Page 21 of The Fall Before Flight

Callum drags me to the surface, then to the side of the pool. “What the fuck, Mia?” he gasps, clutching me tightly to him. His warm hand smooths over my head, his stubbled cheek tickling mine. He whispers, “You scare me.”

“I scare me, too,” I say and finally look across the water, to where a group of people stands.

Dr. Chastain is gone.

Callum leads me to my cabin, away from Charlene’s angry blathering. Disciplinary meeting. There will be consequences. He guides me into my bathroom and lets me drip while he turns on the shower and adjusts the dials.

Before diving into the pool after me he’d stripped to his boxers, which now cling wetly to his muscled ass and legs. The silky fabric also does little to hide what the tabloids have nicknamed Callum’s Cannon.

When he turns from the shower, he catches me staring at his ass. I expect him to smirk, or make a joke, but he doesn’t.

“Do you need help getting undressed?” he asks slowly and precisely.

I know the tone well. “You think I’m crazy.”

He shakes his head. “I think you have a lot of pain trapped inside you.” His eyes make a slow map of my features. “Something happened to you. Something bad.”

The surface of my secrets shifts, buckling against ice.

“Something bad happens to everyone.” I pull off my top. It plops wetly on the ground, where it’s joined shortly by the miniskirt and my underwear.

“Jesus, Mia,” hisses Callum, eyes hungry as they travel my body. “You really know how to push a guy to his breaking point.”

My specialty.

I walk past him, making sure to graze his bare back with my breasts, then step into the shower. Hot water cascades over me, pulling a sigh of relief from my throat.

Blinking at Callum through the spray, I say, “Go ahead and break. No one’s stopping you.”

His jaw hardens as he takes a rigid step toward me. A finger traces my nipple, pebbled beneath the water, before trailing down my belly. Just when I think I have him, he stalls, breathing heavily, and takes a large step backward.

Wincing, he squeezes his heavy erection with one hand, then gives me a sad smile. “I’ve had my heart broken too many times. And you”—he shakes his head slowly—“I think you might ruin me.”

I ignore the second disappointment—or is it the third?—of the evening. “I’m not offering love, just sex.”

“That’s my problem,” he says with a small shrug. “I don’t know the difference.”

I feel no pleasure at this secret, no desire to take what he’s offered me and turn it against him. I don’t want to break Callum.

Huh.

“Thank you for diving in after me.”

The sadness leaves his smile. “You’re welcome.” He turns away but pauses with his hand on the doorframe. “Let him in. He really wants to help you. You scared the shit out of him tonight.”

My heart thumps hard, ever reminding me of my limitations. My sickness.

“Good night, Callum.”

“Sweet dreams, Mia.”

I pull the shower curtain closed.

At 10:00 a.m., I walk into Dr. Chastain’s office and sit listlessly in my chair. My mind is hazy, my body lethargic. I slept through my usual run with Callum and the change of routine has me off-kilter. I don’t want to be here.

There’s nowhere else I want to be.

“Amelia.”

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