Chapter 6: No More Waiting
His hands were under her sweater, palms flat and scorching against the small of her back, when she breathed the word into his mouth.
“Wait.”
It was barely a sound, a fracture in the heat. Colson went still. His lips hovered a breath from hers, his eyes searching her face in the dim light. The pulse in his throat hammered against her palm. For a suspended second, the only movement was the slow dance of dust in the lamplight beam.
Then, in one fluid, powerful motion, he stood. Her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, her arms clinging to his shoulders. He carried her as if she weighed nothing, his steps purposeful and silent across the worn rug, past the tower of precarious books, toward the short hallway that led to her bedroom. The neon glow from the street painted his profile in stark flashes of blue and red.
“Colson,” she whispered, her voice tangled with panic and desire.
He stopped just before the darkened doorway. He turned and pinned her against the doorframe, his body a solid, unyielding line of heat against hers. The wood pressed into her back. He leaned in, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear, his voice a low, visceral rasp that vibrated through her bones.
“No more waiting.”
He carried her the last few steps into the room and let her slide down his body until her feet found the floor. The bed was a rumpled island behind them. He kept her pinned against him, one hand still splayed on her back under her sweater, the other cradling her face. His thumb stroked her cheekbone.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did. His grey eyes were almost black, the pupils swallowing the iris. In them, she saw the cold precision of the fight in the alley, the violent proof of his scars, and something else—a focused, terrifying hunger.
“Have you ever done this before?” The question was blunt, stripped of sentiment.
A hot flush climbed her neck. She shook her head, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement. “No.”
He absorbed this. His expression didn’t soften, but it changed. The hunger sharpened, refined itself into something more deliberate. “Okay.” He breathed the word out, a concession to a reality he now owned. “Tell me to stop, and I stop. Your word is the only one that matters in this room. Do you understand?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Say it.”
“I understand.”
He kissed her again, but differently. It was slower, deeper, a claiming that felt like excavation. His hands began to move. He peeled her sweater up and over her head, letting it fall soundlessly to the floor. The cool air kissed her skin, raising goosebumps. His gaze traveled down her body, over her plain cotton bra, the gentle curve of her stomach, the waistband of her jeans. It was a look that felt physical, like a touch.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured, not as poetry, but as a stark fact.
He undid the button of her jeans, the zip a loud rasp in the quiet. He hooked his fingers in the denim and her underwear beneath and pushed them down her hips in one motion. She stepped out of them, shivering. He stood back for a moment, just looking at her. She felt utterly exposed, naked in every way, standing in the patch of neon-lit floor between her bed and her writing desk.
Then he was on his knees before her.
He didn't ask. He pressed his mouth to the sharp plane of her hipbone, then lower, his tongue tracing a searing path through the soft, dark hair between her legs. She gasped, her hands flying to his hair, her fingers tangling in the dark strands. He hooked an arm around her thigh to steady her, his other hand spreading her open.
His mouth was on her, his tongue a wet, relentless stroke against her clit. He licked into her, deep and filthy, fucking her with his tongue as his breath burned against her sensitive skin. It was obscene. It was glorious. He was meticulous, attuned to every hitch of her breath, every twitch of her muscles. He sucked, he lapped, he drove her higher with a ruthless patience that shattered her.
“Oh, god,” she choked out, her thighs trembling. The coil in her gut tightened, a sweet, unbearable pressure. She was so close.
He pulled back just as the first tremors began. “Not yet,” he growled against her inner thigh, his breath hot. “Not without me inside you.”
He stood, kissing a wet trail up her stomach, between her breasts. He unfastened her bra, letting it join the pile of clothes. Then he stripped off his own remaining clothes, his movements efficient. In the fractured light, he was all lean muscle and pale skin, the scars on his ribs a dark testament. His cock jutted out, thick and hard, the tip flushed and wet.
He guided her back onto the bed. The sheets were cool. He followed her down, covering her body with his, the weight of him a shocking, delicious anchor.
“Look at me,” he said again, bracing himself on his forearms above her. She met his gaze. He positioned himself at her entrance, the blunt head of his cock pressing against her. “This might hurt. Just for a second.”
He pushed in.
There was a sharp, burning stretch, a fullness that bordered on pain. She cried out, a short, gasping sound. He froze, buried deep inside her, his entire body rigid with the effort of holding still. Sweat gleamed on his temple. “Breathe, Indie,” he commanded, his voice strained. “Just breathe through it.”
She did, dragging air into her lungs. The initial sting began to fade, replaced by an overwhelming sense of being filled, possessed. He began to move, a slow, tentative withdrawal, then a careful slide back in.
“Okay?” he gritted out, his forehead touching hers.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
He set a rhythm, deep and relentless. Each stroke stole her breath. The drag of him inside her was exquisite friction, building a heat that pooled low in her belly. He watched her face, his eyes missing nothing—the flutter of her lashes, the part of her lips, the way her brow furrowed with pleasure.
“You feel so good,” he rasped, his control slipping a fraction. “So tight and hot around my cock.” The filthy words, spoken in that low, reverent tone, sent a new jolt of arousal through her.
His pace increased. The bedframe knocked softly against the wall in a steady, primal tempo. He shifted her leg higher over his hip, sinking even deeper. She gasped, her nails digging into the hard muscles of his back, skating over the ridges of his scars. He groaned, a raw, unfiltered sound.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered, his breath hot against her ear. “I want to feel you come on my dick.”
Her hand slid between their sweat-slicked bodies, her fingers finding her clit. The added stimulation was electric. Her climax gathered, a storm breaking at the base of her spine.
“Colson,” she whimpered, a warning.
“I know. Let go. Come for me.”
The orgasm tore through her, violent and consuming. Her body clenched around him, wave after wave of pulsing heat. She cried out, the sound muffled against his shoulder.
He fucked her through it, his strokes turning ragged, desperate. His own control was gone. He was pure instinct, chasing his release. His hips stuttered. He drove into her one last, brutal time, burying himself to the hilt.
“Fuck. Indie.” His voice was a shattered thing. “Where… can I come inside you?”
The question was a dark, intimate permission. She could only nod, her mind blank, her body still humming.
He groaned, a long, guttural sound of surrender, and she felt the hot, sudden rush of his release flooding into her. He pulsed inside her, his whole body shuddering, his face buried in the crook of her neck. He held himself there, locked deep, as he emptied himself.
For a long time, they lay tangled, breathing in the dense, sex-scented air. Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. A wet, warm trickle followed. He didn’t move away. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, pulling her back against his chest. His arm curled possessively around her waist.
He didn’t speak. He reached for the discarded comforter at the foot of the bed and drew it over them both. His fingers traced idle patterns on her stomach. His lips pressed softly, once, to the knob of her spine.
In the silence, the reality of what had just happened settled over her like a second skin. The blood, the scars, the police station, and now this. Him, inside her. His come leaking between her thighs. His body a fortress around hers.
She had demanded proof. He had given her every raw, brutal piece of himself. And she had taken it. She had wanted it.
Outside, a car passed, its headlights sweeping across the ceiling. The neon sign continued its endless, pulsing cycle. Colson’s breathing evened out into sleep behind her. Indie lay awake, staring at the shifting shadows on the wall, feeling the unfamiliar ache between her legs, and knowing, with a cold, clear certainty, that nothing would ever be simple again.