A Boy I Used to Love (A St. Skin Novel): a bad boy new adult romance novel

by London Casey

  “Axel sent me here.”

  “What?”

  I gave him the two-minute rundown of what had happened with Axel and his mother.

  “Wow,” River said. “That’s a ‘small’ world kind of thing.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Lacey, how did you end up so close here?”

  I lowered my head.

  “Damn, darling, I can be anything you want right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  River put his beer bottle down and walked around the counter. He put his hands to my waist and looked down at me.

  “Lacey, I will be anything you want. If you need someone to just comfort your body and needs, fine. If you need someone to take care of you, fine. But if this is going to be about us…don't hide. Don’t hold back.”

  “I left to come find you,” I admitted. “I ended up meeting Karen. She’s been my best friend. I slept on her couch for a while. I was lost. So lost. I gave everything up, River. I reached my breaking point and just left. But when it came to actually finding you, I was terrified.”

  “Of what?”

  “Because I should have never gone with my parents to begin with. No matter how we might have lived together and survived. I never would have resented you.”

  “You can’t know that, Lacey. It was a hard road after you left. The garage got shut down. I was dead broke. I fought so much…I don’t know how I didn’t end up dead. Maybe going to prison was a blessing for me.”

  “Tell me about that, River.”

  “I told you that I had someone check on you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling that sting in my gut.

  “I’m sorry, Lacey. I just needed to know if you were happy. I was close to getting pulled into an even darker world with, well, the mob. They owed me a favor so I cashed it on to check on you. My guy said you were getting married. That someone was going to propose to you. I lost my mind. I went after a fight I shouldn’t have. It got busted up by the police, so I started to fight them.”

  “The police?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “So I did time. But the thing was…I was able to get out really early. I made it out just in time to get to our spot. It was the only thing I could think about. That, and you getting married.”

  I lifted my left hand and showed it to him. “I didn’t get married. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

  “Then why…” River turned his head. “No, darlin’. It doesn’t matter.”

  I reached up and touched his face. “It does matter. I was lost then, too, River. I saw the way my parents were. I knew I was close to that life, and it scared me. The whole engagement thing came out of nowhere. I said yes. That was a big mistake. I fixed that mistake, too. It meant I had to stand up to my parents, and I left literally everything behind.”

  “Med school…”

  “It’s not a dream if it doesn’t include you, River,” I said.

  “Ah, fuck, Lacey.”

  His strong arms wrapped around me and hugged me. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”

  “That wasn’t it, River,” I said.

  I felt my throat wanting to close.

  I broke away from him and took a few steps back.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “There was someone else, too.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ve had a girlfriend almost every year. And I always broke it off right before the date that I was supposed to meet you. It’s how I coped. I’m not exactly proud of that.”

  “River, I was with someone for a while,” I said. “And it ended without him knowing the truth.”

  “Okay…”

  I blinked fast and felt the tears starting to come. “I never got closure, River. He was killed in a car accident before I could tell him the truth.”

  I saw the look of surprise spread across his face. “Shit.” Then came the disappointment. “What was the truth, Lacey?”

  “That I never loved him like I loved you,” I said. “That forever with me wasn’t possible because I promised forever to someone else.”

  River just stared at me.

  I couldn’t tell if he was mad or not.

  “Say something,” I whispered. “Please.”

  River swallowed hard. “I can’t believe all you’ve endured to get back to me.”

  “I love you, River,” I said. “I meant it when I said it before. Years ago. Now. Forever.”

  I took a step toward him, but River put his hand out to stop me.

  “Fuck. Lacey.” He looked at me and shook his head. “I have something else to tell you.”

  River put distance between us.

  I was getting nervous now.

  “You knew I did time,” he said. “After you left with your parents, it was all a big spiral. I told you the garage closed. I started fighting more. I had a chance to get back into boxing. Really go legit. The night I was told you were getting engaged, I skipped out of anything legit. And that’s not your fault, Lacey. That’s mine. I lived in this dark world because I couldn’t give you what you needed. Not about want, darling. About need. I hated your parents for what they did, but I understood it. You were going to become a doctor. Have a husband. A house, kids, all that. That’s a good kind of life to live, Lacey. See, when I got out and I got myself set up with a tattoo shop, things settled hard on me. I buried a couple more rings up on the mountain and I just…I lost myself really bad. I lost a lot of money. I was teetering on getting into trouble. And then came a woman. I fell for her. I actually fell for her pretty hard. I never thought it was possible to care after you but I did care. It wasn’t the same but it was close, Lacey. Then she told me she was pregnant.”

  I put a hand to my mouth. I gasped.

  Pregnant? River’s a father?

  I felt ill.

  He had gotten upset that I had been engaged. But he had a baby with another woman? Talk about really moving on.

  “You’re a father,” I whispered.

  “I was a father,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “She had a baby, but that baby wasn’t mine,” River said.

  “Oh, River…”

  “I just tried so hard to get over you, Lacey. And that felt like my way to do it. I got so hopeful that that was going to be it. This woman…she had this control over me or something. I would do anything for her. So I did. I had to get out of there. She was bringing heat on me and emotion that I couldn’t take, so I shut it down. I sold everything I owned. The shop. Everything inside it. And I gave it all to her and took off. Somehow, I ended up at St. Skin, and Tate took a look at my portfolio and took a chance on me. I mean, I literally had a bag of clothes, a truck on its last leg, and a folder of my tattoos. That was it, Lacey.”

  “How did we get so fucked up?” I asked, just blurting the words out.

  “Love,” River said. That’s when he moved from the kitchen to me again. He grabbed my arms and slid his hands down until his fingers were interlaced to mine. “Love, Lacey. That’s what did it all. The kind of love that can either make your life or ruin it.”

  “It’s ruined our lives,” I said. I let out a weak laugh and felt a tear fall from my eye. “It really has, River.”

  “So what do we do here?” he asked. “Because I’m hooked. I’m addicted to you, Lacey. You. Are. Everything.”

  “I’m here right now,” I said. “We don’t need a spot, River. We don’t need an abandoned house. We don’t need a cabin. We don’t need the last ten years. We just need…”

  “Forever,” he whispered.

  We kissed, and our hands locked tighter together.

  River walked me to the bedroom, forcing me to walk backward with his kisses.

  In the room, he stripped the robe off my body, and I stood before him, naked.

  His hands traveled around my body, and his mouth followed.

  We touched. We tasted. We fucked.

  And for th
e first time ever, he held me through the night.

  But I knew how our past went, and the future seemed so blurry.

  I feared that forever wasn’t going to live up to its expectations.

  River

  PRESENT DAY

  I flipped the pancake high into the air. It flipped over in what felt like slow motion. It came down and smacked the edge of the griddle, half of it sizzling while the other half flopped to the counter, splashing pancake batter all over my stomach.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “You were so close, too,” Lacey said with a teasing voice. She put up her thumb and pointer finger, making them almost touch.

  “That’s my trick,” I said. “It’s all I got.”

  “So, you’ve done this for other women?”

  “A magician never reveals his secrets,” I said.

  “A magician isn’t supposed to screw up.”

  I pointed the spatula at her. “Easy now.” I smiled.

  I scooped up the leftover of the mushy pancake and flipped it back to the griddle. I looked down at my stomach and grabbed for a towel.

  “Wait,” Lacey said.

  She jumped out of her chair and rushed around the counter.

  “What?” I asked.

  Right there in the kitchen she dropped to her knees and grabbed the top of my jeans.

  “I’ll get it,” she whispered.

  She came forward, her eyes looking up at me. She opened her mouth and let that sweet tongue of hers come out to play. The tip of her tongue ran across my stomach and up, licking the pancake batter right off me.

  “Fuck,” I groaned.

  Lacey repeated the move one more time, then stopped.

  “Can’t waste a drop,” she purred and stood back up.

  My dick throbbed and I grabbed her by her curvy hips and sat her right on the counter. I thrust myself between her legs and touched her face.

  “I’m never wrong,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “I fucked up that pancake just so I could get you like this,” I said.

  “Bullshit,” she said.

  I kissed her, my tongue tasting the batter on her lips and her tongue.

  “We’re going to waste breakfast,” she said.

  I grabbed the cord of the griddle and tore it from the wall. Sparks flew, and the griddle made a pop sound as the burner turned off.

  “I suck at making pancakes,” I said. “And there’s a great little place right down on the corner. I know the owner. He’s got a sleeve of ink dedicated to my work. I get all the free pancakes I want.”

  I kissed her again, and she put her arms around my shoulders.

  “Mmmm, I like the sound of that,” she said.

  “But we should work up an appetite first.”

  I pulled her from the counter, and she let out a little yelp.

  I took her right back to the bed where we had woken up just a short while ago.

  I dropped her down and pulled the knot in the robe she was wearing.

  We had officially reached the point where she was leaving some of her things behind at my place. And I kind of liked it. Fuck, I really liked it.

  My hand parted the silk cloth of the robe, and my hand sought comfort over her left breast. Lacey groaned and arched her back, offering herself to me. Her robe slid along her shoulders, exposing more skin. I kissed her neck and started to move down.

  I stripped her of her robe as she pushed at my boxers.

  A few kicks of my legs, and I was naked.

  With her robe open, she was naked under it.

  I eyed her body and licked my lips. “What a perfect breakfast.”

  “That’s weird,” she said.

  I smiled and kissed at her belly button. My eyes kept their gaze locked onto hers as I moved down, going right for what I wanted. Weird or not, she was the first thing I was about to drink this morning.

  My tongue touched her clit, and her hips jerked up off the bed. Her hands grabbed the sheet.

  “Oh, River,” she groaned.

  My tongue moved down and back up, tasting her sweet honey.

  Just like that, I’d never thirst for coffee in the morning ever again.

  I enjoyed her for a few minutes, loving the way her hips moved. I placed my hands against them, memorizing those moves, knowing they’d forever haunt my heart and make me wish for the next chance to taste her and have her.

  We were together now, and it felt right. Not everything was perfect, but the woman I loved was in my bed, in my arms, and in my care.

  There wasn’t much more I could ask for in life.

  My trail of kisses up her body was a slow seduction, stealing every fucking second of the morning that I could grab. I had ten years to make up for, plus the rest of my life.

  I paused at her breasts and gently ran my nose against her nipples one at a time, watching them shiver, becoming hard nubs.

  I kissed again and worked up to her mouth. I brought my lower half to her and felt her body welcome me with a warmth like a blanket on a cold night.

  As I sank into her, Lacey let out a whimper and bit my bottom lip. She shut her eyes, and I felt her hips quivering beneath me. She was starting to come already.

  Nothing made me feel more powerful than I did at that moment, controlling her pleasure.

  I pulled back like the hammer of a gun and slammed forward. Lacey let out a cry and crunched herself forward. I wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close to my chest. I kissed the top of her head as I started to fuck her, to love her.

  She bit at my chest, hard, letting out groan after groan as I had her the way I wanted her.

  The sunlight peeked through the cracks in the blinds. The world was waking up, and most of it was on its way to work.

  Just another wild day in this saga between myself and Lacey.

  But this…fuck, I could have this every morning for the rest of my life.

  I sucked in a breath as I felt my cock throbbing, ready to let go.

  Lacey looked up at me, her eyes beautiful.

  “I love you, darlin’,” I whispered.

  Then I kissed her and released myself.

  I stood in the doorway when she opened the shower curtain. She was already wearing a towel.

  “Damn,” I said. “Thought I was getting a show.”

  “You’ve had enough of a show. I have things to do today.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have to go check on Axel’s mother,” she said.

  “Oh. How is she…”

  Lacey frowned. “It’s not all that great. But it never is for me. The goal at this point is comfort.”

  “Shit,” I said. “He hasn’t told anyone else. Too proud, I think.”

  “I’m glad he at least has you. And his sister. But she seems like she’s itching to leave.”

  “I can’t imagine that’s an easy thing to watch happen,” I said.

  “It’s not,” Lacey said. She stepped out of the shower.

  As she tried to move by me, I put my hand out and stopped her. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she said, looking at me with a seductive grin.

  “I want you to come with me to a barbecue.”

  “What?”

  “Tate is having one. He does them often. Gets all the guys from the shop together. They bring dates and stuff. Whatever. It’s…”

  “Do you ever bring a date?”

  “I never went before.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not sure. I just didn’t go. Tate told me I have to be there this year or he’s cutting my dick off.”

  “Well, I don’t want that to happen.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, it’s my job to save your dick,” Lacey said.

  God, I loved how fucking spunky she was now. She let her heart open and let her hair down. There was still pain hiding in those eyes of hers, but we let it all out. We both understood what that decade apart did to us. “Far from perfect but perfect” was an illusion of the eye.<
br />
  I touched her face and kissed her. “I’m serious, darlin’. I want you with me. Hang with the guys. They’re my family. They’re my only family, Lacey. After whatever happened with you and with my shop, I cut everyone out. I cut everything out. Even when I came to St. Skin, I hid a little. I want to show you off.”

  “Show me off?” she asked.

  “Damn right. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. You’ve had me from day one. I want to show that off. I wanted make all those clowns jealous.”

  “A bunch of unruly tattoo artists partying and a barbecue?”

  “To be fair, there will be more than just tattoo artists there.”

  “Well, I stand corrected.”

  I slipped my hand into hers. “I’m serious, Lacey. I want everything with you. What we have right now is amazing. I like this. I love it. Shit, I love you. But we have to be cooped up all the time in here, you know?”

  She nodded. She smiled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’re everything to me, River. I’m not really hiding, but I guess…I don’t know. I don’t want to put this all out in the open and then get hurt. It was bad enough losing you the first time…”

  “You’re never going to lose me again. I promise.”

  Lacey nodded. “A barbecue sounds amazing. I don’t have any tattoos, though. Will I fit in?”

  “You’ll just be the bare-skinned freak,” I said with a wink.

  “Thanks.”

  “These guys are my brothers. They’re going to love you. It’s the final piece to my puzzle. The last piece of the dream, Lacey. And from here on out, I want you to figure out your dream.”

  “My dream?”

  “Yeah. You ditched med school plans. I can’t imagine that you truly love what you do right now. So, figure out your dream, and let’s make it happen.”

  “I’ve got you, River…”

  “No, no,” I said. “Beyond all that romance stuff. Something that you want out of life. That I can help give you. I can…I can support us, Lacey. You can live here. Or I’ll go live with you. Whatever you want. Not a hand out or anything, okay? But…what I always wanted and promised—me taking care of you—that’s what I want to do. Take care of you.”

  Lacey grinned and moved up to her toes. She kissed my chin. “You’re cute when you get flustered.”