Before We Fall

Chapter Nine

Jacey

The sunshine is bright as I collapse into the seat of my car with my coffee and my purse. How the hell did morning come so fast? God. Is there anything worse than mornings?

I turn the key and realize that, yes, something is worse.

A morning when your car doesn’t start and you’re supposed to be on time for Joe’s Gladiators or “you can forget about coming back in” is worse.

Fuck.

“You’re a piece of shit.” I berate my car as I turn the key again and again. But there’s nothing. Only a depressing click that announces in its mechanical way that my engine is not only dead, it’s really fucking dead.

Poor Brand. Because I do the only thing I ever know to do nowadays. I reach for my phone and call him.

“Yes?” he groans sleepily, forgoing a hello.

I quickly explain my predicament, and true to form, like a knight in a big-ass shining F-150, he rides to my rescue with a droll expression and bed-head.

I smile sheepishly as I climb into the truck.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” I tell him truthfully. “I just didn’t know what to do. I have no idea what’s wrong with my car and I could take the El, but I’m not sure where the closest stop is to the gym, and if I’m late, I’m done. Joe doesn’t put up with that.”

Brand shakes his head as he pulls back out into traffic. “Don’t worry about it. I’d rather you not get into trouble again. Who needs sleep anyway?” His voice is husky and rough and if I had any doubts that I’d woken him up, I’d be over them now as I listen to his sleepy voice.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him again. “I’ll pay for your coffee this morning. How’s that?”

Brand grins at me good-naturedly. “Deal.”

I stare out the window, watching the Chicago bustle as it passes by. So far, there’s no sign of the odd look that I’d seen in Brand’s eyes the other night, and for that I’m thankful. I really, really just need for us to be normal. Unfortunately for Brand, normal always entails saving me from something.

“Do you ever get tired of bailing me out?” I muse aloud. “I know Gabe used to lecture me all the time. You never do.”

“That’s because I’m a saint,” Brand announces as he turns onto a side street and heads his big truck toward the gym. “You can ask anyone.”

I giggle. “I don’t have to ask anyone. You put up with me, so you should definitely be canonized. I’m gonna have to talk to the pope about that.”

“You’re not Catholic,” Brand points out as he turns into Joe’s parking lot.

“I know,” I answer. “I’m gonna have to turn on my charm.”

“Good Lord,” Brand shakes his head. “No need to give the man a heart attack. I’ll be back to pick you up tonight. Call a tow truck to come get your car.”

I’m kissing his cheek when I hear the roar of a car pull up next to us. The sound of that engine, powerful and loud, is unmistakable, and I know before I even look that it’s Dom.

I murmur good-bye to Brand and glance at Dom as I climb from the truck. I can feel Brand staring after me, but I ignore it. I can’t think about Brand at all, because frankly, whenever Dominic is near, he owns the vicinity.

He’s dressed in black today: dark washed jeans and a tight black T-shirt that skims his chest just right. His green eyes somehow even look black as he stares at me, waiting for me to walk past. He takes in everything… the way I kissed Brand, the way I move from the truck, the way I try not to look at him.

His lip twitches, and once again I get the feeling that he knows me. Everything about me. It’s disconcerting.

I walk past him and he follows. I can feel every step he takes, his presence behind me a tangible thing, like a force field of sexiness and arrogance. I do my best to ignore it.

When we reach the door, I pause, and he reaches around to grab it, opening it for me. As he does, I catch a whiff of his scent, something unique to him. Musky yet spicy, totally male. I inhale deeply as I walk in, never once looking back at him, even when I mutter thank you for holding the door.

I’m not falling for his sexier-than-thou attitude. Spread-eagled on his bed, my ass. He can kiss my ass right now.

I think I hear him chuckle as I lift my nose in the air, but I’m not sure. And I don’t care. I make a beeline for Joe’s office to find out what he wants me to do. Dominic follows me at a respectable distance, and together we get our marching orders from Joe, who seems especially crusty today.

“I want you to clean out the locker room,” he tells Dominic tiredly before he looks at me. “And Jacey, you can help weigh the boys. We’ve got to get their weights logged so that they’re official for the week. The clipboard is over there and the scale is in the locker room.”

“Are you okay?” I ask him hesitantly as I reach for the clipboard. “You seem… tired.”

He stares at me, his steely eyes cloudy. “Do I also seem like I have ovaries? If I want to chat like a girl, I’ll let you know.”

Burn.

My cheeks explode at the put-down, and I can practically feel Dominic smirking at me. I know Joe’s bark is worse than his bite… but god. His bark is pretty bad.

“Noted,” I answer quietly as I head for the locker room.

Dominic follows me silently.

He doesn’t mention Joe’s bad mood, and I don’t either. I’m grateful for his silence because I feel a little humiliated at the moment. There’s nothing worse than putting yourself out there, only to get stomped on.

We set to work, Dominic cleaning the walls and metal lockers, and me weighing giant, sweaty boys.

The entire time, I know exactly where Dominic is in the locker room, even if I’m not looking at him. I feel him. I feel his presence in relation to mine. I hear his breath, his movements. I smell his cologne. I’m aware of him. Regardless of how determined I am to ignore him, there’s electricity between us, and I can’t pretend it’s not there.

I know he feels it too, because every time I do glance at him, he seems to be looking at me, his dark, dark eyes holding something in them that I can’t describe.

I gulp and scribble down a weight, then motion the next boy to step up.

Jake grins at me as he pretends to shield himself, his big boyish hands splayed in front of his chest.

“You’re not gonna kick me today, are ya?” He laughs as he steps onto the scale. I move the counterbalance to get his accurate weight and roll my eyes.

“Two-eighteen. And no, not unless you try to grope me again.”

He laughs and steps off. “I wasn’t trying to grope you. That was just me saying hello.”

“Huh.” I sniff as I log his weight. “Try saying it with your mouth next time, instead of your hands.”

He chuckles again. “You’re all right, Jacey. For a chick.”

I sniff again, but I smile at him this time. Joe did say that I just needed to show them who’s boss. The other boys seemed to have learned from Jake’s mistake, because they’re all friendly to me now, and maybe even a little nervous. I smile at that thought and motion another boy up.

Time passes quickly, and before I know it, Joe comes in.

“You two.” He motions toward Dom and me. “Come with me.”

We glance at each other, but follow Joe’s lumbering steps as he leads us into the gym’s kitchen. It’s a large, older room with crudded-up corners and yellowed counter tops.

“The kids out there, they don’t usually have enough to eat,” he tells us. “I try to make sure that they get something here, an after-school snack, I call it. But really, it’s a meal. The walk-in needs to be cleaned up and the food needs to be organized. Throw anything bad out, but only if it’s bad. I’m not made of money, and we need to be judicious with supplies. Got it?”

We both nod, and I’m impressed once again with Joe’s heart, even if he did snap my head off.

He leaves us and Dom and I look around.

“Well, fuck.” Dom sighs, glancing at the dented-in cooler door. “This is going to take a while.”

I shrug. “Oh, well. I’d rather be busy than sitting around counting down the minutes till we go home.”

“Well, okay then. After you, Princess.” Dom gestures with a shrug, holding open the heavy metal door, allowing me to go first. “Don’t trip on the rust. Jesus. I think these appliances were made in 1940.”

He’s right. The cooler is a relic, old and creaky. I don’t even like to be near it, much less in it.

As we step inside, I automatically shiver, running my hands over my goose-bump-covered arms as I look around at the haphazardly stacked shelves of food. It smells like stale food, standing water, and armpits in here.

“God. I don’t think this place has been cleaned since 1940, either.”

I poke at the food, some of it outdated and some of it fresh, and Dom sighs. “Well, this is gonna take a while. I can see that. We forgot the bucket and sponges. I’ll be right back.”

He turns back toward the dented door, but when he pushes down the handle, nothing happens.

“What the hell?” he mutters. He wiggles it harder, then puts his weight into it. I stare at him, dumbfounded, watching him struggle to open the door. Finally, he turns around and stares at me.

“We’re locked in here.”

I try not to freak out as I shrug and stare at the locked door.

“Don’t worry. Joe will come hunting for us before he leaves. It’ll be okay.”

But Joe doesn’t.

And it’s not okay.

It’s freaking cold. It’s small. It smells like a swamp. And we’re trapped.

We straighten the food on the shelves in an effort to move around so that we don’t get too cold as we wait, but eventually we run out of things to do. And I’ve got goose bumps on every plane of my body, and still Joe doesn’t come.

I bang on the door, the cold metal stinging my hands, but no one hears. I shout. But no one hears. I even kick the door. No one hears and no one comes. Finally, I slide to the floor dejectedly.

“Can we freeze to death in here?” I look up at Dominic, who is leaning against the wall, apparently calm.

He shakes his head. “Nah. It’s a cooler, not a freezer. It won’t be comfortable, but we won’t die.”

“When do you think someone will find us?” My voice is small and Dominic glances at me.

“It’s hard to say. I don’t know if Joe walks around and does a final check before he goes home at night, or not.”

“Fuck.” I sigh, letting my head fall backward against the wall.

“You can say that again,” Dominic tell me as he slides down to sit next to me, letting his head rest against the wall, too.

“Fuuuck.” I draw the word out for maximum impact. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. For a second, the walls close in around me until something occurs to me.

“My cell phone!” I blurt, suddenly remembering that we’re in the twenty-first century. I pull it out of my pocket, but am dejected yet again to find that I don’t have a signal.

I look over to find Dominic shaking his head. “I don’t have a signal either. These walls on this cooler are thick and metal. Nothing’s getting through it.”

“I think the universe might be throwing us together,” I finally answer, putting my cell back in my pocket.

I’m kidding, but Dominic smirks again, his trademark smirk… the one that made him famous. Even now he seems cool and calm, which is exactly the opposite of how I feel.

“Like fate?” he asks. “I don’t believe in it. And if there is a Fate, she’s a cruel bitch.”

I stare at him because there’s something in his face now, something vulnerable, just for a second. Something hurt. But then he covers it up and once again, he’s a closed book. I can’t help but be intrigued by these glimpses. There’s so much more to Dominic Kinkaide than anyone knows. I can feel it.

“Well, we’re stuck in here together. We might as well get to know each other,” I tell him, in large part because of that look in his eye. “Because god only knows how long we’ll be here, and the silence is killing me.”

Dominic is already shaking his head. “No, thanks. I don’t care to see the details of my life splashed across the tabloids tomorrow. But thanks anyway.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and settles down, closing his eyes.

I shake my head, feeling a little sad at his outlook on life. “It must suck to be you,” I tell him. “To always think the worst of people. You should know, not everyone is out to use you. Or exploit you. Just FYI.”

He opens his eyes, raising an eyebrow. “Really? It’s been my experience that generally, someone wants something from me. I’m a big one to learn from past experiences.”

“I bet you are,” I answer wryly. “Too bad it seems like not many of them were good.”

Dominic scowls as he tries to get more comfortable on the floor next to me, his long legs crossing at the ankles.

“You don’t know anything about me. You only know what my publicist manufactures for the public. Everything you know about me is engineered, perfectly placed, perfectly timed. It’s all a game, Princess. The masses just don’t know that.”

The masses. As if the rest of the world is completely separate from him. Apparently, I’m part of the masses, along with everyone else, while Dominic is alone. In his mind, it’s Dominic against the world.

Suddenly, I really do feel sorry for him. He might be rich, and he might be gorgeous, but he wears the utter weariness of his life on his face. It’s clearly way too much for someone his age. It’s like he’s a hundred years old and he’s just tired of it all.

“You know, if you don’t like your life, you can change it,” I tell him, my lip shivering with the cold. “You’ve got the world on a string. You can do anything you want. You realize that, right?”

Dominic stares at me, his green eyes gleaming in a dangerous way. “We work together for a couple days and you think you know me now?”

I ignore his sharp tone. “No. Of course not. But I know of you. And I can see a lot on your face. More than you’d probably like for me to.”

He stares at me, his gaze unreadable. “Such as?”

I stare at him, appraising him. “You’re jaded. And dark. And something has hurt you badly, something in your past. You think you’re all alone and you’re tired of everything.”

Dominic breathes sharply, not taking his eyes off of mine. “You think you can see all that?”

I nod slowly, not breaking our gaze. “I know that I can. Want to talk about it?”

Dominic chuckles now, a humorless laugh. “Hell, no. Like I said, I don’t need to see shit about myself in the tabloids. They publish enough lies about me. I don’t need to give them truths to work with. Nice try, though.”

I can feel heat from his body emanating from him and I scoot a bit closer.

“Sorry,” I tell him when he glances at me. “I’m freaking cold. And you’re warm.”

“Fine,” he answers, lifting his arm to wrap it around my shoulders. “But no pictures. I don’t want this on any form of social media. Trust me, you don’t either. They’ll hound you for weeks.”

I roll my eyes. “I know that might be what you’re used to, but taking a picture with you is the last thing on my mind at this point. All I can care about is not losing my fingers and toes to hypothermia.”

“Has anyone told ever you that you’re a bit melodramatic?” Dominic asks dryly, although his arm does tighten a bit around my shoulders.

I chuckle, but don’t reply. I enjoy sitting with him for several minutes before the silence starts to gnaw at me.

“Okay. This quiet is killing me. You might not want to talk,” I tell him. “But I’m going to distract myself. Let’s play Twenty Questions.”

Dominic rolls his eyes, then closes them. “Go for it.”

“Did you have a good childhood?”

He doesn’t open his eyes. “No comment.”

I chew on my lip. “Okay. Have you ever had a crush on a costar?”

I look at him, but he still doesn’t open his eyes. “No comment,” he answers again.

I hesitate, dying to ask him something, but terrified to do it. But in typical Jacey Vincent fashion, I barge ahead and do it anyway. “That girl you were with at the party… was that Emma?”

He completely tenses up, I can see every muscle freeze as he opens his eyes and stares at me. “How do you know about Emma?”

The look on his face is almost frightening in its intensity. “Your sister mentioned her the night we met,” I answer slowly. “You were smacked in the head, so you probably don’t remember.”

I watch a myriad of things cross his face—confusion, sadness, pain, and something else dark that I can’t identify—before he finally shakes his head. “No. And I have no other fucking comment.”

The mood around us has turned as dark as Dominic’s expression, and I’m not sure what to do about it. His reaction is fascinating, but I’m sure not going to press him for more, not if the mere mention of the girl turns his mood so black. So instead I change the subject.

“What’s it like being Sin Kinkaide’s brother?”

He stares at me drolly now, the ugliness gone from his eyes. “You should ask him what it’s like to be my brother.”

I shake my head, amused by his arrogance. “I would, but I’m trapped in here with you, not him. And you’re not cooperating in this game.”

Dominic smiles slowly. “You’re very astute, Princess. That’s because I don’t want to play. Unless I get to ask you the questions. That would be more fun.”

I shrug. “Fine. Shoot. You ask me, I’ll answer.”

He stares at me. “Are you high maintenance?”

I smile. “That’s an easy one. No.”

“Do you dream in color?”

I roll my eyes. “You’re not even trying now. I think everyone dreams in color. I’ve never heard of anyone dreaming in black and white. In fact, I had the weirdest dream the other night, and it was in full color. I dreamed that it was raining, but that the raindrops turned into pink rose petals. And then when I looked at the ground, it was covered in a foot of petals, just like snow.”

Dominic raises an eyebrow. “So, you romanticize precipitation. Interesting.”

I smile. “I romanticize everything. That’s just me.”

Dominic shakes his head. “That’ll probably get you into trouble.”

I stare at him. “I think I already told you. It’s my nature to like trouble. I’m trying not to, but it goes against my grain. Next question.”

“Why did you get between me and Cris? You could’ve been seriously hurt… even more than you were.”

Dominic is staring at me now with interest, genuine curiosity in his eyes. I shake my head.

“Because I’m a human being,” I answer. “I think anyone would step in and try to keep two people from killing each other. It’s the decent thing to do.”

“Are you decent?” Dominic’s lip twitches.

I smile. “Sometimes.”

“Why did you and your last boyfriend break up? Was he trouble?”

Holy shit. His abrupt change of direction sends a knife through my gut, because the answer to that question is ugly.

Jared was definitely trouble and he killed someone I love.

But I don’t say that. Instead, I murmur, “No comment.”

Dominic rolls his eyes. “Then this game isn’t so fun. Why don’t you just tell me about your childhood or some shit?”

So I do. Anything to get what Jared did out of my head… To not think of those images. The crumpled truck, the blood spatters, the screams when Maddy came to the accident scene.

I talk myself blue in the face to get that shit out of my head.

I tell Dom about my childhood and what it was like growing up with Gabe and my suck-ass parents. I tell him about Brand and how he’s always been like my brother. I tell him how I used to work in the summers for my best friend, Maddy, but then she married my brother and moved to Connecticut. When I pause to take a breath, Dom has his eyes open again, staring at me.

“That big blond guy is like your brother?” he asks doubtfully. “That’s a strange sibling relationship.”

His tone is weird and I narrow my eyes. “What are you implying?”

He shrugs. “Nothing. I just sense some incest there, is all.”

I literally shudder. “That’s fucking gross. Brand taught me to ride a bike.”

Dom just looks at me. “All I know is that the way that guy looks at you is far from brotherly. I know what I know.”

A weird feeling passes through me, because I have been ignoring that new look in Brand’s eye. I keep hoping that I’ll never see it again, but deep down, I know that I will. And deep down, I know that Dom is right.

“Well, it’s nice of you to notice,” I tell him snippily. “But you don’t know what you don’t know. And you’re wrong.”

“I’m rarely wrong,” he answers arrogantly. I can see that he really believes that.

“Does everyone around you always tell you what you want to hear?” I demand. “Do they tell you that you’re a genius, that you’re perfect, and that you’re never wrong?”

“They don’t have to tell me,” he smirks.

Because he already knows. I gag a little and roll my eyes.

“Have they ever told you that you’re arrogant?”

He nods, the corner of his mouth twitching a bit. “That might have been mentioned,” he admits. I can tell that he doesn’t care.

I settle more fully into the crook of his arm, enjoying the way his woodsy scent envelops me, even in the cold air.

“What’s it like to film a movie?” I ask conversationally, changing the subject.

I have to talk about something or I’ll go out of my mind. I could swear the cooler has gotten smaller since we’ve been trapped in here. Dominic closes his eyes again and his fingers rest against my side. I don’t think he even notices, but I certainly do.

“It’s fine,” he tells me. “I’m not much of a people person, but even though millions of people see me onscreen, it doesn’t seem like that when we’re filming.”

“So you’re an introvert?” I ask with interest.

He nods without opening his eyes. “Most definitely. My brothers got the extrovert genes.”

“Ah, yes. The badass rockers. They definitely seem to love the limelight. Is that it… two brothers and one sister?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “That’s it.”

“You’re lucky,” I tell him. “All I have is Gabe.”

“And he’s the only one who counts because your parents are worthless?” Dominic asks with interest, repeating my words from earlier. It’s the first time he actually seems interested.

“So you were listening!” I nudge him. And he smiles. A real smile, the first time I’ve seen it on him. I decide that it’s well worth the wait. His smile almost warms the room up all by itself, like the heavens opened up and the light shone down on us through the clouds.

“I couldn’t help but listen,” he tells me, his eyes almost warm. “You weren’t going to shut up and I can’t go anywhere.”

I giggle and he smiles, and for a second we seem like friends.

“Why exactly are your parents worthless?” he asks after a minute. I’m surprised that he would go out of his way to ask, so even though it makes me uncomfortable, I answer.

“My mom never really wanted to be a mom and she’s not good at it. When she and my dad got divorced, she took it as an opportunity to do whatever she wants to do. She has a new boyfriend every week. I rarely hear from my dad. He always thought it was enough to just send my mom a child-support check.”

A stab of pain slices through me as I admit it out loud. It’s like announcing to the world, Hey, there’s something so wrong with me that my parents don’t care if I’m alive. But Dominic doesn’t seem to see it that way.

“Their loss,” he shrugs. “That’s what I tell myself whenever I hear a bad review or someone totally disses me. It’s their loss. Not yours.”

“If you really believe that, then I admire you,” I tell him. “I guess I’ve got thinner skin than that.”

“Well, there’s your first mistake,” he answers. “You’ve got to grow some thick skin. Or some balls.”

“I’ve got balls,” I announce. “They’re made of steel.”

Dominic laughs. “Really? This I’ve got to see.”

In a flurry of sudden movement, his arm snakes around my waist, finding its way to my crotch. With one hand on my back holding me in place, he strokes me with the other, just for a second. The heat from his palm melds with the heat between my legs, and a million needles shoot down into my legs, weakening my knees.

I gasp and my eyes meet his, and I’m frozen as my heart pounds and my fingers shake.

“It appears that you don’t, in fact, have balls,” he tells me quietly, without removing his hand from my crotch.

“It was a figure of speech,” I croak needlessly, although of course he knows that. “You can move your hand now.”

“Oh, can I?” His voice is velvet, smooth as butter.

Instead of moving it away, his fingers move against me and my nerve endings burst into flame, spreading a fire from my crotch to my thighs to my chest.

Why aren’t I moving away from him?

The simple answer is: I don’t want to. I should want to… Dominic Kinkaide is an asshole most of the time. But holy shit, he’s a sexy asshole. And to be quite honest, I don’t think I could move to save my life. It’s like I’m suspended here, dangling from the tips of his fingers.

He lowers his head and his lips graze my ear.

“Still want me to move? Because I know an excellent way to keep warm.”

My breath hitches again, at the intimacy in his tone, at the warmth of his lips, at the way my heart has taken off in my chest. I open my mouth to say something and nothing comes out.

Dominic moves his fingers again, rubbing me on the outside of my pants, urging me toward a precipice that I’m not sure I want to climb toward. Not with him. Yet I can’t move away. I gulp.

“You want to,” he says knowingly. “You’re wet. I can feel it through your clothes.”

Very purposefully, just like he does everything else, he holds his fingers up like a trophy, his eyes glued to mine. As I watch in astonishment, he raises them to his nose and inhales them.

“Are you feeling warm yet?”

I watch his lips as he speaks the words, husky and low. His lips are full yet manly, and suddenly I ache to lean over and press mine to his, to touch them in any way that I can.

But I don’t.

Because I’m not a girl who gets used. Not anymore.

“No, not at all.”

But Dominic takes that as a challenge. He’s not used to hearing the word no and he’s not about to start now. I see that in his dark eyes a scant moment before he dips his head and consumes my mouth.

I say consume instead of kiss, because that’s what he does.

He consumes me.

His lips are fiery and hot and he kisses me with a fierceness that touches a secret part of me, moist, hot, firm, sexy. I want to inhale him, to suck him down. I vaguely feel his hands on my back, his warmth emanating through my clothes, his hardness pushing into my softness.

I’m breathless when he pulls away.

“What about now?”

For the life of me, I’m afraid to answer that. Instead I pull away, just a bit, just enough that there is some space between us, but I can still absorb his warmth. As my teeth chatter, both from the cold and from the sudden absence of his lips, I answer.

“I’m good.”

He laughs, a husky, low, naughty sound.

“Oh, I’m sure of that.”

And just like that, I’m drawn back in… in toward his sexy smile, his arrogant gaze, and his knowing smirk. He’s bad for me. Very bad for me. I’ve got to remember that.

He will decimate you, I tell myself.

But my problem is, every time I look into his dark eyes and see the mysterious things that lurk there, I forget that. I forget everything that is supposed to matter.