Regret (Under My Skin Book 1)

by Christina Lee

  When the song changed to a slower beat, our eyes met across the room. As he stalked toward me, I steadied my drink on the recently vacated table and braced my forearm. He crowded me against the wall, his eyes glassy and unfocused. But like this, with his inhibitions shed, he was open and vulnerable and beautiful. “Fuck, I missed you.”

  My heart in my throat, his hand reached up to tangle my curls at the nape of my neck, and I threw all my restraint out the window. “Missed you too.”

  His lips crashed against mine and he groaned into my mouth. Hands in his hair, I hauled his face closer, pouring all of my longing and frustration into the kiss. Our tongues battled and our hands dragged over necks and cheeks and ears, and fuck if it didn’t feel amazing touching him again. His tongue tasted like whiskey, his skin smelled like soap and spice, and I just knew I would never not want this man.

  “Dance with me?” he whispered against my lips as soon as he drew away from the kiss, his warm hands gripping my face.

  “Yeah,” I replied only to myself because of the din of the loud music.

  My palms were sweating, my pulse was spiking, as if this were a first date instead of the first time we’d been in public together. Not even my drink helped. But one of us needed to remain level-headed. I wasn’t sure why he was so buzzed, and my stomach sloshed around wondering if he was sleeping poorly again or if he was having an equally hard time forgetting our nights together as I was. But as he dragged me through the crowd toward our friends, it felt sexy and wild and free, so I just went with it.

  Once we started bumping and grinding, I got lost in the music and the moment—the feel of his hands on my waist and his hips beneath my palms and nothing could douse this blazing fire inside of me. Elijah was smiling at us, highly amused as was Darren who introduced himself to me. “You must be Brin. Sorry about the kiss earlier.”

  “No worries,” I replied, my heart quickening a beat. “He doesn’t belong to me.”

  “I think he wants to, though. More than anything,” he said. “He just got done talking my ear off about you.”

  “He’s had too much to drink,” I said, trying to remain composed and sensible.

  “He needed to let loose, tonight of all nights,” he shouted in my ear as the music thumped louder. What the hell did that mean?

  I stared at him, so many questions on the tip of my tongue. “You know…what happened back then?”

  He winced, his eyes growing sad. “I’m the only friend he’s kept in contact with…from Chardon.”

  Nick pulled me to him and began grinding against me. Darren gripped my arm and whispered directly against my ear. “He just needs somebody to stick by him—in spite of everything.”

  31

  Brin

  Darren made his way through the crowd to dance with a couple of attractive men near the corner of the floor as I reeled from his words. Nick and I swayed to a few more songs together until we were hot and sweaty. And hard. So fucking hard. Despite the turmoil brewing inside me, I still wanted him with everything I had.

  Nick excused himself to the bathroom while I stood against the wall with Stewart and Elijah. He didn’t ask me anything else but I knew he was only saving it up for tomorrow, when he’d drill me about everything between Nick and me. When Nick didn’t return right away, I noticed him by the bar ordering another drink.

  I made it to him just as he was chugging another shot. “Whoa, I think you’ve had enough.”

  “How do you know?” he asked with a thick tongue as he staggered toward me.

  “Just do,” I replied as my arm swung around his waist. Besides, your friend Darren told me as much. “Let me drive you home.”

  As we headed toward the exit, I caught Darren’s eye and waved over my shoulder, alerting his friend that he’d definitely had enough.

  “Don’t want you to pity me,” Nick slurred in my ear, his hot breath making my skin tingle. “Not like everybody else.”

  “Who’s everybody else?” I asked readjusting my hold on him, as we half-stumbled through the swell of people near the entrance.

  “My family…the kids at school.” He glanced over my shoulder as if looking for Darren, which told me he meant his other school—as if he were suddenly back there, in his past. My stomach throbbed, feeling closer to Nick’s truth than ever before. And leave it to alcohol to finally loosen his tongue.

  “C’mon, let’s get you to my car.” I walked him out to the street and the cool air hitting our heated skin felt good. Interlacing our fingers, we steadily walked hand in hand to my car, and damn if that didn’t make my chest swell painfully tight.

  Once we got buckled in, I adjusted my impossibly hard cock as I pulled out of the space. No way anything was happening between us tonight, and it was just as well. Because when it came down to it, Nick was drunk, I was living on instinct, and I still didn’t know what the hell this was between us.

  “Don’t want to go home,” Nick mumbled as his head landed adorably on my shoulder. “Please, just want to be with you.”

  Moment of truth. I definitely wanted that too, no matter the consequences. Instead of answering him, I simply headed up Lake Avenue toward Rocky River. He mumbled in his sleep as he adjusted his neck to a less awkward angle. I threw my arm around him and pulled him toward me at the next stoplight and he sighed. I kissed the top of his head and wished it could always feel like this.

  Warm, and safe, and unguarded.

  My throat clogged with the same bleakness but I ruthlessly clamped it down. If this was one more night with Nick before he pushed me away again, I’d take it, for now. He just needs somebody to stick by him—in spite of everything.

  I parked in the underground space at my condo and helped him inside the door. As soon as we stepped into the kitchen, Tally came barreling toward us, nearly knocking Nick flat on his butt. He knelt down unsteadily as she licked his face. He grabbed her around the neck and kissed her snout. “I missed you too.”

  My heart felt funny in my chest just watching them. After Tally was satisfied she’d gotten enough attention from Nick, he stood up and his eyes sprang wide. “Whoa, this is a great place.”

  He fumbled around the living room, taking it all in. “This is all yours? It’s awesome.”

  Even though I knew he was sloshed, I liked hearing it. And I loved having him here, in my space. Fuck, did I love it. After he took a leak in my bathroom, I led him to my room, where I encouraged him to get comfortable and go to sleep.

  He hesitated only briefly before he yanked off his shirt, slipped out of his jeans and sneakers, and collapsed on the bed.

  He was lying on his side, with his arm above his head, and his eyes shut. Tally jumped up on the bed as well, and immediately lay down near his feet.

  As I was stripping down to my trunks, he mumbled against the pillow. “I’m sorry.”

  I cut the light and sank down in my sheets, figuring he’d be out soon. “For what?”

  “For not being who you need,” he replied, his hand stretching to my knee, his thumb circling hypnotically. “I’m not who anybody needs.”

  I shut my eyes, suddenly feeling drained. So damned tired of going round and round with this tortured man. Please help me fucking comprehend this already. “Why do you say those things?”

  He was quiet for a long while, so I figured he’d fallen asleep. I adjusted myself on the pillow, removing his hand from my knee, hoping my heart rate would finally calm down as well.

  I had just closed my lids when he blurted, “Today was her birthday. She would’ve been so smart…so pretty.”

  I knew he was speaking of his sister. So I remained quiet, my pulse thundering in my ears, hoping for more. Never would I have anticipated his next words.

  “I took it all away from her,” he mumbled around a yawn. “She would’ve fallen in love and gotten married someday. So I don’t deserve to love anybody.” His hand reached to brace my stomach and I held my breath. “I don’t deserve to love someone like you.”

  My head
felt like it was floating from lack of oxygen, but I could not inhale a decent breath. “Why…why don’t you deserve it?” I gasped in a reedy breath. “Help me understand.”

  His eyes sprang open and focused in on me as they swelled to the brim with unshed tears. “Because I killed her.”

  My stomach bottomed out. “No, you didn’t—”

  “I did. I killed my sister.” The tears that had threatened to spill only a moment before now gushed down his cheeks. “Oh God, I killed her.”

  Pulling his knees up and rolling his head down, he wound himself into a fetal position. His arms looped around his knees, he began rocking back and forth as I tried to get my limbs as well as my tongue unstuck. How could that be true?

  I knew this was not the time to try and dispute his claim but to simply listen to him. I reached for his arms, unwinding them from his knees and tugged him against me.

  “Tell me,” I whispered as I continued hauling his reluctant body on top of mine so he could lie in my arms. “Let it out. I’m not going anywhere.”

  He took a shuddering breath and I felt it reverberate through his bones. A whimper escaped his throat and then his arms curved around my neck, his face landing at my throat and he clung to me. Really clung to me—as if his life depended on it.

  Holy fuck, he seemed so wrecked and I just wanted to hold him like this for all of eternity. He just needs somebody to stick by him.

  “I…” Deep breath after deep breath, he was finally going to talk to me. I was finally going to hear his truth and yet I braced myself because I was also terrified.

  “My parents had just gotten me a used car of my own to drive to and from school, instead of my mom always dropping me off,” he said, tucking his head against my neck as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. I rubbed his back, hoping to soothe him. “I was in the driver’s seat, the music pumping, so damned excited to back out of the driveway and be on the road.”

  A sob tore from his throat and my stomach wrenched. “All of a sudden Mom burst out of the house and she was motioning to me, but I wasn’t sure what the hell she was saying. If only I’d turned down the music.” A heavy breath. “She was holding my backpack and I thought she was trying to tell me that I forgot it. But I guess Zoey had run out the door a couple minutes earlier and Mom was also trying to warn me.”

  My heart stopped beating right then. I felt woozy, like I might pass out because I knew what was coming next. What he was going to tell me. I squeezed my eyes shut as he said the terrible words. “I was distracted and didn’t see Zoey in the driveway and my foot was off the brake and the car kept rolling in reverse. I ran her over. I took her life.” A whimper burst from my own lips as my eyes began stinging. “I’ll never forget that sound…of her…and the instant I knew I had done something really fucking horrifying. My mom was screaming…and Zoey wasn’t moving…”

  The cold and eerie revelation punched a hole in my chest. I wrapped my arms around him and hauled him so tight against me I could scarcely breathe as we both sobbed and rocked, our tears intermingling down our chins and cheeks and falling between us onto our chests and arms. He didn’t describe anything more, he didn’t need to—I could picture it so vividly in my head.

  A teenage Nicholas Dell bailing from the car, the door open, the music blaring, his mother wailing, his sister…oh God, oh Jesus. I couldn’t even let my mind drift to that dark place—to what it must have been like for him. No wonder he had so many nightmares.

  A kid who had his innocence snatched from him in one instant. One blink of an eye. Holy Christ, it was the worst—literally the worst thing to live with.

  How had he made it this far?

  And now it all made perfect sense, and at the same time cut so deep—so frank and jagged and ugly, like the blunt edge of a knife. How he was so full of utter shame. Remorse. How he seemed to viciously turn on himself at a moment’s notice.

  It was impossible to imagine and yet here was this boy I cared about so deeply living with this insurmountable pain.

  Other things flashed through my mind’s eye now. How indebted he seemed to feel about everything. How he didn’t want to create any more waves in his already broken and haunted family. So he ignored his true self for all of these years.

  Perfect fucking sense.

  “After…the funeral,” Nick persisted and my stomach absolutely throbbed. How in the hell would it feel to have to watch your sister’s tiny coffin being lowered into the ground? I imagined him swaying, bawling, being unable to keep the contents of his stomach down. People gawking, watching, whispering. I wrapped my arms tighter around him as if I could be a protective bubble. “We moved out of that neighborhood, tried to start over again in Euclid. And I couldn’t…I didn’t…I met you and I’m so sorry…”

  His words were garbled and he was weeping again. “So goddamned sorry…oh God, I’m so sorry…” Tally had crawled closer to the headboard, pushing her snout at my knees, trying to help in her own way, but I ignored her for now.

  “Shhhhhh…it’s okay.” But then suddenly he was gasping and attempting to suck in air. He pulled away from me to a sitting position and placed his head between his knees. I heard him counting, maybe something he’d been taught to do during panic attacks.

  I didn’t want to crowd him, but I needed him to know I was there. So I reached forward and tenderly rubbed his back in small circles. “It’s going to be okay. I forgive you. Holy fuck, I forgive you.”

  My absolution only made him cry harder, and I couldn’t stop my own tears from leaking again as I swiped my forearm across my eyes and kept my hand on his skin, because I needed it, too. To keep touching him.

  Damn, it felt so cleansing to say those words. I forgive you.

  We never had to bring up what happened between us again.

  It paled in comparison to what he lived with. I forgive you.

  After a few more minutes, I helped him lie back down and I rolled off the bed to grab a towel from the bathroom. When I returned he was fast asleep, with Tally nuzzled up against his side. So I gently wiped away the tears and snot from his face and hands and neck and then brushed my fingers through his hair.

  He was beautiful inside and out and he’d never in a million years believe that about himself.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath and let more tears leak out.

  It was an uphill battle that he’d been struggling with for years and it wasn’t going to be easy if I wanted to keep him in my life.

  He’d fight me tooth and nail, because having a tragedy define you complicated things a hell of a lot. But most things worth having were worth fighting for, or however that saying goes. And I’d hang in there with him; even if the only thing he’d ever let me be was a friend.

  If I did deserve it, I’d always choose you.

  “You’re a good person, and you’ve suffered long enough,” I whispered as I stroked his hair. “I wish I could make you forget you were ever anything less than stunning.”

  32

  Nick

  I awoke to the whisper of Brin’s words in my ear. “Taking Tally for a walk. I made coffee but feel free to sleep as long as you want.”

  He sounded so sweet and conciliatory and the fact that I was in his bed and felt the heat of his body next to mine all night long made my heart quicken.

  I heard the nick of the door closing as I blinked up at the ceiling and suddenly everything came thundering back at me. I was drunk last night, still probably was, and had confessed everything. Every single fucking thing and then had a goddamn panic attack on top of it.

  Holy shit. Shooting straight up in bed, humiliation returned full force, making my skin prickle and my stomach revolt. Cold dread crowded the back of my throat, cutting off my airway. I bent my head between my knees and began counting and breathing not only to stave off a panic attack but to keep the contents of my stomach from waging a war on my esophagus.

  After I had myself more or less under control, I reached for my cell and ordered an Uber ride as I looke
d around his bedroom for my clothes. I fished my shirt over my head and gingerly stepped into my pants so I wouldn’t fall over. I needed to get the hell out of here. Now that he knew what I’d done.

  I didn’t want to see the pity—the disgust—in his eyes. I killed her.

  Thankfully, the driver was only five minutes away. I found a pad of Post-its on his kitchen counter and quickly scrawled a note.

  Brin,

  Thank you for taking care of me last night.

  Thank you for everything.

  I can’t do this. I can’t face you, not after…probably not ever.

  I’m so fucking sorry. I will never not be sorry.

  I’ll always wish things could be different.

  Nick

  Ambling to the street, I slid in the back seat and had the driver take me straight home instead of to my car, which was still parked in the Bent lot. My head was absolutely pounding by the time I got inside my empty apartment. I pushed through the bathroom door and knelt down just in time to hurl everything into the toilet—my guilt, my shame, my absolute heartache.

  I wiped my mouth, splashed water on my face, and refused to look in the mirror. The tears were coming again and I didn’t want to see my face.

  The bald disgrace in my eyes.

  Crawling inside my sheets, I turned off my ringer and fell fast asleep.

  I woke to a knock at my bedroom door.

  “You alive in there?” Elijah asked. “Brin wanted me to make sure you got home from his place safely.”

  I groaned. Everything hurt. My bones. My head. My heart.

  “You need anything?” he asked. “He sounded worried.”

  “No, I’m good,” I responded. “Just maybe…can you drive me to my car later?”