BONE DEEP

by Brooklyn Skye

  Because of my dad. I close my eyes away from the thought.

  The warmth from my chest disappears, and suddenly her lips press to the underside of my jaw. Once. Twice. Then she runs the tip of her tongue up to my ear. “Krister, you need to say something. Because you lying here shirtless in front of me is like putting ice cream in front of a kid and telling her not to touch it.” Her finger scrapes a line down the center of my chest to the button of my jeans and, again, I catch it.

  “My dad,” I say and cringe with the words. “I came over here because my dad decided to show up after being gone for a year and thinks we can just pick back up where we left off. That disappearing for a year hasn’t changed him or me or the way we’re supposed to act around each other. We got into a fight about it, and then I went to the movies with my best friend and saw that my ex-girlfriend has moved on with some dude from New York, and I spent the whole movie wondering why I didn’t care.”

  Cambria leans back, looks at me—eyes big and round and searching. “And now you’re here…trying to be distracted?”

  “No.” I take her face in my hands and just let my thoughts flow out of my mouth. “I’m here because you make me feel good. Alive. And like—for the first time in a long time—things aren’t so horrible.” My lips are mere millimeters from hers now.

  Slowly she wets her lips, and then she pounces, legs straddling my waist and pushing me back onto the pillows at the same time. She peels off her shirt, tosses it to the floor then collapses on top of me, mouth crushing mine.

  Seeing her shirtless, her bare chest rubbing against mine, yellow shorts stretched across the curve of her tight ass…yeah, I’m not even going to try to stop myself now. Ahold of her ribs, I guide her higher, skimming my lips down her neck and chest until my mouth finds her nipple. A whimper pulses in the room as my tongue swirls one hard nub after another, stirring up the thought that the sound of her voice reacting to my touch will haunt me in my dreams tonight.

  I roll to the side, taking her with me and pin her into the cushy mattress. My hands find the elastic band of her shorts and before I can say “Mother of God” she’s lying naked beneath me with a flush of pink growing on her cheeks as I look her up and down, appreciating every magnificent dip and curve of her body.

  My fingers brush along her cheek. “You’re blushing.”

  Silence—the calm, pliant kind that isn’t awkward at all. And then she says in a whisper, “Nobody’s ever looked at me like you do.” She tugs down my jeans and then my boxers. “It feels like you’re looking at more than just my body.”

  I kiss her before my mind can take that comment and run. ’Cause I was looking past the smooth skin and tiny, jelly-bean-shaped birthmark on her hip, the sky-blue color of her nails or the way her knees bump my now-bare hips…

  Hope. That’s what was in her voice when she said it. She was hoping there was more to the way I was looking at her. And the smile her lips hold tells me that hope makes her happy.

  Eyes on hers, I pull back just a sliver and say with my lips along hers, “I’m really glad you tricked me into kissing you that day.”

  “I’m glad I did, too.”

  Then I suck in her bottom lip without a chance for her to say anything more. My body rocks against hers, a spiral of tingles sinking lower and lower. She kisses my neck with the words, “Hold on,” as she wiggles out from under me. I watch as she scoots off the bed and pads her tight, little ass over to her small dresser.

  Drawer open, she rummages through the socks until she retrieves a still-intact strip of condoms. I don’t know why, but the fact that they haven’t been used yet triggers a smile on my face. If one had been missing…

  My chest burns at the thought of someone else touching her. Kissing her. And suddenly, the space of carpeted floor between us is too much. I roll off the bed and sneak up behind her, pressing into her backside.

  “You’re taking too long,” I tease and drop a line of kisses down her shoulder. Then I catch her hands and pry the condom free, spinning her around to face me in the process.

  “You’re cute when you’re impatient,” she says and takes back the condom. I watch as she hesitantly rips open the package and then as a look like she doesn’t know what she’s doing spreads across her face—eyes a little wide, a tiny crinkle between her brows. Obviously she’s never put a condom on a guy before, but underneath the hesitation is determination. For whatever reason, she wants to try.

  Throw me in a cage and call me a guinea pig.

  But as she withdraws the condom, her fingers begin to shake. I smooth my hands down her arms, elbow to wrist, and then slowly—because I have a feeling this has something to do with the whisper of a thought I put into her head last time about living—I guide her hands and the condom in place. Touching me like that, with her eyes burning into me the whole time, makes me feel more naked than I already am.

  And I like it.

  On her tiptoes, she clasps her arms around my neck as I take her by the waist and lift her to the edge of the dresser, stepping between her legs. She spreads them wider, and I slowly push inside her, at the same time pressing my lips gently to hers. Hands on her cheeks, I plant kisses on her mouth in rhythm with the movement of my body. This is only our second time, but our bodies move in sync like we’ve been doing it for years.

  She arches into me, hooking her legs around my waist, and I groan against her mouth. “Jesus, Cambria, you don’t know what you do to me.”

  Just slightly, she leans back. “Show me.”

  Could I? Tell her how I really feel about her—more than I already have? Explain that it’s her face I see every time I close my eyes? That since meeting her, my mind is less on the train wreck and more on moving on? I’m helping her live, to get over her mom’s death, but she’s helping me do the very same thing.

  I grip her wrist and slide her hand down my neck and press her palm flat to the left side of my chest, just above my quick-beating heart. “This is what seeing you naked does to me, but…” I slither her hand to the center of my chest, and then down to my side. With one finger over hers, I dig our fingers into my ribs. “…every moment I spend with you, you imprint another little piece of you here.” Our fingers bump over another rib. “And here.” Another. “And here. For the rest of my life I will live with you…because you are un-erasable.”

  The rawness of my voice as I say these words draws a smile to her face, and then I snatch her off the dresser and carry her to the bed. She clings to my neck as I lower us onto the mattress and doesn’t let go as I spend the next hour slowly making love to every beautiful inch of her.

  ~*~

  Cambria wakes to my fingertips walking up and down her spine. Holding her breath, she waits until my fingers reach the small of her back and then start to reverse their steps before she untucks her head from under my chin and kisses my neck.

  “How long have you been awake?” she asks.

  “Not sure I really slept at all. Hazards of having a stunning, half-naked girl curled up beside me, I guess.”

  She inclines back, her brow crinkled. “Sorry?”

  “I’m not.” I smile and kiss her forehead. “Sleep is overrated when I can stare at you the whole night.”

  My thoughts—the ones stinging my brain before she woke—rush back into me: This is easy. Lying with her. Being with her. If only everything else in my life could be as non-complicated as this moment right here.

  “I was thinking,” she suddenly says, quiet, but loud against my thoughts as she hooks her arm around my waist, “about what you said last night. Your dad, and how he came back into your life.”

  My expression tightens, though with her head tucked to my chest she doesn’t see.

  “No matter how much my mom and I fought,” she continues, “how controlling and protective she was…there’s not a day that goes by I don’t wish it was as easy as her simply walking back into my life. As cliché as this sounds, you should cherish the time you have with him, because you never know when he�
�ll be gone for good.”

  I kiss the top of her head. I know it’s not easy for her to talk about her mom, yet she’s enduring the pain for me. And my problems. I try not to let the irritability that comes with talk of my father seep into my voice. “Not easy to do when every time I look at him I’m reminded of the reason he left in the first place.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  She looks so content right now. So happy. Every cell in my body knows I can’t steal that away from her, not after I practically told her I loved her last night. But my traitorous mouth starts to open anyway, the words she will hate me for on the tip of my tongue—

  No. God, fuck. Not today.

  Quickly, I climb out of the bed, find my jeans, and try not to trip and stumble as I step into them. “I’ve got to get to class,” I say in a rush as I lean down and kiss her cheek then point to the window. “Do you want me to go out the way I came in?”

  She sits up, pushes back her hair. “Wait, Krister, I didn’t mean to upset you. I know talking about your dad isn’t easy. I’m sorry. I should never have asked that.”

  Ah, shit.

  As fast as I left the bed, I’m back, kneeling on the edge and holding her face. “Cambria, I’m not upset at you. I will never be upset at you. You understand?”

  She nods, and I kiss the tip of her nose.

  “We can go out the front door,” she says, scooting out of bed and tugging down her T-shirt.

  “You’re not worried about your brother seeing me?”

  She shrugs and steps into her little, yellow shorts. “He’s going to have to meet you eventually. Why not start now?”

  I look again, this time blatantly stopping at her hard nipples poking into her thin shirt and the shorts that hardly cover her ass. She gets the hint, but then rolls her eyes.

  “I’m eighteen not fifteen.”

  I spot a pair of jeans hanging on her desk chair and toss them to her. “And I’m not taking any chances.”

  She changes then leads me into the kitchen where a humungous guy—her brother I’m assuming—is standing in front of a small TV, a clump of orange material balled in his hands. A line of text scrolls beneath the image of the courthouse: More prisoners set to release this hour.

  I stiffen, and beside me Cambria stops short, too. Then she clears her throat, and the guy glances over his shoulder, his oh-so-familiar gaze falling immediately to me.

  Say it to my face cocksucker.

  Ledoux is a pussy’s name.

  What the fuck? He is her brother? The guy I sent flying across Krispy’s with my fist?

  Quickly, I tug the bill of my cap lower—thankful I wore it and for my now-longer hair—as Cambria scoops my hand into hers. “Jer, this is my boyfrien—”

  His eyes narrow, hand jerking the material out in front of him. “Are you ever going to listen to me, Cam. I told you not to get into Mom’s things anymore.”

  The poncho. The one she was wearing at the train station weeks ago. That’s what he’s holding.

  Cambria shifts from one foot to another, her shoulder brushing my arm. “I—”

  “You what? Regret what you did? Is that why you wear this?” The guy finally registers me, pointing at our entwined hands with a deepening scowl. “And that’s classy. I’m sure she would love you sneaking boyfriends into your room. Just like old times, right?”

  “Jeremy, stop.” Cambria says, her tone sharp and defensive and sounding like this is a continuation of a conversation from earlier. “I missed her, okay? That’s why I put it on. And no this isn’t like old times because I never once snuck a boy into my room.”

  “Right.” He chuckles and tosses the poncho to the couch in front of him with a shake of his head. “I must be confused. It was the other way around. You sneaking into their rooms.”

  “I didn’t do that, either! Ever!” She releases my hand, stepping forward with her shoulders squared. A part of me is glad she’s standing up to the guy for being an ass to her. The other part, however, wants to get the fuck out of here before he says anything more. Before he recognizes me, too. “God, if you must know,” she continues, “I was a virgin up until a few weeks ago, so you can stop thinking I’m a freaking slut.”

  Virgin? A few weeks ago?

  You being here makes it better. Now will you please take what’s yours?

  Take, take, take. That means…

  Shit.

  Goddamnmotherfuckingshit.

  Cambria adds, “And classy would be saying ‘hi’ without being a complete jerk.”

  Behind her brother, the camera zooms in on a man’s face. Another prisoner being released. And this would be my cue to leave.

  I squeeze Cambria’s hand and lean down to her ear, praying to whatever god exists that the twist in her brother’s expression isn’t more than the typical older brother, so-you’re-the-one-who-took-my-little-sister’s-virginity look. “Hey, don’t worry about it.” I whisper to her, trying my damnedest to keep my voice even. Virgin, virgin, virgin. “I have to go, anyway.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I jump the curb and cross the street, heading toward Fair Drive, my heart still thundering in my chest. I don’t remember Jeremy from the trial, but then again there’s a lot I don’t remember. A lot I choose not to remember.

  Still, I can’t believe that dickhead is her brother. As if my ties with this family needed to become more tangled—

  I took her virginity. Tried to distract her from her pain, and instead stole what she’d been saving for eighteen years. What a fucking tool I am.

  Once at home, I lock myself in my room, leaning against my door, needing something—anything—to clear my head. With thoughts of Cambria swirling, twirling, threatening to choke me, I encourage the other lingering thought to take over: my dad.

  Let it go, Ledoux. Not everything has to do with your dad.

  This is where Ditty is wrong. Because it seems like my dad and what he’s done has infiltrated my life irrevocably. Like mixing two colors of glass… Once they’re combined, there’s no way to separate them. I let my head fall back, knocking the wood with a thump. God, I fucking I hate this. I hate this! What I wouldn’t give to go back to a year ago. Be average. Normal. Untainted, with things like school and internships and girls who won’t want to kill me when my last name is uttered.

  I rip off my hat and whip it across the room. It hits the wall and bounces to the floor. My shoes are next, and I hurl them as hard as I can, not even looking where I’m aiming. The first one hits the lamp beside my bed, knocking it to the floor. The second does a full three-sixty before entering my opened closet and crashing right into the pile of boxes stacked unevenly along the side. The tower of boxes wobbles for a moment, slow-motion like, and then faster than I can blink comes tumbling to the floor.

  I laugh—a clipped chuckle, because I suddenly feel like I’m trapped in a really bad sitcom. What are the chances that box would be the one to spill all over the floor?

  I tip my head to the ceiling. “Shove it in my face, would you?” I don’t know who I’m talking to. It’s not like anyone’d be listening anyway.

  After a deep breath, I pad into the closet, ready to sweep the old Krister—all of the things I packed up from my room at our other house, like baseball gloves and DVDs and the funky wooden tiki Ditty whittled two years ago—back into the box when something shiny catches my eye. The word Camaro spelled out not in chrome die cast like every other emblem, but in silver-plated steel. The real deal. Dad gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday… It was the last piece the car needed.

  I lift it, feeling its weight in the palm of my hand. I remember how happy I was the day I attached this piece to my finished car, the smile I couldn’t get rid of as I drove it through town to pick up Ditty. I even remember the little bit of relief when I found it on the street after the wreck, scratched and staring up at the night sky.

  Beside the lid of the box is a four-by-six sheet of white, and my fingers start to tremble as I flip it over and stare at the gra
y-blue eyes—glinting with joy—in the picture. It’s me, and I’m not smiling at the camera, but at a slightly younger-looking version of my father. He’s smiling, too, focused on his hands and the wrench he’s holding. I draw in a fathomless breath, feeling somewhat dizzy. That was the day he was showing me how to install the fuel pump. It was also the day I heard my car’s engine for the first time.

  Looking at my face, my happiness is undeniable. It was the type of pleasure that filled me to the brim, like the way Cambria makes me feel now. Only…without all the complications.

  Let it go.

  God, maybe Ditty was right all along. Maybe all these complications are because of me, because I’ve refused to get past them. Maybe I’ve been so focused on the bad—thinking Dad was a horrible father—that I forgot there was once some good. He wasn’t horrible, and I guess for being a single dad and raising me on his own, he did okay.

  The echo of the front door shutting rattles the window. Keys hit the coffee table, and it’s like the universe is giving me a sign. I found Cambria the last time things fell into place like this… Perhaps something good can come out of this, too.

  Slowly, I pull myself to my feet, shove the emblem in my pocket, and make my way into the living room. Dad’s tucked into a recliner in the corner of the living room, a crime novel in his lap.

  “Hey,” I say, lowering onto the couch across from him. He dog-ears the page and glances up, his expression both disquieted and amused, which I guess I deserve; I haven’t exactly been the nicest person in the world to him. The emblem presses hard against my skin, giving me the push to continue. “So…there are things that obviously need to be said, and I think I’ve gone long enough without saying them.”

  He sits up, a small smile tilting his lips. “I thought we’d never have this chance. There’s something I need to say to you, too. Can I go first?” He doesn’t wait, just jumps right in, which normally I’d be pissed about, but in a way I’m glad I have a minute to put together what I need to say. “I’m sorry I got on you about school,” he says. “I guess I was hoping that while I was gone, everything could continue as they were. I didn’t want to think my absence would crumble all of your lives, too.”