll bring your fiancée. A couple of high-profile guests like you two is always good for our image, if you don’t mind my saying. And I believe Tilda went to school with a sister of hers and Serena’s. I can never remember her name—she’s the one who works over in Seattle now.”

  “Alice,” Jake supplied. He’d only met her once, but she seemed nice enough, if indistinguishable from the rest. After a while, all the Clare women started to blur together.

  Well, all of them but Becca. Becca was the bright spot in the family, the highlight of his day. Her small, unimpressive form had made its mark on his life in a way he wasn’t sure he could ever undo.

  “That’s her.” Ricky nodded. “Tilda is always talking about how much trouble they used to get into together—but I probably don’t need to tell you about that.”

  Jake felt his pulse pick up to dangerous levels, but he forced himself to turn to Ricky with a semblance of calm. Forget his promise to help Monty smooth things over. Let this man say one word against Becca, and he’d set all of Nice on fire. “Oh?” he said tightly. “And why’s that?”

  Ricky laughed, ignorant of the fury that was about to be unleashed upon his head. “No one got into more trouble than you, Jake. The stories you could tell will keep us entertained for months.”

  * * *

  Monty drove like he golfed—which was to say they wound their way through the countryside at a painfully slow pace. At this rate, they’d get home from the course sometime late tomorrow night.

  “You wouldn’t have really done anything to jeopardize our relationship with the Bridgeports.” Monty glanced at Jake out of the corner of his eye—a brief look, of course, since his eyes had to remain sealed on the road, his hands in place at their customary position on the wheel. “No matter what he said against Rebecca.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that. I was this close to shoving his lucky tee up his ass.” Jake sighed. “I can see why you have a hard time playing nice with him. That was the most tedious game of golf I’ve ever played. He tried calling me Old Sport.”

  Monty chuckled. “I think you might be my hero now. I’ve been hearing about that tee for five years’ worth of golf games. He’s lucky I didn’t shove it up his ass.”

  The thought of Monty doing anything so untoward put a smile on Jake’s face, and he felt himself relaxing against the passenger seat. This being-helpful thing wasn’t so hard, now that he was reconciled to it. And he liked golfing. He liked Nice. He even liked feeling as if he’d accomplished something today.

  “I appreciate your help,” Monty said, breaking into his thoughts. “I know being an ordinary, agreeable human being isn’t easy for you, but you did a lot of good today. I think Ben is finally ready to move forward with the foundation merger. They’re even going to let our side manage the assets.”

  “Stop right there.” Jake held up a hand. “Monty, I’ll golf with any man, woman or child you send my way. I’ll drink cocktails and travel to Nice and chat with dried-up foundation heads like yourself until I collapse from exhaustion. I’ll even go to brunches and lunches and tea if I have to. But I refuse—absolutely refuse—to talk about assets and mergers with you.”

  Monty chuckled again—which made two such outbursts so far, some kind of record for them both. “Fair enough.”

  Jake glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, unsure how far he could push things on this, their first day as allies. He’d sneaked a peek at his horoscope over his morning coffee, and Becca’s guru mentioned something about leveraging relationships. What the hell, right?

  “I do find myself curious about how you pick organizations to give money to, though,” he said, as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “The vetting process, if you will. From what I gather, we focus mostly on education.”

  “Choosing grantees is rather involved,” Monty said warily. “There’s a whole team in charge of it. Protocols and paperwork—stuff you wouldn’t be interested in.”

  “You’re trying to tell me you have no say in the matter? You never get to make a suggestion?”

  “Well, of course I have a say. But it’s not like I sit on a thro
ne making decrees.”

  “Okay.” Jake nodded, satisfied with that answer for now. He was only feeling his brother out anyway. He wasn’t even sure what he was asking for, except to better understand this world he’d shunned for so long. From what he gathered, all Monty did was spend family money—and if the articles he read had anything to say about it, at a much faster rate than Jake did. He just had a different shopping list.

  His quiet acceptance must have found favor with his brother, because Monty offered a genuine-sounding, “I guess Dad wasn’t so far off after all. There’s something to be said for the two of us doing this together.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He grimaced. “I hate this side of stuff. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get past the hypocrisy of it all. We sit there and drink our hundred-year-old wine and visit our vacation homes in France, and then we impose ridiculous financial restrictions on our grant-making efforts. I know that’s how it works—believe me, I know—but I’m not good at pretending I don’t see it. And unfortunately, people like the Bridgeports can tell.”

  “That’s supposed to put me in my place, I imagine.”

  “No.” Monty’s foot touched the brakes in surprise. “That’s not what I meant at all. That’s how the game is played, and someone has to represent that side of us. I only wish I’d thought to ask you years ago.”

  “It’s better that you didn’t. I wouldn’t have accepted.”

  Monty paused. “But you will now?”

  “I will now.”

  He paused even longer the second time. “Because of her?”

  Jake didn’t grace the question with a response. Even if he was in the habit of opening his heart and pouring its steaming, fecund contents all over his brother, there was no easy way to answer that question.