Skin Deep (32 page)

I gasped, the sound turning into a long low
moan as Luke moved between my thighs, his lips finding my center
unerringly, lightly kissing the hot, wet folds before gently
parting them with the tip of his tongue. His hands moved my legs
apart, spreading them, and me, wide, his eyes locked on that secret
part of me his actions revealed. I heard his breath whisper out
between his lips before his tongue followed, tasting me softly
again.

He slowly loved me with his mouth, touching
and tasting every inch of my tender flesh, dipping inside of me,
swirling around the hardened nub that was standing at attention,
begging for his touch. He finally licked through my folds with the
flat of his hot, wet tongue, pressing firmly against my clit then
closing his lips over it, sucking on it with gentle pulls. I
brought my hands up and thrust them into his hair, twisting my
fingers into the thick, wet strands and holding him tightly against
that aching part of me.

I urged him to move faster, but he resisted,
steadily dragging his tongue through my dripping heat, up and down,
again and again until the pressure built and built and built…with
one final sweep of his tongue he sent me falling over the edge in
the hardest, softest, most intense, shattering, beautiful orgasm
I’d ever had in my life. Sounds contradictory, I know, because he
made me come so hard, but at the same time, he’d done it so softly
and sweetly…it was like…I have no words.

Luke slid his hands beneath my shoulders and
lifted my seemingly boneless body back into the steaming hot water,
cuddling me in his lap. I could feel his thick, hard length bobbing
against my thigh and I shifted so I was straddling his lap, facing
the backyard. I reached between my wide spread thighs and guided
him into me, sinking down slowly over him, letting his hardness
stretch and fill me until he was buried balls deep in the tight
fist of my body.

I sat still in his lap, letting my body
acclimate to the invasion of his, our mouths mating slowly and
sensuously. I laved the hard silver ring threaded through his lip,
the contrast of the cold metal against the heat of my tongue
sending shivers down my spine. When Luke’s hands came up to bracket
my waist, just above my hips, I leaned back, trusting him and the
buoyancy of the water to hold me up. I stretched out, laying back
in the water, letting Luke set the pace of our lovemaking.

He used his hands on my hips to move me,
pushing me toward the middle of the hot tub as he stood in the
middle and began thrusting into me. I put my arms down in the
water, finding the edge of the hard plastic seat and bracing myself
against it as the waves lapped my body. He set a steady rhythm, not
too fast and not too slow, rolling his hips against mine so that
every hardened inch of him stroked that special place inside me,
causing my breath to hitch and my arms and legs to tremble.

I cried out as he pulled out of me, reaching
for him to guide him back inside, but he turned me away from him,
forcing me to kneel on the bench that I’d just been bracing my arms
on. He pushed me forward slightly as he took himself in hand and
guided his length back into my depths, thrusting home and making
both of us groan in relief. I felt his hand come around the front
of me, searching for something before he shifted us both on the
bench.

I came apart in his hands as he thrust into
me, hard and fast, while the jet he had positioned me in front of
pounded against my clit, bringing me to the edge and pushing me
over again and again until I was screaming and sobbing into the
cold night air, lost completely to the ecstasy thrumming through
me, begging him to come because it was too much. With one last
heaving thrust, he slammed himself into me and let go, yelling out
his release and it echoed through the night with mine.

Luke and I collapsed into the water, our
breath coming in gasps. After a minute or two, he pulled me up and
we stepped out onto the deck, grabbing our towels and wrapping them
around us as we ran for the door, leaving wet footprints in the
snow on the deck.

We made love again in the shower before
washing each other off and collapsing into the bed, wrapped up in
each other and thoroughly worn out. Just like Christmas, it had
turned out to be the best New Years Eve ever!

When I woke in the morning, my body felt
deliciously sore as I stretched, grinning as I looked at Luke
sleeping beside me. I quietly and carefully slid out from
underneath his arm and threw on some clothes before padding
barefoot downstairs to make my favorite guys a banging New Year’s
breakfast.

After I got done cooking, I went over to the
couch where Jackson was sleeping and shook him awake before going
down the hall to get Brandon up. I was shocked when the door opened
immediately and he grinned at me, rubbing his belly like he’d known
all along what I was doing. Then again, he has a nose for food, so
his eyes probably popped open as soon as the bacon hit the frying
pan!

I headed upstairs to get Luke, but he met me
on the stairs, leaning in for a very nice kiss before following me
back into the kitchen. We all ate every morsel I’d prepared and
then they actually cleaned everything up for me while Doug and I
reclined on the couch. My mom called to see if we were going to
stop over and I told her we would probably be by after a bit.

Luke, Brandon, and Jackson all played Xbox
for a bit while I read on my Kindle. We left the house and headed
to my parents’ house. Mom always makes a big pot of pork and
sauerkraut, which I think is disgusting. Every year she tries and
tries to get me to take just one bite because she swears it will
bring me good luck for the year. I always refuse.

Until this year…Luke and my mom ganged up on
me and I didn’t stand a chance. I could have held out but Luke
whispered in my ear that he wouldn’t touch me for a month if I
didn’t take one bite. He started out with a week, and I had
whispered back that I could handle that. Then he upped it to two
weeks. I wavered a little at that, but then he said a month and
refused to kiss me when I asked. So I plugged my nose and took a
small bite. Very small.

We didn’t stay long at my parents’ house, and
headed home so I could do some laundry and get back in the mindset
to head back to work after the weekend.

Chapter 22

I went in to work on Monday morning to find
that the furnace had quit. Floyd had called someone but they
wouldn’t be there for at least three to four hours from what he was
told, so I was bundled up in my sweater and my coat, with my gloves
on . I got a few weird looks as clients came in the door for their
appointments, but that changed within a few minutes as they
waited.

The phone was ringing off the hook and I
hadn’t had a chance to even listen to the voice mail from the week
we were gone, yet. It was almost one before the furnace guy showed
up and finally got the heat working again. Hallelujah!

The phones slowed down a bit after he left
and I started listening to the sixteen voice mails that people had
left. I was surprised, because usually after being gone for a week,
we’d have a lot more messages, but then again, I did change the
voice mail message to indicate that we would be gone. Maybe that’s
why the phone had rang so much today!

My breath caught on the sixth message, when
the raspy voice of Creepy came on the line.

“Hi, sweetheart. You know, I’m getting
impatient because you haven’t been to work all week. And I want to,
no I NEED to see you, to hear your voice. I hope you had a good
Christmas. I know you had a good New Year because I saw you with
your fucking lips attached to that mother fucker’s face! You better
have enjoyed it, because it will be the last time you embarrass me
like that. Until next time, sweet Emma.”

I hit the save button with a shaking hand and
finished listening to the rest of the voice mails before I caught
Floyd as he was finishing up with another client and let him listen
to it. He shook his head and told me to call the police again. I
called and made yet another report and then called Luke so I
wouldn’t get yelled at for keeping things from him again. I calmed
him down enough to keep him from rushing over to the office and
sitting with me all day, because I knew that he had booked himself
solid with clients to make up for the holidays.

I hung up the phone with Luke and sat there
staring at my hands. I felt sick to my stomach, and wondered why
this was happening and who the hell it could be. I felt tears well
up in my eyes as I thought about how picture perfect everything had
been last week. Now I felt like there was a shadow hanging over the
memories, the sickening knowledge that someone had watched,
intruded on a special moment, tarnishing the glow of that
memory.

I sat up in my chair and started replaying
the phone conversations and messages that I had recorded and saved,
hoping that something would stand out to me, give me some kind of
idea as to who this psycho sicko was. I mean, was it just by chance
that he was at the bar and saw me? Did he know where I live? He
knew what kind of car I drove, but the more questions swirled in my
head and the more I listened to his words, I realized that I was no
closer to figuring anything out. It was making me crazy and I was
beginning to feel a little helpless at the fact that there was this
unknown entity watching me and there was nothing I could do about
it.

I closed the office at five and walked out
with Floyd. He usually is never in the office when I am leaving for
the day, but he stuck around to make sure I was okay. He’s such a
softie.

Creepy was never far from my mind over the
next couple of weeks. He hadn’t called since last week and he
didn’t talk long then. In fact, the only thing he’d really said was
that it was time for me to come home. I wasn’t sure exactly what he
meant but I had called Leah and asked that she stay at mom and
dad’s for a bit, just in case.

Luke was beside himself with worry and I
think if he could have gotten away with it, he would have set up
shop in the office beside me. He and Jackson and Brandon and even
Calland, believe it or not, had begun stopping by the office at
random times just to check on me and ask if he’d made any kind of
contact. I think we were all a little relieved when day after day
I’d been able to say no.

When a month went by without any calls from
Creepy, we decided to celebrate a little and since he’d been so
sweet over the past few weeks, I’d invited my brother to come with.
Of course Allie was coming; she’d always been a permanent fixture
in my life but she’d been around even more lately. Her, Brandon,
and Jackson had become like a trio of best friends who were
inseparable, but there was an air of tension around them. In my
opinion (and I shared it often) it was all sexual and she should
just frickin’ give it up already. Together or separate, whichever,
she just needed to fuck them and then maybe they could all relax a
little.

The doorbell rang and I answered the door to
find Calland standing there, his left arm holding a sleeping bag
and pillow, his right thrown casually around the shoulders of a
tiny brunette girl. She was really cute in that
aww-you’re-so-young-and-have-no-clue-about-real-life kinda way, but
I didn’t say anything, just raised my brow at him as I let them
in.

We’d decided to have a slumber party, adult
drunken style. And before you ask, no, I really have no clue who
came up with that idea, nor did I know just what it was supposed to
entail, other than the fact that no one was allowed to leave and we
had about a million different drinking games written out on index
cards in a bowl on the table. What I did know for sure is that we’d
gotten so much booze that we could get a small third world country
drunk on the fumes.

“Okay!” Allie shouted, standing up on a chair
at the kitchen table. “Welcome to the first annual Crimshaw Family
and Whoever the Hell Else We Wanna Invite Drunken Fest Sleepover! I
really don’t know why I’m standing on a chair and shouting at you
like I’m the fuckin’ emcee or something, but it is what it is. So
this here’s tha’ rules, yo! You drink? You sleep here. You breathe
in the smell of booze? You sleep here. Basically, you sleep here!
Next rule. We play games. You don’t play? You’re fired and must sit
outside in the cold, naked, for an hour.”

We all laughed at that, especially because of
the way Allie was acting. I mean, there was only me, Luke, Brandon,
Jackson, Calland, Allie, and Calland’s little woman, who’d quietly
said her name was Buffy (WTF?).

She continued, “Now, without further ado, I’m
gonna stick my little hand here into this big ol’ bowl of make ya
puke games and pick one out. Then we’re gonna play! Oh! One more
last rule and it’s a big one. DO NOT GIVE DOUG ANY EGGS! No booze
either, but PLEASE! NO EGGS!”

With that, she reached into the bowl and
pulled out a card, squealing before she read out loud, “Chooser’s
choice! Make your own game! YES!”

I rolled my eyes and looked at Luke in mock
horror, knowing that things were about to get really weird and
crazy. Allie thought for a bit and came up with a game that
involved constantly changing the rules, which meant that within
twenty minutes, we were all on the way to being shit faced
drunk.

I raised my hand, sure that that was what the
new rule was before you could talk. “Umm, okay, so I say its time
for a new game. Who’s with me?”

“Uh-uh-uh,” Allie sing-songed. “Drink, bitch.
You didn’t say drunk duck before you spoke. Raising your hand was
like three rules ago. So HA!”

I rolled my eyes again (for like the sixteen
billionth time that night) and chugged my…to be honest, I’d given
up keeping track of what I was drinking about four cups ago. It was
good, I knew that much. Either that or my taste buds were burned
off from the liquor…