Skin Deep (12 page)

His lips met hers, sparking the electricity of their kisses, causing him to grip her body against his. She let out a moan and ran her hands through his hair, shocking him with pleasure. The sound fueled his fire, but calmed him as well.
She wants me. I’ll finally have her.

He slid his hands beneath her skirt, pushing the tight material up to her hips. He pulled away from her mouth and stared at her toned thighs and their juncture, covered in transparent red silk, revealing smooth tanned skin beneath. Reaching forward, he snatched the silk away before dipping his head to brush a kiss against the white scars just above her pubic bone.

Up close like this, he could see many more than he’d first noticed. This … he had never seen anything like this. Never on someone who survived. The realization made him hiss in anger.
Who could hurt such a beautiful creature?

Her slim hands fluttered before him, covering the scars. “Cain …” He let out another hiss as he jerked his gaze up to meet her liquid-yellow one. He could see the passion and desperation swirling in their depths.
She wants this as much as I do.
There was something else there, too, a pleading, as if she were begging him to let it go. He would. For now.

He let his gaze wander back to the bronzed skin of her mounds before reaching between her legs and parting her thighs. She moved readily, allowing him his first glance of the part of her he most coveted. The pink of her pussy was a startling contrast to the darkness of her skin, making him desperate for a taste. He’d never enjoyed eating a woman out. What was pleasure for a woman? It didn’t concern him. But now … now it was different. He wanted to have Kiera’s legs wrapped around his head, her screams in his ears, while she came on his tongue. He leaned forward, inhaling her tropical scent that was heightened with her arousal.

“Fuck. You’re wet.” He reached his hand forward and let his index finger slide down her folds. They parted like petals with his touch. She let out a moan that nearly had him coming in his pants.
What has this woman done to me?

His finger slid lower and came to rest at the entrance of her vagina. He let his gaze meet hers. Again, he was dumbfounded by the sweet passion he found staring back at him. Never had the look of desire upon a woman appeared so enticing, so riveting.

“Tonight I will be inside you,” he promised as his finger slid into her wet sheath. The look of passion on Kiera’s face converted to horror before she screamed.

Kiera scrambled back as his words registered in her mind.
“Tonight I will be inside you.”
The feeling of total ecstasy that had flooded her body left her in a rush of cold realization.
What am I doing?

She couldn’t do this. Not with anybody, but especially not him. Not after what had happened before she was attacked. The memory of the video jumped to her mind. The look of utter bliss that had spread across his features as that brown-haired bitch took his length into her mouth ate at her insides. Blinding anger speared her body like a lance, making her lash out.

“Get the fuck off me!” His heavy form still pressed against her parted legs. His green pupils flooded with black as he stared at her, unmoving.

“Did you not hear me? Get away from me!” She desperately pushed at his shoulders, trying to dislodge him so she could get out from beneath him.

“Why do you deny us what we both want?” His words were somewhere between a hiss and a roar, reminding her of the beast that lived just beneath his skin. He licked his lips, a move that sent shivers down her body. “Your body says yes.”

“I don’t want you.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice any more than she could keep the image of his pleasure-blanked face out of her head.

He growled viciously, pressing his body hard against hers. He slid his finger out of her slowly, making her toes curl with pleasure. She could feel his dick against her leg. Even through his clothes, she could feel how hard he was. Her fingers twitched, desperate to feel the velvety steel in her hand again. “I aim to prove you wrong.”

“You heard her. Get off.” The sound of Ryder’s voice startled Kiera, but not as much as it seemed to startle Cain. He was off her in less than a heartbeat, crouching over her body. Protecting her?
Men.

“Get the fuck out, Ryder. Now!”

Kiera hastily covered herself with her hands.
Did I really let him rip my panties off?
She had. She was worse than him. Letting herself get inches away from the pleasure she could never have before jerking away. She would never give up her new body, not to him, not now, not
ever
.

“When a lady says no, it means—”

“Fucking no. I know damn well what it means.” Cain ran a hand through his hair before glancing back at her with a face filled with remorse. She had to bite her tongue to keep from reaching for him. Something in his expression cut her to the bone, ripped at her insides, and left her feeling exposed and vulnerable.
I’ll bet he didn’t look at that brown-haired bitch like that after the blowjob she gave him.
Her subconscious prodded her, goaded her almost to the point of tears.
Why does this hurt so much?

“I’m going out. She doesn’t leave.” Cain didn’t look back as he spoke. Ryder followed quickly after him, leaving her alone.

Kiera stared at the ceiling.
Cain’s ceiling.
Ryder led her here after Cain left. One glance around the room told her everything and nothing at the same time. The dark walls were unadorned. A large bed stood in the center of the room, covered with sheer white bedding and nothing, save for a white lamp in the far corner.
Quite the designer.

“This is where he wants you to stay, but you don’t have to,” Ryder said.

“I know. He’s going to sleep on the couch,” she said with a fire she didn’t really feel. She must have been believable because he gave a nod and departed, but not before handing her a package of pain pills. “Sparrc said you would need these to help with the pain in your arm.”

She’d nearly forgotten about her injury, but it didn’t really hurt. Just a twinge every now and then when she moved a certain way. After taking a shower and putting on the only clothes available
—his clothes
—she wanted to lay on the bed, claim it as her own with a middle finger to Cain, but she couldn’t. Something about it was too intimate, too real.
He probably fucked that nasty bitch on it.
The thought made her want to attack something. She settled for taking his comforter and lying on the floor.

Anxiety engulfed her when she realized she didn’t have her blanket, the one her mom made for her that she never slept without. She covered her mouth with a shaky hand. It had been over four years since she’d slept without the worn crocheted pink-and-white blanket. Her heart cracked at the thought of spending the entire night without it. She considered asking Ryder if he would go get it for her, but decided against it.
I can do this. I can spend one night without a blanket, right?
She pushed the thought away, not wanting to burst into tears.

“
Who did this to you?”
Cain’s earlier words replaced her fretting over the blanket. She brushed her fingers over the scars that riddled her flesh before jerking her hand away. She hated the way they felt, a reminder of how imperfect she would always be.

She remembered the day she’d left the hospital. After six months of lying alone in the infirmary she was finally free to go back to her life—only she didn’t have one to go back to. She got in her car and started driving, running her fingers up and down the steering wheel, reveling in how strange the rubbery material felt on her skin.

She didn’t have a plan on where to go. There was no true destination in mind. She wanted to call a friend. Only she didn’t have any. She was eighteen years old and had no one in her life. No family. No friends. Nothing. Roth had run them all off more than a year before.

The one thing she did have was her cosmetology license, which she’d gotten during high school in an advanced program, but that hardly comforted her. A certificate of completion couldn’t help her begin to mend all that was broken inside her.

She was surprised when she’d found herself parking the car at the cemetery, getting out, and staggering toward his grave. With each step she took across the green grass came the startling emotion of dread. She didn’t want to be there. Didn’t want to crouch at his grave and admit the truth. Didn’t want to read the words, the dates that proved he was really gone. It should have been a relief. It should have made her feel better that he could no longer hurt her, but it didn’t. Staring at Roth’s grave only made it more real.
I’m all alone.
With her mother gone and never having met her dad, Roth had been it.

The hot tears had poured down her cheeks like rain. It was as she reached her car after crying over the sparse patch of earth for over an hour that a great strength had come over her. She vowed she would never stay with someone on the account of not wanting to be alone. She’d gone straight back to the apartment she and Roth had shared, gathered her things, and booked the next flight out of there, which just happened to land in Kittery.

She thought she had left that girl behind in New Mexico, the one who let her emotions be controlled by a man. But as she lay on the floor of Cain’s bedroom tracing the scars that should have killed her, she felt a pain that equaled what she’d experienced when Roth stabbed her. She snorted out loud at how pathetic she was.
A man I don’t even know gets a blowjob from another woman and I’m comparing the pain to my near-death experience. Not to mention that man isn’t even really a man at all, but a morphing animal thing.

A loud booming noise from outside the room brought Kiera from her thoughts. The door to the bedroom swung open to reveal a disheveled Cain standing on the other side. He walked in and flipped the overhead switch, bathing the room in bright florescent light.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” His words mixed somewhere between a growl and a slur. She opened her mouth to respond, but was caught off guard by the question. “You shouldn’t be sleeping on the floor.” He ran a hand through his platinum hair, pushing it back to reveal the dilated pupils of his green eyes.

“I—”

“Just forget it, Kiera, seriously. I can’t even deal with this anymore.” The words rolled out of his mouth with a thickness that only comes when someone has too much to drink.

“You went back to the bar?” She stood when she said these words.
Where else did you think he would go? Skipping through the woods with his best friend?

His gaze zeroed in on her, raking up and down her body with a fierceness that scalded her. He yanked his arms out of his black leather jacket.

“What?” she asked, feeling uncomfortable with his scrutiny. She wasn’t used to being looked at so … consumingly.

“You’re wearing my shirt.” She glanced down at the large white T-shirt she’d gotten out of his drawer. She hadn’t realized just how much of her legs it exposed.

“I didn’t have anything else to wear.” She lifted her chin in defiance and prayed he didn’t see how heated he could make her with just a look.

“I want you.” He took a step forward, fingering the bottom of his uniform shirt before jerking it over his head. She sucked in a breath at the sight of his exposed flesh. She had imagined him topless more than a hundred times, but her imagination paled in comparison to the real thing. His body was all hard muscle stacked on top of more muscle, rippling underneath a layer of sun-burnished skin.

She’d been right and wrong about his tattoo. It did reach his shoulder and wind down over his ribcage, but the lines were not a simple tribal pattern as she had first thought. This tattoo was a design of intricate contours, forming a scene across the right side of his body. He had another tattoo as well, on his right forearm. She didn’t know how she’d missed it before. The strange symbol spread across his bulging forearm with sweeping dark inked lines.

Her gaze fell to his hips and legs, which were encased in black pants. A thick black leather belt wrapped around his waist. She sucked in a breath at the sight of handcuffs dangling on one of his hips.

“Kiera.”

She wanted to stare at his sinewy physique for days, but couldn’t deny the demand in his tone when he said her name. Her gaze jumped to meet his. It seemed darker, blacker than just moments before.

“You want me, too.”

She shook her head violently, not trusting her voice to speak the words of denial. He stalked across the room. She stumbled back until she was against the wall. “Don’t even try to lie. I see the way your body reacts to mine.”

Kiera sucked in a breath as he circled a fingertip around one of her nipples, which pebbled beneath the linen shirt she wore.

“The way you respond to me is like … like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

She could smell the alcohol on his breath, a sweet, spicy scent mixed with his heady all-male one. “I’m sure you’ve had plenty of other women.”

“I have.” His eyes stayed focused on his finger, continuously making slow circles on her body.

“Then why even bother me at all?”

“Is that what I’m doing Kiera? Bothering you?” His voice was husky as he slid his hand to cup her breast. The fabric of her shirt felt non-existent. The heat of his palm sent searing delight ricocheting through every cell in her body.

“Y-yes.”
Is that my voice trembling?

“I have to taste you.” Cain dipped his head before she could protest and slipped his hand behind her back. He pulled her chest up to meet his lips. His mouth fastened around her throbbing nipple, sucking it through the shirt.

“Oh my gosh!” Kiera moaned at the damp heat of his mouth on her. He pressed her back harder against the wall, consuming her.

“Feel what you do to me.” He snarled against her chest as he shoved her hand against his thick cock, caged by the useless material of his pants. In that moment she hated the existence of clothing. His hand came to rest against her hip, where he began drawing the shirt up with skilled fingers. “I have to have you.” He nipped his teeth against her budded peak, making her cry out. “This body.” His hand inched higher and moisture pooled between her thighs. “You’re mine.”

Realization of his words had Kiera jerking her head down.
“This body.” Of course he wants “this body.”

“You can’t have me.” She pushed at his head with both hands. He removed his mouth but didn’t move. Cain just looked at her as he stood up to his full height, towering over her.

“What?” Anger flared in his eyes.

“I said—”

“I heard what you said,” he growled. He grabbed one of her legs, spreading her thighs apart. “But I don’t believe you.” She was about to speak, to push him away and tell him what a crazed psycho he was, but she didn’t because his fingers teased at the seam of her pussy lips, sending a shiver of delight through her body. “No underwear? Nothing but my shirt? You’re begging to be fucked,” he snarled.

“You ripped my only pair.”

“Shh.” He brushed his lips against her forehead.

“I don’t want …” The words trailed off as his fingers spread her lips and started to move against her clit.

“Don’t want what, baby? Gods, you’re so fucking wet.” He scraped his teeth along the side of her jaw. “For me. You’re wet for me.” There was a hint of wonder in his voice.

His fingers were like magic, rubbing against her core with deliberate strokes. She could feel the orgasm building deep within her belly.