Park (Archer's Creek Book 4)

by Gemma Weir

  I know I’m crying, but I can’t feel the tears or hear the sound of the sobs that are coming from me. God, I’m a fool. I thought we could have a future together. Now I’ve fallen in love with him and he’s in love with someone he can never have. I don’t want to be the consolation prize.

  I have to leave. Everything’s too raw, too real. I’ve completely underestimated the way he felt or feels. I don’t know. He told me he was in love with her, but he also told me he felt nothing for her now. These paintings aren’t nothing.

  I try to move, but something stops me. Tears blur the edges of my vision and my ears are ringing. I try to move again, but when I turn something tugs me back.

  “Rosebud,” a voice says, the sound muffled. Then large hands cup my face and he’s in front of me; his concerned face before me, his palms stroking my cheeks. “Rosebud,” he says again. “Baby, please. What’s the matter? What’s going on?”

  His voice is my undoing. I love him, but I’m not sure his heart is up for grabs. I think it has, and always will, belong to someone else.

  “Rosebud,” I say again, fear filling my voice. What the hell is going on? There are tears running down her face and everything about her posture is filled with grief and heartbreak.

  Clasping my palms around her cheeks, I tip her face back and force her to look at me, but her eyes are glassy, and as I stare at her, more tears pool then run from her desolate eyes. “Baby, please. What’s the matter; what’s going on?”

  “I need to go,” she whispers.

  “No, you don’t. You only just got here. What’s happened?”

  “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I say, my voice getting louder with each word.

  “I can’t,” she says, trying to pull herself from my grip.

  “No. What are you doing? You need to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  She freezes in my arms, her eyes flitting from me to something on the floor then back to me again. “I can’t do this, Park.”

  “Can’t do what? Us?”

  She closes her eyes and grimaces, then inhales sharply and opens her eyes again. “Yes, us. We’re friends and that’s all we should ever have been.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I demand, releasing my hold on her and taking a step back, my arms falling to my sides.

  “Taking things further was a mistake. We make great friends, but anything more than that just doesn’t make sense,” she says, her eyes not making contact with mine, her gaze fixed somewhere by my feet.

  “Bullshit,” I shout, and she jumps, startled. “We are not fucking friends. We’ve never been friends, it’s always been more. You need to tell me what the fuck’s happened from when I spoke to you last night and now.”

  “Nothing’s happened. I just realized that we should never have tried to blur the lines.”

  “Rosebud, that’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. When I spoke to you ten hours ago, you were orgasming down the phone with your fingers buried in your cunt. That’s not the type of conversation you have with your friend, or at least I don’t. You were getting yourself off because I told you to, panting and moaning down my ear, saying my name when you came.”

  She gasps, slapping her hand across her mouth, the other wrapped protectively around her own waist as if she was holding herself upright.

  “You need to tell me right now what the fucking hell happened between then and now.”

  She shakes her head, tears still trailing down her cheeks.

  “You’re not leaving here until you explain what’s going on, and don’t give me that ‘we’re better as friends’ bullshit. I want the truth.”

  “I’m not prepared to be a consolation prize,” she blurts out.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I shout, my hands planting on my hips as I take a step toward her.

  “I won’t be second best, and it’s not fair for you to expect me to be. I want to be everything to someone.”

  “Who the fuck are you second best to?” I ask incredulously.

  “To Taylor,” she shouts. “I refuse to start something when I know I’ll never be the person that you really want. It’s her, it’s always been her, and I’m not going to try to compete. I shouldn’t have to. I know this is new, but what’s the point of starting something that’s destined to fail?”

  “Whoa,” I shout. “What the hell does Taylor have to do with anything?”

  “Because you’re in love with her,” Rosebud says, her voice breaking on the last word.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not,” I say, taking another step toward her until I’m completely in her personal space, my chest pressing against her. She tilts her head back to look at me, and I reach up and grab her chin in my fingers, stopping her from moving away. “I’m gonna say this, and I want you to listen to me. I’m not in love with Taylor. I had feelings for her a long time ago. You know this; we’ve talked about this. But now the only person I want is you; the only person I love is you.”

  She closes her eyes and I know she’s not listening to me. “I’ve seen the paintings,” she says, her voice weak.

  “What paintings?” I ask, confused as to what the hell she’s talking about. Why would the paintings of her make her think I’m in love with Taylor?

  “The ones over there. They’re beautiful. I’m not an artist, but even I can see the depth of feeling you have for her in them. I can see the pain and anger, but it’s love too, and longing.

  Exhaling shakily, I drop my fingers from her face, close my eyes and laugh lightly. Stepping back, I turn and point at the paintings on the floor. “These paintings?”

  She nods, a fresh torrent of tears falling from her eyes.

  I nod and shake my head. “These paintings are all I’ve painted in the last ten years. Six paintings that I agonized over. I put all of the pain and anger and yes, love, I felt for Taylor, all onto those canvases and yeah, they are intense, and they are emotional. Do you know why they’re out here on the floor?”

  Her eyes move to the floor then back up to my face. “No, I don’t,” she whispers.

  “Because I was throwing them away.”

  Her chin snaps up so quickly, I almost laugh. Reaching for her arm, I wrap my hand around her wrist and tug slightly. “I need to show you something,” I say, turning and moving toward the stairs to my apartment. My grip on her isn’t tight—she could pull away from me if she wanted—but she doesn’t. Instead she allows me to pull her up the stairs and into my home. I don’t pause, towing her straight into the middle of the room.

  “Take a look around you,” I snap, my voice terse. “How many paintings do you see?”

  Her head moves from side to side.

  “How many?” I demand.

  “I don’t know, lots.”

  “There are eighteen,” I say. “See anything familiar about them?”

  Pulling her arms from my grip, she steps closer to the only picture that’s hung on the wall. It’s the one of her face. She’s smiling and so fucking beautiful it makes my heart hurt just to look at it. I watch as she lifts her hand to her mouth, covering the sobbing gasp that I still hear despite her obvious efforts to muffle it. “Is that…?”

  “You,” I finish for her. “Yeah, Rosebud, that’s you and so is that one,” I point to the one resting against the wall a few feet from her. “And that one, and all the rest too.”

  “I don’t understand,” she says, her voice small and unsure.

  “In ten years, I painted six pictures of Taylor. Every single one of them is dark and angry and tortured. Some people write in a journal; well, I paint. Those paintings are my feelings put on a canvas. I’ve known you for less than three weeks, and these…” I say, throwing my arms out and gesturing to the canvases that litter the room, “are the journal entries of how I’ve felt since the first time I saw you.”

  She slowly turns to
face me, her eyes wide, her hand still covering her mouth.

  “The moment I got a glimpse of you, you set my world ablaze. You gave me a rainbow of color in a world of black and white.” Stepping closer to her, I reach out and pull the hand that’s covering her mouth away and entwine our fingers together. “I’m not in love with Taylor; she was just the excuse I’ve used for the last ten years to not have to deal with my shit.”

  Rosebud opens her mouth to say something, but I speak again, interrupting whatever she was about to say. “Now, I don’t think you heard me the first time I said it, so I’m going to say it again. Rosebud, I am unequivocally, undeniably in love with you. You are my fucking everything and whatever you need me to do to prove this to you, I will, because I can’t fucking live without you.”

  I wait for her to say something, but she just stares at me. She opens and closes her mouth like she’s about to speak, then changes her mind. “You love me?” she asks finally.

  “Yes.”

  “You love me,” she says again, only this time it’s more to herself than to me. “You painted all of these?”

  “Yeah,” I say, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious about the fact that this make me look like a bit of a creeper.

  “They’re beautiful,” she says, taking a tiny step closer to me.

  Shrugging, I stay quiet, needing her to take the next step. I’ve laid all of my cards on the table. I love her and now it’s down to her.

  “You’re not in love with Taylor.” It’s more a statement than a question, but I answer her anyway.

  “No, baby, I’m not in love with Taylor.”

  She nods, shuffling a tiny bit closer to me. “I’m in love with you too,” she says, so matter-of-factly that I can’t help the chuckle that escapes.

  “You are?”

  She nods and her face crumples when more tears fall from her eyes. I close the distance between us, and she throws herself into my arms. “I’m so sorry. I love you, Park, so much.” She sobs into my shoulder.

  Wrapping my arms tightly around her, I hold her to me, just needing her to be close. Her head moves and then we’re kissing, our tongues and lips frantic and desperate. “I love you,” she says between kisses.

  “I love you too.”

  She rips at my shirt and moments later our clothes are flying to the floor. Lifting her naked body into my arms, I carry her to my bed and lay her down, climbing above her. Sliding my hand between her legs, I find her wet and ready and on one long thrust, I settle my cock deep inside her. “Fuck, Rosebud, I love you so much,” I say as I roll my hips, withdrawing and then thrusting back into her hot, wet core.

  “I love you,” she says against my lips as she lifts her head to meet my mouth for a drugging kiss.

  Higher and higher, my thrusts send us over the edge at the same time, our lips pressed together and words of love still heavy in the air.

  With my cock still inside of her, I rest my weight on my arms and pant as my breathing returns to normal. “I’m sorry, baby. You should never have seen those paintings of Taylor. They’re my fucked-up past and I don’t need them anymore. They’ve kept me trapped in the past for too long and I don’t want that. I want a future with you. I’m so in love with you, and I know that it’s too soon and that we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but I love you and I want us to be together.”

  “I want that too. It’s crazy and totally too soon, but I love you and I’m sorry. I saw those paintings and I just freaked out. All I could think was that I couldn’t be with you knowing that you would rather be with her.”

  “Rosebud,” I say.

  “I know,” she says with a nod. “I know you love me, I do. But I’m a girl and girls freak out.”

  “My girl,” I say, leaning down and pressing my lips against hers.

  She sighs happily when our kiss ends, and I rest my forehead against hers. “I can’t say goodbye again, Rosebud.”

  Her hand lifts to the back of my neck, her fingers stroking a line back and forth across my skin. “I have to be back at work on Monday,” she whispers.

  “I know.” I say, cutting her off. “So I’ve been thinking that I should move to LA. I can open a shop, or just rent a chair at an established studio. I have options. I don’t want to only see you once every few weeks, when one of us can get some time off. I want to see you every day. So, I could get my own place, or we could move in together. I just want to be wherever you are.”

  “Park.”

  “Don’t say no. I know it’s a big decision, but I can do my job from anywhere and I have enough money in the bank to keep me going for a while ‘til I get settled.”

  “Park,” she says again.

  “Hell, I even have a trust fund if I go sign the paperwork.”

  “Park, will just shut up for a second?” Rosebud shouts, interrupting me. “You’d do that for me? You’d leave your family, the club, the shop, and move to a place you hate—for me?”

  “Of course,” I say. “I love you. I don’t care where we are; I just want us to be together.”

  “You don’t need to move to LA.” She says quickly.

  “I can’t do the—”

  “Shut up,” she shouts again, cutting me off. “You don’t need to move to LA, because the meeting I had in Vegas was actually a sort of interview for a job. In Houston.”

  “What?” I say dumbly.

  “I met with the editor of a magazine a while back and they offered me a job, but it meant relocating so I said no. Erica, that’s the editor, well, she liked me and she sent me a letter with an open-ended job offer. So on Friday night, I flew out to Vegas to meet with her. I start my new job as soon as I’ve worked out my notice at the paper.”

  “You got a new job?” I say, as if the words she just said don’t make sense.

  “Yes.”

  “In Houston?”

  “Yes.”

  “Houston, Texas?”

  She giggles and nods her head. “Yes, Houston, Texas.”

  “You’re moving to Houston; that’s where they want you to relocate to?”

  “Yes, Park, I’m moving to Houston. They’re even giving me a small relocation package and the salary is much higher than I get now.”

  “But what about your home, your family?” I ask, excitement blooming to life in my chest.

  “I like my apartment and I love my parents and Eric. But LA isn’t home anymore. You’re my home, and there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be than right here with you.

  The End

  Six weeks later

  “Is that the last of it?” Smoke asks, placing the large cardboard box on top of the others stacked up against the wall.

  “Yes, that’s the last box. Thank you so much for helping.”

  “Anything for you, Rosie,” Smoke says, playfully pulling me in for a hug.

  Giggling, I hug him back, but the man’s so tall, the top of my head only reaches the middle of his chest.

  “Get your fucking hands off my girl. Why are you always touching her?” Park growls, stalking out of the bedroom and pulling me from Smoke and into his arms.

  “Jesus, you sound like Blade. I’m hugging my new sister, don’t be such a possessive bastard,” Smoke says with a wink in my direction.

  “Well she’s mine, so get your own girl, then you’ll understand how I feel. Now isn’t it time for you to leave? I want christen our new apartment.”

  “I could always stay and watch,” Smoke says, wriggling his eyebrows up and down. “Maybe even join in.”

  A laugh bursts from me at Smoke’s antics. He loves to wind Park up and since he walked in on us having sex in Park’s studio a few weeks ago, he’s been teasing him about it relentlessly.

  “Out,” Park says, pointing to the door, but focusing all of his attention on me, as he lowers his head to kiss me.

  “See you later, lovebirds,” Smoke calls, as the door clicks shut behind him.

  “I’m officially all moved in,” I say against Park’s lips. �
�All of my stuff is here.”

  “Do you like your new office?” Park asks, his hand roaming its way across my ass.

  “I love it.” I say, glancing over his shoulder to the freshly renovated apartment.

  Instead of moving, we decided to knock through to the empty apartment next door and make his tiny home into a beautiful two bedroom, with an office for me to work from and a studio for him to paint in.

  As much as neither of us had wanted to say goodbye again, I’d had to go home to LA to resign from my job and work my two weeks’ notice. My parents had been surprised when I’d introduced them to Park and told them about my plans, but after an adjustment period they’d been happy for me.

  All it took was four weeks to pack up my life in LA and move it here, and for the last couple of weeks we’d lived at the clubhouse while the apartment was being finished. Seeing Park with his brothers at the club, I’m overwhelmed with love that he would have given that all up for me.

  “Love you, friend,” I say, pushing up onto my tiptoes.

  “Love you, friend,” he says with a low laugh, then he lifts me off the ground and carries me to our bedroom.

  All of this started because of a friendship with a man I should never have met. But we were always more than just friends. Whenever we were together sparks of something more smoldered, and then before we realized it, our friendship set on fire and we were left with a love so strong and intense that it became everything.

  He’s my man, my love, my home.

  This is the fifth book I’ve written. I genuinely never ever expected I’d get to say that. What started out as a dream, has turned into an obsession. I love creating this world for you all and I’m so incredibly grateful to those of you who live in it with me.