Fall

by Cora Brent

  I shut my eyes when I felt his hands leave me. I heard Benton’s futile protests.

  “That little bitch is crazy. She went wild, Deck. I was just-“

  Declan let out a noise that could only be described as a roar. There was the sound of flesh hitting flesh, a sound I’d heard three years ago in a different moment of terror. I opened my eyes and saw blood. Benton was sprawled on his stomach in the dirt, his face a painted red pulp. He tried to shield his head from Deck’s wrath.

  “Get up!” Deck kicked him hard.

  Benton curled into a ball and moaned.

  “I SAID GET THE FUCK UP!” Deck grabbed his shirt and sent a fist crashing into his face. Then he did it again. And again.

  I opened my mouth to shout a plea, a prayer, anything that would get Deck to stop. This madness would destroy his life if he didn’t stop. But the scream I heard didn’t come from me.

  The high pitched wail sounded nearly inhuman at first. It was the haunted noise of something terrible and heartbreaking. Benton coughed blood into the dirt. Deck paused with his fist in midair and looked to the door of his uncle’s home. An apparition in the form of Maggie Gentry stood there. Her howling paused for the space of a breath and then she filled her lungs with air once more.

  “Bennnnnt!” she screamed and began to stumble toward her husband.

  Deck was completely frozen. He looked down at his uncle, then back at his aunt. His hand was bloodied and his face wild. Maggie reached Benton and collapsed in the dirt beside him as he continued to cough and fight to breathe. She cradled his bloody head in her bony arms and said things that made no sense.

  “Declan,” I said and even though I felt like I was speaking through a dense cloud he heard me. He turned away from Benton and Maggie and instead took me in his arms. Without a word he unlocked the door to his trailer and pulled me inside. I still wasn’t very steady, suffering from the aftershocks of adrenaline and pure terror. Deck led me to the chair where he’d slept on Christmas night. He pushed my hair back from my face and knelt, peering at me with so much tenderness and sorrow I nearly began bawling again.

  “Jenny.”

  “Deck, we need to go.”

  “We will, baby. Let me just look at you a minute. Did he hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “He grabbed me. Then when I fought back he seemed to get scared. I don’t know…” My voice trailed off. When I closed my eyes all I saw was blue-eyed rage.

  Deck pressed his forehead against mine. “It’s okay,” he whispered and kissed me. “You’re safe.”

  “I’m sorry.” I was sorry that I was too foolish to understand a dangerous man when I saw one. I was sorry that I couldn’t do a thing now except weep and shake.

  “Nothing for you to be sorry about. You hear me?” He kissed me again and got to his feet. He disappeared into the bedroom for less than a minute and came out carrying a small duffel bag. I stood up and clung to him until he kissed me once more and whispered that we were leaving right now. My hands were trembling so he helped me pull one of his old shirts over my head since my own shirt had been so badly torn.

  “I don’t think I can drive,” I told him, hating the weak quaver in my voice.

  He looked outside and appeared to notice the Prius for the first time.

  “Who does that belong to?”

  “My friend Quent.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “Don’t worry about that right now. The car will be fine. We’re getting the fuck out of here though.”

  Declan packed up quickly, settled me on his bike and then we rode out of Emblem together. I didn’t look at anything. I kept my arms securely around his chest and my face pressed against his back. All other noise was blotted out by the desert wind, which violently tore at my hair and screamed in my ear. But once I huddled against Deck’s broad back I barely felt a thing. He rode straight ahead without flinching, taking the brunt of whatever bore down on us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  DECK

  I almost never thought about my time in the Marines. Six years is a long time so it was probably strange that I didn’t think about it more. When people tried to ask about my military days I sarcastically told them the rest of the world was filled with bad plumbing and good pussy. That would usually silence the well-meaning asker. But as I rode out of Emblem I wasn’t seeing the desert of southern Arizona but the distant Middle East where I’d spent two tours. Even with the ever present dangers and lack of comforts I’d always felt strangely comfortable there. It had looked like home. I headed back to Emblem as soon as I got my discharge paperwork. There was never any question of going anywhere else.

  This isn’t home anymore.

  Even then I’d vaguely understood that it wasn’t misguided nostalgia leading me back to Emblem. It was a punishment of sorts, a self-inflicted one. So many of my buddies from service went on to enjoy clean lives and build happy families. If I ever hoped for a minute that I deserved that reward too, then all I needed to do was remember Amelia’s face.

  Jenny wrapped her arms around me even more tightly. I was tempted to pull over and hold her for a few more minutes. But I just want to get her the hell out of there.

  Part of me was still sorry that I hadn’t killed the fucking beast. If there was any balance to the universe then Benton Gentry would have been dead a hundred times over, for what he’d done to Maggie, for what he’d done to the boys, for what he’d tried to do to Jenny. And who could count how many other people he had hurt in his sordid life?

  When we rode into Tempe, dusk was already settling. I headed directly to University Drive and parked in front of Jenny’s building. She made no effort to get off the bike though.

  “No,” she said at my back.

  “What the hell do you mean ‘No’?”

  “No, you’re not dropping me off here, Deck.”

  I turned around. Jenny’s green eyes had the same defiant gleam I’d first seen the night I met her. Her face was pale beneath the black helmet and there were streaks of dirt on her cheeks but she was unyielding. I swung my leg over and left her sitting on the bike alone.

  “Look at me,” I growled, holding out my hands. The knuckles were cut and caked with my uncle’s blood.

  “I see you,” she answered, crossing her arms.

  “No, you don’t. You think you can polish me off and that we’ll ride away and live a pretty life. Nothing’s gonna be that neat with me, Jenny. Life will never be pretty.”

  “Pretty,” she sneered, hopping off the bike and standing toe to toe with me. “Deck, what the hell do you think was neat or pretty about my past? I know ugly. I’ve seen ugly. You’re not ugly!”

  People walked past us but Jenny ignored them. I felt their probing stares but I didn’t look away from Jenny. She’d told me some of her history but I had yet to tell her the worst of mine.

  “My wife is dead.”

  She blinked and backed up a step. “What?”

  “I told you I was married. I was nineteen when I met Amelia. I was your age, and so was she. Now I’d never had a damn girlfriend for longer than two weeks so I don’t know what the fuck made me think I ought to have a wife but so many of my buddies were marrying young and I wanted her so much I couldn’t think straight. I thought that was what love was even though I didn’t understand the first thing about that girl. We drove down to the courthouse and in the most reckless fucking moment that ever lived, we got married.”

  Jenny stared at me without saying a word. She was waiting to hear what came next.

  “Then I found out pretty quickly that she wasn’t as simple as I thought she was. At nineteen I wasn’t prepared to deal with someone who was wildly happy one minute and horrifically depressed the next. Within two months I wanted out of the whole damn thing but she was already pregnant. So I didn’t leave, Jenny, but I couldn’t handle the emotional chore of taking care of her. So what did I do? I fucked everything in sight and was careless as shit about covering my tracks. Maybe I wanted her to find out because that’s how
much of a sick coward I was; too wrapped up in my own idiotic self to realize that I’d married a very troubled girl and that every day I was damaging her a little bit more.”

  She sighed and looked down, swallowing hard. When I didn’t continue talking she touched my arm and prodded me gently. “And?”

  “And she miscarried. I didn’t even know. It had already happened before she swallowed a bottle of pills and drowned in her own vomit.”

  They were awful, shocking words, and some girl nearby - just a passing girl who didn’t know us at all - gasped aloud. Jenny winced but then touched my shoulder in sympathy. This was bad but Jenny had heard bad things before. She’d seen them and had them done to her.

  I sat down abruptly on a nearby curb. My bike would be in the way if anyone turned into the parking lot but I didn’t give a damn. The wind was cold and brought with it the sweet scent of creosote. I’d known that smell my whole life. It meant rain was falling somewhere in the desert. Jenny sank down beside me, close but not quite touching.

  “You know what the hell of it is?” I continued softly. “I never knew if she did it on purpose. Maybe it was just an accident. Maybe she’d just wanted to sleep for a while. After she was gone it was her father who told me that Amelia had been on medication for years. Apparently she’d stopped taking it when she found out she was pregnant. I didn’t know that. Fuck, I didn’t know shit about anything.”

  Jenny took my hand. “Do I remind you of her, Deck? Has that been it from the beginning?”

  I thought about Jenny’s question. Nine years had passed since Amelia’s death. She’d become more of a haunting fixture in my mind than the memory of a real person. She had been real though. It was possible to bear the responsibility for someone’s death even if you weren’t what killed her. I could never be absolved for my role in Amelia’s fate. I had failed to recognize that she needed more help than I was capable of giving her. I was angry with myself. I was angry with her family for silently allowing our irresponsible marriage. More than anything though I was damn sick of being angry. Jenny was quietly waiting at my side, waiting to hear where she fit into the mess I’d described.

  “Maybe at first you reminded me of her,” I admitted. “Something about your youth and your innocence lit up a part of me that I thought was dead.”

  She nodded with a pained expression. “And now?”

  “No. When I’m with you, there’s only you. No ghosts. Nothing else, no one else.”

  “Then why are you trying to dump me off here tonight?”

  “Because goddammit, Jennetta, you could do better than some half reformed manwhore with a shredded soul.”

  She gave me a grim smile. “Only half reformed?”

  I hissed and lowered my head. “Is that all you heard?”

  “You want me, Deck?”

  “You know I want you.”

  Jenny stood up. “Then I’m not letting you leave me here. Don’t you dare try.”

  I looked up at Jenny Smith. The connection we had wasn’t fleeting or purely physical. It wouldn’t end after I spread her open and fucked my way to oblivion. It wouldn’t end at all.

  “I won’t leave you,” I said and grabbed her for a kiss, crushing her against me with a ferocity that was more than just passion.

  It was unnecessary to carry her to the bike but I did it anyway. I placed her on the seat and waited until her arms were locked tightly around my chest before I started the engine. Even though the day had been filled with violent chaos I hadn’t felt so peaceful in a long time.

  The corporate suite was just north of the university and I was still paid up for the next two weeks. Good thing, because it sure as shit would have raised some eyebrows if I’d walked up to some hotel front desk with a pint of blood on my hands.

  Jenny flipped on the light switch when we got to the room and I dropped my bag in the middle of the floor. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched me silently as I removed the locked metal box filled with cash and secured it in the room’s safe. After that was done I kneeled in front of Jenny as she smiled, a soft smile full of trust. I was on the verge of running my hand across her cheek when I noticed the blood and withdrew. I wouldn’t touch her like this.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenny asked and looked down at herself with a frown.

  “With you? Not a damn thing.”

  “Deck?”

  I heard her calling me but I was already off the floor and halfway to the shower. I turned the water as searing hot as I could stand it and watched Benton’s blood wash away. When I shut off the spray and reached for a towel, Jenny was standing in the open doorway, looking at me.

  I toweled off slowly and without bothering to cover my rapidly hardening dick. Jenny’s eyes moved over me and widened when she saw how high I was rising. She cleared her throat and held onto the door frame like she needed it for support.

  “You’re gorgeous,” she whispered, then blushed as if the words had spilled out of her mouth without permission.

  I grabbed a wet towel and went to her. I slowly wiped the dirt streaks from her face. Then I kissed her, as softly as I could stand it. She let me undress her slowly, so slowly, covering every newly exposed piece of skin with my mouth. She reached around and unfastened her own bra, and my tongue was glad to explore the tips of her nipples and then travel to the valley between her breasts. When I unzipped her pants she moaned lightly, squirming as I slid them over the soft flare of her hips.

  I gathered her into my arms and then laid her down on the pristine surface of the bed. Her dark red hair was brilliant against the white quilt and every square fucking inch of that body was even more perfect than the first time I’d seen it. Damn, how many times over the past month had I imagined this moment? I’d told her once how I would tear this shit up and hell if that wasn’t the truest goddamn thing I’d ever said.

  She reached for me and the urge to shove my dick inside of her was nearly unbearable. It was what she wanted. It was what I wanted. But I couldn’t ignore what she’d been through today, and what the twisted teachings of her early years must have done to her. Before I got in there she was going to understand just how damn powerful she was.

  “Not yet, baby,” I answered and rolled to my back, pulling her on top of me. Our tongues intertwined as her soft hair brushed my shoulders and then I moved her to a straddle, pushing her upward until she was sitting up just beyond the reach of my cock.

  “Tonight it’s all for you.”

  She was unsure, letting her hair cover her breasts and hunching over slightly. “But Deck-“

  “Shhh,” I soothed as my hands roamed over her skin. “We’ll get to everything, Jenny. I swear it.” She trembled as my hands moved over her breasts, massaging and exploring the soft mounds and rosy, hard nipples. Her wet pussy was rubbing against me now, begging to be dealt with. “That’s it, honey. That’s it. Get yourself there.”

  She arched her back, moving harder now, letting out soft little moans that nearly sent me into the wide orgasmic yonder. “Deck, I can’t stand it.”

  “You can stand it, Jennetta. You can do anything you want. You know that?”

  “Feels so good,” she breathed and the friction of her pussy against my dick was going to be the end of me. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to do what came natural, not to throw her on her back and shove myself deep into that tight space. But there would be plenty of time to have things my way.

  “I want you inside of me,” she moaned and she was in a full fucking grind with her hips moving hard as her hair fell seductively into her face. We rocked together with her pussy at the base of my cock. A few more centimeters and there would be no way to avoid sliding into that slippery core. She came like that, her sweet ass pumping, grazing my dick, her hands squeezing mine as she gave into the abandon that her body demanded. The last time I’d made her come in a quick, hot moment with my fingers shoved deep, she’d stifled the sound of her own pleasure. This time she did no such thing. She cried out and shouted my name as the
intense spasms wracked her again and again. It was fucking glorious.

  As soon as she was spent I pulled her down against my chest. I kissed her damp forehead and ran my fingers over her sweaty skin, trying to distract myself from the fact that I was hard as a damn diamond and ready to explode. Jenny lifted her head and gave me a kiss of heartbreaking tenderness that sealed us together more than the most gratifying balls-deep dance.

  “I’m going to hold you to it,” she said sleepily as she settled back into my chest.

  She could twist my heart up without even trying. I held her tighter. “You can hold me to anything you want, sweetheart.”

  She shivered and I rolled the blankets back, crawling in there beside her. Jenny was underneath me now, smiling at me serenely as my dick begged for release. She stroked my cheek and kissed me again, more playfully, before answering.

  “So we’ll do everything, huh?”

  “Fuck yeah,” I reassured her as I pressed my cock into her thigh. “Baby, the plans I’ve got for you may actually be illegal in this state.”

  She traced my lips with her finger and opened her legs. “You can start now if you want to.”

  I was dying to, absolutely dying to. But aside from the fact that there weren’t any condoms at hand I wanted her to have this night to be comfortable, even if it meant I would be tortured by the restraint.

  “Soon,” I whispered. “Sleep now.”

  “Not yet,” she smiled, folding her hand around my dick, which was undeniably grateful for the attention. I couldn’t pretend that I would rest easy until that piece of business was tended to so I urged her along until the rhythm of her stroke was fast enough.

  “Let go,” I demanded in a strangled voice and she relented as I got ready to come all over her belly. And then dear god above, what did that girl do? She leaned forward, taking me in her mouth, and I was so close I couldn’t fucking stop coming all over her tongue. I came so goddamn hard it took me a while to breathe normally again. Then I held her body against mine, listening to her breathing become slow and even as sleep overcame her.