Chapter 24 Summer
I fly down the dim, carpeted hall toward the grand staircase at the front of the inn, furious with myself and doing my best to be quiet as I pass rooms on either side of me.
I’m supposed to be keeping my head while Parker’s clearly lost his. And I’d been doing a fine job of it since the first night back in our high school, until some sadistic being canceled the second room I’d been counting on.
Until he went and got those stupid, utterly ridiculous glasses. Just to watch me surf.
Until he confessed…
It’d been one of the hardest times of my life, the first time I ever saw a Hawaiian shirt on him.
Trying to come to terms with my mother’s affair while also enduring the relentless whispers around town.
I’d been bursting into tears at random intervals all week long, alternating between fury on Dad’s behalf, crushing disappointment in my own mother’s behavior, and mourning the end of life as I knew it.
I’d skipped school for days, trying to escape the curious eyes of my peers.
Eventually, it sunk in—really sunk in—for Dad what she’d been doing.
And the tension at home exploded into shouting matches and tears and slamming doors, to the point that being around my parents felt even more unbearable than the gossiping.
So I dragged myself to class. And there Parker was, waiting for me by the school’s front doors, wearing a Hawaiian shirt I recognized as his dad’s—a truly incomprehensible pattern of lobsters, lightning bolts, and bananas that had me crying laughing when I first saw it on Brian.
It’s probably, to this day, the hardest I’ve laughed in my life.
And on that miserable morning, I saw Parker wearing that stupid shirt and couldn’t keep a damn smile off my face.
Why is it that I never noticed it until now? On my worst days, my hardest days, my most confusing days. For as long as I can remember, he’s shown up wearing one of those shirts. And it always makes me smile.
I touch my cheek, right over the place Parker just held me.
The last thing I want is to ruin the only stable relationship in my life.
I still don’t understand where any of this is coming from for Parker; why he’s gone years not looking at me twice—not in that way, at least—only to never look away now.
Most of all, I’m furious with myself for getting swept up in it.
For wanting him. For the way my heart tugs whenever he touches me. For the question that’s wormed its way into my brain, asking… why not Parker?
I’m walking fast, damn near breaking a sweat, with no idea or care as to where I’m going so long as I locate reserves of the good sense I seem to have misplaced. At the very least, I need to make it out of the door before—
“Summer.” Parker’s hushed voice carries down the hall.
A peek over my shoulder shows him hurrying after me with a dark bundle in his hands.
He even had the gall to put his glasses back on.
The dark frames bracket his gorgeous eyes, selling fantasies of a hot-as-hell nerd who’ll whisper filth in your ear as he fucks you hard, then cuddle you with your noses in a book after you’re good and wrecked.
Dream scenario, honestly.
I turn a corner, the staircase now within sight. “Go back to bed, Parker.”
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“In your tiny pajamas?”
I pause just before the double staircase leading down to the foyer. Parker drags me through an archway a few feet away, into a dimly lit nook with armchairs, cut off from the rest of the hall. He unravels the mass of fabric and hands me an oversized sweater I recognize as his.
He takes a knee on the musty carpet, holding a pair of sandals, and grips my ankle. “Come on, Prescott.”
“Don’t.” I step away, unable to stand the feel of him. My back hits the nook wall.
“Don’t save you from sepsis?”
“Don’t do things. Don’t be thoughtful. Don’t almost kiss me. And don’t smile at me with those damn glasses on.”
Parker rises, dimples out full force. “They really do it for you, huh?”
“Go back to bed, Parker.”
His head tilts playfully. “That an order, Miss Prescott?”
“Yes. Go. Now, Parker.” I splutter, trying to grasp onto anything halfway coherent. A task that becomes increasingly impossible with every slow step Parker takes toward me.
“Come with me.” His gaze rakes down my body, from the tips of my braids down to my bare toes, glazing me in warm, sticky honey that suddenly makes it impossible to move.
The sweater I’d been holding falls to our feet.
“Come back to bed and tell me what you thought would happen when you canceled the second room.”
“I did not—” I clamp my mouth shut when his twists with renewed mirth. He’s teasing me, so shamelessly needling me. Why the hell can’t I stop walking into it? I take fistfuls of his shirt and drive him back toward the hall. “You are so damn—”
“Handsome?”
“Infuriating. You don’t want me, okay? You’re going through something.” I don’t know which of us I’m saying this to. “You—you’re confused. And I’m trying really hard to be a good friend to you.”
“Friends kiss all the time. It’s an old saying. Can’t remember where I heard it.”
“And what?” I fire back, stopping dead. There’s no good reason to be breathing this hard. Other than the war waging within me, making my fists clench tighter around his shirt. “We become friends who kiss? Just like that?”
Parker’s right dimple deepens, damn him. “Good idea. Let’s start there.”
He’s doing his best to rile me up, get under my skin. Make me lose my goddamn mind over those dimples, and his hair, and his stupid fucking glasses.
I can’t stand them.
Can’t figure out how to stop wanting him.
How to make my head stop spinning, and my heart stop thumping. How to make my hands stop shaking with absolute, mind-numbing, maddening want for him.
Our noses are mere inches apart. Parker’s lusty gaze falls to my mouth, goes a little desperate.
And that’s the very last thing I see before surging up on my toes.
Oh my God, his lips are so soft. So warm, so—
I’m so absorbed in the shocking sensation of feeling him like this, this man I’ve known since we were kids, that I forget what to do. How to do this, how to kiss. I stand there frozen on the tips of my toes, fists braced against his chest, feeling his heart pump wildly beneath them.
Parker doesn’t forget how.
His mouth parts just slightly, sucking on my lower lip so softly it startles me. His tongue sweeps the seam of my mouth, gently, seeking permission, and it’s not…
It’s nothing like I’d ever have anticipated it would be to kiss him. Because this is him, bull-in-a-china-shop Parker. Act first, think later Parker. I thought if anyone would kiss with chaos, it’d be him. Hands everywhere, uninhibited sounds. Not a care for who’s watching the indecency unfold.
What he gives me, though? It’s so much fucking better than that.
I come to my senses, part my lips for him, and he takes the opening without hesitation.
He grazes my tongue with his, cups my cheek, brings us closer and kisses me deeper.
It’s soft and careful and everything my racing mind needs in this moment.
He kisses me like only a best friend could.
Like he’s in my head with me, patiently watching an angry storm of panicked thoughts swirl around us.
For every internal shout of what have I done?
he gives me a quieting press of his lips.
Every there’s no coming back from this he meets with a soothing brush of his thumb on my cheek.
At you’ve just ruined the friendship, he gives a salacious lick of his tongue, answering isn’t this so much better, though?
The hammering in my chest concurs. So does the way Parker sighs into my mouth when I sink my fingers into his hair. See? that sigh says. So much fucking better.
That’s it. With a gentle nip to my lip, that’s all I get before Parker pulls away to rest his forehead against mine.
His blue eyes are as lusty as I’ve ever seen them. Dark, needy, and staring right into my soul. “That’s how you kiss?”
I inch away. “Was it bad?”
“For my sanity, maybe.”
His eyes search mine and this time, I’m the one to read his mind. Are we good?
Good isn’t even the half of it. That felt real. Right. There’s a fresh wave of thoughts in my head, all of them demanding we do it again. Wondering whether it felt this right for him, too.
Typical me. One kiss and I’ve dropped the leash, letting my feelings run rampant. Picturing candlelit dinners. Love confessions. Diamond rings and grandchildren. All with Parker.
But damn if it isn’t a pretty picture—and such a natural, seemingly inevitable evolution of our existing life together, that I’m wondering what the hell I’ve been doing not picturing this with Parker.
From where I’m standing now, it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
A surge of nerves forces a laugh out of my mouth and Parker’s face falls, shoulders drop. But then his gaze sweeps over the rest of me. The way I can’t catch my breath, haven’t let go of his hair.
His brows pull together. “You’re nervous. That’s a nervous laugh.”
Parker places another soft kiss to my lips as though testing a theory.
I moan. He pulls back.
I giggle. He smiles.
And then he rips the glasses off his face, and he’s kissing me again, and heat bursts inside me, covering every inch of my body.
His fingers inch down, thumb my hips, curl into my ass, and he tugs me up into his body so that my toes barely touch the ground, walking me back into our hidden nook until I hit the wall.
This is it, the chaos. Pure greed and hedonism. And I’m right there with him.
I arch my back, pressing as deep into his firm body as I can.
The fingers in his hair twist, tug. He groans into my mouth, and I have no idea where we are anymore.
No idea what we’re doing and why. All I care about is hearing that sound again, that needy, desperate sound—desperate for me in a way I’ve never felt before.
It’s never been like this.
Of the hundreds of kisses I’ve had in my life, none of them have ever felt this way.
Like a million butterflies awakening deep inside me, stretching their wings, pleased to have been summoned at last. Flying upward in unison, jamming the base of my throat, making it impossible to draw a single breath.
My leg hooks around his hip and with a rumble from deep in his chest, Parker lifts me up.
Once I’m secured, his hand wanders up my waist, taking my shirt with him as his palm closes around my breast. A single swipe of his thumb over my nipple, and the small room echoes with my moan.
My own hands wander over his stomach, lower, until I graze his straining cock.
With a ragged gasp, Parker grabs my wrists and pins them against the wall at my sides. “Fuck, Summer. Go easy on me, please.”
“Your dick disagrees.” I shift until my clit meets his hard length, eliciting a groan.
“I can feel how wet you are.” His lips find mine, and I’m torn. I want to kiss him, but my body now seems to be operating on a power source solely consisting of his groans and I can’t help grinding on him, drawing out more of them. “Goddamn, Summer, you’re soaking through our clothes.”
“So are you.” I can feel it, the sticky mess we’re making as we move together. I fight against his hold on my wrists, wanting to touch him, but Parker doubles his grip, keeping me trapped to the wall. I moan loudly, and it’s silly, embarrassing that something so simple would do it for me like this.
But this feeling—being tied down, being kept, it’s—
Parker nips my neck. “You ever been tied up, Summer?”
I shake my head.
“You know why I like doing it?”
Another shake.
“It takes away the distractions. Lets me focus on the good stuff.” He drags his cock over my pussy and I gasp.
“Yeah, that. Do you know how long I’ve been dying to hear your sounds?
To watch you crumble underneath me? I’d get to do that over and over, for as long as I want to hear them.
Until you can’t take anymore. It’s all I want, you know? ”
I’m trembling from the in-fighting between my head, my heart, and the pulse in my clit, wanting that—wanting him so damn badly. Parker sucks on a sensitive spot on my neck—the one he discovered after our first late-night swim.
And my next words tumble out of me before I have a chance to think them through.
“Show me.”