Falling Under (21 page)

“Did you think about suicide?”

I shake my head. “No, sir. It wasn’t about wanting to die or end my life. It was just…the burning pushed away the other things I was feeling, things I didn’t know how to deal with.”

“What about hard drugs?”

I shake my head again. “No way. Seen that shit kill people. No.”

Colt sighs. “Word is you still smoke pot.”

“‘Word is’?” I lift an eyebrow. “Whose word?”

“Ben.”

I grimace. “Ben. He hates me.”

“I know. But answer the question. Do you?”

I nod. “Sometimes. Not often.” My heart is hammering.

“Has Kylie?”

“Not with me.”

“Quit that shit, Oz. It’s not doing you any favors. I’ve been there, and that’s the only reason I’m this calm about it. I don’t want it around my daughter. If I catch even a whiff of that shit on my daughter, bad things will happen.” He points at me with his cigarette. “My daughter likes you. You and I have a lot in common, Oz, and that scares me. But I turned out okay, so I’m taking a chance on you, letting you around Kylie.”

I nod. “I hear you. And thank you.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather know you and know where my daughter is when she’s with you than have her running off to elope with you or some bullshit because I tried to keep you apart.” He says this with a trace of bitterness.

“I want good things for Kylie, sir. I know you and Nell are important to her, and there’s no way I’d try to take her away from ya’ll like that.”

“Good.” He eyes me speculatively. “You got any experience working on engines?”
 

I bobble my head back and forth. “A little. I’d like to learn.”

Colt digs through a small box on the workbench, comes up with a business card. “This is a buddy of mine. He needs an extra hand in his garage. Go see him tomorrow. I’ll tell him to expect you. He’ll pay you good if you work hard.”

I take the card. “That’s legit, Colt. Thanks.”

“You can do better than changing oil.” He jerks his head at the house. “Go on. She’s waiting.” I head toward the door, and he calls me back. “Oz? One last thing. You knock up my baby girl, you and I are gonna have problems. Very
serious
problems.”

I freeze with my hand on the knob. “That won’t happen, sir. You have my word.”

“Better not.”

Kylie is waiting for me, and as soon as I come in from the garage, she’s dragging me back out to her car. I wave at her mom and thank her for the dinner, and then Kylie and I are flying out of her sub, toward my apartment.
 

“What did my dad say?” Kylie asks.

I shrug. “Wanted to make sure the burning wasn’t an issue. Wanted to know about what Ben said about me smoking pot. Wanted to make sure I don’t get you pregnant.”

“What Ben said?” Kylie seems confused.

“Apparently Ben told him I smoke pot. I don’t know.”

Kylie frowns, and then her expression clears. “Oh. Dad overheard my argument with Ben the other night. Ben said he knows for a fact that you smoke pot. That must be what he’s talking about.”
 

“Well, all things considered, I think it went well.”

She glances at me. “What’d you tell him about the burning?”

“The truth. It used to be a problem. I told him about the whole psych hospital thing.”
 

“The
what
?”
 

Shit. I forgot I hadn’t told her about that little detail. So I go back and give her the same rundown I did Colt.
 

She takes my hand and squeezes. “That’s awful, Oz. Why do people have to pick on you?”

“I don’t know. I’m different. I think it’s partly the schools Mom put me in. She was always trying to make sure I went to the best school in the city. She’d find a place to live that would let me go to the better school. I appreciate the idea, and the safer schools, and whatever, but I’d have fit in better at the shitty schools. No one would’ve paid me any attention there, not like they do where she always had me going. I didn’t fit in. I never have.”

We arrive at my apartment, and I hustle her inside, into my room. She makes herself at home, kicking aside a pile of dirty clothes and sitting on my bed. I watch her, and decide to broach the subject that’s been nagging at me all day.

“Kylie, I’ve been thinking.”

She laughs. “Uh-oh.”

“No, nothing bad. I just hate the fact that this shithole apartment is the only place we have to be alone. I just wish I had somewhere nicer we could go to be together. For our first time together, I mean.”

She frowns at me. “I couldn’t care less
where
we are, Oz. As long as we’re together, I don’t care. This is your room. Your space. And…some of my best memories are here in this room. Getting to know you.” She grins at me, blushing. “Kissing you. Touching you. All the things we did together. That happened here. I don’t need the Ritz-Carlton, or a million-dollar penthouse. I don’t need you to be anyone or anything other than who you are.” She extends her hands to me.
 

I move to sit beside her on the bed, but she grabs my wrists and jerks me toward her. She lies down, pulling me, and I fall forward, laughing, land on top of her.
 

“There. Now I’m somewhere nice.” She grins up at me.

“Fuck, Kylie. You’re too much. Way too awesome for a guy like me.” I plant my fists beside her shoulders, taking my weight off her. “But I’ll take it.”

“That’s right. You will.” She runs her palm up my cheek, sweeping my hat off and tossing it aside, tugging my hair out of its ponytail. “I liked seeing you in my home, talking with my parents. I like having you in my life.”

“Me, too. It was a little strange at first, but I liked it.”

She tilts her head to one side with a confused expression. “What was? Dinner? What was that about, anyway?”

I shrug. “I’ve just never had dinner like that. At a table, a whole family all together. It was just weird. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.”

She laughs. “What you were supposed to do? It’s just dinner. You eat!”
 

I snort. “Yeah, I got that part. But it’s a little nerve-wracking, okay? A formal family dinner with your girlfriend’s parents is a big deal.”

“Oh.” She’s serious now. “I didn’t think about it like that.”

“It’s fine. I had a good time.”

“And now we’re here,” she says, slipping her fingers under my shirt to roam my back.

“Now we’re here.”
 

Her fingernails skim up my spine, pushing my shirt with it, and then she’s tugging it off and sliding her palms down my sides, cups my ass and pulls me closer.
 

“You should get me naked,” she whispers. “There’s no reason for us to stop this time.”

“I awoke a greedy little monster in you, didn’t I?”
 

She’s wearing a white button-down shirt and a knee-length gray cotton skirt. I lean back on my knees and unbutton the top of her shirt, and then the second button.
 

She rests her hands above her head, her eyes locked on me. “You sure did, baby. A very hungry monster. Ravenous. Insatiable.”

I pop the rest of the buttons open, and suck in a breath. She’s wearing a skimpy red push-up bra. I’m instantly hard, and her eyes go to my crotch. “It’s a front clasp,” she breathes.

I keep my eyes on hers as I unhook her bra, and then she’s leaning up toward me, letting her shirt and bra fall away off her arms and shoulders. Jesus, those tits. So fucking amazing. I graze my palms over them, feel her nipples harden under my touch, cup their weight. She sighs, a breathy moan of delight, and then she’s opening my pants, pushing me backward and jerking my jeans down. I’m fumbling desperately at the stretchy waistband of her skirt, pulling it haphazardly down around her hips, one side sticking at her waist, the other rolled down to show a scrap of red thong strap. She kneels between my legs and lets me shove the elastic down, and she’s kicking the cotton away, and she’s there above me, red-blonde hair a curtain around her face, her vivid blue eyes hot and eager on mine. She’s almost naked, clad only in the thong, a tiny bit of red silk matching her bra. I run my hands down her back and over her ass, and the feel of her taut, plush-soft, and perfect backside in my hands makes my cock go harder, achingly rigid, bursting full of need to feel her on me, soft around me, touching, licking, kissing, sucking, fucking, loving. I growl as I dig clawed fingers into the muscle of her ass, clutching and pulling her closer to me. I rip the thong down, tugging the little string out from between her ass cheeks, strip it off, and I can smell her desire, smell the need-juices seeping from her pussy.
 

She’s not idle as I’m doing this — she’s pulling at my boxers, getting the elastic stuck on the head of my engorged cock, tugging them away and down and off, and we’re naked together, free together, breathing in the silence, breathing each other’s breath and feeling skin against skin, eyes on eyes, electric blue on gray-almost-brown.
 

We meet in an instinctual frantic kiss, arms sliding serpentine on heated flesh, hands grasping at curves and muscle and searching for everything, needing everything. My fingers find her slick hot cleft and delve in, drag a moan and sigh from her sweet lips as they move on mine, and her hand slides between us and finds my cock and caresses it and squeezes it, and we’re panting, panting.

“I can’t—I can’t wait anymore, Oz. Please?” Kylie’s face, inches from mine, is pleading.
 

She grabs her purse from the floor, keeping as much of her body against mine as possible while she finds the little gray box of condoms and opens it, pulls the string of foil squares out, rips one free. Tears it open, examines it. Figures out which way it rolls, and sits up to straddle me.
 

I’m still, letting her do this. Watching her beauty, breathless at the fantasy of this happening, the implausibly incredible truth of this gorgeous, perfect, girl, this woman, naked with me, wanting me, needing me, allowing me to touch her and kiss her. It shouldn’t be me, but it is. I’m just a hood rat, a metal kid, a pot-smoking fighter, the kid who’s been to juvie and psych wards, who’s been suspended more times than I could ever count, expelled once, beaten up countless times, shot, nearly stabbed once, left for dead in a parking lot, fatherless, friendless, homeless, rootless. How could I possibly deserve to have this glorious pale-skinned fire-haired, lightning-eyed beauty, this goddess? But here she is, in my room, with me, wrapping her tender eager little white fingers around my aching cock and sliding the condom on, rolling it down, so gently erotic that I don’t dare breathe or move or feel or un-clench my muscles. And she’s watching me, perhaps seeing all the thoughts in my head, seeing me for me the way she always has.
 

“Oz?” she whispers. “Are you here?”

I slide my hands up her thighs and grasp her waist. “Yeah, babe. I am. I’m just marveling.”

“At what?” She’s sitting up on my thighs, balanced easily, her heavy tits not quite covered by the copper fall of her hair, her thighs opened enough to show me her pussy, to show me how wet she is for me.
 

“You.” I swallow hard, blink, emotional in a way I’m not sure how to deal with or express. “Just fucking amazed that you’re here with me. That I get to have you, get to do this with you. You’ve waited so long for the right guy, the right time, and for reasons I just cannot fucking fathom, you pick me. Messed-up, fucked-up me. You…you’re perfect, Kylie. So perfect. Every inch of your body is perfect. Your soul is…so beautiful. Your mind, your heart, your personality — you just glow like a sun in the darkness, Kylie. You light up the blackness that has been my life, and I don’t know how to ever be the kind of man you need and deserve, but I want to try. For you, for me, and for us. For the possibility of us.” I’m letting all this come out of me, honesty, truth, things I’m not all that acquainted with. “Goddamn, listen to me, going on like some emotional sissy.”

Kylie is crying. Fuck, I’ve messed this up before it can begin. “Oz. Jesus, Oz.” She leans down, and her big soft boobs squish against my chest, and her mouth trembles against mine. Her hair falls to either side of our faces, and I feel her tears, the hammering of her heart, the shaking of her hands as they clutch my face. “I don’t even know what to say to all that. Except, you already are what I want, what I need, what I deserve. And I’m not perfect, but the fact that you think so makes me so happy. Because I think you’re perfect, too, messed up, fucked up, beautiful, tough, strong, sweet, and sexy.”

She rolls off me, pulls at me. I move above her, slip my hips between her knees, and she hugs me with her thighs, holds my shoulders and looks up at me, expectant, waiting, begging without words.

“Kylie, this is what you want? With me? Now? You’re sure?” I have to ask, have to make sure.

She laughs. “Yes, Oz. So sure. So ready. Please, please. I’m aching. My insides ache. My—my pussy is on fire. I need you. Touch me. Make me come.”

Shit. How am I supposed to resist that? I can’t, and I don’t have to. I touch her with my two middle fingers, and find her wet and tight. Slip my fingers inside her, caress her, stroke her, spread her essence over her clit and pinch that little erect nub of nerves and rub and stroke it until she’s gasping and moving beneath me, moaning. I circle, swipe, circle. Delve deep, touch her deep inside, curl my fingers to find that spot that makes her writhe and growl in her throat, circle her clit until she’s bucking, and watching her come apart makes me harder than ever, makes my cock ache to be inside her.

“Oz…oh, fuck, Oz.” Her eyes fly open, and she drives her hips upward, spine arcing, breasts heaving as she comes to my touch.

“Ready?” I nudge against her opening.

She nods, breathless, a jerky bob of her head, and she reaches between us, grips my cock and nestles the head between the wet lips of her pussy. “Yeah, baby. I’m ready. So ready.”

I gently, slowly slide into her, and I can barely hold on, barely hold back, because every notion of good or pleasant or perfect is blasted into nothing by the feel of her slick, tight heat. I can’t breathe, can barely support my own weight. I feel resistance inside her, and know that this is the part that will hurt her. She feels it, her face tight, brows drawn.