Worth the Fall (Sugar Mountain #1)

IT’S GETTING HEAVY IN HERE

brOOKLYN

B y the time I heard Thomas’s garage door open, I already knew where he’d gone and what had happened. Someone at the saloon had recorded the debacle, and Lana had gotten ahold of a copy, which she promptly sent to me before calling.

“Tell me that wasn’t extremely hot,” Lana said through the phone, and I heard the video playing again for, like, the tenth time in the background. “Did you see the way Thomas punched Eli after he called you a whore?” Lana’s voice sounded dreamy while I felt like I’d been thrown into some sort of nightmare.

I cleared my throat. “It’s trash-can whore, thank you very much.”

I’d expected that Eli would make me the villain when it came to our divorce, and honestly, I had accepted that part of things. But the level of hatred that he held for me was something I’d never seen coming. The things that he said were vile, and up until tonight, I’d never even heard him talk like that before. It was as jarring as it was shocking.

Lana laughed. “What even is a trash-can whore?”

“Not sure, but apparently, it’s me,” I said, my disbelief and embarrassment running strong like water in my veins.

Lana clearly wanted more excitement out of me. “It was like a scene out of a movie. But it was real. And it was because of you. Thomas kicked his ass for you. So hot,” she said.

“It was,” I agreed.

“Then, why aren’t you raving about this and telling me how you’re going to jump the man’s bones as soon as he walks through the door?”

“Because I still can’t believe Eli said this kind of stuff in public. It’s fucking embarrassing, Lana.”

“I don’t think Eli will be saying anything anymore. Do you?” she asked before adding, “Sven thinks he’ll shut up now too. And even if he doesn’t, no one will believe him. Not after tonight.”

I couldn’t imagine the bad-mouthing continuing, but then again, I’d never thought it would happen in the first place. So, when I tried to respond to Lana’s question, the answer died in my throat.

“Hey, Thomas is walking in. I’ll talk to you later,” I said before ending the call and pushing up from the couch, where I’d been sitting in a sea of blankets.

The door slammed, and I met Thomas in the kitchen and wrapped my arms around him like I’d been doing it forever. I buried my face in his chest as his strong arms held me tight against his hard body. His heart was beating fast, the thumping pounding out against my cheek.

Pushing up on my toes, I looked up at him and noticed those blue eyes raging like a storm. I reached for his neck and pulled him toward me without saying a word. My lips met his, soft at first before I felt him fully give in, his body relaxing and tensing at the same time.

My God.

Kissing Thomas was more sensual than I’d ever imagined, and there wasn’t even any tongue involved. We were both lost in a riptide of emotions, this kiss tethering us together. Our mouths connected, opened and closed, before I broke the kiss slowly, not wanting it to ever end.

“Thank you,” I said in little more than a whisper. “For defending me.”

“You know what happened?” One arm released me while the other kept its grip.

“I do.” I held up my phone that showed a still frame of him and Eli at the saloon. “There’s a video.”

“Shit.” He ran his hand down his face. “Are you pissed at me?”

His question caught me completely off guard. I thought he’d be freaking out that someone had recorded the whole thing and that half the town had probably seen it by now.

“Pissed at you? Are you kidding? I’m so turned on right now that the pants might melt right off my body,” I admitted with a sly grin.

I’d always considered myself a strong woman, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want a man who was willing to go to bat for me. I liked the whole knight in shining armor, alpha male schtick. It didn’t make me feel less than or weak in any way. It honestly made me feel empowered. Two people standing up for one another, no matter the consequences. As long as they had each other, that was all that mattered. Now, that was a partnership I could get behind.

Thomas stared at me like it was his first time seeing me. His eyes roved my body from my legs back up to my mouth. I felt naked under the weight of his stare.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” It was a warning, but I had no time to prepare before his mouth was back on mine, his tongue traveling inside.

Fingertips pressed against my throat before they moved to grip my chin, holding me in place as he took the kiss even deeper. There was this quiet desperation between us, but the kiss was anything but desperate. It was meticulous. And slow.

Thomas was taking his time tasting me, and I was loving every second of it. Our tongues met and danced, flicking and touching before pulling back, like some sort of game. He pulled my bottom lip into his mouth and bit softly. I moaned as I threw my head back, and his mouth was instantly on my neck, nipping and sucking before he was back at my mouth, claiming it like he owned it.

Like he owned me.

We stood in the kitchen, making out like a couple of teenagers until I grabbed his hand, and he flinched, breaking the best kiss of my life.

“Ow,” he mumbled under his breath, and I reached for his hand once more, only softly this time.

“Thomas, oh my gosh. We need to ice this,” I said through wide eyes. His knuckles were bruised and swollen. “Do you think it’s broken?”

He examined it a little and moved his fingers before shaking his head. “No. It will be fine. But ice would be good.”

I made my way to the freezer and pulled open the drawer. A few colorful ice packs sat in the bottom shelf, and I pulled one out, handing it to him.

“Thanks,” he said before laying his hand flat on the counter and putting the pack on top. “So, there’s a video, huh?” he asked with a smirk.

I stood next to him, our knees bumping into each other. “There is,” I answered uncomfortably.

“Can I see it?”

I grabbed my phone and pulled up the still image before pressing the play button. The image roared to life as a shaky camera tried to step in closer to where Eli and Thomas stood, but Matthew put a hand up, stopping the person abruptly. Matthew’s efforts had been in vain though. The camera zoomed in so that Eli’s face was clear as day, as well as Thomas’s back, which was completely recognizable in my opinion. The audio was the only thing muffled with the reactions from the crowd drowning it out at times.

Even still, I could hear enough.

The video ended with Thomas kneeling over Eli and Matthew helping him up. It looked like he’d said something to Eli, but the camera hadn’t picked that part up.

Nervous questions suddenly filled my head. What if Eli pressed charges? This was proof that Thomas had not only started the fight, but he’d also finished it.

Not to mention all the witnesses.

“Say something,” I begged once he finished watching it for the second time.

“Looks accurate.” He shrugged one shoulder, unaffected by what he’d just seen.

“Looks accurate?” I mimicked. “It’s a video. Of course it’s accurate.”

“You said you weren’t mad at me.” He shot me a look, his tone confused.

I put my hand on his forearm, my thumb rubbing against his skin. “I’m not. I just started freaking out about Eli. What if he presses charges or something?”

“He won’t,” Thomas said with sheer confidence that completely contradicted the way I was feeling.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’m pretty sure I hit the stupid right out of him tonight.” He sounded utterly convinced. “Will you send me that though? Just so I have it.”

“Of course,” I said, pulling my hand away and typing a message with the video attached.

When Thomas’s phone vibrated, he glanced down and nodded.

“How the hell were you ever married to that jackass?” he asked, his tone downright offensive as the air between us shifted.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” I bit back defensively.

“I’m sorry, Brooklyn. I just”—he shook his head—“can’t picture it.”

“I guess not all of us choose the right partners the first time around,” I said with more than a little snark that I immediately regretted, but couldn’t take back.

Bringing up his dead wife was a low blow, but he’d taken me by surprise with his shitty question, and I’d reacted in kind instead of thinking it over first. It was a crappy thing to do. Immature. And I hated myself for it.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, but he didn’t say he accepted it or that it was okay.

“Let’s go sit.” He grabbed the ice and made himself comfortable on the couch while I remained in the kitchen, my feet refusing to follow after him.

“I should probably go,” I suggested, and he blew out a long, loud breath.

“Brooklyn. Sit.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“Stop being difficult and get the hell over here before I get up and come get you myself.”

I put up a hand. “Fine. Fine. I’m coming.”

I made my way over to the couch. He was sitting at an angle, so I sat facing him, our legs touching.

“Are you sure you’re not mad at me? I know you said you weren’t, but you’re acting like you are.”

This man could be so perceptive, even if his conclusion was all wrong. Eli and I had not been good at communicating. Talking things out typically went more like me talking and him pretending to listen, mumbling mmhmm and I understand at just the right time. I always ended up feeling more frustrated after than when we’d started.

So, having an honest and straightforward conversation with Thomas was fairly unfamiliar territory for me, even though I craved it.

“I’m not mad at you. I promise. I think I’m mostly mad at myself,” I admitted before running my hands through my hair.

I was hopeful that time would help me stop shouldering all the blame, like I’d somehow been the sole cause of my marriage ending. It was exhausting, hating myself for ignoring the red flags and feeling stupid when I looked back at the whole thing. I’d expected better from the woman I thought I was.

“I know all about blame and the toll it can take on a person. It eats you up inside,” Thomas said, breaking me out of my internal berating.

I sucked in an audible breath. I remembered hearing that his wife had died from a brain aneurysm, but that wasn’t something that Thomas had had any control over. It never occurred to me that he’d struggled with forgiving himself over something like that.

“But you didn’t cause what happened to Jenna.” I said her name like it was stuck on my teeth like taffy.

“I know that now .” He craned his neck to one side, and it cracked. “But for years, I blamed myself for her dying.”

“Why?” I wondered.

Thomas was so logical all the time that blaming himself for something like that seemed out of character. But wasn’t that what love was like? All full of feelings and emotions while logic skipped out the back window.

“I felt like I should have seen it. That there must have been signs that I missed somehow. Like when she was overly tired, but we assumed it was the pregnancy. Or the headaches she always seemed to have. I just think when you love someone, you should know instinctively that they’re not okay. I should have known.” He swallowed hard, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing with the action.

His words were like knives. They hurt to absorb.

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself. And it’s unrealistic to assume that you’d know those kinds of things about another person. Being in love doesn’t suddenly turn you into a doctor.”

I wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but the topic wasn’t even remotely funny.

“I know. But my point is that I blamed myself for something out of my control. The same way that you do. You’re not responsible for how another person acts.”

He delivered his assumption about my guilt and blame so matter-of-factly that I felt cornered by it. A part of me wanted to claw my way out of the house, run far away, and never look back.

“They aren’t the same thing. Your situation is so much”—I searched for the appropriate word—“heavier than mine.”

He didn’t look at all convinced, but I could tell that he was about to placate me anyway. “Okay, sure. But the blame, that internal feeling, it’s the same. Regardless of the situation.”

So logical.

This man was filled with it. I watched as he shifted on the couch, removing the ice and putting it on the floor. It probably wasn’t even cold anymore.

“Can I ask you something?” His blue eyes were no longer stormy.

“I don’t think it would stop you if I said no.” I let out a little laugh.

“It wouldn’t.” He grinned in response, and I felt my shoulders relax, the instinct to flee dissipating. “Do you regret getting married?”

It was a question I hadn’t even asked myself yet, but the answer came to me so quickly that I didn’t even second-guess it. “No, I don’t regret it. I just wish that I hadn’t been so naive about it.”

“Why do you think you were naive? I’m not judging. I’m sincerely asking.”

I took my time formulating my thoughts so that they made sense. Or at least they did to me. “First of all, it’s a surreal thing when a guy says that he wants to marry you. All of your insecurities kind of go flying right out the window. Here’s this man, and he’s declaring that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Flaws and all. He knows all of your ugly parts, and he’s telling you that they’re okay. That you’re still lovable, even when you think you’re more imperfect than anything else.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever said any of those thoughts out loud before—at least not to anyone other than myself. Thomas looked a little awestruck, and I couldn’t believe that I’d admitted all of that to him. He stayed quiet, his blue eyes watching me, as if waiting for me to tell him more, so I did.

“I think I feel naive because it’s obvious that I romanticized the situation instead of seeing it clearly, you know? I figured that Eli would grow up, and once he did, certain things about him would change,” I answered, feeling foolish. “But people don’t change.”

I watched him swallow hard as he shifted his legs again.

“Not typically, but they can grow up. I don’t think it was naive of you to assume that he would at some point.”

“It feels that way. Like I knew exactly who I was getting when I married him, and then I suddenly expected someone totally different.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” he said, as if he knew my situation better than I did.

“Okay, fine. It might not have been suddenly . But at some point, when I started having more success at work, I wanted him to want that, too, you know? I expected him to want the same things that I did. But he just wanted everything to stay the same. He liked his life how it was. He was comfortable.”

Thomas shook his head. “That’s not on you, Brooklyn. You weren’t naive. You matured. You evolved. The right man won’t sit there and watch you outgrow him. He’ll grow right along with you or at least try his best to.”

“He didn’t try at all,” I said, hoping he believed me.

“It sounds like he didn’t. Could you imagine staying with the wrong person for the rest of your life just because you’d made a vow to do it?”

My stomach curled and twisted. “No. That’s why I had to leave,” I said. “If I didn’t choose myself, I knew that no one ever would.”

“I’d choose you,” he said, and I felt my mouth open as Thomas leaned toward me, his hand still chilled from the ice as he touched my leg.

I couldn’t crawl across the couch quick enough as I moved toward him, straddling his body before I took my next breath. Something hard poked through his pants and hit me right at my core. I couldn’t stop myself from grinding against it; it felt so damn good. Everything about Thomas made me feel better than I ever had.

“Brooklyn,” he groaned before gripping the back of my neck and pulling me down toward him. “Only a fool would let you go,” he said before kissing me.

His tongue snaked inside my mouth with purpose, and my insides instantly heated to a boil. We were feral, animalistic in our desire for one another. I felt like I might come apart if he didn’t start touching me underneath my clothes. Just thinking about his skin on mine almost made me fall to pieces.

So, when he pulled away gently to break the kiss, I almost started whimpering.

“You have to forgive yourself at some point for your marriage ending, Brooklyn,” he said softly, his lips still achingly close to my own.

“I just haven’t figured out how to yet,” I admitted in a whisper.

His body tensed. “You just need more time,” he suggested, his voice taking on a slightly disappointed tone.

“You’re probably right.”

Thomas lifted me off of his lap and placed me on my feet next to the couch and I knew the night was over.

“I should probably head out.” I thumbed behind me before he could be the one to ask me to leave.

“I’ll walk you,” he offered, and I didn’t argue because I knew it would be no use.

I grabbed my purse and jacket while I mentally tried to figure out exactly what had happened to throw our vibe into a tailspin.

We walked to my car in silence, and Thomas gave me a soft but quick kiss on the mouth.

He shut my driver’s door for me, and I started the engine, unable to shake the feeling that the kiss had somehow felt like a goodbye.

Like I might not get the chance to do it again.

I gave Thomas a wave as I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. I wasn’t sure what had changed, but something had.

And definitely not for the better.