Under My Skin (Stark International Trilogy 3)

“So I understand,” I continue. “I do. But I want to be stronger, Jackson. And this need to surrender to you is so powerful, that sometimes I’m afraid that I won’t be able to cope without you beside me.”

“You think giving yourself to me makes you weak?” He brushes his hand over my cheek. “The hell it does. Weak is closing yourself off. Weak is being too afraid to ask for what you want. Do you think being strong means not needing anybody else? It doesn’t. It means knowing yourself. Knowing your desires. And not being scared to demand what you truly want.”

“I want you,” I whisper.

“I know. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stand on your own. If you need to—when you need to—you will do just fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you.” He kisses me gently. “And sweetheart, I need to tell you something.”

I nod, fighting back a fresh wave of fear.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“What?” I’m not sure if my response is surprise at his statement, or bafflement that he’s brought the subject up now.

“I didn’t kill Reed. You’ve stuck by me, believing you knew what happened. It’s only fair I tell you the real truth.”

“Oh.” Relief overwhelms me, and yet there remains an undercurrent of some odd disappointment. Because the truth is that I liked the thought of Jackson being the one who erased the man who tormented me.

“So you don’t need to worry. The truth will win out, and I won’t go to prison. I’ll always be beside you.”

I nod, because I know that he is saying it to soothe me. But at the same time, it’s cold comfort. Because innocent or not, that is one promise that it’s no longer in Jackson’s power to keep.

fourteen

I wake up naked and alone in my bed, and I immediately sit up, afraid that Jackson changed his mind and decided to go back to the boat after all.

He’d taken me home because I had told him I needed my own bed, and in that moment, I’d been wrecked enough that he hadn’t argued. But the disagreement or fight or whatever-the-hell-it-was that we’d had about the paparazzi and the boat had still lingered between us.

I know that we will have to deal with that, especially since we will need the boat to get to the island today. Granted, we could take one of the Stark International boats. Or even, god forbid, a helicopter. But Jackson’s office is on his boat, and if he wants to make the most of the trip, then he needs to have his computers, software, and other various gadgets and gizmos with him. But surely he didn’t already leave me to go there. Did he?

My body is stiff as I toss the sheet aside and then sit up in bed. I hug my knees to my chest, my attention drawn to the tattooed star on my ankle. Idly, I trace its design, as if by doing so I’m claiming it all over again. I want to claim it, because this star represents strength. It marks an escape—my flight from the home I’d grown to hate to boarding school in my sophomore year of high school.

I draw a breath, then get slowly out of bed, this time brushing my fingers over the ribbon inked at the juncture of my thigh, a ribbon covered with initials of men I cared nothing for, but needed in order to prove to myself that I was in control. Not Reed, who’d so greedily stolen control from me. Not those men whose initials now mark my legs.

Just me.

Me taking. Me holding. Me keeping so tight a grip on my world that there was no way it could spin out of control.

Slowly, I ease my hand around to my back and the intricately inked “J” entwined with an “S.” Cass had inked that tattoo five years ago, after I’d so brutally broken up with Jackson in Atlanta, shredding both our hearts in the process. At the time, I’d thought I could never have him back, and yet I couldn’t bear the thought of surviving without him. And so I’d kept a piece of him on me, a quiet reminder that he would always have my back—would always give me strength—even if he didn’t know it.

I close my eyes and sigh as I continue to move my hands over my body, this time coming to rest on the newest tattoo—a flame on my breast. Cass inked this one less than a month ago, when I’d pulled Jackson back into my life despite my better judgment. Out of the frying pan, she’d said, because I was leaping headfirst into the fire.

Hadn’t I learned the hard way that my nightmares were too close to the surface with Jackson? That the passion that pulsed between us wiped away all my control, leaving me soft and vulnerable—and too damn close to the nightmares and memories of Reed?

But I was desperate to save my resort and so I’d taken a deep breath, clothed myself in battle armor, and walked through the door into my own personal hell.