A Boy I Used to Love (A St. Skin Novel): a bad boy new adult romance novel Read online

  A BOY I USED TO LOVE

  London Casey

  Jaxson Kidman

  Karolyn James

  Contents

  Welcome to Hundred Falls Valley and the world of St. Skin.

  Stay social with both authors here:

  A BOY I USED TO LOVE

  Prologue

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  River

  River

  Lacey

  River

  Lacey

  From the authors:

  About the Author

  Also by London and Jaxson:

  Welcome to Hundred Falls Valley and the world of St. Skin.

  From the minds of two bestselling authors comes a book and series about love, redemption, and finding fate in the place where you’d least expect to find it. Welcome to Hundred Falls Valley and the world of St. Skin

  Written by London Casey (Karolyn James) and Jaxson Kidman

  Stay social with both authors here:

  Newsletter (part of the Outlaw Romance Obsession team): http://eepurl.com/b9BDKb

  St. Skin Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/stskinseries

  A BOY I USED TO LOVE

  A St. Skin Novel

  They agreed to meet again in 10 years...

  RIVER: Lacey wasn’t the one that got away – she was the one I let go. That I made a promise to see and to love again. And each year on the same day I bring a ring to our spot and wait. And each year Lacey never shows. I tell myself this year is the last year... I need to move on, move forward, and let her go for good. And that’s the exact moment a car appears with Lacey behind the wheel...

  LACEY: I’ve avoided that one day each year, knowing what it could mean for me. I was young when I fell for River, and I was ripped away from him. Now it’s ten years later and I’ve lost everything important in my life. So I decide I have nothing left to lose... or so I think. The second I see River it all comes crashing back.

  And now it’s the ultimate test of time, love, and forgiveness...

  Prologue

  A YEAR AGO (RIVER)

  I climbed up on the rock and sat down. Behind me stood the finished cabin. The old man put me up to the job a few years back and I did it just to kill time. It was my little retreat, even though it involved countless hours of unpaid labor. The whole blood, sweat, and tears cliché fit the cabin perfectly, but I refused to even look back at the damn thing. I had a key to the place, too. There was one simple rule. As long as someone wasn’t parked next to it, the cabin was mine to use.

  I spent no nights there.

  I built no fires in the fireplace I helped build.

  I took no time or care to stand outside on a cool evening and stare up at the stars, wondering just how many there were or if we really were alone in the vastness of the universe.

  Universe.

  My universe was a little smaller, but it felt just as complicated as the unknown.

  I told myself I’d sit there for an hour, but I knew I’d go until sunset. That had just become part of the tradition. Year after year, waiting for her to show up, then waiting for time to speed by to get to the next year. Looking from the outside of the glass, nobody would see me as that type of guy. But a promise was a promise, even if I didn’t clearly remember everything about it.

  As I sat there, I took all the time I had to really reflect on the previous year. The whirlwind of life. How I’d gone from a punk on the streets to a wild man behind bars to a forever in-demand tattoo artist. I gave up my own shop right on the beach to take a new job with those guys at St. Skin. That’s what life and time was all about—change. Constant change.

  Except for this one day each year. Ironically, it was the one day I wished there was a change.

  I jumped down from the rock and walked to a tree. It was the same tree I walked to each year. Right there, just below eye level, was a mark. I made that mark with a spare key on my keyring a year ago. It was part of something bigger, something I seemed to keep adding to. It had no purpose—nobody would see it or care about it, but it was my thing. I took out my keyring and found the key to my old tattoo shop. It was a small silver key, used for an actual lock. I used to pull down a metal gate and lock it up. That’s how I did business. Then I’d take my bag of cash to my apartment and sit there with a bottle of whiskey and a pen and paper and try to figure out how to actually run a business.

  I never ran out of money and never went behind on my bills. And when I cashed out, I took just what I needed to get me to St. Skin. So I guess it wasn’t a complete failure.

  I jammed the key into the soft bark of the tree and twisted. I bit my tongue as I did so. I then pulled down, cutting the bark, making a fresh mark on the tree. Right then, for some damn reason, I wondered if the tree felt pain. Just another cut from one of my keys. The mark would be there like a scar, but did the tree feel it?

  I took my key away and backed up. I looked up at the tall tree and shook my head.

  Was this what it had come to? Debating whether a tree had feelings? Or could feel pain? Seriously considering hugging the tree and apologizing for hurting it?

  “Shit,” I whispered. I ran my hand through my hair and put my keys away.

  I reached into my other pocket and took out a pack of smokes. I lit one up and enjoyed it. I had been gradually cutting back on the damn things, but today was the one day when they tasted too fucking delicious. That sandpaper burn down the back of my throat and into my lungs. My body groaning in instant protest. My mind reminding my body that I had done so much worse to it throughout my years.

  I went back to the rock and leaned against it. I put my head back and made rings of smoke. Shit, there’d been a time when that was the coolest thing in the world to do. You mastered that, along with wearing a leather jacket and always be willing to throw the first punch, and you could get any woman you wanted. Then again, back then, they weren’t really women. Stuck somewhere between girl and woman, but still…what a time.

  And yet I had my eyes, heart, and soul locked onto just one person.

  My crutch. My curse. My damn stubbornness.

  I finished the first smoke and indulged in a second one.

  I quit after that, squashing the pack in my hand and throwing it as hard as I could into the woods. Behind the cabin, there was a purple glow starting to kick up from the horizon. That meant the sun was setting. I had a good twenty-minute drive back to civilization, then another couple hours until I was in Hundred Falls Valley to my apartment. Back to the sick, twisted sense of reality that consumed me. I knew I’d wake up tomorrow and put my feet on the floor and demand that everything be new. But that newness would quickly wear off. Because time would push on. Days to a week. Weeks to a month. And then months to another fucking year.

  I dropped to one knee and dug in my pocket again. I
pulled out a little diamond ring. I held it up and pictured how things were supposed to go down. Shit, right then, with the sky on fire with an array of colors, it was almost something out of some cheesy-ass movie.

  I used my left hand to dig in the dirt, right next to the rock. Took me about five minutes of digging to find the other rings. I didn’t keep count of how many where there, but there was a quite a few. I dropped the new ring into the hole and buried it. I stood up and put my foot on the dirt. I wiped my hands on my jeans.

  I nodded.

  “See you next year,” I whispered, and I patted the big rock.

  I walked away, feeling a little emptier.

  That’s just what time did.

  It moved forward. It filled you up. It drained you.

  I just wanted to know that she was okay…and happy.

  River

  PRESENT DAY (almost a year later)

  I exhaled and pretended I was blowing out smoke. My left hand was jittery without having my morning cigarette. My right hand was tight around a coffee mug as I stood on the balcony and greeted another day in life. I twitched my left hand’s fingers and thought about my last smoke. Amazing how months and months had gone by, and yet that urge was still there, fresh on the tip of my tongue, a phantom feeling between my fingers.

  I lifted the mug to my mouth and took a sip.

  My left hand reached out and grabbed the metal railing of the balcony. I leaned forward and looked down. I was lucky I got the apartment when I did. There wasn’t much available in town, and if I’d missed out on this one, my commute to St. Skin would have been a pain in the ass. Here, I could leave at five to ten and be there by ten. I had met Tate at a tattoo convention a while back. His booth was next to mine, and we quickly struck up a friendship, damn near ignoring everyone else at the convention. We should have been the ones walking around, talking to suppliers, but we preferred to sit our asses down and let people come to us. He was amazed by the work I did and that I did it all on my own. Tongue-in-cheek, he told me if I ever needed a change he’d make room for me. I’d shaken his hand, laughing, and later that night, we ended up at a bar, drinking.

  The night went by fast and ended with a crazy bar fight. Tate and I got tossed out of the back of the bar into an alley. We both turned, ready to throw another punch, realizing that we were left with just each other. We burst into laughter, hugged, and broke apart. He went one way, I went the other. He called out without looking back that his offer would stay good.

  I never thought I’d take him up on that offer, but when the winds of sweeping change hit, they took me for a damn ride. From the beach to a small town. From being the guy who ran the tattoo shop on the beach, never wearing a shirt, always looking for trouble, to being the guy who worked in a tattoo shop with a schedule, a boss, and a fucking paycheck.

  The craziest part was that the transition wasn’t all that bad. It was smooth. The guys at the shop were welcoming, almost like a brotherhood. It helped that on my first day, Tate called a meeting and explained who I was and what I had been doing. Out of everyone there, more than half already knew about me thanks to people and the internet. Shit, I didn’t even have the internet in my shop back on the beach. Yet I had become kind of famous for my ink. Normally, I enjoyed my privacy, but when it came to inking someone, it was all about exposing yourself. Exposing yourself as the artist and exposing yourself as the person getting the ink.

  I finished my coffee but didn’t feel any more awake than before I had a sip. Caffeine did shit for me. Same for nicotine. But whiskey? Ah, damn…

  I turned and saw a beautiful woman standing in the doorway wearing nothing but the sheet from my bed. She had auburn hair and chestnut eyes. Her skin had a permanent shade of tan to it. The kind of woman who didn’t need to do a damn thing to look stunning. She was insanely natural, and that was a wicked turn-on for me. Even when I took her out, she would fuss over makeup, but she never looked different. The only time I saw her wearing lipstick was when she had to work early one morning and decided to leave a trail of kisses down my body as a little goodbye present to hold me over until she got home.

  And her name—Mary.

  Just a simple, beautiful name.

  A name that might have suggested innocence, but she was far from innocent. Trust me.

  I met her ten months ago at a bar. Big shocker, I know. But she wasn’t there to drink. She was the designated driver for a group of friends who drank too much vodka, got too loud with their woo bullshit over college stories, and almost got into a few fights. For whatever reason, I put my glass down and went over to Mary. I stopped drinking, chatted her up, defended her friends, and even helped her get them all home. Two passed out and two more needed a ride. One of those two got sick in the back of my truck. I helped Mary get her friends home, even helped the sick one to her bathroom. Mary then consoled her friend as she started to regret the night and her entire life.

  I hung around and ended up spending the night.

  We didn’t sleep together, though. We just talked and laughed. And of all fucking things, we drank tea. Black fucking tea. I was instantly hooked on her. Now, to be fair, the next time I met up with Mary, we went on a date, had a few drinks, and I brought her back to my place. We had sex three times that night, once more the following morning, and then I showed up at her job for a little lunchtime quickie. It was fast, furious, deep, and emotional. We hadn’t dropped the L-word on each other, but instead, just went for the ride. I didn’t know all that much about her, and she sure as hell didn’t know about my past. Or at least the parts I knew I needed to keep hidden.

  I opened the door and stepped into the apartment.

  I looked down at Mary.

  Fuck, she really was beautiful.

  She had that look in her eyes. That forever kind of look. That wife-and-kids look. I knew I wasn’t going to be that guy for her. We were doomed from the start, and now that the calendar was about to flip another year, it was time. The calendar in my heart and mind dictated its own rules.

  “You looked stressed,” Mary said in her soft voice. “You want to smoke, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I appreciate that you don’t.”

  Mary had told me the terrible story of how her father lost his life to lung and heart issues after a lifetime of smoking. It helped me cut the habit, even if the urge lingered on my tongue day after day.

  I touched her cheek. “I made you a promise.”

  She grabbed my hand, sliding it down to her neck and then to her chest. My hand eased under the bedsheet, and I felt the warmth of her breast. She inched closer to me, her eyes changing into those of the fiery vixen I had almost fallen for.

  There was a good reason why I couldn’t fall for Mary.

  I was in love with someone else.

  “Good morning,” she whispered.

  Her lips came forward as my thumb stroked over her nipple.

  The right words for me to say right then were simple. Good morning to you too.

  Instead, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  “We need to break up.”

  I expected to catch a lot more hell from her. Instead, she just backed away and pulled the sheet tight around her body. She looked at me, and I couldn't tell if she wanted to cry or stab me in the chest. I would have accepted either one.

  The thing was…she wouldn’t get it if I tried to explain. So I just stood there.

  “So that’s it?” she asked. “That’s how you end things with someone?”

  “Look, you’re special. You know you’re special. I can’t begin to tell you what this time has meant to me. But I see it in your eyes, Mary. What you really want. That’s not me.”

  “I held back from telling you how I felt because I didn’t want to scare you,” she said. “I loved you. I still love…”

  I put my hand up. “Don’t throw that word around. I’m not going to apologize to you. But I have to get to the shop. You do whatever you need around here. Take
your time. Break some shit. I don’t care.”

  “You’re just…done?”

  “Done.”

  “How? Last night, you were inside me, River. I felt you. I felt us. I felt…”

  “Today’s a new day,” I said. I walked away from her. It was painful to walk away from someone so beautiful, so perfect, even as I was breaking up with her. I put my coffee mug in the sink. Then I felt her creeping up behind me. One of her hands slid around my naked torso and tickled at my stomach. I swallowed hard. “Don’t do that.”

  “Over is over then, huh?”

  “Over is over,” I said. “We can keep this up, but it won’t go anywhere. I won’t put a ring on your finger, Mary. I won’t buy you a house. I won’t give you kids. I’m just trying to be fair and honest. I know that’s what you want.”

  Her hand then moved from me.

  It was the last time she’d ever touch me.

  “Then I guess I’ll grab a shower and leave,” she said. “When I get out of the shower, make sure you’re gone, please.”

  I swore I heard her voice crackling, like she was crying. But I didn’t look back. I looked straight ahead. Out the kitchen window to the day that waited for me. I didn’t move until I heard the bathroom door shut. The pipes rattled when Mary turned the shower on.

  In the bedroom, I grabbed a t-shirt. That was my work attire. Fuck, I loved my job.

  Turning, I stared at the bed. The messy covers. The pillows. I touched them. The bed was going to smell like Mary for a little while. I glanced at the bathroom door, picturing Mary’s sultry body. That dark skin. Her perfect breasts. The curve of her ass. The sound of her voice when I touched her.

  I gritted my teeth.

  I was doing the right thing.

  Hurting for a week or two was better than hurting for years.