After We Fell (After, #3)

by Anna Todd

And to the Hardins of the world, who deserve to have their stories told, too.

He brings our hands to his mouth, slowly kissing each of my knuckles, and my anger dissolves at the touch of his soft lips.

And afterward, all I wanted to hear was the voice of my girl, my angel.

Even though my girl’s walking next to me, she seems miles away.

“No. But she thinks I did,” I admit.

“I’ll marry you.” He reaches for my hand, but I step back. My breath hitches. I’m sure I couldn’t have heard that correctly. “What?” I raise my hands, blocking him from coming closer. “I said I’ll marry you if you choose me.” He stands up, stepping toward me.

“If either of you calls me that one more time, I swear—” “Tessie, what’s wrong, Tessie? You don’t like the name Tessie, Tessie?”

This is my problem: when it comes to Hardin, my brain doesn’t see the difference between right and wrong.

Fucking Steph.

“Oh, you mean like when I fucked you right there”—he points to the bed—“while my mum was sleeping on the couch?” He thrusts gently against me again. “Or the time I fucked you in the bathroom at my father’s, or the multiple times I fucked you while Karen, Landon, and my father were just down the hall?” He reaches down and touches my thigh softly. “Oh, wait, you must mean like when I bent you over your desk at work—” “Okay! Okay! I get it, I get it.” I flush, and he laughs.

I get the feeling I’m not supposed to hear the conversation. Which means I really should hear the conversation.

Hardin sits back on the bed, grabbing my hands in his, pulling me over to sit on his leg. “Well, we’ve exhausted all the serious topics, and your dad’s asleep. I guess we’ll have to find another way to occupy ourselves…” His grin is ridiculous yet infectious. “Is sex all you think about?” I reply and push his chest playfully.

He’s deleted everything.

I know you don’t understand why I stay with him through all of this mess, but I love him so much, more than anything, and he doesn’t have me trapped. I want to be with him.”

My perverted thoughts interrupted, I push them away… for now. She would hide behind her hands if I told her what I was daydreaming about.

I decide to take a different approach and bring my hand to the front of his boxers. He fell asleep in his jeans last night, and I had a hell of a time tugging them down his legs without waking him. But now he’s been left vulnerable, and manipulable. My fingernails gently graze the inked skin just above the waistband… He doesn’t budge. I dip my hand fully into his boxers, and he opens his eyes. “Good morning,” he says with a lusty smile. I remove my hand and stand up. “Get up.”

Fuck, you’re lucky I love you.”

I can picture him, saying crude and perverted things; he’d probably end up in the dressing room with me. I don’t think I’d stop him.

“I forgot you don’t like water.” He pulls me closer. “I like water… in swimming pools.” “And streams?” His eyes glitter with humor. I smile at the memory. “Only one stream in particular.”

“It’s so big,” I whisper to Hardin. “Shh, don’t talk about my dick in front of my family,” he teases.

“I love you,” Hardin says softly into my ear. The boat’s engine comes to life with a light hum, and I scoot closer to Hardin. “I love you,” I say back, still looking out onto the water.

The wind blows my hair across my face, blocking my view for a moment, and Hardin’s hand reaches up to tuck it back behind my ear. It’s always the simple things he does, the small ways he finds to touch me without thought, that make my stomach flutter.

“I don’t have anything to wear.” “Déjà vu,” I remark, thinking about our experience at the stream for the second time today.

I’ll never get enough of her. No matter how many times I touch her, fuck her, kiss her, hold her… it will never be enough, I’ll always want more. It’s not even about the sex, which we have often; it’s that I’m the only one who’s ever been with her, and she trusts me enough to get naked on a fucking balcony.

So why then am I such a fuckup? I don’t want to fuck this up with this girl.

“You’re everything to me; you know that, don’t you?” I repeat the question I’ve had to ask her so many times.

“What do you want?” I urge, wanting to hear the words from her. “You.” She smiles sweetly, then spreads her legs further, showing how dirty she really is.

This is so exhausting. I don’t know how much more I can take before I break. Fuck that, I won’t break. I’m sick of breaking—that’s all I ever do.

“You’re running away? At, like, age twenty?” She better keep her ass moving down this street, then. The last thing I need is some angry father looking for his overdressed teenage daughter. “No.” She laughs. “I’m home from college visiting my parents, and they were boring me to death.” “Oh, good for you. I hope your freedom trail finds you at Shangri-la,” I reply and begin to walk away from her.

His eyes go wide, and he points over at something. “Are those…?” I look over to where he’s staring. “Oh God!” I jump from my seat and grab the red panties that are floating in the hot tub and shove them into the front pocket of my sweatshirt.

“You aren’t very polite,” she hums. “Really?” I roll my eyes even though she can’t see my face. “I’ve been told civility is one of my strongest attributes.” “Someone lied to you,” she says and giggles behind me.

she’s the only thing I have. Literally, she’s the only thing in my life that I give a shit about, and I can’t lose her. I’d have nothing without

It’s pitch-black out here. Literally, I can barely see my hand as I wave it idiotically in front of my face.

“You know, there’s a big difference between not being able to live without someone and loving them.”

“I’m Lillian; it’s nice to meet you,” she introduces herself with a friendly smile. Bitch.

A girl as beautiful as Tessa here shouldn’t be looking at anyone working in hospitality.”

“Wrong,” and steps back toward the door. “I won’t be doing that. It seems you’ve forgotten how it really goes: you throw a fit over something I say, you walk away, and I only come after you so I can fuck you. And you…” he adds with a sinister glare, “you always let me.”

“There is a big difference between not being able to live without someone and loving them,” he says.

There is a big difference between not being able to live without someone and loving them.

“When I said that to you this morning, I wasn’t referring to you, I was talking about her. I meant that just because you think she can’t live without you doesn’t mean that she’s in love with you.”

“You assume that you have her so wrapped around your finger that she won’t leave you because she can’t live without you, when in reality it seems like you have her trapped and that’s why she won’t leave you: not because she loves you, but because you’ve made her feel that she can’t be without you.”

“Because I just fucked her.”

I just don’t know what to do about it. I love her—fuck, do I love that girl. But I’m running out of ways to keep her close to me.

In reality it seems like you have her trapped, and that’s why she won’t leave you: not because she loves you, but because you’ve made her feel that she can’t be without you.

Tessa does love me. I see it in her blue-gray eyes every time she looks at me. I feel it on her fingertips as she traces over the ink stained into my skin. I feel it when her lips touch mine. I know the difference between love and being trapped, between love and being addicted.

How can she think we are doomed when she doesn’t even know me, know us? We aren’t doomed. I know we aren’t. I’m damned, but she’s not. She will save me. She always does.

Her jaw drops. “Holy shit, she’s hot.” I glare at her. “Stop. Don’t look at her like that.” “Lillian said she was pretty, but, fuck, look at her big ti—” “Don’t finish that sentence.” I stare at Tessa.

You’re like the fun police.”

“That’s exactly what you are! You’re the fun police. I should really get you a badge made and you can wear it all around—you know, to stop everyone’s fun,”

“Is that the siren of the fun police I hear? Wah, wah, wah.”