Under My Skin (Skin Deep)

by Stone, J. M.

  “Jesus, Allie! What the…what are you…where are your clothes?” a male voice stammered behind me.

  I whirled around in a panic, my hands flying every which way to cover whatever they could cover as I blushed and fumbled out, “Luke!” Oh, God. I could feel my face burning, which isn’t saying much considering the deep blood red that was creeping up Luke’s face at an alarming rate.

  Without stammering out another word, I turned and ran like the devil himself was on my ass, slamming Brandon’s door behind me. Shaking my head (and then cursing myself for that as my head starting pounding again), I got to my feet and rummaged through Brandon’s dresser, coming up with an old pair of sweats that I had to roll about a zillion times. Oh, well. At least I was covered.

  I shrugged and walked back out of the room, snorting loudly in laughter as I entered the living room and saw Luke standing with his hands on his hips, staring in some combination of amusement, concern, and confusion at Emma. She was still passed out, snoring away.

  Doug was now sitting on top of Jenna (still asleep), smiling his goofy doggie grin at us and wagging his tail so hard it’s a wonder Jenna was actually still sleeping. And everyone else was still out of it, too.

  Luke turned around and threw his hands up. “So, how the hell are you up and moving?” he asked.

  I shrugged. And then tilted my head to amend my answer. “Well, actually it’s because I was, apparently, sleeping on the kitchen table. I fell off. Woke me up. Painfully.”

  He shook his head, but I could see his shoulders shaking with the laughter he was trying to suppress. “Alright, so now, wanna explain to me why Emma’s wearing approximately a week’s worth of men’s underwear?”

  I gulped because he wasn’t really laughing anymore. I nervously chuckled, wracking my brain to come up with some plausible reason that wouldn’t sound awful. And then I remembered!

  “Oh, yeah!” I chirped. Well, chirped as much as a hungover person could chirp. I made a dash for the bathroom and grabbed up the mess that I had dumped on the bathroom floor, taking care not to touch the ‘dirty-loosies’ and plodded back into the kitchen.

  Luke looked at me like I’d lost my mind and, frankly, I was probably going to make it worse for at least the next few seconds. I held up the pairs of men’s underwear that I’d been wearing myself after fishing around in the pocket of my jeans for the crumpled up paper I’d stuffed in there.

  “So, as you can see, I came home wearing men’s underwear, too-” I started, but he cut me off.

  “This isn’t really helping your explanation any, Allie. I mean seriously, you don’t think Brandon or Jackson would be a little worried by the fact that you had men’s underwear on, too? And,” he paused, looking over said undergarments hanging from my fingers with a grimace, “they’ve clearly been worn.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “If you’d let me FINISH!” I said, maybe a little more loudly than necessary. But that loudness could have all been in my head. I mean, the Trans Siberian Orchestra was already in there gearing up for their tour, so it’s a wonder I could hear anything over that.

  “This is a list of dare-type things that we had to complete for the bachelorette party. See? Number 15, get a guy to take his underwear off for you and hand them over. We were very clearly overachievers. And before you ask, no, we didn’t see anything we weren’t supposed to. At least Emma and I didn’t. I can’t say the same for Leah, because the last I remember seeing her, she was headed into the men’s room to assist.” I shook my head.

  Luke reached for the list and read some off. “Number 1, get someone to buy you a shot. Number 2, dance on the bar…” he looked at me and quirked his eyebrow. “Did she dance on the bar?”

  I shook my head in the negative. “No, actually, Chloe did that one. Shocked the shit out of us.”

  Luke’s eyes went wide but he didn’t say anything else. He continued reading the list, chuckling at a couple and then reading them aloud when he came to ones he apparently found most interesting.

  “Give a lap dance? Get five phone numbers? Jesus, Allie, were you trying to set her up?” Luke asked, his hand raking through his hair in agitatedly.

  I gasped and snatched the paper out of his hand, glowering at him. “Seriously? I know you didn’t even ask me that. Chloe and Leah split the phone number dare, and believe it or not, my mother did the lap dance.” I held up my hand. “Please, don’t ask. It was bad enough to see with my own eyes.”

  “Hey!” I exclaimed suddenly. “What’s the deal? How are you not passed out somewhere? It was your bachelor party last night, too!”

  He shrugged. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got a workshop going on in my head right now, but I wanted to come home and sleep in my own bed with my future wife. Couldn’t take anymore snoring.”

  I giggled. “Brandon and Jacks?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he answered. “Calland. I swear to God, if I didn’t know it was Emma’s brother there on the couch, I would have thought there was a grizzly bear in the living room. We dropped her dad off at home and the rest of us crashed at your place. When I left, Brandon was in your bed and I think Jacks was in the bathtub. Could have been the other way around. And I’m pretty sure Calland was wearing a bra. Didn’t want to examine that one too closely, you know. Self-preservation and plausible deniability and all.”

  I nodded. Maybe I shouldn’t mention all the times Emma and I had dressed Calland and his friends up when we were growing up. Ever see some dragged out thirteen/fourteen year olds with hooker make-up and padded bras riding a modified grocery cart into a ditch at the end of a driveway? Well, it’s pretty fuckin’ hilarious, lemme tell ya.

  “So what did you guys do last night?” I asked Luke.

  His face turned red again and I had my answer. “You went to a strip club!” I crowed. “HA! I thought you said no strip clubs!”

  “Like I had a choice!” he hollered at me. “Calland, Brandon, and Jackson planned the whole thing. Do you think I got to have a say in anything? With CALLAND making most of the decisions!? And don’t you dare give me any grief over it, because I KNOW you took Emma to a strip club!”

  I blinked. “N-no, I didn’t,” I stammered.

  “Busted!” Luke said. “Which strip club do you think we ended up at?” he asked.

  Oh. Well, shit.

  “How the hell did we not see you?” I asked. I shook my head before he could answer. “Nevermind. We were all pretty wasted by that point. Although, I do pride myself on handling my alcohol better than most, so I just can’t believe I didn’t see any of you.”

  “Your mom did. She did the whole zipping motion across her lips and then mimed throwing away the key. She’s a trip,” he said, laughing. “Honestly, though, the guys threw a great party for me, just as, obviously, you girls did for Emma.” He smiled fondly at Emma, still snoring away on the counter.

  I cocked my head and couldn’t help but smile. “You really love her.” It was a statement, and it wasn’t like I was just figuring it out. But sometimes it was just so…heart warming to see that I couldn’t help but comment.

  He nodded, not taking his eyes off of her. He laughed as she shifted in her sleep and let out a huge belch that would have put a grown man to shame. “How could I not?” he said, grinning.

  Luke and I talked for a little longer and then I left, heading home to my guys and whoever else was left crashed out there. I did wake up my mom before I left to see if she wanted a ride, but she decided to drive herself home. She’s a party beast, what can I say?

  We left pretty much everyone else passed out where they were, but I made Chloe get up and come home with me. She was still pretty out of it. Guess that could have come from all the shots I kept handing her all night. But I won’t feel bad about it. She’s a kickass chick when she comes out of her shell.

  By the time I got home, there was no one left at my house with the exception of my guys. I did see a bra mysteriously lying in the middle of my living room floor, but there was no sign of it’s prev
ious wearer. Although I definitely would be revisiting that issue later with Calland. Especially once I filled Emma in on it.

  I went into my bedroom after putting Chloe back to bed and saw that whoever had been crashed out in the bathtub was no longer there because both Brandon and Jackson were in my bed. Jackson was on the right side of the bed, Brandon was on the left, and they’d left room for me right in the middle, whether out of habit or what, I didn’t know, but I was thankful for it. I stripped off and crawled into bed, snuggling down between them and let sleep take me back under.

  Chapter 15

  “Who’s idea was it to take cameras with us during the parties?” Emma moaned, thumping her head down on the kitchen table.

  It was Sunday and we were all over at her mom and dad’s house for breakfast, minus Chloe, who said she had some errands to run, and Jackson, who was going to take Chloe wherever she needed to go. We had just got done eating and the kids were in the living room playing a video game. My parents and even my grandparents had shown up (it wasn’t that uncommon; they’d been to quite a few breakfasts with me over the years) so it was boisterous and crowded, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. Most of my favorite people in one place…that’s what I call perfect! The fact that Leah had taken the cameras in and had all the pictures from the bachelor and bachelorette parties printed out just made it that much better, especially because there was some blackmail GOLD in there!

  “Oh, dear, come on! They aren’t that bad!” Jan said, patting her daughter’s shoulder briefly before snatching the pictures out of Emma’s hand.

  I grinned when she gasped as she started browsing through them. Her face was turning red and then she lost it, laughing so hard that tears started streaming down her face.

  “Oh! Oh, God, Daisy!” she cackled to my mom.

  My mom just grinned and shook her head because she’d already gone through them. My grandma shuffled over behind Jan so she could look over her shoulder.

  “Daisy Mae!” she exclaimed, her gravelly voice cutting above everyone else. “Lord, child, does George know some naked guy is grinding his ugly stick all over your ass?”

  “Mom!” my mother exclaimed at the exact same time I hollered, “Nanny!”

  I turned to look at my grandma and, being the smart ass I usually am, said, “Ugly stick, Nanny? No one calls a man’s penis that.”

  She shook her head at me in exasperation. “Don’t ya know anything, lily girl? Ugly Stik, you know, as in a brand of fishing pole. Seriously, look at that thing! It’s huge even covered by it’s banana hammock!”

  I just groaned and covered my face with my hands, shaking my head as my mom jumped in, berating and then agreeing with my grandma. Geesh.

  Jan just shook her head and moved on, losing it even more when the next picture was my dad giving a thumbs up as two busty strippers surrounded him. After that was a picture of Ben, Emma’s dad, smiling dazedly into the camera, holding up a bottle of beer in one hand and a mini blow up doll in the other.

  Picture after picture went and we all cracked up, laughing until we were literally holding our stomachs, tears pouring down our faces; there were pictures of random people biting candy off of Emma’s shirt, ones of Chloe and Leah dancing on the bar, ones of me and Emma dirty dancing with an alien…wait, what? What the hell was up with the blow ups?

  Jan flipped one more and I grabbed it, exclaiming, “Hey!” I turned it around so Emma, Jenna, and Leah could get a better look at it. “What happened to our friend?” I asked, laughing.

  The picture showed Emma handcuffed to an almost life-sized blow up neon green alien, which she had sitting on her lap, kissing it’s cheek. Emma grabbed the picture out of my hand to see and handed it to Luke, who was sitting beside her.

  “Sorry, honey,” she said sweetly. “Looks like someone else might have stolen my heart at the bar!” She giggled and winked at him.

  Luke guffawed and kissed Emma’s head, saying, “I’ll forgive you this one time, sugar, but I’m telling you what; if our first child comes out neon green, he and I are gonna have to have a talk!”

  We all busted out laughing again, with the exception of Emma’s dad, who just shook his head and grunted. Typical Ben.

  When the laughter died down again and Jan continued flipping through the pictures, I took that opportunity to bust Calland’s balls a little.

  “So… ‘little brother’, wanna tell me why you were crashed out on my couch wearing a bra?”

  His face turned beet red for a second before his ever-present cockiness asserted itself again. “I’m secure in my masculinity…and besides, you never asked what happened to the woman who was wearing it before me!” He winked and waggled his eyebrows at me exaggeratedly.

  “Calland, you ass, tell me you didn’t do the nasty at my house!” I screeched, reaching out to slap him. He jumped away and I missed, my hand accidentally tagging Brandon in the junk. I clapped my hand over my mouth, apologizing profusely as he bent in half, blowing out a deep breath on a groan. Flustered, I didn’t think first and dropped to my knees, hell bent on doing something, anything, to alleviate the pain I’d caused.

  “Oh, fuck me sideways, Allie, baby, please stop, please stop, please stop…” Brandon mumbled, his words trailing off on a moan that sounded about a hundred times different than the in-pain one he’d just emitted a few seconds ago.

  I blinked up at him and then down at where he held my wrist, fighting to stop my hand from rubbing over the…wow…now suddenly much larger and umm…harder part of him that I just so happened to be on eye level with and let out a little ‘eeek!’ as I realized what I had been doing. I scrambled away from him, mumbling ‘oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God’ under my breath in mortification.

  I jerked myself up and sat down at the table again, risking a glance around the now completely silent kitchen. I winced as I noticed the wide-eyed stares of shock everyone was sending my way until, one by one, they started laughing even harder than they had while looking at the pictures. My grandma even slapped her knee. Face. Palm.

  After a while, Brandon and I said our goodbyes to everyone, promising my grandparents that we would come visit soon, and headed home. When we got in the car, Brandon looked over at me and grinned while he reached over and rubbed my thigh.

  “Don’t even start!” I snapped, trying to keep from grinning back even while I could feel my face heating up again.

  He just grinned even bigger. “It’s okay, baby. You didn’t even think about it, but I seriously had to stop you before I embarrassed myself in front of everyone, and not in a way that anyone would laugh at!”

  I covered my face with my hands. “I can’t believe I did that…” I sighed.

  We pulled up at my house after a few more minutes of idle chat and went inside. Brandon pulled me into his arms and kissed me sweetly before setting me back away from him.

  “I have to run down to the shop for a bit to work on a design. Wanna come with me?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nah…I have a couple orders I have to put in for my Down & Dirty stuff and then a few things to work on for the store. See you when you get back?” I asked, leaning against his chest and offering my lips up for a kiss again.

  “Of course,” he replied before obliging me, capturing my mouth in a hot, tongue tangling kiss that left me panting for more when he pulled away. He gave me that sexy smirk of his and added, “And we’ll continue this kiss and that little rub down you started earlier when I get back.” He winked, kissed me hard on my lips one more time, and jumped away as I swatted at him.

  I managed to get my orders in and the things done that I needed to finish for the store before I heard the door open and Jackson came strolling in, making a beeline for where I was sitting. I smiled up at him as he leaned in, kissing my lips gently with his before taking it a little bit deeper, stroking my bottom lip with his tongue before sweeping inside. He kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in a month, and he did it like that every time he kissed me. Which is just one of the t
hings I loved about him.

  “Hey,” he said when the kiss ended. “Did you have a good time at breakfast?” he asked, the slight smile on his face giving him away.

  “Been talking to Brandon?” I asked him, smartly. I crossed my arms and gave a small harrumph.

  He grabbed my arms gently and pulled me up out of my chair, enfolding me into his arms and holding me tightly. I sighed and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my body even tighter against his.

  “I’m just teasing, baby, you know that,” he said gently.

  I nodded against his chest. “I know, but I have to pretend to be put out about it just a little. Save face. Not that I’m not mortified that I did that in front of my whole family and Emma’s…” I broke off when I felt his chest start bouncing under my cheek with silent laughter.

  I growled and pinched his ass, making him jerk and yelp before he gave in a laughed out loud. I pulled back and smiled up at him, sighing when he leaned down for another soft kiss.

  “So,” I began when he pulled away again. “Did you guys get everything done that Chloe needed to do?” I asked lightly. Yeah, sue me…I was fishing a little because she didn’t say what kind of errands she had to do.

  “Yeah, I think so. She actually just left to go somewhere with Leah. Do you think I should be worried about those two being out together?” he asked, his voice a mixture of amusement and concern.

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think you’d need to worry on a Sunday. Now, on a Friday…” I shrugged my shoulders and gave him my best ‘oh-God-who-knows’ look, laughing when he growled playfully at me before he grabbed me up and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

  I gave a small oompf and a squeal that turned into a giggle as he headed down the hallway toward the bedroom. I slapped his ass and let out an even bigger squeal when he reciprocated, his large hand firmly smacking against my unprotected backside swaying in the air, and then nipped my thigh with his teeth.

  My breath caught in my throat at the slight sting and desire curled heavily in my stomach. He dropped me gently onto the bed and followed me down, pressing every single delectable inch of his gorgeous hard body against me as his mouth sought and claimed mine. He kissed me hard, biting at my lips and exploring every inch of my mouth with his tongue.