After I Fall: A FALLING NOVEL Page 8

  I'm almost hesitant to ask him if he's got the whiskey, but I figure I need to do this. Maybe his attitude is some kind of new employee test or something.

  "It's in the vault." And he tosses me keys. Like I'm supposed to just find my way into the basement. Pretty sure that's how horror movies start.

  "Y’all are seriously trusting around here."

  Deacon grins. "Looks like you figured us out. We murder all the new help and hide the bodies in the cellar."

  "Not funny." I'm not a coward, not by a long shot. But the look in Deacon's eyes pushes me back like a physical force. He's joking and yet, it doesn't feel like he's joking.

  I lift my chin against his stare. "You look at customers like that and no one will buy anything from you."

  His eyes are brittle and cold. "You clearly haven't been paying attention. Girls like you love being treated like shit by guys like me. You think you're better than us but you just bend over and take whatever we dish out."

  "And aren't you just a little ray of sunshine?" I manage to keep the words light but his words sting. Because that's exactly how I’ve ended up in this bar to begin with.

  I wanted to be used and discarded.

  Just not by Deacon.

  He doesn't move for a long moment, and I rapidly contemplate my own mortality. Then he grunts and turns away, leaving me to wonder if I've made a new enemy.

  I head to the narrow stairway that leads to the basement.

  I hate cellars. I hate the rough, cold brick beneath my hands. I hate the shadows licking the walls and crawling up my spine.

  "This is a freaking hazing event," I mumble as I walk down into the darkness. I need the sound of my voice to drown out the creeping silence. "So this is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever done. I can't believe that I'm walking down into a strange basement, looking for some stupid whiskey. Amazing how my life fortunes have changed, all because someone decided his penis was something I needed to see."

  I run my fingers along the shelves, looking for the whiskey. "Jesus, he has Glenfiddich Snow Phoenix." Not only does Eli know enough about whiskey to have it on hand, he must also have the resources to get it. Snow Phoenix can run into the thousands of dollars a bottle; it's not for the hobbyist. "I'm officially impressed," I murmur. The shelves are lined with some seriously high-end whiskey.

  "Glad to hear it."

  There is no way to mute the unladylike scream that tears out of my throat. My heart staggers and my eyes instantly tear up.

  It takes me a full thirty seconds to inhale and realize that it's Eli standing in front of me. Big, beautiful Eli, who knows instantly what he's done. Whose hands are on my shoulders, cradling my neck. Who is whispering nonsense in my ear that I can't really hear over the pounding of my blood in my head.

  I don't move away. I probably should. But I haven't been scared like this in…I can't even remember how long. I lean my head against his chest and will my heart to slow down.

  I want to stay here. Right here in the moment with the black-inked arms wrapped around me, breathing him in.

  I want in ways that ache deep inside me.

  Correction. I wanted. But he said no, and I'll be damned if I'm going to beg.

  Because there is a life waiting for me on the other side of my so-called internship here at The Pint.

  I lean away, putting at least a nominal amount of space between us.

  "I didn't mean to scare you." His words are rough, his words laced with dark concern.

  "Sneaking up on someone in a cellar says otherwise. It isn't generally a good way to go about not scaring them."

  He grins and it does something to his features. He's no longer all hard edges and black lines. I can see a hint of the young officer in the picture on his wall. It dawns on me then that there is more than class separating us. He's got a lifetime of experience I will never have.

  "You okay now?" He takes a step back, releasing me from the compulsion that draws me closer to him.

  He's drawn me since that first night, when I decided I wanted to try to let go, to really let go. I want to know what it feels like to fly. To let go of the constraints that my world has on me.

  "Sure." I look back over my shoulder at the whiskey and bourbon lining the shelves behind me. "That's some really expensive whiskey you have down here," I say when I can sound even remotely like myself. "Do you have any 14 Year Glenfiddich? Mr. Blowjob upstairs might have a heart attack if I bring him a glass of Snow Phoenix."

  He leans across me then. I am fascinated by the movement of sinew beneath the tight lines of his skin. It takes every ounce of control I have not to trace my fingers over the black lines that follow the veins beneath skin that's stretched tightly over his muscle and bone.

  I want his hands on me. I want to feel his mouth, his beard against my skin.

  But I'm not going to beg. I have some pride.

  "Did he really ask you for a blowjob?"

  “If I say yes, are you going to rip out his spine? Because you know that wouldn’t be good for business.”

  He smiles again. It’s like he’s constantly surprised by the things that come out of my mouth. In a good way. Which is rare.

  “Only if you can’t handle it.”

  "Nothing surprises me anymore."

  I tip my head and look up at him. He hasn't dropped his arm. I'm effectively boxed in. Where, had he willingly lent me the use of his penis the other night, I would be perfectly happy to remain.

  But he didn't. And I'm trying really hard not to take it personally.

  I might be a little bitter. Just a teeny bit.

  "Can I ask you a question?" My mouth is dry. He makes a noise that I will take as a yes before I lose my nerve. "Why did you really say no?"

  * * *

  Eli

  * * *

  The minute the words are out of her mouth, heat flashes over my skin.

  Why did I say no? She's been practically begging for me to fuck her since I met her. But my goddamned moral code won't let me. I can't.

  She's worth more than that.

  I can't say those words to her. Not without sounding like a sexist asshole. “I already told you.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer.” She’s not going to let me off the hook this time. This whole scenario just got awkward as hell.

  I retreat to the safety of sarcasm. "Never really had that problem before?"

  She licks her bottom lip and I suddenly want to do nothing else for the rest of the night but nibble on her. She doesn't answer. I fill the silence because there is so much more I want to do with her. "No, you probably have a different problem altogether." My voice is tight. I want to slip her out of her clothes. To press my body against hers. To feel her warmth penetrate the cold, dead space inside me.

  "What problem do you think I have?" Her voice is hushed and strained.

  Everything about her is just there, within my reach. It would be so easy to lift my finger and trace the scattered beat of her pulse. I could place my lips over it again and feel her shiver.

  In truth, there's no good reason for me to hold back.

  I take a step closer, moving into her space, close enough that I can feel the heat from her body.

  "Do you always get what you want?" I whisper, lowering my head until my mouth is a breath from hers. Right there.

  She's sober tonight. Unlike the other night.

  So am I.

  "No." Her answer comes out as a breathy huff against my mouth.

  "Don't lie." An officer will not lie, steal, nor cheat. But she's not an officer.

  And neither am I. Not anymore.

  "I don't lie." There’s a fierce insistence in those three whispered words.

  My lips curl at the edges. "What haven't you gotten that you wanted?"

  Hope is a fragile thing in my chest. If she says the words, if she so much as breathes the single word I want to hear, I will drop to my knees in gratitude and thank a God I don't believe in.

  "Your penis, for starte
rs."

  The laugh rips free, surprising me. I lower my head to her forehead, slipping my hand over her hip to the small of her back. I give in to the urge to press her body to mine, savoring the brief human contact.

  "Do you always say things before you think them?"

  A moment ago, all I’d wanted in the whole world was for her to whisper my name so I could lay her across my bar and do filthy things to her and now I can't stop laughing.

  "It wasn't that funny," she mutters. She’s hurt. Or maybe a little embarrassed. Either way, she's not enjoying the moment any longer.

  I cup her cheek to stop her from leaving. "Don't go."

  She hesitates and looks away, her cheeks flushed.

  "Why not?"

  I have a ridiculous urge to keep her there. To hold on to this fleeting moment.

  "The truth," I whisper. Why, of all the bars she could have gone into, and all the bartenders who would have been happy to fuck her six ways from Sunday, she came into my bar. Why she picked me. "I need to know. I need to know why you picked me that night."

  It's a stupid insecurity. A holdover from my days on the football team at West Point, when girls would drop their panties because of what I was, not who I was. I need to know. Know that she picked me. Not who she thinks I am. Not out of some twisted desire to screw the brains out of the fucked-up vet.

  "I wanted to let go," she whispers.

  "Of what?"

  She won't look at me now. I can feel the change in her, the shame creeping up her skin like a flush.

  "Everything. I wanted to just close my eyes and feel and forget."

  "Forget what?"

  "Everything." She closes her eyes, her word tight and tense. “And I thought you might be perfect to help me do that.”

  I want to erase it all. The shame I see on her face, the pain I hear in that single word. I want to know what caused her to need…this.

  I kiss her then because it's the only thing I can think to do. Providing a balm against the hurt, if not erasing it.

  She is softer than I imagined and more hesitant. Her breath catches the moment my lips brush hers.

  I am deliberately slow. My tongue slides, flicking, then nipping, then finally tugging at her full bottom lip. Any surprise I feel is buried beneath a sharp pang of desire that burns a path straight to my cock. This is lazy and languid, like a summer afternoon on a porch swing.

  I want this to go on forever. I want to lean her back against the two-thousand-dollar whiskey and lift her legs around my hips. I want to stroke her and watch her let go beneath my touch. I lean back a little, sucking on her bottom lip a moment longer before I release her.

  "Guess I was right," she whispers.

  I smile against her mouth. She's good on the ego, that's for damn sure.

  "I should go. Mr. Blowjob is waiting for his whiskey."

  I stroke my thumb across her cheek gently, not quite ready to let her go. Because I have questions, questions about her words that drew me to her from the dark, where I was checking the inventory.

  "Whatever you're hiding from, you can hide here."

  Of the thousand reactions I expected, resignation bordering on defeat was not one of them. "Thank you. But I can't hide forever."

  "Why not?"

  She shakes her head and looks away. "Ask me again sometime?”

  I let her go, watching her climb the stairs carrying a bottle of Glenfiddich 14 Year Bourbon Barrel Reserve.

  Whoever Mr. Blowjob is, he has expensive taste.

  Of course, he's going to have to take blowjobs off the menu.

  Because despite all of my good intentions, Parker is drawing me out of the dark, where I've been doing my own hiding. I've hidden in plain sight for six years, drawing me into the light, where I risk everything I've built here.

  All for a fleeting taste of belonging…in a way I haven't allowed myself to belong since everything went to hell downrange.

  Chapter 12

  Parker

  * * *

  It is nearly two a.m. and I am dead on my feet. The bar is finally slowing down, thank God.

  "You look ready to collapse."

  If I close my eyes, I can still feel Eli’s mouth on mine, the soft scrape of his beard against my skin as his lips moved against me. I can think of nothing better than curling up in bed right now and letting my brain take that thought to some very interesting places. Well, maybe I can think of something better. But that's assuming I'd make it home to my own bed. I'm so tired, I'm seriously considering sleeping in the car.

  I haven't been this tired in…I can't remember the last time. Maybe not ever.

  Eli motions toward Mr. Glenfiddich with his chin. "You're being paged. Has he behaved?"

  I press my lips into a flat line. "Well, he hasn't grabbed my ass or called me Tits McGee again, so does that count?"

  "Well, it's Saturday, so yes, I guess that counts."

  "What does Saturday have to do with anything?"

  He shrugs. "Nothing, really." He shifts then, and stuffs his hands in his back pockets. "You don't have to go over there. Your shift is up."

  There's a strange silence surrounding us. It's like the world is passing us by, leaving us alone in this quiet, not quite bubble. "Do you ever sleep?"

  "Sure."

  "That's a non-answer," I mumble, half to myself.

  He looks at me funny then, an odd expression in his dark grey eyes. "Yes, Parker, I sleep."

  I'm too tired to be able to read between the lines. I’m not sure if he's flirting with me or not. I might just be sleep-deprived enough to claim impairment and throw myself at him again. Just to see if he would still say no the second time around. "I'm going to go finish up with Mr. Glenfiddich, then I'll head out."

  "Have fun."

  Oh, I'm sure it will be a blast handing Mr. Expensive Tastes in Whiskey his tab for just shy of five hundred dollars. And I bet he's not even got a light buzz. Awful expensive way to spend an evening.

  "Ready to call it a night?" I ask, handing him the small slip of paper inside a real leather bill envelope.

  Eli has some strange propensities. Real leather doesn't make sense for a run-of-the-mill bar—it's too expensive but in that subtlety, he’s signaling class to the people who notice details like that. People who drink five hundred dollar a glass whiskey. And even if it is more durable, it's a subtle touch that most of the crowd in here wouldn't notice.

  "Sure." He slips what I assume is his credit card into the envelope but when I open it, I see a business card. Cream, with canted edges. And dear lord do I sound like a weirdo obsessed with American Psycho.

  I hand the card back to him. "Sorry. Not interested." I stop myself. I'm not going to say thank you for attention I didn't ask for and had actually already said no to.

  "I'm a journalist. I'm writing a piece about veterans returning to civilian life."

  I set the card on the table when he refuses to take it. "I'm not a veteran."

  "No, but you're working at a bar filled with them."

  "So?" There's something nagging at the base of my spine. A cold warning, slithering over my skin.

  "So, I wanted to interview you as a baseline—see what civilians think about working here. Drinking here. Playing here." He reaches back into his wallet and hands over his credit card while he talks.

  "I'll have to talk to the owner. I'm sure he'd like to be aware of any media presence."

  "That's Eli Winter, right?"

  I know better than to say anything that can be misconstrued or quoted out of context. Life is funny that way. While other kids were learning how to ride a bike, I was being coached on how to act in front of the media. I suppose that's the very definition of First World problems, isn't it? "Sure. I'll be right back with your final bill."

  Despite my misgivings, I take the card and slip away, into the empty shadows toward the bar. Deacon swipes the credit card through the card reader.

  "What's that about?"

  "Reporter. Wants to do a story o
n the bar."

  Deacon looks up at me sharply. He says nothing for a long moment, letting the uncomfortable silence drag on. It feels like forever before he swipes the card again and hands it back to me.

  It's only when he hands it back to me that I bother to look down and read Mr. Glenfiddich's name. Ryan Pool. Mr. Pool has an exceptionally large bill. I wonder if he's expensing the alcohol tonight as research for his story. And what accountant is going to be stupid enough to fall for that.

  "Eli is pretty careful who he talks to." I'm not so new that I can't read between the lines of Deacon's quiet statement.

  It makes sense that Eli would be a private person. Everything about him is reserved, despite the public-facing persona I've read about in the local paper. The details are generic. No sense of the man behind the bar. Just enough detail to fit into the comfortable professional veteran stereotype the American public thanks for their service.

  I can imagine the reporter is curious. That makes two of us. But I'm not looking for a scoop or a story.

  I never was.

  I look across the bar. Eli is talking to a couple of guys. I recognize one of them as Josh from class last semester. He was fun to argue with.

  There are worry lines around Eli’s eyes now, a strain around his mouth. But there is something else in his eyes.

  Something I would give anything to see looking back at me.

  * * *

  Eli

  * * *

  Noah looks like shit. But I can't tell if it's because he's using or because he's not. Pain pills are funny like that. And I'm not his fucking commander. "When's the last time you slept?"

  "I'm good, man. I started doing this meditation shit before Beth left on her trip."

  "Is it helping?"

  He shrugs and offers a lopsided half-grin that's mostly forced. "Well, I'm getting some sleep as opposed to none."

  "When's Beth coming back?" I need to know how long to keep Josh checking on him. How long I need to be on edge for another one of my adopted band of merry miscreants.