Falling for Colton (Falling #5)

by Jasinda Wilder

  A couple weeks later, I’m feeling pretty much recovered. My shoulder is weak and stiff and aches, but the fevers and the sweats have disappeared—Maya said I was damned lucky in more ways than one. India works a lot during the day, so I’m at home—India and Maya’s apartment is home now, somehow—alone a lot, listening to music, watching TV, and doing a lot of thinking.

  What I keep coming up to is that the longer I stay away from the streets, the more I know I don’t want to go back.

  The best part of my life, though, is India. She’s tightly threaded all throughout my world. We’ve always got something to talk about, and we discuss hopes and dreams and fears, things I’ve never talked to anyone about.

  But we never get any time alone. People are stopping by to visit or India’s mom is home. One way or another, we never end up getting any time to follow up on that one kiss we shared. Sure, we steal a kiss or two when no one is looking, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

  It’s not until we decide to go to a party at a Bishop’s dingy, nasty pad that we finally get time alone. The party is a rager, lots of Bishops and their non-gang friends, lots of girls, lots of booze, pot, and other shit I don’t touch; India isn’t interested in it either. She sticks with her girls, Callie and some others, and I stay with Split and T-Shawn, since I’m not close with any of the others. I like T-Shawn, though. He’s quiet and he keeps to himself, but he’s wise. When he speaks, he’s worth listening to. He does what he’s gotta do. Unlike the others, he accepts me in his own way, without a word about it, and I can tell he feels comfortable around me. I sense he’s a guy who is way more interesting than he lets on, and I’d like to get to know him better. When the others talk shit to me, all he has to do to shut it down is stand by my side and glare at them. They shut up and move on. He has a very unassuming manner about him, and with that comes a sense of don’t-fuck-with-me. He’s got a low tolerance for assholes and he’ll wreck you if you don’t have the sense to back off when he gives the hint.

  The party rages on. More people arrive, then scatter and vanish. Split and Callie find each other eventually, and as the hours pass, they get more and more wasted. They’re all over each other and pretty soon they’re groping each other, going at it hot and heavy, until someone shouts at them to get a room. Which they do, noisily.

  It is getting late and I’m dizzy and hot and my shoulder aches. I find the fire escape and climb out and sit on a step, breathing in the cool night air. I hear the door open, glance up to see India, and I can’t help but smile at her.

  She’s wearing short shorts that cup her tight round ass, and a shiny, slinky top that just barely covers all the important bits. She sits down beside me, wedging herself between me and the railing. And then she leans against me, and my heart almost bursts.

  “Hot in there,” she remarks.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  We exchange comments about the party and the people, the idle chatter of two people utterly comfortable with each other.

  And then she turns it serious. “You said you didn’t grow up in this life. How did you grow up?”

  We’ve talked about a lot things, but never about my life growing up, beyond that first admission. Which is how I find myself with her on that fire escape until dawn, telling her about my childhood, my dad, the fights with him about school and just about every other thing. But I leave out the fact that I can’t read very well because, hell, that’s fuckin’ embarrassing. I just give her the impression that I hate school and leave it at that. And that’s true enough—no lie there. She tells me about Isaac, and about how losing him messed her up for so long. She admits that she’s still not really over him, but figures she’s as over him as she’ll ever get.

  Then she looks up at me with those big brown eyes and tells me she’s ready to move on.

  “Yeah?” I ask, not missing her meaning, but wanting to be clear. “You mean move on with someone else?”

  “Don’t play, Colt. We can’t put this off any longer. You know what I’m saying.” A pause, as a thought occurs to her. “But Callie’s gonna kick your ass, when she finds out about us.”

  “Because of Split?”

  She shakes her head. “He won’t care. I’m his girl’s friend, not his. But he won’t step in if Callie goes after you.”

  “It’d be worth it.”

  “It would?”

  My fingers find hers, and our palms touch, our fingers tangle. “Hell, yeah. You’re totally worth letting Callie kick my ass.”

  “You think so?” A note of wonder, a note of doubt.

  I breathe a sigh of disbelief. “India. I want you so bad it hurts. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since I walked into Callie’s house that day and saw you sitting at the kitchen table.”

  She lets me see the vulnerability in her eyes. “Don’t play me, Colt.”

  “I like you, India. A lot.”

  She smirks. “What are we, in third grade now?”

  “I guess so, yes.”

  This gets me a laugh, as she stands up, offering me her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s an empty bedroom upstairs.” She climbs up the fire escape to the next floor up, and I follow her.

  She pulls up the window, peers in, and makes sure the room is empty. It is, and she climbs in. I go in next. It’s a dump—I’ve been in some shitty places, but this place is one of the worst. The air smells stale, and an old mattress and box spring sit in the middle of the room. There’s a tattered, hand-stitched quilt folded up on the bed, and one pillow so old it’s almost flat. An ancient dresser stands in one corner, scratched and battered, the finish peeling, and a desk is jammed against the wall.

  The place is well and truly a shithole.

  But it’s private.

  India shuts the window and checks the lock on the door.

  Then she turns to me, and somehow I’m standing right up close to her, and she’s gazing up at me. We both know what this is, and we both know we’ve wanted it to happen for a long time. She waits for me, blinking, wanting it, just waiting.

  My hand floats up to touch her hip, the other cups her face. I brush her hair out of the way and nudge her chin up. She smiles, leans closer, breasts flattening against my chest. She tilts her mouth up closer to mine.

  I kiss her. It’s not a sweet kiss. It’s sudden and short and almost brutal in its rough passion. I don’t know what this is between us. I’ve been with a bunch of girls, but it’s never been like this. Never been this sense of…desperation. Like if I don’t get more of her, closer to her, I’ll combust. She seems to feel it too, and the way she pulls away from the kiss to stare at me and gasp for breath tells me it’s as surprising to her as it is to me.

  But I stop myself. We’re in a dark, stinking room in a strange house.

  “I want our first time together to be better than this, India.”

  “I don’t care where it happens, Colt,” India breathes. “I just want you. I can’t wait any longer.”

  “But this is one of the nastiest shitholes I’ve ever been in. You deserve better.” I can’t help but snatch another kiss. “We deserve better.”

  A pause, a moment, a breath. And then India makes my world complete. “Mama’s on the early shift, and she’s working a double again. Won’t be home till tonight.”

  “Then what are we doing here?” I pull her back to the window, out onto the fire escape. “Let’s go home.”

  We run home—the party is only a couple blocks from the apartment complex. By the time we get there, we’re both laughing and out of breath. India is fumbling with the key and the lock, and I’m sliding my hands all over her, kissing the back of her neck, digging my hands down the front of her shorts, cupping her ass, groping her breasts, nipping at her earlobe, grinding my raging erection into her ass.

  Finally—fucking finally she gets the lock and shoves the door open. We fall through, and she locks the door behind us once more.

  Turns to me. Grabs my
shirt. Rips it off, and then pushes me aggressively toward her room. I grab her by the front of her shirt, pull her with me as I walk backward to her room. We’re kissing, fumbling at each other. I take her hands and press her palms to my stomach, urge them downward, but she pushes my hands away, palms my cheek, her face close to mine, her eyes wide, liquid brown, eager, blazing with need. Then she pushes again, and I topple backward to fall onto the bed and she’s all over me, sitting on my thighs and wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me as if this is the last night there’ll ever be.

  And then, god…and then she leans back and strips off her shirt. If I was hard before, I go diamond at the sight of her in her bra. It’s red lace, pushing up a pair of gorgeous, chocolate brown C-cup tits. I slide my palms over them, but she bats at my hands.

  “Not yet.”

  “No?”

  She shakes her head. “Mmm-mm.”

  She reaches up behind her back and unhooks her bra, tossing it aside. She bares herself to me. She has the most beautiful tits I’ve ever laid eyes on. “Now,” she says.

  Fuck, I want them, I want to taste them, feel them, lick them, fuck them. Leaning forward, I close my mouth over the small pert nipples. I flick my tongue over them, tasting her delicious skin. I lean back and look some more. Full, round, taut with large dark areolae surrounding the nipples. Heavy. I lift them in my palms. Soft, so fucking soft. I let my tongue roam, areolae, nipple, the underside. She gasps when I run my tongue in quick circles, flick, flick, flick. She arches her back, thrusting those goddamned perfect tits into my mouth.

  I cup one, lift it to my mouth, frame her lower spine with my palm and pull her closer. Her legs close around my waist, her hair hangs down her back, her throat is a slender column angled toward my jaw. I kiss up her body, between her tits, her throat, her chin. I gently caress her breasts and slide my palm up her spine and into her hair. I take a handful of that thick curly mass and tug her face to mine, demanding a kiss.

  And holy hell, does she deliver. Kisses me delirious, leaving me breathless and faint.

  And then India slides off me, moves to her feet, stepping backward, her tits bouncing beautifully. She unbuttons her jeans and shimmies out of them, and that shimmy makes me even harder, so hard it hurts. The move sends her tits shaking and jiggling as she works the tight denim down her thighs, kicks them off. Underneath she’s wearing a red thong, just a triangle of silk over her core—and goddamn if that little scrap of material isn’t dark with the dampness of her desire.

  “Get over here,” I growl, reaching for her.

  She dances backward. “Uh-uh! You gotta take off your clothes too, Colt-baby. You get this—” she gestures at her lush body, “—when I get that—” gesturing at me.

  At my crotch.

  I stand up. Maybe flex a little, but not obviously. Just tense my abs and pecs a little. Make a show of going slow, unzipping, unbuttoning, shucking the denim off to reveal tight black boxer briefs, and you’d better believe I’m bulging out of that shit, harder than I’ve ever been in my life, staring at the sexiest girl in the world, watching her watch me, desire in her eyes, greed in her gaze.

  She wants me.

  Hell, yeah. And I want her, I want her more than any woman I’ve ever met.

  I take a step toward her, slow and predatory. “Take it off, India,” I say, pointing at her thong. It’s a command. Not sure where this is coming from, but it feels good. The rough command, the ballsy directness. And damn, she digs it.

  Her eyes blaze and spark, and she lifts her chin. “Make me.”

  My first instinct is just to rip them off. But I don’t. The challenge was to make her take them off, not for me to take them off for her. So I sidle closer, so close the tips of her tits brush my chest. I stare down into her eyes, our noses not quite touching, both of us breathing hard with restrained need. I reach down and gently scrape my finger over the wet fabric. I feel the outline of her pussy inside the thong. I trace my finger across each lip, and the slit between. She inhales sharply, but remains motionless. She’s staring up at me, resolute. Determined. Which of us will be the one to rip her thong off first?

  She will, damn it; I’m gonna make her.

  I hook an index finger in the elastic against her inner thigh and pull the triangle aside, slip the index finger of my other hand into her. Oh, fuck. It slides in so smooth, slips easily into her warm wetness, and she moans. Her knees tremble. I withdraw and let the underwear snap back into place, then trace her opening over the fabric. I tease and push my finger in, through the silk. India grinds against my touch, seeking more. Angling for my finger inside her. I trace her seam again, then slide my finger under the elastic. I run my finger over her bare opening, but not quite going in.

  “Colt.” It’s almost a plea.

  I give her what she wants and I slide my finger in, smearing her juices all over her opening and over her clit. I tease that hard little nub until she’s gyrating and grinding against my finger. And then I pull it away, and this time she whimpers.

  But she plays dirty, too. She digs her hand into my underwear and grips me, stroking me. God, the way she touches me, so hungry, yet somehow so sweet. Deliberate and delightful. God, it takes all my control to hold back. Shit, I’m close, and we haven’t even started. I’m seriously about to come in my drawers like a damn virgin.

  I drop to my knees, and out of her reach. And that little moan again, that little murmur of protest: Mmmm-mmmmmmmmm! As if to say what are you doing? Give it back!

  She wants it, and I love that she wants it. I want her to have it.

  I wish she could touch me forever, but I’ve got a challenge to win. I tug her thong down just enough to bare the top of her slit, and I work my tongue into that tiny opening, just the upper swell, the slight gap where her tight sweet little pussy starts. And then I hear a full-on groan. God, yes. She really wants that. So I pull aside the triangle and give her one good probing lick with my tongue, and goddamn if she doesn’t taste as sweet as fucking sugar. I can’t resist tasting her again. And again. And again. And then suddenly I’m devouring her, eating her clit as if it’s my last meal.

  “Fuck—Colt…please…” she murmurs.

  “Take ’em off, India.”

  “Uh-uh.” She grinds against my mouth even as she denies me.

  “Now, India.” I put a whip in my voice, and her eyes fly open, finding mine.

  I let the underwear slide back into place and sink back onto my haunches. Teasing her. I press my lips over her opening and breathe a hot breath onto her.

  “Damn you,” she snarls, and pulls the red thong off. She throws it at me. I let it fall onto my face, inhaling her scent on it. Which earns me a laugh. “You nasty.”

  “Hell yeah.” I grab the backs of her thighs and pull her closer. I bury my face against her pussy. “Let me feel you come.”

  “Colt-baby…?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Shut up and eat my pussy.” She pulls my face against herself, greedily arching her back and writhing her hips, grinding her slit against my lips.

  I devour her. I ravage her clit with my tongue and slide my fingers in and out of her opening until she’s grinding and gasping, holding onto my shoulders for balance and riding my face. I lift a thigh up and onto my shoulder, opening her up even more. Then I lift her up so she is sitting on my shoulders. I stand up, and she grabs onto the lintel of the door with both hands, grinding against my face. I palm her tight, juicy ass and lift her core closer to my face, lap at her clit in circles, up and down, side to side, eagerly and faster and faster until she’s writhing non-stop, using the lintel to lift herself up and down onto my mouth, riding me.

  She comes with a scream, and I taste her essence. Lap it up, lick until she’s breathless. Until she jerks and groans and comes again.

  “Down, down, let me down.” She wriggles, widens her thighs and pushes backward and slides down my body.

  She holds onto my sides for balance as she wobbles on unsteady legs, but she
wastes no time divesting me of my underwear. Then she goes to her knees and takes me in her mouth.

  God, that mouth. Those lips, wrapped around me, is hotter than I had ever imagined. Her eyes go wide as she takes more and more, looking up at me. I ache to let go. Throb with the need to move, to thrust between those beautiful lips. But I don’t. I hold still and let her do her thing. Which…shit, it takes all I have and something extra to keep it back, to hold on, to not come down her throat.

  I have to pull away, gritting my teeth and flexing every muscle in my body with the effort of holding back.

  “You close?” India is there, on her knees in front of me, watching me.

  “Fuck…yeah, so close.”

  “Give it to me.” She moves in, but I stay out of reach.

  “No, not like this.”

  I lift India to her feet.

  I can’t help it: I bury my fist in her hair, that fucking amazing hair. Gently but firmly I yank her head back and kiss her with all I’ve got. Until we’re both breathless. And that’s when I bend at the knees, nudge her opening. Beautiful, willing creature that she is, India doesn’t hesitate, just reaches between us and fits me into her, goes up on her toes and when I’m nestled just inside her tight wet slit, she sinks down and I thrust up.

  We groan in unison, and our mouths collide. Our teeth click and lips mash, and I feel her clamping around me. I lift her up, both hands on her ass as I lift and lower her. She grinds, and we’re kissing, gasping, exchanging breath, moving and writhing together.

  “Bed—” India gasps. “Lay me down.”

  I take two short steps and then lower her gently onto the bed. She’s got her heels around my spine and she’s moving, and I forget about everything. The strain on my shoulder, a throbbing ache, fades into the background and all I can do is stare down at her and move with her.

  I take over then, and she goes still as I control the pace. Slow, shallow. Letting the urge to orgasm recede a little, and then ramp it up. Faster, deeper, harder. She reaches between us and her fingers go to her clit. I adjust my position on top of her, leaning back until I’m upright and my cock is stretching away, and I’m thrusting deep, and she’s madly vigorously desperately stroking her sweet little clit, and god I love that, the way she takes control of her pleasure.