After We Fell

  “Good,” Tessa says with authority. “Now, tell me what you would do if you were here, and don’t leave out any details.”

  chapter seventy-nine

  TESSA

  My thoughts are slightly hazy, and my head feels full and heavy, but in the best way. I’m grinning from ear to ear, intoxicated from the wine and Hardin’s thick voice. I love this playful side of Hardin, and if he wants to play, I’ll play.

  “Oh no,” he says with that cool tone of his. “You tell me what you’d want me to do first.”

  I take a pull straight from the bottle. “I already did,” I say.

  “Chug some more wine; you only seem to tell me what you want when you’ve been drinking.”

  “Fine.” I run my index finger along the cool wooden bed frame. “I want you to bend me over this bed here . . . and take me the way you did on that desk.” Instead of embarrassment, I only feel the warm flush of heat trailing up my neck to my cheeks.

  Hardin curses under his breath; I know that he didn’t actually expect me to answer more graphically. “Then?” he asks quietly.

  “Well . . .” I start, pausing to take another long swig to gain confidence. Hardin and I have never done this before. He’s sent me a few racy text messages, but this . . . this is different.

  “Just say it, don’t be shy now.”

  “You would hold me by the hips, the way you always do, and I’d cling to the sheets to try and keep myself stable. Your fingers would dig into me, leaving marks in their wake . . .” I clench my thighs together when I hear his breathing hitch through the line.

  “Touch yourself,” he says, and I quickly look around the room, momentarily forgetting that no one can hear our private conversation.

  “What? No,” I harshly whisper, cupping the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not doing that . . . here. They’ll hear me.” If I were talking to anyone other than Hardin in this way, I’d be completely horrified, wine or not.

  “No, they won’t. Do it. You want to, I can tell.”

  How can he?

  Do I want to?

  “Just lie back on the bed, close your eyes, spread your legs, and I’ll tell you what to do,” he says smoothly. As silken as his words are, they come through as a full-on command.

  “But I—”

  “Do it.” The authority in his voice makes me squirm while my mind and my hormones battle it out. I can’t deny that the idea of Hardin coaxing me through this over the phone, naming the dirty things he would do to me, raises the temperature of the room at least ten degrees.

  “Okay, now that you’ve submitted,” he begins without my actually having said anything, “tell me when you are down to only your panties.”

  Oh . . . But I quietly pad over to the door and turn the lock between my fingers. Kimberly and Christian’s room, as well as Smith’s, is on the upper level of the house, but as far as I know, they could still be on the first floor with me. I listen closely for movement, and when I hear a door shut above me, I feel better.

  I hurry and grab the wine bottle, finishing it off. The heat inside of me has turned from a small flicker to a blazing inferno, and I try not to overthink the fact that I’m stepping out of my pants and climbing onto the bed, wearing only a thin cotton shirt and panties.

  “Still with me?” Hardin asks, an evil smirk surely on his face.

  “Yes, I’m . . . I’m preparing.” I can’t believe I’m really doing this.

  “Stop overthinking it. You’ll thank me after.”

  “Stop knowing everything that I’m thinking,” I tease, hoping that he’s right.

  “You remember what I showed you, right?”

  I nod, forgetting that he can’t see me.

  “I’ll take nervous silence as a yes. Good. So, just press your fingers where you did last time . . .”

  chapter eighty

  HARDIN

  I hear Tessa gasp, and I know she’s followed my instructions. I can picture it perfectly, her lying on the bed, legs spread open. Holy fuck.

  “God, I wish I was there right now, to watch you,” I groan, trying to ignore the blood rushing straight to my dick.

  “You like that, don’t you—to watch me?” she gasps through the line.

  “Yeah, fuck yeah, I do. And you like to be watched, I can tell.”

  “I do, just like the way you like it when I pull your hair.”

  Reflexively, my hand goes between my legs. Images of her writhing underneath my tongue, her fingers tugging my hair as she moans my name, fill my mind, and I press my palm against myself. Only Tessa can make me this hard this quickly.

  Her moans are quiet, too quiet. She needs more encouragement.

  “Faster, Tess, move your fingers in a circle, faster. Imagine I’m there, it’s me, and my fingers are circling you, making you feel so fucking good, making you come,” I say, keeping my voice down in case my annoying houseguest happens to be in the hall.

  “Oh my,” she pants and moans again.

  “My tongue, too, baby, swirling against your skin, my sinful lips pressed against you, sucking, biting, teasing.” I slide my gym shorts down and begin to stroke myself gently. I close my eyes and focus on her soft pants, pleas, and moans.

  “Do what I’m doing—touch yourself,” she whispers, and I’m gifted with the image of her back arching off the mattress as she pleasures herself.

  “Already am,” I mutter, and she whimpers. Fuck, I want to see her.

  “Talk to me, again,” Tessa begs. I fucking love the way her innocence disappears in these moments . . . she always loves to hear such filthy things.

  “I want to fuck you. No—I want to lay you back on the bed, and make love to you, hard and fast, so powerfully that you’re screaming my name as I thrust deeper and deeper—”

  “I’m . . .” she moans low in her throat. And her breath catches.

  “Come on, baby, let go. I want to hear you.” I stop speaking when I hear her come, soft whimpers and whines as she bites into the pillow, or the mattress. I have no fucking clue, but the image sends me over the edge, and I spill into my boxers with a strangled groan of her name.

  Our matched breathing is the only sound on the line for seconds or minutes, I can’t keep track.

  “That was . . .” she begins, panting and out of breath.

  I open my eyes and rest my elbows on the desk in front of me. My chest moves up and down as I try to catch my own breath. “Yeah.”

  “I need a moment.” She giggles. A slow smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, and then she adds, “And here I thought we had done close to everything.”

  “Oh, there are plenty of other things I want to do to you. However, alas, we have to be in the same city to do them.”

  “Come here, then,” she says quickly.

  I put the phone on speaker and examine my hand, front and back. “You said you didn’t want me there. We need space, remember?”

  “I know,” she says a little sadly. “We do need space . . . and this seems to be working for us. Don’t you think?”

  “No,” I lie. But I know she’s right: I’ve been trying to be better for her, and I’m afraid that if she’s quick to forgive me again, I’ll slip and lose the motivation. If we . . . when we find our way back to each other, I want it to be different, for her. I want it to be permanent so I can show her that the pattern—the “endless cycle,” as she calls it—will end.

  “I do miss you, so much,” she says. I know she loves me, but each time I’m given a sliver of reassurance, it’s like a weight’s been lifted from my chest.

  “I miss you, too.” More than anything.

  “Don’t say ‘too.’ It sounds like you’re just agreeing with me,” she says sarcastically, and my small smile grows, overtaking my entire being.

  “You can’t use my ideas; way to be original,” I playfully scold her and she laughs.

  “Can, too,” she childishly fires back. If she were here, I’d be greeted with her tongue sticking out at me
in mock defiance.

  “God, you’re feisty tonight.” I roll off the bed; I need a shower.

  “That I am.”

  “And incredibly daring. Who knew I could convince you to get yourself off over the phone?” I chuckle and walk into the hallway.

  “Hardin!” she squeals in horror, like I knew she would. “And by the way, you should know by now that you can get me to do just about anything.”

  “If only that were true . . .” I murmur. If it was, she would be here now.

  In the hallway, the floor is cold on my bare feet, and I wince. But when I hear a voice start to speak, I drop my phone to the ground.

  “Sorry, man,” Richard says close to me. “It was getting a little warm in here earlier, so I—”

  He stops when he sees me scramble to pick up my phone, but it’s too late.

  “Who was that?” I hear Tessa exclaim through the speaker on my phone. The drowsy, relaxed girl she’d been so recently is gone, and she’s on high alert. “Hardin, who was that?” she asks more forcefully.

  Fuck. I mouth a quick “way to fucking go” to her father and grab the phone, removing it from speaker and hurrying to the bathroom. “It’s—” I begin.

  “Was that my father?”

  I want to lie to her, but that would be fucking stupid, and I’m trying not to be so damn stupid anymore. “Yeah, it was,” I say, and wait for her to scream into the receiver.

  “Why is he there?” she questions.

  “I . . . well . . .”

  “Are you letting him stay with you?” She releases me from the panic of having to find the right words to say in order to explain this fucked-up situation.

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “So am I,” I admit.

  “For how long? And why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m sorry . . . it’s only been like two days.”

  The next thing I hear is the sound of water running in a tub, so she must be feeling okay to start that up. But still she asks, “Why did he come there in the first place?”

  I can’t bring myself to tell her the whole truth, not right now. “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go, I guess.” I start the shower myself as she sighs.

  “Okay . . .”

  “Are you mad?” I ask.

  “No, I’m not mad. I’m confused . . .” she says, her voice full of wonder. “I can’t believe you’re actually allowing him to stay at your apartment.”

  “Neither can I.”

  The small bathroom fills with a thick cloud of steam, and I wipe the mirror with my palm. I look like a fucking ghost, a shell, really. Under my eyes, dark rings have already appeared from my lack of sleep. The only thing that gives me life is Tess’s voice coming through the line.

  “It means a lot to me, Hardin,” she finally says.

  “It does?” This is going much, much better than I expected.

  “Yes, of course it does.”

  I feel giddy all of the sudden, like a puppy that’s been rewarded with a treat from its owner . . . and surprisingly, I’m perfectly fucking okay with that.

  “Good.” I don’t know what else to say to her. I feel slightly guilty for not telling her about her father’s . . . habits, but this isn’t the time, and over the phone isn’t the way.

  “Wait . . . so my father was there when you were . . . you know?” she whispers, and a small roar sounds on the other line. She must have turned on the fan in the bathroom to drown out her voice.

  “Well, he wasn’t in the room; I’m not into that type of thing,” I tease, to lighten the mood, and she responds with a giggle.

  “You probably are,” she jokes.

  “Nope, that’s one of the very few things I’m not into, believe it or not,” I say with a smile. “I will never share you, baby. Not even with your father.”

  I can’t help but laugh as she makes a sound of disgust.

  “You’re sick!”

  “Sure am,” I fire back, and she giggles. The wine has made her adventurous and heightened her sense of humor. Me? Well, I have no damn excuse for this ridiculous grin on my face.

  “I need to take a shower; I’m standing here with come all over me.” I step put of my boxers.

  “Me, too,” she says. “Not the part about being covered with . . . you know, but I’m pretty messy and in need of a shower, too.”

  “Okay . . . so I guess we should get off . . .”

  “We did already.” She laughs, proud of her terrible attempt at a joke.

  “Ha ha,” I tease. But then I rush out my “Have a good night, Tessa.”

  “You, too,” she says, lingering on the line, and I end the call before she can.

  Hot water cascades down my body. I still haven’t fully recovered from her touching herself while we were on the phone. It’s not only a huge fucking turn-on; it’s . . . more than that. It shows that she still trusts me, she still trusts me enough to expose herself to me. Lost in my thoughts, I push the hard bar of soap across my tattooed skin. It’s hard to imagine that only two weeks ago, we stood in this shower together . . .

  “I think this one is my favorite.” She touched a tattoo and peered up at me through wet lashes.

  “Why is that? I hate that one.” I glanced down at her small fingers trailing over the large flower etched near my elbow.

  “I don’t know; it’s sort of beautiful the way you have a flower surrounded by all of this darkness.” Her finger moved over the haunting design of a withered skull just below.

  “I never thought of it that way.” I pressed my thumb under her chin to bring her eyes to mine. “You always see the light in me . . . How is that possible when there isn’t any?”

  “There’s plenty. And you’ll see it, too. Someday.” She smiled and stood on her toes to press her lips against the corner of my mouth. Water rushed between our lips, and she smiled again before pulling away.

  “I hope you’re right,” I whispered into the stream of water, so quietly that she didn’t hear me.

  The memory haunts me, replaying as I try to wash it away. It’s not that I don’t want to remember her, because I do. Tessa is my every thought—she always is. It’s only the memories and times when she gave me too much praise, when she tried to convince me that I’m better than I really am, that drive me mad.

  I wish I could see myself the way she sees me. I wish I could believe her when she says that I’m good for her. But how can that be true when I’m so fucked up?

  It means a lot to me, Hardin, she said only minutes ago.

  Maybe if I keep doing what I’m doing now and stay away from shit that could get me in trouble, I can continue to do things that mean a lot to her. I can make her happy instead of miserable, and maybe, just maybe, I could see some of the light in myself that she claims to see.

  Maybe there is hope for us after all.

  chapter eighty-one

  TESSA

  I can’t help the anxiety that fills me as I drive through the campus. The WCU Seattle campus is not as small as Ken had made it out to be, and all the roads in Seattle seem intent on curving and going up and down hills.

  I prepared as best I could to ensure that everything would go as planned today. I left two hours early to be sure to make it to my first class on time. Half of that time was spent sitting in traffic, listening to talk radio. I’d never understood that whole fad until this morning, when a distraught woman called in and told the story of her best friend betraying her by sleeping with her husband. And the two of them running off together, taking her cat, Mazzy, with them. Through her tears, she held on to a certain amount of her dignity . . . Well, about as much as someone calling in to a radio station to relate her own tale of woe possibly could. I found myself sucked right into her dramatic story, and in the end I got the sense that even she knew she was better off without that guy.

  By the time I stop by the administration building and retrieve my student identification card and parking pass, I have only thirty minut
es before my class. My nerves are stretched to the limit, and I can’t shake my anxiety over possibly being late to my first class. Luckily, I find the student parking lot easily, and it’s near to where my class is, so I make it with fifteen minutes to spare.

  As I take my seat in the front row, I can’t help but feel a sense of loneliness. There was no meeting Landon at the coffee shop before class, and he’s not in the seat next to mine now as I sit in this classroom remembering my first half year of college.

  The classroom fills with students, and I begin to regret my decision when I notice that besides me and one other female, the entire class is guys. I thought I’d sandwich this course—which I didn’t really want to take—between some others this semester, but overall I just wish I hadn’t decided to take political science at all.

  A handsome boy with light brown skin sits down in the empty chair next to me, and I try not to stare at him. His white button-up shirt is crisp and perfectly ironed at the seams, and he’s wearing a tie. He looks like a politician, bright white smile and all.

  He notices me looking at him and grins. “Can I help you with something?” he asks, his voice full of both authority and charm.

  Yeah, he’s certainly going to be a politician one day.

  “No, s-sorry,” I stammer, not meeting his eyes.

  When class starts, I avoid looking at him and instead focus on taking notes, reading over the syllabus repeatedly, and looking at my map of the campus until class is dismissed.

  My next class, art history, is much better. I feel more comfortable surrounded by a casual crowd of art students. A boy with blue hair sits next to me and introduces himself as Michael. As the teacher has us all go around and introduce ourselves, I find that I’m the only English major in the room. But everyone is friendly, and Michael has quite a sense of humor, making jokes throughout class and keeping everyone entertained, including our instructor.

  Creative writing is last, and most certainly the most enjoyable. I’m lost in the process of writing down my thoughts on paper, and it’s freeing, entertaining, and I love it. When my professor releases us, it feels as if only ten minutes have passed.