by Haley Jenner
My neck tips back as his name hisses from my lips, his hand grabbing hold of my hair and yanking hard. His lips tickle my ear and I shudder.
“Stay the fuck down, Codi. Understand? Nod.”
I attempt to do as he says, to nod, but his hand is wrapped so tightly in my hair, he’s bruising my skull.
He laughs, his tongue dragging along my neck before using his grip to push my face down again.
“Fuck,” he spits. “You’re a fuckin’ wet dream, Sugar. You should see yourself; back swayed painfully, ass in the air,” he growls, dragging his palm down my spine. “I can see your ass, your pussy, displayed just for me,” he continues his rough spoken words, his fingers sliding through the seam of my ass, pausing over my tight entrance. I gasp, unsure of the feeling of him touching me there. His hand continues down, his fingers sliding against my wet heat and I whimper as he slides them into me.
“So wet.” The words are so rough, lost in a growl they’re almost inaudible. “Love when I play with your sweet little body, don’t you, sugar?”
He pumps his fingers in and out of me, once, twice before removing them. I whimper at the loss, wanting to scream out for him to keep going. I push back, chasing his what he just took from me and his dark chuckle echoes into the room.
He tsks me, sliding his dampened fingers up the line of my ass and massaging the tight pucker. I push forward, away from him in surprise, but immediately push back again, wanting to feel the foreign feeling once again.
“Like that, baby? Me playin’ with your untouched ass?”
I moan. Or beg. Whatever the sound is, it’s desperate, needy and ignites Parker’s fire further. My mouth opens on a silent gasp as the thickness of his thumbs slides into me.
“Fuck. Codi. God. Baby.”
His disjointed words tumble from his mouth, the finesse in his movements lost as he rushes to line the head of his cock at my entrance. He pushes forward the same time he thrusts his thumb inside me, filling me completely.
“God. I wanna fill you up.” His free hand grips my jaw, turning my face to slide his fingers past my lips and into my mouth.
“Suck,” he snarls.
He’s a blistering contradiction, a mess of conflicting emotion. His anger is palpable. I can taste it, dripped over my body in passion.
His pounding thrusts, the rough grasp of his hands, the savage sounds he makes. But caught up in his fury is a beautiful desperation to love me. Every brutal touch of his body against mine is severe in its caress, but bound in devotion.
In all the ways we’ve been intimate over the past months, I’ve never felt anything like this. He’s hijacked my entire body and I never want to take back control. Not when being owned feels so incredible.
I obey his thundering growl, my lips massaging his fingers as I suck, hard.
A thick roar rolls up his throat, releasing from his strained neck on a cracked moan.
His movements falter, the finesse I’m used to from his touch pushed aside by his spiralling need.
“Fuck. I wanna keep you forever. Like this.”
I want that too. I want to feel cherished in the same way I feel owned. I want him to claim me. Completely.
My heart.
My soul.
My body.
“Parker,” I whimper around his fingers and he drags them from my mouth, wet with my saliva, roughly down my jaw, down the underside of my body. He pinches a nipple and I cry out. He does it again and I buck against his violent thrusts, forcing his hand and cock deeper into my body.
Then I’m falling. I’ve lost all sense of reality. I no longer feel real. I’m floating. My entire body pulses with the most intense orgasm of my life.
I scream out his name. Loudly. My voice a level of desperate I should be embarrassed by, but I’m not. I beg him for more. For him to keep going. To go harder.
My knees buckle and he follows me down as I collapse onto my bed. I cry out at the loss of his thumb but his hand clamps onto my shoulder, his body slamming against mine just before he stills, my name roaring from his lips as he empties inside of me.
We lay like that, his sweat-slicked chest plastered against the dampness of my back. He’s heavy, my breathing laboured from not only exertion, but also the weight of his body. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. This closeness, almost feeling suffocated by him, I feel relaxed, at peace, complete.
Whether he vocalized the words or not, Parker Shay just declared his love for me. If he’d shouted it, it still wouldn’t have been as loud. He made certain I felt every tortured inch of it. In a way, this was better than three small words that could have been said without truth. Using his body to demonstrate, there’s no lie there. It’s not possible. I felt his truth, I felt it filter from his body into mine, the sincerity in the silent declaration, undeniable.
His lips meet the nape of my neck, a soft caress of his mouth against my skin.
Rolling off my back, he lands with his back against my mattress, his head turning to meet my eyes. The red-rimmed tell of his eyes, solidifies my thoughts. This was as emotional, as meaningful for Parker as it was for me.
“I hurt you?”
I shake my head softly, my cheek still plastered against the softness of my pillow. “No.”
“I... I was tryin’…”
My hand lifts to touch his cheek, resting there as my thumb drags along the socket of his eye. “I know, Parker. I felt everything you were telling me.”
His eyes close over in relief, a thick breath being pulled through his nose. He lies like that for long enough for me to think he’s fallen asleep. The heavy thud of his heart and the shallow intakes of air between us the only sound in the otherwise quiet room.
“I can’t meet your dad, Codi,” he speaks, startling me slightly as his eyes flicker open. A morose look of acceptance sits painfully in his eyes and I watch him silently trying in vain to read anything in the vagueness of his statement.
“Why?”
He shakes his head and copy the action on an irritated sigh.
“One day soon you’ll figure it out. I hate the fact that that day will ever come. But it will,” he blinks, his gray eyes opening again searching the depths of mine. “I hope the moment you figure it out you remember this,” he lifts his palm to my chest, resting it gently over my heat. “If you remember this, I hope you’ll find a little understanding as to why, maybe hate me a little less.”
My forehead lines in irritation. “Stop it. You’re always talking in these confusing riddles, alluding to the fact that our expiration date is coming closer and closer. I just told you I loved you, and whether you want to vocalize it or not, you told me it back.”
He swallows heavily, his lips turning down in the beginnings of a frown.
“If this is your way of trying to end whatever this is to you,” I gesture between us, “be upfront. I don’t understand your riddles and quite frankly, I don’t want to.”
He pulls me in closer, lining our bodies until they’re touching from the forceful thud in my chest to the tips of our toes. “Not what I was gettin’ at, Sugar. Trust me when I say the last thing I want in this world is for us to end.”
My body relaxes at his vehemence in his words. “Good,” I smile, leaning forward to touch my lips to his.
Maybe I should read into the haunted look in his eyes more, try to decipher why in the happiest moment of my life, he seems utterly broken. But if I’m honest with myself, I’m petrified at what seems to be plaguing him. For the first time in my life I’ve found something, someone, that I want to hold onto with everything pulsing through my body. Which also means that for the first time in my life I’ve opened myself up to real heartbreak. And that scares me. More than anything. Worse, I feel as though he’s teasing me with it. My heartbreak. He’s dangling it in front of me, seemingly ready to crush my heart but loving me as fiercely as he can before he does it. I just don’t know if I should be grateful or terrified.
Twenty-One
Parker
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sp; The sun begins creeping into her room from the split in her curtains and I feel panicked, irrationally angry that Mother Nature seems to be betraying me by letting the sun rise. I need it to stay down. Just for a few more hours.
I haven’t slept and my eyes feel weary. But I find myself praying for more time. Just to watch her sleep. Let myself stay lost in the unappealing allure of Codi asleep. I smile despite the turmoil swirling inside my gut. I thought that first night that it may have been an uncommon picture; her mouth open, breathing thick and eyes almost open as she slept. But I was wrong. It’s just how she sleeps. Crazy to imagine these irrelevant details are the parts I’ll miss the most. Bile runs up my throat and I swallow the need to vomit because that would pull me away from where I want, need to be right at this moment. Staring at an unconscious Codi wondering how the fuck I’m supposed to survive in life without her. Worse, knowing she no longer breathes on this earth.
I thought burying my mom was the most painful moment of my life. I’ve replayed it in my mind over and over again. For eighteen fucking years. I’ve let the agony of losing her brutalise my conscience, until all I thought I would ever feel again was hate.
Then I met her.
I met Codi.
And I fell in love.
Now the pain I felt burying my mom is a distant memory, one I can’t seem to recall because pain doesn’t come close to describing the feeling that’s been flooding my system for weeks, months now.
I wanna cry. I wanna scream. I wanna run. I wanna take Codi and run as far away from this fucking cesspool of a life I’ve created and never look back. I wanna disappear. But he won’t give up. He can’t. I know that, worse, I can’t even hate him for it.
I don’t deserve Rocco’s loyalty because I no longer want to return it. I want to betray him in a way he would never forgive me for. I wanna take away his chance at peace. For my own selfish reasoning, I want to stomp on any possibility he had to seek the revenge he so desperately craves.
I don’t deserve Codi’s love because everything we’ve based our love on has grown from an almighty lie. The greatest betrayal, Codi gave me her heart and I took it. I claimed that beating son-of-a-bitch knowing, fucking knowing, that not only I’d crush it in my hands and watch the pain in her eyes as I did it, I’d also steal the life in the same eyes.
My phone vibrates where it remains, discarded on the table beside Codi’s bed. Reaching over I grab it, glancing at Codi to make sure it didn’t wake her, but she groans, rolls over and pulls the comforter further up her body, almost covering her face.
Rocco’s name lights my screen and I watch on, waiting for it to end. He’s been calling me non-stop for days. All calls unanswered, all texts ignored. My time is up.
My time is up.
Fuck, I don’t even know how to comprehend that. I refuse to listen to his voicemails, they’d be reaching a level of desperate anger I give zero fucks about right now. I’m dealing with my own desperation, in sorrow, in regret, in fucking heartbreak.
My phone vibrates again and I shake my head, switching it off to cut Rocco out of my head. Dropping it to the ground, I roll back, taking in Codi’s sleeping form. I reach out, sliding my hand over her messy nest of hair.
She stirs, rolling onto her back, stretching and groaning before settling again. I pull the blanket away from her body, my eyes devouring every inch of her glorious skin. I want her. Bad. Just one more time. I’d kill to fuck her, slowly, stare into the purple depths of her eyes so she knew how much I fucking love her.
Instead, I kiss her lips softly, pull her blanket back up and dress as fast as I can.
I run home, approaching the loft through the back entrance, to avoid coming face to face with Rocco. His car sits quietly beside mine in the eerily empty undercover parking lot. It’s early, the building still asleep and my feet sound ten times louder padding along the glossed cement as I jog toward my car. I slide in, switching the ignition on before my door is even closed. I reverse on a screech of my wheels, flying from the lot at excessive speed.
Reaching Ruin, I’m fucking grateful for the locked door, relief flooding my system knowing that no one’s inside. Legging it up the stairs toward my office, I grab the first bag I see, dropping to my knees in front of the safe keying in the code. I should feel ashamed. I should feel disgusted in myself. Keying in my mother’s date of birth, my dead mother’s, my murdered mother’s, I should feel sick with regret about stealing money from Rocco. But as I throw wad of cash after wad of cash into the backpack, all I feel is panicked, a need to move faster.
My cell vibrates in my pocket and I slam the safe door, yanking it from my jeans. Codi’s name lights my screen and I tuck the phone between my shoulder and ear, answering as I zip the backpack.
“Sugar.”
“Hey, baby,” she greets sleepily. “Where’d you go?”
Jogging back down the stairs, I key in the alarm code, slamming the club door closed behind me. “On my way back, I just had to pick some shit up. Ryn home?”
“Uh. I guess. I haven’t checked.”
“Wake her, baby. Both of you get dressed. Just gotta put gas in my car then I’ll be there. Be ready.”
“Wh—” she starts but I hang up, throwing the backpack onto my passenger seat and pulling from Ruin without a backward glance.
I’m back at Codi’s within half an hour. I’ve rejected five calls from Rocco and ignored at least a dozen texts.
Fuck.
I barge through the door of their apartment without preamble, my eyes working to seek them out.
“Why the fuck are you both still in your pyjamas?” I growl, stalking toward them.
Camryn frowns, taking a sip of coffee and looking to Codi as she shakes her head.
“Parker,” Codi starts toward me and I move in closer, grabbing her arm to drag her toward her room.
“You need to dress. Now,” looking back over my shoulder, I glance toward Camryn. “You too. Pack a bag. You’re goin’ away.”
Codi yanks on her arm, and I tighten my grip.
“Ow. You’re hurting me. Stop it,” she worries, working to pull away from me again.
“Stop fucking fighting me. I fucking told you to be ready. Why aren’t you ready?” I’m yelling. I sound like a fucking psychopath, but in my panic, I couldn’t give a fuck.
Camryn pushes at my shoulder, reaching Codi and before I’d even noticed she’d moved. “Let her go, you fucking jerk.”
Dropping Codi’s arm, I look between the sisters, a fine sheen of sweat covering my entire body.
“Please,” I beg but neither one of them move.
Stepping into Codi’s space, I cup her cheeks. “Baby. I need you to listen to me. You need to go away.” My voice is soft, coaxing as I stroke my thumbs along her creamy skin, my eyes penetrating hers with my desperation. “Please, Codi. I don’t have time to explain. I just need you and Camryn to leave. There’s money in my car, enough for you guys to survive, comfortably, until I can work this out. You’ll take my car.”
Codi’s hands grab onto mine, squeezing my wrists. “Parker, you’re scaring me. What’s going on? Talk to me.”
I’m shaking my head before she’s even finished speaking, my hands dropping away as I step back. My heart is heavy in my chest, the thick, prominent pounding echoed by the incessant vibration of my phone in my back pocket.
I pull at my hair, pacing in circles.
“FUCK,” I yell.
My cell starts again and I pull it from my jeans. “FUCK. OFF.” I throw it against the wall, watching it shatter into a million pieces.
Turning back to the girls, they’re huddled together, a shared look of wariness cast across their features. “I’m tryin’ to protect you. How can you not fucking see that?”
“Parker,” Codi whispers and I roar, hurling a vase across the room as the tortured sound cuts through the quiet.
“I. CAN’T. FUCKING. TELL. YOU. WHY.”
Camryn steps in front of her sister, a glazed look of indifferen
ce sliding over her face. “You need to leave. Now.”
I laugh, my head twisting the side on the sardonic sound. “Fuck this.”
Marching toward Codi, I grab her arm, dragging her toward the door. “You can go like that. You’re to drive for as long as you can before you’re too tired to go any further. There’s enough money for you to buy clothes when you get wherever you’re going.”
She fights me the entire way, pulling at my arm, working to release hers. But I’m stronger. I’m more determined. I have to be. It’s her life I’m protecting.
“Don’t use your credit cards. Your cell. Nothing that could let someone track you. Understand?” I keep talking, ignoring the scratch of her fingers trying to pry me from her arm.
“DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND?” I repeat, turning to meet her eyes.
She glares at me and I’m so focused on the fury in her eyes, I don’t see her free hand coming up to slap my cheek with extreme force. I close my eyes against the sting, turning back to face her. “Let. Me. Go.”
I watch her silently, stepping into her body and moving her backward. Her small frame hits the wall with a thud and I stare into her eyes, working to convey my thoughts and feelings, enough for her to understand.
“Codi. Baby. Sugar,” Her eyes soften at the endearment and I cup her cheeks, moving my lips in against hers. “I’m try’na keep you safe, baby, let me keep you safe.”
“You’re scaring me,” her lips move with her whispered words, brushing the soft cushion against mine, the soft taste of salt from her tears teasing my taste buds.
“I’m sorry,” I push my lips forward, kissing her softly, slowly. “God, Codi, I’m so fuckin’ sorry for everything. For being born into the family I was, that our fate was already planned out before we ever had a chance. I’m so fucking sorry for pulling you into this shit storm. For putting you in danger. If I knew,” I start, pulling a hand from the dampness of her cheek to rest it over the wild thumping of her heart. “If I knew how good you were in here,” I press my palm against her fast beating heart. “I would’ve made fuckin’ certain none of this touched you. I would’ve fuckin’ killed myself to guarantee that.”