BREAK MY FALL CHAPTER 5

grumpysunshine #enemiestolovers #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #angstyromance #newadultromance #authorsofinstagram #amreading #amwriting #booklovers #booksofinstagram #booknerd #romancereads #romancebooks #contemporaryromance #booktok #smutreaders #militaryromance #bookish #smutreaders #collegeromance #bookofthemonth #bookrecs #spicybooks#bookrecomendations #romancereadersofinstagram #readersofig #romancereader #smalltownromance #bookworm #booksta #booklover #coho #alphahero #oppositesattract #homefront #cominghomeseries #jessicascott #bookofthemonth #top10books #romancebooksofinstagram #whattoread #romancelandia #bookboyfriend #bookish #spicyromance #newadultbooks #bookblogger #mustread #smuttyromance #steamybooks #spicybookstagram #romancecovers #goodreadsromance #goodreads #tbr #netflixbooks #netflixromance #passionflix #booksofig #shelfie #ilovebooks #bookobsessed #bookreviews #bookgram #booksbooksbooks #indieromance #romancebookstagram #bookaddict

BREAK MY FALL CHAPTER 5

Josh

“Let’s not devolve into personal attacks,” Quinn finally interrupts.

I’m breathing hard now. My fists are tight in my lap. I can’t stop. I want to shut my mouth but everything is spinning too fast, too far out of control. I need to get out. Get away. I can’t do this. My advisor was wrong. So fucking wrong. I can’t do this.

Ms. Hilliard breaks through the vibrating anger in my brain. “I thought we were going to be able to discuss things? Isn’t that what college is all about?”

She draws Quinn’s attention away from me, and for a moment, I sit there and just try to breathe. To yank my temper and my emotions back under control.

I am falling. Again. Into the rage and the hate and the anger.

“He’s clearly personally involved in this,” Parker says, and there is a barely concealed sneer in her words.

“So what if he is?” My protector shakes her head. Slow and smooth and steady. She’s amazing. “I don’t think we should automatically discount his argument just because it doesn’t mesh with what we’ve been taught. He’s arguing for a position that’s pretty foreign from the homogenous environment that we usually find ourselves in.”

I narrow my eyes and wish I didn’t understand what she’d just said, but my brain has been rewired since I started school here. Words like “homogenous” and “heterogeneity” are now part of my vocabulary and I can’t undo that. We couldn’t just say “similarity within groups”. Oh no, we have to make up big words to show how intellectually superior we are.

I rub my hand over my face, trying to yank my thoughts back from the edge of the abyss. I ball my hands up in my lap and struggle to drag my emotions under control and pray to a God that I don’t believe in that the conversation will move beyond the current impasse.

But oh no, Parker just has to keep going.

“Look, I appreciate diversity of opinions, but let’s be honest. Arguing that violence is the solution to any problem isn’t appropriate in academia. The only people who support violence are those who get hard ons from playing first person shooter games.”

She stabs me then, right in the soft spot, and there is no way she did it on purpose. But it still hurts.

I’m about to pipe off with something deeply inappropriate but at the last minute, I yank myself back and refocus. Breathing. One. Two. Three.

My savior next to me continues on the offense. “You’re failing to attack the argument on its merit and only attacking it based on the fact that you don’t like where it takes us.”

Professor Quinn, apparently, has decided to pull his man card and control his class. And by that I mean me.

“I think we’ve gotten as much out of this argument as we can. There’s value in having these differing opinions but if we shout each other down, are we really listening to each other or just waiting for our own biases to be confirmed?”

Abby

The sunlight hurts my eyes. It was cloudy and overcast before class started, the sky swollen and threatening rain. Now, the clouds have burned away, leaving the sky brilliant and blue.

I slide my sunglasses on and feel him step into the light with me. “That went well,” he says mildly.

He sounds far too calm for what just happened. I saw the tension in his body during that debate. I saw his hands fisted in his lap.

He was not calm. So why the hell is he acting like they just argued about the best flavor of coffee?

“What…what was that?” I say. Because I can’t help myself.

There’s a tiny crease at the corner of his mouth that I’ve never noticed before. Just the tiniest little line that draws my attention to his ridiculously full bottom lip. It’s actually the only thing soft on him.

At least, as far as I’m aware of. And wow, talk about a stunning mental detour.

“A purely academic debate about violence,” he says mildly.

“You were a little more wound up.” I honestly can’t say why I’m out here, talking to him. I need to go. To get away from the strength and power in those hands. “And now you’re acting all calm, cool, and collected. What gives?”

He looks at me sharply and I feel pinned to the spot. Like I’ve been cornered by a caged mountain lion and I’m wearing a steak jumpsuit. “You really want to know?”

Whenever anyone asks a question like that, it’s generally a good idea to answer no and get the hell out of Dodge.

But, of course, I stay right there. I fold my arms over my chest. “Yeah. I do.”

He stiffens a little. “It’s…you. You and Parker and all these professors. You sit around and wax poetic about violence and starvation and inequality while sitting on one of the wealthiest college campuses in the South. Completely safe. No risk. And then people like Parker judge people like me who have to make those decisions.”

“And live with the consequences,” I whisper.

He hesitates. His mouth opens, then snaps closed. Like my answer surprises him as much as it does me.

“Yeah.”

He’s watching me. I want to step closer to him but I can’t. I won’t.

Because I’m not blind to the darkness in Mr. Douglas. It’s there, just below the surface. Like a pot of water just before it boils.

The tension is back, now. A slow burning anger I should be getting as far away from as I possibly can.

“What?” I finally ask, needing something to break the spell between us.

“Why do you care why I got angry in class? You don’t even know my name.”

I narrow my eyes at him and open my mouth, then snap it closed, mirroring his earlier action. I didn’t expect the question and I have no idea how to answer.

Because in reality, I don’t have an answer for why I’m standing here at the moment.

Damn it.

My brain finally latches on to the first thing I come up with.

“Wookie life debt. Payback for you helping me the other night.”

I try to leave then. Hoping that he’ll let me go and put all my curiosity away. For good.

“Hey.” His voice tugs at me to stop.

I won’t look at him now. Because I’m ashamed of what he’ll see if he looks into my eyes.

And I can’t stand the thought of him seeing the needful loneliness that has become my constant companion since Robert ripped my heart out and left it bleeding on the cobblestone sidewalk.

“What’s your name?” His voice is low and quiet. Steady now. Almost calm.

I turn, unable to avoid looking at him now.

It dawns on me that no, I don’t know his name.

I stand there for a moment, hesitant. The last time this happened, I fell too far, too fast.

This time will be different. Because I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.

It’s like standing too close to an electrical current.

The simplicity of the question is deceptively benign.

I’m drawn to him in a way that is unhealthy and dangerous. He’s already consuming my thoughts, drawing my attention away from the matter at hand and luring me down a dark corridor where only dark thoughts and whispered need twist together.

I hold up one hand, needing to break the spell or whatever is going on between us. My hand collides with his chest, and I am flush against the stark reminder of this man’s strength and power and capability to do violence.

Before the rational part of my brain kicks in, I brush my fingertips gently over the bruised and damaged skin above his eye.

He goes still beneath my touch. That full bottom lip opens a little. A tiny space, but I can feel the heat of his breath on my wrist.

His eyes are locked on mine. I’m trapped, unable to move. I’m not sure I want to. I’m furious for him but I’m frozen, burning where my fingers touch his skin.

I cannot move. Cannot look away.

“I’m Josh,” he whispers. An answer to an unasked question.

I swallow the sudden lump blocking my throat. “Abby.”

“Abby.” He repeats my name and it sounds something like a prayer, whispered in reverence and awe.

I lower my hand then but he catches it. His palm is rough and big, surrounding mine. “It’s nice to meet you, Abby,” he says softly.

And I say nothing. Because in his eyes I see a hint of something I am longing for.

And it is something that terrifies me.

**ONE CLICK BREAK MY FALL**