Skin Deep

by Evans, Anna J.

“And you should feel free to give me one anytime.”

  “I will. But you should feel free to give me things, too.” Nicky wiggled her bottom under his hands, bringing to mind their last encounter at the club in L.A.

  His cock grew even thicker at the mere thought of private spanking sessions, when there would be no reason not to end the encounter by driving inside Nicky’s welcoming heat. Damn, but they were going to have some fun together. There were so many things he wanted to do to her, with her, so many boundaries to test and explore.

  But tonight, he wanted to keep things simple. “No paddles tonight.”

  “No?” she asked, looking a little disappointed.

  “No, and no nipple clamps or whips or restraints.” He kissed her again, softly, thoroughly. “Tonight it’s going to be just you and me.”

  “The real you and me?” she asked, the heat in her eyes making her real question clear.

  “Of course.” He released her with a smile. “So go get your ass in that bed and spread your legs. Play with your tits and your pussy, but don’t touch your clit and don’t come before I get there. Just get my cunt nice and wet. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” She leapt into his arms, hugging him so tight his laugh came out as a grunt, then turned and fled into the guest room.

  Jackson watched her go with an ache in his chest so strong he could barely breathe. That was his girl. His love, the only woman who would ever know him, who could ever make him feel like he was the kind of man he wanted to be. And he was going to do whatever it took to show her how much she meant to him—tonight and every night for the rest of their lives.

  He stopped and took a deep breath before following her, his eyes drawn down to the angel on his arm. For a moment, he would have sworn the ink looked brighter, richer than it had in years, as if the tat itself were proud of connecting him with the woman who matched him as perfectly as their identical tattoos.

  Jackson smiled, resisting the urge to whisper his thanks. He might be crazy enough to kidnap the only girl he ever loved, but he wasn’t quite ready to start talking to his own ink . . . at least not just yet.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  As she ran and jumped onto the guest bed, Nicky was laughing and crying at the same time. She’d done it, she’d really done it! And it hadn’t been nearly as hard as she’d worried it would be. Her stomach had been tied in knots for the entire plane ride, not even Abby’s constant squirming on her lap distracting her from her fear that Jackson’s stubbornness would prove too much for her to conquer. Once he had his mind made up, he was usually impossible to sway.

  But then, neither of them had ever been in love like this. What they’d felt for each other when they were kids had been wonderful and real, but nothing compared to the connection they had now.

  This was what people dreamed about, wrote stories and made movies about. This was the real thing, a love she hadn’t dared dream she’d find.

  The thought was enough to bring fresh tears to her eyes.

  “Disobeying my first order. This doesn’t bode well for our future,” Jackson said, the laughter in his voice making her smile.

  “You’re the one who said I was a pushy bottom,” Nicky said, rolling over onto her back, her breath catching as she saw him standing in the door, wearing nothing but his jeans. How many times had she fantasized about that bare chest? About running her fingers over the contours of his muscles, letting her tongue trace each dip and curve?

  “I was wrong. You’re not pushy, just hard to handle.” He stalked slowly toward the bed, making her pulse pound.

  “I’ll probably need a lot of discipline and punishment before I’m anywhere near where I should be.” Nicky spread her legs, slowly, deliberately, and let her fingers trail up her thigh. She was already wet and aching, just seeing Jackson enough to make her body come to life. “Training me is not going to be an easy job.”

  Jackson watched her hand with undisguised fascination as she slid her fingers inside her thong, dipping into the well of heat between her legs. “Easy is overrated.” His breath rushed out through his parted lips. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “I’m here and I’m never going to leave,” Nicky said, the back of her throat getting tight again. “Now are you going to fuck me or not? If not, I’m probably going to start crying again and I’ve really had about all the—”

  “Take off your panties. Leave the stockings and shoes on.”

  Nicky obeyed, hands shaking as she quickly shed the scrap of silk and then lay back on the bed, her nipples so hard they poked through the stiff satin of her corset. A wave of dizzying desire swept over her from head to toe, making her head spin. God, she needed this, needed Jackson to take control of her, to make her feel so safe and free and completely consumed by him.

  Him. Her dom. Her master. Her love. Every name she called him made her more giddy.

  “Spread your legs. Wider,” Jackson ordered, working at his belt with swift, sure movements. “Show me my pussy.”

  Electricity shot through her entire body as she parted her thighs. She could feel her lips plump under his eyes, swelling until she felt bruised with the force of her wanting. She sure as hell hoped Jackson wasn’t planning some long, drawn-out seduction, because she didn’t think her mind would survive it. She needed him. Now. They could do the long, drawn-out thing at a later date, when she didn’t feel so desperate for the connection she’d been denied for the past two months.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said, his voice catching as he shoved jeans and boxer briefs to the floor, freeing his cock. The poor man was so swollen the veins stood up along his turgid length, and his plump head dripped a single sticky tear.

  Nicky licked her lips—she wanted to taste that salty drop more than she could say. “You, too. You don’t know how many times I’ve imagined this.”

  “Oh, I can guess.” He knelt at the edge of the bed, bringing his warm hands to the inside of her thighs and spreading her wider. “Maybe a few hundred less than I have. I swear to god, I could taste you in my sleep.”

  “Please, Jack.” She squirmed beneath him, feeling she would shatter if he didn’t shove that beautiful hardness between her legs in the next ten seconds. “I need you inside of me.”

  “Are you topping from the bottom again?” he asked, his voice soft as he dipped one thumb into her cunt, groaning as he slowly drove in and out of her slick heat.

  “No, I just—”

  “Because even if you are, I don’t care. Nothing could keep me from fucking this pussy.” He slid his hands from her body and positioned his cock at her entrance in one smooth movement. “Right now.”

  “Jackson!” She called his name as his hips surged forward, shoving his engorged length inside her.

  There was a hint of resistance at first. No matter how aroused she was, he was a tight fit, his cock even thicker, harder, hotter than normal. He felt so large that a hint of delicious pain accompanied her pleasure as he filled her, driving fast and deep, not stopping until he lay buried to the hilt.

  “God, Nick.” His breath came in swift, shallow puffs against her lips as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him even closer to her. “I’m not going to last five minutes. You feel so fucking good.”

  “Five minutes should be more than enough.” She rolled her hips in a slow circle, grinding her clit into his pelvic bone with a shuddering sigh. “You feel pretty fucking good yourself.”

  “I aim to please,” he said, as his hands gripped the top of her corset and tugged, pulling at the fabric until her breasts were free. “I missed these tits.”

  “And I missed you calling them tits. I actually came to like the—” Oh, god, his tongue. She couldn’t remember anything feeling as good as his tongue flicking across her nipples. Her hips circled faster as shocks of awareness surged between her legs.

  “Nothing tastes like your skin, nothing in the world.” Jackson mumbled the words against her breast before he sucked one nipple into his mouth, tuggin
g at the aroused flesh until she cried out. “So fucking sweet.”

  “Please, Jackson, please,” Nicky panted, tugging at his hair.

  It was too much, more stimulation than her overly sensitized body could take, especially since he refused to move inside her. He still lay buried in her pulsing sheath, pinning her to the mattress with his weight, limiting her movement to those little rolls of her hips that just weren’t enough anymore. She needed him to fuck her, to slam his cock in and out of her pussy until it hurt, until that brutal penetration sent her spiraling into the bliss only Jackson could give her.

  “Please!” She pulled at him with all her strength, but he simply removed her hands, pressing her wrists into the pillow above her head as he transferred his maddening attentions to her other nipple.

  “Don’t say another word until I’m finished with my tits.” Jackson accentuated his words by dragging his teeth across her aching tip, making her scream.

  Nicky bit her lip and moaned as he moved from one breast to another, slowly driving her insane, making her pussy gush liquid heat as it clutched at his thickness, so close to the edge but unable to tumble over. She couldn’t come, not without his approval, not even if she’d wanted to.

  Which she didn’t. More than release, more than relief, she wanted to please Jackson. No matter how hard to handle she might be, that part of her was a submissive through and through. Jackson’s submissive. Her body belonged to him, for now, for always.

  The thought made her even hotter, wilder, made her legs churn on either side of Jack’s.

  “My pussy is so wet. I love feeling my pussy so wet,” he said, before sucking one nipple deep into his mouth and letting his teeth bite down on the soft flesh of her breast. The pressure grew greater and greater, until the trapped flesh began to sting.

  God, he was going to mark her. There would be an imprint of his teeth on her breast by the time he pulled away. Just imagining her pale flesh bearing the sign of his possession threatened to undo her. She wanted to scream, to beg, to cry out his name, but she bit her lip, struggling to obey his request for silence as he set about marking her other breast.

  Her head tossed back and forth on the pillow and she fought Jackson’s hold on her wrists until her muscles ached, but there was no relief to be found. He was in complete control, and would continue his erotic torture until he was good and ready to stop. The knowledge both thrilled and frightened her, forcing a desperate sob from her throat.

  Finally, when she was certain her sanity couldn’t hold a second longer, Jackson called her name, the abandon in the sound letting her know he’d reached the same razor-sharp edge. With a sound more animal than human, he drew back until only the tip of his cock was inside her and then rammed back in, setting a swift, brutal pace that was exactly what her body had been craving.

  Nicky cried out as he released his hold on her wrists, wild to feel her nails digging into the muscles of his back. She wanted to mark him the same way he’d marked her, to leave behind traces of their passion that would follow him for days, so that every time he felt that slight sting, or saw that trail of red, he would think of her, of the way they were together, here where they belonged.

  They were meant to be connected like this, fused so tightly it was impossible to tell where his body ended and hers began. They were a part of each other, a matched pair that would never be separated again . . . just like their tattoos, the things that had brought them back together in the first place.

  It no longer seemed strange that she’d been so resistant to having her angel modified. The night they’d acquired their matching ink was the night she’d given Jackson her heart and he’d given her the same in return. She didn’t want to lose the symbol of that momentous occasion, not now, not ever.

  “God, I love you, Nicky. I love you so much.”

  “Me, too, so much. So much.” She gasped the words into his mouth as he took her lips in a brutal kiss, mating his tongue with hers as his rhythm grew even faster, frantic, until she knew he was only seconds away from losing control. An answering wildness rose within her, tightening things low in her body, making every muscle tremble with the prelude to her own release.

  She ripped her mouth from his, the room spinning as she fought to hold back the dark wave threatening to pull her under. “Please!”

  “Nicky, god, Nicky.” Faster and faster, until the sound of skin making contact with skin filled the room, until her every nerve cried out with the need to come, to find her pleasure around the thickness working between her thighs.

  “I’m going to come. I can’t help it, I’m—”

  “Come, Nick. God, come for me.” He groaned and his entire body shuddered as his cock began to pulse within her.

  Nicky joined him a second later, her body bowing off the bed with the force of her release. Her womb contracted again and again, the orgasm so fierce it made her scream. Her nails dug into Jackson’s back and her heels into the mattress as pure bliss rocketed through her body, making her sob and tears of happiness leak from behind her closed lids, making her wonder if it were possible to die from pure pleasure.

  When she finally drifted back to earth, she was shocked to find she was laughing. And not just kind of laughing, but giggling so hard the tightening of her muscles had forced Jackson’s softening length from her body and her sides were starting to hurt.

  “You’re silly,” Jackson said, the rumble of his laughter underscoring her own as he rolled to lie beside her. “What kind of woman gets the giggles after sex like that?”

  “I don’t know.” She laughed even harder, rolling on her side and clutching at her stomach. “God, that was great.”

  “Yes, it was,” he said, gazing down at her with an amused expression.

  “I love you so much,” she gasped, the giggle fit showing no signs of stopping.

  “Good thing I’m a confident man or this might be doing something to my self-esteem.”

  That was all it took to make her completely lose it. She laughed until her head hurt and her body ached, until it was hard to breathe and she contracted a serious case of the hiccups. She honestly didn’t know when she would have stopped if Abby hadn’t cried out from the other room.

  “Oh, no, the baby’s awake,” she said, pressing her hands into her sore jaw muscles as she finally regained control.

  “I’m guessing it was the crazy woman laughing in the other room who woke her up, what do you think?” Jackson was already out of bed, pulling pajama pants from a drawer and throwing her a T-shirt.

  “Or it could have been the screaming orgasm.”

  “Yeah, we’re going to have to invest in some soundproof walls before this kid gets any older.” He smiled as he spoke, his excitement for the future—their future—clear on his face. “Do you think she’d let me pick her up and bring her in here with us?”

  “I don’t think she’d mind at all.” Nicky smiled, fighting back the tears in her eyes. No more crazy laughing or crying. At least not tonight anyway. “I’ll turn down the bed.”

  She shrugged on the oversize T-shirt and found her underpants on the floor. She’d dressed, used the bathroom, and put order to the bed by the time Jackson came back into the room, holding a blinking Abby. She looked confused, but not at all unhappy to be in Jackson’s arms.

  “She was wet, so I changed her with one of the diapers by the bed. I think I got it on right, but you might want to check,” he said, the uncertainty on his face making her want to hug him.

  Nicky reached out and took Abby before climbing into the bed. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “Maybe, but I’m going to need practice. It took me at least three minutes. Good thing she was patient with me.” Jackson took his place on the other side of the bed, smiling down at Abby as Nicky placed her on the sheets between them. The baby immediately started to nuzzle into the covers, making happy cooing noises.

  “She’s always loved sleeping with someone. I know I should make her sleep by herself, but I kind of dig the whole fami
ly sleeping idea.”

  “What if I roll over and crush her?” Jackson asked, inching as close to the edge of the bed as possible.

  “You won’t. Trust me,” Nicky said, leaning over to press a soft kiss to his lips. “And this will just be for tonight. We’ll go buy her a crib tomorrow.”

  “A crib sounds good.” Jackson smiled against her lips. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind the family sleeping thing. But it might make it hard to do certain things.”

  “Right. And we like those things. Sex games and babies don’t really mix.”

  He laughed. “I wasn’t even thinking about games, but yeah, I like those, too.”

  “Then what were you thinking about?” She sighed into her pillow, certain she couldn’t feel happier than she did right now, freshly bedded by the man she loved and snuggled in with the two people she loved best in the world.

  “I was thinking about maybe . . . making her a brother or sister someday soon. I mean, not too soon, but—”

  “As soon as you’re ready,” Nicky said, breaking her vow not to get teary again. “I can’t think of anything more exciting.”

  “Not even investing in a spanking bench of our very own?” Jackson smiled, but even in the dim light she could see the telltale shine in his eyes.

  “Not even a spanking bench of my very own. Though I want one of those, too. I believe a woman can balance babies and spankings. Don’t you agree?”

  Jackson reached out to touch her face, careful not to disturb Abby, who was already falling back asleep. “I love you, Nick.”

  “I love you, too.”

  He was asleep a few minutes later, his deep, steady breathing lulling her into a state of profound relaxation. Still, she fought sleep as long she was able, wanting to savor these moments, the happiest of her life, and the beginning of her life with the man of her dreams.

  First she sees you; then you die. . . .

  Samantha Quinn lives in a world of shadows, a result of a botched demon sacrifice that left her blind. But when bounty hunter Jace Lu comes into her life, the heat between them triggers visions that awaken Sam’s latent psychic power and puts them on the trail of a killer. Now Sam and Jace must stop a madman before he kills again, while dealing with an attraction that might just prove deadly.