BARE SKIN: A Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Callie Pierce

  She slipped off her own shoes and joined him at the edge of the pool. The water was cold against her skin. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  He gave her a long look. “If you don’t wanna talk about it, fine. But that vague answer bullshit is annoying and beneath you.”

  She raised her brow at him and rolled her eyes. The first flicker of frustration heated her words. “Beneath me? Do you think you actually know me?”

  “Better than you’d like,” he answered without the heat she expected. “Which is pretty much what’s bugging you, I think. Oh, it might be more than that, maybe. I don’t know. But when it comes down to it, I think you don’t like that we are getting close.”

  “We aren’t close.”

  “Really?” he retorted. “I mean, seems to me like when you were breaking down, you came to see me and we talked all day about our lives and dreams, and then we had wild sex and went to a family gathering together where I brought you cake.”

  He had brought her cake, she remembered, and he’d brought her drinks and got her food and hung out at her side right up until everyone had gone home. Maybe that had something to do with her mother, maybe not. If it had been anyone else, it would have been the sweetest night with her family ever. He had passed stories with Old Man Phillips and drank beers with her father. He had slid so seamlessly into her life, it was almost scary.

  “The cake was nice. The Petersons make the best cake. I don’t know why I had to bring desert if they were coming.”

  “Nice try with the changing of the subject. I’m impressed.” He slung an arm around her, and she found herself turning into the embrace. She shouldn’t have, but it felt good. He felt good. The scent of him was rich and comforting. “You wanna try that again?”

  “My mother,” she said with a sigh. “She just said some things.”

  “Did she give you the speech about ditching your short-term boy toy when you hightail it back to your fancy gold-card life?” He gave her a squeeze. It was the sort of intimate comfort that a boyfriend would provide, not a boy toy.

  “It’s a black card, and yes, basically. How did you know?”

  “She cornered me and basically gave me the same talk.”

  Donna whipped her head toward him so fast she nearly cracked her skull against his. Her lips were nearly pressed against his cheek when she demanded, “She did what?”

  He kept his arm around her but scooted back so that she could see his whole face. “When your dad was showing off his burger-flipping technique, she pulled me aside. I was pretty worried, thought she was going to go all Mrs. Robinson on me.”

  “It would not have surprised me. But instead she told you that I was going to break up with you?”

  “No. She told me that I ought to leave you alone. That I wasn’t good enough for you. You know the shtick.” He rolled his eyes and placed a very affectionate kiss on her brow. It felt a little too casual, too familiar.

  She flinched away from it. The arm so casually slung around her back stiffened. He didn’t quite pull away, but she felt him straighten up a little, putting a few inches of distance between them. A rush of cool night air found purchase between the new space. Goose bumps formed on the spots of skin where his body had once been touching. She turned her gaze back to the pool and the reflection of the night sky on its nearly smooth surface.

  “Oh,” she managed. “And what did you say to that?”

  “That it was none of her business.”

  “You did not,” Donna said, her eyes closing as another flicker of frustration joined the first. She wasn’t sure who exactly she was getting angry with. Her mother, perhaps, for getting involved a few years too late in Donna’s life. Or him for telling her mother that it wasn’t her business. “Tell me that you didn’t.”

  “Why not? It isn’t any of her business. What happens, what is happening, between you and me is between no one else but you and me. That’s all there is to it.”

  For a moment, all Donna could think about were the pictures on her brother’s phone. She could almost see them reflected in the barely disrupted surface of the crystal-clear water. “As much as I’d like to agree with that, I can’t. Carson isn’t a huge place where you can get lost in a city to find your own privacy. Everyone’s lives are connected with everyone’s else. I mean, just look at the barbecue tonight. Everyone there was related by business or by blood to one another within a couple of steps. Old Man Phillips and Will not only share a military history, but Will’s mother is Phillip’s second cousin. The husband to Mandy’s first two are the Petersons’ nephew. And—”

  “Stop.” His tone was a firm command that brought her up short. His put a single finger to her chin and tilted her head up until she was looking back at him. “Don’t do that.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do what?”

  “Don’t try to make more of this than it is. Your mom got protective, I told her to leave it alone. It’s not a big deal.”

  “That’s really easy for you to say.”

  He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m Donna Mason. I own a prestigious company that brings in millions of dollars’ worth of clients a year. I am respected.”

  His lips tilted a little further down. His finger dropped away from her chin. “So, what am I? A gold digger?”

  “Are you?” she shot back. “As far as I know, you’ve spent a lot of your time chasing barely legal girls and married soccer moms. I’m not exactly your type. I pushed you away from the start, but you kept throwing yourself in my way.”

  His eyes glittered. “Be very careful what you are saying here.”

  The flickers of anger became a ball of fire kindled in her belly. “Why? Because I should be afraid of you, big bad biker boy?”

  “What the hell is your problem?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  She heaved herself away from him, pulling her wet feet out of the water. She was trembling and she didn’t have any clue whether it was because she was cold or because she was angry. How dare he ask her what was wrong. Everything was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be back in this town. She wasn’t supposed to be dealing with her family’s problems, and she certainly wasn’t supposed to be getting involved with him. But he’d never really given her a choice, had he? He just kept coming after her and coming after her, over and over again. He’d been at the pool hall, he’d been at the Deli, and he’d been involved in Kyle’s life. And what had happened when she’d tried to tell Cody, as nicely as she could, that this wasn’t going to happen again? He had pushed and made her feel guilty for deciding what was going to happen in her own damned life. Well, maybe that kind of alpha-male aggressive BS worked on the women he was used to surrounding himself with, but she was Donna Mason and no one told her what to do.

  “What’s wrong?” she repeated, carefully patting her feet against the cement that was still warm from the heat of the day. She kept her voice as cool and calm as she could manage despite the anger that was burning in her belly. “What’s wrong is that you do not know how to take no for an answer. I tried to tell you that what was happening was a mistake, a temporary one, but you simply didn’t listen.”

  He surged to his feet. “That’s really funny coming from your mouth. You don’t listen to anyone but yourself.”

  She fixed him with a cool gaze. “Oh? That’s interesting considering how many clients have praised my ability to hear their needs.”

  “Is that what I need to be? A client? Do I need to throw a few thousand dollars at you in order for you to listen to me? Damn it, woman, what is your problem with the idea of being in love?”

  “I don’t have a problem with being in love.” She shrugged one shoulder and flicked her hand through the air dismissively. The irony that her mother liked to make the same motion was not entirely lost on Donna. “I just don’t think you are suitable for my lifestyle.”

  His face morphed into a cloud of anger. His mouth twisted and his eyes went as hard and as dark as obsidian. She
hated seeing that look on his face, hated knowing that she put it there, but he had to understand. He had to see the truth. This was never going to work, and they both knew it. The knowledge of it had her belly rolling.

  “You don’t think I’m suitable?” he demanded.

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” She reached down and plucked her shoes off the now wet cement. “Cody, you are an attractive man, but at the end of the day you are a criminal and I’m a businesswoman. We have one thing in common and that’s Kyle. As soon as he is handled, I go back to my world and you go back to yours, and that is all there is to it.”

  “So that’s it?” he snarled.

  She rolled her pants back into place with a casualness she didn’t feel. “If I thought you could separate these feelings that you have for me from the consensual sex that we’ve been having, then I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you now. But you have shown that you are just going to keep getting more and more emotionally invested, and the truth is I cannot handle that.”

  “You ice-cold bitch.” He seized her upper arms. She felt the rough scrape of his callused palms against her skin. “Why are you doing this? I know you feel something.”

  “Remove your hands from me at once.”

  “God, you sound like a petty goddess, and it drives me nuts.” His mouth descended on hers with a ferocity that left her breathless. He tasted like fire. She wanted to taste it, to dive into it, but her mother’s words swam back up in her mind. They didn’t belong together, and pretending like they could was going to do nothing but hurt them both. Donna knew it and, sooner or later, Cody would come to the same conclusion.

  So why were their tears in her eyes when he jerked his mouth off hers?

  “I’m going home,” he snapped. His mouth was wet and shining with their kiss. “I am going home and I want you think long and hard about what you really want, Donna Mason. I don’t want you to think about what your mom wants, or what is best for Kyle, or hell… don’t even think about what I want. Figure out what the hell is really going to make you happy because I’m not playing this game with you anymore. I’m not a dog. I’m not going to call when you whistle and then go to my kennel when you are done.”

  He whirled away from her. His feet made temporary prints on the concrete in the wake of his steps. She watched him go and wondered if she was ever going to see him again. Then she wondered why the thought of leaving a biker club criminal was so painful.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cody

  Damn that woman. Those words were the only ones that had been flying through Cody’s mind as he tugged his bike out of his garage and plopped himself on it with enough force to make it squeak. He’d been home for three hours since dropping her and Kyle off, but all he could do was think about Donna and the cold, aloof way she had told him “thanks, but there’s the door.” Damn that woman.

  He’d taken a shower. He had tried to read a book. He had even tossed back a couple of shots of whiskey and poked around on the list of old contacts, wondering if there might be someone among them who could make him forget about the ice queen of the business world. No luck. What was wrong with him? No, he thought to himself, what the hell was wrong with her?

  The grips beneath his palms were cool from disuse. He tilted one and then the other as he kicked the bike into gear. It rumbled between his legs. He’d ridden a motorcycle before he’d learned to drive a car. His father, if you could call the man who’d taken off on his mother and his sisters a father, had left an old Harley in the garage when he’d gone off to do who knew what. Cody had been young, too young to understand what a motorcycle could really mean to a man, but he’d gone out to the tiny shed where the bike had been stored and spent the next few years taking it apart and putting it back together.

  It had been that bike that carried him out of the reservation and on to a different life.

  She’d made him think of the reservation again, asking all those questions about it. Maybe he ought to go back for a visit, give his mom some money. Maybe he could finish up his degree and teach there, inspire the kids there the same way that he had been inspired. Yeah, right. That would never happen. Donna was right about one thing: he was a criminal. What right did he have to dream of teaching or having a woman like her?

  Cody shifted gears and felt the shudder as the tank pumped more fuel into the engine. The wind whipped along his face, tugging his hair out of the bandanna that he’d slung it into. It was a cool night, with hardly a cloud in the sky. It felt good to get out, to be free.

  Instinct, or maybe habit, had him taking the route from his house to the pool hall. It was after three in the morning, and the sign over the door informed him that the place was closed, but Twitch’s car and Hulk’s bike were still parked in the back lot. So were a few other bikes. Looked like the club was hanging out tonight. Had anyone called him? Maybe. He didn’t know. Cody hadn’t looked at his phone since scrolling through the contacts. He used his key to get in.

  There were twenty or so people still hanging out in the supposedly closed club. He recognized most of them. A good portion were club members. Twitch and Hulk were taking up a booth with a couple of ladies that Cody had seen before but couldn’t remember the names of. He gave them a wave.

  “Hey, stranger,” Hulk’s voice rumbled. “Where you been at?”

  There was a chorus of heys and hellos in the wake of Hulk’s greeting. Cody nodded in greeting.

  “Aww, you know where homeboy’s been at. You know. He’s been following my old buddy, my old friend, that sweet pretty thing with the red hair.” Twitch bounced up out of his seat and gave Cody a slap on the back. A few eyes turned in their direction.

  Hulk smirked and brought a beer to his lips. A few inches disappeared down his throat. “That true?”

  Cody didn’t answer at first. Instead he walked around the bar and used the toe of his cowboy boot to tug open one of the minifridges tucked between an ice bin and a wash sink. Seven brands of beer stared back at him, and not a damn one of them sounded tasty. He popped the door closed again and turned toward the bottles of liquor lined up on the wall. With a growl, he pulled down the Tennessee whiskey and poured himself a couple of fingers.

  “Yeah,” Hulk said when Cody started to pour himself another glass. “Definitely been sniffing at that Mason girl.”

  Cody snorted, in part because Hulk had hit the nail on the head, and in part because he could just imagine how Donna would feel about being called “that Mason girl.” He knocked back his second glass of whiskey—fourth if you counted what he drank while he was still at home—and then grabbed a beer from the minifridge and dragged a chair over to the table so he could see the television too.

  “Donna Mason?” One of the girls sitting at the table spoke up for the first time. She was pretty, Cody had to admit. She had hair as black as his own and the kind of curvy body meant for bathing suits and leotards. “I heard she was back in town.”

  “You know her?” Cody found himself asking even though he didn’t really want to.

  “Tch, yeah. I went to school with her. Me and Twitch both did. Twitch was her friend, though I wasn’t. That bitch didn’t like female friends. Never has. Bet she’s one of those woman haters.”

  Cody couldn’t find it in himself to agree with that. Yeah, he was mad at her, but Donna didn’t seem to hate women. She’d spent most of the barbecue talking with Mandy, and there was no one in the world who was more of a woman than Mandy.

  “She told me to get lost.”

  “Shit, man,” Twitch said with a squeal of laughter before patting Cody on the back. “Man, what did you do?”

  “Yeah, how’d you fuck it up?” Hulk asked, turning his dark head in Cody’s direction. “Rumor had it y’all went to some big family barbecue tonight.”

  “Jesus.” Cody popped his beer open on the side of the table. Maybe Donna wasn’t completely wrong. Apparently, everyone was related in this damn town. Related enough, at least, that they were yammering about a relations
hip that wasn’t anyone’s damn business. “I didn’t fuck it up, man. I didn’t do a damn thing wrong. Her mom got involved.”

  “Liz Mason is a piece of work,” Hulk said, shaking his head until the short braids on either side of his head clinked against one another.

  “Yeah,” Twitch popped in. “But she fucks good.”

  Cody nearly spit out his beer. “What?”

  Twitch shrugged his skinny shoulders. “Least she did a few years back. I was in the trailer park, visiting my mom when she comes out. It was summer and she was wearing this tiny little bikini thing and just sunning herself. Just flat out asks me if I want some. I wasn’t seeing anyone so I didn’t see an issue with it.”

  Cody snorted. He had no right to talk. He’d slept with plenty of married women in his time, but Liz Mason wasn’t one of them.