Fear of Falling

  “I’ve wanted to do that since the first day I met you,” I whispered, my thumb stroking her cheek.

  “You damn near did,” she smiled.

  “Hmmm, that’s not how I remembered it. I believe it was you who tried to kiss me.” I made a tsking sound before placing another peck on the corner of her mouth. I couldn’t help myself. She had the sweetest, fullest lips I had ever tasted.

  “Whatever! Don’t pretend that you weren’t practically wagging that metal studded tongue at me! You knew exactly what you were doing!”

  I narrowed my eyes and took a tiny step back. “So you like the tongue ring?”

  “What?”

  “Do you like it?” I rasped, dropping my voice an octave. “Does it feel good to you?”

  “Um, uh,” Kami sputtered before swallowing. Without bothering to ask, she grabbed my wine glass and downed its contents.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I laughed. She tried to feign offense before succumbing to her own amusement.

  “Hey, where’s this one from?” she asked, once we had both calmed down and diverted our attention back to the shot glasses.

  I took the blank, nondescript glass from her hand and turned it over in my fingers. “Dive.”

  “Dive? Why would you take one from the bar you work at?” Picking up another unmarked glass, she frowned with confusion. “This one from Dive too?”

  “Yep.”

  “O-kay. Seems kinda silly to put these up with all the other ones that are obviously significant to you.”

  I smiled, stepping in closer to her. Close enough to smell the vanilla and orchid scents of her shampoo. “These are significant to me too. The most significant. This is the shot glass your lips touched the first night I met you. This is the one you used when we shared a Screaming Orgasm.”

  She stared at me in stunned silence for a beat before clearing her throat. “So… you just go around collecting every glass I drink from?”

  “Yep.” I took a step forward, causing our fronts to touch. I could feel her heart beat faster with the move. “Every. Single. One.”

  She drew in a mortified breath, her eyes growing unbelievably large before I broke into a peel of uncontrollable laughter.

  “Oh my God! You should see your face,” I howled at her confused expression. “Relax, Kami. I swear I don’t creep around in the shadows, stealing your drinking glasses!”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “You are such a creepy asshole, Blaine Jacobs!”

  “Awww, come on now.” I set the glasses back in their designated spots before wrapping my arms around her narrow waist. “Seriously, I’m not a creeper. But I did save those two. Maybe I was having a semi-creeper moment but, hey, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again after you ran outta the bar that night. And when you popped back up, I knew it was fate. I wanted to commemorate that. I believe in celebrating the things that are meaningful to you, no matter how petty they may seem. If they made you feel something at one time, if their memory incites some type of emotion, then they deserve to be acknowledged.”

  “Wow,” she whispered, her eyes low and sultry. “I must be tipsy, because that was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.”

  I chuckled before placing a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Come on, let’s get you off your feet.”

  I led her to my living room sofa, killing the music and clicking on the TV instead. “I’ve got the movie channels; anything in particular you wanna watch?” I asked, scrolling through the menu.

  “I don’t know. Any horror flicks on?”

  I cocked a brow. “Horror? Seriously?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I just pegged you for a chick flick lover. You know, guy meets girl, they fall in love, and skip into the sunset or some equally sappy shit like that.”

  “Blech,” she replied with a mock shudder. “That’s way scarier than any horror movie. Besides, the real monsters aren’t stalking in the shadows with masks and butcher knives. They don’t have fangs or claws. They’re all around us, hiding in plain sight. That’s what’s scary.”

  Her solemn words hit me like a ton of bricks, reminding me of why we were really here. I cut off my flat screen and turned towards her. It was time to say “Fuck it” and put all the cards on the table.

  “The real reason I brought you here is because there are things I need you to know about me. Things that may help you understand why I say some of the shit that I do.”

  She nodded. “Ok. I think there’s some stuff I need to tell you too,” she replied with an edge of uncertainty. She chewed her bottom lip and cast her eyes down to her hands knotted in her lap.

  I took a deep breath, preparing to dive in headfirst. “Ok. I had sort of a rough patch after my mom died. I was the typical out-of-control teen, not giving a fuck about grades or my future. I skipped more than I attended. And I had a temper. Shit, honestly, I still do.

  “There was this girl named Amanda. Cheerleader, blonde, perky…and I was wild, rugged and had already collected quite a few tattoos and even more piercings.”

  “Really?” she asked with genuine interest. “What kinda piercings?”

  “Other than the ones you know about…eyebrow, lip, septum…”

  She couldn’t hide the flush of her cheeks as her eyes wandered to my crotch, worrying the hell out of her bottom lip.

  “Um, no. Hell no,” I smiled, with a slight shake of my head. “Nothing down there is pierced. But good to know you’re concerned.”

  Her cheeks went from pink to beet red. “Oh God.”

  I laughed it off and took her hands in mine before she wrung them raw. “I don’t really do the piercings any more. I guess I grew out of them. Well, most of them,” I shrugged. “But yeah… I was rough around the edges. Not the guy you wanted picking your daughter up for a date. Amanda was always nice to me though. We started as friends; we’d hang out, talk…nothing more. She was dating this guy—captain of the football team—and one night he beat the shit outta her. She showed up at my house, busted up and bleeding, scared to tell anyone because his dad was some douchebag politician. Anyway, you can guess what happened next.”

  Kami nodded. “You beat the guy up,” she said just above a whisper.

  “Yeah. After that, it made sense for me and Amanda to be together. She was scared to go anywhere without me, and I felt like I needed to constantly watch her. Eventually, we became more than friends. Then, after graduation, we got married.”

  Her jaw dropped before pulling down into a horrified sneer. She snatched her hands from mine. “You’re…married?”

  “Divorced. Amanda and I tried to make it work for a couple of years, but we just weren’t right together. We had nothing in common. We were from two different worlds. Other than sex, there was nothing to bind us.” I looked away, searching for the best way to make Kami understand. “And even that faded.”

  My eyes met hers, and I swear I saw something soften in them. They reflected mine, so full of confusion, pain, anger, longing. Maybe she understood more than I knew. Maybe she could see and accept my past just as I had hoped to accept hers.

  “Amanda ended up pregnant. But not by me.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. She cheated on me. I found a pregnancy test in the bathroom trash, and I asked her about it. Eventually, she admitted the affair and left me for the other guy.”

  “What a minute—how did you know the baby wasn’t yours?”

  I scrubbed a hand over my face a bit more forcefully than I intended. I hated reliving this shit. I was undoubtedly over Amanda, but that didn’t make it any easier to rehash.

  “I always used protection. Even with her. Amanda didn’t want to get on birth control because she claimed it would make her fat or some shit. I knew condoms weren’t 100 percent so I thought there was a chance the baby could be mine. But she admitted to having unprotected sex with that motherfucker.”

  “Blaine,” Kami whispered, the sweet sound of her voice p
ulling me out of my past hell and bringing me back to the present with her. “I’m sorry.”

  I brushed my fingers across her jaw. “Don’t be, baby. It was for the best. See, you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. They have to want to fight, too. They have to see that they’re actually worth the fight. Amanda didn’t see that. She went right back to that asshole, right back to the guy who roughed her up. I agreed to step back and let them be happy. I knew that we should have never gotten married. If that was her choice, I wasn’t going to stand in her way.”

  Her hand covered mine on her cheek, and she nuzzled into the touch. “But?”

  I nodded. Of course there was a “but.” These stories were never cut and dry.

  “The guy, Clark, came into Ms. Patty’s diner one day with his friends. I would help out over there sometimes. He knew that and wanted to rouse me up. He and his shit-stain minions started being obnoxious, ordering food and sending it back, throwing shit on the floor. I approached him, told them to leave. He didn’t take that too well, so I taught him some manners.”

  “The charges?”

  “Yeah. I got carried away. Put him in a coma. I told him to leave; I told him to walk away. I didn’t want to hurt him like that but he would not fucking listen.” I sucked in a sharp breath, willing myself to calm down. “I was charged with 1st Degree Assault and would potentially face jail-time. I hired Edward Maren, not remembering that Kenneth Walters was such a dick. We went to high school together and never got along. I was from the wrong side of the tracks. He and I never came to blows, but there was always tension. But earlier at the bar… that was a whole new level of dickheadedness from him.”

  “Yeah,” she cringed. “About that… I used to be his secretary.”

  “Just his secretary?” I asked playfully, though my blood was boiling just under the surface. I knew what was coming next.

  “And we dated for a couple months. The first day I came into Dive…I had just broken it off with him.”

  “I see.” I swallowed the anger I felt at imagining his hands on her, touching her, kissing her…shit. I couldn’t even think about him doing more without wanting to punch something.

  “Being who he is, he obviously didn’t take it well, so I vowed to never get involved with my boss again. I can’t risk being out of a job again.”

  I nodded, taking it all in. If she was being forthcoming, I wasn’t going to interrupt her.

  She looked at the thin silver watch on her wrist, and something inside me twisted into a knot at the thought of losing her.

  “Shit. I need to get home.”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You’ve been drinking,” I interjected, pulling her arm from her gaze.

  She rolled her eyes. “Just a glass of wine, Blaine. I’m fine.”

  “And you just pulled a nonstop late shift. You look exhausted.” And sexy as hell.

  “Gee, thanks,” she huffed. “So what do you propose? I can call a cab, I guess.”

  “No.” I slid my grasp from her forearm and tangled my fingers with hers. “Stay with me. Tonight.”

  “Blaine…”

  “I’m not saying we have to do anything. Just sleep, like before. That was nice, right?”

  She twisted her bottom lip before scraping it with her teeth. “I guess…yeah. It was nice.”

  A triumphant smile tugged on the corner of my mouth. “And you know you’re safe with me, right? You know you can trust me.”

  Again she worried that lip, looking away from my fixed gaze. Finally, she let out a shaky breath and nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Fuck. Yes.

  That was all I needed to hear.

  I squeezed her hand gently before climbing to my feet, pulling her up with me.

  “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

  What the hell was I doing? Was I losing my damn mind?

  No, seriously. I had to be going bat-shit crazy.

  Not only was I completely going against every rule I had ever set for myself, I had just told Blaine that I trusted him. Something I had never told any man, outside of Dom.

  And what was even crazier? I really did trust him. Dammit, I trusted Blaine and wanted to spend the night with him. So much so, that I had let myself have that glass of wine, knowing he wouldn’t let me drive afterward.

  I was going straight to hell. But first, I’d earn the ride.

  “So this is it,” he said, ushering me into his bedroom. He swept an arm around the room like he was on an old episode of MTV Cribs.

  “Where all the magic happens?” I asked, snickering at my own private joke.

  Blaine shrugged sheepishly. “I wouldn’t say that. I mean, no magic has happened in here…ever.”

  I pursed my lips. “Bullshit.”

  “No seriously,” he replied, holding up three fingers like some badass, rogue Boy Scout. “I just bought this place about a year ago.”

  “Sooo… where do you entertain your…dates?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t really want to have this conversation. Do you?”

  “Guess not,” I shrugged. I really didn’t. But then again, the suspense might’ve killed me. I shook off the images of him and countless, faceless women sexing on the couch, and let my eyes roam his private space.

  “Hey, what’s that?”

  I walked over to his dresser where two pieces of folded, colored paper sat side by side. Holding up the crane, I cocked a curious brow.

  Blaine shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “You said I could have one.”

  I nodded and captured my lips between my teeth in an attempt to keep from grinning like the Cheshire cat. Then I traded the delicate crane between my fingertips for the lime-green flower that was once an advertisement for a car detailing shop.

  “I didn’t want it to go to waste,” he explained without me asking. “It was from our first date, in a place that’s important to me. I wanted something to remember it by. But that’s it.”

  I straightened his keepsakes and looked up at him and smiled. “So just another semi-creeper moment?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned sheepishly.

  Letting him off the hook, I swallowed the swell of emotion building in my chest and changed gears. “Ok. I really want a shower, and I have no sleeping clothes. Unless you like the smell of beer and sweat in your sheets.”

  He flashed me a naughty smile, his eyes low and predatory. “I like your sweat.”

  Ok. That was it. Blaine had me—hook, line and sinker. All he had to do was tell me to get naked and assume the position.

  He laughed, shrugging off his comment. “You can use my bathroom. Clean towels are in there. I’ll get you something to wear.”

  When he turned to rummage through his drawers, I let out a sigh of relief. Then that relief quickly blossomed into anxiety. Was I really going to sleep with him? Were we actually going to cross that line? I mean, sure, I wanted to—more than anything—but could I see myself taking that step with Blaine? What would that mean for us? What would that mean for me?

  “You ok, Kam?” he asked, breaking me from my conflicted inner monologue.

  “Uh, yeah. Just tired.”

  I accepted the t-shirt and boxer shorts he offered me and scurried into the en suite bathroom, escaping his questioning eyes. It was immaculate, of course, much like everything else in his house. I felt like an ass for prejudging him, thinking I would be walking into the ultimate bachelor pad. It was quite the opposite, actually. Everything was neat and tidy, yet it felt homey and warm. There were no beer cans littering the countertops. No posters of nude models. Not even a crusty sock forgotten in a corner.

  Blaine Jacobs was a walking contradiction. On the outside, he looked dangerous. Exciting. Mysterious. But what I had learned about him told me a different story. He was kind, gentle, and protective. He was expressive to a fault. He smiled often, and he had the same corny sense of humor as me. Blaine may have looked scary-beautiful on the outside, but it didn’t compare to the beauty of his soul. It
was a concept I had only seen personified in Dominic, and that drew me to Blaine even more.

  Not wanting to make him believe I was digging through his medicine cabinets—which I was actually tempted to do—I turned on the water. Then reality struck, crushing my chest and stealing my breath.

  The door. The door was closed.

  Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

  Cold sweat broke out all over my face and neck, the surface of my skin growing prickly with goose bumps. I tried to center my breathing, and focused on inhaling through my nose and exhaling out of my mouth. On wobbly legs, I took a step towards the door. It appeared to be moving away from me, recoiling from my reach. I took another step, the edges of my consciousness becoming fuzzy and unfocused. I had to get to the door before I collapsed. Before my lungs felt the fear and restricted precious oxygen. I could feel it sweeping over me like deep, dark water. It was drowning me. I was suffocating in my own pathetic trepidation.

  I felt the coolness of the doorknob, my vision obscured with dark, fuzzy spots. I twisted until I heard a click, releasing it from the frame along with my ragged breath. I was ok. I would be ok.

  Relief washed over me, pushing away the panic, as I slid to the floor against the tub. Within seconds, my breathing became more productive. My heart rate had begun to slow, no longer thumping in my ears like a bongo drum. After a couple minutes, my vision had returned to 20/20, and the thick saliva in my mouth, preempting vomit, had dissipated.

  I took a deep breath before standing and peering out of the cracked bathroom door. Thank baby Jesus, Blaine was nowhere to be found. I peeled off my now sweat-drenched clothes and stepped into the hot water.

  Lathering up with shower gel that smelled masculine and fresh, I washed away the remains of my angst. It smelled like him. I squirted a generous dollop onto the shower puff and slid it along my body, letting his scent seep into my skin, as I rubbed the soap across my nipples, down my stomach and between my thighs. I took Blaine’s bath sponge, the sponge he used to clean his own wet, naked body, and raked it against my sex slowly. Then I did it again, biting my bottom lip, as I applied a bit more pressure and massaged his smell into me with closed eyes. I did it once more, letting my fingers create little circles with the mesh barrier.