Bare Skin (Skin Deep 5)

Chapter 8

Dani

I glanced at my phone for the thousandth time, cursing myself for being such a girl.

Kaden was playing happily beside me on a blanket I’d laid down on the floor, and cartoons blared from the T.V. Anything to try and keep my mind off of Calland and the fact that it was after noon and I’d yet to hear anything from him.

Exasperated with my thoughts, I thumbed the off button on the remote, cutting the high-pitched kiddie voices off in mid-sentence on the T.V., then stood. I reached down and picked up the baby, moving around the room with purpose as I strapped him into his car seat, packed up his diaper bag, shoved my phone in my pocket, grabbed my keys and left.

I strode to the elevator, intent on getting us out of here to do something…anything but sit around and wait for a man to call me.

I hit the button and waited semi-impatiently for the elevator to appear, swaying Kade back and forth in his carrier and cooing to his smiling little face. My smile grew when the doors finally opened and Calland stepped out.

“Hey!” he said, happy surprise coloring his voice.

“Hey,” I said back, trying to cover my own surprise, and trying to tell myself that my heart didn’t skip a beat and my stomach didn’t do a lazy little flip when I saw him. Because they didn’t…except, fuck. They did.

“Where you headed?” he asked, reaching out to take the baby from me.

He lifted the car seat with ease, looking down into it as he spoke to Kade, making the little guy grin at him and wave his hands in the air, gurgling with happiness all the while.

“Nowhere, really. Just wanted to get out of this hotel for a while.”

“Then let’s go,” he said easily, turning to hit the button for the elevator.

“Where are we going?” I asked him, a little bewildered by the situation at the moment.

He winked. “I don’t know. I asked you that a minute ago and you didn’t know either, so I figured we’d wing it. Sound good?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Wow. That didn’t sound very convincing, did it, little man?” Calland asked Kade, who just smiled up at him.

And that’s how I came to be sitting in the front seat of his car, the baby belted securely into the backseat by Calland, who seemed pretty adept at that sort of thing. Calland was beside me at the wheel, taking us off to parts unknown.

After a few minutes, I cleared my throat and tentatively asked, “Seriously, though. Are we really going somewhere or are you just randomly kidnapping us?”

He glanced over and smiled, looking back to the road as he answered. “Yeah, we’re going somewhere. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

It wasn’t very much longer before he turned down a long driveway lined by trees. Once we cleared the tree line, I could see a beautiful, large house with a gorgeous porch, and another huge, beautiful house in the distance just to the right of the first.

“Where are we?” I asked, trepidation starting to tingle down my spine.

“My sister’s house.”

He said it so nonchalantly, like it wasn’t supposed to catch me off guard or make me a little anxious by the fact that we’d only known each other four days and he was introducing me to people. Important people in his life, obviously.

I heard a loud, joyful bark and turned my head to see three huge dogs barreling across the yard, heading directly for the moving car. I gasped, crying out, telling Calland to watch out for them, but he just kept going, shaking his head at the animals and saying, “Damn dogs,” with exasperated affection.

The dogs ran alongside the car, never coming close to it, never getting in front of it, so I had to assume this was a regular thing. Once we stopped, they raced to the driver’s side, bouncing and barking, and jumping every which way in anticipation.

Calland greeted each one of them in turn when he stepped out of the vehicle. “Hi, Doug…DJ…and your mom let you out to play again, Grady? Or did you let yourself out of the yard like the bad boy you are?” He rubbed each of their heads, and I noted that they never really jumped up on him. Just around him.

Calland looked over his shoulder to see that I was still sitting in the car.

“You can get out, you know,” he said, wryly.

I nodded, but still didn’t move.

“They won’t bite, or jump, I promise. And they won’t hurt the baby. Trust me.”

I took a deep breath and opened the door, putting one foot out and then squealing in surprise when three wiggling bodies were suddenly standing in front of me.

When I gathered enough courage to open my eyes, I had to laugh. All three dogs were standing in front of me, tails wagging, and heads turning side to side like they were trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.

I reached out tentatively, laughing when all three starting licking my fingers vigorously and jumping around again, evidently very excited to meet me. I carefully pushed them back after a minute and stood, shutting my door behind me before moving to get Kaden out of the back seat. I didn’t need to, though, because Calland had already done that while I was messing with the dogs.

A sharp whistle cut through the air in the near distance and all three took off like bats out of hell, leaving Calland and I chuckling as we watched them race towards the other house I’d seen as we pulled in.

By the time we’d reached the porch, a pretty brunette with eyes the same shade as Calland’s was standing there, watching us with a little girl on her hip. The girl screeched when she saw Calland, her face lighting up with unadulterated joy.

“Hi, Everly!” he called, striding up the steps to kiss her little cheeks.

“Oh, and I’m still chopped liver, I see,” the brunette said, drolly.

“Meh. Chopped liver, whole liver…I don’t discriminate. I hate all liver equally.”

Calland winked at me as he said it, and then gave the woman a brilliant grin. She only shook her head and gave a long-suffering sigh, so I could only assume that this was his sister.

She turned to me, holding out a hand. “Hi, I’m Emma, Calland’s younger older sister. Does that make sense?” she asked, laughing. “He has three sisters, and I’m the middle one, but I’m older than him, so…”

“God, you’re so awkward, Emma,” Calland said, wincing exaggeratedly.