“Good,” she said.
I want to feel everything. To be here. With this man.
She didn’t have to see his face properly to know the look he’d have: a little surprised, a little excited. He liked her in charge, enjoyed giving her power. And the thing was, it only made him seem stronger.
When she leaned back, he gasped, and the sound of it—the helpless, needy, uncontrolled sound—made her feel like a fucking goddess. Like she’d wrested control from him and taken exactly what she wanted, and oh Lord, that was good.
She licked her finger and reached down to touch herself, the circling of her clit her only outward movement. But everything was so tightly clamped around him that she wondered how she’d last. This was… It was…
Uma had never quite believed her mother’s claims about the tantric powers of sex. The notion that fucking was somehow a spiritual experience. She’d always thought it was another hippy excuse to run around and hump like bunnies.
But this—him pulsing inside of her and her body contracted in orgasm, pulling him in—this was more than just for procreation or even fun. This was something else entirely. Like reaching new heights of understanding or making magic. Touching those stars so far above them. As if this was bigger than them, it was—
Ivan’s muttered “Jesus” told her that he felt it too.
She lay slumped on top of him after, staying that way as he softened. He reached down and held on to the condom while she pulled up and off him.
On her back, Uma opened her eyes as wide as they’d go and sighed, already mourning the loss of him inside her.
Air had never smelled so clean, night sounds so ethereal. The sky was absolutely majestic.
After he settled back in beside her and pulled the quilt over them, Uma sighed a second time and almost giggled, thinking of her mother in India, halfway around the world.
Sex outside in the cold autumn night. Yeah, Mom would be proud.
She snuggled into this beautiful man’s side and let the giggle bubble out.
There you go, Mom. Om fucking Shanti.
23
As always, Squeak woke Ive at the crack of dawn, and, as always, he’d get up right away to attend to her needs. Well, to hers and to the dozen other creatures who depended on him.
This morning, though, it was a lot harder. It may have been the four hours of sleep he’d gotten. Or maybe the woman sprawled across his body. Yeah, that was probably it.
He was covered by so much of her that he was hot. Crazy, considering he could see his breath. But, man, she felt good, even fully clothed, against him. He loved the weight of her, the warmth of her breath on his collarbone, and the tickle of her hair against his chin.
A quick glance at the clock showed it was just after five. Still mostly dark outside, but definitely time to get a move on. He wondered what time Ms. Lloyd expected Uma back at her place. If he hazarded a guess, he’d say probably around now. Not because the woman needed help at the butt crack of dawn, but to be a pain in the ass, as was her way.
At his dog’s insistent squeal, he slowly scooched out from under Uma, careful not to wake her. Better to move now, before the tail started thumping into overdrive and the whining turned to barks. Squeak had been obliged to pull him out of enough mornings-after to know exactly what it took to get Ive moving.
Boots first, then he grabbed his towel and soap and stumbled to the door to let her out. He pulled it closed behind him, knowing how much noise the animals would make while he fed them. He bent and filled the cat dishes with dry food, still buck naked and fucking freezing. Wet food was at night only, but you’d think the animals didn’t know that, the way they looked at him accusingly, bum-rushing his calves, always pissed at the hollow ping of kibble rather than the hiss of cans opening.
Into the woods for a long morning piss, then back to the hand pump beside the workshop for a quick wash. It was too damn cold to be naked out here. He could go up to the big house, like a normal person, but why waste the time?
Teeth chattering and skin puckered into a million tiny goose bumps, he walked back inside and moved to relight the fire. Only once the flames began eating away at the logs did he stand up, preparing to reward himself by returning to bed, when Uma made a sound. A low, unearthly kind of noise like he’d heard only once or twice in his life.
* * *
Joey was gouging Ivan’s eyes out, and it was a million times worse than anything Uma had experienced. She was blind and naked and freezing cold—
Oh God, Joey was there, above her, and she could almost feel the needle burning into her flesh. There was a hand, rough on her arm, and she shrieked. Frantic, turning, flopping like a fish. Another hand, and Joey’s hot breath had her yelling, keening.
Nothing worked. Writhing, straining, flailing, scratching, and searching for escape—a wild, rabid animal. A rat caught in a trap, a lizard brain. No, less than that: an amoeba without conscious thought, just an instinct to survive. All the pushing and pulling only served to land her on her rear, hard, until she scrabbled away—the last resort for a woman buried alive. She’d scrape her hands to the bone if need be.
It was his voice—that goddamned voice—that eventually got through to her. “Uma, baby. Uma. Uma, I got you. I got you. You’re okay. I got you.” A litany of slow, patient words spun like a finely woven web, one layer at a time. They slipped and slid over her and clung, wrapping her in their warmth before they finally got through.
Ivan. It was Ivan. She was on the floor, in his arms, big and warm and safe—her cocoon. “I’m here, baby. I’m here.” He rocked, and she was a baby, a newborn in his grasp.
One hand moved to her face, comfortingly rough, while the other cupped her ear. So tender and sweet. How could all those hard edges feel so very soft?
He kissed her. Forehead, the corner of an eye, cheek, mouth. Gentler touches than a man his size should be capable of. His breath warm and familiar. She tasted toothpaste and salt on his wet lips, as though someone had been crying. Not him, surely?
“Come here,” he said, pulling her into his lap, and she wanted it so badly, that closeness. She wanted more of it.
His eyes were whiskey and ice. A stranger’s eyes. His voice she knew intimately. She’d memorized the feel of his calluses against her soft places, the smell of him, but these remarkable eyes were still unfamiliar after the time they’d spent blindfolded and in the dark.
“I got you,” he whispered again, and she let him take her weight.
After maybe ten minutes, Uma took a deep, shaky breath in and unstuck her face from the crook of his neck.
“Morning.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Morning.”
“Mornin’, baby,” he said, his voice so gentle it almost broke her heart.
“Nightmare.”
“Figured.”
“I…um…I’ve got to pee.”
With the tiniest huff of what might have been a laugh, he nodded, slow and unsure, before releasing her.
“Need company?” He managed to make it sound almost lascivious, which was a feat, given…well, everything. And she was so thankful for that. His humor, his seemingly endless support.
“No. Thank you. But I wouldn’t mind something for my breath.”
He stood and helped her up, handed her a tube of toothpaste, and sent her out.
She headed toward the shelter of the line of trees, ignoring where the drive curved back up to Ms. Lloyd’s place. She’d have to head back there shortly, although she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to go to her next laser appointment, didn’t want to do anything but stay here with Ivan. Even if peeing outside in the freezing cold wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time. One reason for him to move into the big house, with its perfectly good kitchen and electricity and running water. Oh, and heat.
Then again, there was something about his cozy, little space that suited him to
a T. Man at his most elemental. She picked her way toward the edge of the woods, the hangover of her dream disappearing into chilly practicality, and it occurred to her that he’d been completely naked when he’d held her: hale and hearty and shamelessly nude in the crisp winter morning. Whereas she had gone to sleep fully dressed. Even here, without a single witness, in the great outdoors, she squatted under an oak tree, incapable of glancing at her own body.
Because of Joey. All because of Joey.
She stood and pulled up her pants, let her eyes take in the landscape in a way she hadn’t before. The big, white house, pointlessly empty. Farther along, the forge, with its chimney puffing out smoke like an industrious little train, so busy, so full of life with its mini herd of cats eating beside the door, and the man inside…flesh and bone and so much heart. And beyond it, past the fallow fields, loomed the Blue Ridge Mountains: timeless, beautiful. Permanent.
They’d be there forever, those mountains.
Forever. Unlike Joey and his stupid ink.
Not his. Mine. My ink. My skin.
He’d wanted to make his mark on her? Well, she was done letting him. Today. Right now. Done.
With a sure stride, she returned to the forge and opened the door to a welcoming waft of heat. Always warm in here, always inviting. And there he was, Ivan, his eyes just as enveloping, only they offered so much more than heat.
She paused on the threshold and, at his smile, moved toward where he lay in the bed. Patiently waiting.
“You okay?” he asked, half sitting up.
“Yeah.” He made as if to say something else or shift or stand up, and she stopped him with a hand, palm out. “Hold on. There’s something…” She swallowed. Mouth dry, she tried again. “I need to show you something.”
Ivan did nothing but blink, and she saw the worry there, tightly reined.
“You’ll be disgusted.” She held back a sob, breathed through it, and shut her eyes hard.
“I won’t.”
“Okay. Okay.” Breathing hard, like she’d run from the woods, though she hadn’t, she reached for the hem of her shirt, started to pull up, and—
“Stop!”
She opened her eyes. God, when had she screwed them shut?
“Come ’ere,” he said. Begging, almost begging.
“I need—”
“Please.”
She hesitated only for a second, then walked to the bed, where she stood for an awkward moment before he reached out and pulled her under the covers, into his warmth.
“Don’t want you doin’ this alone, baby.”
That, after everything, was what sent the tears rolling. Quiet tears. Her tears.
And through those tears, with Ivan watching over her, Uma pulled off her shirt and took back her skin.
* * *
Everything in Ive’s body came to a standstill: his breath, his heartbeat, probably the blood in his veins. Last night’s story had in no way prepared him for this. Nothing could have prepared him. It took less than a second for him to understand.
Ah, fuck.
Breathe.
In for ten counts, out for ten.
And now, focus. You’re losing her. Focus.
Some functional part of his brain found it ironic that he was using those anger management techniques after all. Who knew?
He forced his gaze to her shoulder, her beautiful shoulder, destroyed by that…motherfucking… Jesus, he didn’t know a word bad enough, strong enough to express how bad it was.
“I’m gonna find tha—”
“Don’t.” She stopped him. “Let me finish.”
This kicked-in-the-gut feeling, breathless and nauseated, was exactly like his first day in prison. No, worse. Like the day Frank had hit Jessie. The worst day of his life. Until today.
Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks, he thought. Maybe she wanted this. But the tattoos looked like nothing you’d choose—not even close to what the guys did to each other inside. This was disorganized, jittery, like the scratchings of a possessed child. Was that an M? He squinted at a series of letters on her wrist, shifted back. and saw with a start what it said—MINE, the letters more faded than some of the others, but still there. The bastard had tried to claim her skin.
“He… Joey did this to you.”
It wasn’t really a question, but she nodded, drew another deep breath, and met his eyes.
She asked if he was okay. She asked him, and goddamn it, something broke in his chest.
He leaned in and kissed her, eyes wide open, pushing out the hatred and the rage as best he could, because he wouldn’t lay that on her. Not after everything else she’d gone through.
But fuck if he’d let the dude off.
She pulled slightly away and put a hand to his chest, holding him back so she could move on to her pants. Quickly, efficiently, she undid them, pushed them down, and awaited his verdict in this nightmare of a striptease.
Parts of her were covered, absolutely coated, in ink. Multicolored streaks, masquerading as words, ran up and down both of her arms, her shoulders, over to the top of her back. Her breasts, those beautiful nipples… This was what people did to show ownership, to a gang or a person. She’d been branded. Like cattle, only worse, because he could see, here and there, where the fucker had run out of ink or lost control of the needle. There, where it petered out, he thought she must have fought back, and in one place, a big blotch so thick and dark, he wondered if the bastard had pierced a hole in her.
On her beautiful, soft, perfect skin, it was absolutely obscene.
He forced his eyes from her body back to her face. “What he did to you, he’s gotta—”
“Shh.” She put a hand over his mouth. “This is for me. Let me keep this.”
This…? It took him a second to realize what she meant by this. This moment. Sharing her body with him, her pain. That’s what she meant. And he was ruining it for her.
But fuck, never in a million years had Ive imagined the horror. He’d thought the guy had beat her, but not…
No wonder she couldn’t look at herself. He could barely look at her without feeling… Oh God. So much shit, roiling inside.
Nausea. Horror. Pain. And then anger. No, not just anger, because he’d felt anger before, and this was so much more. Stronger than anything he’d ever known. Even compared to when Frank had beaten Jessie, this was way off the scale.
Because, back then, he’d been a stupid kid, his anger diluted from being constantly pissed off at the world.
Today, his rage was a sharp point, honed by years of containment. Years of calm.
He leaned back, needing to see everything, taking her all in at once, like ripping off a Band-Aid. He was deaf to whatever sounds she might have made, blind to everything but the obscenities etched into her skin. His woman’s skin. His woman, defaced by some monster.
Oh shit, the rage was so right, whooshing through him, filling the hollow spaces, the cracks and crevices, overwhelming him, along with the knowledge of what he had to do.
Kill the fucker. Tear him apart, limb by limb. Destroy him.
It was fate. Everything about his life, every decision he’d ever made, everything he’d ever done. It had all come to this one moment. This one person. This, this was what Ivan was made for.
Because Ivan loved Uma. And that’s what you did for the people you loved.
24
“Ivan.”
His gaze ran back up her body, over her arms, where the ink was positively virulent in the unforgiving light of day. Her stomach heaved, but he was looking, and so would she, damn it.
Finally, he ripped his attention from her skin and came back to her, his eyes taking a while to focus on hers, and when they did…
“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, his features relaxing slightly. “So sorry he did this to you.”
Sh
e’d thought she’d lost him there for second. But now that he was back in the room, his hand went to her face first—bless him—before stroking over her body, taking it in. Fingers trailed over her shoulders, down her arms.
His silence said it all. Uma had exposed her innards, and all he could do was stare. He couldn’t tear his gaze away. Of course he couldn’t. She’d torn herself open, exposed her aching, bloody heart, rent it still beating from her breast, and handed it to him on a fucking platter, and she couldn’t even look at him for fear of what his expression might be.
Shock? Pity? Revulsion?
“See?” she said, voice raw, chest hollow and dry as a bone. “It’s disgusting. Why would you want to look at me like this?”
“Shh.” He bent to press his lips to her jaw. “You can’t disappoint me. You know that, right?”
“Don’t.” She turned away, squeezing her eyes shut. “Don’t fucking pity me, Ivan. I can’t take that.”
“I don’t, Uma. Look at me.”
“I can’t.”
He kissed her—a slow, sweet press of lips, a luxurious stroke of tongues, punctuated by the scrape of his jaw, the movements between them so tiny, so intimate, their sighs a secret shared. Her breath expelled hard, emitting something noxious she hadn’t even realized had been blocking her throat, and he took it in.
“Look at me. Please.”
It was an effort to open her eyes again. An actual physical effort. But she did it, for him.
Gently, so gently, his hand rested on Uma’s shoulder and trailed down, a first stroke, followed by his eyes and then hers. For a second or two, she couldn’t quite catch her breath as she let herself look. How strange for her body to be so unfamiliar, the skin not her own.
“’S it hurt?”
After a deep inhale, she looked away from herself and focused on him. “Only for a couple of days after a laser session. I’m getting them removed. That’s why I’m here.”
“What, they don’t do that up in the big city?”
“The place here does it for free for…people like me. I heard the doctor who runs it talk about it on the radio.” She shook her head. “At first, I couldn’t believe it. I was convinced it was a trap.”
Under Her Skin Page 23
