When We Fall (Take the Fall, #2)(5)

Unsure of what to do next, I glance at the wall that separates my room from Jase’s and move closer, searching for the hidden latch. I press down and hear a click. The wall swings open like a door, and I giggle.

When Rowan and I were younger, we discovered this hidden passageway by accident. Apparently, this house was a speakeasy in the 1920s and had hiding places for alcohol.

Stepping through the opening, I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight app, sweeping it around to check out the place like I’m a detective in a television show. Dust motes fall from the ceiling in the narrow passageway, but other than that, there’s nothing.

Thank God. I have no desire to run into a mouse.

Quickly, I walk to where streams of daylight pour through narrow holes in the wall. Grinning, I take in Jase’s room. The huge bed is made with stark white linens, and the furniture is completely devoid of anything personal. Unlike the last time I saw his room, there’s no stripper named Angel on his bed. Between his thighs…

I flush hot, then cold.

Giving myself an inward shake, I exhale. “This is stupid,” I mutter and make my way back to my bedroom. I give my eyes a moment to adjust from going to nearly pitch-black to full sunlight.

“What were you doing in there?” Jase says, and I scream.

“What are you doing in my room?” My heart pounds against my chest so hard that I’m surprised it hasn’t burst free.

His full lips thin. “Thought I was being rude by not offering to help you, so I came back.”

My knees get all soft. “Thank you, but I got everything out of my car already.”

“Were you spying on my room?” he says, walking to the secret door, which is still open.

Turning, I smack the wall, trying to get it to close. “No. Yes. I mean…you weren’t in there!”

He spins me around and pushes me up against the wall as the door shuts beside us. “You like watching, don’t you?”

This close his eyes are impossibly blue. Impossibly wicked. “No.”

His head dips. Slowly. Purposefully. And I welcome his nearness. His lips are dangerously close to mine as he says, “Next time you want to watch, I’ll make it happen. You say the word.”

Pain slashes through my heart, and my chest suddenly gets all tight. Not now, I silently beg. Please, not now. “I don’t want to watch you with another woman.” I all but wheeze the words. I can’t breathe at all. It feels as though I’m sucking air through a straw that has to go through mud first.

“Are you having a f*cking asthma attack?” he growls and I can barely nod. “Damn it, Piper. Where’s your inhaler? Never mind.”

He practically runs across the room, takes my purse, and dumps the contents out on the bed before rushing back to me. “Here.”

I take my inhaler and shove it in my mouth. Tears of frustration hit me as I try to make the canister release the medicine.

“Baby, let me.” Jase pushes my hand away and presses down. I take a deep breath, staring up at him as he pulls my inhaler away. “Hold your breath for ten, kitten.”

The tightness in my chest finally eases and I blow out a breath.

“Better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He wipes away the tears on my cheeks. “Do you want to do it again? It might help.”

“How do you know so much about inhalers?” His kindness isn’t foreign to me, but this goes beyond simple kindness.

His blue gaze searches my face. “I might have done some research.”

My heart slams against my chest. “For what?”

He shrugs. “Just in case you needed help.”

“You did that for me?”

Jase’s face turns hard. “I did that because I don’t need a dead girl in my house. I’ve been accused of enough things in my life. Anyway, now that I see you don’t need my help, I’ll go to work.”

Reeling from his change in attitude, I watch in silence as he walks away, tossing the inhaler on the bed.

“And Piper?” He stops at the door and pins me with an icy look.

“What?”

“Stay the hell out of that passageway, or I promise you won’t like the consequences.” Finally, he leaves the room while I keep staring, silent as a doll in a toy store.





Chapter 3





Piper


Good girls are quiet.

Good girls don’t borrow trouble.

My mother’s admonishments ring in my head, keeping my mouth tightly closed.

The slam of the door makes me jump. I stifle a scream and press my hand to my chest.

Get a grip, Piper. Jase would never hurt you.

But he shot a man.

I take a shallow breath. He might have shot a man, but that man had started the fight and had been the one to bring the gun in the first place. At least, according to Rowan, that had been what happened seven years ago. But Rowan is as biased as I am, perhaps more so, since Jase is her big brother and the one who raised her until she was sixteen.

The fact also remains that he had gotten my inhaler to me in time. Dangerous men didn’t care about their little sister’s best friend’s asthma. Dangerous men didn’t do research on how to help an asthmatic, either.

However, dangerous men did threaten their little sister’s best friend with consequences. Is it bad that I find his warning to be a complete turn-on? That I want to know what my punishment would be?