Epilogue #2
We close out the night at two a.m., alongside the last men and women standing. Long after Elly and Grammercy have left on their long-delayed honeymoon, his brother Grant and his pack of kids have headed to their hotel room, and Beanie and Schwartz have taken Mimi back to Beanie’s place.
Because even Beanie is getting laid more often than I am.
Grammercy’s agent fucking sold his house in L.A. and moved to NOLA to shack up with his mom. And I’m glad for her. I am. According to Grammercy, Beanie’s never had the love a fine ass woman like her deserves.
I hope Schwartz delivers.
But I hope Makena gives me the chance to deliver even more.
So far, we haven’t said a word after those first two sentences. Not a single word. Not with our lips, anyway. But her eyes on mine, her head on my chest, her fingers gripping my hand tight as she pulls me through the kitchen after the last dance is through…they’ve all told me I’m not crazy.
There’s something here between us.
Something undeniable.
We slip out through the double doors at the back of the kitchen, and the night hits us like a slap in the face.
It’s pouring rain, fucking pouring , the kind of hot and heavy drops that only come from a Louisiana summer sky.
The alley is empty, surprisingly clean, and lit only by a single flickering lamp by the back door.
But there’s plenty of light to see the way the rain plasters Makena’s dress to her skin as she steps out into the downpour. The way it makes that peach silk so transparent, I can instantly make out the outline of her nipples beneath the fabric.
Christ, she’s sexy as fuck, so hot I have to work to rip my gaze back to her face when she finally speaks.
“I’m so mad at you,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the rain slapping at the pavement.
I blink. “Wait, what? Why?”
“Because you live rent-free in my head, road meat,” she says, the longing in her eyes taking the sting out of the words.
“Seven and a half months, Parker. Seven and a half months and I still can’t stop thinking about your stupid lips and your stupid face and the way you looked at me like I’ve always wanted someone to look at me and?—”
I cut her off with a kiss.
Hey, it worked the first time, and I can’t fucking help it. She’s wet and wants me, and is so sexy I can hardly stand it. When my mouth finds hers, she makes a sound—half shocked gasp, half groan of relief—that shoots straight through me. Because I feel the same fucking way.
There’s never been a connection like this for me.
No woman has ever made me rock hard with a single touch, made me dream about her for months, made me ache for her like I ache for simpler times and easier roads and a point in my life when my family resembled a sitcom more than a late-night drama.
And no, looking back, I never had that. My parents’ love was always a lie, but this isn’t. This is real, the first completely real thing I’ve ever felt with a woman.
I want her so fucking bad it’s almost scary.
We stumble backward, her hands fisting in my soaked dress shirt, clawing for my skin. My back hits the stone wall of the hotel hard enough to knock the breath from me, but we don’t stop kissing.
I stroke my tongue harder, deeper, as she matches me, challenges me, dances with me.
Fuck, we’re good at dancing.
We’re going to be good at fucking, too, no doubt in my mind.
My hand finds her thigh through the slit in her dress, her bare skin hot despite the rain. I grip her there, jerking her leg up around my hip, and we groan.
She rocks against my thigh, both of us shuddering as her pussy grinds into my erection, and I wish for the superpower to make fabric evaporate with everything in me.
“I hate this,” she says, but her lips are already on mine again, desperate, hungry.
“No, you don’t.” I slide my hand higher on her thigh, fingers creeping beneath the elastic of her panties. “You need this. You need it as much as I do.”
She bites my bottom lip hard enough to sting, then soothes it with her tongue. I tangle my other hand in her soaked curls, but fuck, they’re still so soft. As soft as her lips and her tits against my chest.
She’s going to be so soft and slick and hot around me.
Just thinking about it has me so hard it hurts.
“We should stop,” she gasps, even as she opens the buttons of my shirt like she can’t get to my skin fast enough.
“Probably,” I agree, kissing down her throat, tasting rain and salt and need.
Neither of us stops or slows for a second, though. If anything, we get more frantic. I palm her breast through the wet fabric of her dress, then jerk it down, baring her nipple to me, the night, the rain.
She makes a genuinely startled sound, and suddenly we both seem to realize that we’re on the verge of something we can’t take back.
She freezes.
Our eyes lock.
We’re both breathing like we’ve run a marathon. Her lipstick is gone, her mouth is all swollen from my kisses, and my shirt hangs open from where she’s torn at it.
The rain keeps falling, but time stops.
In her eyes, I see everything I’m feeling. I see it, and I know that she knows there’s no escaping this. We’re meant to be. At least for now. At least for tonight.
Fuck, God, if you’re up there, let her take me home tonight.
She holds my gaze for one more heart-stopping second, but just when I think she’s going to tell me to go get my truck and the biggest box of condoms in the hotel shop on the way to the valet stand, she turns and runs.
She fucking runs!
Away!
From me!
Runs away through the fucking rain like this is a stupid, sad movie instead of a hot rom-com where we’re totally going to fuck like bunnies, be sad for ten seconds over some dumb misunderstanding, then keep fucking happily ever after for the rest of our lives!
“Makena, don’t you dare!” I shout, but she’s already disappearing around the corner. “Makena!”
Everything in me wants to chase after her, but I know better. If she wanted to be here, she would.
But she doesn’t .
Why?
I don’t fucking know, but it seems like something a hell of a lot more intense than the fact that we have a tiny, insignificant age gap and she used to cut the crusts off my grilled cheese when she was my babysitter fifteen years ago.
Maybe she’ll tell me about whatever that “more” is someday.
Maybe she won’t.
For now…I’m left holding my aching meat stick.
Again.
But she kissed me back. That’s the hope kernel I hold onto when I finally head inside, dripping puddles through the kitchen on my way back to the ballroom to find my tux coat.
She kissed me back like she’s been dying to for over seven months.
Like she’s been living with the same ache, the same certainty that we’re meant to crash into each other until it sticks.
That isn’t goodbye…because she didn’t say goodbye.
She just ran.
But she ran last time, too, and she still asked me to dance and gave me one of the best nights of my life. And we barely said a word.
Imagine how much fun we’ll have when our smart mouths get in on the action?
Nah, this isn’t the end. This is just the beginning of whatever chaotic fuckery we’re going to get up to together.
I hope it’s kinky.
And wild.
And, as cheesily romantic as I know it sounds…I hope it lasts forever .