Skin Deep

by Evans, Anna J.

  Jackson made a sound halfway between a grunt and a growl. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Act like you cared about me, get me to lower my guard, and then make a run for it?”

  “Yep. Sure was,” Nicky said, hoping the words hurt him as much as he’d hurt her. That had been her plan at first. No need to let him in on how her plan had changed, how she’d started to dream about the future they were going to have together.

  “Like I said before, you’re a great actress. You had me completely fooled.”

  Nicky flinched despite herself. Angry Jackson she could deal with, but hurt Jack . . . She felt like she was being gutted by the pain clear in his words. It was almost enough to make her tell him the truth—that she’d been as fooled as he was until she’d heard him on the phone checking into her criminal background.

  Criminal background. The thought made her grit her teeth and the anger helped banish the last of her guilt. This man didn’t know her and didn’t trust her. Talking would be futile.

  “That must have been hard for you, pretending to be attracted to me, to love me,” Jackson said, his grip on her wrist growing so tight Nicky flinched again, this time in pain.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “Good.” His eyes grew even colder but his fingers gentled on her arm. Nicky took the opportunity to jerk her hand free and back a few steps away.

  “I think you should go.” She crossed her arms and stuck her chin in the air, willing herself not to show how upset she was. “People are starting to stare.”

  “Let them stare. I’m not going anywhere without you, even if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you back to the car.”

  “So I guess you want to go to jail,” Nicky said, a part of her wanting to slap the stubborn expression off his face. What was he thinking? This was insane. He couldn’t abduct her again in front of half a dozen people and expect to get away with it. He really would be arrested if he tried that. “Is that why you kidnapped me in the first place? You have dreams of a life behind bars and a little boyfriend you can make your butt monkey?”

  “I’ll give you one last chance, Nick. Walk with me to the car, or I’m going to carry you out.”

  “You’re crazy if you think—” Nicky’s words ended in a squeal as Jackson did exactly as he’d threatened, scooping her over his shoulder in one smooth movement and turning toward the door.

  “No! Put me down!” She yelled and pounded on his back with her fists.

  How dare he? She was not a fucking child! She was an adult who—no matter what her sexual preferences were—deserved to be treated with respect and to have people listen when she said “no.” Her husband might never have gotten that message, but Jackson sure as hell would. She’d send the bastard to jail and see how he enjoyed having his free will stolen away.

  “Help! Someone, call the—”

  Jackson’s hand covered her mouth, cutting off her words as he swung through the door. Nicky could only pray someone in the diner knew where Jackson lived and would call for help. In the meantime, she would just have to do her best to fight for her freedom. No matter what, she wasn’t going to passively submit to Jackson—or anyone else—ever again.

  She was nearly naked again, wearing nothing but tiny black panties. Her jeans had been soaked through or he wouldn’t have taken them off. He needed her shirt off to get to the tattoo, but not her pants. It certainly would be a hell of a lot easier to concentrate if she were wearing more clothes. The time for making love or fucking or whatever they’d been doing was over. From this point on, he was all business.

  Too bad this business had an awful lot in common with one of his favorite pleasures.

  Bondage had been a huge turn-on even before he discovered the BDSM lifestyle. Either binding another or being bound himself, it didn’t much matter. Both made him hard enough to shatter rock. So it was no surprise his cock swelled uncomfortably within the confines of his jeans as he cuffed Nicky’s wrists to the mission-style headboard of the bed.

  He couldn’t help being aroused, but he could have helped the way his fingertips traced the column of her spine, past the small of her back and down her legs. He should have refrained from gripping her just above the knees and pulling her thighs slowly apart, digging his fingers into the soft flesh.

  Wider. Wider. Moving his fingers to wrap around her ankles.

  A soft moan of excitement escaped Nicky’s lips, making Jackson’s breath rush out in a sigh of relief. He’d felt like a monster since the second he’d thrown her over his shoulder at the diner, a feeling that had only gotten worse as she continued to fight him all the way up to the cabin. With every passing second he’d become increasingly convinced that he’d gone too far, and truly crossed the line into abusive territory.

  But that sigh of arousal helped calm his fears. No matter what she’d said in the diner or on the road up to the cabin, she hadn’t been faking her physical responses to his touch.

  Her emotional response, however, was another thing altogether.

  “See there, Nicky. Aren’t you glad I caught you in time?” His voice was as rough as the rope he used to secure first one ankle and then the other to the baseboard near her feet. He’d only brought the one pair of cuffs, so rope would have to do. At this point the idea of rope burns on Nicky’s delicate skin didn’t cause him much inner torment.

  It was amazing how badly it had hurt to realize she’d been lying to him from the moment they’d arrived at the cabin. But then he’d been a fool to believe the woman he’d kidnapped could really come to love him again in less than a day. No matter what he felt for her, no matter that it had seemed she felt the same way, it had been pure stupidity to drop his guard. He should have stuck to his original plan from the beginning and spared himself the heartache.

  And abducting Nicky again from a public place, asshole. You’ve really lost it, and chances are better than good you’ll be facing criminal charges.

  His inner voice was channeling Christian this evening.

  It was irritating as hell, and unfortunately, probably right on the money. Even if the people in the diner didn’t call the police to report what they’d seen, Nicky now had several witnesses to corroborate her claims of being kidnapped.

  A day ago, he would have said that it didn’t matter, that he wouldn’t have denied the charges anyway. But now a part of him would be sorely tempted to insist their weekend trip had been a consensual affair. He was that angry about being taken for a ride. Or that devastated, take your pick.

  He preferred angry. It hurt a hell of a lot less.

  “Tell me, Nicky,” he whispered, his voice thick with anger. “Now.”

  He finished up at her ankles and moved over her prone form, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders, hovering close enough that he could feel the heat of her body but not the silky softness of her skin. He moved his mouth just the barest bit closer, letting his lips brush softly against the back of her neck as he spoke again. “Tell me what you want.”

  Nicky shivered, but he could tell it wasn’t from the cold. She was aroused, he would bet his hands on it. If he let his fingers slide into those tiny black panties, he’d find her wet and ready, no matter how much of a fight she’d put up as he carried her up the stairs and wrestled her onto her stomach on the bed.

  “Fuck you,” she whispered, anger clear in her tone as well.

  So she was pissed as well as turned on. Good. That made two of them.

  “I don’t think so. No more distractions. We’re going to finish this,” he said, reaching over to where the tattoo machine sat beside the bed.

  Jackson flipped the switch on the motor then pulled on his latex gloves. He’d already prepped the gun with black ink, so they were ready to go. All he had to do was put the needle to her skin. He’d planned how he would modify the tat if Nicky refused to give him her input, so there was no reason to stall any further. In half an hour, he could be finished and they could both be getting ready to head back to L.A. He should get
on with it already.

  But for some reason, he couldn’t force his hand to move any closer.

  “Tell me what you want, Nicky. This is your last chance,” he said, hoping she heard the resolve in his voice. If she didn’t talk now, she would lose the opportunity.

  But she didn’t say a word, only pressed her face into the quilt beneath her, every muscle tensed, braced for the feel of the needle piercing her skin. The position only emphasized how small she was. Her wrists were tinier than ever, and her shoulder blades and the knobs of her spine were clearly visible through her skin, once more inspiring the desire in Jackson to get to work fattening her up.

  He should just forget this tattoo madness and go down and reheat the pasta, bring it up here so they could eat it together in bed. They could feed each other tortellini and sips of red wine, then have each other for dessert. After all, who needed cheesecake when you could have your tongue buried in something as sweet as Nicky’s pussy?

  The imagined scene made his cock ache even as his throat grew uncomfortably tight. Nothing like that was ever going to happen again. It had all been a lie, every touch, every word.

  What a fucking fool he was.

  Jackson’s anger sharpened to a knifepoint. She’d let him think they had a future, made him happier than he’d been in years, only to tear him down hours later. She’d cried in his arms, for god’s sake, wept because she was so overwhelmed by what she was feeling.

  Except now he knew she hadn’t been feeling anything at all. It had been an act.

  Seconds later, without him having made the conscious decision to move, the tattoo gun was on her flesh, tracing the edge of the wing he intended to expand. He’d add enough feathers to cover the angel’s body, then go to work on the face, covering the ethereal features with wild strands of black hair. By the time he was finished, no one would recognize his tat and Nicky’s as similar, let alone matching in every detail. And when the resemblance was gone, he’d finally be free of this obsession with a woman who couldn’t care less.

  “Stop.”

  “Sorry. I can’t,” he said, clenching his jaw and refusing to acknowledge the guilt that whispered through his rage. Screw guilt. It wasn’t going to get this job done.

  “Don’t. Stop it. Stop!” The words started as a whisper, but ended in a scream. Nicky’s shout echoed off the walls of the bedroom, followed closely by the horrific sound of a woman crying.

  No, she wasn’t just crying. She was wailing like her heart was breaking, weeping so hard her shoulders shook as the sobs wracked her body. She seemed to be trying to speak through her tears, but the words were unintelligible.

  One thing was for certain, however—there was no way he could continue the tattoo with her shaking like a leaf and clearly so upset. He might be angry with her, but he wasn’t that monster he feared he was becoming.

  You’re not? So, you’ll strap a woman down, but not sit on her to force her to hold still. What a fucking gentleman.

  Shame swept through Jackson’s body like a blast of cold air, shocking him to the core. What was he doing? How could he really go through with this? It was madness. What’s more, it was cruel. No matter what Nicky had done, no matter how she’d made him feel, he was supposed to be a better person than this. At least, that’s what he’d always told himself.

  Now . . . he wasn’t so sure.

  The way he’d acted bore a strong resemblance to every piece-of-shit foster father he’d ever known. Looked like he’d grown up to be more like the men who had beat him, the men who he’d watched starve their own biological kids to pay for beer, the men who had hit their wives and terrorized their families. He’d once watched his first foster dad chain a seven-year-old girl in a dog-house for a night because she’d taken the change from the couch cushions to buy candy.

  That night, as ten-year-old Jackson had listened to his foster sister cry and beg for someone to come get her, he had vowed he’d never hurt anyone the way he’d watched so many people be hurt. He’d sworn he would be the type of man who helped people, who made their lives better.

  But now he was standing above a woman he’d forcibly bound to a bed, listening to her cry hysterically.

  In that moment, something inside him snapped. He had to stop this. Now. Before he hurt Nicky any more than he already had, and before he committed an act of violence that would haunt him forever.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’msorry, Nick. Please, don’t cry.” Jackson flipped off the tattoo machine and stripped his gloves off with two angry motions. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never should have tried to do this.”

  Nicky felt him working to untie the ropes at her feet a few seconds later, but even knowing she was soon going to be free didn’t help stop the tears. If anything, it made them worse. She was crying so hard her entire body ached and her chest felt like it might explode. The sobbing sounds echoing through the room didn’t even sound like her. She sounded like a wounded animal, a creature that had been caged for too long.

  All the pain of the past three years, all the fear and anger and despair, hit like a physical blow. Jackson’s tattoo needle had made a hole in her heart and everything she’d held inside was spilling out all at once.

  “Please, babe. Please, I’m sorry,” Jackson whispered into her hair as he plucked the key to the cuffs from beside the bed and unlocked her wrists. “I’m sorry.”

  Nicky wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, at least not all of it. His betrayal was only the cherry on top of a huge messy shit sundae of hurt. She wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he’d stopped in time and she wasn’t as wildly angry as she’d been before. She wanted to say it wasn’t the tattoo modification but the lack of respect for her free will that had finally pushed her into major meltdown mode.

  But she couldn’t stop crying long enough to say any of those things.

  So she did the only other thing that felt right. As soon as her arms were free, she rolled over onto her back and reached for him, holding both arms out like Abby did when she wanted her mommy to pick her up. She was still crying and could feel her nose beginning to leak, but for once she didn’t worry about what kind of face she was putting on for the man in her bed. She just needed Jackson to hold her, to wrap her in those strong arms and tell her everything was going to be okay even if that was a lie.

  “Nicky.” All he said was her name, but she saw the shine in his eyes before he pulled her close, crushing her against his chest.

  He loved her. He really did.

  The thought made her sob even harder, more tears pouring out to soak his sweater. He was weirdly obsessed with their tattoos, thought she was a criminal, had kidnapped her—twice—and was probably a prime candidate for some sort of serious therapy, but he loved her. Jackson loved her in a way she could feel every time they touched, in a way that made her heart ache thinking about all the loveless years she’d wasted with a man who thought of her as nothing more than another decoration for his Bel Air mansion.

  Nicky snuggled closer to his chest, reveling in the foreign sensation of being home. The urge to cry slowly vanished in the wake of that warm, safe feeling, the feeling she always had when she was this close to Jackson. He was the only man who had ever been able to turn her on and calm her down at the same time.

  “I’m so sorry.” He dropped kisses onto the top of her head, the tension in his voice making it clear how grueling he’d found her epic crying jag. Poor Jack, he’d never been able to handle seeing a woman cry. “I’ve obviously lost my mind. I never wanted to hurt you, I never—”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered, not wanting to lift her face from his chest.

  “No, it’s not okay. But I’m going to make it okay. We’ll leave whenever you want and I’ll take you wherever you want me to take you. I’m just sorry I—”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Nicky said. “This wasn’t all your fault, you know. That was coming for a long time. I mean, I’ve done my share of crying the past three years, but nothing lik
e that.”

  Jackson’s muscles relaxed a bit and one hand began to smooth idly up and down her bare back. “Your marriage was that bad, huh?” He reached over to the side of the bed and plucked a Kleenex from the box. Nicky took the tissue and did her best to mop up her face without moving too far away from Jackson. She needed to be close to him right now. It made her feel stronger for some reason.

  “Yes, it was that bad.” She sighed, amazed that thinking of Derrick no longer summoned the familiar rush of hurt and rage. It was as if she’d finally cried him out of her system. Now she just had to get him out of her life and she would truly be ready to move on.

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “Not really, but I probably should,” she said. “I haven’t told anyone. I’ve been too ashamed.”

  “I’m sure you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Oh, I do.” Nicky laughed, a short, sad sound. “I was really twisted, and really, really stupid.”

  “Hey, you’re talking to the guy who kidnapped his high school girlfriend.” He hugged her and softly kissed her forehead. “You can’t get much more twisted or stupid than that.”

  This time her laugh was genuine. Jesus. Only Jackson could make her laugh just a few minutes after crying her eyes out.

  “So spill it, all the gory details.”

  Nicky took a deep breath, not certain how to begin. So she started with the basics, how she’d met Derrick at one of the classier BDSM clubs in town. How he’d captured her interest from the start, seeming so much more truly dominant than any of the other men she’d met. She told Jackson how Derrick had swept her away for long weekends at posh resorts up and down the California coast, and then surprised her with a giant rock four months into their relationship.

  “We were married two months later up near Santa Barbara at a winery,” Nicky said, feeling oddly detached from the story of her life. All of that just seemed so long ago, like it had happened to a different person.