She’s still looking at me, her honey eyes wide with confusion, so I decide to clarify.
“I want it to be hard. I don’t want us coming together to feel like floating on clouds. I want us to feel real in every possible way. Rock solid. I want you to feel the ground. Feel it shake and move as I slide into you. I want you to know that I see you and you see me. We aren’t smoke and vapors but instead two people choosing to start our forever from the ground up.”
Her breath catches, and I can see that my words have caused an avalanche of need and desire.
“Then what’s with the sheets?” she asks coyly, slowly stepping toward me until we both stand in the middle of the blankets I’ve placed on the floor, her arms sliding around my waist.
“I want you to feel the earth move. I don’t want you to regret it tomorrow morning because you’re covered in carpet burns,” I say, winking at her.
“So considerate,” she murmurs, her breath slightly panting in anticipation. As she goes on her toes to kiss me, I pull her closely to me so she can feel my need, my pent-up desire that is clawing to get inside of her.
I deepen our kiss as we lower ourselves to the ground.
She falls gently underneath me.
I move until my body straddles her left leg and my knee pushes against her then bend down to capture her mouth. At first, my teeth tug softly on her lips, opening them wide before my tongue pushes inside. However, we swiftly start fighting a battle with our mouths against the time we lost. Waging war with missed opportunities and the possible what ifs that plague our past.
She starts riding my knee as I tightly grip her hair, roughly trailing kisses down her neck, desperately licking the tastes I’ve missed with my tongue.
I feel her body begin to tremble and I move my hand from the back of her head to slide into the front of her jeans, beneath her panties, and find her swollen clit. Then I draw circles over and over, driving her crazy until she freezes and I feel her muscles beneath my fingers spasm. I run feather-light kisses down the side of her neck while she catches her breath.
I carefully help remove her sweater and undo the buttons of her blouse, exposing her chest to my starving mouth. I playfully drag my teeth along the top of her breasts until I reach her peaks hidden behind the thin fabric of her bra.
I pause from my rush to taste her when I feel her fingers gently sweep away the hair falling in front of my eyes, her warm gaze locked on me.
I look up and into her honey eyes, her eyelids heavy and she whispers, “I love you.”
“Love you too,” I tell her, loud and clear, before demanding, “Now, don’t fall asleep on me, Stars. Sorry to break it to you, but we’re just getting started. I’ve had a lot of alone time recently to come up with different things I would like to do to this body.”
“Is that so? What did you have in mind?” she asks me, grinning with excitement shining in her eyes.
“I’d rather show you,” I tell her before kissing her fiercely and starting with the first on my list.
Make the ground move.
GRAYSON
My phone keeps buzzing. I reach for it on the dresser above my head and hear my back crack.
Damn, that hurts.
Shit, fucking on the floor. Great idea at the time. Brilliant. Spectacular. Except I forgot how it feels to wake up after sleeping all night on a hard surface. Even if you are wrapped up in a beautiful girl, it’s completely shit. My back feels like a 10-ton gorilla just sacked me.
Thankfully, my phone is still ringing when I finally bring it to my ear.
“Hey,” I say, trying to keep my voice down so I don’t disturb Parker, still soundlessly sleeping at my side.
“Has Nate spoken to you recently?” Marissa asks bluntly, her panic travelling through the speaker loud and clear.
“No, why?” I ask, sitting up in bed, slightly jostling Parker, causing her to blink open her honey eyes and stare up at me in concern.
“Bo just turned up to start his shift. Usually, Nate opens everything and starts setting up for me and then Bo arrives and mans the door. Bo just called. The door’s open, but Nate is nowhere to be seen. I’m worried, Gray,” Marissa states, loud enough for Parker to hear and jump up in order to start looking for her clothes.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I say, hoping to calm down not only Marissa, but also Parker’s clear distress.
“He’s never done this. Never. He is the most loyal worker I have.”
“Maris, I’ll head over now. Parker’s with me, and I’m sure she’s going to want to help. We’ll find him.”
*****
The bar was empty when we turned up. Everything appeared to be in order. All the tables and booths looked like they always did before the crowds arrived, pristine and shining in the dark shadows.
Frowning, Parker walks behind the bar and picks up the set of keys resting beside the cash register, attached to a small leather keychain.
“These are Nate’s work keys,” she tells me softly, a hint of fear seeping through her shaking breath. “He never leaves them lying around. Anyone could access the liquor cabinets with these keys.”
“Do you know where he lives?” I ask her firmly. If she’s scared, I can’t let my fear sink in.
Suddenly, Ma’s story over Thanksgiving is seeping into my memory, plus Mr. Simons’s warnings about sending a serious message if Dad fucked up again, but I lock it down.
I need to be solid, in control. If not for myself, then for Parker. And for Nate. I won’t help anyone if I start to break shit and let out the anger that is consuming me.
I just got my brother back.
Nothing was going to change that.
I had to focus on that thought. Pray on that thought.
PARKER
Outside Nate’s apartment, everything was pristine. His shiny black truck was in the driveway, sparkling in the sun. His lawn was in impeccable condition, not a weed in sight. No one would expect horrors to be waiting inside the small one-bedroom he rented, with its cute blue trimmings in one of the nicest up-and-coming neighborhoods near the university.
No one. This was a neighborhood where people lent cups of sugar and had street parties celebrating Christmas. Seeing how manicured everyone’s lawns were actually made all the panic I had building inside of me dissipate; even when we found the front door open, I was extremely calm. Nothing bad could have happened here.
For an instant, I thought we must have been interrupting an acting shoot.
Furniture was tossed about the apartment as if the Hulk had run through recently. Every drawer was open, and the once-organized contents now spilled across the hallway. I stepped over pencils, scissors, books, receipts and loose bits of paper as we slowly worked our way to the back of the apartment, which I knew was the kitchen, calling out for Nate as we went through each room.
That’s where we find him.
His body is slumped in the corner, partially propped against the wall, covered in bruises that make his handsome features almost unrecognizable. He is sitting in a large pool of blood that appears to have poured from the small holes in his chest and legs. The black and white tiles are barely visible from the chaos of a broken table and chair legs. And all of the blood.
It doesn’t seem real. It’s like a movie.
A really bad crime film that you tell yourself is incredibly unrealistic.
People don’t walk into apartments and see things like this. Not in real life.
I was just waiting for him to bring his head up, laugh at our frozen stances and someone to call out “cut.”
Nate was always acting and playing pretend.
This is just a joke. It had to be a joke. Had I called him recently he would have told me about some new movie project he was doing, maybe a gangster or true crime film. This is just a film. It had to be a film.
Why wasn’t anyone calling out “cut”?
“Nate,” Gray whispers, his voice choppy with emotion, as soon as his eyes land upon the lifeless body.
I realize Gray whispering wasn’t okay.
None of this was okay.
I start to move backward out of the kitchen. I need to escape. Maybe if I got off the set then everyone would come out of hiding. They would fix this. Someone, anyone, would call out and laugh at our expressions. It wouldn’t slowly start to feel real. I wouldn’t see Gray move toward his brother, his eyes filling with unshed tears, to feel his brother’s non-existent pulse. This wouldn’t be real.
I just… I just needed some air.
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t accept that this was happening.
A few hours ago, everything was perfect.
Gray and I had worked out our problems. It was hard and a struggle, but we were honest.
Things are meant to get better after you’re honest. Nate would call me soon. Laugh at me for being afraid, for thinking Gray wouldn’t forgive me, and he’d call me his future-sister-in-law.
He had to call. This, all of this, couldn’t be real.
My chest starts hurting. I feel like I’m suffocating. All of this is like layers of bricks being put on top of me. The weight of what had happened was becoming too intense. Too real. I don’t even feel the tears as they start to roll down my cheeks. I don’t know if I can handle this, this heaviness, the agony and weight of losing a best friend.
I got to say good-bye to Mom. I’ll never get to say good-bye to Nate. I hadn’t spoken to him in nearly a week.
I should have spoken with one of my best friends through the week.
Oh, God, best friends.
I have to tell Millie. What do I tell her? How do I even start? She’d been texting me. Asking me if I had seen him. Told him. And I hadn’t. I was scared and ashamed. How do I tell her that the father of her unborn baby is sitting in a pool of his own blood? He’ll never know. He’ll never see his baby.
My steps start carrying me backward out the door and into the driveway. I don’t even feel the impact when my back hits Marissa.
We both fall backward onto the lawn.
“You don’t. It’s not. Don’t go in there!” I screech at her, my throat choking on the pain lodged within my esophagus when I see her eyes bore into mine in surprise then understanding.
Before I realize it, Andy is there, pulling us both to our feet.
“Gray inside?” he asks somberly.
I can’t do anything but nod. My mouth refuses to work anymore. It’s too coarse. I think I might have screamed. I just don’t know anymore.
“I’ll go help him. How about you girls go sit in my car.”
I don’t even know how we do it, but we follow his instructions. I don’t remember gripping Marissa’s hand in mine. I don’t remember her unlocking the doors, us climbing silently into Andy’s BMW completely consumed in our own grief, crying our own tears, but not letting go of each other.
I think I see the blue and red flashing lights in the rear-view mirror. I think I recall, after hours of yellow tape and movement, Gray opening the door, pulling me into his arms then carrying me like a firefighter to his car.
I know he whispered, “Sleep, baby,” before he placed me along the backseat.
And I did. I don’t know how, but when the darkness embraced me I went willingly.
In the darkness, none of this was real; Nate was laughing and teasing me there.
It was only in the light that I had to admit that it was indisputable. With my eyes open, I had to accept that he would never laugh again.
GRAYSON
I couldn’t sleep. I watch Parker’s chest rise and fall from the driver’s seat. It was the only thing keeping me sane. Knowing that she was alive and breathing under my protection, knowing that I could safeguard her, is the only thing that kept me from losing my shit.
We would need to go to the police station. I told the officers at the scene that I just wanted to give her an hour. An hour where she wouldn’t have to go through what it was like to find… What it was like to walk through those doors and see…
I can’t even think the words. I don’t know how we’ll discuss it. Although, I’ll never forget the images burned into my brain. The slight blue tinge to his skin, the way it felt to touch his cold wrists. The smell of death and blood. The sound of Parker’s cries and panic. I don’t think she even realized that she screamed. Kept screaming as she made her way out of the house. I wanted to follow her, but Nate needed me.
I needed to close his eyes. I knew I shouldn’t contaminate the crime scene, had seen enough movies and TV shows to know that. But I needed to do that one thing for my brother. The last thing I’d ever be able to do. Give him that last bit of respect.
After all, we only had weeks together. That’s all I’ll ever have with my brother. Fucking weeks. My eyes keep becoming glassy with my tears, but I won’t let them drop. I don’t have the time. I need to watch Parker. I need to make sure that whatever touched Nate doesn’t get close to her. I’m so angry. I want to rip my steering wheel off and start trashing everything within touching distance, but I don’t.
She needs this.
Soon, I would have to wake her up. We would need to drive to the closest station. We would need to report how we found the murdered body of my brother.
Then the police would start a search. A manhunt for his killers.
Even if they didn’t know it yet, I knew this would lead to Mr. Simons.
This would be connected to his goons.
And this would end with my father.
GRAYSON
We were finally leaving the police station. It had to be nearly five in the morning. Stale coffee and white walls were unpleasant to be around for hours. However, they seemed to care. Lieutenant Bryant and Detective Nolan, with their matching glossy brown hair and dark blue suits, seemed to give a shit that the quarterback, the golden boy of Penmore State, just found his brother murdered in his own apartment.
Fuck, if football made this right for Nate, I would give up any stupid thought I had of not going pro. I wrap my arm around Parker’s shoulders as she yawns on her way to the car. Neither of us is in the mood for talking. After hours of describing Nate’s keys, the door, his position and our knowledge of anyone who might want to hurt him, we didn’t need to talk any longer. We let each other be silent; our eyes and hands did the talking for us. We loved each other, needed each other and would be there for one another. No matter how hard this was to handle. We didn’t need words to communicate that any longer.
If I thought putting on a Spiderman suit when we got back to my apartment would make her smile, I would. I would do anything to change this day into something we wouldn’t both look back on with feelings of utter hopelessness. However, I knew she just wanted to sleep. She needed to curl up and have the day end. To escape into a world where this wasn’t happening. I just needed to be there. All I required to keep my sanity was to watch her as she closes her eyes, protecting her from any dangers until things got squared away.
As if my abstract thoughts on the threats that might hurt her conjured him, Anthony Waters steps out of the bushes and rushes toward me with a look of practiced distress.
“I just heard, son,” he says as he wraps his arms around both Parker and me. “I came as soon as I could.”
I pull his arm off us as quickly as I can and take a look at the stranger before me.
I imagine he probably looked the closest to himself, as he ever would appear. His hair is greased back, his black silk shirt unbuttoned revealing the top of his chest hair and a thin gold medallion, and his expensive pants are pressed to a crisp. Gone was the cowboy; before me is the scumbag.
“Did they tell you who they were thinking might be behind this? I heard Nate worked at a bar. Could this have to do with alcoholics or drug dealers?” he asks, not completely hiding his self-serving agenda.
“Don’t pretend that you c
are and don’t fucking touch us ever again,” I grunt.
“Girl, talk some sense into your boy,” my father says to Parker before turning toward me and pleading, “I’m just after some answers. I deserve to know who killed my son.”
“Don’t talk to her, don’t touch her. And don’t pretend you give two shits about Nate. God forbid if anything happens to Parker or my mother, I will come after you with all I have. You think you know people? Everyone fucking knows me. I haven’t asked for one goddamn red carpet for being the town’s local hero. But if you fuck up, I won’t need to kill you. No establishment will have you. No one will help you. I’ll go on fucking ESPN and tell everyone that it was my father who essentially got my brother killed. I won’t need the police to crucify you, the public will.”
“Boy, you’re completely confused here. I don’t know what those men in there told you—”
“They told me nothing. Fucking nothing. And I told them nothing. Nothing about my fucking father and his fucking seedy acquaintances. But I know. I know Nate wasn’t involved with any criminal except for you.”
“Boy, I’ve made my mistakes before, but if this has to do with any of my business arrangements, I swear to you that Mr. Simons is the reason. Don’t get this confused, boy. I never wanted this.”
He should have dressed as the grieving father; his words would have been more convincing. My clenched fists and fighting stance clearly communicate to him that I wasn’t going to believe any of his bullshit, so he turns and walks away.
“So, that’s your dad,” Parker states softly when we can no longer make out his disgusting silhouette.
“Today, anyway,” I tell her as I open her car door.
“Charming. Do you think he’d like to go to the Cheesecake Factory with us while he’s in town?” she asks sarcastically, causing me to laugh as I head toward my own car door. And, for a moment, I forget that today was beyond imagination.
Unfortunately, it’s only a moment.
PARKER
Stars (Penmore #1) Page 18