Under My Skin (Skin Deep #2)

“GET HIM!” I heard Jenna battle-cry behind me, which spurred me into immediate action. We raced from the room and followed the dog who turned into Jenna and Noah’s room. He ran back out before we could even get there, but his mouth was empty.

Jenna ran into the room and I heard her pant out, “Thank God!”

The girls and I stepped into the room to see her bent over with her hands on her knees, shaking her head. The dildo was laid out on the bed, pretty as you please.

“How the hell did he even get that?” I asked Jenna.

“That’s what I wanna know!” Leah exclaimed behind me. Chloe stood behind her, nodding, eyes huge. I swear that woman is going to think that all of my friends and family are crazy…she wouldn’t be wrong though. Geez.

Just then, Jenna’s cat, Tom, came creeping out from under the bed. Jenna made a growling sound of frustration in her throat before she answered, “Well, the damn dog had to have chased the stupid cat under the bed and knocked over my box.” She dropped to her knees and started rooting around under the bed. She came up with the lid to a shoe-box type container, and then produced the almost empty box it belonged to.

“Is there anything left under the bed? Is that the only thing he took?” I asked as she began mumbling to herself about ‘damn dogs’ and ‘murder by shooting’.

She peeked under the bed again and came back out with a tube of lube, a set of anal beads (I choked a little at the sight of those…she never ordered those from me!), and two pairs of handcuffs. She threw everything back into the box and put the lid on it again before looking up at us. “Nope. That’s not the only thing he took. Now we get to go on a fucking treasure hunt for my sex toys before my kids see the goddamned things!”

Chloe, Leah, and I all looked at each other, definitely taking note of the ‘we’ that Jenna used. I cleared my throat and asked again, “Okay, well, what else is missing?”

“I don’t even know!” she wailed, burying her head in the carpet. She sat up suddenly with her head cocked and then jumped to her feet.

I heard Noah call her again and we all followed her as she made her way toward Hayden’s room. When we got in there, Noah was standing beside Hayden’s dresser, looking decidedly puzzled as he looked at Doug, who was sitting there pretty as you please while Hayden brushed him with a Barbie brush.

He blinked distractedly at me and the girls, nodding his head slightly in acknowledgment, and then said, “I, uh…I followed the dog in here because he’s, uh…yeah. He’s right there.”

We all looked at the dog, trying to figure out what had Noah so addled. And then I looked closer and noticed it. Yup. Dear God, the dog was wearing a blue jelly-type cock ring around his front paw.

Hayden glanced up and noticed what we were all staring at. “Oh! I found a bracewet for Doug! Him wikes it!” She grinned gleefully and then waved at me, her Aunt Leah, and Chloe.

Jenna was muttering under her breath again, and then Noah opened his mouth to speak, shut it, cleared his throat, and tried again.

His voice came out a little strangled as he asked, “Ummm…Hayden? Where did you…what’s this? And where did you get Doug’s, uh…bracelet?”

He was pointing to an opened package laying on the dresser. I looked closer and realized it was the packaging to a silver bullet vibrator, with the actual bullet laying beside it. My hand came up to cover my mouth because I just couldn’t believe this was happening. I mean, seriously…does this happen in real life?

(Obviously it does…)

Hayden frowned and answered, “I foun’ it in the haw-way. It don’ work. And Doug brought me the bracewet in his mouf.” Her face brightened again and she popped up, pushing past the now-lounging Doug to rush toward her toy box. She dug through it for a second before coming up with a hot pink butterfly vibrator. “Doug brought me ‘dis one, too, an’ it works! See, Daddy? Mommy? You push the button and the butterfwy’s wings fwap and it makes me waugh!”

‘Oh, Jesus, NO!” Jenna yelled when Hayden brought it up like she would touch it to her cheek. She startled the poor child who dropped the vibrator immediately, and then her face screwed up into the most pitiful expression before she let out a wail louder than anything I’d ever heard before.

Top that with the fact that Doug sat up as soon as he heard her wailing, threw his head back, and began howling just as loud.

Jenna shook her head, grabbed the butterfly out of Hayden’s hand, the bullet off the dresser, and then bent down to pull the cock ring off of Doug’s paw (he didn’t even pause in his howling), before she turned on her heel and stomped from the room hollering, “I need a freakin’ drink!”

Noah knelt beside Hayden and spoke to her quietly for a second. Her wails slowed to soft hiccupy sobs and then stopped altogether when she grinned at her father from whatever he said to her. Doug still hadn’t let up, but stopped when Noah just shouted, “Doug! Enough!”

Hayden, crisis forgotten, began brushing the dog again, talking to him a mile a minute. Noah stood, looked at us standing there again, and said, “I’m sorry. We live in a nuthouse. But you should know that by now. Beer anyone?”

Jarrod, who until now had gone unnoticed standing beside Chloe, piped up, “Can I have one, Dad?”

Noah sighed, shook his head, and walked out of the room.

Chloe, Leah, and I all shrugged at each other and followed. Never a dull moment at Jenna’s house. Ever.

Chapter 18

Tomorrow. That’s what I told myself. Over and over again as I emptied the contents of my stomach endlessly into the toilet. I would get up and go to the store tomorrow. But until then, I was just going to lay on the tile floor in the bathroom and die. And thank God that Chloe was around.

She’d been a Godsend, going into my thrift store and opening it every morning for the last week, working every day, even on the days when my mom went in to run it for me. Every night she came home and made sure that there was something to eat for the guys, even if it was a bucket of chicken from the KFC down the street.

As for me, she’d checked on me in the mornings before leaving, made sure I had plenty of chicken soup, crackers, and 7up; not that I kept much of it down. Jackson had been busy at the new house, putting the final touches on it so that we could actually move into it within the next month or so. Brandon had been busy at the shop, and both of them called to check on me whenever they could.

It’d been a month since Emma and Luke’s wedding and I thought my life was perfect until I contracted the flu-bug from hell. You think I’m joking…but I’m not. I swear to you that this illness was sent up from Satan himself. And it had been ongoing for a week now.

No, I hadn’t gone to the doctor yet, namely because I couldn’t remove myself from the bathroom for very long, and because I’d refused to let anyone take me. Especially Emma, who had called and begged me every day to let her come take care of me. But I couldn’t, because I didn’t want her to catch the hell-virus.

No matter, because tomorrow I was taking back my life if it killed me. I knew that there were so many things I needed to do at the store, and my poor guys were probably dying from blue-balls. Okay, not really, because who would want to have sex with a little green-looking woman that puked every five minutes? Hell, even thinking about sex made me shudder because it made me think of the way things get all shook and bounced around and that made my stomach curdle even more. Ew.