Chapter 21 Summer
We spend a good half hour swimming laps before Parker’s need for mischief flares.
I’ve got a towel wrapped over my swimsuit.
He’s just in his shorts, dripping water behind us as we move through the deserted school with our backpacks slung over our shoulders.
That dripping water is a very obvious trail for any lurking security guards, but in true Parker fashion, it doesn’t seem to worry him.
He pokes his head into an open door to the left of the hallway we’re exploring.
“I think we had English class in here.”
“It was biology.” The desks are newer, not the beat-up ones we worked at. I’m almost certain the plastic backs of our chairs had been a paler blue than this one. But I recognize the view from the windows on the far side of the room. It’s a wall of pine trees illuminated by the moon.
What made this classroom so special, other than the fact that it was pivotal to my future, was the deer we’d sometimes see poking out from the forest’s edge during class.
We drop our bags by the open door and Parker sits in the front row of desks facing the whiteboard—which had definitely been a chalkboard in our day.
“Fuck me, we were tiny back then.” I laugh at the sight of him wedged behind the desk. He’s always been tall, but his bare upper body puts all the extra muscle he’s put on as an adult on glorious display.
I move around the teacher’s desk by the whiteboard and toy with a red dry-erase marker. “This is the room where I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Senior year. Our college applications were due any day and I still had no idea.” I’d been so stressed about it in the summer leading up to our final year.
The fear of choosing poorly and setting my life on the wrong course before it even got started.
I turn to face him, slapping the marker against my palm.
“It was late October. We spent all week presenting our midterm research projects. Pretty sure I got an A.”
Parker grins. “Typical you.”
“You bet it was.” I point the marker at him. “But then you got up here at the front of the class, the last to go on account of the W.”
“I always hated going last.”
“That one was perfect timing. The rest of us researched all this avant-garde science. The kind of stuff that’s fascinating, but totally useless day-to-day unless you work in a lab, you know?
Then you got up here and did a whole twenty minutes on the science of sports.
And things clicked into place for me. That stuff was interesting. ”
“That’s how you chose your major?” His thumb traces lines along his desk. I find myself wishing I was in its place. “I’m pretty sure I chose kinesiology because you did. I didn’t have any other ideas.”
I laugh. “It was your idea. Subconsciously, at least. I chose it because of you. Haven’t regretted it a day since.”
He makes a face as he thinks on that. I hop on the front edge of the teacher’s desk just to resist the urge to go over there and… I don’t know.
Smack the back of his head. Wrap my arms around him. Kiss away the line between his eyebrows. He thinks he’s a tissue aimlessly blowing in the wind, but Parker’s always underestimated himself that way. I hope it means something to him to know he was the one to give my life direction.
“How are things going with River? He seemed less angry this morning. Actually returned my smile.”
“He’s still a moody little shit.” Parker pauses. “He made it fifteen minutes on the treadmill without a nerve pinching today. Only snapped at me three times. That’s a win, right?”
“A big win.” I smile at the thought of these two lost boys snipping at each other every morning. “And you? What’s going on in my favorite head?”
“Being with you helps,” he admits, setting off little bursts of satisfaction in my stomach. “And the morning donuts. I bought Juliana Bekker’s autobiography today—the surfer? And… River made it fifteen minutes on the treadmill without a nerve pinching.”
“Look at that. Reasons to get out of bed.”
Seconds pass where all we do is stare at each other. Eventually, Parker clasps his hands over the desktop, sitting up straight as though class were in session. “You got anymore lessons for me tonight, Miss Prescott?”
“What would you like to learn?”
“How about an anatomy lesson?”
My head falls back in a laugh. “I have it on questionable authority that you know plenty about anatomy.”
Parker’s eyes narrow playfully. “Summer Prescott, you seem positively gripped by this rumor. Have you ever stopped to think about why?”
“Not particularly.” I cross my legs and my towel inches up my bare thighs. He drags his gaze up my legs. Over my towel-covered middle, the dip in the fabric where it drapes over my breasts.
It’s so addicting, watching him watch me. The way his jaw tenses, chest rises with deep, steadying breaths. I find myself wishing it’d been this way all along. That he’d been feeding my confidence, my heart, and hell, my ego with that look, for as long as we’ve known each other.
I could live off the new way Parker Woods looks at me.
You, Summer Prescott, are the most stunning girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Parker, you’re staring again.”
“You like it.”
“Says who?”
Parker gets to his feet, lusty blue eyes on me as he moves toward the desk. My legs uncross, fall open when he reaches me. He notices, and he’s smirking, and I’ll never live this down.
“Says you, love.”
I don’t even have it in me to fight him on it.
“Why are you shaking?” He takes my hand, watching my fingers tremble. It’s a bit of fear but a lot of adrenaline. And it surges when he glances up at me and says, “I don’t bite unless you ask for it. Guess that part didn’t travel.”
Ask, my brain commands. Ask ask ask.
“Tell me why you think about the rumor.”
“I’m jealous.” The confession shoves past my lips, unable to deny him when my hand feels so good in his. “It makes me jealous that other people know things about you that I don’t. Have done things with you that I haven’t. I like being the person who knows everything about you.”
“A little possessive, don’t you think?” he asks. I shrug, because what do I say to that? “Okay, Summer. Anatomy lesson. You ready?”
Parker’s eyes are on mine, trapping the air in my lungs as heat rages inside me, scorching me, making everything it touches smoke and sizzle. I’d put money on us regretting this in the morning. Still, I loosen my arms at my sides, and my towel unravels down to my hips.
He chuckles softly. “You’re reading ahead, Miss Prescott. You wanted to know things about me.” Parker raises my hand to his hair. It’s soft, still damp from our swim. My fingers tangle in the thick strands I’d longed for in the water.
“That’s my hair.” My fingers comb through it under his guidance, then run down the back of his neck.
I can’t help but curl them, graze his skin with my nails.
With a soft breath, he places my hand on the side of his face, letting me feel the light stubble there, the sharp angle of his cheekbone. “My cheek.”
I brush my thumb over his skin and Parker’s hand falls away, leaving mine free to explore. So, I do. I let my fingers drift, skimming his plush lower lip.
“Your lips,” I whisper. He nods, eyes on me. Then he parts them, licks the pad of my thumb, and I go up in flames.
How many women have kissed him?
That senseless, irrational jealousy surges. There are people out there who know what it’s like to kiss my Parker. It’s unfair. Maddening.
I push the tip of my finger just past his lips. “Bite me.”
He grins around my finger and nips at it.
The sting sends a shockwave through my body, down my arms and legs to settle between my thighs.
This hot, throbbing bundle of energy just inches from where Parker stands.
I can’t remember ever being this dizzyingly turned on.
Rational thought has gone straight out the window.
I take back my finger, loving the scrape of his teeth on my skin. My hand trails down, over his jaw just to feel it pulse beneath my fingers. Down his neck to his bare chest, feeling it rise and fall so rapidly, it gives away that he’s just as turned on as I am.
Parker watches my hand trail along his upper arm, squeezing, testing the muscle. His massive palms grip above my knees. Squeeze, slide up, squeeze, and up again until his fingertips skim the edge of my towel.
“Your skin’s so soft.” Parker leans into me.
His lips touch the side of my neck, press a kiss under my ear.
I whimper. Feel that kiss turn into a smile against my skin.
He does it again, and I arch my neck, giving him more room to play while my hands roam his body.
Over his shoulders, past his racing heart.
Down his stomach, counting six flawless pockets of muscle that tense under my touch.
Parker stays put on my body, hands still gripping my upper thighs.
Lips and teeth teasing the spot that earned him that first whimper until I give him another.
But when my fingers reach farther down, all ten going still right above the waistband of his shorts, he releases a ragged breath.
He’s hard and pushing his cock into my inner thigh.
My breaths come out in shallow bursts. How ridiculous is that? He’s barely touched me, and not at all where it counts. His hands have stalled just inches from my pussy and it pulses furiously, demanding attention.
His attention. No one else’s would do it.
Parker pulls away, breathing hard. His eyes have gone hazy, blinking slow, staring right at my mouth. I read the question there clear as day. Should we?
A storm swells in my head, warning of mistakes and broken friendships and hurt feelings. But it feels so good. So damn good to have this kind of effect on him.
I want it. I want him. Fuck it.
I reach for his hips, tug him closer, so close there’s just a sliver of air left between our lips. Parker cups the back of my neck. Brushes his lips with mine.
And we both gasp, spring apart, at the devasting sound of footsteps marching down the hall. Coming closer by the second.
“Goddamn it.” Parker’s head tips back so he can glare at the ceiling. “I’m going to kill him.”
“What? Kill who?” My nails dig into his sides. The footsteps seem to be coming from the direction of the pool, tracing our exact path down the hall. I peer down between us. Parker’s bulge is absurdly obvious. Impossible to disguise. “Should we hide? We should hide.”
Parker calmly tugs my towel back into place, wrapping it over my swimsuit top before adjusting his shorts. “It’s okay. Summer, it’s fine.”
I leap off the desk. “It’s fine? It’s fine that we’re about to get caught breaking into our high school?” I clap my hands over my cheeks. “Oh my God, we’re going to prison. This is so not ideal.”
Parker laughs. I really thought he’d been doing better mentally, but it’s clear now he’s got several loose screws.
The footsteps outside stop. I tense, grip Parker’s arm, say a little prayer that the local jail has a two-for-one bail special so that our friends are less likely to murder us when they get our phone calls.
“Parker,” a male voice hisses. A security guard I recognize as Herbert Ambrose, who’s lived in town for as long as I can remember, pops his head into our classroom. He lifts a hand in… greeting? “I’m afraid you’re out of time. My replacement arrives in fifteen minutes.”
“What the hell’s going on?” I mutter to Parker, letting him adjust my towel to make sure I’m fully covered up, though Herbert has politely diverted his gaze to the far wall.
“Thanks, Herb.” Parker goes to sort through his backpack and hands Herb a handful of cash. “Same time tomorrow?”
Herb flips through the bills. “You bet. You two have a good night. Head back out through the side door.”
“Parker,” I whisper once we’re alone again and hurrying through the silent school. “You’re bribing security to let us use the pool? I thought we were breaking in!”
Parker tosses me a smile over his shoulder. “That’s what I call personal growth, baby.”
I let my laugh bounce off the lockers, all kinds of dangerous, fizzy feelings swirling inside me. Only Parker freaking Woods would proudly evolve from breaking and entering to bribing authorities.
I wouldn’t have him any other way.