I follow behind her, hoping that Louise was able to pull magic out of her ass and set the next part of the plan in place.
When we get to the curtain where Tara is standing, she gives us a cheesy smile and a thumbs-up. I sneak a peek through the black curtain and hold my breath.
Lamar walks onto the stage as Rod introduces him. He looks polished in a fine black suit that plays against the bright color of his dress shirt and his dark skin.
The crowd whistles at his entrance. He does this weird move where he kisses two fingers and makes a peace sign to the audience, which I don’t get. Is it supposed to mean peace and love? I don’t know.
Next up is a young blond guy who looks like he strutted right off the pages of Abercrombie & Fitch, complete with a white cable-knit sweater tied around his shoulders, a rich-boy smirk, and a golden tan that sets off his pretty blue eyes.
And then it happens: the audience goes quiet as the third guy doesn’t come out yet. I cross my fingers and my legs in a gotta-pee dance move, hoping against all hope that Louise made it happen. Then I see a pair of arms push my man out onto the stage. He stops and looks at the camera, shakes his pristine navy suit jacket, and casually buttons it while walking up the steps and onto the platform.
“And here we have Jimmy Handle,” Rod says without looking, until he sees another stage person shake his head and wave a hand to Parker. Rod looks his way. “Oh wow, we have quite the treat for the audience and the show. It looks like the third contestant is actually International Guy’s very own CEO, Parker Ellis. Looks like he’s left the judging booth to participate in tonight’s Mix and Match!”
The crowd goes absolutely bonkers.
My man gives a sexy smile he’s perfected and that always hits the mark, making my panties wet from it. Especially when it’s blazing down on me when he’s hovering above my body, naked. Parker gives the audience a little wave, and the ladies lose their ever-loving minds, screaming so loud I want to cover my ears to save my eardrums the pain.
He makes the universal hand gesture for the audience to settle; then he puts his finger in front of his lips in a shushing gesture.
“Okay, well, after that little surprise, let’s have you meet our female contestant. One who I’m sure has no idea who’s sitting on this stage right at this moment. Let’s play along with it, shall we, friends?” Rod asks the audience, and they nod, pump their fists, and clap.
“All right, and your prospective match tonight is . . . Ms. Tara Darling.”
Two and two get put together as Tara walks out, and the entire crowd gasps. I can’t help but have a very recognizable look after so many blockbusters, and Parker and I have had a rather public relationship. Their seeing Tara and how much she resembles me is a surprise. After the initial shock wears off, the crowd once again goes berserk, screaming, yelling, laughing, clapping, and stomping their feet.
Rod makes a gesture for the audience to simmer down so the game can begin. That’s my cue to move around to the side of the stage. Ellie follows me, her hand on my back in a supportive manner.
Tara asks the guys her first question, ones that I’ve already written for her.
“Contestant number one, if you could fall in love anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
Lamar licks his lips and nods. “Excellent question. I’d have to say Paris, because it’s known to be the most romantic city in all the world.”
Tara shimmies in her chair. “Oooh . . . I like. How about you, contestant number three?” she asks Parker.
He cocks an eyebrow and looks right at the camera. “Anywhere. New York. London. Rio. The only thing that matters is I’m standing in front of the right woman for me.”
“Awww.” Tara touches her heart. “So sweet.”
While Tara asks number two a question, I start walking on the stage from where Tara entered. The audience goes dead silent. One of the stagehands rolls up a television on Tara’s side of the wall, showing the three guys so that the two of us, as well as the audience, can see them respond. We want the audience in on it so they realize that this is all a setup and don’t yell out my name.
I put my fingers up to my lips the same way Parker did and make a point to show the screen, and tiptoe to stand next to Tara. When I get there, she grins. I stand by her side and hand her another card. A special one.
“Contestant number two. If you could have your dream girl—I’m talking celebrities—who would yours be and why?” Tara says.
Josh grins wickedly at the camera. “Dakota Johnson. Any man who sees her in Fifty Shades of Grey . . .” He shakes his hand and whistles. “Whoo weeee, absolutely stunning woman.”
I make a point to shrug my shoulders and nod, then shake my head while pointing a thumb at my chest without saying anything so I don’t ruin the surprise. The audience chuckles.
“Contestant number three, same question,” Tara says.
Parker grins and shakes his head. The audience laughs even louder, all smiles on their faces and shimmering eyes centered on the stage, their necks twisting from one side of the stage to the other where Tara and I are.
“Hands down, my dream girl is Skyler Paige. There is no substitution for her beauty, intelligence, that smokin’ hot body, and how big her heart is.” He looks straight into the camera, and the audience this time makes a collective aw sound at his statement.
Tears prick my eyes, but I hold them back and patter my hands against my heart so the audience here and at home gets the real experience of what’s happening.
I hand Tara another card.
“A follow-up to that question then, since you seem so smitten. If Skyler Paige were here right now, professing her love, faith, and commitment by getting down on one knee and asking you to marry her, would you?”
The camera zooms over to Parker and gets close-up. I watch the screen in front of Tara, and the entire room fades around me. There’s nothing in this moment but the man I love on the screen in front of me. I barely refrain from reaching out and tracing his beautiful face.
Parker licks his lips, closes his eyes, takes a breath, and opens his eyes again.
Love. Honesty. Determination. All flash across his face as I wait with bated breath.
“Absolutely, yes.”
I smile wide, take my cue, and grab the little black velvet box I had set on the table next to Tara.
I step down the few steps and move around the wall.
Parker sees me and stands up. He looks left and right as if something is happening, but he doesn’t know what it is.
“Baby, what are you doing here?” He points to Louise. “I got thrown into this show! You can ask the producer. There was no way I was going on a date with someone else. I swear!” He makes a “safe” gesture with his arms and hands the same way an umpire would call a play in a baseball game.
I smile wide and stretch my arm out for him. He takes my hand and steps right up to me. No delay whatsoever and no distance. Just the way I like it.
“What’s going on?” He smiles but looks completely confused.
The cameras zoom in closer to both of us, but I ignore them. In this industry you have to.
With my heart in my throat, I take a breath and look right into his smiling face. “Parker James Ellis. You came into my life during a time when I thought I’d lost it all. With your smile, your support, and eventually, your love, I came out of that strange place better than I’d ever been.”
Parker cups my face and caresses my cheek with his thumb. His other hand is holding mine against his chest, right above his heart. I continue, needing him to know how I feel.
“We had the hardest year of our lives. People we loved got hurt. Still, you were my rock. The one calm spot in a sea of crashing waves. Always there for me. By my side through it all, taking away my pain and filling me with hope and love. I want that forever.” My voice shakes, and a tear slips down my cheek. “I want you forever.”
I take a deep breath and let it out, looking intently into his beautiful blue eyes.
“So today, in front of millions of viewers and this live audience, I’m making the ultimate leap of faith, and I’m going to ask you to take it right by my side.”
I step back, keeping hold of his hand, and get down on one knee.
His eyes widen to the size of saucers, and he tugs at my hand. “Peaches . . . ,” he whispers.
I shake my head and clear my throat so the words I’m saying are loud and clear to him, and to everyone viewing this moment.
“No. I kneel before the man I love, showing you and the entire world that there will never be another man for me. I’m ready to make it official. You and me, against it all. Forever.” I close my eyes as tears gather and my voice wobbles. “Parker James Ellis . . . will you marry me?” I open the black velvet box to show him the simple, thin, handsome platinum wedding band I picked just for him. Its beauty is in its simplicity and lack of frills, just like the man I love.
Parker swallows and looks up at the sky. “My woman is always outdoing me.”
“Well . . .” Fear ripples down my chest as I wait with my hand out, my heart balancing at the tippy-top of my fingers for him to take. Begging him to.
“Come here!” He grips me under my armpits and hauls me up and into his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist, thanking God himself I had the foresight to rock a sexy jumpsuit that allows for the gesture. With one hand wrapped around my ass and the other around the back of my head, he smashes his lips over mine. He delves his tongue deep, instantly taking the kiss to a heated one thousand degrees and then some, before he eventually lets me go and rests his forehead against mine.
“Skyler, I’ll marry you today. I’ll marry you tomorrow, and every day after until we take our last breath, if that’s what you want. I give everything I am, all that I have, to you.”
I smile wide. “I love you.”
He kisses me softly and then makes a funny face. “Always a dramatic event with you, Peaches.” He kisses my nose, dips his head into the crook of my neck and shoulder, and inhales deeply. When he leans his head back, he smirks. “Now gimmie my ring,” he announces, and a burst of laughter and clapping rings throughout the room.
I slide down Parker’s body and pull out the ring, dropping the box to the ground. I take his hand and slide it on his left ring finger. “There.”
“Your ownership mark? Right where it’s supposed to be.” He tunnels his hand into the back of my hair, cupping my neck. “Woman, you are crazy. Crazy beautiful. Crazy mine.”
“Crazy in love with you.” I smile and accept his kiss. Eventually he lets me go, and the audience goes wild as ever, chanting, “SkyPark, SkyPark, SkyPark,” at the tops of their lungs.
Parker puts his lips to my temple and whispers, “You know now I’m going to get a ration of shit from Ma and Pops because you did the asking.”
I lift a shoulder and drop it. “I think they’ll be happy with the end result.”
He grins wide. “I think you’re right.”
I cuddle into his arms as confetti bursts out from the ceiling and drops in sparkling pieces over all of us. Music blares, and the host starts his spiel about the end of the episode and joining the show next time when they have another set of couples wishing for a mix and match.
“You happy, honey?” I hook my arms around his neck and stare up into the only eyes that have ever looked at me with love shining from every inch of their depths.
“More than happy. I’m elated, and to tell you the truth . . . kind of relieved. Proposing to Skyler freakin’ Paige in front of the world would have been a shit show!” he jokes, smiling.
Laughter bubbles up my throat and out my mouth. “This is true.”
“Thanks for saving me the trauma, baby.”
I frown. “Oh, you’re not off the hook.”
He dips his chin and pouts. “What do you mean?”
“You still have to ask me back. I did the hard part. And besides . . .” I smile and pat his ass. “I want my own ring to show off!”
He shakes his head, lifts me up, and spins me in a circle, confetti floating like snow all around us, creating the most magical moment of my life.
Until later that evening . . .
“Jesus. Christ. Fuck. Me. Woman!” Parker pounds me against the headboard. He’s up on his knees, one arm locked around my back and up, cupping my head, the other at my waist. I have my arms spread out wide against the headboard, fingers curled around the wooden edge, legs wrapped around his waist, ankles locked at his lower back as Parker fucks me raw.
We’ve been going at it nonstop since we tumbled into the hotel room hours ago. The first time was on the floor in the entryway.
Let’s just put it this way: the badass jumpsuit didn’t survive. It’s a pile of shredded fabric lost somewhere between the tile floor in the entry and the kitchen area.
“Honey, please . . . no more. No. More!” I moan in ecstasy at the same time I beg, my head shaking back and forth as if I can will myself not to fall apart again.
Parker won’t hear it.
He’s relentless.
Sweat drips off his brow, and his face twists into a snarl as he rocks his hips. The muscles of his shoulders, arms, and chest are straining, veins protruding with his effort to sink so far into me he makes a Skyler imprint on the headboard behind me.
“Need. More,” he growls, before sinking his face into my neck and sucking the skin there.
Chills race out my arms, gooseflesh rising as another intense wave of pleasure shreds me from the inside out.
“Want you to come again. Squeeze the goddamned life right out of my cock. One last time, baby. Come on. You can do it. Give. It. To. Me.” He groans an animalistic sound against my skin that reverberates down my spine and straight to my clit. A pulsing throb starts there and spreads out as he continues to hammer his length deep inside.
I move my hands from the death grip I have on the headboard to tunnel my fingers into his hair. With all I have, I lift my chest, then rock my hips with every plunge, wanting to take every centimeter of him inside me. Parker hisses with pleasure or pain. I don’t know anymore. The line is so fine between the two that I can’t tell the difference. All I know is they are both brilliant and life altering at the same time.
Parker uses his chin to nuzzle his way between my breasts, pressing me firmly against the headboard until he’s got my nipple in his mouth. He sucks so hard I cry out, splintering apart with every pull of his lips. My eyes water, and I enter this space of nothing but dead air and silky bliss. I can feel that my skin is soaked in sweat and saliva from his endless kisses, my limbs locked so firmly around his body that I no longer feel the pain of the overused and abused muscles. My mind swims on this plane of bliss until he crushes my clit with his pelvic bone, and I’m gone. My pussy locks down around the base of his cock, and I scream, and scream, and scream . . . letting it all go in that one final moment of eternal ecstasy.
Parker makes a choking sound and buries his mouth at my neck. Heavy bursts of air rocket against my heated skin as his body jolts and jerks.
One thrust.
Two.
Three . . .
He bites down, so hard he might actually break the skin, adding another bruise to the wasteland that he’s made of my body. His own form shakes as his release heats me up from the inside for what feels like the millionth time tonight before he grips me fully. My guy loses his strong hold once we fall to the bed and are against the sheets, him shifting immediately to his side, taking me with him, still connected. One of his hands lands on my ass and stays there, keeping me close. His other is under my head and around my back. I’m locked in his embrace, a happy prisoner.
After our breathing calms down, I can barely open my eyes long enough to see his baby blues rolling up, and he’s out. I follow him a moment later.
10
PARKER
I wake to the incessant ringing of a cell phone. It stops for a couple of minutes, then starts back up again.
Hers. Mine. Hers. Mine. An endless, devilish
loop of annoyance.
For a minute I take stock of my body. I’m warm. Crazy warm. My entire body is hot, with a heavy weight pressing my bicep into the mattress to the point it’s now numb. I open my eyes slowly and find I’m face-to-face with the prettiest woman alive. My Skyler, sound asleep, her body half-glued to mine. I wiggle around, and my dick slips wetly out of her.
Jesus! I groan as copious amounts of our combined lovemaking trickle out of her, sliding down one toned thigh, then trailing onto mine. I glance down and watch the proof of our passion with a twisted fascination. It may be sticky as hell, but I sure as fuck love watching my seed drain out of her. I scan what I can see of her body and wince as bluish fingerprints appear on her thighs and hips where I gripped too hard, got carried away. At the tantalizing curve of her neck and shoulder I can see a series of teeth marks and a whopper of a hickey.
Shit. When was the last time I got so lost in the moment I gave a woman a hickey?
Skyler does that to me, and after her asking to tie herself to me for life, I couldn’t keep my hands off her. I literally fucked her until we both passed out. We’ve had some serious sexathons in the past, especially when we first hooked up, but nothing like last night. I lift my hand that now carries an unfamiliar weight and inspect the ring she put on my finger. It’s thin with a simple twist of metal running down the center looking like two lines that have merged. The same way Skyler and I have merged. Two people on our own paths, now tangled up seamlessly with one another.
I grin wide until the damn phone starts to blare again.
Skyler mumbles in her sleep and swats at me. “You fuck too much.” She sighs, and her mouth lands in a sultry bow-shaped pout, her lips swollen as fuck from my nonstop kisses.
I chuckle under my breath at her cuteness and watch the little puffs of air leave her beautiful lips. God, I’m one lucky son of a bitch. And last night, I simply could not get enough.
She rocked my world when she proposed to me on live television, and I couldn’t get the image of her on her knee, professing her love to me in front of the world, out of my mind. Every time I thought about it or caught a glimpse of my ring I lost it. My dick got hard, and I had to have her.
International Guy: Volume 4 Page 38