“Tell me about my father,” I say abruptly, folding my hands in my lap and leaning over. My green and black hair falls across my arms like a blanket. At this point, I wish I’d let Parrish ink me so I could reveal it to Tess, just to see the shock on her face. “You owe me that much at least—especially since you dislike me so much.”
“I love you, Dakota,” Tess protests, but we both know that isn’t the same thing, not at all. “Your father isn’t important. He’s nothing. He’s nobody.” I lift my gaze up to look at her. She may as well be carved of ice for all that her expression gives anything away. On the other hand, those words were fire.
She’s hiding something.
“Saffron knows more than I do.”
“Saffron is a liar and a kidnapper. Whatever nonsense she was whispering in your ear, you may as well forget it.” Tess stares me down like the self-made multimillionaire she is, like I’m yet another hill to be climbed and conquered. “No amount of guilt-tripping will change my mind. Now, if you’d like, we could go to a family therapist and—”
“A therapist?” I snap back, shoving up to my feet. “We don’t need a therapist to talk to each other; you’re the one who always runs away. I’m trying here, Tess. I’m trying so fucking hard that sometimes I just want to throw myself into the goddamn lake. Why can’t you just talk to me?”
Tess throws her arms up like she just can’t deal with this anymore, taking her manuscript and storming out of the room. I follow her into the hallway, but we’re nowhere near done.
“Tell me about my fucking dad!” I scream, even though I know I’m being hysterical here. Tess ignores me, stepping into her office and slamming the door behind her. I know I shouldn’t, but I follow her anyway, pounding on the door even though I know she isn’t going to let me in. “I have a right to know who he is! And as soon as I find him, you can bet your ass that I’m out of here—permanently. DNA is all that matters, right? Well, I’ve got his DNA in me, too.” I pause here, breathing heavily, my hands clenched so tightly into fists that I’m drawing blood. “Even if I stay here until I turn eighteen, I’m out. I’ll drive off at midnight on my birthday and you will never see me again.” Another pause. Each second of silence infuriates me even further. “Oh, and by the way: I’m dating Lumen. You hear me? DATING!”
“Hey.”
Parrish grabs me by the shoulder and turns me around. I end up with my back pressed to the door of Tess’ office, breathing so heavily that I’m starting to see stars. I’m mad. Angrier than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s suddenly hit me that I don’t know who I am or what the fuck I’m doing here or—
Parrish’s hot mouth crashes into mine, and then my fingers are digging into the fabric of his hoodie so hard that I’m probably bruising his chest. We shouldn’t do this here, I think, but what does it matter? So what if I fuck Tess’ precious son? Who cares? She doesn’t like me anyway, doesn’t even think of me as a daughter.
I’m property to her, just another shiny trophy on her wall of bestsellers.
“Come with me.” Parrish grabs my hand and we run down the hallway, just barely making it into his room before we’re kissing again. My arms are around his neck, his are wrapped around my waist. He’s so warm and comforting in that moment. If we hadn’t made that connection in Bend, then I might’ve been worried. I might’ve wondered if I wasn’t using him in that moment to comfort myself.
But that isn’t it at all.
Somehow, in the last three months, I’ve fallen hard for Parrish.
“This is going to kill Tess,” he murmurs against my mouth, but more like he’s apologizing to the universe rather than trying to convince either of us to stop. “It’ll kill her.”
“Good.” I shouldn’t say it because I don’t mean it, but … fuck that. And fuck her. How could she write such horrible things about me? And with every intention of publishing them. Of profiting off of them. That career of hers that she can’t seem to decide if she loves or hates.
Guess I’m not the only part of her life that she’s confused about.
“Take your sweatshirt off.”
Parrish complies, ripping that stupid school sweater over his head and then taking my face between his inked hands. He kisses me with a desperate sort of reverence but also with a careful and cracked reluctance, like this is something he’s been wanting to do all week and wouldn’t let himself.
He’s not wearing anything underneath, revealing a sea of ink that I feel compelled to touch, ensorcelled even. My fingertips trail down his bare midsection, causing him to suck in a sharp breath. I watch enthralled as his stomach muscles contract with the motion. He really is pretty, his body fully on the side of man rather than boy. It’s too much.
I kiss him again and this time, I bite his bottom lip and make him groan.
“You’ve really never done this before?” I ask, and then after a heartbeat, I add, “have sex with someone?”
“No.” Just that one word. Parrish stares at me, his face like thunderclouds in a summer sky, rumbling and dark and moody and yet somehow appealing anyway. “Why did you have to be Tess’ daughter? Why? You’re the most forbidden person on earth for me right now.” Here he pauses and I suck in a sharp breath. “And also, the only person that I want. Dakota, I’ve made my decision.”
“Do you have a condom?” I manage to get out, because I can’t possibly give that the reply it deserves, not right now. Parrish cringes and grits his teeth, shaking his head once before we’re interrupted by a knock on the door.
The person on the other side doesn’t wait for us to answer, and my heart launches itself into my throat with panic as I imagine Tess opening it to find us in this state. Even as I tell myself that I want to hurt her, I’m afraid. Why, I’m not exactly sure.
But it’s not Tess.
Instead, it’s … Chasm.
He looks like someone just punched him in the stomach, like he can’t breathe, like he’s dying. My rebellious heart plummets just as quickly and I feel sick.
“Here,” he says, opening his book bag and pulling out a handful of condoms. Without waiting for either of us to answer, he drops the pile on the small dresser near the bedroom door. And then he looks at me, like really looks at me, and that same rebellious heart cracks in half. “I hope you two know what you’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Parrish snaps back at him, raking his fingers through his beautiful hair.
“Kwang-seon,” I start, but Chasm just raises his hand as if to beg me to stop. Pretty sure there isn’t anything I could say right now that would make him feel better. I’m … I think I might be in love with Parrish. Even if it’s a shallow, teenage-hormone induced love, I don’t care. It’s there, and I can’t deny it.
Chasm lifts his head up to look at Parrish, meeting his friend’s eyes with the most serious expression I’ve ever seen on his face. He says something in Korean, but Parrish doesn’t respond. When I look back at him, he seems pissed.
“Please teach me …” I start, but Chasm just scoffs at me.
“Can it, Little Sister,” he says, and then he’s slamming the door in our faces.
For a moment, Parrish and I just stand there in silence.
I feel torn in half. One side of me wants to stay here with Parrish forever; it’s the only place I want to be. The other half is desperate to chase after Chasm, to ask why he’s here, to find out why he looked so broken at seeing the two of us together.
But then Parrish puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him. The second half of me, the part that’s enthralled by Kwang-seon, it goes quiet. Dims. Shadows cover that moon and block out all of its silver night. All I can see is Parrish’s face, like the sun as it shines down on me.
He reaches out with his right hand and presses the lock on his bedroom door. Won’t stop Tess from unlocking it, but it’ll buy us time.
“This is worth the risk.” I say it aloud because I have to hear him agree with me. I have to or else I can’t go through with this.
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Parrish takes my face in his hands again, and I can’t help but feel a little flutter at how well it fits. It’s as if his palms were crafted to hold me like this. He takes my mouth with his, and that’s it. Nothing else in the world matters. It’s just me and him, wrapped up in our feelings for one another. It’s warm inside this cocoon, and nothing like I’ve ever experienced before.
“More than worth the risk,” Parrish tells me, his lips moving against mine. I let my head fall back as my eyes close, my tongue dancing against his as we kiss like long-lost lovers reunited. It’s been a week since we last kissed, but it feels like a century. “Fuck, you taste good. And you smell good, too. Are you sure you’re not wearing any perfume?”
“Are you sure you’re not rolling around in dew-kissed clovers every morning?” I retort, and he chuckles at me, nuzzling against my face and then reaching out to grab a handful of condoms from the dresser. Not sure how many he thinks he needs, but damn, I appreciate the enthusiasm.
“Come.” Parrish pulls me over to his bed, falling onto his back and dragging me on top of him. He feels so alive beneath me, like his entire body is thrumming with electricity. It creates a current between us, lighting me up, turning me on, making me hyperaware of every place our skin touches.
I sit up, dragging my shirt over my head and tossing it aside. This time, I’m prepared. I have a super sexy bra—
“Are these Super Nintendo controllers printed on the fabric?” Parrish asks, squinting at the design. Oh, that’s right. I put the comfy bra on for my talk with Tess, and I was going to change it later just in case … Shit.
“I’ve got a black lace one in my room; I’ll just go and—”
“You’ll do no such thing,” he warns me, pushing the sports bra up and over my breasts. I stop breathing for a moment, the feel of the air against my nipples a startling sensation. This is the first time anyone’s ever seen them bare. Parrish waits for me to untangle the bra from my hair and toss it aside before sliding his inked hands up my body with a special sort of reverence. “How is it that I find everything you do sexy?”
“You’re into dorks, I guess?” I query back, but the joke falls flat. I can’t possibly make jokes right now, not after the emotional rollercoaster I’ve just been on. Not with Parrish’s dark eyes taking me in like he’s committing my body to memory. “I’m unapologetically dorky, that’s for sure.”
“Unapologetic,” he murmurs, sitting up enough that when I lean down, we can kiss. My hair falls forward, blanketing his chest as I grind my hips against his taut stomach. “Fuck, that feels nice.” He pauses and glances at the nightstand where the pile of condoms is waiting. “It’d feel even better if you weren’t wearing anything at all.”
I roll off to the side, lying beside him on the bed as I kick off my pants and underwear (before he can see that they’re a matching set to the bra). I’m so focused on getting the items off that I don’t notice him watching me until I’m fully naked.
Parrish looks me up and down, lying on his side with his head propped in his hand, his elbow resting against the mattress. Slowly, carefully, he reaches out and runs his palm over my right breast, making my nipple tingle with the contact. He continues down, stroking my belly and then venturing further until he finds the hot, aching spot between my thighs.
He leans down and kisses me again, at the same time petting my clit with his thumb and making my body thrum. I arch up into his touch, encouraging him without words to keep going. If I were thinking clearly, I might remember that Chasm is likely in the house somewhere falling to pieces. Tess is in her office pacing a rut in the floor. Lumen is missing.
But a spell has been cast, one that holds both me and Parrish in its thrall.
He continues to play with me, taking cues from my body, from the breathy sighs that escape my parted lips and fall right into his. We never stop kissing, not as he strokes me into a frenzy, not when he slides first one and then two fingers in. It’s like we’re living off each other’s breath, like our hearts are pumping each other’s blood.
“Faster,” I murmur, and he grunts, beyond words at that point. When I look down and see his inked fingers pushing inside of me, my entire body flushes red. My face blushes; my tits blush. I can’t seem to stop staring as Parrish moves his mouth to my neck, picking up the pace, thrusting harder and faster and deeper. “Wait, wait, wait,” I gasp out when the pleasure gets to be too much. He pauses for a moment as I lift my right hand to the side of his face, digging my fingers into his thick hair. “Let me do you.”
“Let me finish you, Gamer Girl.” Parrish bites the side of my throat, and I groan, slapping a hand over my mouth to cover the sound. We should’ve put music on or something; this is so damn risky. When I close my eyes and listen for sounds from the hallway, I vaguely hear Mr. Brightside playing from the direction of Tess’ office. Perfect.
Parrish trails his hot mouth down to my breasts, flicking his tongue against the bare nipple. It’s like he’s testing me, seeing how much I can take, seeing what I like best. When he realizes that I’m arching into him, he presses his entire mouth to it, sucking on the nipple as I clutch his head to my chest.
His hand continues at the same pace, holding a steady rhythm until that strange, coiled energy inside of me snaps free, sending those electrical currents into my fingers and toes. It paralyzes me, that pleasure, as I dig my fingers into Parrish’s back, leaving crescent shaped marks in his skin.
It hits fast, but fades slowly, leaving me panting beside Parrish as he stares down at me. He’s deadly serious now, and oh so intense. He’s tossed his sloth crown aside in favor of a blazing ring of fire, one that seems to set him alight as he sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.
I prop myself up on my elbows, but that’s about all I’ve got the energy for. My eyes take in the perfect curve of his spine, the muscles in his upper back, the ink on his shoulders as he shoves his sweats and underwear down to the floor. He snags a condom before turning back to me, his body in full view.
This is my first time seeing him naked and I must say … “Impressive.”
Oops.
I said that aloud, didn’t I? Fuck.
“Impressive,” he repeats, his mouth quirking into this adorably cocky smile. “Which part?”
I snort at him.
“The tattoos, obviously,” I choke out, but my eyes slide back down the length of his body to his most impressive part. I’m staring, and I can’t help myself. He doesn’t seem to mind, waiting there for me to take him in before he finally turns and crawls across the bed toward me.
Parrish pauses beside me, looking down at me while I stare up at him.
“When you first walked into this house, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and she could never be mine. It killed me.” I swallow hard and try to turn away, but he reaches out with a single finger and takes hold of my chin, gently encouraging me to look back at him. “Then I got to know you, and I knew it wasn’t just the way you looked. It was everything about you. Your everything is beautiful.”
“My everything?” I repeat, because that might just be the most incredible thing anyone’s ever said to me.
Parrish frowns and flicks his eyes away from me for a moment before looking back.
“I don’t have Tess’ gift with words, but I don’t know how else to say that I’m enamored with every part of you: body, heart, and soul.”
Fuck.
Oh fuck.
That feeling of falling comes over me again, but this time, Parrish is there to catch me. He slides his arms around me and presses our bodies together, kissing me like I’m the first and last woman he’ll ever need.
Our bodies begin to move of their own accord, and that’s when we both know it’s time.
Parrish props himself against the pillows and tears the condom package open, taking the sticky ring in his fingers and staring at it for a moment before he slips it on.
“You’re good
at that,” I breathe, and he gives me a sharp look.
“Cucumbers, sex ed project at school.” Parrish climbs over me, threading the fingers of his left hand through mine. With the other, he guides himself to the sweet spot between my thighs and locks gazes with me. “Ready?” he asks, but he must be able to see the answer in my face because he’s already smiling.
“Ready.”
With a smooth, easy slide of his hips, Parrish pushes himself into me. For a second there, I can’t breathe. All I can do is look up at him and squeeze our joined hands together, savoring the warmth of his body. He exhales first, like he, too, was holding his breath. I do the same as he releases my hand and I end up with my arms threaded around his neck.
Our mouths clash together as our bodies begin to move again, thrusting and grinding, churning up more of that indescribable pleasure. It washes over me in a warm wave as I lock my legs around Parrish and he makes a deep, satisfied male sound that has me digging my nails into his back again.
We can’t get close enough, it seems. I want to get closer.
“Oh, Parrish,” I breathe against the side of his face, licking along the length of his jaw as he undulates his body against mine, into mine, filling me up and spiriting away all the bad feelings from earlier, replacing them with new and exciting things.
His body is firm with muscle but so sensitive to touch that he moans and bites my neck when I squeeze his ass, when I trace his spine, when I tug on his hair.
“If you keep doing that, I won’t last long,” he growls at me, but the sound isn’t unpleasant. Instead, the feel of his lips against my ear makes me moan, and I’m pulling him to me, encouraging him to rock hard against me, bury himself deep. The bed is creaking, but I can still hear that damn song playing in the distance, drowning out any suspicious sounds.
Later, I’ll learn that Chasm was waiting there, just outside the door. That he eventually pushed off the wall and went downstairs, that he jumped into the pool with all his clothes on.
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