Skin Deep (Skin Deep #1)

“Our parents died in an accident when I was twelve. They weren’t the best of parents, but they were our parents, you know? Anyway, we were sent to live with my dad’s brother, who unfortunately, was a drunken asshole. He liked to come home from work and get shit faced. He had a wife, if you could call her that. She was treated more like a servant, though she was probably the nicest anyone had ever been to either of us.

One night, Brandon wasn’t feeling well and ended up getting sick in the hallway as he tried to run to the bathroom. He was only ten, you know? So he called for Celia, hoping she’d come help him, maybe mother him a little. Instead, he got Stu. Stu stumbled down the hall, saw the mess, and starting yelling at Brandon, telling him he was a worthless piece of shit that did nothing but make messes and cost him money. I had run out of my room when I heard him start yelling to get to Brandon. Brandon was crying, trying to explain that he didn’t feel good, but Stu didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear it so much that he backhanded Brandon across the face, splitting his lip and knocking him to the floor. He raised his foot to kick him. A ten year old! He was gonna kick him in his ribs or his face, hell, I don’t know which for sure, but I knew that I wasn’t going to let him.

I screamed at Stu to stop, then I tackled him. I hit him over and over again until Celia pulled me off of him, then he just laid there. I never figured out if he had passed out from being drunk or if I had knocked him out, but Celia grabbed us up, packed our clothes into two large trash bags and drove us down to the Juvenile Detention Center. She told the guard on duty that they couldn’t take us anymore, not that we were bad kids, but we just weren’t wanted. We spent the night in a holding room and they put us in a foster home the next day.”

Luke stopped talking for a minute, looking over to me and searching my face. I don’t know what he was looking for, but he must have seen what he wanted because he continued.

“We bounced from home to home until I was eighteen. I had always taken care of Brandon, so the day I turned eighteen, I packed us both up and we took off on our own. I managed to do well in school through the years, regardless of what was happening around us. I graduated, and I was gonna do everything in my power to make sure Brandon did the same. We lived in a shit hole motel in Timbleton, and I did odd jobs to make money. I had saved enough that we were doing okay, still living in the motel, but we didn’t care, and I decided I was going to get my tattoo. My life was changed that day, and I’ve never looked back.”

I sat quietly, watching him watch me, but not knowing what to say. In the end, I didn’t say anything, just got up and walked to him, pulling him to his feet and pointing upstairs. He twined his fingers in mine and we walked up the stairs, heading through a door at the end of the hall.

I pushed him down onto the huge king size bed dominating the room, following him down and laying my body over his, claiming his lips with my own. We both were breathing heavily when I slid to his side and sat up, undressing first myself, and then working on his clothes with his help. After we were both naked, I straddled him, my knees on either side of his hips, positioned myself over the velvety hard length of him, and pushed down, taking him deep inside me.

I rode him slowly, sliding up and down his hardness, running my hands up his chest, down his arms, entwining our fingers and raising his arms above his head, leaving our hands clasped. I soothed him with my body, my eyes locked onto his, his heat burning me from the inside out.

Then Luke pulled his hands from mine, grasped my hips hard, and began thrusting up into me, rolling his hips as he did which rubbed the tip of him against that secret place inside of me that made me sit up, throw my head back and fist my hands in my own hair as I slammed myself up and down on him, riding him harder and faster until I shattered, screaming out as I came around the hot, hard length of him pumping into me relentlessly.

He followed me over, groaning out his release and holding my hips tightly to his, grinding me against him until I came again, shuddering in his arms as I collapsed on his chest. He held me tightly to him, still buried deep in my body, his face in my hair.

I felt his lips move, but didn’t hear what he said. Bracing my elbows on the mattress beside his head, I raised myself enough to look down into his face.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head slightly before saying, “Thank you.”

I frowned. “Thank you for what, Luke?”

“Thank you for just being you. You didn’t stare at me in horror or pity like every other person who’s known my background. I don’t talk about it much, and Brandon doesn’t really talk about it at all. But it is what it is, it made us who we are today. And you just accepted it, but at the same time, you offered me comfort,” he replied. “So, thanks.”

I didn’t say anything to him, just leaned in and pressed my lips to his softly. I pushed myself up again, intending to slide off of him, but he tightened his arms and said, “Stay.”

I looked down at him again, intending to call him on being overbearing again, but he just added a whispered, “please,” and I relented. Not that it wasn’t a really easy decision anyway, because quite frankly, I loved the feel of him still inside me.

We laid like that for a long time, not saying anything, each lost in our own thoughts. After a while, I shifted a little, intending to move to Luke’s side, but the slide of him inside me made my breath catch. Luke heard it and slid against me again. I felt him stretching me as he hardened, completely filling me once again, and I moaned at the fullness.

Luke pressed his hands to my shoulders, urging me to sit up astride him, and I complied, seating him even deeper in my wet heat. Holding my hips, he sat up until we were face to face, then, completely taking me by surprise, he swung his legs off the edge of the bed and stood, supporting my weight like it was nothing, and still keeping our bodies connected. He turned back to the bed, laying me down on my back at the edge and, leaning back, grasping my ankles where they rested against the back of his thighs and pulling my legs up. Since I am so much shorter than him, my feet rested against his shoulders; he pushed my legs together and crossed my ankles, holding them up against his right shoulder with his hand, his left hand gripping my thigh as he began thrusting deep into me.

Having my legs so tightly closed around him made me feel every inch of him that much more, his hardness against my softness, grinding against me. Luke quickened his pace, pounding himself inside me over and over, the silence of the room broken only by our heavy breathing and the loud slap of his flesh against mine. I felt the pressure building as I soared higher and higher, coming closer and closer to the sweet edge of satisfaction and hanging there, not quite able to reach that peak that would set me free, send me flying over the edge.

I whimpered in my throat, my hands coming up to close over my breasts of their own volition, palming them roughly and squeezing before rolling my nipples between my fingers, pinching them hard. The sharp bite of pleasure-pain coursed through me, bringing me even closer to the edge, but still not quite taking me there. I let go of my right breast and slid my hand steadily down my body, but before my fingers could reach their destination, Luke dipped his head, turning it and sinking his teeth into my leg, just above my ankle. I screamed, exploding immediately into a million pieces, my body clenching rhythmically around his, which brought him instantly, pulsing and twitching deep inside as he ground his hips hard into me.