Contents
Untitled
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
I Want To Break Free…
About the Author
Also by Mary B. Moore
Untitled
Copyright © 2020 Mary B Moore
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written expressed permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events and incident are products of the authors imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Tracie Douglas, Dark Water Covers and Designs
Editor: BCO
The use of actors, artists, movies, TV Shows, and song titles/ lyrics throughout this book are done so for storytelling purposes and should in no way be seen as advertisement. Trademark names are used in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for use only, then you should return it to the seller and please purchase your own copy.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1911 and the Copyright Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior express, written consent of the author.
This book is intended for mature adults only and contains consensual sexual content and language that may offend some. Suggested reading audience is 18 years or older. I consider this book as Adult Romance.
This book is covered under the United Kingdom’s Copyright Laws. For more information on the Copyright, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/copyright/overview.
This book is dedicated to everyone. 2020 hasn’t been the best year for us all, has it? The Covid-19 pandemic has changed life in a way we just never expected it to. I mean, how many of us ever said as we left our homes to go somewhere, “House keys, car keys, wallet, gum… wait, where’s my mask?” I definitely didn’t.
So, I want to dedicate it to all of you: the NHS in the UK, medical personnel all over the world, keyworkers, frontline workers, people working in stores all over the world who have kept working throughout our lockdowns… literally everyone. Without them we would have been stuck, but without each other we would have been lost.
We’re weathering a storm we didn’t think we’d ever have to.
Stay safe and smile when you can.
M xox
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Prologue
Ariana
Ever have a moment where you wake up and get a sinking feeling about what you did the night before?
I definitely didn’t want to be awake right now. My freaking head felt like a giant was trying to break it open from the inside. Rolling carefully onto my back, I took deep breaths until the room stopped spinning, and I was confident if I opened my eyes, I wouldn’t die.
I’d just started to turn onto my opposite side when a tsunami hit the bed, and I rolled over as the mattress moved under me, headbutting something soft but substantial.
It was unusual—and if I weren’t in such a bad way, I probably would’ve freaked out—but it smelled so good and felt so good that burrowed into it, breathing deeply. Even the heavy arm that landed on my waist didn’t faze me. Neither did the big, strong hand sweeping firmly up and down my bare back.
Shifting my leg, I let out a deep sigh when it skimmed across a hairy muscled thigh. This dream was so good it almost made up for the pain in my head.
Feeling the silky, warm wall vibrate against my forehead, I cracked open an eye making sure a dinosaur wasn’t coming toward me and came face to face with a man’s chest.
Memories of the night before came back, hitting me all at the same time. Friends of my family, the Montgomerys, had thrown a huge party to celebrate Adam adopting his new wife’s little brother. The story was long and complicated but seeing the final result had been beautiful and deserved a celebration.
Unfortunately, that meant I’d also had to spend time with Parker Knight, aka the pain in my ass. To numb the frustration and irritation he caused me, I’d drunk a bit more than I usually would, and now I was paying for it.
Cautiously tipping my head back to see what scale of a mistake I’d made, I followed the strong lines of the chest owner’s throat up to a stubbly chin.
A chin I would know anywhere.
Still, hoping I was wrong, I skimmed the face until I got to the eyes. When he was awake, there was a natural tenseness to Parker’s face, like he always had a burden eating away at him. He could be eating dinner and laughing at a story, and that weight wouldn’t leave him. But in sleep, his forehead was smooth, his eyes relaxed, and he looked peaceful.
Moving my leg again, things started to hit me.
I couldn’t remember what we’d done last night, that part hadn’t come back to me yet, but I couldn’t feel any material on my body aside from the sheet that was covering me. His hand had been on my bare back, but I could still have had panties on… except that definitely wasn’t the case.
Inhaling a shaky breath, I lifted the sheet just enough to peek under it and then shuddered when I saw that he was naked, too.
It could be said that if I tuned into my body and took note of any unusual aches or sensations, I’d be able to figure out if we’d had sex last night, too, but every part of me ached for some reason.
I was naked and in bed with an equally naked Parker.
The hand on my spine traveled under the sheet now, cupping my ass and pulling our crotches into each other.
Here was the dilemma:
Morally—should I wake him up and let him know it’s me?
For self-preservation—should I remove myself from the situation and run?
Because it was a naked Parker Knight—should I move closer to him and take advantage of the situation?
Because I was me—should I run before he wakes up and realizes he’s in bed with me, gets disgusted and disappointed in his poor choice, and then leaves me feeling like poop in the sun?
The last one was the most likely result of him waking up before I could escape, so that was what I needed to go with.
Pulling the sheet closer to my chest, I pushed back carefully against his hand and tried to get some distance between us. I’d managed a couple of inches when he rolled into me and started nuzzling my neck.
“You smell so good,” he groaned, trading the nuzzling for a gentle suck.
Dilemma options one and three
became more tempting at the moment, but two and four were niggling at me.
Figuring I’d give escaping one more try, I tipped my body to the right on the mattress and moved my leg across it toward the edge. Unfortunately, that created a space for him to shift into—one that he took advantage of, leaving me with a very hard mini Parker resting up against a very happy mini Ariana.
A deep growl vibrated from him as he ground against me, his lips moving now from my neck to my jaw and then across to my mouth.
“You always feel so good,” he murmured, gently kissing the corner of my mouth. “Always feel so soft,” he added, skimming his hand down my side.
I don’t know if his brain suddenly told him he wasn’t dreaming and that the woman of his fantasies wasn’t who was lying underneath him, but he opened his eyes with a lazy smile on his face as his hand came up to cradle my cheek.
“Ari…”
With no saliva in my mouth, I swallowed awkwardly, desperately trying to think of something to say or do. “Surprise!” didn’t seem right, neither did “Shift your penis an inch down.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything, but then the situation was taken out of my hands when he blinked and focused on me with eyes that were definitely awake now.
“Ari?”
Seeing as how he had a hand full of my right boob now, I really was out of my depth. “Uh, yeah?”
His expression changed from confusion and shock to horror as he pushed himself off me and almost fell off the bed.
“Shit, fuck, shit,” he hissed as he sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. “What the fuck?”
Although I’d known he’d have this reaction, seeing and experiencing it hurt badly. No, hurt didn’t cover it—it shattered something inside me.
“I’ll just…” I started, making my way to the other side of the bed, almost crying with relief when I saw my clothes right there.
Holding the sheet against my chest, I picked up my panties and slid them on, not letting any of my body show as I tried not to cry. The whole time, Parker stayed where he was, not saying a word or even acknowledging me.
How do you describe the feeling of being the source of disgust to someone? It wasn’t possible to put that pain and humiliation into words. To explain the devastation that the guy you had a crush on, that you knew you’d never have anything with, found waking up with you as awful as he did right now.
If anyone could find those words, I wanted them because the way it felt was too painful.
Finally, when I had my dress in my hands, I dropped the sheet and stood up to pull it over my head.
“Ari,” he sighed as the garment dropped into place, and I moved a foot to put it in a shoe. “This was a mistake. I don’t… I can’t…”
As he drifted off on the last word, I breathed in deeply and said ‘fuck it’ to my emotions. Fuck them all.
Turning to face him, I removed all emotion from my face, looking at him blankly.
“No one will ever find out about it, don’t worry.”
The frown line between his eyebrows was back with a vengeance as he stared at me. “That’s not what I meant. I mean—”
“That it’s embarrassing for you,” I nodded, shoving my foot in the other shoe and looking around the room for my purse. Spotting it on a chair in the corner, I moved toward it, planning how I was going to get all of my stuff and drive home.
It’s funny how some plans take forever to make or how complex some decisions can be, but when you’re in fight or flight mode, those plans and decisions come to you lickety-split.
Grabbing up my purse, I lunged for the door and opened it, running out into a hallway that wasn’t familiar.
Fortunately, there was a big staircase in front of me, and I could see a door at the bottom of it. So, with as much dignity as I could muster—which wasn’t much—I ran down it and out of the house.
Parker
For years I’d buried my head in the sand, thinking life could just go on as it was. I did what I wanted when I wanted, I worked and gave my patients my all, and then I did it all over again. When the crawling in my skin got too much, I worked out until my muscles screamed, but on the whole, I had my life in a box, and it worked for me.
Which was me burying my head in the sand again because that was bullshit.
Life wasn’t working for me. My work was the only part of it that did. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, and I scrubbed harder than I should in the shower. Female attention made me feel hunted until I took control, and I didn’t know what it felt like to be in a relationship because I couldn’t bear to be that vulnerable to someone. This wasn’t living, it was existing.
That was until Ariana Townsend came back into my life, bringing mischief and adding an element of excitement I’d never had. At work I’d check my phone and get a buzz when I saw a text from her, even though it was usually her teasing me about something. When I heard she was coming to visit her family, I cleared space with work, so I’d be able to see her. Yes, I’d known her for a long time, but with my past, age played a huge factor in the women I saw around me. I never let my head get close to even considering if a female was attractive unless they were around my age and well over the age of consent.
Until now, she’d just been Ariana, the cousin of one of my best friends and a member of a family I loved and respected. Over the last year, though, I’d noticed her. She wasn’t just ‘a Townsend’ anymore, she was different. And when I was around her, I could breathe more easily.
Until now, the only person I’d had to consider was my little brother, Dale. Everything I’d done, I’d done for him. He was my priority, my focus, and even though we had the Townsend family supporting us and including us in what they did, he was the only person I felt like I could rely on. The only person I could let in.
I knew I needed to pull my head out of the sand and accept help or do something to get my mind sorted out about what had happened, but again there was an element of vulnerability. Opening up to a therapist—someone you didn’t know—about something that haunted you and ate away at you twenty-four hours a day, that was just laying yourself bare.
At night I dreamed of Ariana, dreamed of just being able to hold her and enjoy her laughter. During the day, it ate at me that I couldn’t do that, couldn’t live my dreams in real life. It was a special type of torture.
But her face as she’d run out the door, that was a kick to the balls. Ari wasn’t a mistake. Waking up with her was more than I thought I’d ever have.
The mistake was me. I was dirty. I wasn’t good enough for her, I’d smother her brightness.
Recognizing that my thoughts were taking me down a path I didn’t want to go down, I reached shakily for my phone, knowing there was one person I could speak to who I could trust to give me the advice I needed.
He answered on the first ring.
“You know, a call first thing in the morning makes me think you actually care about me, big brother,” he snickered, the sound of voices joining his. “I’m just heading for coffee. How are you doing?”
Digging my nails into my thigh, I used the pain to help me get the words out. “Dale, it’s time.”
“One sec,” he answered quickly, and the background noises disappeared. “Okay, I’m in a shop surrounded by wool and—” he sniffed loudly, “mothballs, so we can talk. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Putting the phone on speaker and throwing it down beside me, I grabbed a handful of hair, using the slight sting to ground me. “Yeah. I need to sort my shit out.”
“Do you mind me asking what’s brought about this change? After the last therapist, you said you were done.”
“Ariana.” It was an answer he’d understand immediately, knowing it carried a weight nothing else would.
“Jesus,” he mumbled but was stopped from saying anything else by someone talking to him.
“Hello, dear. It’s lovely to see such a young man taking an interest in knitting. Are you
looking for something specific, or are you just looking for inspiration? I love to look at the wools and plan what I’m going to do next.”
“Uh…”
“We’ve got a new one in that has beads in it,” she whispered, saying the word like it was the most exciting thing since cable. “You add that into what you’re doing, and it’ll sparkle like glitter. I tried it last night on the blanket I’m knitting, and oh my lord, what a beauty.”
“Uh, yeah. Beads, I’ll take three,” Dale stuttered, his awkwardness evident in his tone alone. “And some of that sparkly black sh… sheep’s wool, too.”
The sound of excited clapping sounded, getting fainter as she moved toward whatever it was he’d asked for. “Do you need bigger needles? Men are so lucky, big hands and big needles are easy for them to hold. I’ve got little hands and the fuss I have when I’m—”
“I’ll take one of those, too,” he interrupted, sounding like he was close to panicking now.
“Just one? You need two to knit, dear. Or did you break one already? I did that when I was working on this blanket my daughter wanted. Why, I—”
“Two, please. And can I have some of that fuzzy stuff over there, too?”
As I listened to him panic buying stuff that he’d never use and was only doing to be respectful, the suffocating feeling started to lift, and I saw my future more clearly. Then I started to laugh at my brother’s spluttering and the discussion on knitting patterns going on now.
“I’ll remember to pearl one, I promise. Thank you for all of your help.”
The sound of a bag rustling followed him, but the old lady wasn’t ready to let him go yet. “Why don’t you join our knitting circle?”
Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold Book 5) Page 1