Under Your Skin (23 page)

“Yeah, but then I thought about it. If she was just a piece of ass to you, you wouldn't have cared if Craig pawed her. You wouldn't have made sure she made it home safely.”

“Don't make me out to be some kind of saint.”

“We all know better.” Tommy stuck out his hand. “We good?”

Kai nodded.

As they shook, Tommy added, “I don't think my other brothers will be as cool about this as I am, so be warned.”

“I should expect a band of O'Malleys coming to kick my ass?”

Tommy shrugged. “Never know.”

Kai drove home not sure what to think. He hadn't been prepared for Tommy to cool off that quickly. What nagged at him most was the reason for Tommy's turn. He obviously thought there was more to Kai's feelings toward Norah than friendship and sex. It was bad enough Kai had been questioning that, but to have Tommy notice spelled out trouble.

He walked in the door, tossed his keys on the table, and kissed Norah's cheek. “Hi.”

“Hungry? I have leftovers from dinner.”

“No. It's been a long day. I'm going to take a shower.”

“You want me to leave?”

Did he? Normally, after a day like this, he would need solitude, but that wasn't the answer that came out. “No. I'll only be a few minutes.”

She grabbed his hand as he turned. “Was it bad with Tommy?”

“Ugly for a minute, but he got over it. It's okay.” He hated seeing the worry in her eyes. He brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear and kissed her again. “I'll be back.”

He took a fast shower and looked forward to sitting on the couch with Norah leaning on him while they watched TV. What he hadn't expected was to find her sitting on his bed when he went to grab some clothes. “Hey.”

She smiled and rose to close and lock the door.

“What are you doing?”

She snagged the towel at his waist and yanked, leaving him naked. She licked her lips, which had his dick perking up. “I'd really prefer your mom not catch us with your dick in my mouth in the living room. Privacy, you know?”

She lowered to her knees and he grabbed her shoulders. “Whoa. I thought you had to see the doctor.”

Norah sighed. “First, the rule is no penetration until my checkup. Even though I'm done bleeding.” It sounded like that part bothered her. “Second, your dick, my mouth, is sex for you, not me. Doesn't get much safer.” She leaned forward again and wrapped her cool fingers around his hot skin.

He growled when her lips reached their destination. Her tongue swirled over his head and her hand stroked him. He closed his eyes and his mind went utterly blank. Her nails scraped his thigh and then reached around and squeezed his ass.

Muscles flexing, he thrust his hips forward, wanting to go deeper. She took him.

He opened his eyes and looked down at her. She met his gaze with laughter in her eyes and bobbed her head a little faster, letting him bump the back of her throat. The hand that had been on his ass moved to cradle his balls. She held them and then scraped her nails there, too. Holy fuck, was she hot.

Kai thrust his hands in her hair and held her as he fucked her mouth. “I want to come in you.”

He waited for her response. She nodded and slid her hand up his torso to his chest and pinched his nipple. Then she hollowed her cheeks and allowed her teeth to barely graze his skin.

“Fuck, yeah.” He thrust until he felt like he was going to explode. His balls tightened and he went deep, half expecting Norah to gag. He came and she swallowed. Then she pulled away, wiping her swollen lips.

“Feel better?” she asked.

“God, yes.” When she turned toward the door, he grabbed her wrist. “Where are you going?”

She turned back with a confused look on her face. He didn't wait for an answer. He simply said, “Come here,” and guided her to the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“You said no penetration. My mouth on your pussy doesn't get much safer, right?” And man, did he want to taste her right now. The only thing he wanted to do more was bury himself in her and he couldn't do that yet.

She shivered when his fingers undid the button of her jeans. He looked into her eyes. “This is okay, right?”

Norah nodded because her mouth had become a desert. When she'd impulsively decided to give Kai a blow job, she hadn't expected anything in return. But there was something about going down on a guy that was a total turn-on and she was already wet. Maybe it was the power trip of being in control of his orgasm.

Everything about the experience was awesome. She loved how Kai tried to take control and it gave her a little thrill to let him. Now he undid her jeans and peeled them away. He knelt in front of her to pull them off her feet. His face was at her belly and she became self-conscious about the flab still sitting there. Her hands moved to cover it even though she still wore her shirt. With her pants gone, Kai gently moved her hands away and pushed her shirt up a few inches and kissed her soft belly.

He was almost reverent in his movement and her heart swelled. Letting her shirt fall back into place, he kissed along her panties before sliding them down. He nudged her leg to step out of them and she was bare to him.

“Lie down.” His voice was deep and gravelly and it caused a ripple to run through her body.

She did as she was told, lying back on the bed. Kai yanked her to the edge and spread her legs wide. He kissed her inner thigh and murmured, “Pretty.”

Norah squirmed under his intense gaze and his exquisite touch. Featherlight strokes on her inner thighs and the whisper of his breath on her center. She needed to be touched more than anything, but there was no way she would beg for it.

Just as she began to lose her patience, his tongue glided along her slit and over her lips. A slight flick of the tip of his tongue on her clit made her hips jump. Using his hands, he spread her legs wider, holding her in place, and began a slow and gentle assault with his tongue. His rhythm was steady and disarmingly deceptive, almost lulling her into relaxation.

Then without warning he opened his lips and sucked hard on her clit, sending a sharp jolt of pleasure through her. Her hips bucked, but he pressed them back down with his wide palms. He mumbled something against her, or maybe it was just a moan, but the vibrations set off another round of pulsations.

She began to writhe beneath him, at least as much as she could given the hold he had on her. But he didn't let up. He changed the simple rhythm and it became unpredictable. All Norah knew was that she wanted more. Her fingers wove into the silky strands of his hair and she held tight, as if he might try to escape.

The orgasm built and she braced her heels on the bed and rose to meet Kai's mouth. She let go of his head and grabbed a pillow. Placing it on her face, she released a long moan as the orgasm crashed through her. Her muscles quivered and she lost the ability to hold her legs up on the bed.

Kai held her as she spasmed and moaned and slid away. Then he climbed on the bed beside her and tossed the pillow. “Feel better?”

She huffed a weak laugh. He kept throwing her words back at her. “Much.” She ran a hand down his chest. “But I'd like it so much more if you could be inside me right now.”

He groaned and lowered his face to her neck and kissed her.

“Don't get me wrong, your oral skills, they're phenomenal, but I'm missing the sex part. I want you on top of me, pushing into me, filling me.”
Taking me
, she almost added, but that felt going too far, even though she meant it.

“Trying to kill me?” he whispered against her skin, causing a shiver.

“Just being honest.”

He pushed up on an elbow to see her. The only light in the room filtered in from the window, an odd mixture of moonlight and streetlight. “So you're saying one orgasm isn't enough.”

“It's not that ...”

But his hand was already stroking her sensitive skin. “You're a greedy girl, aren't you?”

She hadn't been looking for more, well, not like this, but his fingers were like magic against her and before she knew it, her hips were rocking. She pushed hard against his shoulder to make him lie back. “I might be greedy, but I'm not selfish.”

Climbing on top of him, she straddled his face and lowered her mouth to his waiting dick. They pleasured each other using only hands and mouths again and all Norah could think was how amazing sex would be once they were finally able to do it.

Round two was more hurried and frantic than the first. It was like a fun race to the finish and by the time they were lying side by side, panting for air, Norah was about as relaxed as she'd ever been. She curled next to Kai and traced the line of a complicated tattoo that covered his side from armpit to hip.

“I want you to do a tattoo for me.”

“Huh?” His voice was groggy and she derived quite a bit of satisfaction from that.

She pushed up on an elbow and flipped her hair out of her face as she looked down at him. Man, he was beautiful. Dark hair wild around his head, his dark eyes staring up at her, and golden skin interrupted by ink. “I want a tattoo of Ella's name and something small with it.”

“Don't you want Tommy to do it?”

She shook her head. “Tommy will try to talk me out of it.”

“Where do you want it?”

“I don't know. What do you think?”

“It hurts less on fleshy parts. Someplace like your ribs will hurt. Your arm or shoulder would be easy.”

She smiled. “Right now, I have lots of fleshy parts. But I don't want it where other people can see. It's just for me. Maybe on my hip?” She angled her body and traced a finger along her hip bone.

His hand followed hers. “Not that fleshy. But I can make it work. Ideas for design?”

She bit her lip. “You'll think it's dumb.”

His thumb ran down her cheek to her lip, tugging it from between her teeth. “I doubt it'll even make the top fifty dumb things people have had me tattoo on them.”

“I'd like a dragonfly.”

“Not dumb. I've done dragonflies before.”

“So I guess I'm not all that original.”

“You don't need to be original. Just have to like it.”

She sighed and laid her head on his chest. “I should go. It's getting late.”

He didn't say anything, didn't ask her to stay, which while she wasn't expecting it, would've been nice.

“Why'd your family send you to Boston?”

His question caught her by surprise. She listened to the steady thump of his heart before answering. “Jimmy joined the army. Ever since my mom was killed when I was a toddler, Jimmy took care of us.”

“What about your dad?”

“He was a cop. Worked a lot of hours. Five kids are expensive. He provided, but Jimmy cared for us.” She inhaled deeply. “Anyway, Jimmy was worried about me. I was twelve and hitting puberty and he didn't trust my other brothers to keep me out of trouble. Mostly because they were causing plenty on their own. And I was set to follow them.”

His hand stroked lazily up and down her back and she wanted to sleep like that. Murmuring, she added, “They did what they felt was best for me. Like I did for Ella.”

She sighed next to him, enjoying the open honesty of the conversation, so she asked, “Why did you become a tattoo artist?”

“I'm good at it.”

“You're kind of young to own your own studio though. I would think having to worry about employees would be a lot of pressure.” And everything she knew about Kai told her he limited how many people he let into his life.

“I'm an ex-con. Having a felony on your record is one of those things that follows you. I got tired of having to fill out background check forms and having people look at me like I'm less than human because I fucked up.” He spoke like it was no big deal, but she felt his muscles beneath her tense.

She said nothing for a minute. She tried to wrap her head around this. He was a felon. That took bad boy to a whole new level for her.

“Feeling like you need to jump out of my bed now?”

She smiled. “No.”

“I have a hockey game Friday night. Do I need to ask Jaleesa to come over?”

And the intimate conversation ended as quickly as it started. His question was too cryptic for her brain. Was he asking her to come to the game or asking her if she wanted another night off? “No. I can work.”

“Okay.” His fingers stroked up and down her back. “Bring a bag and plan to spend the night.”

Her heart did a weird tumble. “Okay,” she whispered.

“And I have my poker game Sunday night. Can you come over for a bit to hang with my mom?”

“Why? She doesn't need much help.”

“She drives me crazy when she knows I have the guys over. No shit, she texted me like eight times in an hour the first weekend she was here. It was worse than babysitting a toddler who doesn't want to go to sleep.”

She chuckled. She could totally see Lani doing that to annoy him. “I'll be here on one condition.” She rested her chin on her hand and looked up at him. “Tell me why you don't want your mom to know who you're playing with.”

“She doesn't like them.”

“There's a story there.”

“You asked for a reason, not a story.”

“You want me to be here, I want the story.”

His sigh could've belonged to any of the O'Malley men, long-suffering and irritated, but resigned. “I've known most of those guys since I was a teenager. We ran in a gang together, got in a lot of trouble.”

He tapped her shoulder to get her to move and then he got off the bed. He went into his dresser and pulled out underwear. Must be time for serious conversation, something that clearly couldn't take place naked.

After stepping into his underwear, he leaned against the window and looked out. “We did a lot of shit together, especially Rooster. He introduced me to all of life's darker things. Drugs, booze, women, and eventually crime to pay for those. When I was twenty, I went to jail for burglary. My mom never forgave Rooster.”

Norah sat up and reached for her clothes. “But you're not into that stuff anymore, right?”

She hadn't thought to ask him before. He'd offered no indication he was still in a gang, no evidence of drug use.

“No. Jail did what it was intended to do: teach me a lesson. I straightened myself out and I left the life behind. Except for Rooster.”

“Is Rooster still into all the darker things?”

Kai nodded. “I let my mom think he's not around because she'd just get upset.”

“So you lie to her.”

He lifted a shoulder. “By omission. Keeps things simple.”

Norah wasn't sure what to do with this information. Her earlier thought of bad boy came back. But Kai wasn't just the ex-con, ex-gangbanger bad boy. He was reformed. In truth it was something that had drawn her to him. A guy who grew and learned from his fuckups, who owned them and moved on, was sexy. Part of her regretted forcing him into sharing his past because he obviously didn't want to. The other part was grateful because if left to himself, he might never tell her anything, and she really wanted to know him.

It shouldn't matter, she reminded herself, because they were temporary. If he chose to keep things from his mom, she had no business judging. Especially since she'd kept her pregnancy from her family for months.

“See you tomorrow.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

“I'll walk you out.”

She eyed his underwear. “I can handle a walk to the curb.”

“Give me a minute.” He grabbed his jeans off the floor and jumped into them. “Let's go.”

He stood there, shirtless and barefoot with his hair a mess, and man, did she want to climb all over him. He took her elbow and propelled her from his room. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” she croaked.

“You just came twice and you're looking at me like I'm an ice-cream cone in August.”

She couldn't help it. She licked her lips. He groaned. He pulled her out the front door and straight to her car.

She unlocked the door but turned to find him standing close, close enough that she didn't have enough room to open the door. “Sorry about Tommy.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. You managed to completely take my mind off your brother.”

She grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him close for a kiss. His body pressed her against the car and she moaned.

He moved his mouth from hers and kissed her jawline and back to her ear. “Your moans are so fucking hot. I can't wait to hear them when I'm buried inside you.”

She shivered. The man was so good at turning her on. He kissed her cheek. “Good night.”

“'Night.”

“Drive safe and call me when you get home.”

Norah rolled her eyes.

He caught her chin and turned her to him. “Call me.”

“Fine.”

She got in her car and he stood by the curb until she turned at the end of the block. Her heart raced and it wasn't just because he'd gotten her hot and bothered. His words weren't simple. That he wanted her to call when she got home made him sound like a boyfriend. He cared and that was deadly for her.

Any sign of caring would make her fall and she didn't want to fall for him. He'd break her heart and she knew it. She just didn't know how.

* * *

Kai didn't know what was up, but something was. Norah had called and said she needed a few hours off today and that she'd explain when she got to his house. It wasn't like her to spring something on him last minute. When she pulled up outside, he stood on the porch and waited for her.

“What's going on?” he asked as she neared. Her face was filled with emotion, but he couldn't read it.