“You remember our wedding date?”
“Yes.” Finished eating, he set knife and for down. Lifting his napkin from his lap, he wiped his mouth removing the shine of oil and juice from his lips. “Even when I was in the heart of Daintree for days with no since of time, I remembered.”
She twirled her glass by the stem slow between her fingers. “If you had no sense of time how could you know?”
“Simple.” He lifted the bottle and offered her a refill before pouring some into his own.
“Thank you.” She took a sip of the refreshed alcohol.
He returned the bottle to the holder that sat beside the table then picked up his glass. “One morning I woke up with this niggling in the back of my mind. As I started my day and checked up on my research sites I couldn’t let it go. I thought I’d forgotten to pick up a package or something. Which I did a lot, but the postal center would just set my stuff aside until I emerged.” He drank some wine.
Smiling, she said, “I remember some of those absent-minded professor days.”
The lopsided tilt of his lips, made him look both sexy and adorable.
“When I could take a break, I made my way into town. There wasn’t anything waiting for me. While there I took a moment to post my article on my recent finds to the American Entomologist mag. After I paid for the shipment I noticed the date on my receipt. May thirtieth.”
“Then I suppose you just hiked your way back into the jungle.”
“Forest,” he corrected.
“Is there a difference?” She frowned.
“In short, a forest is penetrable but a jungle is not. You can have a part of a forest that is a jungle, fever dense and filled with young trees and wild vegetation and unpredictable. However, a forest is more wide spread and has a similar species and ecosystem…a rhythm and pattern that can be traced and followed—”
“I get it now.” She offered a cheer to him and finished it off with a sip of her drink.
He mimicked the act. “I actually went and had lunch at a small family grill and thought of you.”
His words threw her for a loop. Speechless, she lowered her glass to the table not sure what she should say. “Oh.” The single word stumbled out of her mouth.
“Life has a funny way of offering second chances.”
Javier was back, offering them a glance at the desert cart.
Was this really a second chance for us? Part of her wondered if Parker was only pursuing her out of guilt. That he’d gotten this position and when he discovered she was there he felt obligated somehow to try again.
“Would you like dessert, Sonya?”
Parker’s voice reeled her back in. “Oh, no. Thank you.” She offered a smile at their waiter.
“Will there be anything else?” Javier inquired.
“I’m full. I could not consume one more thing.” She admitted placing a hand on her stomach.
“Then we are ready for the check,” Parker informed him.
Twenty minutes later, she was sliding into Parkers car once again.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” He asked after he closed her door and went around the car to his side and getting in behind the wheel.
“The food and company were both excellent.” She covered his hand where it rested on the gearshift.
He met her gaze as he turned his hand over and cupped fingers. “I agree. As much as I’d love to go driving with you, I’m a man of my word. I promised dinner and home.”
At the time she agreed to the date all she could think about was her job and making calls to her South African contacts. Now, she wanted as much time as she could get with Parker. However, taking this slow was the best.
“I want to ask you a question, Sonya. I know technically isn’t any of my business. However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.” They were a few miles from her house when Parker began.
Peering at him, she ran a few thoughts through her mind of what he could possibly want to know. “What is it?”
She noted the flexing of his left hand as it seemed to grip the top of the steering wheel a little tighter.
“What’s the story with you and the Councilman?”
“Why do you want to know?” She glanced down at her hands in the dark as her fingers played along the embellishment of her clutch.
“Because I want to pursue this.” He waved his thumb between them. “I don’t think I’ve hidden the fact that I still care about you.”
“No. I’ve gotten that.” She studied his side profile. “I’m just not sure if it’s the right thing for us. Going backwards and all.”
“Try seeing it as a forward move. We were good together. Hit a speed bump that put us on pause but maybe we just need to reset. See where this takes us.”
“I’d love to lie and say there was nothing here for you, Parker.” She placed a hand over her heart. “However, that’s not true. Your arrival back in my life has stirred up feelings that I’m not sure how to handle.”
She glanced out the window away from him. “What’s really best for me? If we try and fail, we are stuck here together…same city, same job.” Turning she met his gaze while they were stopped at a red light. “That would be harder to survive than the first time when we were a country apart.”
He gave a short nod before looking back at the road and driving.
As they turned into her driveway, Parker allowed the engine to idle for a moment as he met her gaze through the dimness. “I don’t want to hurt you. But, I have to try, because I’d hate myself if I didn’t.”
“Why? Why can’t we just be friends? It is so much easier that way.”
Shifting, he turned to her. He cupped her face and drew her close. They were so close that even the shadows didn’t obscure the intensity in his gaze.
“You were my life. Every part of me survived through you, with you.”
Parker was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face and smell the sweetness of the after dinner mint he’d sucked on.
They sat like that for a moment and she thought he’d close the gap and kiss her, right there in the dark—a type of closure to a wonderful evening. Her lids drifted shut, anticipating the pressure of his lips.
“Do you understand?”
His question and the stroke of his thumb along her chin quickened her heart beat. Her eyelids popped back open. “Yes.”
“I’m coming for you, Soni-love, get ready.”
She licked her lips, tasting the residue of her own mint. “I got it.”
Turning away, she undid her seatbelt. She needed some space between them. Needed to get her mind right. It was too easy to be drawn in by his alluring aura.
“Sonya—”
“Got it, Parker. Just give me a minute, please.”
He drew away from her then unfastened his own belt before shutting the car off and getting out.
Captivating. That was the word that came to mind as she watched his strut around the hood of the car toward her door. He didn’t have a heavy swagger like some men who gave all of their energy to their sexual appeal. No, Parker was too bookish for that. The grace and style he executed in his walk came from confidence in himself as a person. He knew his place in society. Was assured of his scientific knowledge and skill and that came out in each step he took and the slight raised-tilt of his chin.
That had always turned her on. Even now as he pulled open her door and assisted her safely to the sidewalk.
It didn’t escape her knowledge that he never released her hand as they strolled up to her porch. Before her door, she slipped her hand away so that she could unlock the door.
When she entered, she faced him. “Thanks for seeing me safely in.”
He stood in the framed opening, not in her house, but not out. “May I help you with your coat?”
“Please.” She offered him her back. This was how their date had started. It felt fitting that he would remove her outer garment since he’d helped her put it on.
There was a click of
the door being closed. Then he was there, behind her.
She shivered as his fingers brushed along her bare collar as he peeled the heavy coat away. The item made it halfway down her arms when she felt the glide of Parker’s nose along the side of her neck.
“Your smell has been driving me mad all evening.” His voice had a clipped edge to it, husky and intense. It was as if every word he said he had to be extracted from his mouth.
The shiver became a tremble. She leaned back into him. His warmth took away the chill from the cold night that had seeped in under her coat.
“Sugar cookies and mint and you. The soft, sweet and refreshing combination always reminds me of you.” He pulled her in closer and his lips caressed the shell of her ear. “It was your body wash and lotion. After you’d shower the bathroom would be saturated with your scent long after you’d headed off to school.”
Freed of the coat, his arms slipped around her. She could feel the beat of his heart, a powerful tempo against her spine.
In the car he had said she had been his life source. He had been the same for her. That’s what scared her. She’d had to learn how to live without him.
Can I survive that again?
“Parker…” she wanted to say more, say something. Anything that would put them on safe and steady ground again, but her mind was blank.
“Sonya.” His fingers flexed against her stomach.
Her core contracted.
“There were days where I wanted to track you down on campus and drag you back home and bury myself inside you for hours.”
Sex had always been hot between them. Until it slacked off as their time together decreased.
“That’s a little Neanderthalish.” She giggled.
Bringing her around to face him, his gaze dark with lust that mirrored her own. “Is it? Maybe the cavemen had the right of it.”
She had no room to speak or dispute his claim, before she found herself in his arms with his lips against hers.
Her desire for him went from simmering to a roaring boil. She cupped the back of his head as his tongue slipped between her lips. Circling it, she drew him in further.
He groaned. The kiss deepened as he held her between the solid door and his hard body.
His body wasn’t the only one reacting to the passion brewing between them. The crush of her breasts to his chest made her nipples tighten behind the taffeta material. She wanted to pull it off and feel his hands caressing more than her lace covered back. His strong hands on her were making her melt. Her thighs ached to feel him between them and her sex moistened the seat of her panties.
Attempting to fuse herself to him, bring them closer, she tried to raise a leg to be halted by the snug fit of the dress. She was trapped within the elegant layers and imprisoned in passion.
Not giving up, she reached inside his tux coat and grazed her nails over the taut muscles of his chest as she arched her back and pressed herself toward his steel shaft.
In response to her action, he lowered his hands and cupped her backside. Gripping her as he grounded his hips to hers.
Parker growled. Slammed his palm against the door and pushed away from her body. The only place they touched was his forehead against hers.
The room became filled with their ragged breaths.
“Sorry…I—Maybe I shouldn’t have—” Dazed and confused, she stumbled over her words.
“Slow,” he forced out as he leaned back. Meeting her gaze, he continued. “I want us to take this slow. I want to do it right this time.”
Everything inside of her was a mess. She was sure there should have been some argument she could have voiced. Whether for or against a ‘them’ undetermined. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and savored his taste on her mouth. Stifling a moan, she kept herself from leaning forward for another kiss. She simply nodded.
After he stepped back, he bent down and picked up her coat that ended up forgotten on the floor. He handed it to her. “I should go. Let you get some rest.”
She took her coat from him.
Lifting his hand, he caressed her face with his knuckles. Turning, he went to the door and pulled it open. He walked out.
“Parker?”
At the first step, he glanced back and gave her his full attention. “Yes?”
“I do think about having babies. Maybe it’s because my best friend’s pregnant.” She shrugged. “Whatever the reason, I do.”
He winked. “Good to know. Good night, Sonya.”
“Good night.”
After seeing he got safely to his car and drove off, she closed the door. She marveled at how different this evening had turned out than she’d expected.
~ML~
Shaky. His entire body was one big mass of need. He was surprised he could get himself to his car and drive away. If he got pulled over on his way home, he was sure there was some law he would be breaking and get a ticket for like ‘DWA’….driving while aroused. If stopped he would willingly hold his wrists out to be cuffed.
Parker admitted to himself that the hardest thing for him to do was to walk away from Sonya. He wanted her with every fiber of his being. Right now his shaft was so hard it could practically reach the steering wheel. Hell if he gave that part of his body control, Parker was sure his member would make a U-turn and head right back to Sonya’s house…to her body.
“Damn.” That red dress she wore, her scent and her beauty had done a number on him all night. He’d always been sexually attracted to her, but since his return and seeing how she’d matured into her beauty and her body, his desire had gone up ten-fold. In bed, he wouldn’t be holding and dealing with a nervous and unsure girl but a woman—confident and sure of herself. That was an elixir for any man.
Seeing Sonya’s desire for him radiating back in her gaze and her moans had made his heart beat harder, caused the blood to pump south faster. She’d given into the kiss and pressed her luscious body against his. There was no doubt in his mind that whether he dragged her dress up her thighs and took her right there in the foyer against the door or carried her off and loved her all night in her bed, she would have been willing.
“Hell, more than willing.” The disappointment in her features when he’d ended it and pulled away, had almost done him in.
As much as he wanted Sonya, he didn’t want it to happen between them in a blaze of mindless passion. Not that it would be damn good and raw. He didn’t want there to be any regrets for her once the lust had ebbed. He wouldn’t be able to take her voicing any regrets the next day about how it shouldn’t have happened.
No.
“When I make love to you, Soni-love, you will be the one to come to me.”
Chapter Seven
“Sonya, can you come down to the vault?” Simeon’s words were rushed.
“Um, sure. Give me about ten, I’m in—”
“Now, please. This can’t wait,” he barked, his voice tense and rushed.
Pulling her cell phone away from her ear, Sonya stared at it for a moment. Her assistant never spoke to her in such an abrupt tone. “On my way.”
Ending the cell call, she slipped her phone back in her blazer pocket. She reached to her desk phone and released the hold button. Her office line being busy was most likely the reason, Simeon had contacted her on her cell.
“Elandri, my apologies. Something of an urgent matter it seems has come up and I must attend to it.”
“It is no problem. Circumstance will happen out of our control.”
“Yes, but I feel bad that you came in after hours and your own travels to call me.”
“Do not allow the concern on my behalf. My assistant told me you have been trying to reach me.” Elandri Meintjies was the curator for the South African Tribal Histories Museum in Johannesburg. “You have been patient. Now, I must be the same.”
“Thank you. The next call will be more convenient on your time.” Sonya promised.
“No matter. Email me and we will set it up.”
After affirming how
she would contact the South African curator, Sonya saved the information she’d been working on when she’d received the unexpected call from Elandri. It was almost two in the afternoon for her so it was well into the evening in South Africa. It had been a month since she’d started requesting shipments of artifacts and during that time Elandri had been on holiday and wasn’t expected to return soon. In other countries people took a month off and traveled with the entire family to another place. It wasn’t like America when we took maybe a week or two and most of that was a ‘stay-cation’.
At the start of her conversation she discovered that Elandri had gone to Scotland with her family.
Scotland. She had never even been anywhere but the Bahamas or New York.
“I really need to start living more.” Shaking her head, she saved her work on her computer and left her office to see what all the urgency was about.
In an hour she was expected to meet Parker for a late lunch in the gazebo. It was getting extremely cold, but it was their little private place away from the world and she had begun to look forward to it since their dinner.
Or since the night he’d left her needy in her own doorway. She’d known after their dinner date that Parker had wanted her just as much as she wanted him, but apparently had an iron will. He’d held off and since then only kept their kisses brief. Still filled with passion, but he never allowed them to get carried away as they had that night.
Between work, the exhibit and her evening dance class rehearsals, she didn’t have much time for any other dates. So, lunch was special to her. Even if she wasn’t allowing herself to think of them beyond the moments they were together.
“What’s so urgent?” Sonya asked when the elevator doors parted and Simeon was there pacing before it.
“An artifact broke.”
Ice ran through her veins and her head felt as if it had just collided with an iceberg. It throbbed. This was not good.
“How did this happen?” She rushed forward along the tight cramped space toward the docking door.
“When the courier guy was bringing in the second crate, he somehow knocked back into the first one.” Simeon filled her in as they rounded the corner of varied sized storage crates. “The impact caused the smaller crate to topple from the table where it was waiting for you and Mr. Minton.”
Evidence of Desire: Hero Series 3 Page 12