Under My Skin (Stark International Trilogy 3)

I melt with the pleasure of it. Of being taken. Of being fucked hard.

And when I slip my hand down to tease my so-sensitive clit, I hear Jackson’s soft growl of approval as his body slams into mine again and again and again.

I feel the tension build in him, and my muscles grab tight, wanting to heighten the explosion, to make it hard. To make it wild.

And when he finally explodes inside me, my body milks him until the last tremor of pleasure has swept through us both.

Once we are recovered enough to move, he tells me I can open my eyes. I find him smiling at me, his expression warm and satisfied. He slides up the bed, then holds out a hand for me to do the same.

I take a different route, though. I kiss my way up his body. His calf. His knee. His taut, toned thigh.

I see the newly inked tattoo that Cass gave him right beside his pubic bone—my initials, SB—and I gently kiss it. Then I gently lick up the length of his semi-hard cock, making him growl softly.

I glance up, grinning, and notice the tin of mints on the bedside table.

I start to reach for them, but he laughs and grabs my hands, sliding me up his body until I am balanced atop him and his arms are around my waist.

“No fair. I want to try them.”

“And I want to hold you.”

He rolls us over so that we are spooned side by side, his fingers idly stroking my shoulder and down my arm as I start to drift.

I am right on the verge of sleep when the words come. I don’t know what makes me say them—perhaps I want Jackson to know that we have exorcised not only the ghost of Jeremiah, but my father, too.

“My dad called me.”

I whisper the words, but I know that he has heard me when his arm tightens almost imperceptibly around me. “When?”

“In Santa Fe. You were outside with Ronnie. I’d just taken a shower.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before? Wait,” he immediately amends. “I know why. I was being an ass.”

I roll over, because I need to see his face. “No,” I say, then kiss him gently. “You were trying to protect me. In a boneheaded way, sure,” I add, drawing a small smile from him. “But the thought was there. And I didn’t tell you because you had enough on your plate with Ronnie and the news about Reed.”

He flashes an ironic grin. “So you were trying to protect me, too. Aren’t we a pair?”

My smile is wide and easy. “I like to think so.”

He continues to stroke my shoulder, and I sigh, simply enjoying the sensation. But after a moment, I prop myself up on my elbow, frowning. “Why did Jeremiah not want the connection between you and Damien revealed? I mean, it made a little bit of sense back when Damien was the golden boy with his face on cereal boxes. But now?”

Jackson shakes his head. “I don’t know. To be honest, I wonder if he might be the one who leaked it.”

“The father doth protest too much?”

“Something like that.”

“But why?”

“No idea,” Jackson admits. “And right now, I’m not interested in thinking about it.” He draws me close and I tuck my head against his chest. “Sylvia, tomorrow at the—”

“I don’t want to talk about tomorrow. Please. Can we just not?”

There is silence for a moment, and then he says, “All right. But it’s coming whether we want it to or not.”

I know that. I do. But for a few more hours I want to hold tight to the illusion.

And maybe, if I wish hard enough and hold Jackson tight enough, I can make the fantasy real.

nine

As police stations go, it probably doesn’t get much better than the Beverly Hills Police Department. I’m no expert, but I’ve watched enough cop shows to know that most police stations sport walls with dull gray paint that probably used to be white, Plexiglas barriers that are so clouded they’re no longer transparent, and lots and lots of faded, crumpled notices tacked to walls.

Not so this station. I’m sitting on a polished wooden bench in a long hallway. It’s not travertine tile, but the flooring is clean and polished. For that matter, everything is clean and shiny, from the building to the people who work here. And right now, I’m focusing way, way too much on all of it. Because if I spend my time noticing the way the light from the window makes a geometric pattern when it hits the opposite wall, then maybe I won’t completely freak out about the fact that Jackson has been in an interview room with Harriet and two detectives for almost an hour.

They’d arrived before I did at eight this morning. Jackson had told me not to come. “You can’t go into the interview, so you’ll be sitting by yourself worrying. Go to work. Do something. Don’t think about it. And I’ll be with you before you realize any time has passed at all.”