Page 2 of Falling (Scared Sexy Collection #2)

T he brownstone belonged to Harry’s father, a man douchily named Royal, who Cat vaguely remembered Jake telling her was an asshole but seriously loaded.

What Harry apparently lacked in parental love he had in spades when it came to housing.

Cat had moved to the city for graduate school only a few months ago, but she knew living here for even a decade she’d be unlikely to meet another twentysomething with a house like this all to himself.

The party was on the ground floor—mostly contained to the common living spaces—but there were three levels to the place, and Cat was tempted to escape the party to explore them all.

But first: a restroom.

The one on the first floor was occupied, so she peeked into the empty bedrooms, ducking through the doorway of one with an en suite. With a sigh of relief, she crossed the room and closed the bathroom door behind her, sealing herself up inside.

At the mirror, Cat studied her reflection and exhaled a slow, annoyed breath.

When Jake suggested the coordinated costumes, his idea that she be the lamb to his shepherd struck her as vaguely patronizing and overtly patriarchal—not to mention the unspoken expectation that she somehow manage to be a sexy lamb.

But she’d agreed because, frankly, she was lazy about Halloween and happy for once to not be asked to be a sexy Cat.

That Jake hadn’t even remembered the plan felt like salt rubbed into a paper cut.

She wore all white—white leggings, white sneakers, and a fluffy, cropped white sweater.

Her woolly hat had soft lamb ears, and she’d drawn a circle of black over the tip of her own nose.

“You’re dressed like a toddler,” she told her reflection, swiping off the hat. She turned on the sink, washing the sticky, dried beer from the back of her hand before wiping the black makeup from her nose.

Drying her hands and then leaning back against the counter, Cat ran through in her mind how and when she would end things tonight.

She’d been the dumper and the dumped enough times to know that this breakup was unlikely to come as a surprise to Jake, but she still dreaded it, in part because there could be no brunch with girlfriends tomorrow to process it all.

Everyone she knew and loved was hundreds of miles away.

Can’t I just text him? her mind whined, before deciding: Yes. A text was exactly the level of engagement this three-month mistake deserved. Pulling out her phone, she typed the simple ending:

I don’t think this is working. We have fun together, but I think friends-only is the right vibe for us.

She waited, staring at her phone, and in only a few seconds, her text was decorated with the blandest of reactions: a thumbs-up.

To be fair, it’s the correct reaction to a breakup text, she thought.

With a laugh-groan, she pushed off the counter and walked to the door, intending to put on her big-girl-lamb pants and return to the party, unwilling to let Jake be her only tether to other people.

But the door to the hallway was no longer open.

And when her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw, too, that the room was no longer empty.

A man— that man—tall as a tree and just as broad, leaned against the wall near the closed door, casually scrolling on his phone.

He looked up when she stepped out, and from behind his ornate black-feathered mask, his eyes went wide in the way she knew hers had too—as if they’d each been caught doing something they weren’t supposed to.

“Oh.” She hooked a thumb behind her, saying, “The bathroom in the hall was occupied,” just as he said, “I needed a spot of quiet.”

His voice was low and rich, a melted confection, the words curled with a proper British accent. His clothes were all black, and something about him felt attractive, even though she couldn’t make his features out in the darkness, behind his mask.

“Okay, good,” she said, exhaling. “So I haven’t been caught sneaking around your room.”

His eyes drifted to the enormous blue-and-orange Knicks banner over the bed, and he uttered a sardonic “No.”

Cat was stunned into silence when he stepped forward into a bit of streetlight slanting in through the window and lifted his mask.

She revised her thought that he must be attractive; in fact, she’d never seen a more gorgeous person in her life.

His features were severe and aristocratic: thick, dark brows, intense brown eyes, strong cheekbones and jaw, and a mouth she was positive was equally skilled at kissing and mockery.

And then he smiled, becoming devastatingly more beautiful.

Deep smile lines carved into his cheeks, his eyes lit with mischief, crinkling at the corners.

Cat felt her rib cage shove a shaking breath out and suck another back in, hungrily.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Time stretched, and the walls of the room seemed to shrink down to a shoebox. A weight in her chest heaved forward, the desire to move toward him, but she fought it, frowning in concentration as her hands reached back and curled around the edge of the windowsill.

He was frowning too, confused. Silence pulsed between them, a force compelling her forward, growing heavily in the air, and then she heard it, a soft Yes, darling, stay there , in that deep, luxurious voice she swore she’d heard back in the living room, like an invisible man’s voice had whispered directly into her ear.

The tension snapped, freeing her to blink, to breathe, to retreat a step and feel the wood of the windowsill dig into the backs of her thighs.

She shook her head. “What did you say?” she asked.

He frowned, his “What do you mean?” coming too slow, like a clunky lie.

Awareness began at the base of Cat’s spine. She didn’t know how she was so certain, but she was: She’d been ensnared by him somehow, a fish lured in and caught on the end of a line before being released. The surreal question rose up her throat and stuck there: Did you do that to me?

She was being ridiculous. She should head back to the party. “Nothing. My mistake.”

He smiled warmly again, and the expression lit a small fire inside her.

“Happy Halloween,” she added.

He laughed, a sound so deep and intoxicating she felt it spreading like smoke through her bloodstream. “Is it?” he asked, smile turning wry.

Cat felt the laugh rise out of her. “Yeah ... not really.”

He sent a hand into the pocket of his trousers and pulled in a deep breath that only seemed to heighten his hunger for this strange human.

He’d discovered that she could hear the voice but wasn’t commanded by it; she’d felt his allure, been tempted by it, but it hadn’t made her mindless.

He could taste her in the air, her lust like golden licks of flame all around her—but she’d kept her own mind.

It had never happened, not once, in his entire immortal existence.

“I see you went all out with the costume,” she joked, and on the heels of his wonder, his dead heart jerked to life for a phantom beat before he realized what she meant. He gazed down at the mask in his hand.

“Yes, well, it was a last-minute decision to come here.”

“Are you a friend of Harry’s?”

“Is he the host?” he asked, looking back to her. “The poor sod dressed as a block of cheese?”

She laughed, and it sent vibrations down his spine. “Yes, that’s Harry. But I think he’s supposed to be a box of cereal.”

“Shall I take that more seriously?”

Her laugh turned round and playful, and the sound absolutely delighted him. It was rolling, golden joy, a delighted uprising inside her. A flurry of images barraged him—his mouth on her stomach, nipping, tickling, licking that light from her skin—and he sucked in a breath, momentarily disoriented.

“Who are you here with?” she asked.

“Only myself.”

She frowned, that heart-shaped mouth turning into a pout he wanted to devour. “Then who do you know here?” she pressed.

“I don’t know anyone,” he admitted, knowing how stiff and awkward he must seem, so unaccustomed he was to conversation. “Who accompanied you?”

“Accompanied?” She laughed again. “My newly ex -boyfriend.”

“Newly? Cheers. I’m glad to hear it.”

“You are? Why?”

He could tell she found him odd, and dug around in his thoughts, searching for the words.

Already it was the longest conversation he’d had with a human in decades, and the skill felt rusty and slow in his mind.

“Because he looked like a bloody fool dragging you through a party and abandoning you immediately.”

Her eyes turned guarded. “ He looked like a fool?”

“Do you think it’s appropriate for a man to treat a woman that way?”

“No, but if anyone looked like a fool back there, it was me.”

“For being with him?” He leaned forward, wanting to understand. For so long, he hadn’t bothered to care about human feelings and motivations beyond what he needed from them. He felt, at once, like he was learning a new language.

She parroted his words back to him: “For letting him drag me through a party and abandon me immediately.”

“Did you really let him? You seemed rather taken aback.”

“And you seem to have been paying very close attention.” Her voice had a thin film of unease.

“You’re beautiful, little lamb. Everyone in that room noticed you.” He smiled. “I’d wager everyone in any room notices you.”

She turned her gaze from his then, behind him to the door, and he had to shove down the instinct to command it back, suspecting it wouldn’t work.

Her hazel eyes were like glimmering amber; her focus made him ravenous.

He wanted her with a keening drive that felt like a twin heartbeat just beneath his skin.

But the novelty of conversing with her was too hard to give up.

“Why did you stay?” he asked. “Why not just leave the party?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It feels rude somehow.”

“Ruder than walking into poor Harry’s bedroom uninvited?” he teased.