Guiding the Fall

by Christy Hayes

  “So you’re walking in the woods? At night?”

  “So?”

  “So, there are animals. Coyotes.”

  “I didn’t mean to go this far, but I saw your light. When did you get power?”

  “I haven’t yet. I’ve got a lantern.” He stepped forward and searched along the bank. “I’m coming over to get you.”

  “What?” she said. “No, no, don’t do that.”

  “This is silly, shouting across the river. You’ll be my first guest.”

  “Lyle, really,” she said as he eased down the bank and into the water. “You’re going to get wet.”

  “Just my shoes and they’re waterproof.” He was across the river and in front of her in less than twenty steps. “See.” He looked at her feet. “Do you care if your tennis shoes get wet?”

  She was about to say yes when he offered to give her a piggy back ride. “No, I don’t care.”

  He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Come on. It’s shallow, but the rocks can be slippery.” He went down the bank first and helped her down. She shrieked when her foot sank in the mud. “The river will clean the mud off.”

  He led her over the jagged surface with a firm grip on her hand. She felt a ridiculous thrill at holding his hand, even though it was only to keep her from falling. He was stronger than he looked.

  “There we go,” he said when they reached the other side. “Nothing to it.”

  Then why was her heart racing and the blood surging through her veins? As stupid as it was, crossing the river at night was one of the most exciting things she’d ever done. She couldn’t stop the smile that spread over her face.

  Lyle stood in the moonlight, staring down at her with a serious and unreadable expression. If she’d had more experience with men—normal experience—she may have thought he was about to kiss her. As it stood, she thought maybe she’d done something wrong.

  “You should smile more often,” Lyle said. “You’re beautiful when you smile.”

  She didn’t have a clue how to respond, but she was glad for the darkness when she felt her cheeks heat. “Are you going to show me your cabin?”

  “Right this way.” He ushered her inside with a wave of his arm. “It’s small. I like to think of it as homey, and it’s just me, so I don’t need a bunch of room. This is the den,” he said of the enclosed space the door opened into. “Where all the pipes are sticking out of the concrete is the kitchen, well, kind of a kitchen. I have room for a refrigerator/freezer, a tiny dishwasher, and an oven/stove combination.”

  Erica felt his hand on her back and jumped. He led her to an opening on one side of the den. “This back here is the master bedroom. Again, it’s small, or what I call cozy. There’s one bath with a tub shower.” He led her to the other side. “This will be my office. It can double as a guest bedroom, but really, any guests will want to stay at Mom’s.”

  She heard the excitement in his voice and she was pleased to see the pride on his face. He’d done a lot of work, although it seemed as if there was plenty left to do. “I like it. It must feel wonderful to build something like this from the ground up.”

  “Oh, I didn’t build it. This thing has been on the property since we bought it. It’s an old hunting cabin. Dodge and I gutted it just for fun.”

  “Dodge?”

  “My stepdad.”

  “You must be close to your family if you want to stay this near.”

  “Yeah, we’re close. I guess I should want to cut the apron strings and go out on my own, but I can’t seem to work up the energy. Besides, where would I go? I like it here, my parents leave me alone for the most part, and I can write from anywhere. I’d like to travel and see the country, but I think I’ll always end up back here. It’s home.”

  She smiled because she couldn’t say anything. Home had never been a happy place, and she went wherever Jack went. She thought he had settled in Denver, but she’d never asked about his long-term plans. He could pick them up and move them to Japan, and she’d have to go right along with him. “I like the one you’re making.”

  He stepped closer, too close. She felt her heart skipping against her ribcage. “Jack told me about your mom dying and your dad’s drinking.”

  She backed away, out into the main room where the lantern shone bright and she didn’t feel so trapped by his questions and his eyes. “If Jack told you, then you should understand why I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “He left home when you were so young. I’m just curious how that must have been for you? On your own with a man hell bent on drinking himself to death.”

  “It wasn’t fun.”

  “Erica, I’m sorry. I know this isn’t fair, my knowing the intimate details of your childhood.”

  “What intimate details?”

  “Nothing intimate, I just mean details. Stuff I wouldn’t ordinarily know.” He paced around the room and then back to stand in front of her. “I like your brother, and there’s something about you that’s grabbed hold of me and won’t let go. Knowing about your past…”

  “You don’t know anything about my past. If Jack told you—”

  “Jack didn’t tell me anything. He’s very careful to leave you out. I just… I just wonder. I’m a writer, Erica. I obsess over characters, I wonder about their lives, their backgrounds. Only with you it’s not fiction, and I can’t seem to get you out of my mind.”

  “How do you get the characters out of your mind?”

  “I write their story.”

  She turned away from his searching gaze and picked up a tool from bench by the wall. “My past isn’t a story. If it was, I would have rewritten it a long time ago.”

  “I think that’s part of the reason Jack wants to work on this book. He can’t change the past, but he’s trying to do better with the future.”

  “Do better?” Erica scoffed. “He did better than anyone I’ve ever met or heard about.”

  “His success isn’t just about money. It was. It might still be if he hadn’t lost his vision, but now…now I think he’s trying to succeed in a different way.”

  She turned back, too curious about what he was trying to say to keep her back turned. “What way?”

  “With people. With you.” Lyle shrugged and flashed a dangerously sexy smile. “With Olivia.”

  “Oh, please. If anything, with her, he’s reliving his past. Do you know how many women he dated? Beautiful women? Models?”

  “I’ve done my research.”

  “And you’re not worried about Olivia getting her heart broken?”

  “Olivia’s a big girl.” He took the tool from her hand and placed it back in the toolbox. “I worried about Jill, my friend I told you about, and it was all for naught. I can’t worry about or control who my friends choose to love.”

  “If Olivia’s looking for love, she’s going to get hurt.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Your brother’s not the same person he was before. I think talking it out with me is kind of a way for him to let go of the past.”

  “If that’s what he’s doing with you, and I’m not convinced it is, then I’m okay with that. But you need to understand that whatever he’s doing with you has nothing to do with me.”

  “Good,” Lyle said and stepped closer, boxing her against the wall. “Because what I want to do with you has nothing to do with your brother.”

  Chapter 27

  Olivia stood with her back to the room and rinsed the dishes she’d carried over from the table. She’d needed to stand up and give herself some space from Jack. She had never, in all her twenty-four years, felt more drawn to a man. If she didn’t take a moment and gather her wits, he’d have her sprawled on the table where he’d just charmed the life out of her.

  He’d explained his rise to fame, the hereditary condition responsible for altering his life, and his struggle with learning to live with his vision loss as if recounting the plot of a cable series. And he’d listened, really listened to her story. She’d told him about her sweet but flighty
mom, the devastation of losing her dad at fifteen, and her brother who’d taken over the role of her parent. They’d laughed, commiserated, and bonded over Erica’s excellent jerk chicken.

  With all the highs and lows he’d experienced, Olivia couldn’t help but wonder what he had planned for the next phase of his life. One thing she knew for sure about Jack Forrester, he never did anything without a plan.

  Her heart was in serious danger of being broken into a thousand tiny pieces. Knowing that, feeling certain he would leave her shattered when he moved on, she still felt tempted.

  “You don’t have to do the dishes,” Jack said as he came up behind her, making her gasp when his hands rested on her hips. When his lips trailed a path from her ear, along her neck, and ended with a nip on the delicate skin of her collarbone, she let go of the sponge and gripped the sink for purchase. “You taste good. What is that scent you’re wearing?”

  She struggled to collect her thoughts. “I’m not wearing one.”

  “Impossible,” he muttered as the kisses continued.

  “Jack…”

  “Ummm?”

  “I can’t do this.” Yet she bowed back and tilted her head, giving him more access to the pulse throbbing in her neck.

  “Do what?”

  When she turned and ended up trapped between his rock hard chest and the counter, she knew she’d made a tactical error. His lips, so soft, so tempting, were only inches from hers. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  “Who said anything about sleeping?”

  When she tried to reply, he moved in. Everything she felt before, at their first kiss, came flooding back. Only it felt more intense, more vital. If he didn’t kiss her, if he didn’t press his body into hers, she’d have slipped boneless to the ground. Her protests turned to whimpers. Her hands, the ones she’d placed on his chest to push him away, dug in and clung. Her hips arched greedily without thought, without guile. She only knew she needed and in him she found every answer. “Jack…stop…I can’t think.”

  He pulled back a fraction. Olivia felt only a slight joy that he wasn’t as unaffected as last time. Their heaving breath mingled between them.

  “Thinking is overrated.”

  “Please,” she begged. When he stepped back, she physically mourned his absence. “I…I’m not this easy.”

  He laughed, a deep, barking sound that reverberated along her skin. “No, you’re not.” He stepped back and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m ready to beg you, Olivia.”

  “You wouldn’t have to, Jack. I’m asking you not to.”

  “Can I ask why? And if you tell me it’s about this accusation, I may be tempted to strangle you. What we do, Olivia, in the privacy of my home is no one’s business but ours. If you think I’d tell anyone, you’re mistaking me for a much different kind of man.”

  “I don’t think you’d tell. It’s not you I’m worried about. I have a reputation problem. I date a lot, or at least I used to. Apparently, people thought I slept with everyone I dated. That couldn’t have been further from the truth, but the truth doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. I’m afraid of adding another man to my roster.”

  “We’ll be discreet. Damn it, Olivia, this doesn’t have to be this hard.”

  “What?” she asked. “Casual sex? I told you before I’m not interested in that.”

  He stepped back and gripped a chair at the table. His muscles bulged underneath his sweater. He dropped his chin to his chest before facing her. “Okay, you seem to need to hear this, so here goes. I’ve never had anything but casual sex. Getting away from home, doing my best in school, getting ahead at work always came first. There were women, lots of them, but I couldn’t afford to get distracted. I don’t know another way to be with someone.”

  “You’ve never been in a relationship? Ever?”

  “No. I’m not a patient man, Olivia. Apparently, relationships are a lot more work then I’m used to.”

  “So all those women I saw you with, the models and actresses, you just slept with them?”

  “Most. Not all.” He shrugged. “I’d buy them dinner first.”

  “How sweet of you.” She felt sorry for the women she’d envied only hours ago. Reality was a far cry from what she’d imagined. “I won’t feel pressured into something I’m not ready for just because you’ve never had to wait.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never wanted to pressure someone into more. And I’ve never shared as much about my life as I have with you.”

  She stepped forward and brushed her thumb along his jaw. “I wouldn’t even consider being with you if you hadn’t been willing to share.” She tested them both by placing her hands on his face and brushing a gentle kiss on his lips. He grabbed her wrists when she tried to move away.

  “Let me?” he said. He let go of her hands and placed the pads of his fingers on her cheeks and gently, erotically ran them over her face from hairline to chin. He traced her lips with his forefinger, causing a moan to escape.

  “You’re stunning.” He replaced his fingers with his lips. “Absolutely perfect.”

  “Jack…”

  “Just a little more.” His hands surfed lower, to the straps of her dress, and lower still along her arms. He wrapped his hands around her hips and yanked her forward. She felt his erection through the thin material of her dress. He lifted his palms and rubbed his thumbs over her breasts. Damn him, he was determined to make walking away from him a herculean feat. When one hand left her breast, she thought he’d surrendered until he reached around and cupped her through her dress.

  “Jack, please.”

  “Please what?” He glided his hand along her thigh and snaked his fingers inside her panties. “Sweet Christ, Olivia.”

  She clung to him when he eased his fingers inside and her body bucked. He wouldn’t stop the torment, in and out, in and out until she could no longer think to resist. He held her around the waist when her legs gave out and continued his torment, determined to melt her resolve. She’d have begged him if he’d stopped. In and out, in and out, he was unrelenting. When his thumb grazed her sensitive nub, she cried out.

  “Let go, Olivia,” he said, his voice like gravel. “Let go.”

  She cried out, bucking against his hand, heedless to anything but the sensation of him bringing her to climax. He kept up his pace until her quaking body, spent, lay pliant in his arms. He kissed her as she came back to herself, drinking every ounce of pleasure from her body.

  If he’d lifted her to the table, she’d have opened for him. If he had asked, she would have dropped to the floor. If he’d grabbed her hand and yanked her down the hallway to his bedroom, she’d have run ahead of him and tackled him on the bed. He did nothing but kiss her gently, easing her back to sanity.

  “Go home, Olivia, before I won’t let you.”

  “Jack, that was…I…”

  “I want you. I know you want me, too. If you need to wait, I’ll wait. But you remember what it felt like to come in my arms and know that was only a taste of what I plan to do to your incredible body. And there won’t be anything casual about it.”

  He held her at arm’s length until she could stand on her own. He reached behind her and grabbed her purse from the counter, tucking it under her arm. “Go home and think about me touching you because I’ll be thinking about touching you until I see you again.”

  Olivia swallowed and nodded, walking like a robot to the door. “Thank you for…everything.”

  “It was my pleasure.” He brushed his lips against hers and opened the door. “Until tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” she choked.

  “You’re teaching Erica. I’ll see you then.”

  ***

  Lyle lifted his hand and gently ran the back of his knuckles down Erica’s cheek. Erica sucked in a breath as her eyes grew dark. “Lyle?”

  “Erica?” He’d never known a woman so full of contradictions, and every one of them was written on her face as he inched forward, as his fingers wedged
into all that long, dark hair, as her lips tilted up toward his and parted.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes huge.

  “I think you know.” He slipped his other hand into her hair, holding her captive as anticipation mingled along with their breath. “I think you want this as much as I do.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper.

  “I guess we’ll see.” He dropped his head with his eyes still glued on hers, unsure really as to what she might do if he closed them. Her eyelashes fluttered as he brushed his lips against hers once and then twice. They fell with a whimper when she kissed him back, their tongues colliding. Kissing her was like discovering an untapped well, an explosion beyond his wildest imagination.

  He felt her hands on his hips, her nails digging into the skin of his back, and gloried in the sensation. For all the weeks he’d wondered if she’d felt anything for him close to what he felt for her, her hands clinging to him told him all he needed to know. What was more satisfying than her surrender was the discovery of the passion just beneath Erica’s thin, fragile surface.

  She bowed back, making him groan as heat met heat. Her hands crawled up his shirt and tangled in his hair. He wasn’t sure if she was surrendering to passion or fighting it to the death, but at the moment, he didn’t care. All he knew was he’d only scratched the surface and he wanted, needed more.

  With her back to the wall, he let his hands glide lower, over the full heaviness of her breasts. He felt her aching nipples strain against her thin top and felt her breath catch as he caressed the tender tips with his thumbs. They rocked into one another in a rhythm as old as man. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move as her name pounded in his head and her scent, that wild and earthy fragrance, permeated his skin.

  When he cupped her backside and lifted her off the ground, stepping inside her parted legs, he molded her to the wall and ran his lips down her neck. She took one gulp of air before her body stilled, as if breaking the seal of their lips had broken the spell. She gripped his shoulders and said his name, not with passion or pleading, but with deadly seriousness.