Just Fall by Nina Sadowsky

beautiful. And God, was he fucked.
    He was in love with her. The thing he knew he should never have allowed had happened—he had let someone in.
    Ellie sighed and turned, burrowing deeper into the bed. Rob got up and walked out of the bedroom, letting her sleep. He was resigned to sleeplessness. Try as he might, he struggled to sleep with Ellie in the bed. Years of building walls, paranoia, and necessary loneliness kept him in a state of perpetual monitoring. He was exhausted, but also used to operating on fumes.
    As he poured himself a cognac, carrying it onto the small terrace of his apartment, he asked himself how he had let it all go so far. There had been that first date. The banter that had come so easily, the sense of connection he had felt instantly with her and that had rocked him to the core. He had been so careful up until this point. He had moved frequently, blindly following Quinn’s instructions about where he was supposed to go and who he was supposed to be once he got there. He never allowed any relationship to go too far, taking care of his needs, both animal and emotional, on a surface level only.

    Ironically, he well knew his very distance served as catnip to some women. His refusal to allow intimacy was a siren call that only drew them deeper toward him, which more often than not resulted in anger and tears. He stoically withstood any and all such onslaughts—there was nothing he could say. These women were right—he was aloof, emotionally unavailable, unwilling or unable to let them in.
    But then Ellie came along. He walked her home after that first date. Their conversation had rippled and spun, they found humor in the same things, discovered they agreed on all the important basics: Indian food, yes, indies over mainstream movies, coffee as an essential food group. Of course, even as he engaged in the data mining that is part and parcel of early dating, he was aware that he was presenting a fiction, that even to this girl with whom he connected so easily, he must never reveal who he really was. But still. There was something that linked them. By the time they had gotten back to her apartment building, he knew he didn’t want to say good night.
    Outside the building, she paused. “This is me.”
    “Really? You’re an apartment building? How’s that working out for you?”
    Her lips quirked. “Not too bad. The tenant in 4G has an unfortunate tap dance addiction that has wreaked havoc on my parquet flooring, but other than that, my life as a building has been pretty chill.”
    He looked up at the rows of windows, wondered which set was hers. Wanted more than anything to take her up to her apartment even though he knew he was fast spiraling into dangerous ground. He realized she was watching him, that delicious pink tongue once again darting out to skim her lips. Walk away, his brain screeched, right before he reached for her and kissed her.

    The kiss was explosive. They melted into each other, lost in the thrilling new sensations of unfamiliar lips and tongues. The street faded away, the rumble of traffic disappeared, everything in the entire world narrowed down to the feel of this delicate-looking but surprisingly sturdy woman, the taste of her mouth (both sweet and salty), the brush of her blond hair against his cheek. He felt his prick grow hard and pulled away slightly so she wouldn’t feel the pressure of his erection against her. To his surprise she pulled him closer, subtly shifted her body into his, let herself shift back slightly so he could tilt her head and kiss her even more deeply.
    Finally, as if it had been rehearsed, they both pulled away at precisely the same moment, their breathing shaky. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, he was unwilling to let her go.
    “Well,” she said. She traced the scar above his eyebrow with a fingertip.
    “Exactly my thought,” he replied hoarsely.
    Suddenly she seemed to take stock of herself. She stepped back, slipping away from his