Everybody Falls (12 page)

Yet, he had nothing but a soft smile on his still scabbed face as I shot him a glance over my shoulder.

His hair was loose again today and he was wearing a sleeveless, blank gray tee over a pair of worn jeans.

And, low and behold, a new pair of navy running shoes.

"Nice kicks," I offered, loading grinds into the steel cup of Bertha's heart, shoving a green mug underneath the flow after her groans as the water began to fill her reservoir. It was only seconds before the green mug began to load with her beautiful gift.

"Thanks," he said glancing down at his feet and I caught a small lift on his mouth, a self-conscious little grin, as he spoke. That move, along with the grin, garnered a solid ten score from my mental judges.

I grabbed his cup from underneath the spigot and turned quickly back around.

Spilling the entire contents, the steaming hot, scalding, contents of the cup down him.

Oh, God!

Who knew he was that close, a half-step behind me?

Shit. Oh, damn, shit and hell.

"Oh, crikey. I'm so sorry!" I yelled, as my mind tried to find a way out of this. What worked for scalds?

Water.

Cold water.

I grabbed him and shoved him towards the stairs, intent on getting him out of the pain I'd caused. Rushing to get him to the cold wetness, to fix the hurt from the boiling hot coffee.

I kept him ahead of me, pushing and rushing upwards.

Everyone knew that blisters needed cold.

Dammit.

He wasn't talking but his eyes kept shooting over his shoulder as I moved him, shoved him from behind. I knew his skin had to have been stinging, but I'd already seen he had a pretty high threshold for pain when he'd done the five-point asphalt skid the other morning.

"Inside!" I yelled when he paused at the door of my apartment over the shop. "Go inside, Jack!"

I ran around him, rushing down the hall to the bathroom, pushing aside the shower curtain and twisting the cold water spigot to full.

"Inside!" I repeated on a shout.

I reached for his t-shirt and yanked it over his head as soon as he'd cleared the doorway.

"Shoes, off!" I yelled and tugged at the button of his jeans, noting the wet stains marking the light colored denim.

Damn, I'd managed to score him stem to stern with my attempt to simply get him a coffee.

Shit!

I shoved the heavy denim down as I saw him toe his shoes off.

I made a point to catch his socks as I dragged his jeans off his legs.

"Inside!" I again yelled and made sure he hit the cold water clad only in his boxer briefs.

I stood there a moment, panting, my heart out of control thinking of how he must be hurting with what were sure to be head-to-toe burns.

"Lacey?" he murmured. I saw his arms were tucked into his armpits, his back to the water.

"Yeah?" I responded, my eyes roaming, looking for blisters on his shoulders, chest and his very inked arms.

"Lace, baby?" he asked again and, this time, I looked into his eyes. Deep brown eyes that were heated, almost glowing, and I realized that he was on a different level than I was operating on.

As that thought scored my brain, I felt the air in my tiny bath fill with tension. A tension, oh heavenly blueberries, a sexy tension that mirrored what I'd felt earlier. The same tension that had filled the hall when he came in.

Then he reached for me.

His hand snaked out and caught me around my waist yanking the tie of the robe, letting it fall off before he hauled me into the shower stall, his large body blocking the flow of water.

"You're overdressed for the party you've dragged me to, baby," his smooth, deep voice mumbled thickly. I felt his hands catch the hem of my camisole, drawing it up, over my head and completely out of the shower to land with a wet thud on the floor.

Without pause, he went to shove the boy-shorts down as well, yanking the fabric at my waist, but I quickly crossed my legs and twisted away preventing any further movement. I think he got that I wasn't down with getting naked, with his fumbling of my shorts, because his hands slowed before coming to rest on my hips.

"What the
hell
are you doing?" I demanded as I copied his move of hands to armpits, but it must be noted that my voice was high and breathy as I tried to speak and cover my breasts with my hands at the same time.

To his credit, he moved his hands to his head and looked at me, running his fingers through his now wet locks, pushing them off his forehead and out of his eyes.

"Trying to get you as naked as you got me," he said finally before bending down, his eyes catching mine. Only now he was frowning in confusion.

"Aren't you burnt?" I asked, using one hand to shove my, again, wet hair off my face as I tried to hide my bare chest at the same time.

He stared at me before slowly lowering his head even further as he growled, "Only by you, Lacey. Goddamn. Only by you, Baby."

His lips hit mine with a heat, a bone melting kind of heat that you often wonder about; wonder if there really is a body-fire that could liquefy your very bones.

I already knew he could kiss, from all the activity of the night before. I was already aware of the flames his hands generated when they moved over me.

But when we pressed together and were bare-skin to bare-skin, I would've been surprised, should've been shocked. That is, if I could've thought. My legs wobbled and his hands slid under my ass, a cheek in each of his large palms, pulling my body up until I had no choice except to wrap my legs around his waist, my arms twining around his neck.

It must be noted that throughout the whole maneuver, his tongue and mouth never left mine.

I'm here to say, that heat, that special kind of hotness you hear about, that you read about?

Yeah, it's real.

It's good.

Very, very good.

I only became aware of the doorbell when we changed position so Jax could twist the hot water on enough to prevent us both from freezing.

"Uh, doorbell," I whispered against his lips, my arms holding on for dear life since the hands on my ass, levering me up against the shower wall, were slowly releasing as he moved.

"Do you need to get it?" Jack asked pulling his head up, to look me in the eye.

"It might be a delivery," I admitted regretfully.

"Shit," he said as I slid down his body, feeling every bump, every indentation of his muscled form on my inner thighs, between my legs, as I moved. Especially against the hard length behind his wet briefs.

"Agreed," I said, stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel, rubbing it over me before slipping into my robe. "Be right back."

I walked quickly to the stairs and bounded down, tying my robe firmly, determined to shoo whoever it was that was leaning on the doorbell as quickly as possible.

Before I was even halfway down, though, I heard it.

The voice.

"Goddamn it, Lacey. Get your motherfucking ass down here, now," I heard my mother screech as she banged on the doorframe.

Shit.

My mother.

Now. Of all the freaking times the woman could show up, she chose
now
.

With Jack just upstairs.

Shit.

"Mom?" I called through the door. "Er, Belinda? Now's not a good time. Can you come back later?"

"I'm not going to come back later, you stupid piece of shit. Open the motherfucking door now! You're my sister and you know I won't go away until you let me in, you stupid cunt!" she screamed.

Okay, so the language and the scream let me know that she had a man with her. A man that didn't know her age or that she had a daughter. Plus, since the language was so raw, this guy was a bad-ass, which was the only kind of man my mother respected. That is, if a woman like her could work up any respect at all, even for another of her species.

"What's going on?" I heard Jack whisper from the joint of the dog-legged bend in the staircase.

"Uhm, family issues," I muttered, trying and failing to keep the derision out of my voice. Not to mention, my embarrassment at him having a front row seat to the drama about to unfold before his eyes. I don't know if she sought it out or created it all on her own, but Belinda Emerson and the car wreck of her life were drama personified.

My mom banged on the door again, making even the boarded up window next to it rattle.

"Open the motherfucking door, Lacey or I swear…" I heard her bellow the unfinished threat.

I opened the door, and used my foot to brace against it, only allowing a hands-breath of space to show.

She was, as always, dressed inappropriately. This morning's choice was a bright red spandex number that spanned her bloated curves, showing way too much skin for Auburn, for morning wear, for any and all other reasons you could come up with. I would've called it a tunic. I think she meant to wear it as a dress.

Her makeup was smeared and her hair, which she always wore teased out to
there
and beyond, was more wild than usual.

And, as usual when around me, her face held a sneer.

"Well, there she is. Miss Queen of Everything," she greeted. Which, by all accounts, was one of the nicest greetings she'd given me in years.

"What do you want?" I asked, hoping to circumvent the family reunion she was trying to stage for whomever was also within hearing distance, i.e., her latest man.

"I need money, missy, and I need it right, the fuck, now," she yelled. "She was my mother and…er,
our
mother and I deserve at least half of what she left you!"

"Mom…" I started.

"I told you before! Don't you ever fucking call me 'Mom', you cunt," she hissed, leaning in and pointing a long red nail at my face, trying to whisper but failing. Even from a distance of three feet, I could smell her. The cheap booze, the lack of a personal hygiene that was still bleeding through the cloud of some kind of perfume applied with a heavy hand was what hit my nose.

I just wanted her to go. To go back to whatever hole she'd crawled out of and just leave me alone. Yet, I'd known when Ms. Russell said my mom had filed a motion against Grandma's will that she'd be creating trouble.

I just hadn't figured on face-to-face trouble with my new guy seeing her shit-storm in all its glory.

"Goddamn, Lynn," I heard a slurred deep voice yell from behind her. "I knew you were just some tired, old whore that likes to screw her way to the good life. You ain't no thirty. Shit, you're pro'lly closer to fifty. Fuck, babe. Give it up."

At the sound of the man's voice, Jack came completely down the stairs and wrenched the door out of my hand. Luckily, I moved my foot away just in time.

"Go away," he said firmly, in his deep, deep voice. "Go, the fuck, away
now
."

This was a nightmare.

One that could send a girl to an institution.

Or a nunnery, even if you're not a religious sort.

Take your pick.

"Oh. My. God," my stupid, out of her too-good-to-take-her-meds, bi-polar mind, Mom uttered staring at Jack, stumbling back as she spoke. "It's fucking Jax Wynter. My daughter is fucking Jax fucking Wynter."

Wait…what?

I glanced up and saw Jack staring at me, his mouth a thin line and a muscle jumping in his cheek. His eyes looked almost stricken as he watched me.

Jax Wynter?

As in, the baby rock star I'd had a crush on at sixteen?

Jax, the Eternal Teenager, from one of the biggest rock bands in America, in the
world
, for fuck's sake?

Holy shit.

My eyes shot back to my mother watching in horror as she reached into the top of the dress to drag her tits upwards. A quick shimmy then she threw back her shoulders, palms on her ass and purred, "Well, hello there, handsome."

I moved my mortified eyes back to Jack, and saw it.

I saw what my mom had recognized.

It was all there, in the deep brown eyes and the full lips, the thick glossy hair and the inked arms. Helping me to remember how I knew him.

Straight from the poster which Ricki had taped to the back of her bedroom door when we were knee deep in our rock chick phase.

Jax.

Jack.

How stinking stupid am I?

How did I not see it before?

Without thinking, without caring about who was on the other side, I slammed the door and shot the lock.

"You're Jax Wynter?" I yelled on a whisper over the sound of the banging of the door, the repeated bleeps of the doorbell.

Obviously, Mom wasn't going away. At the moment, I didn't have time for her and her shit. I had another issue to deal with first.

"Yeah, Lace. I am," he whispered back tightly, his eyes closed and his head back. I heard, and this may sound really weird, I heard
shame
in his voice at his admission.