20. Hope
20
HOPE
I tried to catch my breath, but it kept eluding me.
Finally, I swallowed and managed to say, “You’re early.”
Wearing blue jeans, a worn concert shirt, and white Adidas—looking nothing like the rich-boy millionaire he was—Parker slipped his hands into his pockets and negligently strolled into the foyer. “Funny. Looks like I’m right on time.”
I sank closer to the wall behind me for support and reached back, my fingers fumbling until they found the doorframe that led into the master bedroom. Where the bigger-than-a-king-sized mattress was.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked casually, slowing to a stop when he reached the round table in the center of the room as if he needed to keep that small buffer between us.
“Y-you said I could pick up my key,” I reminded him. “Which I did. But then I was curious about the room. So…” I spread my arms. “Here I am.”
“Here you are,” he murmured, glancing down at my body as if he wanted to consume it whole.
Sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, he leaned his hip against the table as if ready to get comfortable there, and his gaze lowered to the grocery sacks.
Hitching his chin toward them, he asked, “What’s all this?”
“Just…” I lifted one shoulder. “Just some stuff I wanted to use to help prepare for tomorrow.”
His eyebrows rose with interest. “Like…sex toys?”
“What?” I screeched. “No!”
He shrugged that off with the hint of a smile, only to scoff a moment later. “God, please don’t tell me you were going to light the place up with candles and spread rose petals across the bed or some shit.”
“Of course not.” I think I scowled even harder at that suggestion. “I just want an orgasm, not a night of romance .”
“Then what the hell’s in the fucking bags?”
He pulled his hand from his pocket and reached for one to peer inside.
But I suddenly felt like too much of an idiot to let him see what I’d been planning.
“Don’t,” I said, panicking.
He halted and glanced up in surprise. “What the hell? Ah, shit. It is candles and rose petals, isn’t it?”
I sniffed. “No, it’s not.”
“Then why can’t I see? Isn’t it for me?”
“No,” I repeated with a roll of my eyes. “It’s for me . It’s just—Oh my God, it’s makeup and lotions and stuff. To primp. Okay?” When he opened the top of one sack wider with one finger and peeked in, I moodily explained, “I was going to show up early tomorrow and take a shower here and do up my face and hair and—I don’t know. Now it just sounds stupid.”
He blinked at me as if I’d lost my mind before he snickered. “Hell, yes, it sounds stupid. I’ve been hard since Tuesday because of your little request. Do you really think I need all this crap in order to get it up for you?”
I paused because—oh boy. But then I chased that titillating piece of information off with a scowl because—“Like I said, nothing in there is for you. I just wanted to feel—” Fumbling for the right word, I shook my head before coming up with, “Fancy. Alright? All that is for me.”
But it was as if he hadn’t even heard me. “I could take you just the way you are right now. I don’t need fancy. I could pin you against that wall and fuck every thought you ever had right out of your head.” After taking in the wall and mentally measuring its durability, he slid his gaze back to me. “In fact, I think I will.”
He started toward me with a primal hunger in his eyes, and I lurched back bumping into the wall before skidding sideways along the surface with an alarmed, “The deal was for tomorrow.”
He paused, narrowing his eyes in displeasure. “Yet we’re both here now .”
“But I’m not ready,” I countered, gesturing desperately toward my bags of goodies.
Parker shook his head and took a slower, predatory step closer. “You don’t need that shit, Hope. Trust me.”
My breathing started to escalate because I was completely unprepared for this. I didn’t have anything set up as I’d planned it in my head. And we couldn’t stray from the plan. I wouldn’t know what to do or say or?—
Shaking my head frantically, I whispered, “Tomorrow.”
He watched me for a moment as if trying to climb into my brain and read my thoughts. Then he asked, “You want to back out completely?”
I shook my head. “No. Not at all. I just—” I needed to prepare. I didn’t feel prepared. I wasn’t going to be able to relax and enjoy anything until I felt completely prepared.
“You just what?”
“I’m nervous. Okay ?” I boomed, glaring at him for making me admit it.
He straightened in surprise. “Nervous?”
An anxious laugh tumbled from my lips as I glanced up at the ceiling. “Well, yeah. Duh.”
“What’re you nervous about?” he asked as he drew near enough to reach for a single piece of my hair from my shoulder and idly coil it around his finger. “I’m the one who needs to impress you .”
My stomach twisted with desire, and I gulped before shaking my head to tell him I had no idea why I was nervous, but then words just started to spill from my mouth against my consent. “If I can’t come for you, it’s not your fault, okay? It’s me. I’ve never come for anyone. I’m just—” I shook my head insistently. “I’m broken.”
“You’re not broken,” he told me, sounding sure of himself. “You’ll come just fine for me. I guarantee it.”
I scoffed. “What makes you so sure?”
“Here.” Taking hold of my wrist, he lowered our hands, down and down some more, until he used my own knuckles to brush against the front of my jean shorts, right over my pubic bone.
When I threw my head back against the wall and squirmed, mumbling incoherently in surprise, his lips twitched with approval.
“Because of that right there,” he assured me. “Your pussy’s just starving for the right cock to clamp itself around and milk a climax from. All it needs is the proper preparation and care, and then I promise you, it’ll sing the sweetest fucking song you ever heard.”
Wholly invested, I looked into his eyes. “And what would this proper care look like?”
Parker sent me a cocky smirk as he lowered his mouth to my ear and whispered, “Let me show you.”
I looked up into his eyes and felt myself go wet, even as I shook my head, fighting it. “Parker, I’m not?—”
He shut me up when he cupped my face in both hands and forced me to keep looking him dead in the eye. “Yes, you are. Now let me win this one. It’s my turn to win an argument.”
I scoffed. “We do not take turns?—”
“Then we really should because you win more than your fair share. It’d be extremely considerate of you to let me have a few. It’s healthy for your ego to lose sometimes.”
I blurted out a hard laugh. “You are so full of shit right now.”
“I don’t fucking care,” he shot back as he leaned his face right up near mine. “I’m still winning this round.”
And then his lips nipped at mine.
A muffled sound of surprise fluttered from my throat before it turned into a moan as his hands slid from my cheeks and around to the back of my head so he could kiss me fully. His soft lips parted before an insistent tongue plunged between my teeth.
“Mmm.” I arched, my chest instinctively seeking his solid mass so I could relieve some of the straining pressure in my breasts. A second later, I clutched his shoulders and rose onto my toes to kiss him back fully.
Parker tore the ponytail holder from my hair and grabbed a handful to pull my head back with masterful precision.
My mouth was ripped from his as he forced my chin up, and my lips parted while his traveled their way down my jaw and then my throat, licking and nipping at tender flesh as he descended.
“Right now,” he repeated.
And I melted. “Okay.”
Chuckling smugly, he tugged at the neckline of the T-shirt I wore with his teeth as if impatient to get it off me. One of his hands strayed from my hair to cup my waist, where it found its way under my shirt so his warm fingers could clutch bare flesh.
I shuddered and surged higher up the wall as I tightened my grip on him.
Overwhelmed by the flood of sensations, I just hung there suspended, feeling him everywhere, all at once, as he possessed me.
He gripped my ass and lifted me another few inches, his fingers plowing under my shorts and squeezing bare skin. I wound my legs around his lean hips, holding him to me as he buried his face in the nook of my neck and ground his hips into mine.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, catching handfuls of his messy hair and arching my head back. “Parker.”
He began to kiss his way back up the side of my throat as the rest of his body held me captive against the wall, the bulge in his jeans pushing hard against the apex of my thighs.
Reaching my jaw, he turned tender and nuzzled against my cheek, tracing the side of my face with his nose as he murmured in amazement, “Damn, your skin is soft.”
I managed to roll my head along the wall and turn his way. He looked drugged with pleasure, so I smiled, and he exhaled roughly before setting his forehead to mine and closing his eyes.
Holding me that way, he rocked his hips against mine and admitted, “I’m glad this is happening.”
“Yeah,” I had to agree, my eyes sliding closed as well.
His face shifted. Our lips didn’t meet for a kiss, but we breathed into each other’s mouths for a moment, enjoying the lock of our bodies, before he groaned a hungry sound and pressed his mouth back to mine.
With fevered strokes, he let go of my bottom, keeping me pinned with his hips and thighs so he could capture my face with his hands again and hold me steady as he dove deeper into the kiss.
I ran my fingers along the back of his neck before smoothing my palms over his shoulders and down his sides, then around his waist to squeeze his butt and pull him in harder.
He grunted and released his mouth from mine to kiss his way lower, latching his hands around the backs of my shoulders until he reached my breasts, where he bit me through my shirt and bra.
I had no idea how he caught hold of my nipple through all that cloth, but he did, and it spiked a whole new shot of arousal straight through my pussy.
“God,” I groaned, squirming against him for more.
In the next second, he set me on my feet so he could rip my cami over my head.
When he had it tugged away from my hair and tossed to the side, he glanced down.
“Damn, Trouble.” His fingers lifted, but he turned them over before contact so he could lightly drift his knuckles over my ribs.
“So fucking soft,” he murmured as if transfixed. He slipped his fingers back up my throat, and I tipped my head back, enjoying the caress. My lashes drifted shut.
When his mouth replaced his fingers, my lips parted, and I sucked in a startled breath. He wrapped his teeth around a tendon in my neck while his hands dropped to the back clasp of my bra. Seconds later, he freed me and was slipping the straps off my shoulders. And almost immediately, he worked his way down until he was pressing his mouth to my sternum directly between both peaks.
As he cuddled his face into the twins, his arms looped around my waist, where he tethered me close, directly against him. After a moment, he turned his cheek to the side so his tongue could toy with a beaded nipple. Then he drew the whole tip into his mouth and drove me to new heights with lavishing strokes. As he suckled, he kneaded my ass with both hands.
I whimpered in need and strained toward his erection, lifting onto my toes in an attempt to get my pussy back to where it had been before—where it belonged—but Parker didn’t accommodate me.
Instead, he dropped to his knees and buried his face between my legs, right into my shorts.
“Parker!” I shrieked in a high, tight voice.
His nose nudged my clit through all the cloth. I gripped his shoulders and rose up the wall, trying to escape the overwhelming moment.
Pausing, he looked up at me.
I swallowed thickly and reached for his hair to brush at it tenderly.
“I got you,” he promised. “Trust me.”
When I sent him a silent nod, he kept eye contact as he slipped his hands into the waist of my shorts and dragged them—along with my panties—down my legs. I stepped out of the cloth when they pooled around my ankles. And his lips twitched into a grin as his attention shifted from my face to my trimmed bush.
“Fucking beautiful,” he breathed. Marveling over my bikini wax, he gently gripped my hips between both hands before he licked his lips and leaned in.
I closed my eyes, bracing for it, but it still shocked the shit out of me when his tongue touched me.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I chanted, my knees going weak as his lips wrapped around my slick, plump bud and sucked.
He groaned in approval, and I grabbed onto the doorframe, panting and straining as his tongue lavished. Then his hand slipped between my legs, a finger prodded my opening, and I was gone.
He’d barely pushed the thick digit into me and started to pump when my pussy contracted. I shook my head, fighting it, trying to draw the pleasure out and hold off, but the orgasm hit me like a freight train, and I came in long, uncontrollable, dizzying waves.
Time and space lost their meaning until, suddenly, I was back in myself again, and Parker was pulling his face away as he tugged his glistening wet finger free.
Pushing back to his feet, he gazed down at me and took my hand. “Okay. I think you’re ready now.”
My lashes fluttered in dazed stupefaction. “What?”
He grinned and kissed my forehead. “This way, Trouble.” Drawing me away from the wall, he led me into the bedroom. “Time for you to find out how an orgasm feels with a cock inside you.”
“But…” Still rattled and trying to recover from the orgasm he’d given me with his tongue and finger, I shook my head. “Aren’t you a little overdressed?” I ran my hand down his shirt and plucked at it as if trying to remove it from him. But he caught my wrist and easily curled my arm around to pin it behind me and trap me like that, keeping me from touching him again.
“All in good time,” he assured, nipping at my chin with his teeth.
“Now,” I argued, trying to pull away but only with a weak attempt because I really didn’t want to be free. “It’s my turn to win.”
Parker chuckled huskily at my demand. “Bossy,” he murmured in approval before kissing me again. “But not yet.”
From there, my mind blanked out. Our lips merged, tongues clashed, and bodies strained.
Parker let go of my hand and slid his fingers down my side, along my rib cage, waist, and hips until he smoothed them over my stomach and between my legs. The moment the rough, seeking pads of his fingers found my clit, I groaned, ready for it again.
“Parker.” I pressed my forehead to his shoulder and clenched my thighs around his hand, panting. “Please.”
I wanted him to fuck me. Hard. Fast. Fervently.
And I might’ve even said that aloud because a moment later, he rasped, “On the bed.”
His command was deep and guttural, telling me he was just as affected as I was. I shook my head slightly, glancing down at his shirt and jeans. “But you’re still?—”
“Getting there,” he told me as he grabbed the back neckline of his shirt and ripped it off in one smooth move while simultaneously toeing off his shoes and kicking them away.
I blinked, startled by the sudden appearance of a perfect chest and abs, as he worked on the top button of his jeans.
“Get on the fucking bed, Langston,” he ordered again as he unzipped. “Because I’m taking you wherever you are as soon as I get these jeans off.”
Smiling smugly to myself because I really liked making him so needy, I sat on the bed, my feet still on the floor, then I leaned back onto my elbows and grinned up at him. “Better?”
Parker froze with his hands still at the opening of his jeans, just blinking at me. “Damn, you’re breathtaking.”
I don’t know if I smiled as much as I simply lit up from the inside out. Because at that moment, he made me feel breathtaking.
He made me feel everything.
Watching me as if enthralled, he took his time pushing his jeans down and kicking them out of his way.
When he was finally as naked as I was, I let my gaze drop down his happy trail to his lap for the first time. And all I could whisper was, “Oh…”
The man was magnificent. Ruddy, hard, and thick, his cock made my thighs clench in preparation.
Looking back up into his eyes, I spread my legs open in invitation.
“Jesus,” he breathed as if thanking the Almighty and uttering his astonishment all in one word. He stepped toward the bed, looking intent. “You sure you got birth control covered?” he asked as he hooked a hand under my thigh and lifted my leg, encouraging me to crawl backward toward the headboard as he set his first knee on the mattress to join me.
I bobbed my head once. “No babies, no diseases.”
“No diseases here either,” he murmured, sliding his palm up to grip my thigh and open me wider, nothing stopping our bodies from merging.
My nipples pinched tight and my cervix tightened deep in me, as if already trying to constrict around his length.
I shuddered out a long breath in equal parts eager anticipation and nervous anxiety. “You sure you can really do this?” I asked as he lowered his hips to mine.
Parker looked into my eyes with a cocky smirk. “Darlin’, just get ready to call me the orgasm king.”
I snorted out an amused sound. “As if.”
Above me, he paused in frozen shock, and his skin paled.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked, reaching for his face.
He caught my hand, but instead of keeping me from touching him, he helped me lift my fingers to his cheek and cup it there, even as he assured me, “Nothing. You just—fuck, you had an Alec expression for a second. It made me remember he existed, and that I’m betraying him right now.”
“You’re not betraying him,” I assured softly with a shake of my head. “This is just between you and me. No one else.”
He nodded but still looked uncertain as he turned his face into my hand, nuzzling against my fingers. When his jaw shifted, I gulped uneasily.
“Do you—do you want to stop?” My voice shook, and I’d probably bawl if he said yes, but I’d stop for him if he couldn’t do this.
At that moment, I’d do anything for him.
“No.” He rattled out a hard laugh and shook his head. “Fuck no.” His gaze lifted to mine and there was no more uncertainty in their depths. “Nothing could keep me away from you right now.”
I dusted my fingertips over his cheekbone. “Then what do you need?”
He shook his head as if he didn’t need anything. But he closed his eyes briefly and pressed his brow to mine. “I just need you to swear,” he answered in a rough voice. “It’s just this once, and we take it to our graves. Right?”
“Right.” When his lashes opened and he looked into my eyes, I nodded. “I swear. I won’t tell anyone.”
“God… Hope,” he choked out, then pressed his lips to mine as he pushed inside me.