Chapter 32 Parker
In my defense, I find a way to grasp onto my last remaining shred of restraint and actually knock on Summer’s door instead of barging in unannounced.
“Parker?” Summer’s hand lands on her cheek, a physical manifestation of her shock.
I don’t have very much to my name. But I’d give up every single thing I own just to be able to cup her cheek like that, whenever I want.
To freely count the freckles dotting her soft skin.
I want to exist in the crook of her neck, inhaling that floral scent.
I want to kiss her again, so damn badly it physically hurts.
I lean a shoulder on her doorframe. She looks perfect as always, with her signature messy waves and glossy lips. Just so pretty, I can’t help but smile. “Hey. I really missed you.”
She chuckles, and it’s a little dismissive. My stomach goes tight, thinking of those tense minutes on the phone. I should’ve said something right then and there.
I won’t be making that mistake again.
“Summer? Anything I can help with?” Grant calls from inside.
I nod at the hallway behind her. “He seems nice.”
“Yeah, he’s—”
“Get rid of him.”
Her lips pop open. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I lean in so close I can practically feel the fury building inside her. “Get rid of him, or I’ll do it for you.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You told me to—”
I slip past her and kick off my sneakers. Her living room is back to normal. The only evidence left of my foolish attempt at our first date is the length of twinkle lights coiled into a ball, sitting on her bookcase.
There are two beer bottles on the glass coffee table. Grant sits relaxed on the sofa with an arm slung across the back, wearing a pristine pair of dark jeans, a polo shirt, and a look of surprise as I stroll into the room.
It goes from surprised to incredulous when I drop onto the seat cushion closest to his, so that his arm hangs over my shoulders. I yank off my hat, flinging it over his beer bottle like I’m at a carnival ring toss.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am to crash your date. But I didn’t know where else to go.” I heave a hopeless sigh, sinking into the cushion behind me and forcing contact with Grant’s outstretched arm. Slowly, he retracts it. “I’ve been feeling really… ill.”
The front door slams and Summer comes to a stop at the mouth of the hallway. “Parker, can I speak to you?”
“I’m so faint. And… hot. I’m overheating. I can’t get my body temperature down. Grant, feel my forehead.” I lean toward him. After a beat, and with a wrinkle of mild disgust in his face, he touches the back of his hand to my forehead.
“It feels fine—”
“But I’m so hot.” I tug at the front of my shirt and waft myself with it. Summer crosses her arms. “And my throat feels like there’s an army of fire ants living in it.” I clear my throat as repulsively as I can. Grant inches away from me.
“Parker.” There’s an edge of warning in Summer’s voice. I’m pretty sure she’s going to lunge straight for my throat the moment I manage to get rid of this guy.
I widen my eyes in despair, keeping them on Grant. “And then there’s the hiccups.”
Grant stares skeptically. “You haven’t hiccupped once since you—”
I hack a cough, making it sound as loud and painful as possible. Grant recoils into the sofa arm. “It comes and goes. Grant, I’m scared. What d’you think’s wrong with me?”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s a cold?”
Summer mutters something under her breath. I think I catch words like murder and grave.
“A cold with hiccups? Did I mention the hives?” I look around at Summer, who’s shooting me absolute fucking daggers from where she’s standing. I deserve a medal for keeping a straight face. “Isn’t this what Don at the gym had a few months ago?”
Her nails bite into her upper arms as she very clearly battles the urge to throttle me. “I don’t think—”
“No, it was. Remember? He was sick as a dog, just like this. Took him forever to recover.” I turn to Grant. “He ended up making a full recovery, thank God. But Kendra caught it from him and died four days later.”
Grant shoots to his feet. “I think I’m going to head out.”
“Grant—”
“That’s probably for the best,” I tell him. “You never know with these things.”
“I had a good time tonight, despite the…” Grant pauses in front of Summer. When he leans in, reaching for her, I perform an especially nauseating cough until he rethinks the foolishness. “I’ll just let myself out.”
I wave at him. “Bye, now.”
With a parting look of murder, Summer follows him to the door. I strain my ears for any hint of kissing, but all I hear are a couple of hushed words before the door clicks shut and Summer marches back into the living room.
I sigh, settling comfortably into the couch. “Shall we put on a movie? We haven’t watched Sleepless in Seattle in a while.”
“Parker, what the hell?” Fury radiates off her as she reaches for a throw pillow and whacks me in the arm with it.
“Ow! Is that any way to treat your sickly best friend?”
“You aren’t sick!” Whack. “You’re an infuriating.” Whack. “Cockblocking.” Whack. “Ass.”
The humor melts off my face. “You’re telling me you were going to fuck that guy?”
Whack. “We were on a—”
“Don’t say it.” I take hold of the cushion and tug it out of her grasp. “Don’t fucking say that word to me.”
“He told me he’s had a thing for me for three years.” She wields the words triumphantly.
“Is that all?” I scoff. I’ve loved Summer Prescott one way or another all my life. But good for Grant and his little three-year crush.
“It’s romantic,” she insists. “You know what’s not romantic?”
“Having a three-year crush and not asking you out because you volunteered together a couple months out of the year?”
“Telling me to go on this date, and then crashing it because you’ve suddenly decided that you’re territorial.” She throws out her arms. “You have absolutely no say in who I date or fuck, least of all when you keep making moves on me only to—”
I bark a laugh. “I keep making moves on you? Love, you’re the one who asked me to tie you up.”
“As though you didn’t jump at the chance.” Her glare turns derisive. “And you’re the one who crashed my date.”
“What did I say about using that word?”
“Date. The date I was on with Grant. Does that make you mad, Parker?”
She’s trying to provoke me. Into leaving or making a move, I can’t tell. “I’m not mad. I’m fucking furious.”
I catch her wrist, tugging until she falls into my lap.
She lands with the sweetest gasp, straddling me, her dress riding up.
Watching the lust weave with that mean little look does something wicked to my body.
Summer looks like she’s in the mood to take a bite out of me.
Tug my hair, rake her fingernails over my skin and make it hurt a little.
And fuck, that’s all I want. All I need. My cock swells at the feel of her hips against mine. There’s no way she doesn’t feel it pressing into her thigh.
With an irritated huff, Summer runs her fingertips down my chest, settling her palms on my stomach. “Chocolate cake,” she mumbles to herself.
“Beg your pardon?”
“You.” She glares at the shirt beneath her fingers, as though speaking directly to my abs.
“It’s like living with a slice of chocolate cake for a shadow, making myself ignore it for years and years.
And then I have a taste and suddenly it’s all I can think of.
” Summer shakes her head at me. “Don’t smile.
Nothing you’ve done tonight warrants a smile. ”
“I couldn’t disagree more.” I rake back the hair on both sides of her face, tucking the strands behind her ears before settling my gaze on her lips. Perfect, plump, shiny from a swipe of her tongue. “Feels like the best decision I ever made.”
She stares at me a quiet moment. “He asked me out and you didn’t tell me to stay.”
“He asked you out and you said yes.”
“So what do you want from me, Parker?”
I withhold a laugh, sensing it would earn me another pillow beatdown.
The list of things I’d like from Summer Prescott is a lengthy one, beginning with her assurance that she never intended to bed that moron, and ending with me on my deathbed at a hundred years old, with her wedding band on my finger and her sweet face telling me goodbye.
“I want to talk,” I say instead.
“Bullshit.”
Summer leans in and lays one on me. And this kiss, it’s nothing like it was in that hallway, when she clammed up, let me take the reins until she found her footing and kissed me back.
This time, Summer doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t surrender control.
She parts my lips with hers, tongue slicking against mine.
Gets her fingers in my hair and goddamn, I’ve never felt anything like it.
It’s surge after surge of fire through my body.
Relentless, merciless flames that burn hotter with every scrape of her nails on my scalp.
With every soft sigh and needy moan she unleashes against my lips.
She pulls back to draw a breath and I’m an empty husk of a man.
Then she breathes life right back into me when she sucks on my lip again.
I coax her up onto her knees so that she’s kissing me from above, loving the feel of her owning me physically.
Just like she owns my every waking thought and heartbeat.
My past, with the way I unwittingly built my entire life around her.
My future, and the way I want to become everything she wants in a man.
Summer holds the sides of my face, kissing me hard. Her thighs are bare, so soft underneath my palms. I squeeze them to keep from moving higher but it’s a whole damn struggle. I want to fuck her, bad. But I also want to kiss her, just like this. No breaks until the sun comes up.
I seem to be alone in that. Summer pull backs, panting softly. “Still want to talk, Park?”
“Ah…” Her mouth tilts when my expression returns what I imagine to be a single question mark. My head is nothing but whooshing air and tumbleweeds. She’s kissed the brain cells out of me. “Yes. Talk, I want to talk. To you. About things.”
Which things, again?
“So talk, Park.”
“Were you…” I mean to ask for crystal clear confirmation that I never had anything to worry about with Grant.
That there was no plausible scenario where I’d find him skulking out of her building at the crack of dawn, because God knows I’d have stayed up all night, holding vigil for his blessed departure.
But Summer flicks her hair over her shoulder and that floral scent drills a hole into my skull.
And out pours whatever’s left of my brain. “Goddamn it, Summer, I can’t…”
“Can’t what?” She presses wet kisses up my neck. I never thought this could feel so otherworldly. Every touch of those soft lips breaks me down until I’m delirious with want.
“That perfume.” I take a handful of her hair, making sure she doesn’t pull away before I’ve had my fill. “You smell like a wild garden. Like dusk and depraved sexual rituals.”
“That’s very specific.”
“Do you understand what that perfume does to me? Do you have any idea at all?”
“I have an idea.” She squirms in my lap, nudging the bulge insisting we do away with our clothes. “Is this what you sat me here to talk about? My perfume?”
“Yes.” That’s not quite right. My brain churns, desperately searching for clarity. “No. I want you to tell me you weren’t going to fuck that guy.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Triumph and relief surge through me.
“Why not?”
“Why did you barge in here to chase him away?” she counters.
We sit in a standoff, staring at each other until Summer cups the back of my neck, trying to kiss me again—rather, to absolve herself from answering.
I grab both her wrists and wrench her arms behind her back. That seems to piss her off but I know it turns her on, too. I remember exactly how much she shivered with need last weekend, when I’d bound her exactly this way. She makes a growl of frustration when I jerk out of reach.
“Tell me, Summer. Tell me what those greedy little growls mean.” I take both her wrists in one hand and run a thumb over her nipple.
“Tell me why these beautiful tits are begging for attention. Tell me that if you lifted that pretty pussy off my lap, I wouldn’t find you soaking wet.
Throbbing, begging me to fill you past your breaking point. ”
Summer grits her jaw. I’m dangerously close to her snapping but I can’t help myself. I love goading her. Pushing her buttons like no one else can.
I sit back comfortably against the sofa, still trapping her hands. “Go on, Summer. Tell your best friend how bad you want to fuck him.”
I’m not surprised when, with another angry growl, she wrenches out of my grip. Not at all surprised when she gets to her feet, tosses me my hat, and points to her front door.
“Get the hell out.”