Chapter Twenty-eight – Be Your Everything
Chapter Twenty-eight
Parker
BE YOUR EVERYTHING
Performed by Boys Like Girls
FIVE YEARS AGO
HIM: You know what girlie pop song I hate most?
HER: ‘Thinking Out Loud’?
HIM: That’s a good guess for many of the same reasons. But no, it’s ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.’ Every frickin’ time it comes on, some girl thinks I should sing it to her.
HER: Stop wearing your Navy Whites to the bar, and you’ll eliminate half the problem.
PRESENT DAY
I woke from a nightmare where Will’s face contorted just as the bomb went off at his feet.
The agony of knowing he was dead before I could even make it across the charred street to his side still filled me as my eyes flew open.
It took a few seconds for the warmth at my side to bring me back from the dark of that moment.
To bring me back to the Harrington ranch, with me in Fallon’s bed, having agreed to marry her.
We’d fallen asleep with the television on, the sound muted, and now the screen flickered, sending a wash of light and dark across the room as Buffy and her friends tried once again to save the day.
Fallon’s head rested on my shoulder, her side tucked into mine.
Sometime during the night, my hand had spread wide over her stomach, as if I was already trying to protect the life growing inside her.
A baby. A little piece of Fallon who would be impossible not to love, just as it was impossible not to love Fallon herself.
Because that was the simple truth. I loved her.
I wasn’t sure there’d been a moment since she’d been brought into my life that I hadn’t.
It may not have been the kind of love it was today, the unyielding, all-consuming love that fueled desire and passion and hope, but it had always been love.
She thought I was doing this to protect her and the baby and maybe as a way of shrugging out from under the burden of caring for Theo alone. And while all of that was true, none of those were the real reason I’d said yes.
When she’d suggested getting married, everything in my world had righted itself after weeks of feeling scattered.
The puzzle had slid together into a perfect whole right next to the flashes of family I found myself craving.
I absolutely wanted a life with Fallon. I wanted to wake up at her side and face the challenges of the world next to her.
I wanted her bravery and determination to fuel me every day, making me a better man. I wanted to be worthy of her.
This wasn’t me accepting a new obligation.
This was me being lucky enough to catch a falling star and keep it.
She needed to know it. She needed to hear it from me.
But she wasn’t ready.
If I pushed and told her now that I loved her, she’d think it was my way of making her feel better about forcing this marriage on me.
I didn’t feel forced. If anything, I felt relieved.
This was what I wanted. Her.
I’d tell her, and soon, but not yet. I’d wait until I was sure she’d really hear it.
Besides, I still had some decisions to make.
I wasn’t sure why it had taken me so long to realize making Fallon smile, making her laugh, making her climax, and giving her the partner she deserved was more important than any mission I’d ever done for my country.
Serving hundreds of millions of people would never be as important as serving one.
It would never be as important as making a woman who’d always felt like an obligation feel like she was my very reason for breathing .
I’d been so focused, so closed-minded in my pursuit of my career goal, I’d missed what was really important.
It wasn’t the mission. It was what you came home to.
That was why my house had always felt so empty when I’d gotten home.
Your loved ones were the reason you were fighting when you were out in the field, because you were fighting for their freedom to love and laugh and thrive. Being home with them was the reward.
The question was, would I risk Fallon’s happiness, Theo’s, and the baby’s by continuing to put myself in danger?
Could I step back onto the tarmac, get on a plane, and carry a gun into a battle, knowing I might not come home to them?
Did I even want that for myself? Or was I just holding on to an oath to a dying man?
I loved being part of the teams. I loved every minute we spent challenging each other to be better than the best and to accomplish the impossible as a unit. I loved the actual work and the camaraderie that came with it.
What would I do if I wasn’t a SEAL?
Ride on the coattails of my heiress wife?
It would be no better than JJ wanting Fallon for her money.
A sour taste ran through my mouth at that thought. Metallic. Ugly.
Dad was stepping down, retiring from Marquess Enterprises, and Noah was taking over for him. I could easily go to work for them and fill in any holes, but that thought didn’t bring me joy.
Fallon shifted next to me, and a little breathy exhale drew my gaze to her face.
She was so goddamn beautiful. Dazzling asleep, but even more so when she was awake and that vibrant energy filled her, drove her, sparkled from her.
It had mostly been missing since I’d arrived at the ranch.
I’d seen mere hints of it, and I was determined to bring it back full time, to ensure those rays shifted out of her like confetti—like fucking fireworks—every single day.
I’d do anything to make it happen.
Her eyelids fluttered as she dragged herself from the sleeping world to the real one. When she was fully awake, her gaze locked on mine. Surprise lit those warm depths and then a small smile. “I thought it was all a dream. ”
I brushed my lips lightly over hers. Hunger raged through me. How long would I be able to wait before I couldn’t hold back any longer? A day? Two?
Before I knew it, I was softly singing the lines from “House of Sleep” about never sleeping alone and about my real dreams.
She swallowed hard, a soft and wistful look in her eyes, even though her tone was all saucy tease when she spoke. “You really singing Amorphis to me this early in the morning, Kermit? It’s no ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,’ so you must really want my morning sickness to turn into actual vomit.”
I chuckled. “There’s hope for you yet if you at least recognize the song and artist. I won’t give up hope of making a metalhead out of you before the end of the next decade.”
“Fat chance. Country will always be where it’s at, but I’ll take some eighties and nineties pop songs as an alternative.”
I nipped at her bottom lip in response, and when I went to pull away, she locked me to her with a hand to the back of my head just like I’d done with her last night.
She deepened the kiss, tongue sliding inside, demanding I respond.
It was no sacrifice to do just that. I rolled her on her back and lost myself in the taste and feel and smell of her, hands and mouth and teeth discovering all the spots on her that made her pulse race beneath my fingertips.
I spent an eternity savoring the simplicity of our kiss before I realized it wasn’t going to be enough. Not this morning. Not with the realizations I’d made while she’d slept.
I needed to give her something. I needed to start showing her exactly what I felt. What I wanted. The life I needed to have at her side.
When I yanked the thin straps of her tank down and moved my mouth to a taut tip, she gasped.
And that sound filled me with as much determination as it did lust. I might not take her fully, I might not plant myself inside her as hard and deep as I wanted to, but I would give her a memory to hold on to. Relief. Respite. Joy.
As I continued my devotion to her breasts, my palm slid under her sleep shorts, diving below the waistband of her underwear to find the sweet heat at her core. She arched into me, a moan escaping .
I pulled back to take in the sight of her, eyes flashing with fire.
And the look of her this way, flush and warm and sleepy, just about sent me over the edge like some pubescent boy at his first make-out session.
I took her mouth once more. Devouring. Claiming. Cherishing. All the while, my fingers soothed and circled and plunged.
“Parker,” she keened as if trying to hold back, as if trying to collect herself.
“Let go, Fallon. Let go of it all for a few seconds and just feel. The slide of my hand. The quiver building inside.” I kissed her with long, slow strokes of my tongue that echoed the movement of my fingers.
“The exquisite moment when the light explodes, and there’s nothing else but this. Me. You. Bliss.”
I’d barely finished the words before her body convulsed, and she let out a gorgeous little cry that made me want to start all over again just to hear it on repeat for the rest of my life.
When every single quiver had been eked from her, my hands stilled, and I watched as her lids fluttered open. Flames burned within those depths, as if the climax she’d just experienced had done nothing but fan the fire rather than sate it.
Damn, did I want to spend the rest of the day getting lost in that blaze. I wanted to go up in smoke right along with her.
Instead, I pulled away. I rolled off the bed, adjusted my painfully hard dick, and then looked down at her with a grin.
“Get your ass up, Ducky. We have a long drive ahead of us. If we make good time, I figure you can be my wife by twenty hundred hours.”
She sat up, brushed at her hair, and then crawled over on all fours to the edge of the bed.
My mouth went dry as she kneeled in front of me, placing one hand on my chest. “Are you trying to make an honest woman of me before you take me, Kermit?” She squeezed me through my jeans. “It’s a little too late for that.”