ALSO BY AUDREY CARLAN
International Guy Series
Paris: International Guy Book 1
New York: International Guy Book 2
Copenhagen: International Guy Book 3
Milan: International Guy Book 4
San Francisco: International Guy Book 5
Montreal: International Guy Book 6
Calendar Girl Series
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Trinity Series
Body
Mind
Soul
Life
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Falling Series
Angel Falling
London Falling
Justice Falling
Lotus House Series
Resisting Roots
Sacred Serenity
Divine Desire
Limitless Love
Silent Sins
Intimate Intuition
Enlightened End
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2018 by Audrey Carlan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
eISBN-13: 9781503958456
Cover design by Letitia Hasser
Cover photography by Wander Aguiar Photography
To Amy Tannenbaum,
my agent, my friend.
When things were very dark . . .
you were my light.
When hope was lost . . .
you promised me another way.
I believe you are a gift to this world.
I am but one honored recipient.
CONTENTS
SKYLER
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
SKYLER
If you want...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SKYLER
Tonight, my life path is laid out in front of me, split like a fork in the road. One direction leads to a happily ever after with the man I’ve come to love and trust, the other, a life without him. I brush my teeth and glance at the words I wrote on the mirror.
Trust your heart.
I hope those words don’t lead him to leave me behind as a hollow shell of the woman I was when I met him. Over the past few months, I’ve lived large. Not in monetary ways, or as a celebrity, but with heaping bouts of happiness the likes of which I never anticipated having again after the loss of my parents. Up until Parker, my life felt like it was cut in half. Divided into the happier person I was before, and the woman with an uncertain present. With Parker by my side, that uncertainty changed. For the first time ever, I felt unbreakable. Living in a perfect dream. A man to call my own. One I felt deeply for. A new set of true friends, ones who didn’t want something from me because of my fame. A great security team I trusted with my safety, and my muse was back, my craft better than ever.
Cloud nine.
Perhaps there’s a quota of goodness each person is allotted in their life, and I have reached mine. The divine, God, the universe, Mother Nature, whoever made the rules, gave each person a happiness meter, and I hit the tippy-top when I fell in love with Parker James Ellis.
I’ve always believed there is a natural balance to the way the world works. Good, evil. Happy, sad. Love, hate. Because without one, the other could never be realized to its fullest potential. For me, Parker is everything good and right. Does that make me destined to be sad and wrong?
I close my eyes and take a full breath. Suddenly warmth invades the energy around me, a shift in the air sizzling along the fine hairs of my back and neck as hot male flesh presses against my skin. A familiar weight wraps around my waist, plastering me more firmly against his form. I keep my eyes closed, afraid that I’m imagining such beauty. I’ve craved this feeling, the caress of his hands over my bare skin in a loving, gentle manner, for what seems like endless days and countless hours.
The hairs on his chin abrade my neck as he leans his face into the crevice, a space on my body I’ve since dedicated to him. A sigh leaves me as if of its own accord, my subconscious knowing that in his arms is the most peaceful place in the world.
“I see you’ve left me a message of your own.” His voice rumbles through my neck and down my chest.
I nod, incapable of speaking with him so near, the power of his energy mingling with mine all-encompassing.
“Trust your heart. It seems to be a recurring theme over this past week. Are you telling me to trust my own heart, or to trust yours since I already own it?” Both of his arms slide around my waist as he hugs me from behind.
I wrap my own arms over his, letting his warmth seep deep into me.
“Both,” I say barely above a whisper, because he owns every inch of my battered heart.
He hums against my neck, and I feel the sound all the way down to my toes.
I open my eyes and find his blue gaze locked on mine in the mirror.
“Are you ready for bed?” he says.
“With you?” My breath catches, and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s about to make love to me or do as he promised—hash out what got broken between us. At this moment, I’m not sure which I’d prefer more. “Always.”
Parker places a gentle kiss on his spot, the crook of my neck, where it now feels moist and warmed from his lips and breath. He runs his hands down from my shoulders to my hands. “Come,” he urges.
“I’d follow you anywhere.” I admit the honest need burning in my soul. I turn so he can look me dead in the eyes. “Wherever you are is where I want to be. That is me, being honest, living my truth.”
He tunnels one hand into my hair at my nape and lifts my chin up with his thumb. Time slows, and I can hear his breath moving in and out of his mouth as he leans closer. I imagine I can hear his eyelashes against his cheeks with each blink, until he closes his eyes completely and touches his lips to mine.
The initial press of his mouth is tentative, a greeting, his body offering a simple hello. I shift up onto my toes and place my hands on his bare shoulders. His skin is hot to the touch and warms me instantly. He curves an arm around my lower waist and holds me against him as he takes his greeting kiss to an all-out getting-to-know-you submersion of lips, tongue, and teeth. Each time my mouth opens his tongue plunges deeper, relearning what I like, taking everything I have on offer and then some.
My lungs burn with the need for air as the kiss intensifies, our tongues flattening against one another’s in the most intimate of gluttonous treats. Parker eases back, allowing air to break the bond of our lips. He traces my bottom lip with his tongue before sucking it into his mouth and nibbling on the bit of flesh delectably. A zing of pleasure ripples through me, shooting like a zip line to the heat building between my thighs.
“Honey . . . ,” I groan, not knowing what I need more, his mouth on mine, his cock inside of me, or his words sealing the cracks of our relationsh
ip back together. All seem to have top priority as my mind loses its hold on reality.
“Christ, I’ve missed hearing your sultry honeys when I’ve got my mouth on you. I fucking live to make you sigh. It feeds the broken pieces inside me.”
I clench my arms around his neck and shoulders and kiss him hard before pulling back. “What do I have to do to make it right?”
He presses his forehead to mine, and we both close our eyes. “You’re doing it. Being with me. Exposing the depth of what we have.”
I run my fingers through his hair, my nails scratching down his scalp. He groans as if it’s the best feeling in the world.
“Take me to bed.” I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than becoming one with him.
He grins that sexy smile that would make any woman’s panties drop. He’s so unbelievably handsome. “Pretty sure that’s where this little impromptu make-out session is headed.” He cocks an eyebrow and smirks.
I roll my eyes and push at his chest until he’s walking backward. When his knees hit the bed, he falls down and tugs me right along with him until I land in a heap on his bare chest and boxer-clad legs. His hand runs up my back, and before he can put his mouth on me, I sit up and straddle him.
“First of all, before we do this, and believe me, I’m ready to go all night and heal some of those broken pieces in you and me . . . we have to be honest with each other about what happened, or we’ll never move forward.”
He sighs and puts a forearm over his eyes. I grab ahold of it and move it up and out of the way. “I did not cheat on you with Johan.” His body tenses under me as he tries to shift away. I lock my legs at his rib cage and hips. “No. You’re not getting away from this. Yes, I screwed up. Big-time. I thought I could go see him, talk him out of doing what he was threatening, and technically I did do that.”
Parker grinds his teeth and speaks through a clenched jaw. “Sky . . .”
I shake my head. “No, you have to hear this. I went there. He told me he was destitute. In for a lot of money with some really bad guys. Owed millions. His family disowned him, and either he found a way to pay back his debts or his life was on the line.”
“Fucking bastard made that your problem, and it wasn’t!” He growls like a caged animal, his body twitching with anger.
“Be that as it may, long ago, I thought Johan was all I had. He got me through the worst time in my entire life. And maybe somewhere in my head it got all twisted up, and I felt as though I owed him something.”
“You didn’t owe him shit!” Parker barks, and I cup his cheek, stroking my thumb along the taut lines.
“After some thought and a couple of sessions with my therapist this week, I’m working through that. Regardless, helping him out of a horrible situation in a way that didn’t take attorneys or slanderous images of me being plastered all over the papers seemed like the right thing to do.”
Parker grips my hip in one hand, wraps an arm up my back with the other, and hauls us both up to the headboard so that he’s sitting up against the back and I’m straddling his lap.
His voice dips lower. “You put yourself in danger and our relationship at risk.” Parker’s eyes sear straight through to my soul, and my heart pounds out a beat so hard in my chest I wonder if I’m about to have a panic attack.
Tears sting my eyes, and I nod, tracing his clavicle with my fingertips, needing to touch him in some way as I get through what I have to say. “I’m not proud of what I did. All I can say is, at the time, it seemed the right thing to do. I’m not used to having someone in my corner. A man to help me through the struggles, and”—I swallow as cotton coats my throat—“I wanted to fix it. Make it all go away. I didn’t think . . .” I can’t hold the tears back any longer. They rush down my face like turning on a faucet. “I didn’t know how bad it would look. But I swear, I just paid his debts, set him up to get some help in a rehab facility so he could clean himself out from the drugs, and—”
“Why did you stay the night there, Sky? Why?” Parker clamps his lips into a firm flat line.
I lick my own, wishing I was kissing his instead. “Honestly, it was stupid. By the time we settled things, it was early morning, and I was practically seeing stars from exhaustion. I hadn’t told my security team where I went, so they didn’t know I was there . . .”
An animal-like growl leaves Parker’s lips, and his brow furrows. I trace his brow until it shifts into a smooth line once more.
“Honey, I was tired. Weary. Emotionally and physically exhausted. He offered up his room, which had a separate door and lock, one I used, and I fell asleep. Alone. He took the couch.”
Parker’s body seems to loosen and relax under mine, and he brings his hands up to my face and neck, where he trails each fingertip along my skin. Caressing me. His touch is a healing balm, like calamine lotion over a rash. Every new inch he covers eases the pain that’s flickering white-hot against my pores.
His voice is like sandpaper has rubbed his throat raw as he replies to my admission. “He told me you’d rekindled your relationship and point-blank stated he’d been with you intimately.”
Putting a knife inside of a light socket couldn’t have shocked me more. My heart sinks and my stomach churns.
This. This is why he believed wholeheartedly that I’d betrayed him.
I cup both of Parker’s cheeks and look him straight in the eyes. “I would never do that to you, to us. You have brought me back to life. I was empty before you. My life hollow. I moved through the paces one day at a time, but honey, with you, I live. Every moment. I live and love. There’s nothing that could lure me away from that or make me risk losing it. Nothing.”
He closes his eyes, and I lean forward, putting my lips to his, sealing my truth with a cleansing, healing kiss.
1
Skyler’s kiss fills me with life and happiness and settles the unbelievable ache that took root in my stomach when I heard Johan’s voice in my ear. She pulls back and just stares at me, while her finger traces over my brow and temples, then down my cheek to caress my lips.
My woman never cheated on me.
I believe her with every fiber of my being. Her brown eyes glow with sincerity and a hint of sadness as her chin trembles.
“What happens next?” She sounds unsure in the wake of all she’s revealed.
I run my hands from her thighs, up her waist and to her rib cage. “Now we make up.” I jackknife up and take her mouth in a searing kiss. She gives everything to me, wrapping her arms around my back, pulling me closer, plastering our chests against one another.
When I pull back, she sighs and nuzzles my cheek. She digs her nails into the bare skin of my back. “I was so scared I’d lost you. Lost it all in one tremendous mistake.”
I suck in a huge breath and dip my chin to where her shoulder and neck meet. “I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t think it was over. If you’d cheated . . . that would be the end.”
The word cheated rings like an alarm bell in my brain, and I tense up as memories of kissing Alexis prod my memory bank.
“Fuck!” I hiss and pull back, putting distance between us.
“What?”
I lick my lips and ease my hands from her shoulders, stroke down her arms and back up. “When I thought we were separated . . . ,” I start, and her entire body goes completely rigid.
Skyler crosses her arms over her chest. “You slept with Ms. Big Boobs . . . didn’t you?”
I shake my head, and her response is a shaking breath.
Her voice wobbles as she responds. “Something happened between you two. She mentioned an offer . . .” Her lips tighten and her jaw firms.
“Peaches, I didn’t sleep with her. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. You were always on my mind, but there was a moment of weakness. I was sleepy, dreaming of you, and she was there, and . . .”
Her voice cracks as she lets out a little whimper. “Just tell me.”
“I kissed her. That was it, and I stopped it before anything more could
go down and made it perfectly clear I was unavailable.”
Skyler straightens her spine and firms her jaw. “Do you want her?”
My heart pounds rapidly in my chest, and my throat becomes dry; it’s hard to swallow. “Fuck no.”
Skyler tips her head, a lock of golden hair falling into her eyes. I push it back as she speaks. “She’s gorgeous. Big boobs, fantastic body.”
I close my eyes, and flashes of Alexis race across my mind, her voluptuous curves a definite highlight to her overall attractiveness. “Yeah, and she uses that body and her looks to play men. Not to mention she’s currently using her body to play hide the salami with Bo.”
Skyler’s eyes bug out. “No way!”
I grin wide knowing that Bo’s man-whore ways are about to give me a big, fat get-out-of-jail-free card with my woman. “Yes way.”
“Ew, he banged Ms. Big Boobs?”
A chuckle slips out of my mouth. “Evidently. From what I understand, he’s with her now.”
Skyler eases her head down to my chest, placing her ear to my heart. “Okay.”
I frown and cup the back of her head before playing with the strands of her silky hair. Little puffs of air come out of her mouth, teasing my nipple with each exhalation. The little bud tightens and throbs, wanting attention. “That’s it. I tell you I kissed a woman that wasn’t you, and all you’ve got for me is okay?”
She shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t think that woman is the problem between us.”
The word problem sets off a new warning I feel pinging at the base of my spine.
“You think we have a problem?”
She sighs. “Yeah, I do.”
“Besides Johan and Alexis?”
Skyler shifts her body so she’s back to straddling my thighs and staring into my eyes. “Why didn’t you trust me?”
The question comes out of left field, though as it bangs around my head a little, it starts to make sense why she’d ask it.
“I trust you—”
She cuts me off before I can finish. “No. You believed Johan without ever even talking to me . . .”
I grit my teeth and then think back to what it felt like calling her that day. The helplessness and worry for her safety, that something had happened to her. And then to find out she was safe and sound, in the arms of her ex while I waited for her in her bed. The evil claws of jealousy scratch at the surface of my skin, and I breathe through the pain of the memory, trying to calm down, say what needs to be said without setting either of us off.
London (International Guy Book 7) Page 1