Falling into You (Falling #1)(47)

“What do you mean?” I know what she means, but I want to hear her say it.

“I kissed you back. It’s crazy, messed up, and it confuses me. But I did it eyes wide. Knowing. I wasn’t drunk.” She looks at me past long, dark lashes, eyes saying a thousand things her mouth wasn’t.

My mouth goes dry. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“But you did.”

“Yeah. I’m an asshole like that. I just can’t help it, around you.”

“I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think you’re sweet. Gentle.” She says it with a little smile.

I shake my head. “Nah. It’s just you. You bring that tender shit out of me. I’m a thug, Nell. Straight up.”

“Ex-thug,” she counters.

I laugh. “Once a thug, always a thug. I may not run the streets anymore, but it’s still part of who I am.”

“And I like who you are.”

I stand up, uncomfortable with where this is going. “It’s late. We should sleep.”

She glances at the sun, which is peeking between a couple high-rises across the street. “It’s early, but yeah. I’m exhausted.”

I take her guitar and hold her hand as she steps onto the stairs. I like how her hand feels in mine. I don’t want to let go, so I don’t. Neither does she. Nell stops at the bathroom, and I change into running shorts. Finally, I let myself feel the pain from the fight with Dan. I stretch, feeling my ribs twinge, and I probe my loose tooth with my tongue, wince at the dull ache. At that moment, Nell appears beside me with a washcloth. I eye her warily, then pull away when she reaches for my face.

“I’m fine,” I growl.

“Shut up and hold still.”

I roll my eyes and bring my face back within reach. Her touch is far too gentle for a rough bastard like me. She touches my chin, turns me to the side, brushes the cuts and bruises as if frightened to hurt me further. I stop breathing from her proximity, from the drunk-making wonder of her scent, shampoo and lemons and whiskey and woman. She turns my head again, wipes the other side of my face, eyes narrowed as she focuses on wiping away the crusted blood. I’d cleaned up a bit while she was in the shower at her place, but apparently not well enough. She wipes my upper lip, my chin, my forehead, my cheekbones. Then she lowers the washcloth and runs her fingers over my face, touching each cut gently, exploring.

I hold still and let her touch me. It scares me. She’s looking at me as if seeing me for the first time, as if trying to memorize how I look. Her gaze is intense, needy. Her thumbs end up brushing over my lips, and I bite one of her thumbs, a little hard.

Her eyes widen and her nostrils flare, and she sucks in a fast breath as I run my tongue over the pad of her thumb.

What the fuck am I doing? But I can’t stop.

This time, she leans in. Pulls her thumb from my mouth and replaces it with her lips. Her tongue. This is so crazy. I shouldn’t let it happen.

But I do. My god, I do. I kiss her back with all the hunger inside me. We’re in my room, just inside the doorway, inches from the bed. It would be so easy to spin her around and lay her down, peel her clothes off, and…

I pull away. She sighs as I do, and it’s a disappointed sound.

“You keep stopping,” she says.

I slip back out of her arms, reluctantly. I’m confused, messed up. I want her, but some vague voice in my head tells me it’s wrong to have her. Part of me says we belong together, tells me to cradle her close and never let go. She seems to want me, and I want her…but I know—I know—I’m not good enough for her.

“We need to sleep,” I say. “You can have the bed.”

I turn away, but her hand catches my elbow.

“I don’t want to sleep alone,” she says. “I’ve slept alone for so long. I just… I want to be held. Please?” She’s vulnerable again, suddenly.

I shouldn’t. It’s tempting and I haven’t figured out what’s right or wrong. But I can’t say no.

“I could do that,” I say. “I would love nothing more, if I’m being honest.”





Nell





Chapter 9: Ghosts; One Breath at a Time





Every single fiber of my being is screaming at me. I’m liquid in his arms. Fire burns in my veins. Guilt and peace rage in my brain, warring.

I told him. I told Colton my secret guilt. I cried. I sobbed for hours. Hours and hours. I don’t even know how long. And god, did that feel good. But the guilt remains. I know it’s ridiculous. I know, but goddamnit, I can’t shake the guilt.

And now, it’s all compounded a million times by Colton’s brawny arms around me. God, I still can’t fathom the raw, savage, masculine glory of the man. I hadn’t seen him in two years, and then I saw him on a bench—singing that song of things—and he’d bulked up in that time. Hardcore. He’d been a beast at the funeral, stretching the sleeves of his suit coat. Now? Holy hell. My mouth went dry as a desert when I saw him busking outside Central Park. Ink-black hair down around his eyes and curling above his collar, messy, shaggy, perfect. His eyes, those hadn’t changed, soul-spearing sapphires. But his body? Oh god, oh god…ohmigod.

The tattoos turn his torso into a living mural, poetry in script along his ribs, a dragon on his right shoulder breathing fire on Japanese characters, the fire spreading like wildfire down his back and fading into a golden sun on his spine, an archaic-looking thing, like a compass rose, almost. A pinup girl in silhouette on his left arm, more script lettering on his opposing ribs, Latin it looks like. Music notes scattered over both forearms, stars, suns, skulls and crossbones, iron crosses mixing and merging and joining it all. He’s a masterpiece of skin art. A masterpiece of bulky male muscle, hard and heavy and huge.