Under Her Skin

by Aria Cole

  My eyes landed on the thick ridge of his cock, hard and ready, pointing straight at me.

  “I have to get home. But I really kind of want to stay.”

  His arms surrounded me then, curling around my waist and sandwiching me against him.

  “Mmm, bacon and eggs for breakfast?”

  “No.” I shook my head, steeling my resolve. “Hopefully, I can get home before Dad wakes up. If he doesn’t see me at breakfast, he’ll know something's up.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring you back to your car.”

  “I’m sorry to rush out. I had a great time. It’s just, I’ve been getting away with this job because I can sneak out after he leaves for work. If he doesn’t see me in the morning…”

  “It’s cool. I get it, Sienna. But can I just ask?”

  “Huh?” I hurried to put on my jeans and shirt.

  “Why doesn’t he want you to work?”

  “He just… He’s so controlling. He thinks he knows what’s best for me. He was always really overprotective when I was younger. But then the accident happened, and it just changed him. It changed all of us.”

  He frowned but nodded. He swiped a thumb across my cheek before pecking me on the lips. “I understand.”

  He pulled on his jeans, sliding a clean white T-shirt over his broad, golden shoulders. So simple yet so sexy on him, licks of ink peeking out of his sleeves, his hair tousled and messy. My fingers itched to run through it, to meld myself with him for the rest of the day.

  “Ready?” he asked, sending me a charming half grin.

  “As I’ll ever be,” I huffed, wishing I could stay right here, snuggled in his bed, and avoid my real life.

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Well, I’m doing what I can. Hopefully, I can save enough to move out this summer.”

  “Don’t get your own place. Stay with me. This apartment is too big to be alone. Move in with me.”

  I studied his eyes watching me, pleading with me to believe him. Somehow, I did. I’d never trusted a man in my life, my dad’s temper stomping all over my feelings one too many times, but I believed River—with every fiber of my being.

  * * *

  “Sienna!” Anger laced my dad’s voice as soon as I opened the door to my house.

  “Shit,” I groaned as I walked into the foyer. “Here, Dad!”

  I heard his steps taking the stairs two at a time. “Where the fuck have you been all night? Slutting around with those friends of yours? Are you drunk?”

  “Dad! No!” I pushed a hand through my hair. I didn’t know how to talk my way out of this one. “I just stayed at a friend's house last night and watched movies. I fell asleep on her couch. It won’t happen again.”

  His eagle eyes searched up and down my body, taking in the rumpled clothes I’d worn yesterday.

  “What’s that?” He snatched my wrist and yanked my hand to him.

  The hand with the tattoo.

  “Permanent marker.” I shrank from his hard gaze. Just one look and this man could turn my stomach into knots. I’d grown up with that feeling taking up permanent residence in my belly, and I was so sick and tired of it.

  “Bullshit.” He pulled my finger closer, inspecting. “Another tattoo, Sienna? Another fucking tattoo?”

  His hand tightened around my wrist. “Ouch, you’re hurting me.”

  “I should have hurt you a helluva lot more when you were a kid. More spanking would have been good for you. Your mother was too soft, and look at her now, fucking useless.” He let go, waving his hand up the stairs to where my mother undoubtedly slept, numb on pills and life.

  “Told you last time, girl. Come home with any more ink on your body, and you won’t have a roof to sleep under.”

  Anger burned on my cheeks, rage chugging through my veins. “I’m fucking legal, Dad! I don’t have to take this shit from you anymore.”

  I spun to run up the stairs, but he caught me, fingers tightening until the pinch made me squeal with pain. “Stop it!”

  “Just like your fucking mother,” he snarled, yanking me back down the stairs and making me trip, my head crashing on the edge of the last step and causing pain to bloom instantly in my head.

  My vision darkened before everything went utterly silent.

  I woke I’m not sure how much longer to George Michael begging me to have faith in my ear.

  My phone.

  “God,” I moaned, hand to head, the throbbing pain even worse. “Hello?”

  “Sienna! Where are you? Are you okay?”

  River. My River. My savior.

  “I don’t know. My dad… God, my head…”

  “What? Are you at home? 57 Payne Street, right?”

  “Yes.” I dropped the phone back to the floor, praying this wasn’t a concussion. Praying I could just get out of this house. Praying the only man I wanted there was on his way.

  “Sienna!” Pounding on the front door.

  “It’s me! Open the door!”

  More pounding.

  Was that in my head? I wasn’t sure anymore.

  “Sienna!”

  “Ugh…” I groaned, the cold wooden floors biting into my ass. “Help.”

  “Shit.” I heard more banging and then silence. A minute later, the door was open, and River was sliding to his knees.

  “How did you get in?”

  “Popped the lock with my credit card. How does your head feel?” His hands were on my face, fingers on my wrist checking my heartbeat.

  “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

  “Everything looks good, but we have to make sure you don’t have a concussion.” He lifted me in his arms, carrying me straight out the door and placing me in his car.

  After a quick drive to the local hospital and tests that took more than three hours, I was diagnosed healthy and very lucky.

  I told River to take me home, but apparently, that was out of the question. “Only place I trust you’ll be safe is with me.”

  He’d carried me in and out of the car and then up to his apartment before tucking me into his bed.

  “You can go into the shop today. I can take care of myself, I’ll just sleep—”

  “No way. Not leaving your side. Possibly not ever again. Shouldn’t have sent you home to that asshole.” He pushed a hand through his hair, looking visibly upset. “We should call the police, Sienna.”

  “No!” I shook my head. “No, he’s just hurt. I hurt him. It’s what I do—the disappointing daughter. He’ll get over it. It’s fine.”

  “Bullshit, it’s fine. He’s an abusive fuck.”

  “He is,” I agreed, then shut my eyes, remembering him before. Life before. “It wasn’t like that before the accident, though.”

  “What happened that night, Sienna?”

  A ball of tears choked my throat. “Car accident. Some drunk passed out in the middle of the road one night, right downtown. Probably stumbled out of the bar and just fell there. But the streetlight was out, and my parents were fighting. They just didn’t see him. It was too late by the time my dad knew something was wrong. He overcorrected at the last minute, hit the guy, and sent us careening into a telephone pole. We escaped with bumps and bruises, but my little sister was so small… She just couldn’t handle the impact, the doctors said.”

  “Jesus, Sienna…” He paused, eyes glistening. His hands circled mine, arms pulling me to him and holding me so tightly I thought he might choke the air from my lungs.

  “That’s why I got the tattoo. That scar is from that night, the night that changed all of our lives. I wanted to remember it, but I wanted to cover it up with something better.”

  He nodded, hands still clutching at my back as he held me. Deep, racking breaths shook his body, his muscles trembling around me.

  “River?” I breathed, forcing him away to lock on his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “That man in the street, Sienna. I think that man was my father.”

  EIGHT

  River

 
; The memories of that night pummeled the inside of my head. A throbbing took permanent root before I watched, as if in slow motion, as Sienna’s eyes shuttered closed, hand covering her mouth as pain seemed to rocket through her system.

  “Sienna.” I wrapped my arms around her as tears burned at my eyelids.

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean, that man was your father?”

  My heart split into a million shards, shredding my insides as it fell in pieces at my feet. I’d never wanted to tell this story again. I’d tried to bury the memory of it, of him, along with his body under the ground. “My dad was a drunk. From the day I was born, he was a no-good drunk. He could hardly hold a job, unemployed and passed out on the couch more than he was doing anything else. My mom worked two jobs, even three at one point, to pay the bills. We were evicted from house after house. It was a bad way to grow up. But it was all his fault, he loved that bottle more than he did us.

  “When my mom died when I was sixteen, I think it was stress—or a broken heart. She loved my dad. I swear she was the only one who could see through to the good in him. I never did find it.” This part hurt to tell. If I’d thought my life was bad before Mom passed, shit only got worse. “I thought he’d change, maybe losing her would turn him around. But I was a dumb kid. Should have known people don’t change.” I glanced at her.

  She nodded, fingers clutching mine a little tighter, encouraging me.

  “I wasn’t surprised when CPS showed up at the house. Passed out in the middle of the road, hit by a car. He stumbled out of the bar to walk home and never quite made it.” I shook my head, still bitter about the life he’d lived. “But I never knew what happened to the family. I was young, days away from eighteen, and suddenly my dad was gone. I was angry, I had rage, but then one day, this check came in the mail. Apparently, my mom had out taken a life insurance policy on him because she knew something like that would happen. It wasn’t worth much, but it was enough to get the shop open, hire a few employees. That shop saved my life. In some fucked-up way, that night was a blessing because it set me on this path. I didn’t have a dime to my name, but all I wanted to do was draw and tattoo people. When I lost him, my life changed for the better. But your life, Sienna… Fuck, I’m so sorry he ruined your life.”

  Her sad face crumpled, and I crushed her to me, trying to soothe away the ache left in her heart from the night my father had taken her sister. “My parents always blamed him. If he hadn’t passed out right there… But even then, I knew it was their fault. They were fighting, River, raging mad and screaming at each other. They weren’t paying attention to the road. If they’d been paying attention, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Sienna, Christ, we can’t think like that.” I pushed a palm into her hair and held her to me. Our hearts beat in the same rhythm, raw emotion pulsing with every beat. “There’s no changing the past, all we’ve got is this moment. I’ve got you, doll face.”

  Her shoulders drooped as soft sobs racked her body, and I moved my lips across her neck, kissing away the hurt with my touch. All I had to give her was my love, and she had it. She owned every bit of it.

  “You’re not ever going back to that man, ya got me?” I finally muttered at her ear.

  She nodded, sniffling once before her eyes turned up to me, a slow smile curving her lips. “Think you can put up with me?”

  I swiped at a stray tear, vowing to keep all her tears away from now on. I’d take the grenade myself if I had to, but seeing this woman cry caused utter devastation to my heart. “I look forward to putting up with you every day.”

  “I’m a handful. I’m terrible at putting away laundry, I can’t cook to save my life, I'd rather lie in the middle of a railroad track than clean a toilet—”

  I covered her mouth with my palm. “Sounds like I need Martha Stewart to move in.”

  She pulled my hand away and fought with me. “She’d take care of you better than I will. Seriously, you went out on a limb hiring me. You don’t need to move me in too.”

  “You’re wrong on that. I do need you to move in—for me, Sienna. Won’t be able to sleep at night without you beside me, knowin' you’re safe.”

  She didn’t reply, but I saw the doubts in her eyes.

  “Plus, I bet Martha Stewart gives terrible head.”

  She burst into laughter, a sound I would never get enough of. I ran my hands up her thighs, anxious to start our future together. “I can’t wait to spend every night with you.”

  She climbed into my lap then, hands wrapping around my neck as my arms locked around her waist.

  “Mmm, I want to feel you, River.” Her words ricocheted through my veins, lust chugging along every nerve.

  I covered her lips in a kiss, slow and probing, taking my time tasting her. Slipping together, falling under, being taken away in a current of lust, I pulled her against me on the couch. Her hands worked up my back, fingernails digging when I dragged the ridge of my cock across her cotton-covered pussy. She sighed, eyes shuttering closed before I snagged her chin.

  “Eyes open, doll face. I need your eyes on mine.”

  She nodded without words, hand working at the button of my jeans. In a swift move, I kicked off the restrictive denim, freeing my cock to the cool air. “You sure you don't want to take it easy?”

  “I don’t like easy. I like you. All of you.”

  With her last word, I sheathed myself in her hot cunt, feeling it tighten around me in a vise grip. I pumped slow and steady, careful not to harm her, careful to show her how much I fucking loved her.

  “Can’t get enough of this beautiful fucking body, Sienna.” I plucked at her nipple. “Of this sassy mouth.” I kissed her, hips riding a slow rhythm, hands crawling up skin and covering every inch.

  “More… More, River.”

  “Fuck, your gorgeous pussy is soaked for me. Love how my fat cock feels buried deep inside you, pretty girl?” I grunted, sliding my thumb across the elegant arch of her top lip. My other hand slipped down her ass, a finger probing at her back entrance as soft little pants fell from those pretty lips.

  “Beg for me, Sienna. Tell me where you want me. I need to hear you say it.”

  “My ass. Take my ass, please.”

  A growl slipped past my lips when her eyes flickered open and captured mine. Like the world careening off its axis, my heart shuddered to a complete stop then seemed to start again at a new, fast rhythm. One that pumped adrenaline and lust and need from me to her.

  “Fuck, love you all needy, begging. You don’t know what it does to me. Makes me so hard I think I could pound nails. You feel how fucking hard you make me?” I pumped, grinding into her, filling her up, and hitting the end of her hot channel. When I pushed the tip of my finger into her ass, she squealed, arching up, but I held her tighter against me, fucking her with my cock and sliding one finger past the tight ring of muscle at her ass.

  “Deep breaths, I’m here. Never letting you go again. You're moving in here, sharing my bed. I’ll take you to work in the morning, and we’ll leave together at night. I’ll have you for breakfast every morning and give you spankings when you deserve them.”

  “And piercings?” she whispered, the words coming out a little breathlessly as I pushed up to my first knuckle into her ass.

  “And piercings. Going to cover this creamy flesh in tattoos. You’re my fucking canvas. My beautiful muse.” I placed a kiss on her nose. “What took you so long to get here?”

  “What took you so long to find me?” she countered.

  I didn’t answer as my words were replaced with groans. “I can’t wait to take this ass.”

  “Do it, please, River.”

  “Mmm, tempting.” I sucked at the hollow of her neck. “But not tonight. You’re not ready for me yet. But soon.”

  “I can’t take it anymore,” she moaned.

  “Sure, you can. Feel it. Feel me, taking you. Owning this sweet body. This pussy, this ass.” I punctuated each word with a thrust. “It’s mine. No
one’s been here but me.”

  She groaned when I slipped a second finger into her ass, stretching her slowly, easing her into me as she rode my hand. Within seconds, an orgasm shattered and split through her. Her legs shook around my waist, her teeth clamped down on her pretty lips as she came in a torrent. “That’s it, baby. Cream all over my dick. Show me how hot this makes you. All soft and open, letting me fill you. Tell me how thick and full it feels.”

  “I’m going to lose my mind,” she gasped. “So full, so amazing.” I pushed one hand into her hair and tugged. I slipped my other hand around her head and pulled her to me, covering her face in kisses as my fingers laced in her hair and tightened.

  “I already lost my head the minute you walked into my shop.” I pumped, her pussy still quivering, my own orgasm burning through my balls and finally releasing in waves of pleasure. I came in long, hot jets, coating the inside of her gorgeous body. “I want to knock up this beautiful cunt. Make you full with my baby. I’ll take care of you both, Sienna. Forever. You’re mine now, and I take care of what’s mine. I don’t have anyone else in life—”

  “Now you have me. You always have me, River.” She cupped my face, eyes searching mine. With my cock still buried inside her, I sank down on her body, nosing into her neck and sucking in deep breaths.

  “Tempted to tie you to my bed and have my way with you every minute for the next week.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to walk!” She giggled.

  “That’s the point,” I laughed, gathering her in my arms.

  “Are you gonna fall asleep with your dick inside me?”

  “I was planning on it. Not ready to let go yet.”

  “You don’t ever have to let go, River. Not ever, I promise.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “I may be a nasty gal, but I’m a nasty gal who keeps her word. You’re mine as much as I’m yours, River.”

  I glanced up at her then, finally certain she was feeling all the same deep emotion I was. “Good. I like you needing me.”

  “You saved me. I’m yours forever.”

  “Forever sounds fucking perfect.”