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  Brightest As We Fall

  Cleo Peitsche

  Pouch Productions

  Copyright, Legal Notice and Disclaimer:

  BRIGHTEST AS WE FALL © 2020 by Cleo Peitsche. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the author. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events, locations and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This book is for entertainment purposes only.

  This book is solely for adults.

  Cover Photo ©2019 by Perie Wolford. Ebook created with Vellum.

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Series List

  Blurb

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part II

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Part III

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Epilogue

  Other Titles

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader—

  Thank you for purchasing this book. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I look forward to sharing more of my stories with you.

  …Why join my mailing list? Because I release new stories at a special price to thank my readers!

  xoxo,

  Cleo

  Series List

  Other Titles By Cleo

  Coming Soon (partial list)

  Her Demanding Bisexual Alphas (Trilogy)

  The Shark’s Double Secret (PNR Trilogy)

  Notorious (Suspense Novel)

  After Forever/Bisexual Billionaire Trilogy (Threesome Romance)

  Careless

  Hopeless

  Fearless

  After Forever Box Set

  Office Toy Series (BDSM Gang Bang Romance)

  Office Toy

  Client Satisfaction

  Company Vacation

  Flex Time

  Soft Skills

  Executive Package

  Executive Toy Series (BDSM Gang Bang Romance)

  Executive Toy

  Professional Sin

  Dangerously Big

  Trickiest Job

  Dirtiest Lie

  Forbidden Fix

  Lawyers Behaving Badly (Office Menage)

  Legally Binding

  Triple Jeopardy

  Willful Violation

  Private Chambers

  Morality Clause

  By a Dangerous Man (BDSM Erotic Romantic Suspense)

  Season One

  Trapped by a Dangerous Man

  Wanted by a Dangerous Man

  Saved by a Dangerous Man

  Tempted by a Dangerous Man

  Seduced by a Dangerous Man

  By a Dangerous Man (Season One Box Set)

  Season Two

  Dared by a Dangerous Man

  Broken by a Dangerous Man

  Pursued by a Dangerous Man

  Desired by a Dangerous Man

  Protected by a Dangerous Man

  By a Dangerous Man (Season Two Box Set)

  Dangerous Man Standalone

  Tormented by a Dangerous Man

  Destroyed by a Dangerous Man

  The Shark Shifter Paranormal Romance

  Touching Paradise

  Master of the Deep

  Oceans Untamed

  Blood in the Water

  Shark Burn

  Complete Series Box Set (select retailers)

  Take Me Hard Series (BDSM Romance)

  Ride Me Hard

  Love Me Hard

  Use Me Hard

  Take Me Hard Compilation #1

  Push Me Hard

  Fantasy Playland Series (BDSM)

  Sleeping Lady

  Sleeping chez Sade

  Wide Awake

  Wide Open

  His Kiss

  Fantasy Playland Box Set

  Mistress Moi Series (Femdom)

  My Three Slaves

  Cuckold Chuck

  Faye-Faye and the Sadist

  Bad Boyfriend Series (Femdom Romance)

  Bad Boyfriend

  Standalone Titles

  Luring the Pack (PNR Menage Novel)

  Melted and Whipped (BDSM Novella)

  Brightest As We Fall (Romantic Suspense BDSM Novel)

  Brightest As We Fall

  (a standalone novel)

  DeeAnn Carmach has always been a good girl, but she’s deep in debt to the wrong people. Desperate and broken, she’s driven to sell the only thing she has of value: her pretty face.

  But before her audition, she witnesses a deal gone violently wrong. Everyone is dead, and there’s millions in cash. Sitting there. For the taking.

  She grabs it and runs.

  Jason Traugher survived the shootout, and he wants that money. His thick muscles and square jaw make him look like an action hero, but he’s definitely the bad guy, a hardened criminal who prefers to murder his enemies. As hot as DeeAnn is, she’s nothing to him but an obstacle to destroy.

  He will catch her. And when he does…

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  The A6 bus rumbles down Washington Street. I’m sitting near the rear exit, sandwiched between the scratched-up window and an elderly woman munching peanuts. Only half the shells make it into the plastic bag hanging from her rickety walker, which is blocking the aisle, crowding the people standing.

  The bus belches and lurches, jerking me toward my fate.

  “Rhodell Plaza,” the bus driver yells. Almost everyone gets off. When I was in high school, I made this trip a zillion times, and now I watch the laughing teenagers enviously as they huddle together, break apart, reform into close groups.

  Was that really only a few years ago? It feels like another lifetime.

  The streets roll by, and I think about how much everything has changed. I had friends, a part-time job, family.

  I had hope.

  My stop is next, and I feel dizzy. If no one requests the stop, then it’s a sign for me to go home.

  No one requests the stop. It’s too late�
�

  I rocket to my feet and jam my thumb into the red button. The driver slams on the brakes, making me stumble.

  “Thank you,” I call out weakly. No one looks at me. I’m barely on the sidewalk before the bus is moving away, blowing hot exhaust over my bare legs.

  Clouds uncover the early afternoon sun, and I shove the sleeves of my fleece hoodie over my elbows. Grungy feathers fall as a flock of pigeons flies from the abandoned warehouse to my left and into the power lines overhead. A block away, an unseen woman is screaming for her kids to get their asses inside and clean up the damned mess they made in the kitchen.

  Her yelling makes me feel better. It’s so… ordinary.

  Maybe everything will be all right—

  Something gray and hairy streaks across the crumbling pavement to disappear under an old car. I give the car a wide berth.

  “It’s a kitten,” I say quietly. One that happens to have rodent teeth and a hairless tail.

  The arches of my feet are cramping and blisters are forming across the tops of my toes, where the plastic straps dig into my skin. Platform sandals are the worst. I want to run back to the rented room I’ve called home the last few months, slam the lock into place, and hide under the covers.

  Instead, I continue my slow march, a death grip on my shiny gold duffel bag. Inside is a handful of prescription painkillers. Otherwise, I’ve got nothing of value, not even a phone. A house key, my anemic wallet, a paperback mystery I pulled out of a book exchange, and an oversized towel. Plus a necessary change of clothes and a pair of worn sneakers wrapped carefully in trash bags. The duffel expands a lot, but it doesn’t have many compartments.

  Oh, and the six condoms I picked up at the free clinic.

  Taking care not to trip on the jagged, broken concrete, I force myself to continue down the sidewalk.

  A guy around my age motors past on a fat-tire dirt bike, no helmet, country music blasting from the old-style boombox bungeed between the handgrips. No, not quite my age—his sparse mustache and skinny arms put him at eighteen or so.

  He loops back around, comes to a sudden stop and leers at me, taking in all my exposed skin. My steps become even more unsteady.

  “Not interested,” I say without making eye contact. The wind blows strands of my thick brown hair across my face, and I’m glad; it’s something to hide behind.

  “Eh. You’re not that hot.” He revs his bike obnoxiously before shooting away, a snake of black smoke jetting from his exhaust pipe.

  I swallow dryly, approaching the corner.

  Get to it, DeeAnn.

  My heart pounds as I walk forward to peer around the edge of the building. A gust sends a newspaper page across the street, where it curls around the fender of a rusty car.

  E-Z Cash, the payday loan store—everyone knows it’s a front—is still there, sprawled in the lot at the next corner, but what did I expect? Buildings don’t fade away or disappear.

  Only people do that.

  The first step is the hardest, right? Taking a deep breath, I square my shoulders.

  One step. Two.

  It doesn’t get any easier. Dread presses on my shoulders. The beginnings of what I know will become regret drag at my heels, as if trying to lock me in place.

  Every inch forward feels like I’m struggling through an alley jammed with bowling balls.

  Yet I continue at my glacial pace. Forward, forward, forward.

  When I finally reach the payday lender, I come to a full stop.

  Countless ads and offers cover the windows and glass doors. For TV sets. Cars. Jewelry.

  Stay away from easy credit. Maybe you go the first time because you’re hungry or late on a bill, but they’ll tempt you. They’ll offer all the nice things you can’t afford, and they’ll make it sound so reasonable. They’ll tell you that you deserve it. They want you to be their best customer. My father’s voice comes to me, and for a moment I sway. It’s been a few days since it hit me so hard. If he knew I was about to do this, and if he knew why, it would break his heart.

  I bite my lip and stare at the blurring ads while I try to blink back tears.

  There’s no other option, I remind myself. Either go in, or run and hope no one ever tracks you down.

  Two days ago, when I returned to my room after filling out job applications, a large man was sitting on my bed, playing with a knife. He smiled when he looked at me, then ran his thumb along the flat blade. Caressing it, like a lover.

  Despite my terror, I somehow managed to whisper an apology for being late on my payments.

  The man didn’t touch me, didn’t threaten me. Just smiled and stroked his knife and said he’d be back in three days for the next two grand.

  “You gonna move or what?” a woman grunts as she bumps by me. She’s skinny as a pencil and reeks of chemicals, some kind of corrupted rose scent. Probably her hair, sprayed up and teased out in a way that would make eighties rock stars look like shrinking violets.

  If she’s here, it’s because she’s desperate.

  Which is more or less the same reason I’m here, standing in front of the building and trying to figure out an alternative to selling the one thing I never thought I would.

  The door slams in my face.

  My hand reaches out, and I look at it, at my lime-green fingernails, as if from a great distance. I feel like part of me is still standing on the corner with the rusty car, and if I just pinch myself, I’ll be back there, and I can turn and walk away.

  But I’m not there.

  The small distance I crossed might as well have been an entire continent. That’s how far away I am, emotionally and mentally.

  Because I’ve tried five times to make this final walk.

  “Are you in or out?” a creaky male voice asks from behind me.

  “In,” I mumble, more to myself than to him.

  After fifteen minutes in line, it’s my turn to approach the bulletproof glass at the front of the large, bare room.

  The henna redhead on the other side of the glass appears wholly unimpressed with life. I wonder what it must do to her soul to work here. Maybe she never had a soul to begin with, and wouldn’t that be easier?

  “Hi,” I say. “I wanted to, um…” Even though the rest of the sentence is coded, I can’t bring myself to say it.

  Her eyebrows lower, and she lifts a bracelet-covered arm to point. “Do you see that line? I’m already overdue for my break.”

  “Yes, s-sorry.” My cheeks burn. “Toby.”

  “What about him?”

  “I need to speak to him, um, about a special position.”

  The woman gives me a hard stare.

  She’s trying to decide if I’ve got what Toby is looking for.

  All this time I thought that making myself walk through the door was the point of no return, but I was wrong. The point of no return is the moment I unzip my pink fluffy top halfway, to the middle of my chest.

  I’m wearing nothing underneath but a lacy black bra that I bought for a buck at a thrift store. The bra is a cup size too small, the elastic is a little tired, and if you look close you can see how the edges of the straps are fraying, even though I trimmed down the worst of it with cuticle scissors.

  “Toby isn’t expected today,” she says finally, and motions for the next person waiting.

  For a moment, I freeze. The universe could be telling me not to do this, that there has to be another way. But I know it’s not true because I’ve tried everything.

  Don’t take it personally, I tell myself. You need to convince Toby, not some woman.

  “He’s expecting me,” I say, blocking whoever’s now hovering just beside me. A man, who grumbles. I raise my voice and lock eyes with the woman behind the glass. “It’s very important. Am I in the wrong place? Where is he? Tell me where to go.”

  She scans my cleavage but seems underwhelmed. She picks up the phone and punches numbers. Is she calling Toby? Or security? She murmurs something into the mouthpiece.

  I glanc
e back at the cross-section of humanity waiting in line. A librarian-type clutching a child’s hand is staring disapprovingly at my short skirt. The man behind her is also staring, a pervy little smile on his pockmarked face.

  “Hey!” The cashier taps on the glass to get my attention. “Go wait on the side. Toby’ll be by in a few minutes.”

  “Inside? Or outside?”

  She jerks her head toward the wall. I think she means inside.

  “Um, thanks.” I yank up the zipper and, my face burning in shame, walk to the stained white wall.

  Now I’m committed.

  I should feel a great burden lifting from my shoulders, but instead I only feel worse. I wish I had my phone. Being broke, I haven’t topped up in weeks, and the last of my small balance is emergency reserves, in case someone calls about a job. But if I’d brought it today, I could at least play a game instead of what I’m doing, which is staring at the ceiling to avoid making eye contact with the nine or so people in line. Maybe I should take out my book even though I won’t be able to concentrate on it.