The Farther I Fall (2 page)

“Well, as much as I'd love to listen to that accent of yours all night, that wasn't why I came over here. Want to dance?”

As if on cue, the song changed, a little slower—the steady, undulating pulse of drums with an overlay of bass and a low growling voice. Oh what the hell. Gwen nodded, and he held out his hand and helped her to her feet. Even in heels, she barely came up to his shoulder. God, she was probably grinning like an idiot, but the back of her neck prickled at his touch.

The beat of the drums got louder, and a second voice joined the first in a hollow harmony. Other couples formed around them as they found a spot on the dance floor. He kept his eyes on hers and they started circling together, not touching.

Slowly Gwen got pulled into the music. She closed her eyes and raised her arms overhead, letting the beat carry her. When she opened them again, her partner was closer than before, the warmth of his body radiating against hers. He wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her in. She hesitated before slotting her body against his, hip to chest. He was taut and lean, muscled but not bulky. Gwen had to resist the urge to bury her face against his chest.

They were moving in slow, steady circles, hips pressing tight. He dipped her backward, and caught by something she didn't understand, Gwen tangled her hands in his sweat-damp hair. She could feel his breath against her throat, so close she thought his lips might be barely brushing against her skin. As he bent her over further, his hair spilled around her, caressing her arms.

He lifted her back to an upright position, and her hands slid away from his scalp to rest on his shoulders. Gwen's heart raced, her blood roaring in her ears. His eyes, dark and wide, made him look almost as dazed as she felt.

He lowered his mouth to her ear and took a deep breath. “Come back to my hotel with me. Right now.” His voice rumbled in her ear, and she couldn't hide the shiver. She didn't do this—she didn't pick up strangers in clubs—but she wanted to say yes.

She backed off and shook her head. “I came with my sister, and I should—”

He growled and buried his face against her neck, brushing his lips over her skin as he murmured, “I'd rather you came with me. Screaming.”

Gwen whimpered, the sound buried under pulsing bass and drums. Her heart was pounding hard enough that it must be about to crack her ribs. This was bloody mad. She needed to put a stop to it. His lips dragged up the side of her neck, brushing hot and wet against her earlobe. “Well?” he purred.

“I can't.” She shivered as she shrugged away his mouth so it couldn't tempt her further.

“Sure you can.” He trailed one finger down the side of her face.

It felt like blood running from her scalp. “No, sorry, I really can't.” The music was too loud. It thudded in her ears like artillery fire. A woman's high-pitched laughter prickled her scalp like a scream. She backed away from him, disoriented. Faces blurred, too many, too much sound, too much everything. She turned and fled, heart hammering in her chest and in her temples now, sweat making her skin clammy. The sensation of a thousand ants marching over her skin made her want to run screaming.

She found Sam and a small group of other women tucked in a quiet corner. “There you are!” Sam said. “I was starting to get worried. I didn't know what you wanted, so I got—”

Gwen took the drink out of her hand and swallowed half of it at a gulp, welcoming the burn in her throat. She smiled at Sam's friends then leaned down and murmured in Sam's ear, “I have to get out.”

Sam gave her a worried look, then smiled at her friends. “We'll be back.”

Everything was a blur until they made it outside. Sam pulled her down the street to a quieter area. “Are you okay?”

The tightness in Gwen's chest was starting to ease, making it possible to take a breath deeper than a shallow gasp. “I'm sorry. I just—the noise.”

“Your hands are ice-cold.” Sam rubbed them between hers. “Come on, let's get you home.”

“Sorry I ruined your night.”

Sam steered them towards the parking attendant. “Don't worry about it.”

“Just as well.” Gwen let Sam guide her, leaning on her a bit. “I made an arse of myself in front of the guy I was dancing with.”

“It's fine. It's not like you'll ever see him again, right?”

Thank God for that.

***

Gwen got to Sam's office early for her first meeting with Lucas Wheeler and his entourage. She was surprised to discover that not only was the star already there but he'd only brought one other person with him. When he stood and turned around, Gwen wanted to sink into the ground.

Oh bloody hell
,
it's
him
, the man from the club.
He still looked to die for, in artfully ripped jeans and a T-shirt about a size too small under a leather jacket. His eyes widened, and she knew he recognized her as well. What was he thinking? Was he remembering the way she'd slithered against him, or was he remembering the way she'd made a fool of herself when she panicked and ran? Her body tingled at the memory of his arms around her, of his mouth against her ear. She was certain she was blushing brightly enough for anyone to see.

Before either of them could say anything, Sam came around her desk. “Lucas Wheeler, this is Gwen Tennison, your new tour manager. Gwen, Lucas Wheeler.”

Gwen stepped up and extended her hand, and another prickle rushed up her spine at the warmth of his fingers against hers.
Shit.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wheeler.”

“After our first meeting you should probably call me Lucas,” he said. “Or was I so forgettable?”

Damn it, couldn't he have at least pretended he didn't know her? “Ah, right! The club the other night.” Gwen saw Sam twitch out of the corner of her eye. “That
was
you, wasn't it?”

He smiled thinly in return, unamused. “So, I hear you're a sergeant.” He looked at Sam. “We need military involvement now? Are you expecting to lead a charge, Sergeant Tennison?”

“Ahh, no,” Gwen said. “If I'm to call you Lucas, you must call me Gwen.” She tried on another smile and it almost fit.

“Got a lot of experience with the music business, Gwen?” He was looking at her so intently she felt like he was crawling around inside her skull. He
would
have to be a bastard about this.

“Sergeant Tennison comes highly recommended from her superiors,” Sam said, stepping in. “She's got experience in most of the major areas we look for in a tour manager. I think you'll find she's a woman of many talents.”

“Is she.” Gwen recognized appraisal in Lucas's eyes as he looked her up and down. “Yeah,” he said. “I'll bet she is.”

Gwen kept her smile nice and neutral, the way she would have under fire from a superior officer. “At any rate, I'm quite accustomed to making order out of chaos. Which I understand was a primary job requirement.” Lucas gave her the same neutral smile, and they stood watching each other until Sam broke the silence.

“And this is Craig Davies.” She indicated the other man, dashing and handsome with silver hair. He was on his feet extending a hand. “Craig is staying on as the front-of-house engineer,” explained Sam. “He was filling in as tour manager for a while, but that sort of double duty is too much to expect of anyone.”

Craig grimaced, raising a question in Gwen's mind. Some history there, then.

Sam cleared her throat. “Now, we've got some details to work out. Shall we?” She gestured at the chairs around the desk. The four of them settled in and got to work.

***

When Samantha Tennison told him she'd hired her sister, Gwen, to be his new tour manager, it didn't occur to him to connect her with the Englishwoman he'd met at the club. And Gwen had looked just as surprised to see him.

In the light of day, he might have overlooked her. Her short dark blond hair was cut in wispy layers, and she wore just a trace of mascara and lipstick and no jewelry, aside from a simple pair of gold earrings. Between that and the cut of her dark blue suit, she may as well still have been in uniform. Cute, he would've said, but nothing more. He'd seen a secret side to her on that dance floor though, a side he wanted to see again, and soon. It had been going so well, but then she'd taken off.

Going to the club in the first place had probably been a terrible idea, but the boredom was driving him crazy. Nobody warned him that the craving for cocaine wasn't the worst part; it was the comparative gray bleakness of everyday life without it. He'd gone home alone that night because no one else he'd met had half her spark. No one else had broken through the layer of dullness induced by constant sobriety.

He was alone a lot these days, unless you counted the people who were watching him like a hawk so he didn't fuck up. The constant piece of advice he'd gotten in rehab was to dump the people he used to use with, which meant most of his friends. Pretty much everybody except for Craig, and thank God he had stuck around after the fiasco in London. It was no wonder he'd gone looking for company the other night. It was a goddamn shame she'd run out. The more he listened to her talk, with that delicious accent of hers, the more he was reconsidering his initial assessment of “cute.” She was gorgeous.

And if that weren't enough, she was smart. He was right that she didn't know much about the music business, but she caught on quick, and she definitely had a good handle on the other organizational aspects, the ones he usually ignored. Craig had made a joke at Lucas's expense, and she'd relaxed enough by then to laugh, tilting her head back. Lucas wanted to kick Craig beneath the table, but he couldn't stop looking at the fine line of her throat, remembering how her skin had tasted . . . Then Craig kicked him, and he realized he'd been staring.

The meeting ended, and he was at a loss. She'd warmed up to him while they talked, but she still didn't seem to like him much. Clearly a more long-term plan was required. He was going to be spending a lot of time with Gwen Tennison over the next twelve weeks, but he wasn't ready to say good-bye yet. As they walked out of Sam's office, he considered his options.

“So Gwen—”

Before he had a chance to say anything else, he heard Craig say, “Lee! What are you doing here?” Lucas groaned while his brother shook hands with Craig. Lee was his mirror image—if his mirror-self wore three-piece suits and cut his hair less than an inch away from high and tight.

“Oh, just coming by to give my baby brother a lift back to his hotel,” Lee said. He was four minutes older than Lucas, and he took the big brother role very seriously. “Make sure he doesn't get lost on the way.” Between Lee and Craig, Lucas had barely been able to take a piss since leaving rehab without someone checking in. He didn't blame them.

Lee was eying Gwen in a way Lucas recognized all too well. He unclenched his teeth and said, “Gwen, this is my brother, Leighton.”

As expected, Lee wrinkled his nose. “Call me Lee, please.” He shook Gwen's hand with a little too much warmth for Lucas's liking. “You must be the new tour manager.”

“No one told me that Lucas had a brother.” She looked between them twice, and Lucas was conscious as always of the striking contrasts between the two of them—but for the first time he worried that he was getting the short end of the stick in comparison with his staid twin.

“He likes to keep me a secret,” Lee said. “I hear you were with the British Army. Where did you serve?”

Lucas clasped his hands behind his back and turned away as if uninterested. Of course Lee had done his homework on Gwen. He probably knew more about her than Lucas did. He made a show of inspecting the tour posters that decorated the outside office.

“I was with the 16 CS Medical Regiment, attached to the 16 Air Assault Brigade outside Kandahar,” she said. “A combat med tech.” That tidbit Lucas hadn't heard. He adjusted his estimation of Gwen once more, taking a closer look at the way she stood and carried herself.

“Lee will be quick to tell you that your unit was no doubt inferior to the US Marines,” Lucas said, rocking back on his heels. “He has a superiority complex.”

Gwen flashed him a grin, mischievous and friendly, that made the pulse beat harder in his throat. “I've met a fair few of your Marines, and yes, I imagine he would.”

“Not at all,” Lee protested. “CMT, that's a dangerous job.”

“. . . for a woman?” Gwen lifted her chin, a hint of shadow falling across her eyes.

“For anybody,” said Lee. “It's not a job I could have done.”

Gwen looked away with her ready-to-be-defiant stare, her expression softening. “Are you still on active duty, then?”

“No, I'm a private security contractor,” Lee said, and Lucas cut him off with a snort.

“Glorified bodyguard,” Lucas said.

Lee turned to Gwen, who was looking at him quizzically. “What my brother means to say is that he doesn't actually know what I do.”

She grinned at him. “I think your brother was about to suggest coffee, Lee. Did you want to join us?”

Lucas tried to glare at Lee subtly enough to make him say no. It didn't work.

“That would be great,” Lee said. “I'd like to get to know the woman who's going to be keeping my brother in line for the next few months.”

“Actually,” Lucas said, “we should probably do it another time. I forgot I was supposed to call Emma and arrange some pre-tour publicity.” Emma Hansen had been his manager for years. She made a reputation for herself by looking like someone's sweet old grandmother and kicking ass like the bully next door. “And I believe someone said something about me not getting lost on the way.”

Gwen looked from one brother to the other, then nodded. Lucas would have sworn she was disappointed. Was it at not being able to spend more time with him, or because it meant she wouldn't get to spend more time with Lee? “I'll let you gentlemen get on with it then. A pleasure to meet you all. I'll see you next week.” She shook hands with each of them, and Lucas had to force himself to let go when it was his turn.