Regret (Under My Skin Book 1)

by Christina Lee

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Brin said over my shoulder.

  “I called Tristan.” Elijah snuffled into Stewart’s shoulder. “Told him I won’t be in tomorrow.”

  “Okay just—let us know if you need anything.” I reached for Elijah’s coat and slipped it around his shoulders. Brin kept Tallulah close to his side as he patted Elijah’s back and he lumbered with Stewart toward the door.

  “You can take my bed if you want, since I won’t be using it,” Elijah said to Brin right before he proceeded to hack up a lung. “Sorry.”

  “No worries,” Brin replied, tightening his grip on Tallulah’s collar. “And no offense, but I’m not sleeping with your germs.”

  “I can help you change the sheets,” I offered, but the idea of being near any kind of bed alone with Brin was probably not a good idea.

  “Nah, I’m good,” he mumbled and looked down at his feet.

  “At least take some leftovers.” I thrust one of the plastic bags toward Stewart.

  Stewart slung the sack over his elbow as they went through the door. “Tell your mom we said thanks.”

  “Will do,” I replied and clicked the latch closed behind them.

  The silence in the apartment seemed deafening with Elijah no longer there as the safeguard between us. It felt more intimate somehow, especially after what we’d just done in Brin’s car.

  “Time to take you back to the shelter,” Brin remarked, bending down to Tally’s eye level and giving her a peck on the head. The loving gesture made my stomach do a cartwheel.

  “Why don’t you let her sleep here tonight?” I suggested over my shoulder as I walked to the kitchen to place the other Tupperware container full of leftovers in the fridge.

  “You don’t need to—”

  “Just listen a minute.” I shut the fridge door and turned to him. “You’re leaving in a few days’ time…and you’re considering adopting her, right?”

  He shrugged, the idea of it probably as scary as it was exciting. There was no denying he was tied to this dog in more ways than one. “Why not keep her here with us the next couple of days and see how it goes?”

  His hand flew up to motion around the apartment. “But this is your space.”

  “She’s not a hardship and neither are you,” I replied and as he worried his lip between his teeth, his cheeks flooded with color. “Besides, I hate the idea of her returning to the shelter.”

  “So you are warming up to her,” he remarked with a smirk.

  “All it takes is spending time with someone to understand them better,” I said in a quiet voice as I knelt down to scratch under Tally’s chin. “And sometimes they even grow on you. A lot. Don’t they, girl?”

  When I looked up at him, his eyes fused to mine and it was like a live wire tethering us together. As if all the molecules in the space between were popping and crackling and a frisson of electric energy lit up my chest, making my heart feel too big for my skin.

  “If you’re sure,” he murmured with something that looked a lot like affection in his gaze.

  “I’m one hundred percent sure,” I replied and his entire face lit up with gratitude.

  “I’ll call Carol at Hope Valley and talk to her about it while I walk Tally around the block,” he said, grabbing her leash and heading toward the door.

  “Tally, huh?” I smirked.

  “What?” he asked twisting toward me.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “You just called her Tally.”

  He rolled his eyes. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Uh huh,” I chuckled. “You like the name.”

  “Shut it,” he replied, throwing open the door. “After I talk to Carol, I’m going to take Tallulah to get her some new stuff—food, toys, and oh—a dog bed for my room.”

  “Why not have Tally sleep on the futon with you?” I quipped.

  “There’s barely enough room for me,” he replied and then added, “Not that I’m complaining.”

  “You can always—”

  “For the last time, I’m not going to sleep in Elijah’s germy bed.”

  We stood staring at each other across the threshold of the door, grins on both of our faces. I felt lighter than I had all month. I considered asking him if I could tag along but we probably both needed a time-out after such a lengthy afternoon together.

  “Not sure how long we’ll be,” he said, pulling the door closed behind them. “But, thanks again.”

  I took a deep breath and glanced around the apartment. I was alone for the first time in forever, it seemed. Not sure what to do with myself, I began straightening up the couch cushions, refusing to count the minutes until they returned.

  19

  Brin

  After I walked Tallulah around the long block to do her business, I called Carol and discussed the details of what I planned to do. She was totally on board with it, so long as Tallulah ended up in a good home.

  In the back of my mind, I already knew I was going to keep her as mine, and I think Carol did as well. Had I not been staying with Nick and Elijah, it would’ve been a done deal. I just didn’t want any more surprises with the timeline of my condo, so I needed to play it safe.

  I situated Tallulah in the back seat, where she immediately sank down to rest from our busy day, and drove to the nearest pet store. She perked up again once we got inside and smelled all the bins filled with treats. After taking my time going down each aisle, making sure I found everything we needed, I headed to the cash register with a small bag of food, bowls, treats, a new ball, and a medium-sized bed.

  By the time I got back inside the apartment, only darkness shone under Nick’s bedroom door and I didn’t hear a sound, so I figured he’d already retired to bed. I laid the dog bed on the floor close to my futon mattress, instructing Tallulah to check out her new digs. She circled around the rectangular cushion for a couple of minutes, testing it out with her paws, before hunkering right down, possibly from sheer exhaustion.

  I placed her new bowls and food in the kitchen and walked to the bathroom to empty my bladder. The light was on along with the overhead fan and when I pushed open the door, I got more than an eyeful.

  Nick was in the bathtub, which was filled halfway with steaming water, lounging on his back. His eyes were shut, his buds were in his ears, the cord dangling from his phone, which was resting on the shelf behind him. There were a few stray bubbles but not enough to cover his torso. The patches of dark hair on his pecs and down the center of his chest matched the inky locks on his head.

  Holy fuck, he had turned into one hell of a sexy man right before my eyes. Back in high school, his chest had been smooth and mostly hairless except around his nipples, which I’d always dreamed of touching from the position on my knees.

  “Shit, my bad,” I sputtered, my fingers bracing the doorknob.

  “No, it’s cool. I didn’t expect you back so soon.” His eyes were wide as he promptly removed his earbuds. “You can take a leak if you want, not like I haven’t seen anything before.”

  My bladder was definitely protesting, so I walked to the toilet and turned my back to relieve myself.

  “What’s that scent? Lavender?” I tried to make conversation as I willed myself to finish quickly. “Guess Elijah was right about you and your baths.”

  “Don’t knock it ’til you try it,” he quipped. Once I zipped up and swung my gaze in his general direction, it was hard to miss his cock surrounded by a thick patch of hair, lying heavily against his thigh and filling by the second.

  I was suddenly assaulted by the memory of how my tongue had licked across that long vein and how his skin tasted salty from his sweat.

  His hand broke the surface of the water to adjust his length, and hell if that didn’t make me squirm.

  “You just did that on purpose,” I accused in a raspy voice.

  “Can’t help it. You make me fucking hard. Not gonna lie,” he remarked holding my gaze for entirely too long. I bit back a moan. “So all cool with
Tally?”

  “Yeah, she’s lying down on the pillow I bought,” I replied, more than flustered as I backed toward the door. “Thanks again for—”

  “No problem,” he said, adjusting his torso a little higher. “You look all stressed out.”

  “I just don’t like to put people out,” I mumbled, my gaze fixing on a point above his shoulder, and noticing the yellow paint color on the walls for the first time.

  “Well, you’re not,” he said, a bit forcefully. “Nothing about you being here has made me feel that way. Maybe other ways but…that can’t be helped.”

  “Tell me about it,” I admitted as I stood there taking everything in. Nick naked in a bathtub with some sort of smelly bath oils and his body on full display in front of me. I should’ve gotten the hell out of there, but I was having trouble moving my legs.

  “Want to join me?” he asked in a hesitant voice. “It’ll relax you. I promise, hands off that pretty cock.”

  “Yeah right,” I replied with a laugh, but I also couldn’t help squirming at his words. Unfortunately, my pants were becoming uncomfortably tight, while my heart thumped to a new cadence all its own.

  “You can even leave your trunks on,” he said, splashing the water a little. “I guarantee you’ll like it.”

  I motioned to the tub, which he filled in nicely by sheer size alone. “There’s no room.”

  “We’ll manage,” he replied with a crooked smile that showed off the dimple in his chin. The grin of a devil. A beautiful and sexy-as-fuck devil.

  I took another step back and hit the side of the sink. “Nah, I’m good.”

  “How about this?” he asked, soaping up the washcloth that had been draped over the side of the tub. “Answer one question. If you get it wrong, you come inside.”

  “What sort of question?” The essential oils or whatever he had used in the steaming water were getting to my head, apparently. Was I actually considering this? He just looked so enticing sitting there. And sort of lonely. Same as me. Was it possible to find common ground or was I completely fooling myself? It’d be one thing if we were only becoming platonic friends instead of me getting naked at every turn. But I couldn’t resist the visceral pull he had on me.

  “The first time we became intimate eleven years ago…and you put your hands on me…” He tapped his finger to his lips as a shiver slid across my neck. “What gave you the impression I was interested in something…with you?”

  What I wanted to say was, we had gotten to know each other and there had been electric energy running between us for weeks. At least I thought there was. Instead, I replied, “I got the sense you were into guys, that you wanted to experiment, and I was a warm mouth?”

  “False.” A flash of hurt flitted through his eyes. “It was because you made me feel so many damn things.”

  I crossed my arms. “What kind of things?”

  “You answered wrong so now you have to come in,” he replied, adjusting his shoulders against the porcelain to make more room. “I’ll tell you as soon as your feet hit the water.”

  “Fine.” Before I talked myself out of it, I tore my shirt over my head, hoping like hell I wasn’t in for a restless night of frustration or that Elijah didn’t change his mind about where he wanted to sleep. I pushed down my jeans, removed my socks, and purposely kept my underwear on to make a point.

  Exactly what point I didn’t know since my cock was already poking against the fabric and my heartbeat was pulsing in my throat.

  20

  Brin

  Nick chuckled as my foot swung over the side of the tub. “Guess you mean business.”

  “These trunks are my only shield against you,” I replied as I knelt down in the warm and soapy water. It instantly relaxed my tense muscles. “Now finish telling me.”

  “Okay,” he replied lifting the cloth and soaping up my neck and shoulders. I nearly groaned, it felt so damn good. “I had a major crush on you.”

  I became motionless as my heart vaulted to my throat. He took his time swallowing as his gaze lazily slid from my mouth to my eyes. “You were my only source of light. Seeing you, talking to you…it filled me up, gave me something to look forward to every single day. I felt lost, otherwise.”

  “Why lost?” I asked in a trembling voice as the rag slid down my arms and over my chest. My nipples were hard as pencil erasers and his words lulled me into a stupor.

  “Turn around and I’ll get your back.” Nick had that wariness in his eyes again, dark shadows that made it seem like life would change on him in an instant. And maybe it had all those years back when I knew him as Nicholas, star baseball player.

  It occurred to me that it mirrored the same darkness I saw in my father’s eyes on occasion. I always wondered where the gloomy feeling came from and whether losing someone you loved could gut you so completely that somehow you never recovered.

  I gingerly turned in the water to face away from him and the feel of the cloth gliding down my back was soothing and dizzying all at once.

  “This okay?” he murmured as he wound his arm around my chest and gently tugged me against him. I nodded as if under a spell as I shifted my legs in front of me and immersed myself in the water between his legs. It’d been so long since I’d felt this enveloped by somebody that I wanted to relax into his embrace, but I held myself back.

  “It was the year after Zoey died, and I was just holding onto my sanity,” Nick said, continuing with his story. “My dad was a baseball fanatic, so he was thrilled to see me play on a team sport. I was only doing what I could to help him feel some kind of happiness in our upside-down world.”

  “I think I get it,” I replied and there was a strangled whimper in the back of his throat. As if I had finally said some of the words he needed to hear.

  “Thank you,” he whispered as his head fell into the crook of my neck and for a second I thought maybe he was going to burst into tears, he sounded so emotional. I still didn’t get why he needed to bend over backward and alter his life for his mother’s well-being, but I supposed I understood enough.

  And that was all I needed for right now.

  The room fell silent; the only sound was the soft music piping through his earbuds that were discarded beside his cell. His lips were resting against my nape, and as he softly brushed them across my skin, gooseflesh rose along my arms and shoulders. It felt so amazingly serene I never wanted this time with him to end.

  Without realizing it, my fingers were rubbing patterns up and down Nick’s forearms, and I could hear him sighing against my neck. I had the urge to angle my chin and take his mouth in a scorching kiss. Really plant one on him the way I’d fantasized so many years back. But those kinds of thoughts were a slippery slope and everything was suddenly feeling way too overwhelming between us.

  What the fuck was I doing in a bathtub with Nicholas Dell, the guy who broke my heart in two senior year of high school? I considered bolting from the water but I couldn’t make my heavy limbs move even if I tried.

  Nick adjusted his hips in the water so that I was lying on him at a different angle and now I could also feel his cock stiffening against me.

  His fingers traced along my rib cage to my stomach, and as his fingernails gently scraped my lower abdomen I couldn’t resist moaning under my breath.

  “This okay?” Slipping his fingers inside the waistband on either side of my trunks, he began sliding them downward. “I just want to feel you against me. Really feel you. Don’t know if I’ll get another chance.”

  His voice was so raw and needy, and his touch light and sensual, it was everything I was craving and more. His breath was heavy against my throat, and as the material skimmed past my hips, my cock sprang free—red-tipped and leaking.

  When he inhaled a sharp breath, a nervous laugh sprang from my throat, cutting through the stillness in the room.

  “You do that a lot,” he said, nipping at my shoulder and fuck if I didn’t want him to do it again.

  “What?” I asked, angling
my head back to look at him.

  “Laugh when I’m trying to be sincere,” he replied, laving his tongue over the place where his teeth had pinched my skin.

  “No, I don’t,” I replied with a huff, but fuck if he wasn’t right. What did he expect when he kept tilting my world on its side?

  “Okay, whatever you say,” he replied with a quiet chuckle.

  He glanced over my shoulder as his feet helped drag my underwear away from my ankles. I held my breath as his gaze mapped the landscape of my body. “You’re fucking gorgeous. I really don’t get why you’re single.”

  “Needy bottom is needy,” I replied with a flip of my hand.

  “What the hell does that mean?” he asked against my ear and it sent shivers racing through me.

  My eyebrows scrunched together. “You don’t know what a bottom is?”

  “Of course I do,” he replied with a huff. “I just don’t get why that’s bad. I like your needy bottom.”

  I almost moaned out loud imagining him taking charge and fucking me senseless. Instead, he’d been all about me, asking permission and then touching me at every turn, essentially giving me what I needed. Even now, keeping his hands to his sides and away from my cock like he promised was the sexiest damn thing.

  “I’m not saying being a bottom is bad,” I said trying to explain. “It’s just taken me a while to understand myself and exactly what I need. I kept dating guys who were emotionally unavailable, sort of like my father, and I finally decided I was worth more than that.”

  Suddenly I realized I was giving way too much of myself away. To this person who…who…was also unavailable. He said as much on the drive home tonight.

  “Fuck, what am I doing?” I planted my hands on the bottom of the tub to hoist myself up.

  “Please, don’t go,” he pleaded, slinging his arm around my waist. “At least you’re not a slave to anxiety meds. Prescribed for panic attacks brought on by heavy shit that went down in your life.”

  I gasped and sank back down, his revelation surprising me. I glanced back at him, at the swirls in his amber eyes as he attempted to shutter out the world again.