Page 24 of Fall For Me
I’ve never been more scared in my entire life, and she stands here, laughing about it. I try to tamp down my anger and understand what’s going on in her head.
“What are you going to do, spank me?”
“Don’t provoke me,” I snap back.
Pushing away from me, she holds out her arms, turning around in a full circle. Her wingsuit is ripped, and her right arm and leg are both scraped up and bleeding. “I’m fine. See? I’ve trained for this. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. You could’ve died! You have cuts down your right side and cactus needles all over the back of your legs.”
She twists around to look, then realization hits her, and she starts stripping out of her suit. “Oh, God, it burns. It fucking itches.”
I want to tell her that’s what she fucking gets for doing this shit, but that’s not going to help matters any. Guiding her to turn so the back of her legs are facing me, I squat down and try to pull out the needles, but it’s impossible to do without tweezers. I stand up and reassess the situation.
“You two okay over here?” Christian asks.
“Not really,” I scratch the scruff on my jaw, trying to figure out what the fuck we’re going to do. “She’s covered in cactus needles.”
“Happens more than you think. I’ll run you two over to the drug store on our way into town so you can pick up supplies,” Christian says, looking Hannah over as she groans, knowing it’s going to be a long hike back to the shuttle, and another twenty-minute drive back to the town center.
Hannah lies face down on the dining room table. I’ve spent the better part of an hour picking out the larger needles with tweezers and applying duct tape to remove the fine-haired nuisances from her skin.
Pulling the last strip from her leg, I lightly run my fingertips over her calves to see if she feels any pain. She doesn’t wince or make a sound, but goosebumps pebble her skin. Her head is turned, so I can’t gauge her reaction, but if I had to bet it all, I’d say her cheeks are a pretty shade of pink and not from the sun. The side of my mouth quirks into a devious smirk as I trail my fingertips higher.
And a little higher.
A gasp escapes her as I lean over, my lips grazing the shell of her ear. “Be a good girl for me and don’t . . . move.”
Her thighs squeeze together, and I chuckle under my breath, turning to grab a bowl of water and soap from the counter. Does her body react to me? Always. Does she want me back? Though I wish I could answerthatquestion, I can’t. I’ll never be able to erase all the shit I’ve done to her, no matter how bad I want to. But she’s it for me, and I’m going to do whatever I need to do to prove that to her. The problem is where I’m a genius when it comes to getting women into bed, I’m an ignorant fuck when it comes to matters of the heart. I don’t even know where to begin.
When I return with the bowl of water and a bar of antibacterial soap, her eyes are on me, watching my every move. With her brows pinched together curiously, her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you’re hurt,” I answer back.
“No. Why are you here? What’s the goal, Sean? Because I’m not down to be your fuck buddy again.”
Setting the bowl down, I dip a washcloth into the water, ring it out, then run it over the back of her leg.
“I want you back,” I tell her honestly. “You don’t trust me, and I understand your reasons, but a lot has changed in the past few months.”
She snorts. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
Fuck, I’m going to have to do what Carter’s been encouraging me to do all along, so maybe she’ll understand what the hell I’ve been doing all this time.
“I was married,” I blurt out, and her eyes widen in response. “Not while we were together. God, no. After I met you the first time. She and I were introduced and dated about a year before we eloped. Long story short, one evening I came home from an away game, and I was putting my things away in our bathroom when I found a pregnancy test in the trash. Believe it or not, I was ready to become a father.”
She pierces me with one raised brow in question, and I huff a short laugh.
“I know, shocking, but I come from a big family, and I wanted tocreate a big family of my own. I wanted chaos and kids running around everywhere—our girls bickering over the bathroom and our boys trampling mud inside the house. I didn’t care. I wanted it all. Anyway, I ran into the living room, so fucking excited, picked her up and swung her around, but when I set her back on her feet, her excitement didn’t match mine, and tears were staining her cheeks. Not the happy kind. That’s when she told me that she had an affair, and she didn’t know if the baby was mine or his. Spoiler alert, it was his.”
“That’s awful,” she says, sitting up.
I shrug a shoulder and grab the antibiotic ointment. Squirting a dab onto my fingers, I hold her leg out and massage the ointment into her skin.
“Needless to say, mine and Allie’s marriage ended before the ink really had time to dry on the marriage certificate. I don’t know how I didn’t see it, because everyone else could. Looking back, I know I had to be lying to myself. They were childhood friends and realized they had romantic feelings for each other. I just wish their realization came before she got involved with me.”
Hannah tilts her head to the side, and her expression shifts as if she’s piecing things together, then something clicks, and her brows raise. “Oh, my god! Allison? Owen’s best friend, Allie?”
