Breaking Skin

by Debra Doxer

  Slowly, I take the steps that place me in front of him and touch his cheek, so thankful he was with me for this roller coaster of a day, and grateful we found each other again.

  He takes my hand in his and presses it to his lips. Then he brings my arm around the back of his neck and gently pulls my body against him.

  “For the first time, it’s just you and me. No kids. No possibility of interruptions.”

  My heart stutters at the implication. “Feels like we should take advantage.” I grin and he presses a kiss to my lips as his arms surround me.

  Cole is an unyielding wall of muscle, and as much as I admire his physical strength and his strength of character, his vulnerability is attractive too. It tugs at my heart and makes me want to protect him from anyone or anything that could hurt him. It humanizes him and it inspires me to show him how much I want him, how much I’ve always wanted him, even when I never thought I’d see him again.

  I slide my tongue along his and push flush against his body. His arms tighten, and I can feel him let go as we both give in to the passion that’s been simmering between us since the first day I saw him again. His kiss deepens and soon I’m no longer standing on the floor. I’m in his arms and then I’m lying across the bed.

  Cole looks down at me with lust clouding his eyes. “I want you, Nikki.”

  I lick my lips. “I want you too.”

  He smiles. “You have no idea how long I’ve thought about being with you like this again.”

  “Probably as long as I’ve thought about you.”

  Cole slowly shakes his head. “Longer.”

  My chest rises and falls rapidly, and I know there’s something I have to show him later. But now I wind my arms around his neck and open my mouth to his, letting my tongue slide over his teeth before plunging deeper. His hand fists in my hair and tugs lightly, just the way I like it, making me moan. I pull him closer, desperate for more of him.

  Cole whispers my name and rolls us over on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs until he takes control and shifts on top of me. I find the hem of his shirt and pull upward. He breaks away long enough to yank it over his head.

  I take in his smooth, muscled chest as he moves over me. It looks just like I remember and just like the flashes of him I see in my dreams.

  When I skim my hands over his skin, Cole shivers. He actually shivers from my touch, and I love that I can do that to him because he already knows how responsive I am when he touches me.

  Cole’s rough hand strokes over the bare skin of my stomach and I arch up against it, raising my arms so he can pull my shirt over my head. I watch his face as he reaches around to undo the clasp of my bra. Once I’m bared to him, he looks at me like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, the same way he looked at me that night. When I see the admiration in his eyes, I feel beautiful and powerful, two things as foreign to me as romantic love.

  His warm lips touch the places his eyes caressed first, sucking and gently biting until I writhe beneath him and shamelessly tilt my hips up to seek more friction.

  He responds with an approving sound, and all thoughts of going slow disappear as we reach for our remaining clothing, tugging and pushing at belts and jeans that are in the way. I watch him retrieve a condom from his wallet and have a fleeting thought, a question as to why it’s there. For us? For this possibility or for any possibility?

  The moment his warm skin rubs against mine, my questions are forgotten. My insecurities disappear and I close my eyes, sighing at the sensation. I hoped for this but I never really thought it would happen. Cole doesn’t know it, but I’ve carried the note he left taped to my bathroom mirror with me for two years, believing it was all I’d ever have of him and the night we spent together.

  But now I have so much more than a piece of paper with words that nearly brought me to tears when I first read them. A note that created a longing so deep and wide that I’ve been falling into ever since, a longing for something I wanted desperately but believed with all my heart I could never have.

  I was wrong.

  Cole sinks inside me and when our bodies fuse together, the emotion burning in his eyes makes my heart quake. A groan erupts from his throat when he pulls out and then presses in deeper. Each time he moves, he watches me, reading my expression and reacting to it. When he rotates his hips, causing me to moan softly, he does it again, just the same way. He takes me to the edge but he doesn’t let me go. He brings me back and then dangles me over the precipice again until my breath is nothing more than a series of desperate pants.

  It isn’t until I whisper “please” that he drives harder. Soon sweet tension coils at my core. I grip his shoulders, digging my nails into his skin, squeezing my eyes closed as the exquisite pressure builds. With each stroke, Cole carves out a place for himself deep in my heart, and I know it’s a place that will always belong to him.

  When I release a high-pitched scream that sounds like it came from someone else, someone more wanton and free than I’ve ever been, it’s not only my body Cole fills, it’s the emptiness that swallowed me the morning I woke up and believed I’d never see him again.

  Cole drops down beside me and presses a soft kiss to my shoulder. With a lazy smile, I toss my arm over my head and snuggle beneath the blanket.

  “My memory didn’t do this justice,” he says.

  My smile widens as I take in his tousled hair and the soft affection in his eyes. I can safely say I’ve never felt like this before. Our first time together, I’d had too much to drink to be fully present, but this time, every second was bursting with vibrant color. I feel completely alive and connected to this man. I feel so good, I may do something daring, like tell him.

  “Remember you said you wanted there to be something between us?”

  A grin curls his lips. “I remember.”

  “This is more than something, Cole. It’s something special.”

  His smile slowly fades, causing my heart to knock against my ribs. But before I can worry what he’s thinking, his hand cups my cheek and he places a soft kiss on my lips.

  “I know it is. I knew it first.”

  I laugh softly, relief flowing through me along with the thrilling buzz of happiness.

  “There’s something I have to show you.” I reach for his button-down shirt at the end of the bed and slip my arms into the long sleeves that hang down far past my hands. “Be right back.”

  In the living room, I locate my purse by the door where I left it. Then I reach inside for my wallet, pull out a worn piece of paper, and carry it back into the bedroom with me.

  Cole is sitting up with his back propped against a pillow. I hold the worn piece of paper out to him and with a curious look, he takes it from my hand.

  As he studies it, I climb back onto the bed and sit on my knees, facing him. “I’ve kept that in my wallet all this time. Do you remember writing it?”

  His shocked gaze shifts from the note back to me as he nods.

  “You think you’ve thought about us longer, but you need to understand we might be tied on that score.”

  Cole grins and shakes his head. Then he takes me by surprise when he wraps his arm around me and pulls me down on top of him.

  “You are beautiful, Nikki. But I shouldn’t have put it in a note. I should have stayed and told you.”

  I wish he’d stayed and told me too, but that was a difficult night for both of us. My mother had a stroke and his marriage was ending. I understand the timing wasn’t right.

  Cole glances at the clock on the nightstand. “We should probably get moving soon.”

  I look at the clock too, but then my gaze moves past it to the framed photograph that sits on my dresser across the room. It’s a picture of Renee with a much younger Langley. As I look at it, my heart doesn’t feel quite as light anymore. It occurs to me that I haven’t texted Renee or left her a voice-mail message in days, not since Cole touched me in her kitchen the other night. I let myself get distracted, and guilt sneaks up on me.
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br />   Reluctantly, lazily, we get out of bed and sort through the clothes we carelessly tossed to the floor. Cole notices the way I keep glancing at the photograph.

  “Renee doesn’t have any family pictures around her house,” he says. “If she had, I might have seen you in one and realized she was your sister.”

  I hadn’t thought about that, but he has a point. Renee has no photographs at all. “She wouldn’t put out any pictures of me, but you’d think she’d have some of Langley.”

  “Nikki.” Cole says my name in a serious tone. “You don’t have to tell me, but I can’t pretend I don’t want to know why your relationship with Renee is so strained.”

  Automatically, I shut down. “It’s getting late.”

  “If you want to talk, it’s not too late for that.”

  I sigh and think about how much he’s shared with me and how little I’ve shared with him. If what’s happening between us truly is something special, I have to open up. I felt so much closer to Cole when he talked to me, but my story is different. Instead of bringing us closer, it may tear us apart. It may make him decide he wants nothing to do with me and my family.

  Fully dressed now, he sits on the bed, takes my hand, and tugs me down beside him. “Nikki. I hope you know you can tell me anything.” His voice is low and soothing.

  I trust Cole. I trust him with my heart, and I suppose it’s time to trust him with everything else too.

  “You’ve heard the rumors?” I ask.

  “I told you, I don’t put any stock in rumors.”

  “I know. But tell me what you’ve heard.” I want him to say it out loud because I need to know what he knows.

  His throat works, moving up and down as if some offensive word is lodged inside and he doesn’t want to let it out. That in itself tells me something.

  “You can say it, Cole.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Incest.” I whisper the word as if that could lessen the impact. “I haven’t talked about this since I was fourteen years old.”

  “Jesus, Nikki.” He reaches out for me, but I hold my hand up to stop him.

  “It wasn’t me. It was never me, thanks to Renee.”

  Nine years ago . . .

  “Nikki, come on.” Renee tugged on my arm and pleaded with me to get out of her bed.

  “But it’s so much warmer here with you. There’s no heat again, and I can’t find my blanket.”

  The heat was always getting shut off. Actually it was all the electricity, and since I slept on the couch in the living room, which had the draftiest windows in the house, I got the worst of it. I kept catching colds, which meant I kept getting sent to the nurse’s office in school. Every time she had to call Mama to come get me, sick or not, I got into trouble because Mama worked by the hour and every hour counted.

  “Just let me stay,” I begged. “It’s freezing out there.”

  “No!” Renee yelled it so loudly, I was sure she’d woken the whole house.

  Her angry tone made me sit up and blink at her in the dark. Renee’s eyes glittered with tears, and seeing them shine made me want to cry too.

  “Please let me stay,” I whispered. “He might not come tonight if I’m here.”

  Her eyes turned hard because we never spoke of it, and I should have known better.

  “He always comes,” she said. “Your being here won’t stop him. Knowing him, he’d probably like it.”

  A disgusted smile twisted her lips, followed by the defeated look she wore more and more often. She either looked blank, like she wasn’t there at all, or like she’d swallowed something rancid.

  “Tell him no,” I said. “You don’t have to let him.”

  “Stop it. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nikki. Go back to bed.”

  I didn’t want to go back. This used to be my room too until one night my father dragged me out of it, tossed me into the hallway, and shut the door. He was alone with Renee for the rest of the night, and the entire time I could hear her crying softly. Now she cried every night since while I sat in the living room on the couch, unable to sleep, knowing he was hurting her. But lately, she’d stopped crying, and that worried me even more.

  I had just turned thirteen when my father kicked me out of my own bedroom, and I had an idea of what was happening behind that closed door. I’d seen enough television and heard enough hints from Renee to understand. I understood more than I wanted to. What my father did was the deepest, darkest of wrongs.

  Dejected, I trudged back to the couch, and after a while I heard my father go into my sister’s bedroom like always. I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I never slept anymore.

  Shivering, with tears spilling down my cheeks, I decided it was up to me. I had to do something because no one else would. I was losing my sister, bit by bit. Pieces of her soul were breaking off and disappearing in that dark bedroom, and the one time I dared to talk to my mother about it, she hit me, slapped me hard across the cheek. I was stunned into silence, my words washed away by the wave of reality that crashed over me. Mama didn’t want to know. She’d rather hit me than stop him, and despite my devastation, her actions gave me an idea. The red mark her hand left behind had me thinking about a boy in my class.

  Last year, that boy came to school every day with bruises. I heard he told the nurse his father hit him, and the nurse told someone else who came to take his father away. They took that kind of thing very seriously here. There were flyers on the wall in the nurse’s office and in the gym too about how important it was to tell someone if you ever felt afraid or if anyone touched you in the wrong place.

  I’d told Renee she should tell someone, but I knew she wouldn’t. I wondered if I told the nurse about my father if she could have him taken away, just like she did for that boy.

  It was the only way I knew to help my sister, and I’d been thinking about it for a while now. If I was going to help Renee, I needed to tell an adult besides my mother, and the school nurse seemed like a good choice. Miss Emily was another possibility, but I knew Renee would be twice as mad if Miss Emily found out. She idolized her. We both did, and neither of us wanted her to know how bad things were at home. Miss Emily suspected, but that was different from actually knowing.

  As I sat on the couch that night, biting my fingernails down to the quick, wavering back and forth, I made a decision. It was time to stop this before any more pieces of my sister disappeared.

  When I got to school that day, I didn’t go to my first class. I marched directly to the nurse’s office. There were two boys ahead of me waiting to see her. One kept coughing into his hand and the other had a bloody knee. Nervously, I sat there on the hard wooden chair in the tiny waiting area, twisting my hands together, hoping I was doing the right thing, but I never wavered. I was determined. I loved my sister.

  When it was finally my turn to see the nurse, I walked into her office and after a few flubbed words and false starts, I finally told her what was happening at home. The words I used weren’t very specific. I started by saying my father went into the bedroom each night with Renee and closed the door. I also told her Renee cried.

  The change that came over the nurse as I spoke told me she understood. Her face paled and all signs of good humor disappeared as her back straightened and she listened carefully. By the way she looked at me, I knew she believed me, and I had a strong feeling she intended to do something about it.

  I was right. Nothing was the same after that day. One nightmare ended but a brand-new one began. This new nightmare included the police and the school principal coming to our house. It was filled with rumors and half truths, accusations and raised voices.

  No one thanked me for what I’d done, especially not Renee. She stopped going to school. She refused to talk to the police when they came. But my father was gone just like I’d hoped. The police questioned him and when they released him, they said he couldn’t come back home for a while, not until the investigation was complete. So he took an apartment in town.

  Whe
n my mother went to see him there, he wasn’t alone. He was living with another woman, and he told Mom he wasn’t coming back.

  That’s when she fell apart and blamed it all on me. My mother and Renee both blamed me for everything that happened and every single thing that went wrong in their lives from that point on. They accused me of betraying our family, of ruining us all; that is, when they weren’t ignoring me.

  They never stopped being angry with me for talking. After that, I withdrew from them and from everyone else too, but I had no regrets because only one thing mattered. My father never touched Renee again.

  “Renee protected me. She saved me from him.”

  I’m on the bed beside Cole, my legs folded into my chest and my arms wrapped around them.

  “And then you saved her.” Cole bends his head so his gaze can find mine.

  “But I also humiliated her. Once I told, people found out. I don’t know how, maybe the nurse or maybe someone at the police station. My mother claimed she couldn’t show her face anywhere after that. The same thing happened to Renee. At school, she was treated like a pariah. The one good thing was that my father got transferred to another county because people here didn’t want him delivering their mail or going near their houses.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I was the hero of the story.” I laugh bitterly. “Everyone said I did the right thing. Everyone except the people who mattered.” Emotion clogs my throat. “Renee knows what my father did to her was horrible, but I’m the one she believes ruined her life. She was perfectly fine pretending everything was okay and keeping her secret. She was popular. She had a boyfriend. I took all that away from her.”

  Cole’s arm comes around my shoulder. “You know that’s not true.”

  “Do I? I’ve thought about it so many times over the years, and despite the terrible consequences, I’d do it again. I’d still tell, but maybe I’d tell someone else. Maybe I could go about it differently so that Renee didn’t suffer so much. She’s my sister and I took away everything good in her life.”