Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book) by Reinhardt, Liz (knowledgeable books to read TXT) 📕

the dark of my room, Winch strips my clothes off with efficient ease, no fear or reluctance. His hands run over my body, cradling my skin, caressing every inch of me with a finality I don't want to ponder too long.

My silky green dress is puddled next to us on the floor, my flimsy underthings twisted in the sheets. I tug his clothes off, careful of the bruises that still purple his body, slowly turning a dingy green around the edges. When we're both naked, our hands running up and down over the hot skin of each other's bodies, he whispers against my ear, a long, shaky string of sentences in a language I don't need to be fluent in to understand.

He's saying good-bye.

My brain realizes it, but my heart rejects it completely. And my body is convinced it can change his mind.

My kisses are quick and light while his voice rumbles against my ears, but they pick up and press harder when he falls silent. I lick and nip until my mouth and tongue and teeth coordinate to restructure the cadence of his breathing and, when I lay my hands on his chest, I can feel the frantic beat of his heart.

Frantic from me, frantic for us, frantic over love.

"Winch," I moan, leaning over to grab for a condom, eager to draw this out, but twice as eager to be with him and capture him in an inescapable moment while he's, possibly, looking for a reason to stay.

His mouth slides over mine, his hands run up my back and press into my hair, and everything goes still for a second when I straddle his hips, pressing against him and over him the same way I have with so many other guys before, but also in a way that's completely new and wholly, totally, extremely for Winch and Winch alone. I roll the condom on and press myself down on the length of his hard-on, flattening my palms on his chest as we fit together.

"I love you," I declare, my voice rubbed raw from the confusion of never being sure with him coupled with the pleasant pain of always trusting, no matter what.

He drags his hands down my arms, my ribs, and holds my hips tight, his teeth clenched, his head thrown back, like he's fighting against the fall. I kiss his neck, the space behind his jaw, along his stubbly chin, and pull his face up to kiss his lips, his mouth, him.

I use my hands and mouth and words to push him closer to the edge.

"Only you," I whisper, and the rhythm of our two bodies is awkward and jerky because my eagerness is warring with his attempt to hold back. "I know you came here to tell me...it's over."

"Evan," he pleads, his eyes slitting open, deep blue and welled with drunken sadness.

He wraps his arms around me and buries his face in the space between my neck and my shoulder, kissing and sucking at my skin before he pulls away with a groan.

I rock harder against him, loving the full, heavy, pumping feel of his body in mine.

"Don't. Don't hold back, Winch. Let go. Let go with me."

"I can't," he begs. "Evan, I can't. I promised...I promised not to break your heart." His hands hold firm until he stills me. He looks right at me, his eyes bloodshot and ringed with purple bruising. "I made a promise I couldn't keep. I took a gamble, and I shouldn't have. I thought I could leave before something like this happened. And now it happened." His voice cracks, and he lifts a hand to my face, tracing a thumb gently across my jaw. "If I could walk away, I would. But I can't. I can't, Evan. And this one is the end."

I have no idea what happened. Laundering? Drug trafficking? Murder? There's nothing I'd put past the Youngbloods.

But I lace his fingers through mine and shake my head. "I'll never give up on you. I can't do it. I tried, and I can't, so I'm not going to waste my time. We're in this together, whatever it is."

He flips me over so the long, hard weight of his body covers mine. He kisses my lips, runs his tongue along my jaw, sucks softly down my neck, nuzzles my hair. He doesn't agree or disagree with my proclamation.

"I don't deserve you," he chokes out, and moves against me with all the desperation of a guy who has nothing to lose.

A guy who's ready to fall because he's between a rock and a cliff's edge.

And, as his body clings close to mine and shudders right along with me, I know he thinks this is the end. That this is his last grab before the long, lonely descent.

What he doesn't realize is that I'm already standing at the bottom, waiting to catch him. And I never miss.

Winch 15

I never drink more than a beer or two, at the most. You can't keep a reputation for being level-headed when you're stumbling like an asshole. I'm a melancholy boozer, anyway, the no-fun kind of drunk who sulks in a corner until he passes out. Lala used to complain that partying with me was like hanging out with the school chaperone.

Even if I was a happier alchie, seeing someone as constantly lit as my brother always is kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth where alcohol’s concerned. I'd mopped up my fair share of regurgitated Jack and Coke, and I'm at a place now where just hearing that drink order turns my stomach.

But when Colt called and I went home to my dour, straight-lipped family and they spelled out what happened and what needed to happen, I grabbed my mother's bottle of Evan Williams. And had a few shots. Then drove to Evan's house.

Not the best idea. I think Benelli wanted to stop me, but our father held her back. Our father isn't always the most rational person, but I think he would have