Page 7 of Forever After Fall

Anson fucking Briggs is standing there behind me in the fluorescent light with a rumpled dress shirt blessedly covering the front of his pants. I just had my hand down them. Wrapped around his dick. Begging him to suck my nipples until I came.

Hazel’s brother. Ford’s father. The man who was married to my sister before she passed away.

I blanch before I feel my cheeks light up with heat. It races down my neck and over my chest. My mind fumbles with half-thought-out apologies and excuses, how to explain that I didn’t realize who it was I was feeling up in the dark. But then I’d have to explain how I’m the kind of mess right now that stumbles into a closet and feels a man up before I bother to verify his identity.

“I thought he—” I start and then stop as his eyes lift from the floor. I wait for them to meet mine. But they look past me. Through me even. Straight to Marlowe.

“Too much good whiskey.” He flashes the smile I’ve seen him use with clients.

“I can see that.” Marlowe chuckles.

Anson and I can’t have too much whiskey. I help him with Ford. He helps me with odd jobs around Many Moons and at my mom’s house. He slips me an extra thousand a month for being the “nanny” his teenage son most definitely no longer needs, and I use it to make sure my mom has a caregiver on the days I’m working and can’t check in on her. He stocks her fridge, and I cook dinner on the nights he doesn’t make it home in time to grab something off the road for Ford. He eats the leftovers in silence and helps with the dishes. We’re co-managers of what’s left of our family. Friends on a good day. Most definitely not anything approaching a situation where too much good whiskey has us losing clothes and boundaries in a closet.

Marlowe must sense the shift in the room the same way I do because she suddenly looks contrite and apologetic for interrupting us.

“I’ll leave you to some privacy. I can get the whiskey. Take your time.” Marlowe grabs a couple of bottles and excuses herself, shutting the door behind her.

I stare at it for a long moment in silence. The bright fluorescent light reveals the stark industrial nature of the hotel storage room for what it is. A wine and spirits cellar. Not the linen closet Jasper had directed me to find him in.

I stare at a massive bottle of whiskey in front of me. Wondering if I could just jump inside and erase the last thirty minutes from my mind. Even as I think it, a flashback comes unbidden.

The heat of his mouth on my breast. The soft ebb and flow of want that echoed down to my clit as he teased me with what he could do. The warmth of him in my palm. How fucking big he was.

I know the size of Anson’s dick now. I’ll never get that out of my head. No whiskey is going to stop that memory from returning. I pinch the bridge of my nose as I shut my eyes, drawing in a deep breath and hoping the courage I need to push through this awkward conversation comes with it.

“I didn’t know it was you. I thought you were—” I start.

“Jasper.” Anson finishes my sentence abruptly. “I caught that.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You said your best friend’s brother. I realize now you never said a name, but I thought you knew.”

“I’m sorry. I was doing shots with the girls. I was already drunk, and I—You have to know I would never have crossed that line with you—not in a million years.” I wince as I think about what a mess I’ve made of this situation.

“Forget it.” Whatever glimpse of a version of a carefree Anson I’d gotten a few minutes ago is gone now. Replaced by the cool, practiced mask of the all-work-no-play man I’ve known for years. He zips his pants and buckles his belt methodically.

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“We’re okay?”

“We’re fine. It’s a wedding. There’s alcohol. It was dark.” He quickly outlines a get-out-of-jail-free card for me, but he moves to make a wide berth around me as he heads for the door.

The man can’t get away from me fast enough, and I feel a pang in my chest when he closes it behind him. Whoever we were before leaves the room with him. I know that much, regardless of whatever platitudes he gives to make his escape.

Our relationship might not have been particularly warm before, but it was reliable—comfortable even—and now I’ve taken dynamite to all that bedrock with one little mistake that I have a feeling I’ll regret for a long time to come.

FOUR

Anson

Fucking hell.

I’m walking as fast as I can without breaking into a run. Straight for the nearest exit. I need air. I need space. I yank at the tie around my neck, loosening the grip it has on my throat, as I slam into the bar on the door, unlatching it and popping it open into the emptiness of the night. I walk to the edge of the patio, leaning against the railing as I run my fingers through my hair for the fourth or fifth time since I got out here. I’m sure I look like a mess.

I am one.